Same here, but went with 7, because I feel it does add a dynamic to the game that you can’t plan for which is fine by me. I’m not all in on it, but I can understand it can be a negative play experience against some builds.
Every time a player chants the mantra "I *need* this double turn to win!" I die a little inside. And then when they actually get the double turn, I fully die.
I won't touch a game that employs something like this.
Its bad enough standing there for an entire turn doing nothing but removing models. Doing nothing but removing models for two full turns without really being able to respond is quite simply not something I will do.
I've only played one game of AoS 3rd, but I dislike the mechanic as it can be incredibly swingy. You could be marginally losing a game but if you do happen to be the victim of the double turn, it adds insult to injury where you cannot respond effectively to someone and just lose outright. I went for 3, that may change as I play more than just watch.
I've yet to play a game of 3.0, so my opinion doesn't likely amount to much.
However, I'll just chime in with the fact that, when my store was still playing 2.0 I never once had a problem with finding an opponent willing to house-rule it that we just don't do the double-turn thing.
Even in the rules-as-written, I believe that NOT having a double-turn is still very much a possibility... so simply house-ruling that you NEVER have one isn't even changing the game very much.
Again: I've yet to play 3.0, so take my contribution with a grain of salt, but I would be quite surprised if the same thing won't happen with 3.0 in my store (and possibly elsewhere).
It has mattered very, very little in the games of 3.0 i have played, but I will say that I have yet to face an opponent with an appreciable amount of shooting - the armies i've played as and against so far (Gloomspite, Idoneth, Ironjaws, Stormcast, Cities, Skaven, Sylvaneth, and Gravelords) were all very predominantly melee and magic focused, and as such the double turn has really only meant double movement.
I went in incredibly leery of the mechanic, and while i wouldnt say it made zero difference at all (the most critical double-turn to happen so far was a turn 4top of 5 double turn where Yndrasta as the last major enemy model in my opponent's army didnt get to really do much between top of 4 and bottom of 5, while if she had been able to move shoot and charge top of 5 she could possibly have done more to finish off a bunch of my wounded models) it hasnt made so much difference that it felt like 'wow, this really turned the game.'
If anything, its just been a moment of uncertainty. and the biggest impacts of double turn ive seen so far have been my opponents getting htem and going super hard trying to capitalize and leaving themselves exposed.
I can definitely see how the mechanic could feel like absolute cancer vs an army like lumineth or karadon tho.
You've been lucky so far, to not be on the receiving end of Stormcast shooting castles, Skaven shooting, or Cities artillery/shooting double turns.
The army from that list you've played against with the dirtiest of non-shooting double turns is the Ironjawz. Built, buffed and launched at the enemy properly, their faction ability can just tear through whole armies.
The mechanic is fine in an environment where nobody really plays hardcore shooting, or the current 3.0 flavor of mega-monster-mash. When people are coming to play hard ball that's when it gets extremely unpleasant.
Yep where I was playing, double turn ended games. It was min / max shooting or max magic or things like the old kunnin rukk formation pushing out if memory calls 150 shots per turn then double turned would be 300 shots without a response.
Thadin wrote: You've been lucky so far, to not be on the receiving end of Stormcast shooting castles, Skaven shooting, or Cities artillery/shooting double turns.
The army from that list you've played against with the dirtiest of non-shooting double turns is the Ironjawz. Built, buffed and launched at the enemy properly, their faction ability can just tear through whole armies.
The mechanic is fine in an environment where nobody really plays hardcore shooting, or the current 3.0 flavor of mega-monster-mash. When people are coming to play hard ball that's when it gets extremely unpleasant.
Yeah it seems like a mechanic youd have to be really, really careful about not designing into stuff that makes it miserable.
More than half are neutral or positive on the rule, with only a minority (26 votes to 20) being negative on it, and a relative minority (10 votes, less than 25% of the total) actually rating it awful (who I assume are people who have never actually played AoS)
Can you explain the reasoning behind that assumption?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also a fun rephrase:
More than half are neutral or negative on the rule, with only a minority (32 votes to 14) being positive on it, and a relative minority (4 votes, less than 10% of the total) actually rating it fantastic (who I assume are people who have never actually played AoS).
So... as usual when this question is asked its a pretty even divide between those that hate it, those that don't care either way, and then the people that love it are trailing behind by a fair amount.
In industry feedback surveys, the default assumption is that neutral and positive feedback indicates no change is necessary, whereas negative feedback indicates that change is necessary, hence why I grouped them together (and why that cute "rewrite" doesn't actually work).
Ah, an industry perspective. Can you explain why industries assume customers who do not like a feature to not use the product? You asserted as such, and are defending your post by saying it uses the industry standards, so either that assumption is part of it or you are applying a double standard.
Also let's throw in that over a third of customers being unhappy with a feature is considered a sign of serious problems, especially if they outnumber customers who actually like it in both number and severity. Those are sales being lost.
I mean, i voted 5 because in my experience 'the benefits are roughly equal to the downsides' as you put in the poll there. I'd probably have bumped my vote up to a positive number if I'd known that 'there are positives and negatives' was going to be interpreted as a negative response to the poll.
Just my two cents there. im not an expert nor a competitive player, and the folks I know who are into competitive aos do seem to like the rule.
From a game design perspective I can see where it does offset the traditional 'first turn advantage' by introducing an element of risk and may actually reduce lethality of the game through decision making processes that are separate from raw stats, in the same way that Apocalypse's damage system reduces lethality because putting enough firepower into a unit to GUARANTEE its death means actually putting a lot more resources into it than is strictly necessary to kill the unit with normal average rolling.
But, if you put in a bunch of mechanics that are abusable through the rule, it does have massive potential for abuse because it does severely limit an opponent's chance to respond. id be curious to see how a 'no double turns' AOS tournament would shake out personally.
To be clear, my rephrase was not intended to express that as a legitimate viewpoint but rather highlight the absurdity of lumping neutral people to one side or the other on a matter to which there is very clearly more nuance than 'good' or 'bad'. And my above post is to criticize his claim of 'industry standards' as a defense when it is quite clearly not a standard he applied, with the implication that he is not conducting the discussion in good faith and so demanding the same in return is hypocritical.
Personally I think pushing the first initiative roll to round three and/or removing it from matched play would make for a good compromise that rounds out the more abusive instances while keeping it around for where it adds the most value.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Ah, an industry perspective. Can you explain why industries assume customers who do not like a feature to not use the product? You asserted as such, and are defending your post by saying it uses the industry standards, so either that assumption is part of it or you are applying a double standard.
Huh?? I have no idea what you're talking about or trying to say.
Also let's throw in that over a third of customers being unhappy with a feature is considered a sign of serious problems, especially if they outnumber customers who actually like it in both number and severity. Those are sales being lost.
You can't please everyone, there will always be some percentage of customers who won't like something. As it stands a clear majority are indifferent or in support of the rule in question, you have to weigh risk vs reward, theres little point in making adjustments to appease the 1/3rd that dislike it if it risks alienating the other 2/3rds that are already on board.
FYI, I voted 5 on the survey - Im indifferent, its a rule no better or worse than any other. It creates a specific gameplay experience, and that experience is valid, as well as being an intended feature and experience of the game design. It simply "is", and thats ok.
Eh, it's pretty straightforward: GW can make a zero-cost change by adding a line of text to the next GHB that removes random initiative from that battlepack. They then make money in sales from people who were previously kept away by the rule. People who dislike the change, who we can see are outnumbered anyways, don't have an alternative wargame to turn to. There is no competing product with random initiative. It is a simple choice between making more money or less money, one of many where GW has chosen the latter.
But we've known that for a long time now, the point of the thread is to see if the new edition has altered the spread of opinions on the matter.
Rihgu wrote: Every time a player chants the mantra "I *need* this double turn to win!" I die a little inside. And then when they actually get the double turn, I fully die.
Well the way GW games works if you know who goes first in each turn you know generally who wins after you know lists and who goes first.
Often can even predict points quite accurately. Winner is easy prediction short of silly random dice roll.
Rihgu wrote: Every time a player chants the mantra "I *need* this double turn to win!" I die a little inside. And then when they actually get the double turn, I fully die.
Well the way GW games works if you know who goes first in each turn you know generally who wins after you know lists and who goes first.
Often can even predict points quite accurately. Winner is easy prediction short of silly random dice roll.
You keep saying this but I don't think you've ever proven it.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Eh, it's pretty straightforward: GW can make a zero-cost change by adding a line of text to the next GHB that removes random initiative from that battlepack. They then make money in sales from people who were previously kept away by the rule. People who dislike the change, who we can see are outnumbered anyways, don't have an alternative wargame to turn to. There is no competing product with random initiative. It is a simple choice between making more money or less money, one of many where GW has chosen the latter.
Your perspective is just truly bizarre. I highly doubt this one specific rule has kept anyone away from Age of Sigmar - anyone who says so I think is probably not telling the whole story and using the rule as an excuse to justify a much more complex and nuanced dislike of the game as a whole due to a variety of factors. Likewise I highly doubt anyone shops for wargames based on any one specific rule like you seem to have insinuated here (and there are in fact other wargames with random initiative, as well as plenty of other games with/without random initiative that could be played instead of AoS if the pro-double turn crowd decides to walk from the game in protest or whatever). You also assume that changing the one rule will result in more money generated - but saying that the double turn is an "awful rule - the worst part of AoS" doesn't translate to "I refuse to purchase products or play this game until the rule is changed, and when changed will begin purchasing AoS products". I think the attrition test in 40k is an awful rule and the worst part of 40k, but that doesn't mean that I'm not spending $500+ in any given month on 40k products. Despite the joke I made earlier about people who gave the rule 0's never having palyed AoS before, I'm willing to bet that a number of those people are in fact regular players and consumers of AoS product already, and that changing the rule will not change their purchasing habits.
I tried to play their game last time this argument came up. Not from tneva82 specifically but another with that belief.
I posted the lists from a game I had actually played where there was no double turn seized, stated who had gone first, and was interested not just in the end result, but seeing peoples reasoning for thinking why it was who won. Turns out, none of the people who were heatedly arguing that no double turn = determine who wins just by list and first turn, took the challenge to totally prove us wrong.
I had some more games/lists I could have posted, but it seemed like they weren't interested in that thought exercise.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Eh, it's pretty straightforward: GW can make a zero-cost change by adding a line of text to the next GHB that removes random initiative from that battlepack. They then make money in sales from people who were previously kept away by the rule. People who dislike the change, who we can see are outnumbered anyways, don't have an alternative wargame to turn to. There is no competing product with random initiative. It is a simple choice between making more money or less money, one of many where GW has chosen the latter.
But we've known that for a long time now, the point of the thread is to see if the new edition has altered the spread of opinions on the matter.
You know what?
I dont want to play a game with a player who's so stupid who'd be the one buying that GHB because of such a single line of text.
Outside the tourney scene (wich I don't play & don't give a squigs dropping about) you don't need GW to hold your hand & spoon feed such a rule. Because guess what?
All it takes is a discussion with your opponent.
And if you decide not to use the rule? Well, you've simply taken a shortcut to a result the dice could've given you anyways.
Some people hate the idea of such swingyness.
Some people like it. Some love it.
Some just cling to the position that "its the rules"....
Me? I don't feel this rule ADDS much to the game - except another dose of something to bitch about. But playwise I'm not fussed about it.
So I'm neutral & just let my opponents pick how it'll be done. Whichever they pick, I'm good.
Rihgu wrote: Every time a player chants the mantra "I *need* this double turn to win!" I die a little inside. And then when they actually get the double turn, I fully die.
Well the way GW games works if you know who goes first in each turn you know generally who wins after you know lists and who goes first.
Often can even predict points quite accurately. Winner is easy prediction short of silly random dice roll.
In almost all of my games that I played you knew who was going to win by lists anyway - random turn or no random turn. That is one reason why I dont' get excited about GW games. I like gaming to play the game, not out-listbuild someone.
Outside the tourney scene (wich I don't play & don't give a squigs dropping about) you don't need GW to hold your hand & spoon feed such a rule. Because guess what?
All it takes is a discussion with your opponent.
And if you decide not to use the rule? Well, you've simply taken a shortcut to a result the dice could've given you anyways.
The group I came from and had to endure AOS with was 100% official rules 100% of the time. There was no discussion with the opponent. It was pretty much shut down if you tried to houserule any changes. Talking with your opponent is not a viable answer because that will be subjective on your environment and the people playing. If you live in an area with people that are fine with playing with house rules, this may seem great - but if you are with people that I was with - that is a non discussion.
I highly doubt this one specific rule has kept anyone away from Age of Sigmar
This one rule is aobut 75% why I won't touch Age of Sigmar. If this rule didn't exist I'd probably play, though I'd have to do a lot of research into the area I live in now to find a more casual group so I didn't run into the other 25% why I don't play - the god awful balance and mountainous pile of units in the game that are useless or near useless when having to face the obvious min/max elements that make up the top 5-10% of the game 24/7.
Ugh. I've been in a group like that before. I'm sorry you have had to deal with that!
Honestly, regardless of rules, you are always going to find people that make their interpretation unpleasant. It sounds like you may have run into exactly that situation.
My current group does not have that problem, and I love it. I haven't even once had a problem with house-ruling the double-turn, and I doubt that with 3.0 I will either. As I have no interest in tournaments, well, that takes care of it for me...
But if you are stuck with a bunch of... authoritative rules people, well, not much any of us can do about it :-(
Thadin wrote: I tried to play their game last time this argument came up. Not from tneva82 specifically but another with that belief.
I posted the lists from a game I had actually played where there was no double turn seized, stated who had gone first, and was interested not just in the end result, but seeing peoples reasoning for thinking why it was who won. Turns out, none of the people who were heatedly arguing that no double turn = determine who wins just by list and first turn, took the challenge to totally prove us wrong.
I had some more games/lists I could have posted, but it seemed like they weren't interested in that thought exercise.
Heh, I remember that. When push came to shove there wasn't even an effort made to back up the theory.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Eh, it's pretty straightforward: GW can make a zero-cost change by adding a line of text to the next GHB that removes random initiative from that battlepack. They then make money in sales from people who were previously kept away by the rule. People who dislike the change, who we can see are outnumbered anyways, don't have an alternative wargame to turn to. There is no competing product with random initiative. It is a simple choice between making more money or less money, one of many where GW has chosen the latter.
Your perspective is just truly bizarre. I highly doubt this one specific rule has kept anyone away from Age of Sigmar - anyone who says so I think is probably not telling the whole story and using the rule as an excuse to justify a much more complex and nuanced dislike of the game as a whole due to a variety of factors.
I have had more than one person start AoS, enjoy the gameplay, but explicitly leave because they did not like the double turn. There were people right in front of me, saying that rule is why they don't play AoS. And your response is to assert that you know their opinion is something different.
I previously asked you to back up the assumption that players who voted 0 above probably have never played AoS. You did not. I asked again, you did not. Now it was a 'joke' after being pressed to back it up.
FWIW, I don't think players that are kept away by random initiative have much representation in the above poll--people who don't play AoS are far less likely to be visiting an AoS forum. Which gets into another matter; this is a poll of people who on average enjoy AoS. It is skewed towards a positive reception and still shows dislike heavily outweighing like. Any competent game designer would see that as something which needs to be addressed.
To that point, GW has repeatedly shown they do believe the double should be addressed; evidenced by their repeated attempts to do so.
At any rate I've nothing more to say to you, given the bad faith demonstrated.
I previously asked you to back up the assumption that players who voted 0 above probably have never played AoS. You did not. I asked again, you did not. Now it was a 'joke' after being pressed to back it up.
Is that what you were on about? Seriously? Are you ill? Do you not understand what a "" emoji indicates? It was a joke from the get-go you troll.
To that point, GW has repeatedly shown they do believe the double should be addressed; evidenced by their repeated attempts to do so.
You mean their statements that the double turn is a core aspect of the Age of Sigmar experience and will not be eliminated?
At any rate I've nothing more to say to you, given the bad faith demonstrated.
Ah, good. We're at the insult flinging phase, huh?
GW wishes to keep the double-turn mechanic, but with the changes going in to 3rd Edition AoS, they stated that it had issues with it and changes they were interested in making, to lessen the impact of outlier armies. The changes were largely minimal and hasn't really changed how dominant shooting is, and how dominant certain armies are.
If there are issues with the mechanic, as they've said there is, what happens when the mechanic cannot be appropriately balanced? Bandaid fixes until it gets removed for better mechanics.
Companies will rarely say, "Hey, this decision we made? It's actually bad"
Funny thing is I was running tournaments at the start of the edition with a house rule that random initiative didn't start until round 3--the point was to help players get practice with tourney armies in the new edition so deliberately acting to ensure games didn't end prematurely made sense. I later removed that house rule, and players immediately asked for it back.
So had my second game of AoS last night, only 1000 points but I got the second turn between 2 and 3 which honestly swung the game heavily enough where I just ran away on points.
I feel like it may not have been such an issue in a bigger game, but definitely when there's limited models and targets, having that extra turn is brutal. The ability to fall back and charge bladegheists into units with that double turn did some nasty damage and reviving 2D6 chainrasps that realistically should have been killed in the following turn felt pretty dirty.
I just played another game of AoS where my opponent getting a double turn basically handed the game over to me.
I'm beginning to think my deepkin setup (where ive got relatively defensive units for deepkin and i run flip tides so I get All Fight First round 2) is just highly insulated from the swingiest nastiest double turn (bottom of 1 into top of 2) that basically allows the opponent to dictate the entire opening engagement.
My opponent got the double and I let him know right off the bat "OK, but on your second turn keep in mind all my stuff fights first."
and he was like "Oh...uh, guess I'll fight a couple of sharks then"
"Alright, I'm gonna use this command ability to move my turtle right up next to one of the sharks youre moving in on so there's basically no way for you to not be within 3" of the turtle if you charge the shark."
It won't break the game in every instance, but it will typically be very strong for anyone who can get it.
Armies with especially potent magic phases, shooting phases, or charging phases(note, charge, not the fight phase). And those armies, Sons of Behemat and Archaeon lists excepted, are the current best for tournament and casual play.
Now mind you, those armies would be strong already without the chance for double turns, but these lists also benefit from putting themselves in situations that heavily benefit from a double turn. Going for minimal drops in a shooting/magic list, then forcing your opponent to take first turn puts you in an advantage.
You get an extra command point, you force the enemy to move up the board to start claiming objectives, which in 3.0, are largely center of the board. You force them to either start losing on objectives or they come in range of your guns and magic. Then, you have the choice as second player to take the double turn when it's an advantage for you, or if it's not that great of a time, just give the enemy priority and bank the 46%(?) chance to get a double turn for the next round, when you might be able to just completely wipe them.
Edit: didn't see your post before I made mine, Scotsman. What army were you facing? Your setup of Deepkin seems insulated against MELEE army double turns, which really aren't that big of a deal in the grand scheme. But, we're out of the age of where you should expect enemies that are all melee to be contenders, excepting a few outliers, like Deepkin, IJ and SoB.
It is totally viable to create an army designed to give the opponent a 1-2 double then gank them. It's a powerful strategy I'm surprised we don't see for often.
Maybe the risk of it outweighs any benefit it would gain? Letting KO, lumineth, etc etc get a double turn on purpose doesn't sound like a smart idea to me.
Thadin wrote: Maybe the risk of it outweighs any benefit it would gain? Letting KO, lumineth, etc etc get a double turn on purpose doesn't sound like a smart idea to me.
This is exactly why i built my one six-man unit of eels as the shield eels. I havent faced a shooty army yet, but being able to say "OK, you can only shoot my guys with the 3++ invulnerable save" seems like a good, winning strat.
There's a higher chance of the double turn not happening than there is happening, so unless the list can do both I don't see it really being viable as the majority of the time you'd be sitting there, not getting double turned.
Rihgu wrote: There's a higher chance of the double turn not happening than there is happening, so unless the list can do both I don't see it really being viable as the majority of the time you'd be sitting there, not getting double turned.
The winner of the initiative roll chooses; they can voluntarily give the opponent first.
Rihgu wrote: There's a higher chance of the double turn not happening than there is happening, so unless the list can do both I don't see it really being viable as the majority of the time you'd be sitting there, not getting double turned.
The winner of the initiative roll chooses; they can voluntarily give the opponent first.
Oh, right, I guess in this case you get first turn so you have the tiebreaker in the roll-off.
Tone down alpha strikes (especially ranged alpha strikes) and get rid of the double turn and the game would be in a better place. Right now they're kind-of justifying one another in a way that doesn't really produce a particularly fun game, whether or not it's "balanced." Being able to double your opponent after they remove 1/4 of your army on the top of T1 before you do anything isn't a satisfying kind of "balance."
The alpha strikes are also generally limited to the most ruthlessly competitive ranged lists (plus IJ now) too, so the effect isn't equally distributed - as you get down into more normal lists the value of the double goes up and the value of the alpha goes down, which means that the double ceases to be a check on oppressive alphas and becomes just oppressive itself in the other direction. Either way, countering one type of NPE with another isn't a great way to design your game.
It has got better this edition. It doesn't seem as powerful and I don't feel like I'm just sitting picking my dead models up when I do get double turned. It's still a truly terrible mechanic though.
I am one of the dreaded "people who don't play AOS and don't like Double Turn" whose opinions apparently shouldn't count for some reason.
It's true, it's not the only thing that's preventing me - I don't want to base my stuff on 32mm instead of 25mm and I'm a bit leery of how GW does rules releases and so on.
But I'd say mechanically Double Turn is the most offputting thing to me. And I think it's fine not to play a game because of something like that. If GW got rid of it I'd be more disposed toward trying the game, but as is if I'm playing a GW game I'm gonna be negotiating in my second language with strangers here and I'm not as confident or comfortable to ask for no Double Turn or whatever else with the local gamers.
yukishiro1 wrote: Tone down alpha strikes (especially ranged alpha strikes) and get rid of the double turn and the game would be in a better place. Right now they're kind-of justifying one another in a way that doesn't really produce a particularly fun game, whether or not it's "balanced." Being able to double your opponent after they remove 1/4 of your army on the top of T1 before you do anything isn't a satisfying kind of "balance."
The alpha strikes are also generally limited to the most ruthlessly competitive ranged lists (plus IJ now) too, so the effect isn't equally distributed - as you get down into more normal lists the value of the double goes up and the value of the alpha goes down, which means that the double ceases to be a check on oppressive alphas and becomes just oppressive itself in the other direction. Either way, countering one type of NPE with another isn't a great way to design your game.
I think thats part of their design ethos though - the alpha strike. Essentially wargames were a lot like chess in that they were broken into three parts: the begin game (movement) into position, the middle game (the majority of your piece exchange , combats) and the end game (finalizing your position to declare a winner).
They totally removed begin game because begin game was boring and let you jump right into killing stuff turn 1. Intentionally. I know one of the things about Conquest that started getting to me was that the AOS guys wanted Conquest to also be like that. "Moving into position is boring, we should be able to just start fighting as soon as we come on". So far thats not really a thing in that game but the desire from a good portion of the player base WAS a thing.
Based on a few years, well more... since Alpha strike was always a 40k feature and then AOS just took it and cranked it to 11, of people loving that there is no maneuver phase really anymore, I don't see alpha strikes ever going away from GW games.
My preference is for alpha strike to be rare and costly, and also a gamble. But I know that won't happen in GW land. I can deal with alpha strike even though its not my favorite thing and prefer it limited a lot more.
yukishiro1 wrote: Tone down alpha strikes (especially ranged alpha strikes) and get rid of the double turn and the game would be in a better place. Right now they're kind-of justifying one another in a way that doesn't really produce a particularly fun game, whether or not it's "balanced." Being able to double your opponent after they remove 1/4 of your army on the top of T1 before you do anything isn't a satisfying kind of "balance."
The alpha strikes are also generally limited to the most ruthlessly competitive ranged lists (plus IJ now) too, so the effect isn't equally distributed - as you get down into more normal lists the value of the double goes up and the value of the alpha goes down, which means that the double ceases to be a check on oppressive alphas and becomes just oppressive itself in the other direction. Either way, countering one type of NPE with another isn't a great way to design your game.
Ranged/magic 'alpha strike' (usually not alpha strikes at all, just gun lines) lists benefit more from the double existing than anything else. Anyone who wants to see those reigned in would be against the double, people who want to see the double around are supporting that such armies should be the strongest.
Actual alpha strike lists, the ones that go all-in turn 1, are almost comically easy to counter in 3rd edition.
Based on a few years, well more... since Alpha strike was always a 40k feature and then AOS just took it and cranked it to 11, of people loving that there is no maneuver phase really anymore, I don't see alpha strikes ever going away from GW games.
...I have to ask, are you actually saying here that alpha strike in AOS is WORSE than in warhammer 40,000?
We're talking about warhammer 40,000 the miniatures game, right? The one where everyone has Range = Yes or Movement = Yes and if you dont create a big giant line of sight blocking wall in the centerline of the board the game is literally decided by the who gets first turn roll?
I'm playing these games back to back right now, and while sigmar doesnt have MUCH of the 'maneuver your units into position' phase, I can at least point to numerous examples where my tactic for a turn was "I moved a unit back out of threat range to avoid it getting killed" which is just simply not a thing in Warhammer "The Most Basic Unit In the Game Has a 30" Range Now" 40,000.
I think the Alpha Strike focus is the result of a focus on competitive play. Competitive players want to maximize their advantages and minimize their disadvantages, as such they build lists to maximize their potential of destroying the enemy as early as possible. Competitive event organizers want the game to play fast and wrap up decisively early so that there is a clear definitive winner after 1.5 hours of playtime (or whatever the standard is now) so that they can build a 3 round tournament plus lunch break into an 8 hour day. As such GW builds a ruleset which plays fast and lethal to accommodate, but the side effect of that is that by doing so you hand competitive players a lot of tools through which they can potentially find a way to end the game on turn 1.
Just Tony wrote: Double turn is a piss poor bit of game design whether it's in a game I like or hate.
It really isn't. I'm the first person to say GWs game design sucks in general, but double turns are not a new concept in wargaming, and can work just fine when the game is actually designed around and for it from the ground up - but it requires a pretty big departure from a lot of the design "standards" that GW seems to build its game design philosophy around, and because of that the implementation in AoS is lacking.
In general, the alpha strike of your average army is lower in AoS. For some armies though, it's just as potent.
Ironjawz - Movement = yes
Kharadron overlords - Movement = Yes + guns
Shootcast Eternals - Movement and range = yes
Tzeentch - Movement = yes
Lumineth - Range and movement (build depends, foxes or sentinels?) = yes
I would say of those only SCE is the real alpha strike. They teleport down and that's it, bar some abilities like translocation. Compared to KO or Ironjawz where they can do the same thing just as effectively on later rounds. It isn't an alpha strike when it is just how the list behaves all the time.
Based on a few years, well more... since Alpha strike was always a 40k feature and then AOS just took it and cranked it to 11, of people loving that there is no maneuver phase really anymore, I don't see alpha strikes ever going away from GW games.
...I have to ask, are you actually saying here that alpha strike in AOS is WORSE than in warhammer 40,000?
We're talking about warhammer 40,000 the miniatures game, right? The one where everyone has Range = Yes or Movement = Yes and if you dont create a big giant line of sight blocking wall in the centerline of the board the game is literally decided by the who gets first turn roll?
I'm playing these games back to back right now, and while sigmar doesnt have MUCH of the 'maneuver your units into position' phase, I can at least point to numerous examples where my tactic for a turn was "I moved a unit back out of threat range to avoid it getting killed" which is just simply not a thing in Warhammer "The Most Basic Unit In the Game Has a 30" Range Now" 40,000.
I quit 40k in like 2016 so my point of reference to how 40k operates is rooted in the beginnings of 7th edition.
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chaos0xomega wrote: I think the Alpha Strike focus is the result of a focus on competitive play. Competitive players want to maximize their advantages and minimize their disadvantages, as such they build lists to maximize their potential of destroying the enemy as early as possible. Competitive event organizers want the game to play fast and wrap up decisively early so that there is a clear definitive winner after 1.5 hours of playtime (or whatever the standard is now) so that they can build a 3 round tournament plus lunch break into an 8 hour day. As such GW builds a ruleset which plays fast and lethal to accommodate, but the side effect of that is that by doing so you hand competitive players a lot of tools through which they can potentially find a way to end the game on turn 1.
Just Tony wrote: Double turn is a piss poor bit of game design whether it's in a game I like or hate.
It really isn't. I'm the first person to say GWs game design sucks in general, but double turns are not a new concept in wargaming, and can work just fine when the game is actually designed around and for it from the ground up - but it requires a pretty big departure from a lot of the design "standards" that GW seems to build its game design philosophy around, and because of that the implementation in AoS is lacking.
I can imagine a more casual game not being the 1-2 turn stomp good game, move on to the next game type play I'm used to so I will say that I can align pretty well with that. Since most of my games in AOS, even the ones I was trying to make more casual and fun, were dominated by very competitive builds that were about ending the game by turn 2... that is a lot of my point of reference for hating it as much as I do.
But I'm curious, what other games have double turns? I have never encountered a game where my opponent could do two full turns in a row without any response from me before.
Not saying I'm a huge fan of the mechanic or anything, but when you say "two full turns in a row" it is pretty important to caveat that both armies acts in the combat phase. It is not without any response, and indeed some armies do most of their damage in that phase anyway.
Again, not playing down that losing out on movement, magic, shooting, and charging during a double turn is a super big deal. But the way the combat phase works is some degree of mitigation.
Yeah you can activate in combat. But you can't move. You can't shoot. You can't cast. You are literally standing there for two full turns doing nothing but reacting and removing models.
And if I'm a shooty / mortal wound ranged min/max spam army and you are a melee army - I can guarantee you that when I double turn you my stuff is not in combat or will be as minimally in combat / you chewing on garbage units of mine as possible.
Alpha strikes are absolutely worse in competitive AOS than in competitive 40k right now, with the exception of Ad Mech flyers, because terrain actually exists in 40k and it might as well not exist in AOS.
You can typically hide most of your army T1 in competitive 40k; in competitive AOS, you're often lucky if you can hide a single foot hero across your entire army. It's absolute night and day.
It's a rare competitive list these days in AOS that can't hit your opponent hard from the top of T1. That doesn't mean you necessarily want to take first (though lists that do want to take first are becoming more and more common, something you very rarely saw in AOS2), but most lists can do meaningful damage from the top of T1 if they do end up going first. All the ranged lists obviously do it, as well as things like Ironjaws that can double-move basically their entire army T1 and then charge afterward, so they're getting most of their melee army into you T1. Archaon lists get into your T1 too, etc etc. Some of these lists can be screened, but even then, you're losing your screens T1, and that's still significant.
The result is that your average AOS game is a lot bloodier on T1 than your average 40k game (again, with the exception of Ad Mech flyers, because they nullify the reason for less lethality in 40k, terrain). 40k would be bloodier on planet bowling ball, sure, but that isn't how 40k works now, and it is still how AOS works.
Less competitive AOS is very different, you still see lots of lists there that don't really get going till T2, but competitive AOS is very focused on hitting your opponent hard from T1.
It sounds like you aren't using enough terrain IMO. And as a side note, Ironjawz aren't charging their whole army turn 1 unless running a very specific build that is easily countered with proper deployment/screening. Having them run up and bash the screen now means they are sitting ducks for your entire army to hit them back. If that doesn't work then the lists weren't on the same level to begin with.
No offense, but I question whether you've actually played a 3rd edition IJ list. A double cabbage list often has no reason *not* to smash both cabbages into you right away. Even if all they do is end up clearing your screens (and between the stomp-move-stomp and two cabbages activating one after another, they can actually smash through weak screens fairly effectively), great, that means you've got two buffed-up cabbages sitting on the edge of your deployment zone blocking you from moving up onto objectives that are each capable of charging into the meat of your army in your own charge phase (after both redeploying if necessary). That's the opposite of being sitting ducks.
Obviously it's rare that they're going to want to commit the whole army - more typically it'll be either the two cabbages or a cabbage plus some pigs - but the point is that you have to respect that threat or it'll blow you off the table. It's an extremely credible alpha strike and without a double turn it places the army on the receiving end massively on the back foot in terms of winning the game, even if all the IJ player accomplishes at the top of T1 is wiping your screens.
The game is a lot more front-loaded than it used to be. Pretty much every top-tier army can start wrecking you from the top of T1 if you're not careful, and some can wreck you even if you are careful. Armies designed to go first are much more common than they used to be. Your comments read like you're still stuck in 2nd edition where almost everyone wanted to go 2nd. That isn't the reality any more. More top lists now want to go first than want to go second. SoB? Want to go first to get on objectives and kick an objective where they want it. Morathi and the Bow Sneks? Wants to go first to alpha strike you with the sneks and get Morathi onto objectives, and to make sure Morathi lives another turn by not taking 3 wounds in the top of T1. Lumineth? Wants to go first to get buffs up and move up the castle. IJ? Wants to go first to put pressure on you. There are still some top lists that either don't care or actively want second, but they're in the minority now as opposed to the overwhelming majority like they used to be.
On terrain, nobody uses meaningful LOS-blocking terrain in AOS. You get like 8 round pieces of junk that if you're lucky maybe allow you to hide a foot character or two if you play the angles just right. I challenge you to show me a 3rd edition event that's had significant amount of LOS-blocking terrain, enough that you can hide significant portions of your army in deployment like is standard in 40k. Maybe they exist somewhere in the world, but it's certainly not anywhere near normal.
Every third ed tournament I've been two has at least two woods on every table. Including the GT I'm at right now. It sounds like you are doing terrain wrong.
And if your entire army (minus screens) can't take down two Maw Crushas, maybe the problem is with the unit eh? Meanwhile, have to say the players getting two rounds of KO shooting to the face were having a GREAT time. You see the passion for AoS on their faces. Also funny how far back you walked the comment on charging the whole army in an attempt to disprove my argument.
Only alpha strike list here is using the bridge to teleport a unit of irondrakes and guess what? He's choosing to go second.
Double turn keeping down alpha strike lists is fiction, a claim made up to justify a mechanic no one would support if it wasn't written in the game to start.
Woods only obscure if the line you draw is longer than 3". That's why in practice it ends up being hard to hide more than small individual characters - with any unit of decent size it's typically extremely hard to prevent your opponent from drawing some angle to one of your models that doesn't meet the 3" test. Presumably this is why you ignored my actual question about how much you can hide and just repeated the "you're doing it wrong" nonsense. You typically cannot hide significant portions of your army on the terrain setups used in mainstream AOS events.
But we're obviously not going to agree here. I think it's a waste of time to discuss things further. If you aren't aware of the significant shift in top lists towards going first in AOS3 nothing I'm going to say is going to change your mind.
I am literally at a GT right now watching the games being played. So yeah, when you say something different than what I see right in front of me it's going to be difficult to believe.
And you still have provided no proof that the double is needed to combat alpha strikes. At this point I think there is none.
auticus wrote: Yeah you can activate in combat. But you can't move. You can't shoot. You can't cast. You are literally standing there for two full turns doing nothing but reacting and removing models.
And if I'm a shooty / mortal wound ranged min/max spam army and you are a melee army - I can guarantee you that when I double turn you my stuff is not in combat or will be as minimally in combat / you chewing on garbage units of mine as possible.
Well, you can move D6" with a command ability, and you can shoot with -1 to hit with a command ability, and any spells and abilities you've got up stay on during the opponent's second turn.
I had a particularly irritating double turn in my game against Skaven where he'd rolled 'everything in range is -1 to hit' with his screaming bell and that stayed on during my entire double turn
That's the thing though--you can choose not to take it. If it was mandatory that the winner of the initiative went first my opinion would be very different.
TBH, that thread title should be "what if AoS was another game ?".
Changing the rules are always fine as long as all the players agree, but once you change them, it's not the same game anymore. For a good reason, since the rules are part of the experience.
If it's bad for your group and your group agrees to it, change them, everyone is happy.
Just don't try to force it on those who are happy to play with the game as it is.
That's pretty much the debate on...all games, really.
I even changed the rules of Warhammer Battle V8 so that players alternate during each phase instead of each turn. It was fun for the players. But at that time, we didn't play at Warhammer Battle V8, in the end. Just a modified version of it for fun.
That's the point of games : having fun. And not everyone finds fun in the same things.
It's not really "what if it was another game" its "what if this 1 rule wasn't in the game"
Yes 3.0 introduces a few more things to let the player do during their turn, however I think its very telling that GW hasn't put the doubleturn into 40K. They know that as soon as ranged armies hit the table (and 40K is a lot more ranged heavy for all forces); the double turn becomes insanely powerful. Heck it would be for close combat if it weren't for the alternating nature in which they do it in AoS.
And that's a huge issue, one which is somewhat hidden because not every single army can do super ranged power at present. However we are steadily seeing more armies getting ranged options - Slaanesh in the last year got several new ranged dedicated units to add to their roster - something they've never had before outside of a few spells and leader models.
Another thing to consider is just how dividing this rule is. From 2.0 to 3.0 its one of the biggest discussions and it really splits the community up into those who love it and those who hate it. If anything it dominates so much it actually masks some other problems from getting proper attention because any problem that arises is often made worse by the doubleturn mechanic and then the discussion gets distracted onto that.
Another thing to consider is just how dividing this rule is. From 2.0 to 3.0 its one of the biggest discussions and it really splits the community up into those who love it and those who hate it. If anything it dominates so much it actually masks some other problems from getting proper attention because any problem that arises is often made worse by the doubleturn mechanic and then the discussion gets distracted onto that.
Depends where it's dividing. On social medias, it's easy to make a lot of noise with a handful of people. That doesn't mean it happens in the same proportions when playing.
That's why I find funny people dismissing GW's polls because it's the industry that makes it and when it's here, it should be more meaningful ? Just looking at the numbers and how the choices people can take on the poll, it means what exactly ? That less a hundred people you don't even know if they're playing games at all choose amongst artificially ten graded choices that may or may not translate what they truly think about the matter ? At least GW polls do have more significant numbers in terms of representation of the community.
To me, it's mostly an ego matter. People with very clear opinions on if the rule should exist or not and not accepting any other option. You're for the rule or against the rule. And to me, that's not the majority of the players at all. This thread is more a question on who has the truth about the vision on how the game should be played to be fun, TBH.
For example, intervenants like Auticus and Ninthmusketeer are pretty obvious where they stand about this question in particular. I think it's linked to the fact balance in a game is very important to them, like a key design of a game - while it doesn't have the case, in reality. It's just how they see what a game should be.
To me, double turn isn't a troublesome mechanic. It's part of the rules of the game and as long as both players agree to it, it works just fine. Sure, you can always blame double turn for your loss, like you blame your dice when they roll on a "1" when you needed a "6". That's human nature. You can also just laugh and roll with it, enjoying all the hot times of the game (it's not just made of double turns, most of the time).
To summarize what I mean is it's mostly the mindset you have as a player that matters rather than just a rule in particular. Fun isn't ruined by a rule in itself ; it's how the rule is perceived that's the key of your reaction.
Another thing to consider is just how dividing this rule is. From 2.0 to 3.0 its one of the biggest discussions and it really splits the community up into those who love it and those who hate it. If anything it dominates so much it actually masks some other problems from getting proper attention because any problem that arises is often made worse by the doubleturn mechanic and then the discussion gets distracted onto that.
Or rather, people who hate it, a much much larger number of people who don't seem to talk about it much, and the people who feel like they have to defend it because it's one of the 3 things trolls who dont actually play the game but love to hate on it love to trot out.
It's
1 - GW KILLED the old world they DESTROYED my childhood they LITERALLY DELETED EVERY ARMY FROM THE GAMEEEEEEEEEE
2 - I dont like this one model from this one army therefore the whole game is stoopid for babies dumb-dumb haha fish elves haha kangaroo riders I liked when WHFB was generic and I knew instantly what every single thing was because I'd seen it in every other fantasy setting that exists
Fun isn't ruined by a rule in itself ; it's how the rule is perceived that's the key of your reaction.
Yeah no. Fun can easily be ruined by a rule. If the rule presents and crafts a negative play experience for the player, the rule itself is what caused it.
Yes we can step back and go "oh i'll just have fun anyway" - which is what a lot of people do. And thats great for them, but not why I am interested in investing $1000 or more into a product.
The social experience is not the first thing for me when it comes to games. I'm interested in games for the game - to pit myself vs another player at a game and employ in-game strategies and tactics to win the day. Not show up where my list is auto-lose against my opponents because I failed to chase the meta and we're just playing for lolz and beers. I can do that without lugging around a ton of models or investing $1000 into it.
Just like the game of golf or baseball may be fun for a lot of people. To me I would never touch it because those games do nothing for me to excite me.
Wargames excited me to dedicate over 30 years of my life to them. Certain rules and bad balance in Age of Sigmar made me after a few years of really trying to champion it - drop it and purge my collection.
I think it's linked to the fact balance in a game is very important to them, like a key design of a game - while it doesn't have the case, in reality. It's just how they see what a game should be.
Balance being the most important factor to a player IS a case in reality just as players who are there more for the social aspect IS a case in reality for that player.
Yes to me a game should be balanced. Especially a game that costs over $1000 to play fully.
Otherwise you're playing a game like monopoly where the car gets to go 3 times in a row every turn and start with $5000 more money because its a car and cars go fast. And if you paint it red now it gets to go 4 times in a row every turn.
No one would play that game. Had Age of Sigmar been a game released by literally ANYONE else on the planet, it would have flopped. The thing that propels Age of Sigmar forward isn't its rules - its the fact that it has a built in player base of tens of thousands that don't want to lose on their investment (legacy players still playing) and then the players that came after that that want a game that they know will always have players playing. That is the one thing Age of Sigmar dominates any other fantasy game on the market with, much like world of warcraft being a juggernaut for all this time because its players don't want to lose that time they invested, and they want a game they know others are playing.
No one would play that game. Had Age of Sigmar been a game released by literally ANYONE else on the planet, it would have flopped. The thing that propels Age of Sigmar forward isn't its rules - its the fact that it has a built in player base of tens of thousands that don't want to lose on their investment (legacy players still playing) and then the players that came after that that want a game that they know will always have players playing. That is the one thing Age of Sigmar dominates any other fantasy game on the market with, much like world of warcraft being a juggernaut for all this time because its players don't want to lose that time they invested, and they want a game they know others are playing.
...I really don't know how true this statement is. Legacy WHFB players seem like the most likely category of people to vehemently hate AOS and try to tell anyone who expresses interest in it to not play it, and we know at time of cancellation WHFB accounted for about 10% of GW's sales overall, so the playerbase was much, much smaller than 40k, which is almost undeniably a nostalgia-driven juggernaut of a system.
Most people who like AOS in my experience are people who looked at AOS miniatures and went "HOLY gak".
IMO, the incredible aesthetic appeal of the model range is what draws people to AOS, and it has relatively little to do with legacy players from WHFB.
Most WHFB armies at this point would be relatively difficult to translate into AOS. If you played Vampire Counts, Skaven, Lizardmen, or Chaos Warriors/Daemons you could probably plug your army right in to AOS, but its not like 40k where basically any army you own from later than RT/2nd ed is probably still a playable army.
Heck, I play an army of Rogue Trader harlequins in 40k. Theyre still WYSIWYG outside of just a couple of models. Most of the models are from 1990, 31 years old.
There's definitely an aspect of 'if a game is popular at a location, that's the game you play' but people got into AOS for the looks of the miniatures and the community really seems to be built from almost nothing, with legacy WHFB players being only a fraction.
in my group of 40k players, there's only one single person who's very first 40k experience was 9th edition, and only 5 whose first was 8th, out of roughly 50 active players.
In my group of AOS players, there's me and one other friend who are people who played WHFB at all, about 10 people who joined with first, about 10 people who joined with 2nd, and 3 so far that have joined with 3rd.
I think nearly everyone has sour on the rule, and I have never met anyone that was particularly enthusiastic about it.
With the general look of the army’s it’s been a huge bane, since I think the question I get ask most by players sorta in the know is weather they removed the rule yet or not.
And new players often sour on it, and with a huge amount of recruitment being from friends. They often just take other players with them.
Most people who like AOS in my experience are people who looked at AOS miniatures and went "HOLY gak".
Yep and if Joe's Game Shop produced Age of Sigmar with the exact same miniatures, I am betting that they'd sell a lot of miniatures because the models are great... but that they'd be used in other games. You take away the pre-built community and the game falls on its face.
I know where I was, most of the AOS players had also not played WHFB (because most of the whfb players were not interested in anything AOS had to offer and still aren't) but invested in AOS because there was a massive online presence and community and locally they could find games wherever. It feeds itself.
Now yes I realize none of this is provable (from both sides). We can only drop anecdotes. My most recent experience with this involved a few games over the last few years where we had a lot of interest but no one wanted to jump in for fear no one else would play.
Conquest - I managed to get us to over 20 players and once player base started growing it was a lot easier, but there was a lot of hold out saying "I love the models, they are beautiful, but I dont want to invest a ton of money into a game that no one will play - thats why I play AOS".
Obviously my experience is not the world's experience but my experience colors my opinion on this topic and as someone that was very invested in promoting games for many many years, this pattern was something that I have seen regularly for over two decades. Also as a games developer myself, this is something that is known in marketing design. (this also colors my experience on this topic)
If Games Workshop were to release AOS 3.5 and double turn was gone, there would be some minor grumbling for sure, but that would be it. The players that love double turn would still keep on playing AOS, most happily so. The players that hate double turn, which usually in every poll I have ever seen out number those that love it, would also have some interest again.
And yeah the fact 40k never put this in their system to me is telling. I'm still of the opinion that double turn was an accident that came from writing the rules on a napkin in the pub (and thats not me being sarcastic, the AOS rules were written on a napkin in the pub when it first came out - as stated by the developers in 2015 lol) and that just accidentally carrying over. (I can't prove that double turn was not intentional - it just seems to me to not be something anyone would actually intentionally do)
My impression is that many of the people who like the double turn tend to be
1) Super casual and really do not care who wins or loses ever
2) Competitive but in an area where they are a cut above everyone else. So the doubleturn actually gives them some challenge when it happens against them.
3) Those who have not yet had it used against them; or if it was it was either badly timed (very first or last moments and so didn't make a huge different to the game state); or poorly used by the person using it.
Those who I see who tend to hate/dislike it tend to be those who
1) Have a more flat level of difficulty at their local level. Ergo everyone is more or less on the same skill standing
2) Have been on the receiving end of it and lost as a result
3) Have won more than one or two matches with it and found the wins hollow because their opponent basically didn't do anything.
I can somewhat back up auticus' anecdotal experience with my own. In my town, I built the AoS group. First to get in to it, started advertising on facebook pages, getting group meets going and building up the community.
Most of it is people who are either never played WHFB, or had played 40k. A few WHFB players came back, but for the most part the ones that didn't are the longbeard grumblers, understandably not wanting to get in to the game that killed their favorite.
Once people knew there was other people playing a game that they know is going to be supported by it's company, it's very easy to get people to invest in buying and playing with the fantastic models. It was surprising how fast my community grew within four or so years, given how hard it can be to buy in to games like this for most people. Going from AoS not existing in my area, to having 20 people in a small town playing it regularly and maintaining an active discord group where talks of hobby and gaming go on daily.
Most people who like AOS in my experience are people who looked at AOS miniatures and went "HOLY gak".
I know where I was, most of the AOS players had also not played WHFB (because most of the whfb players were not interested in anything AOS had to offer and still aren't) but invested in AOS because there was a massive online presence and community and locally they could find games wherever. It feeds itself.
And that existing playerbase that didnt play WHFB and does play AOS came from...the air? summoned from the warp? Everyone simultaneously started playing all at once because of the existing community that they were spontaneously forming right then and from then on the community existed so you could chalk it up to momentum?
This is my point: You cant chalk up AOS' popularity to momentum the same way you can with 40k. People who start to play 40k now OVERWHELMINGLY are getting BACK in as opposed to getting in for the very first time, because the last time there was a solid feeder pipeline from 'general nerdy-dom' into the 40k universe it was like...I guess the Space Marine video game, but I'd be much more likely to point to the original Dawn of War and DoW2.
AOS started off by very heavily alienating the existing nostalgic fanbase for WHFB that was left. Theyre currently the most vocal haters of AOS out there, and I dont think they ever wont be. The AOS fanbase just started existing a couple of years ago, basically in the middle of 1.0 when the GHB finally dropped.
In my areas case, it comes from 40k players disgruntled with 40k, or Warmahordes players upset that their game's pretty much dead (in my area, especially so). Or new hobbiests who love the models and want to play.
For the most part, it's people who were in to some form of modelling hobby at one point before, be it a GW game or not.
Because it has the GW name attached to it, it can pick up momentum quite quickly compared to other, smaller companies. The two ex-Warmahordes tournament players in my group have both said that they got out because they were sick of PP, and knew that GW would at least support the game, even if the actual gameplay isn't as good or satisfying for them.
Absolutely. You cant have a miniature reveal now without the AOS minis absolutely clapping the cheeks off the ridiculously safe and boring 40k minis.
"Here's a space marine...he's a different space marine, you can tell, because the other one had a belt and a skelleton on his storm shield and this one has a sash and just a skull on his storm shield...tune in next week for the exciting release of...more space marines, with short sleeves...these ones have swords, unlike other space marines, which have different swords..."
"Coming soon to AOS, we've got old classic units you know like skeletons and vampires and zombies rendered in stunning HD but also here's this giant badass monster-vampire, and here's this crazy giant zelda BOTW lion centaur, and here's this Wukong the Monkey King elf archer, and here's a classic fire-breathing dragon but also a bunch of weird hobgoblin slavers riding on the back of a crawling lanky troll thing..."
Most people who like AOS in my experience are people who looked at AOS miniatures and went "HOLY gak".
I know where I was, most of the AOS players had also not played WHFB (because most of the whfb players were not interested in anything AOS had to offer and still aren't) but invested in AOS because there was a massive online presence and community and locally they could find games wherever. It feeds itself.
And that existing playerbase that didnt play WHFB and does play AOS came from...the air? summoned from the warp? Everyone simultaneously started playing all at once because of the existing community that they were spontaneously forming right then and from then on the community existed so you could chalk it up to momentum?
This is my point: You cant chalk up AOS' popularity to momentum the same way you can with 40k. People who start to play 40k now OVERWHELMINGLY are getting BACK in as opposed to getting in for the very first time, because the last time there was a solid feeder pipeline from 'general nerdy-dom' into the 40k universe it was like...I guess the Space Marine video game, but I'd be much more likely to point to the original Dawn of War and DoW2.
AOS started off by very heavily alienating the existing nostalgic fanbase for WHFB that was left. Theyre currently the most vocal haters of AOS out there, and I dont think they ever wont be. The AOS fanbase just started existing a couple of years ago, basically in the middle of 1.0 when the GHB finally dropped.
When "official points" came out, we went from about 12 people playing AOS wiht my azyr comp system to about 12 people playing AOS with official points. And of those 12 people playing, 8 or so were legacy players that played in my whfb events. Of those legacy players I think 2 or 3 still play.
Of your statement, I can agree heavily with one thing: no matter the size of the player base, not having "official points" will kill you harder than anything.
The AOS players did not manifest out of thin air. They started getting interested... because there were others playing. If there were no people playing AOS, those people would not have dropped $1000 on their armies to start playing. Had Joes Games Shop produced AOS with AOS models, it would still be as a game stillborn to this day. The models would be used in other games and Joes Games Shop would be turning a tidy profit but not on its rules or game presence.
That is in my area 100% fact.
Without the community you'd have no AOS. I'd stake everything I own on that. People aren't going "oh wow AOS rules are awesome" in general... they go "oh wow the models are awesome and there are always people playing, so I feel safe with my investment". For everyone of those I hear, there are a few other games which are great rules wise that I hear "oh wow the rules are awesome and the models are neat but no one is playing so I don't feel safe investing in that."
People are literally excited rn because a new 40k miniature is a custode who looks just like every other custode but he's running, and we've never had a custode miniature in any pose except "standing there holding a thing."
People are excited that one miniature is being released in a running pose. This is "Cool News".
Most people who like AOS in my experience are people who looked at AOS miniatures and went "HOLY gak".
I know where I was, most of the AOS players had also not played WHFB (because most of the whfb players were not interested in anything AOS had to offer and still aren't) but invested in AOS because there was a massive online presence and community and locally they could find games wherever. It feeds itself.
And that existing playerbase that didnt play WHFB and does play AOS came from...the air? summoned from the warp? Everyone simultaneously started playing all at once because of the existing community that they were spontaneously forming right then and from then on the community existed so you could chalk it up to momentum?
This is my point: You cant chalk up AOS' popularity to momentum the same way you can with 40k. People who start to play 40k now OVERWHELMINGLY are getting BACK in as opposed to getting in for the very first time, because the last time there was a solid feeder pipeline from 'general nerdy-dom' into the 40k universe it was like...I guess the Space Marine video game, but I'd be much more likely to point to the original Dawn of War and DoW2.
AOS started off by very heavily alienating the existing nostalgic fanbase for WHFB that was left. Theyre currently the most vocal haters of AOS out there, and I dont think they ever wont be. The AOS fanbase just started existing a couple of years ago, basically in the middle of 1.0 when the GHB finally dropped.
When "official points" came out, we went from about 12 people playing AOS wiht my azyr comp system to about 12 people playing AOS with official points. And of those 12 people playing, 8 or so were legacy players that played in my whfb events. Of those legacy players I think 2 or 3 still play.
AH, OK, so you are PERSONALLY taking credit for AOS existing in your area, because without your genius points system it would never have gotten started, and it's just an enormous mystery where any other AOS playgroup comes from (they probably heard about your incredible Azyr comp system)
gotcha gotcha. Do you like medals, or should I just kiss your boot?
Absolutely. You cant have a miniature reveal now without the AOS minis absolutely clapping the cheeks off the ridiculously safe and boring 40k minis.
"Here's a space marine...he's a different space marine, you can tell, because the other one had a belt and a skelleton on his storm shield and this one has a sash and just a skull on his storm shield...tune in next week for the exciting release of...more space marines, with short sleeves...these ones have swords, unlike other space marines, which have different swords..."
"Coming soon to AOS, we've got old classic units you know like skeletons and vampires and zombies rendered in stunning HD but also here's this giant badass monster-vampire, and here's this crazy giant zelda BOTW lion centaur, and here's this Wukong the Monkey King elf archer, and here's a classic fire-breathing dragon but also a bunch of weird hobgoblin slavers riding on the back of a crawling lanky troll thing..."
I have to agree! AoS is REALLY getting a lions share of awesome new models that are exciting!
40K feels like its stuck. Marines are same old - Xenos are a mix of either doing really well recently (Necrons); really well historically (Tyranids) or totally forgotten (Eldar/Tau anything that isn't a suit).
You just get the feeling that the creative freedom is either not there or the energy isn't. Even armies that are pretty much complete, like Tyranids, should be seeing new updated models like Gaunts showing off the newest plastic casting details.
Then again its the opposite of Black Library - 40K gets a LOT more exciting books whilst AoS feels like its getting one or two but is mostly getting a lot of shorts and new faces and untested writers. They've really not yet recovered from losing Jose Reynolds as he put out quality and volume!
the_scotsman wrote: People are literally excited rn because a new 40k miniature is a custode who looks just like every other custode but he's running, and we've never had a custode miniature in any pose except "standing there holding a thing."
People are excited that one miniature is being released in a running pose. This is "Cool News".
Most people who like AOS in my experience are people who looked at AOS miniatures and went "HOLY gak".
I know where I was, most of the AOS players had also not played WHFB (because most of the whfb players were not interested in anything AOS had to offer and still aren't) but invested in AOS because there was a massive online presence and community and locally they could find games wherever. It feeds itself.
And that existing playerbase that didnt play WHFB and does play AOS came from...the air? summoned from the warp? Everyone simultaneously started playing all at once because of the existing community that they were spontaneously forming right then and from then on the community existed so you could chalk it up to momentum?
This is my point: You cant chalk up AOS' popularity to momentum the same way you can with 40k. People who start to play 40k now OVERWHELMINGLY are getting BACK in as opposed to getting in for the very first time, because the last time there was a solid feeder pipeline from 'general nerdy-dom' into the 40k universe it was like...I guess the Space Marine video game, but I'd be much more likely to point to the original Dawn of War and DoW2.
AOS started off by very heavily alienating the existing nostalgic fanbase for WHFB that was left. Theyre currently the most vocal haters of AOS out there, and I dont think they ever wont be. The AOS fanbase just started existing a couple of years ago, basically in the middle of 1.0 when the GHB finally dropped.
When "official points" came out, we went from about 12 people playing AOS wiht my azyr comp system to about 12 people playing AOS with official points. And of those 12 people playing, 8 or so were legacy players that played in my whfb events. Of those legacy players I think 2 or 3 still play.
AH, OK, so you are PERSONALLY taking credit for AOS existing in your area, because without your genius points system it would never have gotten started, and it's just an enormous mystery where any other AOS playgroup comes from (they probably heard about your incredible Azyr comp system)
gotcha gotcha. Do you like medals, or should I just kiss your boot?
I love the good faith conversations that can be had here. And how fast they degenerate into the trash you just posted
Yeah buddy. You got it 100%
Yeah but no. In 2015 my group was the only group playing in the city because it had a points system but a lot of people held off AOS until official points came out. My group was our local games workshop store, I was working alongside the manager of the store to promote the game. THat has nothing to do with me that has to do with people want official points.
Once Official Points came out, the bulk of the playerbase came out to try it. The legacy whfb players played it for about 4-6 months (one of our campaigns) and then dropped it altogether. The remaining attendance in 2016 was about 8 people per average on campaign days. In WHFB days that number was 24 - 32 players on average stretching back from 2008 - 2015. I know because I was the one running the games workshop events and had taken attendance regularly for years.
Over the course of 2016-2018 it slowly grew because others were playing it. In 2019 - my last year - we had gotten to about 18 people at campaign days. They have about 12-18 players over there today playing regularly. Its still far less than our whfb days of 24-32 but 18 is still respectable and strong - and the other games we try to promote can't even get their boots on the ground because players want other players playing. That was MY ENTIRE POINT.
The tournament players I know (anecdotal) play AOS because they can go to adepticon and get 180 player tournaments. Thats their main draw. Not the rules. The 180 player tournament. No other game can touch that. That again was MY ENTIRE POINT.
Where the rest of that gibberish and assault came out of I have no idea or where that turned into me taking personal credit for AOS doing well is even rooted in.
If you could keep your comments on the topic and not on the ad hominem bullcrap that would be great.
AH, OK, so you are PERSONALLY taking credit for AOS existing in your area, because without your genius points system it would never have gotten started, and it's just an enormous mystery where any other AOS playgroup comes from (they probably heard about your incredible Azyr comp system)
gotcha gotcha. Do you like medals, or should I just kiss your boot?
I think you need to chill out.
He's saying that when AoS didn't have points, he had people playing based off a points system he made.
When official points came out, people continued to play with points.
Nobody in my area played AoS without points either, it didn't exist. We didn't have people willing to put in the time to create points, or look for systems with points.
My group only started to exist after points did, and myself and others put effort in to playing with a group.
Yeah, my area neither. Nobody played, at all, until the official points came out with the generals handbook.
And then the playerbase suddenly existed.
My point is, you can't chalk that up to 'there was an existing playerbase and people only joined because the game had momentum' because...it didnt. That's literally the opposite of that. That's the game starting from nothing, and people joining and playing it primarily because of ongoing support and releases.
Maybe if you have a really really short-term view of things you can chalk new players joining up now to momentum, but personally I think that's pretty silly considering just how short a span of time there's been between that first GHB and now when you compare it to a system like 40k or DnD or WoW where youve got people with like 10-20 year histories with the game who are just continuously jumping in and out.
The vast vast majority of new people I see starting up AOS are starting up AOS because they saw an army that looked awesome, and they wanted to play with that. The 3 new people we've had in the last couple months came in for the new vampires, the new elves and the new hobgoblin ork guys.
Also, sorry for offending you, Auticus. I just like poking fun at people sometimes, it's a bad habit and I ought not to.
Maybe it's poor wording to say momentum. It can't be said AoS ran off momentum at the start, it relied on GW's general fanbase to carry the game along since really, it's hard to say it even existed until 2.0. It's not really momentum when you're sweating and cursing and trying to drag a dead body along behind you and get other people to help you drag it, hoping a day comes when the people who should be carrying it come around and do their damn jon.
But now, it's for sure momentum and the force of GW being GW... and the models are fantastic. The models got me buying late 1.0/early 2.0 for sure. It's a game you can probably find people playing anywhere these days, despite the issues people have with the rules.
Monopoly has rules issues and people still play that, right?
I would say that I'd bet everything I own that if you had no group playing the game, that those new players you talked about - most of them would not invest.
If all it took were awesome models to build a large active community there would be a lot of other games that had just a strong a showing as the gw games.
Just peering into the GW-verse itself... look at Warcry or Killteam. Those are using some pretty outstanding models, but the community for those games is largely hit or miss. Some places its great, other places no one touches it, and getting people to invest in those games can be difficult because of a shaky community. However every single city or region I've ever been to the past 15 - 20 years has a booming 40k and whfb/aos community (barring 2015 - to mid 2016 where AOS was as hit or miss due to no official points and only fan points).
And to top that off, you don't even need a ton of models for those games so is cheaper and even easier to transport... but the playerbase being shaky puts off a ton of people to wanting to invest in it.
..I mean, it's a good thing you didnt. We literally just started a Kill Team community from nothing in the little nerd/pop culture shop in my home town.
I moved towns in March of 2020, so obviously it was a great way to get to know my new community that everything was closed, but the little shopping center built into an old mill building just re-opened a few months ago and I wandered in knowing there was some sort of Nerd Store there at the very least, and the manager said they had magic, DnD, and they'd just picked up warhammer.
Other than a couple of the DnD figures and knockoff lego figures, no miniatures in the whole shop. I hopped on their discord, said "hey folks, I'm gonna run a demo for Kill Team, I'll bring the terrain and we'll set up on folding tables out in this stage area."
10 people showed up to that first demo, and 6 of them came back for the new edition (they literally announced the new edition WHILE I was running the demo, I packed up, checked my phone and had a message from the store owner thinking I had some kind of pre-release copy of the new thing that just came out)
If a shop is willing to provide tables and let you store terrain and sell models, and you're willing to teach people how to play, you can get a game off the ground. The fewer miniatures you need to play that game, the easier it is to do it. If the buy-in is 'one box of minis' like it is with Kill Team, you can get anyone you want.
Battle games like Warhammer and Sigmar are actually among the hardest in this respect - but is like youre pretending every game has a 1000$ buy-in. Most dont have anywhere near that much. It costs very slightly more to get into kill team than it does to get into a starter deck for like MTG.
Yeah - if you have an organizer it can be great. Like I said - I took Conquest up to 20 players in a year and that game is largely not played anywhere still (covid is partially responsible for that).
But it requires an organizer.
You can guarantee anywhere you go in the states there will be both an AOS and 40k community and no one will have to start it from scratch.
Thats huge.
Any other game - you have to have someone set out to organize it. And then thats going to be hit or miss.
Also check my underlined text. "Some places its great, other places not so much." That acknowledges that in some places it has a good showing, and in other places not at all. I never said no one plays it. I specifically stated in some places its great because I know in some places it gets played a lot.
I've never seen an organized group of warcry anywhere in the midwest and now i'm in the southwest, I have not seen it here either.
The $1000 buy in is reserved for 40k or AOS. I never said every game has a $1000 buy in. Mass battle games definitely do these days and everywhere I'm mentioning investing $1000 it is 100% discussing games like 40k or AOS, not skirmish level games.
The average cost of a full AOS army is roughly $800 or in that ball park. And thats not buying anything extra, thats just getting you rolling and ready to play "standard" formats. (and yes thats retail not discounted)
auticus wrote: Yeah - if you have an organizer it can be great. Like I said - I took Conquest up to 20 players in a year and that game is largely not played anywhere still (covid is partially responsible for that).
But it requires an organizer.
You can guarantee anywhere you go in the states there will be both an AOS and 40k community and no one will have to start it from scratch.
So, I'm having an extremely extremely tough time seeing how this could possibly be true.
let's rewind time - say I walked into that shop, talked to the shop owner, he says they just got warhammer miniatures in stock and I've got nothing, no models no terrain. The store had tables, because they play friday night magic, but that's the resource they have to offer.
Why would it be possible for me to get games of warhammer 40,000 or Age of Sigmar in that shop but starting with Kill Team I have to do the work as an organizer and teach people the game?
and again, if we're agreeing and understanding that age of sigmar basically started in 201...8(?) with the general's handbook..how could that possibly be true for AOS? Did Games Workshop act as the organizer? Did it give stores the many thousands of dollars of terrain required to support a 40k and a sigmar scene? Or did a bunch of people like myself and evidently also like you do that work as organizers to get that together and support it?
and if that's true...why did they do that and why could they have not done that with any other game, say, Conquest (I dont know what conquest is you just brought it up as your example.)
To me I do not see how DnD and MTG can possibly compare with 40k in that regard. You need one table per pair of people, of a larger than average size, with at the very least 300-400$ of terrain unless youve got an organizer making scratch-built terrain. DnD and MTG each require 1 table and a chair for each butt, and then each person invests with a minimal amount of cash.
The barrier to creating a 40k/sigmar scene appears to require more investment by both organizer, store owner and players than basically any other system out there. Sigmar less so than 40k because you can literally throw down on an empty table and have a half-decent game, massive amounts of LOS blocking cover isnt a bare minimum requirement to have anything that even resembles a game.
I think the sentiment is that Warhammer has a larger appeal due to its size and popularity. Specifically, it does not suffer the consequences of poor rule writing in the same manner as any other wargame, because people will put up with that to have a readily accessible community as opposed to a better-written game that they need to build a community from scratch. Even building Warhammer communities from scratch is easier thanks to GWs broad media presence and a massive abundance of online resources.
The end result is GW can get away with rulesets well below the threshold of quality that would be demanded of any other company.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think the sentiment is that Warhammer has a larger appeal due to its size and popularity. Specifically, it does not suffer the consequences of poor rule writing in the same manner as any other wargame, because people will put up with that to have a readily accessible community as opposed to a better-written game that they need to build a community from scratch. Even building Warhammer communities from scratch is easier thanks to GWs broad media presence and a massive abundance of online resources.
The end result is GW can get away with rulesets well below the threshold of quality that would be demanded of any other company.
Right, which is why AOS 1.0, when it had a garbage ruleset with no points that didn't allow players to balance their armies against each other, it...
The entire point that spawned this is that AOS drives itself because of its community. That the rules don't really factor into that. That the miniatures themselves, while a great plus, aren't the full story of what drives players to pick up AOS.
You can disagree. Thats fine. We can't prove our points. Its impossible. If you feel AOS rules are great and thats why people flock to AOS, and that the miniatures sell the game and thats why people flock to AOS despite there being other games on the market that have come and gone that have pretty cool models but struggle to find any traction - and despite a large number of people that will willingly admit they play AOS for the social aspect and because everyone else plays it and thats key in their investment decision, then cool.
I'm sure that there are some people that exist that find AOS the rules to be fantastic. I just don't believe that there are a large number of those people and I believe that if any other gaming company produced AOS, it would have flopped bigtime. I say that based on my own experience trying to (successfully and some not successfully) get other games going and hearing the reasons why people choose to play games, and I say that based on my own experience in the game dev world where we have marketers harvesting that exact data saying that exact thing. AOS is wildly successful much like world of warcraft, because its got a playerbase too big to fail. The one thing we learned from AOS over the past six years is the only cardinal sin is not having official points. Anything else rules-wise would likely not really impact the juggernaut that is GW mainline games.
If I start seeing contrary - a large number of people glorifying AOS rules as awesome, and if I start seeing large communities springing up over other 3rd party non-gw games that have great miniatures because the miniatures are great and whose members invested heavily into said 3rd party game just because the miniatures are great despite the risk of not having other players playing, I will certainly reevaluate my opinion.
On topic: The double turn. What we know for sure on dakka. The majority will vote either hating it, or meh they dont care either way. Thats about how this poll shapes on every aspect of social media (facebook, twitter, forums) that I've ever encountered it on.
to be clear here, my stance on this: When it comes to Warhammer 40,000? I COMPLETELY agree with you. 100%, absolutely, people are ABSURDLY willing to put up with faults in that system much much more than any other game.
I think lumping sigmar in with that is a mistake. I think it's the only game GW actually has that secret sauce with. All their other games, Necromunda, Titanicus, Kill Team, Warcry, and yes AOS, most typically you've got to put in the work to build that community as much as any other game.
Maybe the online resources help, IDK, in my experience they actually really hinder building any kind of community from scratch because, well...look at this place for an immediate example, and also online communities even if they revolve around an in person activity have the same general level of sociopathy that any online group tends to engender, so you immediately know when someone is an "Online Person" when they come in to your in person group and they're spouting weird wild gak that makes socially functional people in the real world look at them like they have two heads.
In the grand scheme of things AOS just hasnt been around that long. Has it actually been a full 6 years? Christ on a bike it feels like yesterday, and people certainly treat it as if it was.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To use an analogy here, this claim feels like if someone really didn't like fast-food burgers and said something like
"People only like these things because it's what they know, they know they can go to any town and get these burgers and that they're entrenched and always the same everywhere. Mcdonalds, Smashburger, people only go in to these places because theyve seen them before and theyre everywhere and globally entrenched." I think it's fair to examine whether it's really really true that these two things are actually equivalently established and entrenched when if you asked a person to name any restaurant youd probably get this place in the top 3, and the other is...yes a chain, but not anywhere near the same level.
I'm not saying this statement isnt generally true about large-entrenched systems. And I'm not saying the company that owns these brands doesnt have this brand that is globally entrenched. I'm saying there's a big degree of difference between a thing that's literally been ubiquitous for 30 years, and a thing that came from a starting point of 'basically zero' like 5 years ago.
and a thing that came from a starting point of 'basically zero' like 5 years ago.
Fantasy wargaming as a thing has been entrenched for like 40 or more years.
When someone wants to play a fantasy wargame, AOS may be new but has the most entrenched company and built in player base of any company. If we could go back six years in time and say... not destroy whfb but make AOS seperate and its own thing, this conversation would probably be taking a different turn. How would AOS have done if WHFB was never destroyed? I know from speaking to several people that worked at GW at the time of this transition that this topic was kicked around, and ultimately based on their sales meetings the choice to scrap WHFB was because the marketing team did not want AOS competing with a similar product in the same company because they felt it wouldn't do as good (it would "split" the community). I have to wonder where AOS would be if WHFB had not been set on fire and destroyed... if it were still a valid product with updates etc. Even sharing hte models and having sigmarines be part of the old world... where would most of the gameplay lie? WOuld people have just scrapped WHFB and hopped to AOS if both rulesets were living? I honestly can't answer, I'd like to answer of course with hell no but I honestly don't know.
While AOS itself is newer (six years now I wouldn't consider that really new anymore) - when people come into the hobby and want the fantasy version of wargaming, and do their research - AOS was always going to be the most attractive choice from an investment standpoint.
That factor plays a massive role.
Now we can debate on how important the investment standpoint really is - and there have been dozens of polls on that very topic here in general chat and other forums and facebook and twitter, and all of the ones I have seen over the years pointed at the community and social aspect and feeling safe to invest that kind of money into a game as #1. This was a real eye opener for me as a games designer in 2016 or so when the number of people that had balance as #3 or #4 on their list were so prevalent because at that point I had been under the assumption that balance was just as important as anything else - but balance in a game to the majority of people that answer those polls was never really a strong consideration. It was always about the investment and the community #1 and #2, the models next, then the game after that according to those polls.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think the sentiment is that Warhammer has a larger appeal due to its size and popularity. Specifically, it does not suffer the consequences of poor rule writing in the same manner as any other wargame, because people will put up with that to have a readily accessible community as opposed to a better-written game that they need to build a community from scratch. Even building Warhammer communities from scratch is easier thanks to GWs broad media presence and a massive abundance of online resources.
The end result is GW can get away with rulesets well below the threshold of quality that would be demanded of any other company.
Right, which is why AOS 1.0, when it had a garbage ruleset with no points that didn't allow players to balance their armies against each other, it...
wait, hang on.
It means the threshold where people won't play is at a different level, not that doesn't exist. Black knights are fond of saying GW fans will eat whatever they are fed, AoS launch showed quite clearly that no, there is a level of dumpster fire people won't tolerate even from GW.
As a sidenote to ensure I am not being misinterpreted; I think AoS is a great ruleset. There are several very notable flaws yet the very nature that they can be picked out so easily is because the bad sticks out more when there is a lot of good around it. 40k is harder to define, especially beyond broad concepts, because so much of it is so flawed that they all bleed into each other and corrupt otherwise good portions of rules.
and a thing that came from a starting point of 'basically zero' like 5 years ago.
Fantasy wargaming as a thing has been entrenched for like 40 or more years.
When someone wants to play a fantasy wargame, AOS may be new but has the most entrenched company and built in player base of any company. If we could go back six years in time and say... not destroy whfb but make AOS seperate and its own thing, this conversation would probably be taking a different turn. How would AOS have done if WHFB was never destroyed? I know from speaking to several people that worked at GW at the time of this transition that this topic was kicked around, and ultimately based on their sales meetings the choice to scrap WHFB was because the marketing team did not want AOS competing with a similar product in the same company because they felt it wouldn't do as good (it would "split" the community). I have to wonder where AOS would be if WHFB had not been set on fire and destroyed... if it were still a valid product with updates etc. Even sharing hte models and having sigmarines be part of the old world... where would most of the gameplay lie? WOuld people have just scrapped WHFB and hopped to AOS if both rulesets were living? I honestly can't answer, I'd like to answer of course with hell no but I honestly don't know.
While AOS itself is newer (six years now I wouldn't consider that really new anymore) - when people come into the hobby and want the fantasy version of wargaming, and do their research - AOS was always going to be the most attractive choice from an investment standpoint.
That factor plays a massive role.
Now we can debate on how important the investment standpoint really is - and there have been dozens of polls on that very topic here in general chat and other forums and facebook and twitter, and all of the ones I have seen over the years pointed at the community and social aspect and feeling safe to invest that kind of money into a game as #1. This was a real eye opener for me as a games designer in 2016 or so when the number of people that had balance as #3 or #4 on their list were so prevalent because at that point I had been under the assumption that balance was just as important as anything else - but balance in a game to the majority of people that answer those polls was never really a strong consideration. It was always about the investment and the community #1 and #2, the models next, then the game after that according to those polls.
While that is true, I'd like to point out that the same exact company, biggest in the market, ALSO produces a fantasy wargame for The. Most. Recognizable. Fantasy. IP. Ever. And the oldest, too. And by many accounts, it's a very very good game. And it costs less as its more of a 'big skirmish' than a full army battle game.
But look at the miniatures for it. If you walk up to a table and someone is playing LOTR, or the new kid on the block ASOIAF minis, you see a bunch of little knight miniatures, maybe if you hold one up to your face you go 'oh yeah, that's a gandalf right there.'
The most impressive miniature that ASOIAF has is these little plastic dragons. Theyre pretty well-detailed, sure, but they're not the kind of thing someones gonna see from across the shop and go "WOAH what is THAT?"
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think the sentiment is that Warhammer has a larger appeal due to its size and popularity. Specifically, it does not suffer the consequences of poor rule writing in the same manner as any other wargame, because people will put up with that to have a readily accessible community as opposed to a better-written game that they need to build a community from scratch. Even building Warhammer communities from scratch is easier thanks to GWs broad media presence and a massive abundance of online resources.
The end result is GW can get away with rulesets well below the threshold of quality that would be demanded of any other company.
Right, which is why AOS 1.0, when it had a garbage ruleset with no points that didn't allow players to balance their armies against each other, it...
wait, hang on.
It means the threshold where people won't play is at a different level, not that doesn't exist. Black knights are fond of saying GW fans will eat whatever they are fed, AoS launch showed quite clearly that no, there is a level of dumpster fire people won't tolerate even from GW.
As a sidenote to ensure I am not being misinterpreted; I think AoS is a great ruleset. There are several very notable flaws yet the very nature that they can be picked out so easily is because the bad sticks out more when there is a lot of good around it. 40k is harder to define, especially beyond broad concepts, because so much of it is so flawed that they all bleed into each other and corrupt otherwise good portions of rules.
Yep, and I think there's something to GW previously being just a little bit less ghoulish with AOS content than they are with 40k - an actual, functional ruleset was actually free during 2.0 (you could play with Core Rules and the free warscrolls), they actually dropped prices down a little bit after the disastrous first few releases (see Fyreslayers vs a later army for example) and their mid-edition expansion books actually gave everyone a little bit of something instead of just continuing the faction-by-faction power creep like Psychic Awakening did.
This is very clearly a business strategy on GW's part, as well as I definitely think things like ditching those free warscrolls with 3rd is an attempt to try and get that frog boiled to the same level theyve got with 40k.
But its important to actually be able to point to these distinctions and realize that stuff is happening and there actually is a difference between these two systems. People love hyperbolizing and if you can't stop doing that, then theres no actual way to point out distinctions between systems.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think, honestly, I've changed my mind.
I am going to try and get my community to reject the double turn mechanic.
Whatever results from it in the end, I hope your group enjoys it.
I believe that AoS double turn mechanic can exist, but not in the current climate of aos. The meta is too brutal, too heavy in to shooting and magic buffs ATM. Right now a mechanic that should be balancing out imbalances in armies is making the balance issues more apparent.
So right now I would rather not have it in the game.
Lord of the Rings does suffer from not having a masters of the universe huge centerpiece style modeling design. Lord of the Rings is also, funny enough as it is a skirmish game, more about the bulk of the forces than AOS is.
Lord of the Rings was one of our failed attempts to get something going. I tried three times. The most successful was shortly after the movies. We had about 9 players. Almost all historical players though. Only myself and another played WHFB, the rest were all historicals.
The other two times (2013 and 2016) it failed to attract anyone for a number of reasons:
* no giant centerpiece models (accurate assessment that models make a lot of the decisions as well)
* not exciting enough because it was seen more as a historical game because the history was already written and you were playing scenarios that came from the books/movies and already knew how those ended. Interesting enough almost all lord of the rings players I've played with were big historical gaming fans, which at least in my area was very very niche.
* no one else plays it, so trepidation on buying models since it was seen as a fad game whose community was largely only seen at big cons and players couldn't drive to other cities to get games in. (the familiar self defeating prophecy for a lot of games)
Utterly pointless at best, a detriment at worst. The people who would be upset by Double Turn's removal would be the same people who will keep playing AoS no matter what anyway - their frustration would only last ten seconds tops. I can genuinely say that I've never once seen somebody say "I play AoS for the double turn" or "I play AoS for the interesting mechanics like double turn" but I have heard plenty of people state it's the reason they won't.
If shooting was less prominent then maybe I could see it being less harmful, what with the combats alternating but once again it loops around to "what's the point of having it at all then?"
I'm often baffled that in many cases the people defending it's inclusion as something you need to "git gud" for are the same ones who preach AoS should simultaneously be Baby's First Wargame.
But look at the miniatures for it. If you walk up to a table and someone is playing LOTR, or the new kid on the block ASOIAF minis, you see a bunch of little knight miniatures, maybe if you hold one up to your face you go 'oh yeah, that's a gandalf right there.'
Which is funny because I remember a time when the Mumakil was the biggest kit GW had ever made, plus stuff like the Balrog and Sauron being true centrepieces as far back as Fellowship. Obviously things moved on pretty quickly, but the contrast to now and then is telling.
Every game I have had with a double turn (I'll admit I have yet to play 3rd) has been a miserable experience.
From one 2vs2 games were an idoneth+slaanesh list had a double turn in that mission where you burn objetives and they basically reached our objetives (myself ogres my ally stormcast), beaten our units out of them and burned them... we literally remade the game because it lasted like 20 minutes. And is not like we didn't planned for the double! We didn't move because we were like "Ok they are much faster than us, if they get double they are gonna ignore us and burn our objetives lets protec them" but haha lol.
Then a ton, and I mean a ton of shooting stormcast fiesta, kharadron and tzeentch double turn shooting bonanzas... but one of my favourites was myself playing a pretty mediocre khorne minotaur heavy lists against a ironjawz army. I moved a little because he, of course, gave me first turn and tried to prepare for his charge. He charged, started chaining attacks because ironjawz and I was like "ok he beated me badly but I can try to..." lol double turn no insta loss.
If the game really needs a mechanic like the double turn to not know who is gonna win just looking at the list... the feth? What gakky game are you even admitting to like and play? At that point the game is basically a fething coin flip. Is the worst argument you could make in favour of the double turn. "This game is so bad we need a mechanic tha basically is the equivalent of flipping a coin and waiting 2 hours to see the result"
At this point double turn, I'm sure, is one of those "designer" pet-projects. A badge of honour, of how ahead from the rest of the market they are. They know is awful, thats why they always try to alter it, but their egos just cannot accept to say "Guys, lets admit it, the game would be better without it an don't even need to make any changes, just remove it" publicly after so many years of trying to make it work. And worse! What would all the defenders say after being left like that by GW? Probably defend the decision of the removal of the double turn because it was an awful mechanic, just like they always do.
Double turn COULD be and I mean COULD be an acceptable mechanic if and only IF:
-Shooting was marginal
AND
-Combat was actually alternating units instead of all competitive armies having ways to alter the flow of combat to their benefit
so, in that hypotethical game, double turn would be basically double move. That could be acceptable. Is basically what "double turn" is in LOTR (And in that game it is totally integrated with heroic actions and might points use, adding depth tactical decision in how to use your valuable and limited resources). But we all know thats not how AoS works.
Arbitrator wrote: Utterly pointless at best, a detriment at worst. The people who would be upset by Double Turn's removal would be the same people who will keep playing AoS no matter what anyway - their frustration would only last ten seconds tops. I can genuinely say that I've never once seen somebody say "I play AoS for the double turn" or "I play AoS for the interesting mechanics like double turn" but I have heard plenty of people state it's the reason they won't.
If shooting was less prominent then maybe I could see it being less harmful, what with the combats alternating but once again it loops around to "what's the point of having it at all then?"
I'm often baffled that in many cases the people defending it's inclusion as something you need to "git gud" for are the same ones who preach AoS should simultaneously be Baby's First Wargame.
But look at the miniatures for it. If you walk up to a table and someone is playing LOTR, or the new kid on the block ASOIAF minis, you see a bunch of little knight miniatures, maybe if you hold one up to your face you go 'oh yeah, that's a gandalf right there.'
Which is funny because I remember a time when the Mumakil was the biggest kit GW had ever made, plus stuff like the Balrog and Sauron being true centrepieces as far back as Fellowship. Obviously things moved on pretty quickly, but the contrast to now and then is telling.
Or - by removing it you get 50 out of 105 people to perhaps play the game again and risk losing 25 of the 105 people (who I think would play the game either way as well)
I will say - if the double turn ever got removed or the game got put into proper alternate activations, I'd re invest in a small force again.
Or - by removing it you get 50 out of 105 people to perhaps play the game again and risk losing 25 of the 105 people (who I think would play the game either way as well)
I will say - if the double turn ever got removed or the game got put into proper alternate activations, I'd re invest in a small force again.
ive played a few games now with no double turn and a fully alternating "combat phase" of the turn after IGOUGO player movement and I gotta say it's pretty enjoyable, though things are a little too fast (because youre effectively halving the amount of combat that takes place)
Pretty solid. Easy to house-rule. We just have the 2nd player always taking 2cp at the top of the battle round, and it seems to balance out the tempo advantage nicely. We're considering trying "If you want to charge, the charge is your movement and if you fail the charge you still move the distance rolled" as a variant, though I suspect high base mv units will still feel crazy fast.
One of the more acceptable house rules I did for campaign was incorporating an entirely alternating phase in AOS.
For a group that pretty much hated any house rules, we had a solid 60-75% approval rate on that one.
There are a few ways to get it done (like your example) but yeah it seemed in that small pocket of players to be something people enjoyed a lot more than full on AOS standard turns.
Or - by removing it you get 50 out of 105 people to perhaps play the game again and risk losing 25 of the 105 people (who I think would play the game either way as well)
I will say - if the double turn ever got removed or the game got put into proper alternate activations, I'd re invest in a small force again.
ive played a few games now with no double turn and a fully alternating "combat phase" of the turn after IGOUGO player movement and I gotta say it's pretty enjoyable, though things are a little too fast (because youre effectively halving the amount of combat that takes place)
Pretty solid. Easy to house-rule. We just have the 2nd player always taking 2cp at the top of the battle round, and it seems to balance out the tempo advantage nicely. We're considering trying "If you want to charge, the charge is your movement and if you fail the charge you still move the distance rolled" as a variant, though I suspect high base mv units will still feel crazy fast.
Just because I want to be clear on what you mean by fully alternating combat phase after IGOUGO...
Each player takes their hero-move-shoot phase, then it moves on to a combined charge/combat phase? Or am I completely out to lunch on that understanding?
=====
Either way. This weekend I had a no double turn match. We didn't agree to no double-turns, but it ended up just happening that way. I want to try my game again. Who-won-it?
Mission - GHB2021, Table 1 Mission 1. standard 11" deployment zone, 2 objectives in each territory, hold all 4 past round 3 to win.
Kruleboyz
Gobsprakk - Spell: Nasty Hex
Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker - Artifact, Morks Eye Pebble. Warlord Trait, Supa Sneaky. Mount Trait - Smelly'un
Swampcalla Shaman - Spell: doesnt matter
20 Gutrippaz
10 Gutrippaz
9 Boltboyz
10 Hobgrots
Killbow
Killbow
Big Yellerz subfaction
Noisey Racket Dirty Trick
Ogor Mawtribes
Underguts Tribe
Slaughtermaster - General, mass of scars. Gnoblar blastkeg. Spell: Ribcracker
Frostlord on Stonehorn - Metalcruncher mount trait
I think the ogors have the edge; their shooting is ideal for taking out Kruleboyz, but the reverse isn't true. I think the ogors are more likely to end up clearing the Kruleboyz off objectives then charging in to seize them by numbers. So much of it comes down to how far apart they deployed though; did the ogor player know to be more than 27" away?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Funny thing is I was running tournaments at the start of the edition with a house rule that random initiative didn't start until round 3--the point was to help players get practice with tourney armies in the new edition so deliberately acting to ensure games didn't end prematurely made sense. I later removed that house rule, and players immediately asked for it back.
A bit late to the party, but I love this house rule. I will be giving it a go.
I do, a lot. Since they aren't tied down to 30 years of broing lore as 40K is, they seem to get much more interesting designs for armies.
I bought in originally with Orruks, then with lumineth, moving into Soulblight, and lastly into Stormcasts and Lizardmen. I've been thinking about getting a chaos faction, though I'm waiting for the Chaos Dwarves to be announced. I also have giants which are a fantastic model to build/paint/play.
As for Double-Turn, I have been playing a lot lately and it really hasn't seemed to make that huge of an impact. I'd like to play more before I make a final decision, but now that I better understand it and how to play it or counter it, I really have no issue.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think the ogors have the edge; their shooting is ideal for taking out Kruleboyz, but the reverse isn't true. I think the ogors are more likely to end up clearing the Kruleboyz off objectives then charging in to seize them by numbers. So much of it comes down to how far apart they deployed though; did the ogor player know to be more than 27" away?
Lol@swampcalla spell
Hey it's true, if your Swampcalla is casting a spell, you're already losing the game. They're not even wizards in my eyes, they're buff-sticks with one unbind attempt.
Anyways, I figure it's been enough time, still no crowd that claims victory can be easily known by looking at lists...
Kruleboyz took the win, just barely holding on by a milimeter. One Gutrippa stopping Leadbelchers from charging on to an objective by bodyblocking a gap between himself and a terrain piece.
Ogor player didn't deploy 27" away, and I'm not too sure why. Maybe because he had to deploy his whole army first, and I was able to reactively deploy to answer him? Either way, my first turn was getting buffs up, moving in to positions, and killing 5 out of one of 8-ogor leadbelcher unit. Hobgrots, having been supa-sneaky redeployed behind a LOS-blocking building near the middle of the table, hopped out to hold a middle-table chokepoint.
So moving on to ogor turn 1, his path ahead for the stonehorn was blocked by hobgrots. He had a choice, start shooting at my heroes/gutrippaz and kill the hobgrots with the stonehorn, and eat Unleash Hell from boltboyz, or, shoot the hobgrots and try a charge in to my Snatchaboss and eat Unleash Hell anyways. He chose to shoot the hobgrots, taking a lot of work to chew through them all with Noisey Racket -1 to wound, and 5+ FNP from Morks Eye Pebble.
Stonehorn charged in, failed to kill Snatchaboss. Noisy Racket, All-out-defence, Smelly-un, and a mistake from the Ogor player that he chose to live with. He failed to realize that he could use an Unbracket Command Ability in the Charge Phase when he ate a gakload of mortal wound shots, and then use a buffing command ability in the Fight phase. Instead, unbracket was used in Fight phase. He's the kind of player that likes to learn from messing up. Snatchaboss claps back, finishes off the near-dead Stonehorn by rolling 3 6s on the Boss's melee weapon. Something like 12 total damage, unfortunately Battlescribe isn't showing me the boss' melee weapon, so it's between 9 and 12 mortal wounds.
I win next turn. I start moving backwards, having felt I won big. Hiding behind terrain or moving back so I would force him to take d3 leadbelcher shots, or take bad shots. Plinking off more leadbelchers and gluttons, fairly unexciting Round 2 and Turn 3 for me.
Had a gang of gluttons get on my least defended objective, held by 10 Gutrippaz and my sludgeraker a bit far away. Leadbelchers charge my 15-remaining unit of gutrippaz on the other objective. Nearly lost right there by him almost holding 4. Manage to kill them off, and he doesn't have enough left to really win, so we call it around turn 4.
Missing some details or not remembering right, but the most important turns were Bottom 1 and Top 3.
Or - by removing it you get 50 out of 105 people to perhaps play the game again and risk losing 25 of the 105 people (who I think would play the game either way as well)
I will say - if the double turn ever got removed or the game got put into proper alternate activations, I'd re invest in a small force again.
ive played a few games now with no double turn and a fully alternating "combat phase" of the turn after IGOUGO player movement and I gotta say it's pretty enjoyable, though things are a little too fast (because youre effectively halving the amount of combat that takes place)
Pretty solid. Easy to house-rule. We just have the 2nd player always taking 2cp at the top of the battle round, and it seems to balance out the tempo advantage nicely. We're considering trying "If you want to charge, the charge is your movement and if you fail the charge you still move the distance rolled" as a variant, though I suspect high base mv units will still feel crazy fast.
Just because I want to be clear on what you mean by fully alternating combat phase after IGOUGO...
Each player takes their hero-move-shoot phase, then it moves on to a combined charge/combat phase? Or am I completely out to lunch on that understanding?
We did:
-Top of the battle round: Second player gets 2 command points, First player gets 1 command point
-Simultaneous Hero Phase: Starting with the first player, each player takes turns doing their hero phase stuff one action at a time (so one psychic power or heroic action or whatever at a time)
-Player 1 movement phase and Charge phase
-Player 2 movement phase and Charge phase
-Unified combat phase where players take turns selecting units to either shoot, or pile in and fight, starting with the first player, and a unit that shoots can later be selected to pile in and fight, we used 2 colored markers (you know, because that is a possibility in AOS that you could do that)
pretty good results. I liked it better than full alt activation because you still had that 'sweeping maneuvers of armies' stage of the turn where everything on your side acted in unison, and then you had the combat phase (which still has a lot of movement in it as well) where it was more of the nitty-gritty.
Rihgu wrote: Ohhhh, I love that. I might try it out if I can convince somebody to go along with it.
We ran into a couple hurdles, i've rejiggered a bit for next time.
Here's what im gonna do: basically go phase by phase, alternating except for the regular movement phase.
Player 1 always gets 1CP, player 2 always gets 2Cp at the top of the round.
Step 1: alternating hero phase. Players alternate casting spells, chanting prayers, doing command abilities and taking their hero action.
Step 2: IGOUGO movement, starting with player 1
Step 3: Combined, alternating shooting+charge phase. Players alternate selecting units, keeping in mind that a unit can if it wants to both shoot and charge, but you'd have to select it two times to do that.
Step 4: Alternating Combat phase.
the problem we ran into with IGOUGO Movement+Charge and then an all-combat phase, was "What happens if Player 1 charges one of Player 2's units, then they go and they retreat with that unit?"
A couple things you should consider are:
1) There are technically half as many Combat phases (though of course if youve played sigmar you understand that you can typically very much mitigate your opponent's impact in your combat phase quite a bit) which means the game is a bit less deadly overall which I personally do not mind.
2) there are also half as many Hero Phases, but only in terms of Heroic Actions. This has not really mattered much in the small bit of testing weve done so far. But it is there and an alteration from the core rules.
Also, under this system, there is a distinct advantage to both going first and going second that very much changes the flavor of the game. First player ALWAYS has a tempo advantage in terms of the core combat phase and second player ALWAYS has a positioning advantage. The second player can arrange the battlefield kind of as they see fit, but they always have to have in the back of their head that the first player gets that first cast/hero action, that first shoot or charge, and that first combat activation, which seriously adds up.
We're considering adding random initiative back in, lol, even though we literally took it out as our first rules change.
Is it that big of a problem if the enemy uses it's move to Retreat after being charged? They wouldn't be able to shoot in the combined-combat phase, right?
Anyways, under this hybrid igougo/AA system, initiative rolls isn't that big of a deal. LOTR tabletop uses Initiative rolls, but it's not a problematic mechanic as far as I can tell.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Now that is an interesting system. Have you considered doing two combat phases, and a unit can only shoot in one of them?
...I'm afraid I don't quite understand. So that you have as much fighting happening as in a normal game where both players are taking their turns?
See, the problem is when it's full IGOUGO with just alternating combat, we found that basically a whole lot less combat occurs on each given players turn because they'll do stuff like strategically target and charge only stuff theyre confident they can either kill or cripple before their opponent activates. The single combat phase in the "mostly AA" version is much more 'action packed' as it were, because both players want to get in and get smacking as there isn't an easy way around it.
Because we dont actually have any shooting armies to test with (this I'm only doing with a group of 4 players, and we play Idoneth, Soulblight, Skaven and Slaves with very little shooting in each army) I dont actually know if shooting is problematic in this system, but id be a little bit surprised if it was. It feels like the main issue with shooting in core rule AOS is that a shooting unit can literally stroll up 9" away from your unit and fill you full of holes, then you do nothing, then they fill you full of holes again a second time, then you FINALLY get to charge them and theyre like "Lol unleash hell"
generally we've found if shooting units arent well screened, then its pretty easy to get to them after theyve tossed off one shot.
The double rule thing is a big factor that has kept me from diving into the game. There are so many interesting ways to do activations these days, "move your whole army twice in a row" seems very unpalatable.
auticus wrote: Sadly its not just move your whole army twice in a row. Its move, magic, and shoot your whole army twice in a row lol.
Sorry, yeah that's what I meant. I agree with a lot of the comments in this thread about it being some designer's pet baby they refuse to admit is ugly as hell
Actually, I've been painting my Kruleboyz and this thread makes me want to sell them. The rule just isn't good.
tneva82 wrote: Oo the scary double turn. Last game I won the game because I forced opponent to take the double. Ooo scary.
As I have said. Bad players whine, good players win either way.
I mean it would be nice to flesh your example out with some details.
I see you're not familiar with tneva. He is a man concerned with efficiency. He knows how many peoples minds are changed by internet forums, and he knows that the purpose of an internet forum is to state either
-you are wrong
-i am correct
-both
and he does so, and leaves, with nary a minced word.
tneva82 wrote: Oo the scary double turn. Last game I won the game because I forced opponent to take the double. Ooo scary.
As I have said. Bad players whine, good players win either way.
I mean it would be nice to flesh your example out with some details.
I see you're not familiar with tneva. He is a man concerned with efficiency. He knows how many peoples minds are changed by internet forums, and he knows that the purpose of an internet forum is to state either
-you are wrong
-i am correct
-both
and he does so, and leaves, with nary a minced word.
tneva82 wrote: Oo the scary double turn. Last game I won the game because I forced opponent to take the double. Ooo scary.
As I have said. Bad players whine, good players win either way.
I mean it would be nice to flesh your example out with some details.
I see you're not familiar with tneva. He is a man concerned with efficiency. He knows how many peoples minds are changed by internet forums, and he knows that the purpose of an internet forum is to state either
-you are wrong
-i am correct
-both
and he does so, and leaves, with nary a minced word.
As generally pleasant as Scandinavians tend to be, it's also funny that he is the frontrunner in the "GIT GUD" movement.
chaos0xomega wrote: More than half are neutral or positive on the rule, with only a minority (26 votes to 20) being negative on it, and a relative minority (10 votes, less than 25% of the total) actually rating it awful (who I assume are people who have never actually played AoS)
111 people rated it 0-5. 37 people rated it 6-10. By far the most popular option was 0 with the second most popular option being 5. 51 people chose the lowest possible option while 10 people chose the highest. Yea, sounds like everyone loves it! /s
tneva82 wrote: Oo the scary double turn. Last game I won the game because I forced opponent to take the double. Ooo scary.
As I have said. Bad players whine, good players win either way.
I mean it would be nice to flesh your example out with some details.
I see you're not familiar with tneva. He is a man concerned with efficiency. He knows how many peoples minds are changed by internet forums, and he knows that the purpose of an internet forum is to state either
-you are wrong
-i am correct
-both
and he does so, and leaves, with nary a minced word.
As generally pleasant as Scandinavians tend to be, it's also funny that he is the frontrunner in the "GIT GUD" movement.
Finland isn't really part of Scandinavia (though Americans tend to lump them in together).
chaos0xomega wrote: More than half are neutral or positive on the rule, with only a minority (26 votes to 20) being negative on it, and a relative minority (10 votes, less than 25% of the total) actually rating it awful (who I assume are people who have never actually played AoS)
111 people rated it 0-5. 37 people rated it 6-10. By far the most popular option was 0 with the second most popular option being 5. 51 people chose the lowest possible option while 10 people chose the highest. Yea, sounds like everyone loves it! /s
Why are you counting "5" as a negative when its decidedly neutral? Doing so gives the "negative" a range of 6 whereas "positive" only has a range of 5.
Note, I myself voted a 5. I do not feel 5 is a "negative" score and did not treat it as such when I decided where to place my vote.
tneva82 wrote: Oo the scary double turn. Last game I won the game because I forced opponent to take the double. Ooo scary.
As I have said. Bad players whine, good players win either way.
I mean it would be nice to flesh your example out with some details.
I see you're not familiar with tneva. He is a man concerned with efficiency. He knows how many peoples minds are changed by internet forums, and he knows that the purpose of an internet forum is to state either
-you are wrong
-i am correct
-both
and he does so, and leaves, with nary a minced word.
As generally pleasant as Scandinavians tend to be, it's also funny that he is the frontrunner in the "GIT GUD" movement.
Finland isn't really part of Scandinavia (though Americans tend to lump them in together).
chaos0xomega wrote: More than half are neutral or positive on the rule, with only a minority (26 votes to 20) being negative on it, and a relative minority (10 votes, less than 25% of the total) actually rating it awful (who I assume are people who have never actually played AoS)
111 people rated it 0-5. 37 people rated it 6-10. By far the most popular option was 0 with the second most popular option being 5. 51 people chose the lowest possible option while 10 people chose the highest. Yea, sounds like everyone loves it! /s
Why are you counting "5" as a negative when its decidedly neutral? Doing so gives the "negative" a range of 6 whereas "positive" only has a range of 5.
Note, I myself voted a 5. I do not feel 5 is a "negative" score and did not treat it as such when I decided where to place my vote.
Ok then let's make it fair and leave out everyone on the fence. 0-4 had 85 votes, 6-10 had 38. If that doesn't show you a negative sentiment, it's only because you don't want to see one. If I had a performance review at work and those were my scores from 150 co-workers, do you think I'm getting a promotion?
25% like it (6-10)
57% dislike it (0-4)
And 34% voted 0
It's not just that over 50% (half) dislike the mechanic, but also that its just more than double that of the number of people who really like the mechanic. Removing the middle-ground element shows that the mechanic itself really isn't (at least for users voting on this poll) pulling in a huge number of out and out fans.
In addition 50% disliking it is a BIG percentage. That's a lot of dislike which translates to lost sales and disgruntled players.
That the heaviest end of the negative is right at the bottom, 0, is also very important to note. It shows significant dislike not just a general disgruntlement that then tapers off.
And while I know handfuls of people that won't touch AOS while there is a double turn mechanic, I don't know a single person that plays AOS that would be so upset that they'd quit if the double turn were to officially go away.
Of the 25% of the people here that "like it" I am confident most if not all of them would happily play the game after an official removal of the double turn whereas with the people that dislike it, of whom more than double the people that like it, many of those won't play the game or buy product at all.
auticus wrote: And while I know handfuls of people that won't touch AOS while there is a double turn mechanic, I don't know a single person that plays AOS that would be so upset that they'd quit if the double turn were to officially go away.
Of the 25% of the people here that "like it" I am confident most if not all of them would happily play the game after an official removal of the double turn whereas with the people that dislike it, of whom more than double the people that like it, many of those won't play the game or buy product at all.
In 2nd I would have been very upset for it to go away, but now with monster rampages, new CP (like Redeploy and Unleash), Heroic actions, and how new Endless spells work, I am fine with it going away.
Before without it the game was way to predictable, on turn 2 you would basically know who would have won, there is no fear, nothing holding you back.
Before without it the game was way to predictable, on turn 2 you would basically know who would have won, there is no fear, nothing holding you back.
I've never liked that justification because it boils down to "you can predict who will win based on army composition, unless the weaker side wins a single dice roll and then they win" kind of angle. Ergo yes it introduces unpredictability, but its so swingy its all or nothing. That and it never actually worked in favour of the underdog. It was only chance if it did and it had equal chance to give the more powerful side even more advantage.
The thing is that the game was way too predictable either way. Most of the games I played we were pretty solidly able to determine the winner just by looking at the two armies lined up and seeing the terrain on the table.
Barring bad dice of course which happens to anyone.
Army composition is and always has been king in age of sigmar.
If they put in alternate activation then I wouldn't have minded it so much because any mechanic that makes someone stand there for upwards of an hour doing nothing but reacting will never be a good mechanic to me.
If the problem truly was "without the double turn the game is too predictable because army composition" then there should be a strong surge by the players to have the authors of the game fix their damn game and make it so 2000 points is 2000 points so that a double turn mechanic introducing some off the wall unpredictability was never needed in the first place. What GW proved though was that people will shovel money at them pretty much no matter what so why fix it if its generating dump trucks of money?
Before without it the game was way to predictable, on turn 2 you would basically know who would have won, there is no fear, nothing holding you back.
I've never liked that justification because it boils down to "you can predict who will win based on army composition, unless the weaker side wins a single dice roll and then they win" kind of angle. Ergo yes it introduces unpredictability, but its so swingy its all or nothing. That and it never actually worked in favour of the underdog. It was only chance if it did and it had equal chance to give the more powerful side even more advantage.
Even after being repeatedly pushed for evidence to back that opinion it has yet to be produced. And "before"? AoS always had the double, and it isn't like the rules are remotely comparable to WHFB.
If the problem truly was "without the double turn the game is too predictable because army composition" then there should be a strong surge by the players to have the authors of the game fix their damn game and make it so 2000 points is 2000 points so that a double turn mechanic introducing some off the wall unpredictability was never needed in the first place. What GW proved though was that people will shovel money at them pretty much no matter what so why fix it if its generating dump trucks of money?
Has it occurred to you that for the majority of the players out there in the real world Double Turn/No Double Turn just isn't that big a deal?
It's not a deal breaker. They like the game & the models well enough and either don't care about this rule, or can work around it.
Ex;
Most of the people I play with & at the local shops are just "Eh" about it. It's not viewed as good or bad. Just a part (oddity?) of this game.
There's a few people actively dislike it. Ok, it's easy enough to house-rule out when playing against them.... So not a problem.
One of those who dislikes it ALSO plays in tournaments! His attitude is that he'll play by whatever rules the tourney runs on, but for casual play he'd prefer not to use the Double Turn.
See for a mechanic that GW clearly sees as a big cornerstone when the average person is "meh" and the most passionate/serious are "I don't like it" that strongly suggests there's a problem.
EVEN if it were a balanced mechanic (which is it not), a lot of people disliking to not caring about it suggests there is something fundamentally wrong about it as a core feature.
People get excited about their movement turn; their shooting; their spells - but the double turn leaves them more on the neutral to negative. That is not what you want. If it were a good mechanic (even if it weren't balanced) you'd instead expect an overwhelming majority to be excited about it.
And that's honestly supported by the Dakka poll too - a large number in the middle and a greater proportion of passionate people in the disliking category.
If the problem truly was "without the double turn the game is too predictable because army composition" then there should be a strong surge by the players to have the authors of the game fix their damn game and make it so 2000 points is 2000 points so that a double turn mechanic introducing some off the wall unpredictability was never needed in the first place. What GW proved though was that people will shovel money at them pretty much no matter what so why fix it if its generating dump trucks of money?
Has it occurred to you that for the majority of the players out there in the real world Double Turn/No Double Turn just isn't that big a deal?
It's not a deal breaker. They like the game & the models well enough and either don't care about this rule, or can work around it.
Ex;
Most of the people I play with & at the local shops are just "Eh" about it. It's not viewed as good or bad. Just a part (oddity?) of this game.
There's a few people actively dislike it. Ok, it's easy enough to house-rule out when playing against them.... So not a problem.
One of those who dislikes it ALSO plays in tournaments! His attitude is that he'll play by whatever rules the tourney runs on, but for casual play he'd prefer not to use the Double Turn.
I'm responding directly to someone that has in the past said the balance is fine and good enough and then states that the double turn is required because the balance is so bad that without double turn you can predict the outcome of the games without it.
"The majority of the players out there in the real world Double Turn isn't that big a deal" - there is no evidence to support that. The majority of the players that actively play AOS I would agree wtih you, they don't care thats why they are still playing. The majority of players in the real world - I would disagree with you. Even in polls that I have seen time and time again, the number of people that like it are almost always in the minority save for the tga polls back when you had to be positive or be banned days. The polls I have seen time and again show a large number of people that don't like it, or at best are meh with it.
I do agree with you that most GW fans don't care about game balance too much. Thats not a priority for anyone that is a gw fan, and anyone wanting to participate in gw games largely can't care too too much about balance because well. You know why.
Before without it the game was way to predictable, on turn 2 you would basically know who would have won, there is no fear, nothing holding you back.
I've never liked that justification because it boils down to "you can predict who will win based on army composition, unless the weaker side wins a single dice roll and then they win" kind of angle. Ergo yes it introduces unpredictability, but its so swingy its all or nothing. That and it never actually worked in favour of the underdog. It was only chance if it did and it had equal chance to give the more powerful side even more advantage.
Even after being repeatedly pushed for evidence to back that opinion it has yet to be produced. And "before"? AoS always had the double, and it isn't like the rules are remotely comparable to WHFB.
My evidence is playing well over 100's of games in 2nd. Many from player that didn't do the double turns as a friendly rule. (I literally have a 24/7 club I go to and pay a monthly fee for a table so I try to get multiple games in a week, I get an average of 80 games a year at this club, not counting the events I go to or the other club time to time)
Sorry if my experience isn't good enough for you, its my opinions from my experience and I stand by it.
If the problem truly was "without the double turn the game is too predictable because army composition" then there should be a strong surge by the players to have the authors of the game fix their damn game and make it so 2000 points is 2000 points so that a double turn mechanic introducing some off the wall unpredictability was never needed in the first place. What GW proved though was that people will shovel money at them pretty much no matter what so why fix it if its generating dump trucks of money?
Has it occurred to you that for the majority of the players out there in the real world Double Turn/No Double Turn just isn't that big a deal?
Has it occured to you that a majority of people don't like it, and of that majority a huge portion see it as among AoS' worst rules?
auticus wrote: And while I know handfuls of people that won't touch AOS while there is a double turn mechanic, I don't know a single person that plays AOS that would be so upset that they'd quit if the double turn were to officially go away.
ll.
This. This is it in a nutshell. At best it is "tolerable". At worst, it actively repels many new players. There's a word for why the Design team stubbornly keeps it in the game: hubris. It's just wrong-headed to cling to a problematic mechanic that holds back growth of the game. In fact I think people would find the game even more fun with a more interesting and less punitive activation mechanic.
When 3rd came out and they left it in, I was so disheartened knowing it's a few more years before they snap out of it and fix it (if they ever do).
EDIT TO ADD
Given the models are awesome and the rest of the rules are fun...
It's like they took the time to make an amazing, delicious bowl of soup - served in the best bowl and silver cutlery. Maybe a sprig of parsley for garnish.
Then they drop a dead fly in the middle of it.
Sure, you can try to eat around it (house rule). Some eat it because the rest is so tasty. A very few folks LIKE the fly ("makes the soup so unique!"). But a hell of a lot of people just push the bowl away and say "no thanks I'll eat something else".
I'd like to come in and update that in the entirety of my group we've just ditched the mechanic entirely. Why bother. Just playing straight up RAW but without the initiative roll - we roll once, and the second player gets the bonus CP the whole game.
the_scotsman wrote: I'd like to come in and update that in the entirety of my group we've just ditched the mechanic entirely. Why bother. Just playing straight up RAW but without the initiative roll - we roll once, and the second player gets the bonus CP the whole game.
Feels fine. No complaints.
In my campaigns thats exactly how we did it when we weren't using the alternate activation system and I will chime in that it also felt just as fine to us.
the_scotsman wrote: I'd like to come in and update that in the entirety of my group we've just ditched the mechanic entirely. Why bother. Just playing straight up RAW but without the initiative roll - we roll once, and the second player gets the bonus CP the whole game.
Feels fine. No complaints.
Yup, the extra CP does a great job compensating first-turn advantage
Orangecoke wrote: I wonder what is GW's aversion to alternating activations. It's much more fun and engaging imo.
Their design goal is to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Alternate activation is more complicated and thus not appealing to that design goal.
I mean, Star Wars Legion uses AA and I would definitely describe as a "Casual" wargame. I'd say that the main reason they dont go to it is because it can make a large-scale battle game feel less co-ordinated and epic. Having played GDF a few times, I honestly do not think that "Just AA 4Head" is the instant solution a lot of people seem to think it is - keeping the level of lethality the same while adding AA just makes the game MORE about glass cannon suicide units missiling across the board at each other.
IGOUGO with copious amounts of interplay between the active player and inactive player works perfectly well for a large scale game like this especially with alternating damage resolution to prevent mass alpha strikes...which Sigmar ALMOST has, it just needs to introduce an alternation system that includes shooting.
Orangecoke wrote: I wonder what is GW's aversion to alternating activations. It's much more fun and engaging imo.
Their design goal is to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Alternate activation is more complicated and thus not appealing to that design goal.
I mean, Star Wars Legion uses AA and I would definitely describe as a "Casual" wargame. I'd say that the main reason they dont go to it is because it can make a large-scale battle game feel less co-ordinated and epic. Having played GDF a few times, I honestly do not think that "Just AA 4Head" is the instant solution a lot of people seem to think it is - keeping the level of lethality the same while adding AA just makes the game MORE about glass cannon suicide units missiling across the board at each other.
IGOUGO with copious amounts of interplay between the active player and inactive player works perfectly well for a large scale game like this especially with alternating damage resolution to prevent mass alpha strikes...which Sigmar ALMOST has, it just needs to introduce an alternation system that includes shooting.
Alt actions for Shooting would be really cool actually. Melee works like that now. Maybe change some of the hero phase shooting stuff to be able to choose more than 1 unit at a time, could be a way to balance some shooting.
Except for that very conversation having happend on the TGA forum a few years ago where the designers have stated why they don't want to get into more complicated activation systems because their design goal is to keep things as simple as possible to prevent rules "gate keeping" (ie ... people complain about more complicated rules and feel that they are too intimidating so are put off of the game - ie... keep things simple to appeal to the broadest audience). They used to do those youtube videos with Ben Curry (the guy that runs TGA) and that was one of the topics of discussion.
Except for that very conversation having happend on the TGA forum a few years ago where the designers have stated why they don't want to get into more complicated activation systems because their design goal is to keep things as simple as possible to prevent rules "gate keeping" (ie ... people complain about more complicated rules and feel that they are too intimidating so are put off of the game - ie... keep things simple to appeal to the broadest audience). They used to do those youtube videos with Ben Curry (the guy that runs TGA) and that was one of the topics of discussion.
It doesn't matter what He/She said is, Alt actions are not complicated, heck some other games are made easier with it.....
It matters what the game devs say yes because what the game devs say is why they do the things that they do.
To the game devs it makes the game more complicated.
And I have been scorched dozens of times in this very forum for wanting alt activation with the counter argument being AOS doesn't need a more complicated system, so it is a belief held by a great many people that it is more complicated.
I'm not arguing with you that I think its more complicated. It is my preferred way of playing. I dont think its grossly more complicated, but for whatever reason that people have many say it is more complicated and don't want it.
Thats why I primarily play Conquest - it is built on an alternate activation system that makes the gameplay tons better because you get to react every other activation instead of waiting through an entire turn of doing nothing (thats not to even touch the AOS double turn of waiting through two whole turns of doing nothing)
Getting rid of Double Turn would make me interested in playing AOS again.
Having an official alt activation sequence would make me excited to play AOS again. I used one in my campaign games and it worked great. It was one of the only houserules that DIDNT cause a lot of complaints becauase even my most die hard of tournament RAW-ONLY players saw and enjoyed the difference between double-turn IGOUGO vs alt activation.
And the funny part is that both Warcry and Kill Team both utilize Alternate Activations.
Maybe they just think it would be too hard for THEM to implement on the number of units that one may be fielding, like say between a horde army like skeletons or Skaven versus the Dragons or Giants.
It's not like various different AA-style systems haven't existed for decades like Battletech (though BT usually has a much smaller model count on the table).
3d edition actually aims to reduce model count but increase squad count. Because now you can only take a limited number of "reinforced" units per arm (based on the point level) you're encouraged to take more minimum unit squads. Heck at 2K points you can only take 2 full units. That's 4 reinforcement points all used up.
So that would work against alternate activation which might have worked better with 2nd edition which had no such limit.
Indeed the reinforcement limit is a curious one and I'm surprised its not more spoken about. One net loss is that you lose some of the big units fighting aspects; but one net gain is that I think it makes smaller elite unit groups a bit more viable as now they aren't as strongly competing with big infantry blocks. Point for point its hard to beat an infantry block so things like, in Slaanesh, fiends were ok stats wise, but always competing with a big block of deamonettes or such.
But that's a bit of a side topic. I think alternate activation isn't in AoS nor 40K because GW has become the BIGGEST in the market almost uncontested seriously for 30 years without alternate activation rules systems in their core games. Like it or not that is going to give the rule writers and the managers osme pretty clear evidence that it at very least WORKS. Even if there's a potentially superior option there might well be the concern that such a fundamental change could push people away. It might well be that we have to wait until key rules/managerial staff retire/move on to get a fresh wave of thinking in GW
Charistoph wrote: And the funny part is that both Warcry and Kill Team both utilize Alternate Activations.
So does Necromunda and Adeptus Titanicus. That's probably why I've only felt like playing specialist games for the last couple of years. Every time I try to get back into 40k/AoS, I realize what a clusterfeth it is and just start another necromunda or AT campaign.
Charistoph wrote: And the funny part is that both Warcry and Kill Team both utilize Alternate Activations.
So does Necromunda and Adeptus Titanicus. That's probably why I've only felt like playing specialist games for the last couple of years. Every time I try to get back into 40k/AoS, I realize what a clusterfeth it is and just start another necromunda or AT campaign.
For me it's just the idea of trying to build up another 2000 point army again that goes against it. Meanwhile, grabbing a box here or there for a faction can usually sate me. I can work within the rules, for the most part, but this double-turn thing comes across as a fiasco.
I haven't started on either one of them, yet, though, because when I went looking at starting up at a new local FLGS, I found out they had a thriving BT community, I already had models for that, and my wife is jealous of my time. One can lose initiative consistently there, and while it can be unfortunate, it's only devastating if you're doing a one-on-one and your opponent can maneuver out of your effective gun arcs.
Alternate activation very much breaks up the narrative aspect; it not longer feels like two armies clashing but rather a bunch of individual elements working together. For Warcry or Kill Team that is precisely the point, for mass battles not so much. It is also a matter of taste; warhammer has always been igougo and it would be a rather large crap on the heads of players to flip that.
Besides, people wave around AA like it is a magic bullet. It isn't. It has just as many problems as Igougo, they are simply different problems.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Alternate activation very much breaks up the narrative aspect; it not longer feels like two armies clashing but rather a bunch of individual elements working together. For Warcry or Kill Team that is precisely the point, for mass battles not so much. It is also a matter of taste; warhammer has always been igougo and it would be a rather large crap on the heads of players to flip that.
Besides, people wave around AA like it is a magic bullet. It isn't. It has just as many problems as Igougo, they are simply different problems.
Yea, I agree with this fully. As my second main game right now is Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings, which is fully AA, and I definitely miss the big sweeping maneuvers/coordinated turn of IGOUGO when I play it. To that end, games like Hail Caesar and Apocalypse have done alternating activation by detachment which is a system that matches the "feel" I like while also bringing some positives of AA.
In way I think the core issue with GW's style of balance is that the battle isn't like grand armies sweeping in formation at each other. GW armies are MUCH too fast to the kill for that. The result is a single turn can change the game state signfiicantly which means one person gets the feel of their armies moving into position an executing a powerful attack; the other player gets the sweeping early experience of defeat and a huge uphill struggle and their battle plans dashed on the rocks.
AOS does mute this a bit because close combat alternates who goes first; but ranged and magical abilities are all one side then the other side. In a way we almost need to bring ranged and magic into their own alternation turn sequence as well to balance things out.
Also I'd argue that alternating activation can still have the feeling of commanding powerful armies in sweeping manoeuvres because AA is more faithful to that model. No real army moves without input and feedback from the enemy; you move your horses toward their artillery and the enemy doesn't just stand there and let you; they sweep a unit in to protect the artillery or pull the artillery back if they can etc... They react.
AA allows you reactionary time and opportunity that is closer to real life; and also means that your plans remain more adaptive on the fly. You have a grand sweeping plan and the AA allows you to engage it whilst reacting and modifying to your opponents grand plan.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Alternate activation very much breaks up the narrative aspect; it not longer feels like two armies clashing but rather a bunch of individual elements working together. For Warcry or Kill Team that is precisely the point, for mass battles not so much. It is also a matter of taste; warhammer has always been igougo and it would be a rather large crap on the heads of players to flip that.
Besides, people wave around AA like it is a magic bullet. It isn't. It has just as many problems as Igougo, they are simply different problems.
Yea, I agree with this fully. As my second main game right now is Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings, which is fully AA, and I definitely miss the big sweeping maneuvers/coordinated turn of IGOUGO when I play it. To that end, games like Hail Caesar and Apocalypse have done alternating activation by detachment which is a system that matches the "feel" I like while also bringing some positives of AA.
tbh I feel like sigmar is REALLY close. I've played an alternate version, where we combined the shooting and charge phase into one, and ran that alternating in the same manner as the fight phase, and it works pretty good (main side-effect is you run into chain-charges where a unit charges a unit and then a defending unit charges the charger, leading to armies that kind of slap together faster than they otherwise would have) but just, in general, if you removed the un-interactivity of an all shooting army, I think youd be basically where I want the game to be activation wise. The movement phase and command phase is there for your 'grand sweeping strategy maneuvers' and then make the ENTIRETY of the fighting and dying alternating to blunt the power of alpha strikes and sort of simulate the 'gak hitting the fan' of the battle.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Alternate activation very much breaks up the narrative aspect; it not longer feels like two armies clashing but rather a bunch of individual elements working together. For Warcry or Kill Team that is precisely the point, for mass battles not so much. It is also a matter of taste; warhammer has always been igougo and it would be a rather large crap on the heads of players to flip that.
Besides, people wave around AA like it is a magic bullet. It isn't. It has just as many problems as Igougo, they are simply different problems.
I disagree. ANY turn-based system will throw off narrative aspects for me. Think about that moment in Dragonball Z Abridged when Nappa charges Krillin, and Krillin yells out, "MY TURN! MY TURN! MY TURN!", then Nappa stops in mid-air. That's what turn-based combat feels like on the narrative level to me.
If I want the feel of an armies facing each other, I need to turn to computer RTS to get anything close (and even THEY have turn-based aspects, if very very subtlely).
NinthMusketeer wrote: Alternate activation very much breaks up the narrative aspect; it not longer feels like two armies clashing but rather a bunch of individual elements working together. For Warcry or Kill Team that is precisely the point, for mass battles not so much. It is also a matter of taste; warhammer has always been igougo and it would be a rather large crap on the heads of players to flip that.
Besides, people wave around AA like it is a magic bullet. It isn't. It has just as many problems as Igougo, they are simply different problems.
I don't know what it would be magic-bullet wise - its just a more interactive game using Alternate Activation. AA does not fix any of AOS problems other than double turn standing there for two turns in a row doing mostly nothing. What it does do is make the game a lot more reactive and interactive and prevents things like alpha strikes where you just stand there for a turn and watch your army evaporate unless you deploy mandatory bubble wrap, which is not a mechanic or game style that I enjoy (so for me AA is almost entirely a stylistic desire for an interactive game as I detest games where I stand there for a turn doing nothing but watching you remove my models (and vice versa)).
To me IGOUGO breaks up the narrative aspect watching my army stand there with thumbs up its collective asses while the other side alpha strikes them and removes them without reaction. (so its just a personal preference it would seem). Alternate Activation is more like everything moving at once like an RTS only broken down element by element, or taking other forms like LOTR does (alternate entire phases but not an entire turn) or like Battletech does (alternate move and targeting, then everything resolved at once) or Conquest does (pure Alternate Activation). There are many different ways to accomplish alternate activation and make the game more interactive and less stand there while the other side tries its best to annihilate you before you have any chance to respond (I can't for the life of me figure out why that is an enjoyable game experience but here we are and it apparently is)
To silver bulleting, AOS primary problems other than double turn for me is its god awful balancing. That isn't solved by activation, thats solved by creating a proper points algorithm and making points represent more than just a loose structure to slam plastic models into each other with that the company then changes several times a year to rotate whats viable and whats not to force people to buy new models to keep up with the power meta if they want to continue to have decent competitive games.
AA is the lowest level of narrative immersion for me, because both sides' entire armies just sit and watch while one unit carries out all of its actions. And it doesn't even work representively, because each activation distinctly happens in sequence.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Overread wrote: No real army moves without input and feedback from the enemy; you move your horses toward their artillery and the enemy doesn't just stand there and let you; they sweep a unit in to protect the artillery or pull the artillery back if they can etc... They react.
AA allows you reactionary time and opportunity that is closer to real life; and also means that your plans remain more adaptive on the fly. You have a grand sweeping plan and the AA allows you to engage it whilst reacting and modifying to your opponents grand plan.
See this is just disingenuous; the unit sweeping in to protect the artillery doesn't make another unit in melee on the other side of the battle stop and let the enemy slaughter them because they haven't activated yet. AA does that. Each activation is at the expense of another unit which spends that period standing there taking it to the face--exactly what people ciriticse about igouo. All it does it break it down into pieces then stack them up in sequence. The problem is different, but still entirely present.
And to come at it from the other end, AoS has rules to represent such a situation already; the example quoted above would be use of a redeploy command.
Overread wrote: No real army moves without input and feedback from the enemy; you move your horses toward their artillery and the enemy doesn't just stand there and let you; they sweep a unit in to protect the artillery or pull the artillery back if they can etc... They react.
AA allows you reactionary time and opportunity that is closer to real life; and also means that your plans remain more adaptive on the fly. You have a grand sweeping plan and the AA allows you to engage it whilst reacting and modifying to your opponents grand plan.
See this is just disingenuous; the unit sweeping in to protect the artillery doesn't make another unit in melee on the other side of the battle stop and let the enemy slaughter them because they haven't activated yet. AA does that. Each activation is at the expense of another unit which spends that period standing there taking it to the face--exactly what people ciriticse about igouo. All it does it break it down into pieces then stack them up in sequence. The problem is different, but still entirely present.
And to come at it from the other end, AoS has rules to represent such a situation already; the example quoted above would be use of a redeploy command.
While I agree with you, I understand Overread's concerns about IGOUGO. It's not a problematic activation mechanic in principle, but the way GW has developed their games the grand strategy aspect of it has been greatly diminished. For that to work and the clashing armies to feel like they're reacting to each other, you need a slower game. GW would have to remove run mechanics that can double a unit's movement, disallow cavalry, bikes and similarly fast units as core choices for armies, go back on the decreased board size, make impactful terrain rules, heavily restrict deep strike mechanics and more than anything, reduce damage output by a very large degree. In short, you can't give an army the ability to nuke enemy units where and when it pleases if you want interactivity between armies. It needs to be slower with opportunity for maneuvering and chipping damage so targeted units are actually around to react and a six turn game makes meaningful use of all six turns instead of effectively ending after the first turn or two.
Unfortunately especially in 40k you can clearly see that GW moves in the opposite direction, decreasing board size, increasing weapon ranges and killing power and enabling players to just strike whenever and wherever they want and removing whole units before they even get to act. Calls for alternate activation, in my opinion, have rarely been about the system being inherently superior to IGOUGO, although that is often how it's portrayed, but are deemed a means of mitigating the crippling effects GW's chosen game design has on IGOUGO. As such I'm wary of this grass is greener mentality that alternate activation is going to be a fix for everything. It could make dodgy game design less dodgy, if implemented correctly, But the argument falls flat if you consider that the same people who don't understand how to implement IGOUGO correctly are the ones who'd have to implement alternate activation. It's a question of competence of the designers and design direction rather than inherent superiority of one activation mechanic over another.
When I play a war game, FUN is the thing I prioritize. I don't need the "sweeping narrative" to take priority (especially in something fantastical like AoS) - I can get that from books and movies. AA is more fun imo, in that it is more engaging for both players moment-to-moment. It also has less likelihood of NPE where something like alpha strike or double turn just sucks the air out of the room.
I'd also argue (but have no data) that the majority of players want to have fun, not "forge a narrative". Ergo, the system that is more fun will grow the game faster.
Orangecoke wrote: When I play a war game, FUN is the thing I prioritize. I don't need the "sweeping narrative" to take priority (especially in something fantastical like AoS) - I can get that from books and movies. AA is more fun imo, in that it is more engaging for both players moment-to-moment. It also has less likelihood of NPE where something like alpha strike or double turn just sucks the air out of the room.
I'd also argue (but have no data) that the majority of players want to have fun, not "forge a narrative". Ergo, the system that is more fun will grow the game faster.
While I agree with a lot of this, I think the underlying premise is flawed. People like narrative in their games because they find it fun. The sources of fun are many and varied for different people.
Orangecoke wrote: When I play a war game, FUN is the thing I prioritize. I don't need the "sweeping narrative" to take priority (especially in something fantastical like AoS) - I can get that from books and movies. AA is more fun imo, in that it is more engaging for both players moment-to-moment. It also has less likelihood of NPE where something like alpha strike or double turn just sucks the air out of the room.
I'd also argue (but have no data) that the majority of players want to have fun, not "forge a narrative". Ergo, the system that is more fun will grow the game faster.
While I agree with a lot of this, I think the underlying premise is flawed. People like narrative in their games because they find it fun. The sources of fun are many and varied for different people.
I should have clarified:
- I think fun games create a narrative
- I think narrative enriches the fun
- I reject that AA diminishes the narrative
- by boosting the fun, reducing NPEs (which is huge), and creating more ongoing engagement, I think AA leads to a better game narrative for both players personally
Basically I don't think narrative should come at the expense of fun, and I believe that's a risk with double turns.
But the argument falls flat if you consider that the same people who don't understand how to implement IGOUGO correctly are the ones who'd have to implement alternate activation. It's a question of competence of the designers and design direction rather than inherent superiority of one activation mechanic over another.
The guys writing the rules aren't stupid. The ones I know and have seen their work I know that they can write excellent rules.
The company itself wants the game as fast and killer as you have described. Their marketing seems to indicate (and I agree with based on the projects I have also worked with similar marketing) that people want a game they can rock into their game store on a saturday afternoon and get 2 or 3 games in. I know that speed was at least a top priority a few years ago because on the warhammer videos that they were doing with the designers, they mentioned that about a dozen times about how speed of play was very important to them.
That means games have to be an hour to an hour and a half tops, so mechanics have to be deadly to facilitate a fast game AND sell lots of plastic to have large armies.
Decreased board size, super alpha strikes, being able to erase units before they even go... those are all intentional and side with the get the game over as fast as possible design goal.
Tournaments also push on that "get the game done as fast as possible so we can have more rounds".
While that is their design goal, the grand strategy stuff just can't coexist.
And other games outside of GW follow suit. Conquest is a rank and file fantasy game and their stated intent is games done in 60 minutes and in playtesting were introducing similar gw style mechanics to allow for stuff to die fast.
Alternate Activation can actually slow the game down due to analysis paralysis, though I can't say that that is why GW is so adamant to keep it out of their main games but keep it in their smaller games.
As to the narrative - we'd need a proper global poll to get an idea of what the real story is. In my own experience (so anecdotal and obviously limited to the people i have interacted with) games were more narrative 20 years ago, and that started eroding as new player style became predominant and the older players phased out. I would agree that most of the players I have known the past ten years or so aren't really interested in narrative at the table. Then again they also love alpha striking their opponent off the table before they get a response, and I don't see how that is fun, but they find that great fun... but telling the story etc... seems to be in the minority compared with just showing up and slamming models together and rolling dice and socializing and getting as many games as they can in a day (so the need for a fast game as opposed to older games of yore that took 3-4 hours to tell the story and get the grand strategy in)
You have to dig deep for games like that these days, not only to find the game itself, but to find players willing to do it on a regular basis.
I'm very in favour of faster/shorter games for sure. I just think "by making them unpleasant for one of the players" is misguided. But also, frankly I have found 40K and AoS are very long games so they are doing something wrong if fast games is their goal imo.
Orangecoke wrote: When I play a war game, FUN is the thing I prioritize. I don't need the "sweeping narrative" to take priority (especially in something fantastical like AoS) - I can get that from books and movies. AA is more fun imo, in that it is more engaging for both players moment-to-moment. It also has less likelihood of NPE where something like alpha strike or double turn just sucks the air out of the room.
I'd also argue (but have no data) that the majority of players want to have fun, not "forge a narrative". Ergo, the system that is more fun will grow the game faster.
I think you have a really valid point here, and one that cuts straight to the heart of the matter; some people find AA more fun, others find igougo more fun.
Overread wrote: No real army moves without input and feedback from the enemy; you move your horses toward their artillery and the enemy doesn't just stand there and let you; they sweep a unit in to protect the artillery or pull the artillery back if they can etc... They react.
AA allows you reactionary time and opportunity that is closer to real life; and also means that your plans remain more adaptive on the fly. You have a grand sweeping plan and the AA allows you to engage it whilst reacting and modifying to your opponents grand plan.
See this is just disingenuous; the unit sweeping in to protect the artillery doesn't make another unit in melee on the other side of the battle stop and let the enemy slaughter them because they haven't activated yet. AA does that. Each activation is at the expense of another unit which spends that period standing there taking it to the face--exactly what people ciriticse about igouo. All it does it break it down into pieces then stack them up in sequence. The problem is different, but still entirely present.
And to come at it from the other end, AoS has rules to represent such a situation already; the example quoted above would be use of a redeploy command.
While I agree with you, I understand Overread's concerns about IGOUGO. It's not a problematic activation mechanic in principle, but the way GW has developed their games the grand strategy aspect of it has been greatly diminished. For that to work and the clashing armies to feel like they're reacting to each other, you need a slower game. GW would have to remove run mechanics that can double a unit's movement, disallow cavalry, bikes and similarly fast units as core choices for armies, go back on the decreased board size, make impactful terrain rules, heavily restrict deep strike mechanics and more than anything, reduce damage output by a very large degree. In short, you can't give an army the ability to nuke enemy units where and when it pleases if you want interactivity between armies. It needs to be slower with opportunity for maneuvering and chipping damage so targeted units are actually around to react and a six turn game makes meaningful use of all six turns instead of effectively ending after the first turn or two.
Unfortunately especially in 40k you can clearly see that GW moves in the opposite direction, decreasing board size, increasing weapon ranges and killing power and enabling players to just strike whenever and wherever they want and removing whole units before they even get to act. Calls for alternate activation, in my opinion, have rarely been about the system being inherently superior to IGOUGO, although that is often how it's portrayed, but are deemed a means of mitigating the crippling effects GW's chosen game design has on IGOUGO. As such I'm wary of this grass is greener mentality that alternate activation is going to be a fix for everything. It could make dodgy game design less dodgy, if implemented correctly, But the argument falls flat if you consider that the same people who don't understand how to implement IGOUGO correctly are the ones who'd have to implement alternate activation. It's a question of competence of the designers and design direction rather than inherent superiority of one activation mechanic over another.
Also agree here. And it is getting to another very pragmatic point; people compare current igougo to an idealized version of AA. They don't compare it to a janky, poorly balanced and inconsistent AA. Which is what we would be getting.
Raise how many people talk about how AA could easily work better in Warhammer but no one actually making it happen. At best we get well-intended rulesets which only hold up when all players involved are actively trying to make it work. Which is all well and good, but if that is a prerequisite Warhammer is already a fantastic game when everyone involved is trying to make it work right.
Raise how many people talk about how AA could easily work better in Warhammer but no one actually making it happen.
Do you mean the designers don't make it happen or do you mean no one at all makes it happen?
I published an alternate activation system for AOS on the TGA that was one of their highest rated downloads underneath Bottle's work.
It received a lot of positive commentary from a community notorious for hating houserules. It was for a while #2 on their downloads before I was removed and all my work along with it.
Thats not saying my work is the fix for everything and will make everyone happy (because thats impossible) but there have been attempts to highlight what that could look like here.
I found the people already inclined to like AA liked that system and those that really were fine with IGOUGO did not like that system - which was to say that it came down to taste when you boiled it all down to the brass tacks.
The designers could easily implement a version of AA but you hit the nail on the head when you question how worthwhile a GW designed AA system in AOS would be.
The problem is most people go for the GW rules - for better or worse. House-Rules do exist, but there's no real unity behind them. The only time that happens is when GW drops the game entirely or half (eg AoS at launch). Even then there's often several different groups at any one time; ignoring all the home-basement games that don't mingle outside of their group.
I'm sure it happens, but whilst GW have functional core rules there's no unity or drive behind homebrew rules sets.
The problem is most people go for the GW rules - for better or worse. House-Rules do exist, but there's no real unity behind them.
No argument from me. Official rules or bust is the environment I came from, which is saying something when I wrote a rule system for the game that had as much positive commentary and downloads as my AA ruleset did over on that site.
I was more interested in the statement that no one has tried before. If it was referring to the designers, that doesn't mean they can't - it just means they won't. They obviously can because they have their smaller games using them.
If its no one in general has tried - it has been tried. (and depending on your stance to house rules or your desire for AA will largely direct your opinion on the attempts made unofficially)
That doesn't really relate to the double turn though and is veering way off topic.
AA doesn't fix AOS. GW version of AA would not fix AOS because the problems with AOS are not just the double turn, its the bad balance and interaction between skewed units (both OP and boot eating under powered) that delivers a negative play experience.
The core ideas of AOS I think are fine, though not entirely my cup of tea - I'd play the game if double turn was gone and in a group that wouldn't abuse the bad balance so that I could buy a force and not have to buy new units every year to keep up.
Oh people have tried for sure, plenty of times. But making it succeed?
What Auticus is leaving out is that the alt activation system came along with a set of point costs for AoS at a time when GW produced none. Which was undoubtedly a huge factor behind it's popularity because the point costs were really well done. But presenting it like just the alt-activation alone led to it's popularity is really dishonest. Which is a dam shame because Auticus used to have more integrity than that.
Damn man. Seriously its like you're just on this headhunting spree with me lol.
The document I am talking about is NOT azyr comp the point system. Azyr Comp the point system was never hosted on TGA (that site was 100% behind the clash comp system which would go on to become the point system used by the ghb in 2016 to become official points).
The document I am talking about was 100% just an alternate activation system that had nothing to do with points, had no reference to points, and could be used in any point system. I have also shared it here on dakka a few times in the past in various threads whenever the alternate activation subject comes up (as have there been a handful of other individuals who have shared their own alternate activation systems on here to varying reviews dependent on the respondant's attitude toward house rules and / or deviation from igougo)
I remember the heated discussion on tga over it, and the vitriol it generated BECAUSE it was popular and people wanted any negative talk on the new game to go away.
I also had Azyr Empires on TGA which was #3, which was my Mighty Empires expansion for AOS (also points agnostic).
Azyr Comp was hosted on my website at the time and then through the Azyr Comp facebook group (which I pulled the plug on when GHB 2016 came out)
So I don't know what else to say to the rest of what you're talking about concerning you calling me a liar or questioning my integrity. There was nothing else in the document I am referencing other than an alternate activation system that I used in my campaign games that I took out and made its own document. As such it would not become #2 on TGA by virtue of Azyr Comp - because the two documents are two distinctly separate entities (and azyr comp the composition system was largely slagged on TGA because they were behind the scgt / clash comp and were making a push to make that official).
(and to address it as I know its forthcoming in someone's reply - I posted about it being #2 not to brag or gloat or whatever someone will come on here saying - but because its the only metric I can think about that actually exists that is somewhat objective in direct answer to "was it successful" - its the only hard stat that I know of to gauge a house ruled system)
My integrity is just fine. It would be cool if discussions on here could focus on the subject at hand and not turn into the ad hominem personal attacks that make internet discussions famous when you disagree with someone.
But making it succeed?
That depends on your metric for what would make it succeed. Barring having something become "official", I don't see how one measures a non official fan project's success. The closest I can come up with that is actually objective and not subjective was the TGA ranking structure on their downloads (and even that of course is limited to who all went there and voted / downloaded documents so is not super accurate either).
The only real way i see to gauge its success would be to have it made officially the way to play and monitor response to it. My gut says some would love it, some would hate it, most would shrug and play whatever because most of the aos fanbase isnt concerned as much about the rules and just want to push pretty plastic with a huge built in community. So in regards to this - I don't see a way to actually have a good solid objective conversation about what is and is not good unless its official since I find most people shun house ruling in general so you can't know if something is good or not good because people won't give it a fair shake.
Orangecoke wrote: When I play a war game, FUN is the thing I prioritize. I don't need the "sweeping narrative" to take priority (especially in something fantastical like AoS) - I can get that from books and movies. AA is more fun imo, in that it is more engaging for both players moment-to-moment. It also has less likelihood of NPE where something like alpha strike or double turn just sucks the air out of the room.
I'd also argue (but have no data) that the majority of players want to have fun, not "forge a narrative". Ergo, the system that is more fun will grow the game faster.
I think you have a really valid point here, and one that cuts straight to the heart of the matter; some people find AA more fun, others find igougo more fun.
Overread wrote: No real army moves without input and feedback from the enemy; you move your horses toward their artillery and the enemy doesn't just stand there and let you; they sweep a unit in to protect the artillery or pull the artillery back if they can etc... They react.
AA allows you reactionary time and opportunity that is closer to real life; and also means that your plans remain more adaptive on the fly. You have a grand sweeping plan and the AA allows you to engage it whilst reacting and modifying to your opponents grand plan.
See this is just disingenuous; the unit sweeping in to protect the artillery doesn't make another unit in melee on the other side of the battle stop and let the enemy slaughter them because they haven't activated yet. AA does that. Each activation is at the expense of another unit which spends that period standing there taking it to the face--exactly what people ciriticse about igouo. All it does it break it down into pieces then stack them up in sequence. The problem is different, but still entirely present.
And to come at it from the other end, AoS has rules to represent such a situation already; the example quoted above would be use of a redeploy command.
While I agree with you, I understand Overread's concerns about IGOUGO. It's not a problematic activation mechanic in principle, but the way GW has developed their games the grand strategy aspect of it has been greatly diminished. For that to work and the clashing armies to feel like they're reacting to each other, you need a slower game. GW would have to remove run mechanics that can double a unit's movement, disallow cavalry, bikes and similarly fast units as core choices for armies, go back on the decreased board size, make impactful terrain rules, heavily restrict deep strike mechanics and more than anything, reduce damage output by a very large degree. In short, you can't give an army the ability to nuke enemy units where and when it pleases if you want interactivity between armies. It needs to be slower with opportunity for maneuvering and chipping damage so targeted units are actually around to react and a six turn game makes meaningful use of all six turns instead of effectively ending after the first turn or two.
Unfortunately especially in 40k you can clearly see that GW moves in the opposite direction, decreasing board size, increasing weapon ranges and killing power and enabling players to just strike whenever and wherever they want and removing whole units before they even get to act. Calls for alternate activation, in my opinion, have rarely been about the system being inherently superior to IGOUGO, although that is often how it's portrayed, but are deemed a means of mitigating the crippling effects GW's chosen game design has on IGOUGO. As such I'm wary of this grass is greener mentality that alternate activation is going to be a fix for everything. It could make dodgy game design less dodgy, if implemented correctly, But the argument falls flat if you consider that the same people who don't understand how to implement IGOUGO correctly are the ones who'd have to implement alternate activation. It's a question of competence of the designers and design direction rather than inherent superiority of one activation mechanic over another.
Also agree here. And it is getting to another very pragmatic point; people compare current igougo to an idealized version of AA. They don't compare it to a janky, poorly balanced and inconsistent AA. Which is what we would be getting.
Raise how many people talk about how AA could easily work better in Warhammer but no one actually making it happen. At best we get well-intended rulesets which only hold up when all players involved are actively trying to make it work. Which is all well and good, but if that is a prerequisite Warhammer is already a fantastic game when everyone involved is trying to make it work right.
I mean, GW has made AA work.
Heck, apocalypse was a genuinely better game them 8th edition. And had they given it any support, it would have been better then 9th too. I honestly think it is distinctly easier to craft a system around alternating activation then IGOUGO. There's just less moving parts you consider in a one turn pileup of combos and abilities that ends with nuclear ignition all over someone else's armies. If you changed literally nothing else, making the current state of the game use AA would make it a better game. But trying to get people to TRY that is impossible
No matter if AoS (or 40k) went AA or went IGUG, roughly the same amount of people would be playing it as they are now. If anything it might actually lure back more people from other games because how many IGUG systems do you see being made by companies that aren't historicals? Pretty much zero. Even GW's been splashing about in that pond with pretty much every new game, including Apocalypse and Kill-Team.
I feel like the only thing holding them back from it is "Well IGUG worked well for 30+ years. If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Although I would put money on 99% of people who actively dislike AA sticking around after any big change, the same way 99% of people who dislike IGUG do - because it's what GW said and what they say goes.
End of the day, I'll believe it when I see it. I've yet to see an AA system that can get something as simple as coherent battlefield formation right. Even in AoS I can at least have my multiple front units work together as a single line, with supporters going behind them. AA I move one of those front line units and it opens up a charge lane for an enemy to roll right behind the rest--because yeah, my army's frontline TOTALLY wanted to move up piecemeal leaving gaping holes for the enemy to exploit.
I'd have to see a diagram of what you are referring to really be able to comment.
I've not seen in AA one unit moving forward allowing an enemy to just charge through it with no repercussions. Especially in a game like AOS where there are no facings.
If I move a unit in my line forward and you are either A) close enough to have enough movement to pour behind me, or B) have something fast enough at a moderate distance to pour behind me, I'm going to regardless respond with one of those units in my line counter charging them since I can just move and charge in whatever direction.
Or I'm going to have reserve line behind me to counter charge that unit that just poured through that hole.
Either way that doesn't wreck me, but again I may just be missing the illustration and could use a diagram to show the flaw.
Granted based on previous conversation you may be referring to how it breaks your immersion to watch a unit move one at a time and by you moving a unit one at a time the enemy moves a unit to fill that hole breaking immersion - which fair enough.
It is equally immersion breaking for me to stand there for an entire turn doing nothing while the opposing army does their thing.
Fortunately for you - AOS will likely never go to an AA structure so the entire discussion is moot anyway. You won't have to worry about that.
Arbitrator wrote: No matter if AoS (or 40k) went AA or went IGUG, roughly the same amount of people would be playing it as they are now. If anything it might actually lure back more people from other games because how many IGUG systems do you see being made by companies that aren't historicals? Pretty much zero. Even GW's been splashing about in that pond with pretty much every new game, including Apocalypse and Kill-Team.
I feel like the only thing holding them back from it is "Well IGUG worked well for 30+ years. If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Although I would put money on 99% of people who actively dislike AA sticking around after any big change, the same way 99% of people who dislike IGUG do - because it's what GW said and what they say goes.
It all depends on how you define "AA" or "IGOUGO"
Infinity, for example, what is it? I take MY TURN, and I get a number of orders, and I sure as gak can have a unit go absolutely ham all over your business and dunk on a huge chunk of your army in one of the four turns that exist in the game.
...but every time I use one of those orders, you do *technically* get a chance to react with one of your models - even though very often those reactions do not result in very much difference.
So does that make it AA or IGOUGO?
or how about, to use an example, um...age of...sigmar.
We keep saying its IGOUGO, PURE igougo, but...how many armies in the game are highly melee focused? And the damage dealign portion of the turn for those armies...is actually AA, isn't it?
I understand that competitively it actually works out that armies that heavily focus on shooting and casting are quite powerful, and those armies mitigate the AA structure.
But what if we removed that?
Would the entire army moving as one still 'break the immersion of AA' even if ALL the combat alternated?
In my limited experience, AOS played with melee-centric armies doesn't feel like IGUGO as real damage-dealing actions alternate. A double-turn with melee armies can be a big deal if a given unit has a charge bonus, but it doesn't necessarily break the game. A double-turn by a shooting army, though, isn't a lot of fun. My first 3rd Ed game was in a tourney where my Khorne dudes faced a double-turn by Kharadon Overlords at the end of Turn 1 and start of Turn 2. As I removed models by the handful I thought to myself - well, this is an interesting design feature...
auticus wrote: That is certainly a good way to put things into perspective.
AA is part of melee already yes. Now if we could get shooting / casting to follow something similar....
Easier said than done of course. If you simply made the shooting phase alternate activations for both armies every turn you would double the overall output of shooting. So you would need a complete rebalancing of shooting profiles to take that into account.
auticus wrote: That is certainly a good way to put things into perspective.
AA is part of melee already yes. Now if we could get shooting / casting to follow something similar....
My little experiment with it was to combine the charging and shooting phase into a second alternating phase that preceeded the melee combat phase - with the general idea that when a ranged army faced off against a melee army, the melee army would be 'responding' to the ranged attacks with charges into melee. The primary problem with this, was that it essentially ran into the issue of "Rocket Tag" that's so common in AA systems.
-our armies walk towards one another
-I declare a charge with my fast, glass cannon thing against your front line guys
-you then declare a counter-charge with your slower guys against my now much closer fast guys
-I then declare a counter-counter-charge with my guys who are now closer to your guys
-Our armies have now slapped together like two big giant hams and we have a big scrum in the middle.
Luckily, AOS is constructed with fairly lenient 'shooting while in melee' rules so this didnt result in shooting units feeling useless - just like they couldnt pepper an opposing unit at point-blank range with no response - but it did result in movement feeling a bit...trivial a lot of the time, what with move phase, charge phase, 3" pile in, 3" consolidate - units felt a bit like those rare earth magnets that as soon as you get them within a certain distance of one another they just shoot into one another.
it worked pretty good though.
I will leave you with a bit of a 'hot take' though: I dont actually think inter-unit balance is AS BAD as people like to make it out to be, I just think that the Gaze of the Competitive Hive Mind operates a bit like the corrupting eye of sauron when applied to pretty much any game system. Most of the time, when people bring up a system - like Apocalypse for example - and tout it as superior to 40k/AOS, I cant help but think to myself "If you REALLY tried to run a tournament with the real scuzzy scuzzbags that just really do not give one single flying feth whether or not their opponent has anything approaching a good time....just how balanced would this system end up feeling? Good? Really? You think so? Did you really take the time to crunch the numbers on what an army of 400 individual PL1 Krootox versus anything else would look like?"
auticus wrote: That is certainly a good way to put things into perspective.
AA is part of melee already yes. Now if we could get shooting / casting to follow something similar....
And even then, it wouldn't take much to make Movement from there, either.
A lot of rules are made to handle perceived deficits. A lot of the desire of going AA is how Warhammer deals with the Alpha Strike, particularly of the ranged and magic attacks. The changing Initiative emphasizes the problems inherent with Warhammer's traditional handling of Movement, Range, and Magic actions that one has access to in the game. Whereas with AA, even Phased AA, diminished the impact of changing Initiative by limiting how much Movement, Range, and Magic one can get out of their turn without reactions.
Infinity is a great point out. It largely is IGOUGO, but is so Reaction-heavy that it is almost a complete AA system. If it wasn't for the fact that so many Orders can be utilized on one model, it's almost X-Com in simplicity.
auticus wrote: That is certainly a good way to put things into perspective.
AA is part of melee already yes. Now if we could get shooting / casting to follow something similar....
Easier said than done of course. If you simply made the shooting phase alternate activations for both armies every turn you would double the overall output of shooting. So you would need a complete rebalancing of shooting profiles to take that into account.
I don't think thats necessarily true. When I wrote my AA document for AOS it didn't double the output or require rebalancing (lol - that word with AOS makes me chuckle) of the profiles.
But I'll diagram in case you see something I am missing which is possible:
Army A has five units, each does 10 shots. Thats 50 shots of whatever.
Army B has five units, each does 10 shots. Thats also 50 shots of whatever.
Current way of doing things each side shoots 50 shots of whatever in the shooting phase.
AA way of doing things, Army A unit fires 10 shots, then Army B has a unit firing 10 shots. That would also be 50 shots per side.
auticus wrote: That is certainly a good way to put things into perspective.
AA is part of melee already yes. Now if we could get shooting / casting to follow something similar....
Easier said than done of course. If you simply made the shooting phase alternate activations for both armies every turn you would double the overall output of shooting. So you would need a complete rebalancing of shooting profiles to take that into account.
I don't think thats necessarily true. When I wrote my AA document for AOS it didn't double the output or require rebalancing (lol - that word with AOS makes me chuckle) of the profiles.
But I'll diagram in case you see something I am missing which is possible:
Army A has five units, each does 10 shots. Thats 50 shots of whatever.
Army B has five units, each does 10 shots. Thats also 50 shots of whatever.
Current way of doing things each side shoots 50 shots of whatever in the shooting phase.
AA way of doing things, Army A unit fires 10 shots, then Army B has a unit firing 10 shots. That would also be 50 shots per side.
Where does the doubling come from?
Actually when we did our full AA system the thing that happened was a halving. Each player took a movement phase to move their army together, then there was a shared shoot+charge and a shared fight phase. That actually wound up reducing the amount of damage-dealing that went on, which allowed the games to go fully to round 5. Kinda nice!
Its doubled relative to any melee output. Which is a huge advantage to a shooting heavy army vs a shooting light army.
havent had a chance to try it. Maybe! I do kind of suspect though that with the removal of the ability to double-turn the opposing army with a full barrage, a heavy shooting army would wind up not feeling particularly crazy.
The main issue in the melee vs shooting contest right now is the fact that the shooting army is allowed two full turns of firepower pretty frequently before the melee army is allowed to do ANY damage - not that the melee army isnt capable of outputting enough damage to take things down. MOST fights are fairly decisive in sigmar if you slam 2 units into one another, and the combined charge phase and lack of "OK its now MY TURN and I get to dictate ALL the engagements" mean that in the one, combined fight phase, you actually just end up with a lot more fighting taking place.
When I play default sigmar, typically what I wind up doing is on my turn, tactically choosing when and where to charge in order to minimize the use my opponent gets out of their melee activations. I'll usually pick a few of my opponent's nastiest units and decide "you know...Iiiiii Do not want to fight you this turn" and instead single out a couple units im pretty confident I can easily kill with my first activation or whose damage output im not worried about when they activate.
you cant exactly do that when your opponent is getting to declare charges at the same time.
auticus wrote: That is certainly a good way to put things into perspective.
AA is part of melee already yes. Now if we could get shooting / casting to follow something similar....
And even then, it wouldn't take much to make Movement from there, either.
A lot of rules are made to handle perceived deficits. A lot of the desire of going AA is how Warhammer deals with the Alpha Strike, particularly of the ranged and magic attacks. The changing Initiative emphasizes the problems inherent with Warhammer's traditional handling of Movement, Range, and Magic actions that one has access to in the game. Whereas with AA, even Phased AA, diminished the impact of changing Initiative by limiting how much Movement, Range, and Magic one can get out of their turn without reactions.
Infinity is a great point out. It largely is IGOUGO, but is so Reaction-heavy that it is almost a complete AA system. If it wasn't for the fact that so many Orders can be utilized on one model, it's almost X-Com in simplicity.
Right. But here's the thing: thats exactly the gameplay fantasy that Infinity is built to create. The GOAL of infinity is to replicate fight scenes like Ghost in the Shell or The Matrix or any given anime/cyberpunk film - where you have the potential to have the flashy main character hero leap in and take out a whole string of goons, and all the goons get to try and take a swing or shoot back at them or take cover, but where it's fairly likely that your badass anime protagonist hero is going to end up slicing/shooting them all to bits.
It's balanced around that, it's why you have the concept of "Cheerleader" models and why you can issue orders to the same guy multiple times. The same concept, applied to a WW1 historical simulation game (I have actually seen this, btw) results in just Yakkity Sax comedy idiocy.
IMO, there should be a moment where I get to coordinate and marshal my forces and have some guy yell a command heroically as my lines march forward into position. I'm fine with everything descending into chaos and a whirlwind of alternating bloodletting once the armies get within striking distance of one another, but most purely AA systems in my experience do not lend themselves well to feeling like a 'mass battle.' I DESPISED the gameplay of Warmahordes, I thought it felt like a card game with really expensive cards rather than a wargame
Theres a reason apoc wasnt actually AA, and there's a reason why all of GW's skirmish systems are AA while the larger scale they get, the less likely they are to be purely AA.
I feel like in that example of a heavy shooting list versus a no shooting list, it's going to be almost like playing into a double turn for the shooty list though, unless the melee list has turn 1 alpha strike potential.
Example:
Turn 1: shooting army does all the shooting, melee army moves.
Turn 2: shooting army does another turn of shooting, hopefully the melee army gets into melee.
Now this isn't actually any worse than if under the current rules the shooting army went first, or the melee army went first but then got double turned against. But it does remove the possibility of the melee army going second and getting its own double turn. So across all possibilities its seems like the advantage is to the shooting list.
But of course we would need some games to assess this properly, as it's clearly a pretty broad simplification!
Its doubled relative to any melee output. Which is a huge advantage to a shooting heavy army vs a shooting light army.
I still don't see how their shooting doubles to melee. It shouldn't change at all. Everything in the army gets to shoot once if they have ranged attacks. Everything in the army gets to fight in melee if it has melee attacks.
Where do they get double the ranged shots? It should be exactly the same opportunity.
If I have 50 shots in my army with current system I shoot 50 times, and in AA version I shoot 50 times, not 100 times. In current system I can double turn giving me 100 shots before my opponent can move which is double the output, but not with AA. Unless you have a different AA system in mind.
Actually when we did our full AA system the thing that happened was a halving. Each player took a movement phase to move their army together, then there was a shared shoot+charge and a shared fight phase. That actually wound up reducing the amount of damage-dealing that went on, which allowed the games to go fully to round 5. Kinda nice!
That was ours too, and pretty similar results. In my system you could fight twice to represent being able to fight twice in current AOS, but we also tried it where you just exchanged melee once and it worked just fine as well, though had as you noted less damage output overall since nothing was going twice in a turn any longer.
We had the typical tournament lists running amuk in our campaign with heavy casting and shooting, and the AA made it more "fun" because you weren't just standing there. The main source of any disagreement I got in my system was from the shooting heavy or casting heavy guys complaining that they couldn't basically wipe their opponent out right away because their opponent could respond back and shoot back at them (so basically boiling that down to brass tacks - they were complaining that changing the rules made their optimized lists not optimized anymore - which yes ... that was expected since they were optimized for double turn tournament AOS and we weren't playing that with AA)
It doubles because currently each battle round you have potential for 1 set of shooting and 2 sets of melee. But with AA without other alterations you now do 1 set of shooting per turn and 1 set of melee. So the ratio of shooting to melee potential has doubled.
Ah ok so you're problem with it is that you lose the two melee activations a round.
In my system you didn't (you could melee twice) but that was something that when we didn't melee twice was complained about.
The outcome I saw from that was that the games weren't over as fast but that was a positive to me, but I can see how others may see that as a negative (mainly because in every game I play you don't get to fight twice in one round so it fits how I'm used to playing)
Stux wrote: It doubles because currently each battle round you have potential for 1 set of shooting and 2 sets of melee. But with AA without other alterations you now do 1 set of shooting per turn and 1 set of melee. So the ratio of shooting to melee potential has doubled.
Yes, potentially. However, you've got the sequence a bit off from what we actually played it as. It would be:
Shooting army moves (theoretically, into range)
Melee army moves (at least some units will probably be in charge range, given the low ranges generally in AOS)
Shooting army declares 1 unit's shooting attack
melee army declares 1 charge
etc, etc until shooting+charging phase is over
then fight phase commences again with each player committing one unit to fight.
One player gets to move before the other each round, but the other player gets 1 additional CP per round.
Sure, I can see how allowances can be made to rebalanced the power of shooting. It was really just a comment that without doing SOMETHING to tweak the rules it likely actually advantages shooting over the current system.
Also I'd say some armies would really struggle to get a T1 charge off against armies that can bring a lot or 30" shooting and are playing around you. Bit that's really more of a general game balance issue than a criticism of AA.
Plan-scheme:
-Use MSU to bleed all the opponent's activations
-Deep strike 9 stormfiends in front of them, shoot + charge without retaliation
-Activate stormfiends first on the next turn to do it again
That could work quite well with the dirt-cheap (point wise, god their monetary cost is disgusting) Skryre Acolytes. You're going to want them as spammed battleline anyways, to let you get up to 9 Stormfiends in a unit.
A quick mockup of a list to abuse that sort of AA activation could be something like...
Archwarlock
Grey Seer
Warlock Engineer
8 units of 5 Skryre Acolytes
1 unit of 9 Stormfriends. 3 ratling cannons, 3 shock gauntlets, whatever other gun tickles your fancy.
Soulscream Bridge
What holds this sort of list back in AA is... well, it costs 800$ CAD to buy just the Acolytes.
I think we could use an alt activation thread as it has far deviated from double turn.
The MSU will break alt activation is a topic that always comes up and has always come up for years. It even comes up in games that currently use AA.
In Conquest, for example, there was a short but hot argument on AA back in early 2020 where some of the vanguards thought it should be removed because as they said all one had to do was simply create MSU lists and farm AA and then just use their big stuff at the end with impunity. This helped give rise to the all militia / priest 100k army to test that theory out (as militia were the cheapest unit you could get short of force grown drones and you can literally carpet an entire table with militia/priest combos).
While entertaining, and definitely challenging in some parts, it was also not as bad as everyone thought it was going to be.
This also came up in Warlords of Nowhere (which uses the dice system where you draw a die from a bag and if its your color you activate a unit) and has been a to-do on forums for that game as well as a reason why several of our players didn't want to touch the game because they said AA systems can be gamed too easily by just running MSU.
It will also not surprise you that it was also voiced quite loudly in my AOS campaigns that used it.
Funny enough the person that had the biggest meltdown in my campaigns was a skaven player ... farming the AA system to then drop storm fiends in front of everyone.
Which was pretty powerful, like most powers in games where you can just drop units where you want and do what you want (which is why I'm against the way things just teleport and charge turn 1 in this game).
However after its initial charge it became manageable and that type of tactic didn't overrun everyone like it was promised to. Once they were on the table, the other players were usually able to begin ganging up on that unit to remove it, which was the main complaint of that particular skaven player on why AA was not fair (to him).
Now it should be said that ANY system will have parts you can break about it or parts that are to one type of playstyle more advantageous than others. However, I have not found anything in the games that used AA to be any more gregarious than what already exists in AOS today or any past warhammer game utilizing full igougo or strong derivatives of it.
Charistoph wrote: A lot of rules are made to handle perceived deficits. A lot of the desire of going AA is how Warhammer deals with the Alpha Strike, particularly of the ranged and magic attacks. The changing Initiative emphasizes the problems inherent with Warhammer's traditional handling of Movement, Range, and Magic actions that one has access to in the game. Whereas with AA, even Phased AA, diminished the impact of changing Initiative by limiting how much Movement, Range, and Magic one can get out of their turn without reactions.
Infinity is a great point out. It largely is IGOUGO, but is so Reaction-heavy that it is almost a complete AA system. If it wasn't for the fact that so many Orders can be utilized on one model, it's almost X-Com in simplicity.
Right. But here's the thing: thats exactly the gameplay fantasy that Infinity is built to create. The GOAL of infinity is to replicate fight scenes like Ghost in the Shell or The Matrix or any given anime/cyberpunk film - where you have the potential to have the flashy main character hero leap in and take out a whole string of goons, and all the goons get to try and take a swing or shoot back at them or take cover, but where it's fairly likely that your badass anime protagonist hero is going to end up slicing/shooting them all to bits.
It's balanced around that, it's why you have the concept of "Cheerleader" models and why you can issue orders to the same guy multiple times. The same concept, applied to a WW1 historical simulation game (I have actually seen this, btw) results in just Yakkity Sax comedy idiocy.
Right, I was just pointing out that a lot of the great things about Infinity was its Reaction system which allows it to be somewhat balanced when compared Games Workshop's IGOUGO system. I only pointed out the Cheerleader system because that was a departure from X-Com's system where a single unit had its movement and action.
IMO, there should be a moment where I get to coordinate and marshal my forces and have some guy yell a command heroically as my lines march forward into position. I'm fine with everything descending into chaos and a whirlwind of alternating bloodletting once the armies get within striking distance of one another, but most purely AA systems in my experience do not lend themselves well to feeling like a 'mass battle.'
Except that you'd never be able to do that with any turn-based game, either IGOUGO or AA. I guess the closest one MIGHT get would be to include the number of reactions that Infinity has, but with Fantasy Battles numbers and organization. Even then, it has its problems because of the turn-based nature of the system.
the_scotsman wrote:I DESPISED the gameplay of Warmahordes, I thought it felt like a card game with really expensive cards rather than a wargame
Which is interesting when it is still an IGOUGO system like Warhammer, nor ever intended to be a massed battle game, but more like a heavy skirmish game. Somewhere between the small numbers of Infinity and Malifaux and the hordes of AoS. But yeah, I've heard it compared as "Magic: The Gathering with models".
Rihgu wrote: Every time a player chants the mantra "I *need* this double turn to win!" I die a little inside. And then when they actually get the double turn, I fully die.
Rihgu wrote: For what it's worth, I'm kicking off an AoS campaign soon and it was unanimously voted to house rule away the Double Turn in a pre-campaign survey.
Topical section if you don’t want to read the entire article:
The Dreaded Double Turn:
The double turn system in AoS was probably the single factor that kept me from playing the game. I thought any game where my opponent just randomly gets back to back attempts to take my army off the table cannot be fun. Like with many things in my life, I was wrong about this as well.
First, just rolling for the double turn was exciting each time. Knowing that, if I won priority, I could swing the game around in my favor at almost any time gave the game a sense of purpose even when my little swamp Orruks (Orks?) were being massacred. Obviously, this could easily go the other way with the player who is winning getting a double turn, but AoS has some rules in place to help mitigate this.
The second player on the third turn gets to remove an Objective from the battlefield. This seemed like an excellent way to really make players think if they wanted to take that double turn or not. You may be able to go twice, but this isn’t 40k. You may kill an extra unit, but it may be at the cost of losing out on points with that objective your opponent is going to take away from you.
Kind of neat to see this perspective from a new player.
I'd be interested in that player's opinion if he's playing a shooting or casting heavy power list that double turns him - how much fun he had in that type of game.
I love the aspect of pulling an objective because it makes the double a real choice in that instance. Some games it isn't worth taking a round 2-3 because of that. Unfortunately it also makes coming back from getting hit by a 1-2 that much harder.
My local tournaments have been run with a house rule that the first random initiative roll doesn't happen until round 3. So no 1-2 doubles, ever. It's a pretty big improvement.
)
It leads to some very tough decisions round 3; the strength of a double is nice, but is it worth letting the opponent pull an objective?
