Plumbumbarum wrote: Products have universaly agreed inherent quality requirements.
Universally agreed? When did we all agree as to what constitutes a quality war game? Did your country legislate some regulations about this or something? I don't think they were adopted in the UK or US.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Not to mention that ignoring a feedback from large portion of your active consumers (competitive gamers) is one of the worst quality management crimes you can commit.
I'm not sure you can demonstrate GW ignores competitive gamers just because it has not chosen to make a rule set that faciliates tournament-style play. A company can learn not to do things, after all.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Products have universaly agreed inherent quality requirements.
Universally agreed? When did we all agree as to what constitutes a quality war game? Did your country legislate some regulations about this or something? I don't think they were adopted in the UK or US.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Not to mention that ignoring a feedback from large portion of your active consumers (competitive gamers) is one of the worst quality management crimes you can commit.
I'm not sure you can demonstrate GW ignores competitive gamers just because it has not chosen to make a rule set that faciliates tournament-style play. A company can learn not to do things, after all.
The thing is, there's no reason not to write a balanced ruleset that does also facilitate tournament style play. Everyone wins with a tight ruleset. Narrative, casual and tournament players all would benifit from a well written, well balanced set of rules.
Irony being the fact that Mantic gained a lot of recognition and goodwill thanks to new GW rules and if able to capitalise on it, might grow into a much more significant competition than ever before.
Yeah, it is pretty funny that Mantic is essentially built on the things that GW dropped. First it was Dreadball that got them rolling, and now it might be KoW that makes them big. Even better is that they are almost neighbours - GW management must have fun watching the little company that's Mantic churn out profit with all the stuff that they failed
It's sad that the overall effect of the CHS case was a company more paranoid, insular, secretive and petty than ever before.
I have a feeling that if GW used the money and effort in developing their rules team and market research, instead of all legal battles and copyright stuff, they'd be much better off. I cannot see much return for all those legal costs, copyright revamps etc. they've invested in, and while at it the rules team seems to have suffered the most, which has lowered the overall quality of their product.
ImAGeek wrote: But...why? It just cuts off a chunk of your potential customers.
Everything has a cost, including selling to certain demographics. Perhaps the costs outweigh the potential profit.
prowla wrote: Yeah, it is pretty funny that Mantic is essentially built on the things that GW dropped.
Mantic is great because it can afford to do things that GW cannot or does not want to precisely because it is so much smaller and niche-oriented. If you think about it ecologically, Mantic is a commensalist symbiont of GW. It thrives in (admittedly small) markets GW makes available. But it isn't much of a competitor (yet).
Mort wrote: Losing most certainly does not ruin my fun - at least I hope not, since I probably lose about 55-60% of the games I play. But losing sure does ruin WAAC guy's fun, as you can tell by the quiet awkwardness as he makes up his excuses while he's packing his cheddar back into his minis case.
Losing certain does NOT ruin my fun either. In fact, our group makes a very active effort to rebalance to give everyone a reasonable chance of winning against everyone else. I don't want to win 9 games in a row OR lose 9 games in a row, especially against the same person. In a perfect world, around 50/50 is cool, and just a little above that against skilled players makes me feel good.
In computer games with matchmaking (like starcraft and hearthstone), after you reach equilibrium (stomp all the people much less skilled than you), your win ratio approaches 50%. If you can keep it at 51%, you will eventually be the #1 rated player in the season. But these are the kinds of W/L ratios I like, and I'm happy to handicap (remove my own units, or let the other person have more) to get there in a wargame.
The definition of WAAC guy -is- arbitrary - I said pretty much that very thing in my description. It varies from person to person. For some, a WAAC guy is just someone who cheats. If you're willing to break the rules just to win, well, you're a WAAC punk. For others, it means something a bit different.
For me, WAAC guy puts winning above having fun. Cheating doesn't make the game fun for your opponent. Whining, pouting, and crying during the game (especially when things aren't going your way) doesn't make it fun for your opponent. Doing your best to table your opponent on turn two -probably- doesn't make the game fun for your opponent. WAAC guy sees the game as an event solely for -his- enjoyment and entertainment, and if his opponent has fun or not is pretty much irrelevant to him.
I'm with you on the WAAC guy as putting winning above having fun. I don't actually consider cheating "Any Cost" -- any more than I consider bashing your opponent's head in with a beanie, or having someone call him to tell him that his house is on fire and forcing him to concede. Like, WAAC still assumes that the "Any Cost" is within the constraints of the game rules, because once you're willing to go past that, it's just a question of who's meaner and wants to win more, and has nothing to do with a game at all.
I'm ok with someone who tries to table me on T2 as long as that's not ALL they EVER try to do. If they want to test out a killer list on me, I'm happy to be a guinea pig. I'd welcome it as long as they're ok with me figuring a way to counter it, and crying uncle if I can't with the tools that are at hand.
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
filbert wrote: does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
I believe that AoS is a more extreme version of what GW has been doing with 40k over the last few years. I think GW would like to go this far with 40k eventually but the 40k brand is practically synonymous with the bottom line and so GW decided to experiment with a far less valuable brand first (which had nowhere to go but up). So if AoS dramatically improves Fantasy sales, I think GW will continue to steer 40k in the direction it has been going, namely toward what we see in AoS -- but with greater speed. I think AoS will be a big success in terms of the Fantasy brand. The trick is, how much of a success does it need to be to speed up 40k along its current course?
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
Balanced rules can actually be made quite cheaply. An 'open' ruleset currated and created by professionals but actively tested by large segments of the player base wouldn't cost more than GW currently spends on games development ( or at least more than they should be spending) could easily lead to a tight but well balanced game. Given that the AOS rules are free I don't understand why GW doesn't go down this route, aside from GW being GW.
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
wait, wait, wait. Didn't privateer press bassicly do that when they made Mark 2?
Not to mention the new 2nd ed of kings of war?
I don't think "It's hard to balence a game" is a excuse to just throw out the baby with the bath water and get rid of even the illusion that some thought went into the rules. I will call it for what it is, and that it was GW was to lazy to even care.
The target demographic for PP and Mantic games are competitive gamers; that is, their business models are built around the idea of marketing their products as tournament-geared. Just because GW is a larger company that manages a much more popular brand does not mean it can do everything smaller companies with less popular brands can do plus more.
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
It goes deeper than that.
We're not balancing archers, chariots, and spearmen here. There are hundreds units, many with special (magical) abilities that might individually be balanced, but when applied as force multipliers to each other are extremely difficult to balance. For example, Librarians? Cool. Centurions? Cool. Take both? They are worth WAY more than the two units separately, because one can make the other nigh invincible.
The one thing worse than not putting out points for everything is to have points that aren't balanced -- as Manchu puts it, finely tuned balance such that people can pick anything from a vast menu, and as long as it adds up to X points, the battle forces have some kind of chance to win. You know the competitive crowd is going to go nuts looking for those wombo combos to win tournaments. Every competitive player's heart aches for the next rule that can be badly abused.
Games Workshop has taken a gamble: instead of trying to balance units individually, they're planning to sell battle scenarios where they've prebalanced the two sides. Pick a scenario, and unless GW wrote the scenario badly, you won't be able to get into a situation where there's great imbalance. Alternatively, sit down with your opponent, and work out what you feel are two opposing forces that are competitive with each other.
Is this a winning formula in terms of selling a product? I don't know. As I said, as much as competitive players whine and bitch about imbalance, they *love* rules they can abuse. I know, because on the PC, you'll find no more competitive a player, and no worse an abuser of game mechanics. I will do ANYTHING within the terms of service (ie I won't cheat) of a PC game to claw my way to the top of that ladder, and I care not for what fun the other player is having, because I don't know them from a fly on the wall.
However, in miniature wargames, it's TOTALLY different, for me. I mean, the guy is standing 5 feet from me. Even if I don't know him or her, I'm gonna have a conversation, hopefully make friends, and hopefully play again in the future. We're probably going to share food and beverage, and be genuinely interested in each other's miniatures and gaming likes and dislikes. It's a real person that's there. So no, I want it to be a fair fight, and I'm happy to do what it takes to make it thus.
On the other hand, I really do enjoy listbuilding and unit configuration, something that's AoS doesn't offer, partly in the effort to simplify. Perhaps in the long run I'll find some entertainment in scenario building, where the challnge is to build TWO interesting lists that face off against each other in some interesting context. I dunno.
I don't think "It's hard to balence a game" is a excuse to just throw out the baby with the bath water and get rid of even the illusion that some thought went into the rules. I will call it for what it is, and that it was GW was to lazy to even care.
It goes a little deeper than that, though. Games Workshop has ALWAYS been about the awesomeness of miniatures more than about game balance and tournament play. It's in their DNA. If you talk to their folks, you can feel it seep into their conversations. It's in WHW, in White Dwarf, Visions and everything else they do.
In their own words, theirs are games about like minded hobbyists sharing a common gaming experience. That just doesn't sound like, "You. Me. FIGHT!" When you talk to many WMH or X-Wing players, the models are more gamepieces and tokens than potential art or collectibles.
As I've said before, doing what you want to do is not being lazy or not caring; it's just caring about and focusing on something different. Now, whether or not GW can make a business out of it, I don't know. Maybe.
I can say that there's nothing particularly "lazy" about Age of Sigmar. We played it for 6 hours on Sunday, with random Warhammer Fantasy miniatures, and we had a blast. I mean, it was more fun than most other games that we randomly pick up and try, and even though some of us had totally disjointed battleforces and a couple had almost-cohesive armies, the games were pretty close.
We were supposed to play 2 games of 40k and give AoS a quick go; as it turned out, we ended up spending half our time on AoS, and talked about it most of the time we were playing 40k. I'm sure we'll play with the Sigmarites/Chaos when the box comes out, and try out the scenarios there. It's not going to replace 40k for us, but it certainly isn't a terrible game.
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
Another point I'll add to that is that a points system means there are always unit people won't use, thus won't buy.
If a company spends X amount designing and producing a unit for it to then not sell because the points aren't as good as another unit it's a waste. And I imagine the cost it takes for GW to research/design/produce a unit is more than its competitors in the market.
I think this is what GW is experimenting with. Does removing points encourage more balanced sales across units.
Like on Sunday - I played Masque of Slaanesh for the first time. Wouldn't have happened if points were still a thing.
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
Another point I'll add to that is that a points system means there are always unit people won't use, thus won't buy.
If a company spends X amount designing and producing a unit for it to then not sell because the points aren't as good as another unit it's a waste. And I imagine the cost it takes for GW to research/design/produce a unit is more than its competitors in the market.
I think this is what GW is experimenting with. Does removing points encourage more balanced sales across units.
Like on Sunday - I played Masque of Slaanesh for the first time. Wouldn't have happened if points were still a thing.
Why does it take GW more money to research, design and produce a unit than other games companies..?
Manchu wrote: We will all be newcomers to AoS. The starter box seems pretty well balanced. Once people new to AoS and wargaming generally get the feel for it, they will be okay making up their own scenarios.
If the people are fine with their games being tacticaly meaningless then sure but without a good balancing mechanism you dont even have a way of saying whether it's your tactics or not that decided the game. You can guess and that's it.
@MLaw you mixed people who are serious with the rules, straight cheaters, douches, guys with a temper, guys just jumping the GWs "gentleman agreement" idiocy and normal guys playing by the rules. You only proved to me that the term is a meaningless mess.
Not to mention half of the problems you mention wouldnt exist if the rules weren't crap. What kind of ridiculous game this has to be that you as a player have to rely on massive exodus of other kind of players, elaborate pre game negotiations, trusted friendships or fixing the rules to have a chance to have some fun. Really I'd make anything work with all that.
That's what good ruleset is for, to avoid all the bs.
You'll likely get a different answer asking different people what 'WAAC' means to them.
For me, WAAC are those guys who put 'winning' above everything else - including putting it above having fun.
Those guys -know- who they are, generally, and yeah, they hate the label - because it -fits-. Most of them will deny it, but - watching them play a game, and it becomes quite obvious.
Those same guys will say, 'Well, WAAC is my way of having fun!' which just proves the point, really.
Why would your opponent playing to win stop you from having fun? Does loosing ruin your fun? Sounds like waac heh.
I'd say my opponent being a "waac" is a requirement for a fun game where fun is a test of one's mind performed in a game set in cool universe with beautiful game pieces. Win itself is secondary but playing hard to win is crucial.
It sonds like a set of some vague arbitrary rules with a purpose of bringing the better player down instead of improving your tactics or your list where in fact you should be happy if your game is deep enough to let you do the former and very unhappy (about the rules not the players) if your game makes the latter impossible without taking a handful of visibly op units or combinations.
Like I said - those guys know who they are. They're the dbags that piss and moan about every bad roll, take the cheesiest units/formations and load up on them as much as possible. They often bend/twist rules, argue anything not cast in stone, and are generally terrible players to play against. TFG is usually a WAAC player.
Losing most certainly does not ruin my fun - at least I hope not, since I probably lose about 55-60% of the games I play. But losing sure does ruin WAAC guy's fun, as you can tell by the quiet awkwardness as he makes up his excuses while he's packing his cheddar back into his minis case.
The definition of WAAC guy -is- arbitrary - I said pretty much that very thing in my description. It varies from person to person. For some, a WAAC guy is just someone who cheats. If you're willing to break the rules just to win, well, you're a WAAC punk. For others, it means something a bit different.
For me, WAAC guy puts winning above having fun. Cheating doesn't make the game fun for your opponent. Whining, pouting, and crying during the game (especially when things aren't going your way) doesn't make it fun for your opponent. Doing your best to table your opponent on turn two -probably- doesn't make the game fun for your opponent. WAAC guy sees the game as an event solely for -his- enjoyment and entertainment, and if his opponent has fun or not is pretty much irrelevant to him.
Well I do care for opponent enjoyment and am generaly too nice in rl, traits I was sadly never able to overcome but I never put much weight into others caring for my enjoyment tbh. It's a game not a brothel (that's not a suggestion that casual gamers are whores or sth lol) and unless you cheat or accuse me of cheating, we're not here to pleasure each other and the game itself is pleasure enough.
Never had a problem with sore loosers either, it's just a trait for me nothing more. Btw from my experience the worsst sore loosers are the scenario beardy this beardy that relaxed types especialy when they loose a scenario where they had a clear advantage. Jesus the crying, the army is op, so point and click that a monkey could win , he sells the game etc, again not really a problem but it was excessive for sure in few cases. Sure purely anecdotal but very funny in the context of the discussion imo.
Also I have a story about balance and casual play. Back in 5th I played nids, my friend played space marines and I had a winning streak against him like 20 games or sth. Now I am not much into fluff more into artwork and minis but he was very immersed in his army and the narrative of it. My list was mediocore at best, 5th edition cc carnifex and a second one with venom canon, walking hive tyrant a zoanthrope venomthrope some warriors lot of stealers and gaunts. It was neither horde not nidzila and far from min maxed in any part. Anyway we switched to 6th where my army got considerably worse and I was still winning, I remember adding a Trygon at some point but it wasnt some op thing by any stretch. I had been succesively limiting our terrain to finaly loose and in the end proposed to play on an empty table. I won, it was his last game of 40k ever and while obviously I am a natural strategic, tactical and overall genius, the actual reason he was loosing that badly was his love for tactical marines, terminators and dreadnoughts. Competitive player would just use better options but he as an ultimate narrative player was fethed by GW abysmal balancing.
Having played four AoS games now (two from the starter set and two with armies my opponent and I created), I have to say that I think a lot of the rage/quit comments are misguided.
Before, so much of WHFB seemed to boil down to who was better at placing their movement trays. With the AoS rules, tactics come back into the game in interesting ways. Formations no longer matter, so how you move and place models takes on a whole new significance. For game balance, my opponents and I agreed on wounds as our number. We created a 100 wounds apiece battle, and the games lasted about 3 hours each. The random aspect of who goes first each turn keeps things interesting and exciting. And the pile in mechanic allows for more models to get into combat rather than being stuck at the end of rank.
One thing I really liked about the scrolls was that most monsters now have variable stats, depending on their wounds. It makes you think how best to use them rather than just barrelling forward into combat.
My big takeaway - if you like 8th edition, your game is still there, and now your models will be there as they are being supported by AoS. If you are new to fantasy, want to pick it up again, or play 40K, you might want to give AoS a try. So far, the games have been fun (something that was lacking in my last experience with WHFB). Of course, your milage may vary.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Products have universaly agreed inherent quality requirements.
Universally agreed? When did we all agree as to what constitutes a quality war game? Did your country legislate some regulations about this or something? I don't think they were adopted in the UK or US.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Not to mention that ignoring a feedback from large portion of your active consumers (competitive gamers) is one of the worst quality management crimes you can commit.
I'm not sure you can demonstrate GW ignores competitive gamers just because it has not chosen to make a rule set that faciliates tournament-style play. A company can learn not to do things, after all.
Logic dictates those requirements. Balance is better than no balance, clear rules better than vague, faq better than no faq, reliable car better than unreliable etc. Then they get universaly agreed because logic dictates them, ie you agreeing with me from now on heh.
It sure looks like GW is ignoring competitive gamers atm. Maybe they dont though, how can you say when they hardly communicate with their customers.
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
Yes quality has a price that you have to pay if you want to have a quality product.
We're not balancing archers, chariots, and spearmen here. There are hundreds units, many with special (magical) abilities that might individually be balanced, but when applied as force multipliers to each other are extremely difficult to balance. For example, Librarians? Cool. Centurions? Cool. Take both? They are worth WAY more than the two units separately, because one can make the other nigh invincible.
It's true, and what would be required for balancing is to reduce the complexity and make different armies closer to each other statwise - especially if GW insists on making a ton of different units and armies. IMO one of the few positive things with the AoS is that the warscrolls have dropped a whole layer of extra complexity in form of equipment, making units more simple and easier to balance.
If I was designing a miniatures game, I would first make all the armies have roughly similar units, wizards etc., then add flavour with only very small changes. Ogres gain little toughness, elves have small movement bonus, skaven units have a couple of extra models etc., but nothing to make anything OP, that sort of thing. Smaller the army specific bonuses/disadvantages are, easier they are to balance and less effect a bad balancing job has. Having powerful special rules for different units is just asking for trouble, especially if you want to suddenly add new units to the range.
IMO this is what GW should do as well. If they don't want to spend much time doing game development, then make a simple game where every army has similar units of light/heavy cavalry/infantry/bowmen etc. and let people choose a faction simply based on what minis they like.
Manchu wrote: The target demographic for PP and Mantic games are competitive gamers; that is, their business models are built around the idea of marketing their products as tournament-geared. Just because GW is a larger company that manages a much more popular brand does not mean it can do everything smaller companies with less popular brands can do plus more.
Are you sure? Mantic gamers don't seem to be any more competitive than anyone else, and whilst PP has super-competitive tournaments it's also a good casual game (though with a steep learning curve).
There's no reason GW should avoid a balanced game, except to sell more models. But that's their thing now; models uber alles.
I wonder if they'll work up some rules for all current 40K armies, too? Maybe I should hang on to my Dark Angels for now, especially since my Ork Boyz will work with the current system.
Too bad AoS is actually a batter game than Warpath. Mantic should seriously just take the AoS core rules and write army lists (with points values, obviously) for their sci-fi stuff and call it a day.
Jeff Tracy wrote:Having played four AoS games now (two from the starter set and two with armies my opponent and I created), I have to say that I think a lot of the rage/quit comments are misguided.
Before, so much of WHFB seemed to boil down to who was better at placing their movement trays. With the AoS rules, tactics come back into the game in interesting ways. Formations no longer matter, so how you move and place models takes on a whole new significance. For game balance, my opponents and I agreed on wounds as our number. We created a 100 wounds apiece battle, and the games lasted about 3 hours each. The random aspect of who goes first each turn keeps things interesting and exciting. And the pile in mechanic allows for more models to get into combat rather than being stuck at the end of rank.
One thing I really liked about the scrolls was that most monsters now have variable stats, depending on their wounds. It makes you think how best to use them rather than just barrelling forward into combat.
My big takeaway - if you like 8th edition, your game is still there, and now your models will be there as they are being supported by AoS. If you are new to fantasy, want to pick it up again, or play 40K, you might want to give AoS a try. So far, the games have been fun (something that was lacking in my last experience with WHFB). Of course, your milage may vary.
Not having ever played WHFB, this is an interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing, Jeff
Wounds does seem like a pretty reasonable balancing factor. I don't know how abusable the warscrolls are when it's balanced this way, nor if this makes certain units always poor choices and other units always excellent choices -- I just don't know Fantasy units well enough, and I'm not quite sure I'll ever read all 400-ish or so warscrolls... though it is entertaining, lol
We're not balancing archers, chariots, and spearmen here. There are hundreds units, many with special (magical) abilities that might individually be balanced, but when applied as force multipliers to each other are extremely difficult to balance. For example, Librarians? Cool. Centurions? Cool. Take both? They are worth WAY more than the two units separately, because one can make the other nigh invincible.
It's true, and what would be required for balancing is to reduce the complexity and make different armies closer to each other statwise - especially if GW insists on making a ton of different units and armies. IMO one of the few positive things with the AoS is that the warscrolls have dropped a whole layer of extra complexity in form of equipment, making units more simple and easier to balance.
If I was designing a miniatures game, I would first make all the armies have roughly similar units, wizards etc., then add flavour with only very small changes. Ogres gain little toughness, elves have small movement bonus, skaven units have a couple of extra models etc., but nothing to make anything OP, that sort of thing. Smaller the army specific bonuses/disadvantages are, easier they are to balance and less effect a bad balancing job has. Having powerful special rules for different units is just asking for trouble, especially if you want to suddenly add new units to the range.
Right. In a lot of ways, Rogue Trader was like this -- most factions had access to the same items or equivalents, at least where it mattered, and the greatest difference was in statlines. I mean, sergeants could take vortex grenades, and tactical squads could take D-Cannons.
The flip side of this balance is that you have armies that are very same-y, and people complain that there's no "flavor". I'm not sure the market would tolerate such a game except for historicals.
I think "modern 40k" -- post 2015 -- is pretty balanced in a GOOD way, with formations and superformations that make each faction radically different, but gives access to really good stuff that offers flexibility, fluff, and power. Largely, this is accomplished by saying, "if you take this list of stuff, you will get something really neat". It encourages people to take from a quasi-fixed list of stuff, and it's much easier for GW to balance formations, than every possible unit potentially combined by the player. Ironically, it's a little like the Scenarios in AoS, but with points
Also, that "different but same" balancing is really hard to achieve when you have incarnations of Gods walking around the battlefield, like Bloodthirsters and Nagash. You really want them to be feared -- and different. And remember GW's philosophy -- cool models first, how to make it work in the game second.
Jeff Tracy wrote: Having played four AoS games now (two from the starter set and two with armies my opponent and I created), I have to say that I think a lot of the rage/quit comments are misguided.
Before, so much of WHFB seemed to boil down to who was better at placing their movement trays. With the AoS rules, tactics come back into the game in interesting ways. Formations no longer matter, so how you move and place models takes on a whole new significance. For game balance, my opponents and I agreed on wounds as our number. We created a 100 wounds apiece battle, and the games lasted about 3 hours each. The random aspect of who goes first each turn keeps things interesting and exciting. And the pile in mechanic allows for more models to get into combat rather than being stuck at the end of rank.
One thing I really liked about the scrolls was that most monsters now have variable stats, depending on their wounds. It makes you think how best to use them rather than just barrelling forward into combat.
My big takeaway - if you like 8th edition, your game is still there, and now your models will be there as they are being supported by AoS. If you are new to fantasy, want to pick it up again, or play 40K, you might want to give AoS a try. So far, the games have been fun (something that was lacking in my last experience with WHFB). Of course, your milage may vary.
So you think a game where units have facing, turning on the spot is not free and flank/ rear charges provide advantage is less tactical than a game with none of the above where you move entire units like they were skirmish models. Interesting tbh.
filbert wrote: does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
I believe that AoS is a more extreme version of what GW has been doing with 40k over the last few years. I think GW would like to go this far with 40k eventually but the 40k brand is practically synonymous with the bottom line and so GW decided to experiment with a far less valuable brand first (which had nowhere to go but up). So if AoS dramatically improves Fantasy sales, I think GW will continue to steer 40k in the direction it has been going, namely toward what we see in AoS -- but with greater speed. I think AoS will be a big success in terms of the Fantasy brand. The trick is, how much of a success does it need to be to speed up 40k along its current course?
I agree with all of this.
I also will state that I would welcome an AOB style version of 40K, with free rules, because I have tons of figures that haven't had an outing since the end of 5th because the books became too expensive. I do not think I am the only one.
The key question for GW is whether increased sales of kits will more than make up for lost sales of books. AOB obviouly gives them some idea about that.
Out of interest has anyone tried playing AoS with units the same size as they are sold with?
Most elite units have only 10 dudes where as base infantry units have 16-20 just thinking if they made the scrolls with the intention that people could just play the unit from the box it could add an element of balance.
New Age of Sigmar "other book" replacing old WHFBBRB SKU.
EDIT: Okay the bols link wasn't, but someone got a screen cap of essentially the same thing.
For the love all that is holy, please be an expanded rule book. I'm a fan of the warscrolls (mostly, lulz stuff aside), some of the forces have an elegance and nuance to them that i was happily surprised with given the overall streamlined nature of the game. All that we need now is a real core ruleset rather than the hogslop the box set served up, and i think this could be a pretty good game.
Talys wrote: We're not balancing archers, chariots, and spearmen here. There are hundreds units, many with special (magical) abilities that might individually be balanced, but when applied as force multipliers to each other are extremely difficult to balance. For example, Librarians? Cool. Centurions? Cool. Take both? They are worth WAY more than the two units separately, because one can make the other nigh invincible.
The one thing worse than not putting out points for everything is to have points that aren't balanced -- as Manchu puts it, finely tuned balance such that people can pick anything from a vast menu, and as long as it adds up to X points, the battle forces have some kind of chance to win. You know the competitive crowd is going to go nuts looking for those wombo combos to win tournaments. Every competitive player's heart aches for the next rule that can be badly abused.
I don't disagree that the situation GW are currently in with far too many units with unquie rules added to sell new kits. So many different rules makes it much harder than it should be to sort out balance but it is addressable, and it is much easier than is being made out if they just paired everything back to the bone then carefully built from there. The game boils down to rock, paper, sissors with a few more options but everything within a particular tree, e.g., assault unit, should be points costed against every other assault unit using a standardised formula based on the core stats of M, S, T, Sv, A, WS, BS, W.
Force multiplers such as librarians should be costed as such and each army needs access to such a unit, they become self balancing if they are costed appropriately, it should not be like GW doesn't understand that casting invisability on a high T unit doesn't make it almost impossible to kill. Understanding X * Y = Z for a range of values for X and Y is the job of a spreadsheet, its straightforward modelling. Mathhammer is a basic list building tool that even I can use.
Combos will slip through the net as will incorrect costing, everybody makes mistakes, the problem comes when GW refuses or doesn't care to fix the balance issue with a FAQ and seemingly hasn't for a long time now. Predefined army selections such as formations are a lazy way to implement balance and I do not think they are GW's primary aim here, some of the GW online store exclusive 40k formations have been the most OOT so far and unsurprisingly been tied to big bundles of plastic.
New Age of Sigmar "other book" replacing old WHFBBRB SKU.
EDIT: Okay the bols link wasn't, but someone got a screen cap of essentially the same thing.
For the love all that is holy, please be an expanded rule book. I'm a fan of the warscrolls (mostly, lulz stuff aside), some of the forces have an elegance and nuance to them that i was happily surprised with given the overall streamlined nature of the game. All that we need now is a real core ruleset rather than the hogslop the box set served up, and i think this could be a pretty good game.
Apparently it's just a fancy version of the book that comes in the AoS box sorry.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Products have universaly agreed inherent quality requirements.
Universally agreed? When did we all agree as to what constitutes a quality war game? Did your country legislate some regulations about this or something? I don't think they were adopted in the UK or US.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Not to mention that ignoring a feedback from large portion of your active consumers (competitive gamers) is one of the worst quality management crimes you can commit.
I'm not sure you can demonstrate GW ignores competitive gamers just because it has not chosen to make a rule set that faciliates tournament-style play. A company can learn not to do things, after all.
My competitive players mostly all quit playing fantasy, and never come into the shop for pick up games. The only time they play is to "practice" for a tournament with a specific list over and over, mostly proxying models until they get it right, and then not worrying about fantasy until the next tournament they want to go to. WFB sits on the wall gathering dust this last two yeas.
With Age of Simar i've been very surprised to already have players just wandering in and playing games again, using the free rules online and telling me how much they like the game. Most of the people coming in haven't playe WFB in years.
Not willing to say GW did something right just yet.....we'll see how the launch of the starter box goes and where we are at in a month. I made 4 army lists for AoS. Like the players coming into my shop I've got an itch to play with my armies and now have people to play with while at work
Got bored last night, started working on algorithms and classifications for a points system......
You know, I'd have a much easier time buying this "Oh no, no, GW only care about kewl models brah, and forgin' dat narrative yeah" shtick folk are peddling if GW hadn't spent the last 15 years slowly strangling and then mercilessly killing off its line of Specialist Games which were almost all primarily about cool models and narrative gaming.
As my Grandad would say; Ehhh, naw, I dinnae 'hink sae pal.
GW don't give a gak about narrative gaming or producing quality models, not from a managerial perspective; AoS is the product of the same thinking that killed SGs, the same thinking that brought about 1-man stores, the same thinking that turned FW from a home for the company's labours of love to a monotask servitor churning out SM shoulderpads and Contemptor variants(yes, I know, it's called hyperbole, a perfectly valid rhetorical device, unbunch), the same thinking that's seen GWHQ seemingly trying to actively sabotage its relationships with its own retail partners: Maximium profit with minimum effort, feth long-term viability, gotta get dem dividends dividends dividends.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Products have universaly agreed inherent quality requirements.
Universally agreed? When did we all agree as to what constitutes a quality war game? Did your country legislate some regulations about this or something? I don't think they were adopted in the UK or US.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Not to mention that ignoring a feedback from large portion of your active consumers (competitive gamers) is one of the worst quality management crimes you can commit.
I'm not sure you can demonstrate GW ignores competitive gamers just because it has not chosen to make a rule set that faciliates tournament-style play. A company can learn not to do things, after all.
Logic dictates those requirements. Balance is better than no balance, clear rules better than vague, faq better than no faq, reliable car better than unreliable etc. Then they get universaly agreed because logic dictates them, ie you agreeing with me from now on heh.
It sure looks like GW is ignoring competitive gamers atm. Maybe they dont though, how can you say when they hardly communicate with their customers.
ImAGeek wrote: What extra cost is there selling a ruleset to competitive players than there is selling a ruleset to non competitive players?
Seriously? So much of this thread is about how important it is to create balance. And people don't just want rough balance; they want something finely tuned. That costs money. It costs a lot of money to do it on the scale necessary for the back catalog of units in GW's line. And it costs lots of money going forward, as GW adds to the line. It's not just a matter of recruiting and retaining good designers, either. Power creep spiral is a real thing in competitive game product lines, which is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation that can derail an entire brand (see, e.g., WHFB).
Yes quality has a price that you have to pay if you want to have a quality product.
The rules certainly are not quality. And the Kirbymites look carbon copies of each other with the odd difference. I'm not expecting anything wow from GW fantasy wise at least for the time being.
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Yodhrin wrote: You know, I'd have a much easier time buying this "Oh no, no, GW only care about kewl models brah, and forgin' dat narrative yeah" shtick folk are peddling if GW hadn't spent the last 15 years slowly strangling and then mercilessly killing off its line of Specialist Games which were almost all primarily about cool models and narrative gaming.
As my Grandad would say; Ehhh, naw, I dinnae 'hink sae pal.
GW don't give a gak about narrative gaming or producing quality models, not from a managerial perspective; AoS is the product of the same thinking that killed SGs, the same thinking that brought about 1-man stores, the same thinking that turned FW from a home for the company's labours of love to a monotask servitor churning out SM shoulderpads and Contemptor variants(yes, I know, it's called hyperbole, a perfectly valid rhetorical device, unbunch), the same thinking that's seen GWHQ seemingly trying to actively sabotage its relationships with its own retail partners: Maximium profit with minimum effort, feth long-term viability, gotta get dem dividends dividends dividends.
This analysis is spot on. Old fantasy will be replaced with the bland uniform thing that AoS has started to show don't expect anything getting much save Kirbymites.
My competitive players mostly all quit playing fantasy, and never come into the shop for pick up games. The only time they play is to "practice" for a tournament with a specific list over and over, mostly proxying models until they get it right, and then not worrying about fantasy until the next tournament they want to go to. WFB sits on the wall gathering dust this last two yeas.
With Age of Simar i've been very surprised to already have players just wandering in and playing games again, using the free rules online and telling me how much they like the game. Most of the people coming in haven't playe WFB in years.
Not willing to say GW did something right just yet.....we'll see how the launch of the starter box goes and where we are at in a month. I made 4 army lists for AoS. Like the players coming into my shop I've got an itch to play with my armies and now have people to play with while at work
Got bored last night, started working on algorithms and classifications for a points system......
Well that happens everytime a new editions has been released. People are curious. Difference this time: The game is 1) shallow 2) pretty bad 3) this is the important one: Compared to 5 years ago, WHF has got A TON MORE competition. It is not that dominant anymore. In case, Warmachine and stuff have taken over.
filbert wrote: So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
Money. It's all about the money with GW. Other discussions have pointed to WFB being less than 16% of GW's sales. A rough estimate from data over the years puts paints and non gaming items at another 1/6th. Lets not worry about lotr. So 40k is 2/3rds of GW's sales of product.
I don't expect them to muck with 40k unless things either go very bad for 40k in the future, or AoS gets astronomical sales.
filbert wrote: So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
Money. It's all about the money with GW. Other discussions have pointed to WFB being less than 16% of GW's sales. A rough estimate from data over the years puts paints and non gaming items at another 1/6th. Lets not worry about lotr. So 40k is 2/3rds of GW's sales of product.
I don't expect them to muck with 40k unless things either go very bad for 40k in the future, or AoS gets astronomical sales.
Your either very short sighted or haven't been in the hobby long, it's only a matter of time before the ruleset is similar to AoS in 40k that way they will have protected their games completely.
5 years maybe.
And you will have to replace your old FWHH books. More profit for them.
heartserenade wrote:Kind of related: Mantic has smelled blood. Rick Priestly, original WHFB creator, wrote the foreword of their new KoW rulebook.
Rick Priestly, king of the trolls.
ShaneTB wrote:
Another point I'll add to that is that a points system means there are always unit people won't use, thus won't buy.
Mostly if your only point of reference for points systems is GW games. Other rule sets balance their units, pointing them appropriately to their abilities, so that a range of different builds are viable.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Btw from my experience the worsst sore loosers are the scenario beardy this beardy that relaxed types especialy when they loose a scenario where they had a clear advantage... Sure purely anecdotal but very funny in the context of the discussion imo.
Also I have a story about balance and casual play. Back in 5th I played nids, my friend played space marines and I had a winning streak against him like 20 games or sth. Now I am not much into fluff more into artwork and minis but he was very immersed in his army and the narrative of it... the actual reason he was loosing that badly was his love for tactical marines, terminators and dreadnoughts. Competitive player would just use better options but he as an ultimate narrative player was fethed by GW abysmal balancing.
We could use more anecdotes like that! Good illustration.
Jeff Tracy wrote:Before, so much of WHFB seemed to boil down to who was better at placing their movement trays. With the AoS rules, tactics come back into the game in interesting ways.
I'm genuinely, non-confrontationally interested to hear more detail about that.
We created a 100 wounds apiece battle, and the games lasted about 3 hours each.
Urgh...
The random aspect of who goes first each turn keeps things interesting and exciting.
Not a new concept to wargaming.
Formations no longer matter, so how you move and place models takes on a whole new significance... And the pile in mechanic allows for more models to get into combat rather than being stuck at the end of rank.
Surely that's less tactical than maneuvering your unit blocks to your advantage? It's less a matter of cleverly setting up a lever to create maximum effect for minimum effort, as cramming more things into a scrum to kick the tar out of eachother, 'cos the rules say you can.
One thing I really liked about the scrolls was that most monsters now have variable stats, depending on their wounds. It makes you think how best to use them rather than just barrelling forward into combat.
Sounds a bit like God of Battles, among others. The more I hear, the more I wonder if the main resource for writing this game was an open copy of God of Battles...?
My big takeaway - if you like 8th edition, your game is still there
Not in GW stores...
and now your models will be there as they are being supported by AoS.
Jeff Tracy wrote: Having played four AoS games now (two from the starter set and two with armies my opponent and I created), I have to say that I think a lot of the rage/quit comments are misguided.
Before, so much of WHFB seemed to boil down to who was better at placing their movement trays. With the AoS rules, tactics come back into the game in interesting ways. Formations no longer matter, so how you move and place models takes on a whole new significance. For game balance, my opponents and I agreed on wounds as our number. We created a 100 wounds apiece battle, and the games lasted about 3 hours each. The random aspect of who goes first each turn keeps things interesting and exciting. And the pile in mechanic allows for more models to get into combat rather than being stuck at the end of rank.
One thing I really liked about the scrolls was that most monsters now have variable stats, depending on their wounds. It makes you think how best to use them rather than just barrelling forward into combat.
My big takeaway - if you like 8th edition, your game is still there, and now your models will be there as they are being supported by AoS. If you are new to fantasy, want to pick it up again, or play 40K, you might want to give AoS a try. So far, the games have been fun (something that was lacking in my last experience with WHFB). Of course, your milage may vary.
So you think a game where units have facing, turning on the spot is not free and flank/ rear charges provide advantage is less tactical than a game with none of the above where you move entire units like they were skirmish models. Interesting tbh.
On the other hand, WFB was very static, and if you looked at the path of each unit in a game, they really didn't go that far. The movent in AoS is a lot greater, part from higher movement stats and the changes to charging. Part do to the increases to movement for some banners, special rules, and not paying for change in facing and the easy of skirmishers to move through tight areas. More movemnt is opening up more tactics.
Add to this that with a skirmish system, you can use a lot more scenery, and the scenery adds challenges and opens up tactics by how it changes the board and LOS.
I've been surprised so far by how good the games in AoS have been. But them I think back to Mordheim, and I remember that game could also have a great deal of tactics.
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Haight wrote: Not sure if this was seen yet, but if this is true THANK GOD.
New Age of Sigmar "other book" replacing old WHFBBRB SKU.
EDIT: Okay the bols link wasn't, but someone got a screen cap of essentially the same thing.
For the love all that is holy, please be an expanded rule book. I'm a fan of the warscrolls (mostly, lulz stuff aside), some of the forces have an elegance and nuance to them that i was happily surprised with given the overall streamlined nature of the game. All that we need now is a real core ruleset rather than the hogslop the box set served up, and i think this could be a pretty good game.
New Age of Sigmar "other book" replacing old WHFBBRB SKU.
EDIT: Okay the bols link wasn't, but someone got a screen cap of essentially the same thing.
For the love all that is holy, please be an expanded rule book. I'm a fan of the warscrolls (mostly, lulz stuff aside), some of the forces have an elegance and nuance to them that i was happily surprised with given the overall streamlined nature of the game. All that we need now is a real core ruleset rather than the hogslop the box set served up, and i think this could be a pretty good game.
That's effectively what I just posted on the previous page lol.
filbert wrote: So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
Money. It's all about the money with GW. Other discussions have pointed to WFB being less than 16% of GW's sales. A rough estimate from data over the years puts paints and non gaming items at another 1/6th. Lets not worry about lotr. So 40k is 2/3rds of GW's sales of product.
I don't expect them to muck with 40k unless things either go very bad for 40k in the future, or AoS gets astronomical sales.
Your either very short sighted or haven't been in the hobby long, it's only a matter of time before the ruleset is similar to AoS in 40k that way they will have protected their games completely.
5 years maybe.
And you will have to replace your old FWHH books. More profit for them.
ROFL.
Yes, not in the hobby long. Just 30 years. 10,000 painted minatures and enough terrain for 100 player tournaments. I've run hundreds of tournaments, worked with GW closely for many years, used to make their big Games Day displays. Just a beardling.
And very short sighted. It's not like I make a living selling games. I'm sure I don't look at the direction individual games and the industry in general is going, don't try to plan years ahead so I can stay in business.
filbert wrote: So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
Money. It's all about the money with GW. Other discussions have pointed to WFB being less than 16% of GW's sales. A rough estimate from data over the years puts paints and non gaming items at another 1/6th. Lets not worry about lotr. So 40k is 2/3rds of GW's sales of product.
I don't expect them to muck with 40k unless things either go very bad for 40k in the future, or AoS gets astronomical sales.
Your either very short sighted or haven't been in the hobby long, it's only a matter of time before the ruleset is similar to AoS in 40k that way they will have protected their games completely.
5 years maybe.
And you will have to replace your old FWHH books. More profit for them.
ROFL.
Yes, not in the hobby long. Just 30 years. 10,000 painted minatures and enough terrain for 100 player tournaments. I've run hundreds of tournaments, worked with GW closely for many years, used to make their big Games Day displays. Just a beardling.
And very short sighted. It's not like I make a living selling games. I'm sure I don't look at the direction individual games and the industry in general is going, don't try to plan years ahead so I can stay in business.
Maybe it came across as more harsh than I meant it I noticed a trend and maybe you had not I apologize.
OgreChubbs wrote: I would be embarrassed to have that on my youtube channel, or be the one who made it. Only thing more pathetic then a man trying to be clever is a man using someone else's idea to try and be clever.
"Few people admit they lack sense, and even fewer that they lack a sense of humor"
OgreChubbs wrote: I would be embarrassed to have that on my youtube channel, or be the one who made it. Only thing more pathetic then a man trying to be clever is a man using someone else's idea to try and be clever.
"Few people admit they lack sense, and even fewer that they lack a sense of humor"
filbert wrote: So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
Money. It's all about the money with GW. Other discussions have pointed to WFB being less than 16% of GW's sales. A rough estimate from data over the years puts paints and non gaming items at another 1/6th. Lets not worry about lotr. So 40k is 2/3rds of GW's sales of product.
I don't expect them to muck with 40k unless things either go very bad for 40k in the future, or AoS gets astronomical sales.
Your either very short sighted or haven't been in the hobby long, it's only a matter of time before the ruleset is similar to AoS in 40k that way they will have protected their games completely.
5 years maybe.
And you will have to replace your old FWHH books. More profit for them.
Un flippin' believable that somebody would have typed that at mikhaila!
filbert wrote: So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
Money. It's all about the money with GW. Other discussions have pointed to WFB being less than 16% of GW's sales. A rough estimate from data over the years puts paints and non gaming items at another 1/6th. Lets not worry about lotr. So 40k is 2/3rds of GW's sales of product.
I don't expect them to muck with 40k unless things either go very bad for 40k in the future, or AoS gets astronomical sales.
Your either very short sighted or haven't been in the hobby long, it's only a matter of time before the ruleset is similar to AoS in 40k that way they will have protected their games completely.
5 years maybe.
And you will have to replace your old FWHH books. More profit for them.
ROFL.
Yes, not in the hobby long. Just 30 years. 10,000 painted minatures and enough terrain for 100 player tournaments. I've run hundreds of tournaments, worked with GW closely for many years, used to make their big Games Day displays. Just a beardling.
And very short sighted. It's not like I make a living selling games. I'm sure I don't look at the direction individual games and the industry in general is going, don't try to plan years ahead so I can stay in business.
Maybe it came across as more harsh than I meant it I noticed a trend and maybe you had not I apologize.
No worries. I'm working on a huge lack of sleep, which i mostly blame on GW, and I found your statement funny, not annoying. If you don't know me, not your fault.
filbert wrote: So by that same token, if GW are not interested in the competitive side of the market as you postulate Manchu, does that point to us seeing something similar for 40K should sales suffer a fall?
Money. It's all about the money with GW. Other discussions have pointed to WFB being less than 16% of GW's sales. A rough estimate from data over the years puts paints and non gaming items at another 1/6th. Lets not worry about lotr. So 40k is 2/3rds of GW's sales of product.
I don't expect them to muck with 40k unless things either go very bad for 40k in the future, or AoS gets astronomical sales.
Your either very short sighted or haven't been in the hobby long, it's only a matter of time before the ruleset is similar to AoS in 40k that way they will have protected their games completely.
5 years maybe.
And you will have to replace your old FWHH books. More profit for them.
Un flippin' believable that somebody would have typed that at mikhaila!
I apologized. I've not noticed him much in threads then I tend to only go in one's that interest me. Mostly Plogs
I think they put Daemons in the keywords because they (the Seraphon) don't like Chaos.
I doubt they'll lose the Aztec theme though. If anything I think they'll come back with some better weapons/technology. A good bit of time has passed between the destruction of the Old World and the Age of Sigmar.
angelofvengeance wrote: I think they put Daemons in the keywords because they don't like Chaos.
I doubt they'll lose the Aztec theme though. If anything I think they'll come back with some better weapons/technology. A good bit of time has passed between the destruction of the Old World and the Age of Sigmar.
Lizardmen were quite stuck in a using old tech with basic weaponry. I'd like if they had amazons but then I can't see it happening.
I can't see them using guns or crossbow type stuff unless they have a radical 're design
angelofvengeance wrote: I think they put Daemons in the keywords because they (the Seraphon) don't like Chaos.
I doubt they'll lose the Aztec theme though. If anything I think they'll come back with some better weapons/technology. A good bit of time has passed between the destruction of the Old World and the Age of Sigmar.
I think they put "Daemon" in the keywords because they can be summoned and abilities that affect Daemons will affect all summoned units.
Just got the confirmation that the AOS boxes for my shops have left the warehouse. We're going to have a midnight release for the game. Always nice to know the product for big releases is on time.
Balancing and no more "funny" rules sounds good. The best part though is being open to feedback and willing to amend the rules.
I really like this - it gives me some hope for GW and i think they tried showing some sincereness by not putting a premium on the starter set. It'd be nice if they included some rules for rank and file, but i guess those games are dead :-(
Balancing and no more "funny" rules sounds good. The best part though is being open to feedback and willing to amend the rules.
They are quoting a post on Dakka that was quoting a guy on somethingawful.
True (t'was me).
I also saw a similar post on a different site on Sunday. So there's no reason not to believe the post/what the rep said. GW staff are pretty approachable and open at the Nottingham Open Days.
Now, what actually comes to fruition is something entirely separate.
I'd advise no one thinks that campaign rules will be "competitive".
angelofvengeance wrote: I think they put Daemons in the keywords because they (the Seraphon) don't like Chaos.
I doubt they'll lose the Aztec theme though. If anything I think they'll come back with some better weapons/technology. A good bit of time has passed between the destruction of the Old World and the Age of Sigmar.
I think they put "Daemon" in the keywords because they can be summoned and abilities that affect Daemons will affect all summoned units.
Jeff Tracy wrote: Having played four AoS games now (two from the starter set and two with armies my opponent and I created), I have to say that I think a lot of the rage/quit comments are misguided.
Before, so much of WHFB seemed to boil down to who was better at placing their movement trays. With the AoS rules, tactics come back into the game in interesting ways. Formations no longer matter, so how you move and place models takes on a whole new significance. For game balance, my opponents and I agreed on wounds as our number. We created a 100 wounds apiece battle, and the games lasted about 3 hours each. The random aspect of who goes first each turn keeps things interesting and exciting. And the pile in mechanic allows for more models to get into combat rather than being stuck at the end of rank.
One thing I really liked about the scrolls was that most monsters now have variable stats, depending on their wounds. It makes you think how best to use them rather than just barrelling forward into combat.
My big takeaway - if you like 8th edition, your game is still there, and now your models will be there as they are being supported by AoS. If you are new to fantasy, want to pick it up again, or play 40K, you might want to give AoS a try. So far, the games have been fun (something that was lacking in my last experience with WHFB). Of course, your milage may vary.
So you think a game where units have facing, turning on the spot is not free and flank/ rear charges provide advantage is less tactical than a game with none of the above where you move entire units like they were skirmish models. Interesting tbh.
On the other hand, WFB was very static, and if you looked at the path of each unit in a game, they really didn't go that far. The movent in AoS is a lot greater, part from higher movement stats and the changes to charging. Part do to the increases to movement for some banners, special rules, and not paying for change in facing and the easy of skirmishers to move through tight areas. More movemnt is opening up more tactics.
Add to this that with a skirmish system, you can use a lot more scenery, and the scenery adds challenges and opens up tactics by how it changes the board and LOS.
I've been surprised so far by how good the games in AoS have been. But them I think back to Mordheim, and I remember that game could also have a great deal of tactics.
Things having more vulnerable sides and rear and is a basis for proper tactical play in wargames imo. Increasing movement helps as well, all my attempts at fixing 40k rules involve doubling movement (with reaction fire though as it would be ridiculous otherwise) but nothing was stoping them from both keeping direcional combat and increasing movement ranges. You would determine the rear of the unit by a position of a leader/ designated model or sth. Any dumbing down of a movement phase hurts tactical play and improving one thing only to worsen another, more important, is bad as well.
On the other hand, WFB was very static, and if you looked at the path of each unit in a game, they really didn't go that far. The movent in AoS is a lot greater, part from higher movement stats and the changes to charging. Part do to the increases to movement for some banners, special rules, and not paying for change in facing and the easy of skirmishers to move through tight areas. More movemnt is opening up more tactics.
Add to this that with a skirmish system, you can use a lot more scenery, and the scenery adds challenges and opens up tactics by how it changes the board and LOS.
I've been surprised so far by how good the games in AoS have been. But them I think back to Mordheim, and I remember that game could also have a great deal of tactics.
All of this could have been accomplished without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" the same mechanics that you just listed could have been inserted into the old rules and still retained some tactical depth. In example, free wheels for units with musicians, +d3 charge for units with banners...etc. Alternatively, they could have ported over some of the tactical depth that existed in WHFB into AoS. I think it's fine, it just feels unfinished ruleswise because there is absolutely no depth other than special abilities on warscrolls and then those are just cute gimmicks.
Now there's no need for someone to be concerned about my mournfang cavalry lurking behind my gutwall for the flank charge if they make a bad move and decide to charge in with too weak of a unit or before setting up a counter-charge. Now it's just rugby, run to the middle and pile-in; or at least it feels that way.
I don't know your experiences, I'll assume you have a great depth of knowledge from being in the business so long, but you could actually apply real world tactics in WHFB, based upon ancient generals (at least I did). Sure, 12 year-olds just push models forward and go "boom, boom" and that may be the bulk of your customers but I started out in miniature wargaming with historicals, have a degree in history and approach my games from a different perspective. I liked WHFB because Romans couldn't throw magic around or send a Giant crashing through someone's lines and yet still maintain some semblance of tactics; now I'll have to look elsewhere I suppose. I guess what I need is an alternate history ruleset not based in WW2 but Ancient eras and not 15mm (because I don't paint all that well on large models, I'd hate to see the gack I produce with tiny ones).
Every batrep I've watched so far looks pretty fun. Even the woefully imbalanced ones. More/easier balance would be a good thing, and seems a woeful omission at launch, but I'm still 100% more interested in playing this than I ever was with WHFB.
Manchu wrote: I hope everyone who wants to play mass fantasy battles with their WHFB models finds KoW. That will probably be a nice chunk of sales for a company like Mantic. I don't think that demographic does much for a company like GW, however.
What about those of us that want to play mass fantasy battles and find KOW's rules to be lacking?
Manchu wrote: I hope everyone who wants to play mass fantasy battles with their WHFB models finds KoW. That will probably be a nice chunk of sales for a company like Mantic. I don't think that demographic does much for a company like GW, however.
What about those of us that want to play mass fantasy battles and find KOW's rules to be lacking?
Just to sound a sour note, what if the battle reports so far sound positive because the people playing are easily satisfied?
Like Agnosto I started with historical, and I appreciate a game that lets me create an advantage by clever movement rather than by choosing a better special rule before the game.
Having read the AOS rules in depth I can see lots of stuff that isn't there, though the basics are sound (except for the bad bits). I feel they will be fine for introduction to Fantasy but do not have the depth for long term interest.
Hopefully the rumoured advanced rules will add to the game.
My ongoing major concern is the model scale. The sigmarines are big, really big, and the pictures indicate that the chaos warriors are as big, and the normal bloodreavers are not that much smaller.
If this is just for these armies I guess it is not a major concern, but if this is an indication of the model size going forward, these really will not be compatible with the current range at all. This would be a 35mm game, maybe even bigger, not a 28mm one.
Yes, their are issues with the rules that many are more concerned with, and I agree with the problems that have been highlighted, but for me their are other rule systems I can find to use with the minis if things do not improve, but if they are going to be that much bigger then that presents a problem I can't find a way around.
To be honest, the fact rules are free and can be downloaded from the webstore without needing to register an account is certainly not a stranger to why AoS bring back some old WFB players. That's a nice move from GW, I must say.
And yes, if it is just to play your old figurines on the table, that's enough. I can understand people saying the game is fun.
However, publicity of AoS isn't particularly great. They waited too long before making the announcement. And of course, old players used to the 8th edition of WFB and having bought the End Times series have all the rights to feel betrayed. They actually bought rules that are completely useless a few months later. And GW didn't say it clearly at that time.
Not willing to say GW did something right just yet.....we'll see how the launch of the starter box goes and where we are at in a month. I made 4 army lists for AoS. Like the players coming into my shop I've got an itch to play with my armies and now have people to play with while at work
Got bored last night, started working on algorithms and classifications for a points system......
Thanks for you feedback, Mikhaila. You put a lot of work in those rules, but don't you think you're actually patching rules instead of the Studio? Isn't that the trouble with GW; getting away with "lazy rule writing" and always throwing back the ball to the players, so that their customers can do the work they should have done in the first place?
Here, the rules are indeed "free", but...would it have been the same if it was a rulebook you have to buy?
Manchu wrote: I hope everyone who wants to play mass fantasy battles with their WHFB models finds KoW. That will probably be a nice chunk of sales for a company like Mantic. I don't think that demographic does much for a company like GW, however.
What about those of us that want to play mass fantasy battles and find KOW's rules to be lacking?
You can't satisfy everyone. You currently have 3 options with differing depth / complexity:
a) WHFB 8th: By far the most complex and bulkiest set of rules. Needs a few adjustments to the rules, but then makes up for a very robust set of rules
b) KoW: Streamlined WHFB, heavy focus on tactic, by far the most tactical game of the merry bunch
c) AoS: Extremely simplified skirmish-sized fantasy miniatures game, rules are currently incomplete but additional rules will be added in the future
To me, that looks like a very good pool of options to pick from and everyone should be able to find his personal best among those.
Kilkrazy wrote: Just to sound a sour note, what if the battle reports so far sound positive because the people playing are easily satisfied?
Like Agnosto I started with historical, and I appreciate a game that lets me create an advantage by clever movement rather than by choosing a better special rule before the game.
Having read the AOS rules in depth I can see lots of stuff that isn't there, though the basics are sound (except for the bad bits). I feel they will be fine for introduction to Fantasy but do not have the depth for long term interest.
Hopefully the rumoured advanced rules will add to the game.
Cause what this thread needed was a sour note
See, I see a lot more potential for clever movement when my units can actually maneuver that I used to feel in WFB. Fantasy used to be won at the higher levels during deployment if the armies created were equally matched. Personally I see a huge amount of more tactical play in the new rules than I did from WFB ever. But maybe I'm easily satisfied.
Kilkrazy wrote: Just to sound a sour note, what if the battle reports so far sound positive because the people playing are easily satisfied?
As noted above, most of those who have actually tried the game seem positively surprised (judging from comments here and from a few batreps I've seen on YT). Yes, it may be due to EXTREMELY low expectations But those of you complaining about lack of tactics etc, have you played it on the tabletop (and not only in your minds)? There is a difference, even if you have so-and-so years of experience.
And to forego things, no I haven't tried it yet. (I've just got into Hordes and there's plenty to work with there ...) And thus I have no opinion about its entertainment value, other than that less rules to remember is generally something I appreciate.
Kilkrazy wrote: Just to sound a sour note, what if the battle reports so far sound positive because the people playing are easily satisfied?
Like Agnosto I started with historical, and I appreciate a game that lets me create an advantage by clever movement rather than by choosing a better special rule before the game.
Having read the AOS rules in depth I can see lots of stuff that isn't there, though the basics are sound (except for the bad bits). I feel they will be fine for introduction to Fantasy but do not have the depth for long term interest.
Hopefully the rumoured advanced rules will add to the game.
I personally know people that aren't easily satisfied with games and have been playing tabletop for decades, who tried the system just to give it a fair run and are actually enjoying it quite a bit. So there may be some who are easily satisfied writing battlereports, but that won't be the case entirely. The rules are out, so the best way to find out it will be enjoyable for you would be to simply give it a try. I absolutely agree with you however that I'm hoping for advanced rules.
Kilkrazy wrote: Just to sound a sour note, what if the battle reports so far sound positive because the people playing are easily satisfied?
Like Agnosto I started with historical, and I appreciate a game that lets me create an advantage by clever movement rather than by choosing a better special rule before the game.
Having read the AOS rules in depth I can see lots of stuff that isn't there, though the basics are sound (except for the bad bits). I feel they will be fine for introduction to Fantasy but do not have the depth for long term interest.
Hopefully the rumoured advanced rules will add to the game.
It's been largely sour notes for the past 100 pages or so lol.
Kilkrazy wrote: I feel they will be fine for introduction to Fantasy but do not have the depth for long term interest.
The long-term interest will come from rapid, meta-shattering new releases. Think CCG or CMG business model, just with real minis. Obviously, the target audience for this sort of thing isn't the same as it was for WHFB.
Manchu wrote: I hope everyone who wants to play mass fantasy battles with their WHFB models finds KoW. That will probably be a nice chunk of sales for a company like Mantic. I don't think that demographic does much for a company like GW, however.
What about those of us that want to play mass fantasy battles and find KOW's rules to be lacking?
You can't satisfy everyone. You currently have 3 options with differing depth / complexity:
a) WHFB 8th: By far the most complex and bulkiest set of rules. Needs a few adjustments to the rules, but then makes up for a very robust set of rules
b) KoW: Streamlined WHFB, heavy focus on tactic, by far the most tactical game of the merry bunch
c) AoS: Extremely simplified skirmish-sized fantasy miniatures game, rules are currently incomplete but additional rules will be added in the future
To me, that looks like a very good pool of options to pick from and everyone should be able to find his personal best among those.
I can think of 10 more of the top of my head: (Had great fum with some of these)
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
Sarouan wrote: To be honest, the fact rules are free and can be downloaded from the webstore without needing to register an account is certainly not a stranger to why AoS bring back some old WFB players. That's a nice move from GW, I must say.
I was quite surprised about this. I fully expected that you'd have to place the rules/warscolls in a cart and checkout (thus getting you to register on their site). They must have the ability to do this, so this would suggest they did it on purpose.
Kilkrazy wrote: Just to sound a sour note, what if the battle reports so far sound positive because the people playing are easily satisfied?
I said 'looked fun' as in to me, not 'sound positive'. I can see something hyper-positive and still draw my own negative opinion from it. Equally I can watch someone pour scorn on something and still decide I like it.
It also seems a little mean to deride people as 'easily pleased'.
TrapdoorResident wrote: There are a lot of options, whether you like them or not is a different matter.
If you can't find SOMETHING in this lot that rings your bell you need shootin'.
Some of these you can use any armies and some even have systems for working out their points! and many of these sets can be dropped right into the Olde World as a setting if its the back ground you are missing.
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
TrapdoorResident wrote: There are a lot of options, whether you like them or not is a different matter.
If you can't find SOMETHING in this lot that rings your bell you need shootin'.
Some of these you can use any armies and some even have systems for working out their points! and many of these sets can be dropped right into the Olde World as a setting if its the back ground you are missing.
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
Kilkrazy wrote: Just to sound a sour note, what if the battle reports so far sound positive because the people playing are easily satisfied?
I said 'looked fun' as in to me, not 'sound positive'. I can see something hyper-positive and still draw my own negative opinion from it. Equally I can watch someone pour scorn on something and still decide I like it.
It also seems a little mean to deride people as 'easily pleased'.
I don't mean to deride them. In this vale of tears I approve of any cause for mirth and celebration.
I only question whether the rules have the depth needed for longer-term interest for experienced players, which includes people starting with AOS and developing as they continue to play..
I am sure we can all agree that there are different types of players looking for different things from games.
One man's in-depth tactical game is another man's turgid inacessible crap, to look at it from the other angle.
I've been working out a little pickup game point system in my head, kind of a mix between 40k force organization for scrolls, and the way stuff was classified in the previous army books. Goes something like this..
You have General/HQ scrolls, Core/Troop scrolls, Special/Elite scrolls, and Rare/Heavy scrolls. Like 40k, you need a minimum of 1 General and 2 Core. Max of 2 Generals, 6 Core, 3 Special, 3 Rare. You and your opponent decide on how many scrolls to take.. like “Let’s play a 5 scroll game”
There’s a maximum amount of models you can take on a scroll, and that’s based on whatever was in the old base size. Generals and anything with a name, like Nagash or Karl Franz are all unique so you can only have one. For units, 20mm bases can have a max of 60 models, 25mm = 40, cavalry = 20, ogre sized 9 (3x3 block?). If you would like to have larger units, say a unit of 100 night goblins, you will have to use up 2 scroll slots. I thought you could take the unit sizes from the old army book, but that won’t really work for newer armies so I figured base sizes might be a better way to determine.
TrapdoorResident wrote: There are a lot of options, whether you like them or not is a different matter.
If you can't find SOMETHING in this lot that rings your bell you need shootin'.
Some of these you can use any armies and some even have systems for working out their points! and many of these sets can be dropped right into the Olde World as a setting if its the back ground you are missing.
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
I have played a few of those games some I liked some I didn't I have no problem finding games I enjoy playing because I am blessed with friends who enjoy pretty much the same stuff I do.
just saying some people may find no value in them at all, it is all subjective.
and if I can avoid a firing squad that would be good too
TrapdoorResident wrote: There are a lot of options, whether you like them or not is a different matter.
If you can't find SOMETHING in this lot that rings your bell you need shootin'.
Some of these you can use any armies and some even have systems for working out their points! and many of these sets can be dropped right into the Olde World as a setting if its the back ground you are missing.
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
Lots of good suggestions here I'd add Mordhiem for cool skirmish games.
frankelee wrote: I can understand the idea of counter trolling people who ask about Kairos Fateweaver combos. Just go, "Yup! Anyone who plays a Skaven wagon thing and Kairos Fateweaver automatically wins every game, see ya later!" I mean if you were playing a regular WFB-like game with Kairos Fateweaver and one of your models had "dragonstomping" which gave you D3 extra attacks every turn, and you went, "I'm using his special ability on this D3 roll and I choose a billion!" it's not like people wouldn't look at you like you had horns growing out of your head. And then hand you a ball and note that you could bounce it.
I personally think if you really want Age of Sigmar to look dumb the best way is to actually review the game and find legitimate things that suck about it. Like, it doesn't scale up very well. Or, battles sometimes devolve into big, messy scrimmages which become boring. When you complain that female gamers can't grow moustaches to suit these unfair rules, or find game hacks that only work if you can't understand basic dice mechanics that anyone over 5 is expected to understand, 99.9% of human beings who hear your argument go, "That's nice," and then never listen to you again.
This is probably the most sensible thing I've seen in this thread.
mikhaila wrote: Just got the confirmation that the AOS boxes for my shops have left the warehouse. We're going to have a midnight release for the game. Always nice to know the product for big releases is on time.
We're also doing a midnight release at my FLGS. I am pretty excited. For the younger players, I think this will be a fond memory. One day they will post on Dakka about when AoS "used to be good."
TrapdoorResident wrote: There are a lot of options, whether you like them or not is a different matter.
If you can't find SOMETHING in this lot that rings your bell you need shootin'.
Some of these you can use any armies and some even have systems for working out their points! and many of these sets can be dropped right into the Olde World as a setting if its the back ground you are missing.
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
Lots of good suggestions here I'd add Mordhiem for cool skirmish games.
I'll second this. I'm looking at Warrior Heroes-Warbands.
New Age of Sigmar "other book" replacing old WHFBBRB SKU.
EDIT: Okay the bols link wasn't, but someone got a screen cap of essentially the same thing.
For the love all that is holy, please be an expanded rule book. I'm a fan of the warscrolls (mostly, lulz stuff aside), some of the forces have an elegance and nuance to them that i was happily surprised with given the overall streamlined nature of the game. All that we need now is a real core ruleset rather than the hogslop the box set served up, and i think this could be a pretty good game.
Apparently it's just a fancy version of the book that comes in the AoS box sorry.
Regardless of any individual standpoint on AoS, it cannot work as a replacement for WHFB. Lacking any kind of balancing means that there can never be a 'community' for it in the same way as any other game, because every group and every individual is likely to have their own interpretations of what is 'reasonable' and 'fair' to bring to a game. One of the few advantages GW games had left was ubiquity; take that away and you fracture the community into isolated splinter groups each playing a different game.
I'm genuinely amazed by the fact that people are willing to buy into an expensive system (either through the starter box or just future purchases) where they are required to essentially write their own rules to make it playable to any sensible degree, and that there are people championing an outright exclusion of a segment of the player base (existing or potential), because they apparently aren't having fun right. It doesn't make a whole lot of business sense to deliberately reject customers, either.
Even if we ignore the lack of balance mechanics, the rules themselves are poorly written, vague, and easily exploitable, with a lot of potential for 'modelling for advantage', or accusations of it - punishing creative conversions, rather than encouraging them. The models, while executed well in a technical sense, are both laden down with excessive detail that detracts from the overall aesthetic and somewhat soulless. The cynical inclusion of 'fantasy Space Marines' (which they are in all but name) does not show a lot of effort.
So who is this 'game' (if one can even call it that) supposed to be for, and how is it supposed to recruit more players than WHFB did? It's not for children, because children will fight over the inherent imbalances and be unlikely to invest much in it. It's not for new potential wargamers, who will baulk at GW's prices, the lack of any structure and the poor quality of the rules, in the face of the multitudinous options available for a wargame to invest time and money in. It's not for WHFB veterans, since the rich lore they loved has been replaced with childish drivel and their old armies and game tarnished with mocking, contemptuous "comedy" rules.
AoS just follows the GW trend of the last few years of low effort products intended to maximise short-term profit. The fact that the rules are free, or that they are somehow 'more narrative' is not out of any goodwill, but a lack of effort and interest in actually making a game by the company.
On the other hand, WFB was very static, and if you looked at the path of each unit in a game, they really didn't go that far. The movent in AoS is a lot greater, part from higher movement stats and the changes to charging. Part do to the increases to movement for some banners, special rules, and not paying for change in facing and the easy of skirmishers to move through tight areas. More movemnt is opening up more tactics.
Add to this that with a skirmish system, you can use a lot more scenery, and the scenery adds challenges and opens up tactics by how it changes the board and LOS.
I've been surprised so far by how good the games in AoS have been. But them I think back to Mordheim, and I remember that game could also have a great deal of tactics.
All of this could have been accomplished without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" the same mechanics that you just listed could have been inserted into the old rules and still retained some tactical depth. In example, free wheels for units with musicians, +d3 charge for units with banners...etc. Alternatively, they could have ported over some of the tactical depth that existed in WHFB into AoS. I think it's fine, it just feels unfinished ruleswise because there is absolutely no depth other than special abilities on warscrolls and then those are just cute gimmicks.
Now there's no need for someone to be concerned about my mournfang cavalry lurking behind my gutwall for the flank charge if they make a bad move and decide to charge in with too weak of a unit or before setting up a counter-charge. Now it's just rugby, run to the middle and pile-in; or at least it feels that way.
I don't know your experiences, I'll assume you have a great depth of knowledge from being in the business so long, but you could actually apply real world tactics in WHFB, based upon ancient generals (at least I did). Sure, 12 year-olds just push models forward and go "boom, boom" and that may be the bulk of your customers but I started out in miniature wargaming with historicals, have a degree in history and approach my games from a different perspective. I liked WHFB because Romans couldn't throw magic around or send a Giant crashing through someone's lines and yet still maintain some semblance of tactics; now I'll have to look elsewhere I suppose. I guess what I need is an alternate history ruleset not based in WW2 but Ancient eras and not 15mm (because I don't paint all that well on large models, I'd hate to see the gack I produce with tiny ones).
Dont really disagree with your assessment of WFB, and it did have some real world tactics. I've been on the wrong side of those in 800 man battles at Pennsic wars. Getting flanked by a unit when you engage from the front is horrific, even in SCA combat. It's amazingly easy to kill people who have shields and eyes in the wrong direction. When our unit flanked we could generally kill a man every two seconds. 10 people into the flank of 50 made for a huge force multiplier. Even when a couple of people saw you coming, the whole unit didn't. No gods eye view like in wargames.
I understand the arguements about "They didn't need to kill WFB". I wholeheartedly agree. And my anger is most likely larger and more longlasting than most people. I hold grudges forever, and have a long list with GW. I deal with them continuously so they buildup quicker. That said, nothing I do can bring back WFB right now. It's gone. If it ever gets resurrected, i'll support it. 99% of my collection is staying on square bases.
I'm going to play Kings of War, Age of Sigmar and whatever else comes along. And if I have fun with them, or see tactics, or depth to either game, that's what I'll talk about. I'm over the hideous murder of WFB.....(for now. Revenge is always an option for later. ) I just don't feel like comparing WFB to AOS like its a contest where if we can make AOS suck, we get back WFB and the Old World.
TrapdoorResident wrote: There are a lot of options, whether you like them or not is a different matter.
If you can't find SOMETHING in this lot that rings your bell you need shootin'.
Some of these you can use any armies and some even have systems for working out their points! and many of these sets can be dropped right into the Olde World as a setting if its the back ground you are missing.
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
Lots of good suggestions here I'd add Mordhiem for cool skirmish games.
Lol he didn't ask for a skirmish game There is a load of skirmish games out there!
agnosto wrote: I guess what I need is an alternate history ruleset not based in WW2 but Ancient eras and not 15mm (because I don't paint all that well on large models, I'd hate to see the gack I produce with tiny ones).
FWIW, I actually find 15mm models easier to paint than 28mm. 15mm is my sweet spot, there's a lot of tricks you can get away with to make painting easier that don't work on larger models because it'd look too messy, but the models are still large enough to make out the smaller features of a mansized model (unlike 10mm and 6mm where models start to not look human any more). The only thing I prefer about 28mm models is you can't really convert 15mm models very easily, but that's not a problem if you just want to fill out ranks of tons of troops.
If GW dropped 28mm WHFB in favour of AoSAND reintroduced regular WHFB in 15mm scale, I'd be as happy as a pig in poo.
Sarouan wrote: To be honest, the fact rules are free and can be downloaded from the webstore without needing to register an account is certainly not a stranger to why AoS bring back some old WFB players. That's a nice move from GW, I must say.
And yes, if it is just to play your old figurines on the table, that's enough. I can understand people saying the game is fun.
However, publicity of AoS isn't particularly great. They waited too long before making the announcement. And of course, old players used to the 8th edition of WFB and having bought the End Times series have all the rights to feel betrayed. They actually bought rules that are completely useless a few months later. And GW didn't say it clearly at that time.
Not willing to say GW did something right just yet.....we'll see how the launch of the starter box goes and where we are at in a month. I made 4 army lists for AoS. Like the players coming into my shop I've got an itch to play with my armies and now have people to play with while at work
Got bored last night, started working on algorithms and classifications for a points system......
Thanks for you feedback, Mikhaila. You put a lot of work in those rules, but don't you think you're actually patching rules instead of the Studio? Isn't that the trouble with GW; getting away with "lazy rule writing" and always throwing back the ball to the players, so that their customers can do the work they should have done in the first place?
Here, the rules are indeed "free", but...would it have been the same if it was a rulebook you have to buy?
No disagreement. This shouldn't be my job. But to play the game, run leagues, run tournaments, grow the community in my store, the job has to be done. So I'm doing the job.
Being in business for yourself has this type of situation all the time. Stores, especially game stores, don't always go right. It's unfair GW didn't do rules. It's also unfair a storm knocked out power for 2 days last week. I lost a lot of money, and then customers bitched at me that I wasn't open and wouldn't answer the phone. There are times i've worked 100 hours a week, and then don't take home a paycheck that month because i need it for the business. My family is very frugal at times Not the first game I've had to fix. Or the first time i've written scenarios or events for GW. either.
MalusCalibur wrote: Regardless of any individual standpoint on AoS, it cannot work as a replacement for WHFB. Lacking any kind of balancing means that there can never be a 'community' for it in the same way as any other game, because every group and every individual is likely to have their own interpretations of what is 'reasonable' and 'fair' to bring to a game. One of the few advantages GW games had left was ubiquity; take that away and you fracture the community into isolated splinter groups each playing a different game.
I'm genuinely amazed by the fact that people are willing to buy into an expensive system (either through the starter box or just future purchases) where they are required to essentially write their own rules to make it playable to any sensible degree, and that there are people championing an outright exclusion of a segment of the player base (existing or potential), because they apparently aren't having fun right. It doesn't make a whole lot of business sense to deliberately reject customers, either.
Even if we ignore the lack of balance mechanics, the rules themselves are poorly written, vague, and easily exploitable, with a lot of potential for 'modelling for advantage', or accusations of it - punishing creative conversions, rather than encouraging them. The models, while executed well in a technical sense, are both laden down with excessive detail that detracts from the overall aesthetic and somewhat soulless. The cynical inclusion of 'fantasy Space Marines' (which they are in all but name) does not show a lot of effort.
So who is this 'game' (if one can even call it that) supposed to be for, and how is it supposed to recruit more players than WHFB did? It's not for children, because children will fight over the inherent imbalances and be unlikely to invest much in it. It's not for new potential wargamers, who will baulk at GW's prices, the lack of any structure and the poor quality of the rules, in the face of the multitudinous options available for a wargame to invest time and money in. It's not for WHFB veterans, since the rich lore they loved has been replaced with childish drivel and their old armies and game tarnished with mocking, contemptuous "comedy" rules.
AoS just follows the GW trend of the last few years of low effort products intended to maximise short-term profit. The fact that the rules are free, or that they are somehow 'more narrative' is not out of any goodwill, but a lack of effort and interest in actually making a game by the company.
You may dislike it, but the level to which you feel you need to repeat yourself about it "not being a game" or being "childish drivel" just destroys your own argument. You can have a scholarly discussion without resorting to immature hyperbole.
Whether you want it to exist or not doesn't make it not a game. The rules are there, they're solid, they're playable, and the lore is enjoyable for some of us. Many of us have played games by "winging it" on points and what you table in the past across a dozen different systems, hell the number of times I've had to tell someone just to "play what you have". I've told players to slam their armies together and do 2v1's without counting points and had a blast doing it. Whether you want there to not be a community is irrelevant, there are rules, there is a game, and even without a current point/balance system it is playable and on that fact alone people will play it.
The rules for the old armies are imbalanced and the silliness is absurd (albeit, Warhammer Fantasy always had a dose of that, so I'm not too shocked, I think people just prefer to forget it was ever a humorous game, same with 40k) but as a core system starting with this starter set going forward I definitely see potential for a very solid and interesting game to come into being (thankfully without more joke rules going forward.). I give Games Workshop credit here, we've been bitching for years the story had stagnated (oh no, another Everchosen..) and that the gameplay was being run in the ground without proper fixes, and they finally decided to DO something with it, and even if it fails, I'll give them kudos for at least trying.
Aesthetic is entirely opinion, the aesthetic is no worse to me than the old one (given the Eternals are just Knights of the Blazing Sun-level detail on models that could be made with better technology now, and artwork of the Old World had shown intricacies far worse than this.) If Games Workshop had the ability to make models of this quality ten years ago they would've done it in the same methodology/style, the "squat" style models are just a relic of a bygone age when models couldn't have hanging limbs/scale properly.
I think AOS shows promise, I look forward to getting my starter kit assembled, painted, and playing the hell out of it with my friends and having fun with it. The amount of models you get for the cost is great, and the support they're showing for it from the get-go makes me excited to be a part of a new age of Warhammer and see where it goes (and if it succeeds or fails.)
overtyrant wrote: Lol he didn't ask for a skirmish game There is a load of skirmish games out there!
That's part of my gripe with AoS. There's already lots of skirmish games out there if I wanted to play a skirmish game, we didn't need another one. The reason I stuck with WHFB for so long is that it was a popular regimental based game (at least until 8th).
Dont really disagree with your assessment of WFB, and it did have some real world tactics. I've been on the wrong side of those in 800 man battles at Pennsic wars. Getting flanked by a unit when you engage from the front is horrific, even in SCA combat. It's amazingly easy to kill people who have shields and eyes in the wrong direction. When our unit flanked we could generally kill a man every two seconds. 10 people into the flank of 50 made for a huge force multiplier. Even when a couple of people saw you coming, the whole unit didn't. No gods eye view like in wargames.
I understand the arguements about "They didn't need to kill WFB". I wholeheartedly agree. And my anger is most likely larger and more longlasting than most people. I hold grudges forever, and have a long list with GW. I deal with them continuously so they buildup quicker. That said, nothing I do can bring back WFB right now. It's gone. If it ever gets resurrected, i'll support it. 99% of my collection is staying on square bases.
I'm going to play Kings of War, Age of Sigmar and whatever else comes along. And if I have fun with them, or see tactics, or depth to either game, that's what I'll talk about. I'm over the hideous murder of WFB.....(for now. Revenge is always an option for later. ) I just don't feel like comparing WFB to AOS like its a contest where if we can make AOS suck, we get back WFB and the Old World.
All good points. Please don't get me wrong; what I'm talking about here is my personal enjoyment, to each their own and I can certainly see worth in AoS. I just scratch my head at some of what I perceive as gaps in the rules. I like the warscrolls and that some of the "depth" that is there is tied to units instead of shoehorning special rules into a brb. It's an almost wargame, almost board game and some people will have an itch scratched but it leaves me cold because it's missing what I expect to be there in a wargame and replaces it with board game silliness and over-simplifications.
I want anyone who enjoys the game to enjoy it, I'm not trying to convince anyone that it's terrible, I'm just saying my piece as I grieve.
migooo wrote: Lol he didn't ask for a skirmish game There is a load of skirmish games out there!
That's part of my gripe with AoS. There's already lots of skirmish games if I wanted to play a skirmish game. The reason I stuck with WHFB for so long is that it was a popular regimental based game (at least until 8th).
Look at it this way instead.
Age of Sigmar isn't replacing Warhammer, even if AOS hadn't existed Warhammer would've been cancelled. Age of Sigmar is a new game in the same universe.
I feel like that's the major issue people are seeing, like Warhammer Fantasy 9th was the other alternative to AOS. Instead of them just deciding that supporting Fantasy's model line wasn't as profitable as they needed it to be so they cancelled it and with that room in their line now wanting to create a smaller entry-level game into tabletop games and the Warhammer Universe.
There obviously was solid business reasons they went about this. I love the people who seem to think Games Workshop Executives just sit in a board room tapping their fingers together plotting how to screw over their playerbase again.
Shadowclaimer wrote: Age of Sigmar isn't replacing Warhammer, even if AOS hadn't existed Warhammer would've been cancelled. Age of Sigmar is a new game in the same universe.
While you make a fair point, I think for most people that issue is invisible. This has a lot to do with how GW has released AoS (starting with End Times). They keep insisting AoS is not WHFB 9th but it will be a long time before that feels like a meaningful statement.
migooo wrote: Lol he didn't ask for a skirmish game There is a load of skirmish games out there!
That's part of my gripe with AoS. There's already lots of skirmish games if I wanted to play a skirmish game. The reason I stuck with WHFB for so long is that it was a popular regimental based game (at least until 8th).
Look at it this way instead.
Age of Sigmar isn't replacing Warhammer, even if AOS hadn't existed Warhammer would've been cancelled. Age of Sigmar is a new game in the same universe.
I feel like that's the major issue people are seeing, like Warhammer Fantasy 9th was the other alternative to AOS. Instead of them just deciding that supporting Fantasy's model line wasn't as profitable as they needed it to be so they cancelled it and with that room in their line now wanting to create a smaller entry-level game into tabletop games and the Warhammer Universe.
Shadowclaimer wrote: Age of Sigmar isn't replacing Warhammer, even if AOS hadn't existed Warhammer would've been cancelled. Age of Sigmar is a new game in the same universe.
While you make a fair point, I think for most people that issue is invisible. This has a lot to do with how GW has released AoS (starting with End Times). They keep insisting AoS is not WHFB 9th but it will be a long time before that feels like a meaningful statement.
GW has a lot of issues with communication, I really wish they'd step that up. A lot of this salt could probably have been fixed or diluted at least had they actually spoken to the players and made more announcements leading up to its release.
The stuff we've heard from the Forge World Open where the GW reps were answering any question asked basically was awesome, I hope they continue doing more of that.
Shadowclaimer wrote: Age of Sigmar isn't replacing Warhammer, even if AOS hadn't existed Warhammer would've been cancelled. Age of Sigmar is a new game in the same universe.
While you make a fair point, I think for most people that issue is invisible. This has a lot to do with how GW has released AoS (starting with End Times). They keep insisting AoS is not WHFB 9th but it will be a long time before that feels like a meaningful statement.
GW has a lot of issues with communication, I really wish they'd step that up. A lot of this salt could probably have been fixed or diluted at least had they actually spoken to the players and made more announcements leading up to its release.
The stuff we've heard from the Forge World Open where the GW reps were answering any question asked basically was awesome, I hope they continue doing more of that.
20 years ago i went to a retailer summit at the US headquarters. We worked to identify the biggest problems. Communication was #1.
The next year I attended again, lots of little things fixed, new problems talked about, Communication was agreed by all to to be the biggest problem.
Third year I was told it wasn't happening. They knew their biggest problem was communication, and they knew they still sucked at it. No need for a meeting
The linked article mentions an email from GW talking about the app, I assume this was a public email (I'm not on any GW mailing lists anymore) rather than one specially to BoW, but it seems quite solid.
The linked article mentions an email from GW talking about the app, I assume this was a public email (I'm not on any GW mailing lists anymore) rather than one specially to BoW, but it seems quite solid.
A couple things: - I've seen nothing about balancing, simply about making army lists. - The GW rep they are talking about is the Something Awful post that all the reposters are talking about. It was not an e-mail but a visit to FW open day, I believe. - In general, BoW is not a source for anything. They only repost.
The linked article mentions an email from GW talking about the app, I assume this was a public email (I'm not on any GW mailing lists anymore) rather than one specially to BoW, but it seems quite solid.
This is Beasts of War facebook page directing you to an article by brennon who summarizes a poster on their forums named redben who reposts a post he found here where a post from somethingawful was quoted.
Xyxox wrote: This is Beasts of War facebook page directing you to an article by brennon who summarizes a poster on their forums named redben who reposts a post he found here where a post from somethingawful was quoted.
Beasts Of War wrote:Games Workshop have given us a hint of things to come with an email last night that confirmed there is an Age of Sigmar App on the way (free to download) which contains the Warscrolls, Rules and a way of bringing that all together to make an army for the tabletop…
So an AoS big rulebook is on the way. retailers have access to it and a company which often gets this stuff early is listing it on their ebay site for $59.99 USD. Which means it will retail probably around $80. Unless this company is not offering any discounts on the presale, which would be very surprising
Beasts Of War wrote:Games Workshop have given us a hint of things to come with an email last night that confirmed there is an Age of Sigmar App on the way (free to download) which contains the Warscrolls, Rules and a way of bringing that all together to make an army for the tabletop…
I read that as a list building function, but meh, take the piss if you like.
No, I completely agree that it is a list building function. What it isn't yet is a balancing function (i.e. points, etc).
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Icculus wrote: So an AoS big rulebook is on the way. retailers have access to it and a company which often gets this stuff early is listing it on their ebay site for $59.99 USD. Which means it will retail probably around $80. Unless this company is not offering any discounts on the presale, which would be very surprising
Link? Because some rumors say it is just a fancy version of the AoS hobby book.
How does one make a list building function with no balance? It would be functionally the same as the individual warscrolls if it had no balance element... Making the app and its functions redundant?
I'm sure a "list building function" and a "balance function" come somewhat hand in hand, don't they?
AncientSkarbrand wrote: How does one make a list building function with no balance? It would be functionally the same as the individual warscrolls if it had no balance element... Making the app and its functions redundant?
I'm sure a "list building function" and a "balance function" come somewhat hand in hand, don't they?
It could work like this:
1) Build your list by selecting which warscrolls are in it.
2) Then when you are playing a game you have a handy way of getting to just the warscrolls you need.
Jeff Tracy wrote: Having played four AoS games now (two from the starter set and two with armies my opponent and I created), I have to say that I think a lot of the rage/quit comments are misguided.
Before, so much of WHFB seemed to boil down to who was better at placing their movement trays. With the AoS rules, tactics come back into the game in interesting ways. Formations no longer matter, so how you move and place models takes on a whole new significance. For game balance, my opponents and I agreed on wounds as our number. We created a 100 wounds apiece battle, and the games lasted about 3 hours each. The random aspect of who goes first each turn keeps things interesting and exciting. And the pile in mechanic allows for more models to get into combat rather than being stuck at the end of rank.
One thing I really liked about the scrolls was that most monsters now have variable stats, depending on their wounds. It makes you think how best to use them rather than just barrelling forward into combat.
My big takeaway - if you like 8th edition, your game is still there, and now your models will be there as they are being supported by AoS. If you are new to fantasy, want to pick it up again, or play 40K, you might want to give AoS a try. So far, the games have been fun (something that was lacking in my last experience with WHFB). Of course, your milage may vary.
So you think a game where units have facing, turning on the spot is not free and flank/ rear charges provide advantage is less tactical than a game with none of the above where you move entire units like they were skirmish models. Interesting tbh.
As I said, in my experience, almost every WHFB I played (three years of High Elves) ultimately boiled down to who was better at moving and aligning their rectangles around the board. I understood the concept behind why a ranks couldn't move through a passage blocked by terrain, but it was still frustrating. For a lot of our group, we eventually stripped terrain down to the minimum, and then most games became slugfests, with again, folks who were best at managing movement trays gaining the upper hand.
So I think AoS has opened up new tactical options - especially for charging and with the 3 inch pile in moves. Cover comes into play in ways it didn't before. And so far, for what seems to be a very big issue for those who are complaining, balancing the game using wounds as the determinate has worked well. My impressions of the game may change, but for now, both my opponents and I agree that the AoS games we have played have been fun, and that the rules have us re-interested in fantasy. In one game, my opponent was unwrapping a Tomb King army that had been stored away for years, and it was cool to see it back in action. Which I think is kind of the point GW was going for. Fantasy was a dying system. For those that like 8th, AoS means that GW is not abandoning their fantasy line (like they have with LoTR and the Hobbit), which is good for players that like 8th edition. For new players, or ones looking to jump back into fantasy, AoS appears to be the shot in the arm that it needed.
Sure looks to me like that person is selling the book from the starter set, since they're also selling the two sets of figures from the starter set as well.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: How does one make a list building function with no balance? It would be functionally the same as the individual warscrolls if it had no balance element... Making the app and its functions redundant?
I'm sure a "list building function" and a "balance function" come somewhat hand in hand, don't they?
Pretty easy:
1 War Scroll of rune Lord
1 War Scroll of Hammerers
1 Cannon
I just built a list with no points. I imagine this is what the app will do; basically allow you to make a list of what you are bringing/have.
Sure looks to me like that person is selling the book from the starter set, since they're also selling the two sets of figures from the starter set as well.
No, thats Discount games. They're pretty legit and aren't just breaking up a box for high markups. This could be promising.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: How does one make a list building function with no balance? It would be functionally the same as the individual warscrolls if it had no balance element... Making the app and its functions redundant?
I'm sure a "list building function" and a "balance function" come somewhat hand in hand, don't they?
I see it more as "I want to use these units <click click click> and here are all of my special rules from the warscrolls."
Building an army doesn't necessitate building it to a specific points level. Though it might be the algorythmic thing we keep hearing about? Time will tell.
Sure looks to me like that person is selling the book from the starter set, since they're also selling the two sets of figures from the starter set as well.
I dont see their listing for the two starter sets independently. This site only sells things new in box or as is from retailer. They dont open up boxes and sell piece by piece. I have ordered half of my 40k stuff from this company, and they have always had pre-orders available and have always been reliable.
Sure looks to me like that person is selling the book from the starter set, since they're also selling the two sets of figures from the starter set as well.
No, thats Discount games. They're pretty legit and aren't just breaking up a box for high markups. This could be promising.
" You are looking at a new Warhammer Age of Sigmar Core Rule Book. This is a pre-sale and we expect the new GW Age of Sigmar Rule Book to be delivered this coming week and we will ship to you ASAP. This is a pre-sale and are guaranteed to ship out within 30 days at the latest/in case of rare GW delays. Included are all the components. These items are brand new and sealed in the box. Buy with confidence - check out our feedback! "
Will the big book that we saw presales for be here 'this coming week'?
I suppose it could just fill some field with the warscrolls you want to play with only so you can go through them instead of an entire army's worth..
I guess the term "list building function" is deeper to me than "grouped warscrolls." it implies a bit of customization and designation of how many models, what equipment, and some sort of value designation. Shouldnt it just be a "army selection tool" rather than an "army building tool?" building implies that the player has to do something more than select.
Does everyone actually think going forward with this release, that gw will actually never implement balance and use it as part of this app?
AncientSkarbrand wrote: I suppose it could just fill some field with the warscrolls you want to play with only so you can go through them instead of an entire army's worth..
I guess the term "list building function" is deeper to me than "grouped warscrolls." it implies a bit of customization and designation of how many models, what equipment, and some sort of value designation. Shouldnt it just be a "army selection tool" rather than an "army building tool?" building implies that the player has to do something more than select.
Does everyone actually think going forward with this release, that gw will actually never implement balance and use it as part of this app?
At the Forge World Open they said there would never be point values, but there would be a tournament structure system they were starting to write for future events.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: How does one make a list building function with no balance? It would be functionally the same as the individual warscrolls if it had no balance element... Making the app and its functions redundant?
I'm sure a "list building function" and a "balance function" come somewhat hand in hand, don't they?
Pretty easy:
1 War Scroll of rune Lord
1 War Scroll of Hammerers
1 Cannon
I just built a list with no points. I imagine this is what the app will do; basically allow you to make a list of what you are bringing/have.
Possibly, I just read it differently, but I'll admit it could just be this.
Shadowclaimer wrote: Age of Sigmar isn't replacing Warhammer, even if AOS hadn't existed Warhammer would've been cancelled. Age of Sigmar is a new game in the same universe.
Sure, but then if you think that when you simultaneously drop one game to start another game that the new game isn't going to get flak because the old one, you're a little bit naive.
If you didn't want the new game to get flak, then the smart thing to do would be to have some overlap and transition period or dropping the old game well before the new one instead of coming along with a big campaign with expensive books and models, not telling anyone anything for 6 months, and then coming out with a new game.
There obviously was solid business reasons they went about this. I love the people who seem to think Games Workshop Executives just sit in a board room tapping their fingers together plotting how to screw over their playerbase again.
No, we think GW executives sit there plotting how to milk the most money out of the market without considering what the current customers actually want. It's hardly a baseless thought given GW have made it clear they don't do market research and they think the "hobby" is simply buying GW products.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: I suppose it could just fill some field with the warscrolls you want to play with only so you can go through them instead of an entire army's worth..
I guess the term "list building function" is deeper to me than "grouped warscrolls." it implies a bit of customization and designation of how many models, what equipment, and some sort of value designation. Shouldnt it just be a "army selection tool" rather than an "army building tool?" building implies that the player has to do something more than select.
Does everyone actually think going forward with this release, that gw will actually never implement balance and use it as part of this app?
At the Forge World Open they said there would never be point values, but there would be a tournament structure system they were starting to write for future events.
Allegedly. This is one account of FWOpen from one guy that has been redistributed. Please feel free to post if it has been independently confirmed though.
Hardcover book of 264 pages in full color where we find the background of everything the happened from the events in "The End of times" to Warhammer : Age of Sigmar. 8 new scenarios , 24 Warscrolls ( thumbnail profiles ) for Stormcast eternals , Khorne Bloodbound and Sylvaneth . In Spanish. This article becomes part of the module.
Hardcover book of 264 pages in full color where we find the background of everything occurrido from the events in "The End of times" to Warhammer : Age of Sigmar. 8 new scenarios , 24 Warscrolls ( thumbnail profiles ) for Stormcast eternals , Khorne Bloodbound and Sylvaneth . In Spanish. This article becomes part of the module.
Hardcover book of 264 pages in full color where we find the background of everything the happened from the events in "The End of times" to Warhammer : Age of Sigmar. 8 new scenarios , 24 Warscrolls ( thumbnail profiles ) for Stormcast eternals , Khorne Bloodbound and Sylvaneth . In Spanish. This article becomes part of the module.
From google translate.
This would fit the rumors of it being fluff, scenarios, and warscrolls.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: I suppose it could just fill some field with the warscrolls you want to play with only so you can go through them instead of an entire army's worth..
I guess the term "list building function" is deeper to me than "grouped warscrolls." it implies a bit of customization and designation of how many models, what equipment, and some sort of value designation. Shouldnt it just be a "army selection tool" rather than an "army building tool?" building implies that the player has to do something more than select.
Does everyone actually think going forward with this release, that gw will actually never implement balance and use it as part of this app?
At the Forge World Open they said there would never be point values, but there would be a tournament structure system they were starting to write for future events.
I'm sure this core rulebook will have all of those specific systems and campaign games. Because there are supposed to be campaign games that limit your model selection
frankelee wrote: I can understand the idea of counter trolling people who ask about Kairos Fateweaver combos. Just go, "Yup! Anyone who plays a Skaven wagon thing and Kairos Fateweaver automatically wins every game, see ya later!" I mean if you were playing a regular WFB-like game with Kairos Fateweaver and one of your models had "dragonstomping" which gave you D3 extra attacks every turn, and you went, "I'm using his special ability on this D3 roll and I choose a billion!" it's not like people wouldn't look at you like you had horns growing out of your head. And then hand you a ball and note that you could bounce it.
I personally think if you really want Age of Sigmar to look dumb the best way is to actually review the game and find legitimate things that suck about it. Like, it doesn't scale up very well. Or, battles sometimes devolve into big, messy scrimmages which become boring. When you complain that female gamers can't grow moustaches to suit these unfair rules, or find game hacks that only work if you can't understand basic dice mechanics that anyone over 5 is expected to understand, 99.9% of human beings who hear your argument go, "That's nice," and then never listen to you again.
This is probably the most sensible thing I've seen in this thread.
You do not belong here.
Indeed its sad what people will do try and win a game of toy soldiers including willfully misinterpreting or indeed downright ingoring the rules. The Fatewaver thing has been debunked os many times its not funny.
1) This isn't what GW sales reps are telling us about the book.
2) This guy does not have the book yet. It hasn't been ordered yet. It hasn't been shipped to retailers.
3) GW has said over and over that the 4 page rules are the only rules, thus they are the Core Rules. They put those 4 pages online, in WD, in the starter box. No surprising they'd put 4 pages of rules in this HC.
4) When GW has done large rulebooks in the last few editions, the starter box had an A4 sized rulebook. So why is there some assumption that this product will have rules not in the aos box?
So I'm guessing that the rumoured Warhammer 30K game will use AoS rules, which would make sense on so many levels. New skirmish 40K-ish game that's expandable. Dual stats for 30K models to be used in 40K. 30K rules for some armies from 40K. Lets them test out new rules without jeopardizing Space Marine (read; 40K) sales. If it bombs or doesn't live up to expectation it can be retired without long term consequences.
Now show me the Aelfs... and I hope they are more Moorcock than Tolkien.
frankelee wrote: I can understand the idea of counter trolling people who ask about Kairos Fateweaver combos. Just go, "Yup! Anyone who plays a Skaven wagon thing and Kairos Fateweaver automatically wins every game, see ya later!" I mean if you were playing a regular WFB-like game with Kairos Fateweaver and one of your models had "dragonstomping" which gave you D3 extra attacks every turn, and you went, "I'm using his special ability on this D3 roll and I choose a billion!" it's not like people wouldn't look at you like you had horns growing out of your head. And then hand you a ball and note that you could bounce it.
I personally think if you really want Age of Sigmar to look dumb the best way is to actually review the game and find legitimate things that suck about it. Like, it doesn't scale up very well. Or, battles sometimes devolve into big, messy scrimmages which become boring. When you complain that female gamers can't grow moustaches to suit these unfair rules, or find game hacks that only work if you can't understand basic dice mechanics that anyone over 5 is expected to understand, 99.9% of human beings who hear your argument go, "That's nice," and then never listen to you again.
This is probably the most sensible thing I've seen in this thread.
You do not belong here.
Yes, AoS is clearly designed for reasonable players, rather than people who are just determined to break it.
Plumbumbarum wrote:Things having more vulnerable sides and rear and is a basis for proper tactical play in wargames imo... Any dumbing down of a movement phase hurts tactical play and improving one thing only to worsen another, more important, is bad as well.
agnosto wrote:All of this could have been accomplished without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" the same mechanics that you just listed could have been inserted into the old rules and still retained some tactical depth.
What they said. Sorry Mikhaila, what you described doesn't sound too tactical. Rather than having in-game tactics arising out of interwoven basic rules and a handful if special ones, it sounds like the same old GW overly-strategic listbuilding thing but doubled down: pants-on-head simple, bare rules where what matters is which and how many magic gewgaws and special rules you can cram on top for beating someone in the face. Including things that let you get in quicker to beat someone in the face.
I liked WHFB because Romans couldn't throw magic around or send a Giant crashing through someone's lines and yet still maintain some semblance of tactics
Wot, no elephants?
now I'll have to look elsewhere I suppose.
What Harry said.
Platuan4th wrote:What about those of us that want to play mass fantasy battles and find KOW's rules to be lacking?
What Harry said. Also, not entirely sure of your intent, but if you mean KoW is lacking in individual scuffles, wounds, weapons, and other micromanagement: other mass battle games mix it up a bit, but that's how mass battle wargames generally work. Warhammer was the outlier, the skirmish game that swelled too big, with only a few nods to the necessary abstraction along the way.
Sigvatr wrote:
You can't satisfy everyone. You currently have 3 options with differing depth / complexity:
What Harry said.
Harry wrote:
If you can't find SOMETHING in this lot that rings your bell you need shootin'.
Some of these you can use any armies and some even have systems for working out their points! and many of these sets can be dropped right into the Olde World as a setting if its the back ground you are missing.
Armies of Arcana
Fantacide (Written by Rick P)
Mayhem
Bear yourselves valiantly
Sword and spear
Legion of battle
Mighty Armies.
Hordes of the Things
Fantasy Warlord.
Warhammer 1st-8th
This! What Harry said! I've mentioned some of these many times before, and here's a wee bit of description of some of them.
AllSeeingSkink wrote:FWIW, I actually find 15mm models easier to paint than 28mm. 15mm is my sweet spot, there's a lot of tricks you can get away with to make painting easier that don't work on larger models because it'd look too messy, but the models are still large enough to make out the smaller features of a mansized model (unlike 10mm and 6mm where models start to not look human any more).
Yup. IMO painting gets easier the smaller you go, because the the smaller scales become much more forgiving of quick, basic wash, drybrush and other techniques.
The only thing I prefer about 28mm models is you can't really convert 15mm models very easily, but that's not a problem if you just want to fill out ranks of tons of troops.
The more I look around the hobby, the more I think this is the way it should be. Keep character conversions and heaps of special rules for small 28mm skirmishes, and let mass battles be mass battles, about whole 15mm- units and regiments wheeling about on the table.
agnosto wrote: And so GW learns the downside of free rules.......
Definitely a gamble on their part. If you don't want the AoS minis from the box, why would you buy the box? blue whippy sticks, dice, and the fluffbook are the only other things in there.
That said, i think a lot of people will buy this box. Models are awesome.
Hardcover book of 264 pages in full color where we find the background of everything occurrido from the events in "The End of times" to Warhammer : Age of Sigmar. 8 new scenarios , 24 Warscrolls ( thumbnail profiles ) for Stormcast eternals , Khorne Bloodbound and Sylvaneth . In Spanish. This article becomes part of the module.
Well this is unfortunate, because i really like the game mechanics (what exists so far) and really want an excuse to give gw my money for this game. The model range looks promising and the game is fun..
But i cant possibly spend this much money on something that hasnt told me and my buddies how to use it. The purchase wouldnt be justified as i would have hardly any opponents. My group is going to be difficult to win over to this side when i say "there's no balancing mechanic, but we can just throw down what looks balanced and hash it out." It's so much easier to just drop 2000 pts of 40k we already have. Sure, i can probably convince them all to do a game or two of AOS but it just cant have lasting appeal without some form of balance.
I was excited for this book, i thought it was going to make this confusing mess structured and playable for everyone. But outside of the prescribed scenarios i feel like this game at this point has an investment value too high for its replayability. Why suffer through pregame talks and decisions and house rule creation when we can all just play 40k?
I wanted something new that would give me endless hours of high fantasy enjoyment, not endless hours of high fantasy "work" to play the game.
For one thing, the fact that only two universal spells exist had me very convinced this book was going to be a full fledged BRB. Many things in the game could do with clarification. I want to play it but it seems like theyre making it hard for me to give them my money.
I'm also getting impatient sitting here and waiting for gw to do something about it. If rules are coming like that gwrep said at fwopen, why wait so bloody long? I want to know if i should invest NOW, not in two months when the excitement of the new system and setting have withered away.
Gotta admit, pretty disappointed. Balance mechanic,more spells, heavy clarification, and this would be a great game.
Hardcover book of 264 pages in full color where we find the background of everything occurrido from the events in "The End of times" to Warhammer : Age of Sigmar. 8 new scenarios , 24 Warscrolls ( thumbnail profiles ) for Stormcast eternals , Khorne Bloodbound and Sylvaneth . In Spanish. This article becomes part of the module.
From google translate.
Oo Sylvaneth are the Dryads/Treekin/Wood Elves.
Sylvaneth are strictly Dryads/Trees.
Wood Elves are "Wanderers".
Oops yea. That.
I hope they get fleshed into the third major faction. I'd love to play a Treekin army.
I'd prolly be interested in the book, still can't decide on the AOS box. I will probably impulse buy it when I see it in front of me as usual.
I'd like to see them do a nice hardback book full of scrolls and scenarios, like 1 book for each different plane/bubble/faction or whatever. Like an army book, but cooler
AllSeeingSkink wrote:FWIW, I actually find 15mm models easier to paint than 28mm. 15mm is my sweet spot, there's a lot of tricks you can get away with to make painting easier that don't work on larger models because it'd look too messy, but the models are still large enough to make out the smaller features of a mansized model (unlike 10mm and 6mm where models start to not look human any more).
Yup. IMO painting gets easier the smaller you go, because the the smaller scales become much more forgiving of quick, basic wash, drybrush and other techniques.
The only thing I prefer about 28mm models is you can't really convert 15mm models very easily, but that's not a problem if you just want to fill out ranks of tons of troops.
The more I look around the hobby, the more I think this is the way it should be. Keep character conversions and heaps of special rules for small 28mm skirmishes, and let mass battles be mass battles, about whole 15mm- units and regiments wheeling about on the table.
This in diametric opposition to Games Workshop's philosophy.
Games Workshop is about making really cool models with which to build a model collection, and then giving some context to play them. For 30 years, they have not been about writing a wargaming system, and then building models for that system. It's all about making awesome 28mm miniatures, spending thousands of hours painting them, and playing with them -- or sometimes not, and just displaying them or building dioramas. The problem with 15mm is that it's impossible to make your infantry awesome, with the sort of detail you can get into 28mm. They're miniatures sized for gaming, not sized for painting.
The last thing in the world I want is miniatures that require just a quick drybrush to paint. I probably spend 5+ hours on every single model, even the most repetitive infantryman (and I'm pretty quick); an army represents, literally, thousands of hours of work that was all highly enjoyable.
If "the best" wargaming system is what you're interested in, look elsewhere. You'll *never* find it in GW, because they're more concerned with the models, and you can't heap on more cool models with more cool powers all the time, and keep a game balanced.
If you think GW models are awesome, and want an context in which enjoy them in games, GW games are perfect.
For me, I am definitely in the second category. I can and do have fun with almost any wargame rules. I have tried dozens, and frankly, it doesn't matter to me how good or bad they are. What's most important is a table that looks awesome, and an opponent who is someone I enjoy playing with. I have no desire to compete with strangers to show my tactical superiority, and the last thing I want to do is humiliate my friends. I see this hobby as a miniature hobby with a wargame that's as much social as strategic; I don't see the hobby as an export of a computer game.
... it's not like people wouldn't look at you like you had horns growing out of your head. And then hand you a ball and note that you could bounce it.
When you complain that female gamers can't grow moustaches to suit these unfair rules, or find game hacks that only work if you can't understand basic dice mechanics that anyone over 5 is expected to understand, 99.9% of human beings who hear your argument go, "That's nice," and then never listen to you again.
Yes, AoS is clearly designed for reasonable players, rather than people who are just determined to break it.
The thing is, all this self-policing, reasonable player stuff was the excuse trundled out for 40K and WHFB's glaring imbalances - as if only unreasonable players cared about balance - and it didn't help matters. What's different this time?
Also, women who complain about the rules for their dwarfs should just be ignored. That's a special kind of lack of self-awareness, right there. About on par with the assertions that this is a perfectly sensible post.
mikhaila wrote:Models are awesome.
Again, an excuse for 40K and WFB, that didn't do much to slow the revenue slide the last few years.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: Well this is unfortunate, because i really like the game mechanics (what exists so far) and really want an excuse to give gw my money for this game. The model range looks promising and the game is fun..
But i cant possibly spend this much money on something that hasnt told me and my buddies how to use it. The purchase wouldnt be justified as i would have hardly any opponents. My group is going to be difficult to win over to this side when i say "there's no balancing mechanic, but we can just throw down what looks balanced and hash it out." It's so much easier to just drop 2000 pts of 40k we already have. Sure, i can probably convince them all to do a game or two of AOS but it just cant have lasting appeal without some form of balance.
I was excited for this book, i thought it was going to make this confusing mess structured and playable for everyone. But outside of the prescribed scenarios i feel like this game at this point has an investment value too high for its replayability. Why suffer through pregame talks and decisions and house rule creation when we can all just play 40k?
I wanted something new that would give me endless hours of high fantasy enjoyment, not endless hours of high fantasy "work" to play the game.
For one thing, the fact that only two universal spells exist had me very convinced this book was going to be a full fledged BRB. Many things in the game could do with clarification. I want to play it but it seems like theyre making it hard for me to give them my money.
I'm also getting impatient sitting here and waiting for gw to do something about it. If rules are coming like that gwrep said at fwopen, why wait so bloody long? I want to know if i should invest NOW, not in two months when the excitement of the new system and setting have withered away.
Gotta admit, pretty disappointed. Balance mechanic, more lore, heavy clarification, and this would be a great game.
Thing is, it has balancing mechanics, it's just that people don't rate them as much as the established points-based systems. You're over-egging the pudding saying that you and your friends would have no way to play it, etc. Fundamentally untrue.
The thing is, all this self-policing, reasonable player stuff was the excuse trundled out for 40K and WHFB's glaring imbalances - as if only unreasonable players cared about balance - and it didn't help matters. What's different this time?
Also, women who complain about the rules for their dwarfs should just be ignored. That's a special kind of lack of self-awareness, right there. About on par with the assertions that this is a perfectly sensible post.
It just boils down to the folks who just want to play a game and having a good time -- rather than folks who are actively looking for a way to break the game. GW games are generally fantastic for the former crowd and lousy for the latter.
AncientSkarbrand wrote: Well this is unfortunate, because i really like the game mechanics (what exists so far) and really want an excuse to give gw my money for this game. The model range looks promising and the game is fun..
But i cant possibly spend this much money on something that hasnt told me and my buddies how to use it. The purchase wouldnt be justified as i would have hardly any opponents. My group is going to be difficult to win over to this side when i say "there's no balancing mechanic, but we can just throw down what looks balanced and hash it out." It's so much easier to just drop 2000 pts of 40k we already have. Sure, i can probably convince them all to do a game or two of AOS but it just cant have lasting appeal without some form of balance.
I was excited for this book, i thought it was going to make this confusing mess structured and playable for everyone. But outside of the prescribed scenarios i feel like this game at this point has an investment value too high for its replayability. Why suffer through pregame talks and decisions and house rule creation when we can all just play 40k?
I wanted something new that would give me endless hours of high fantasy enjoyment, not endless hours of high fantasy "work" to play the game.
For one thing, the fact that only two universal spells exist had me very convinced this book was going to be a full fledged BRB. Many things in the game could do with clarification. I want to play it but it seems like theyre making it hard for me to give them my money.
I'm also getting impatient sitting here and waiting for gw to do something about it. If rules are coming like that gwrep said at fwopen, why wait so bloody long? I want to know if i should invest NOW, not in two months when the excitement of the new system and setting have withered away.
Gotta admit, pretty disappointed. Balance mechanic, more lore, heavy clarification, and this would be a great game.
Thing is, it has balancing mechanics, it's just that people don't rate them as much as the established points-based systems. You're over-egging the pudding saying that you and your friends would have no way to play it, etc. Fundamentally untrue.
As I said above, the amount of times we've tabled whatever we had with us and played it for fun just for the hell of playing is pretty high. I look forward to doing the same again, but this time with some objectives for the underdog.
MalusCalibur wrote: Regardless of any individual standpoint on AoS, it cannot work as a replacement for WHFB. Lacking any kind of balancing means that there can never be a 'community' for it in the same way as any other game, because every group and every individual is likely to have their own interpretations of what is 'reasonable' and 'fair' to bring to a game. One of the few advantages GW games had left was ubiquity; take that away and you fracture the community into isolated splinter groups each playing a different game.
You young kids...GET OFF MY LAWN!
But seriously, let me tell you of a little game called AD&D. It existed in a pre-Internet era where the only "communities" were magazines (I use this term vaguely), stores and gaming clubs. And while there was some difference in house rules, there were almost universally accepted groupings of interpretation of rules. This was actually a feature not a bug because it allowed you to assess new groups by their house rules. (Rogue Trader also existed pre-Internet with lots of interpretations and it seems to have done fine.)
Right now Warhammer in all its incarnations is tournament focussed. I don't play tournaments and exacting total balance for me is not important. I generally don't like the people who play in tournaments. I wouldn't play with them socially now that I've seen their black hearts. But now I am free to find players who interpret the rules like I do and to play fun rather than competitive games. It happened with Rogue Trader, a game that was less balanced than AoS in spite of having points, and it will soon enough happen with AoS.
The thing you liked is gone and I understand that upsets you. But give this new thing its own chance. It's not here to replace your old thing, only it's retail space. You can still play your old thing, there are no shortage of stand in WHFB proxy minis.
It just boils down to the folks who just want to play a game and having a good time -- rather than folks who are actively looking for a way to break the game. GW games are generally fantastic for the former crowd and lousy for the latter.
Who said anything about breaking the game?
I want to play a force I like against a force my opponent likes, knowing that we're roughly evenly matched by some sort of tested system and that the game's outcome will be decided in most part by our decisions in game and some varying amount of luck.
I didnt say we have no way. But i did exaggerate. What i meant is that my group will always pick something with described balance over something that requires negotiation beforehand.
I also am no giant defender of the points based system. I dont need points, just something. Allow me to somehow put a balanced force out there against my opponents without having to have him there with his models. I recognize the points system also has balancing problems especially the more variables there are.
But Bull0, are you saying the way theyve told us to play this game is actually balanced inherently? You really dont ache for more advanced rules and game setup than this?
Games Workshop is about making really cool models with which to build a model collection, and then giving some context to play them. For 30 years, they have not been about writing a wargaming system, and then building models for that system. It's all about making awesome 28mm miniatures, spending thousands of hours painting them, and playing with them -- or sometimes not, and just displaying them or building dioramas. The problem with 15mm is that it's impossible to make your infantry awesome, with the sort of detail you can get into 28mm. They're miniatures sized for gaming, not sized for painting.
The last thing in the world I want is miniatures that require just a quick drybrush to paint. I probably spend 5+ hours on every single model, even the most repetitive infantryman (and I'm pretty quick); an army represents, literally, thousands of hours of work that was all highly enjoyable.
I hate this attitude so much, because it represents everything that wrecks wargaming. Players who come in with awesomely painted armies who can't play for ****, and "just want to have fun" then whine when a better player stomps them and call them TFG or WAAC -- it's a WAR game, go do something other than WAR if "fun" is all you want, and leave wargames to people who are tactically minded and who want to do battle. Of COURSE I want to win. What other possible reason could I be playing a WAR game?
Who cares if your plastic toy soldier took 5 hours to paint or 5 minutes to paint? It's just a plastic soldier. The game is in figuring out what to do with it once you play it. If you want to take a thousand hours to fill a display case, good for you, but it dont expect me to make a weak army to play you.
If it's just all about miniatures, GW should rename themselves to Miniatures Workshop and get rid of all their stupid rules, and I'd be happy. But better that they go out of business, so they stop stealing customers from companies that properly test an balance games!
Thing is, it has balancing mechanics, it's just that people don't rate them as much as the established points-based systems. You're over-egging the pudding saying that you and your friends would have no way to play it, etc. Fundamentally untrue.
Aye, this,
Its balance that is the key for competitive play, not necessarily points.
I wonder if GW expected so many heads would be exploding at the thought of no points values though, It should be expected somewhat, they have been doing it since the start, stands to reason its one of the key things that people expect with a GW game.
It just boils down to the folks who just want to play a game and having a good time -- rather than folks who are actively looking for a way to break the game. GW games are generally fantastic for the former crowd and lousy for the latter.
Who said anything about breaking the game?
I want to play a force I like against a force my opponent likes, knowing that we're roughly evenly matched by some sort of tested system and that the game's outcome will be decided in most part by our decisions in game and some varying amount of luck.
At no point do I desire to break the game.
But this is really easy to do in AoS. If you would give it a try, you'd see that it is so. Pick an arbitrary value, like wounds, or just eyeball an army and take a rough guess. We played 3 games of AoS, barely knowing what we were doing, and the randomish armies we came up with versus the couple of cohesive armies of people who had proper collections were pretty close, and more importantly, quite fun.
Could someone pull up a combo to break that fun? Yes, I'm sure they could. But in the context of just playing and doing our best with 2 armies that visually looked equivalent -- the games were all really close and could have gone either way.
The thing is, all this self-policing, reasonable player stuff was the excuse trundled out for 40K and WHFB's glaring imbalances - as if only unreasonable players cared about balance - and it didn't help matters. What's different this time?
Ummm, except it's not an excuse. There were plenty of Jervis Johnson & Co. articles in White Dwarf & Co showing they really believe in this. It's worse than negligence or excuses. It's ideology.
Games Workshop is about making really cool models with which to build a model collection, and then giving some context to play them. For 30 years, they have not been about writing a wargaming system, and then building models for that system. It's all about making awesome 28mm miniatures, spending thousands of hours painting them, and playing with them -- or sometimes not, and just displaying them or building dioramas. The problem with 15mm is that it's impossible to make your infantry awesome, with the sort of detail you can get into 28mm. They're miniatures sized for gaming, not sized for painting.
The last thing in the world I want is miniatures that require just a quick drybrush to paint. I probably spend 5+ hours on every single model, even the most repetitive infantryman (and I'm pretty quick); an army represents, literally, thousands of hours of work that was all highly enjoyable.
I hate this attitude so much, because it represents everything that wrecks wargaming. Players who come in with awesomely painted armies who can't play for ****, and "just want to have fun" then whine when a better player stomps them and call them TFG or WAAC -- it's a WAR game, go do something other than WAR if "fun" is all you want, and leave wargames to people who are tactically minded and who want to do battle. Of COURSE I want to win. What other possible reason could I be playing a WAR game?
Who cares if your plastic toy soldier took 5 hours to paint or 5 minutes to paint? It's just a plastic soldier. The game is in figuring out what to do with it once you play it. If you want to take a thousand hours to fill a display case, good for you, but it dont expect me to make a weak army to play you.
If it's just all about miniatures, GW should rename themselves to Miniatures Workshop and get rid of all their stupid rules, and I'd be happy. But better that they go out of business, so they stop stealing customers from companies that properly test an balance games!
Are you for real? >.<
That sounds so... antisocial and narrow-minded. The hobby is different things to different people. Also, if you think that plastic soldiers are just plastic soldiers, save yourself money and just tape a piece of paper onto a base with an arrow on one side that indicates facing forward, and go play with a free gaming system with good competitive rules like KoW. Your whole 200 model army will take you 10 minutes to build and cost you $20 in bases off of eBay. Why buy models at all?
The thing is, all this self-policing, reasonable player stuff was the excuse trundled out for 40K and WHFB's glaring imbalances - as if only unreasonable players cared about balance - and it didn't help matters. What's different this time?
Ummm, except it's not an excuse. There were plenty of Jervis Johnson & Co. articles in White Dwarf & Co showing they really believe in this. It's worse than negligence or excuses. It's ideology.
Yes, I agree. As I've said before, this is philosophically what GW believes in, it's built into their company's DNA, and everything I've ever seen of them is that they are a company that loves awesome miniatures first, friendly/casual/social games second, fluff third. Competitions are like, an afterthought.
I'm sure they recognize that not everyone loves the same things as them. They just don't care, and do what they want to do, and cater to the people who are like-minded with them.
All this "Players will work it out!" talk reminds me of how well the allies thing in 40k worked out. Everyone used it to build fluffy armies and...wait.
Games Workshop is about making really cool models with which to build a model collection, and then giving some context to play them. For 30 years, they have not been about writing a wargaming system, and then building models for that system. It's all about making awesome 28mm miniatures, spending thousands of hours painting them, and playing with them -- or sometimes not, and just displaying them or building dioramas. The problem with 15mm is that it's impossible to make your infantry awesome, with the sort of detail you can get into 28mm. They're miniatures sized for gaming, not sized for painting.
The last thing in the world I want is miniatures that require just a quick drybrush to paint. I probably spend 5+ hours on every single model, even the most repetitive infantryman (and I'm pretty quick); an army represents, literally, thousands of hours of work that was all highly enjoyable.
I hate this attitude so much, because it represents everything that wrecks wargaming. Players who come in with awesomely painted armies who can't play for ****, and "just want to have fun" then whine when a better player stomps them and call them TFG or WAAC -- it's a WAR game, go do something other than WAR if "fun" is all you want, and leave wargames to people who are tactically minded and who want to do battle. Of COURSE I want to win. What other possible reason could I be playing a WAR game?
Who cares if your plastic toy soldier took 5 hours to paint or 5 minutes to paint? It's just a plastic soldier. The game is in figuring out what to do with it once you play it. If you want to take a thousand hours to fill a display case, good for you, but it dont expect me to make a weak army to play you.
If it's just all about miniatures, GW should rename themselves to Miniatures Workshop and get rid of all their stupid rules, and I'd be happy. But better that they go out of business, so they stop stealing customers from companies that properly test an balance games!
Are you for real? >.<
That sounds so... antisocial and narrow-minded. The hobby is different things to different people. Also, if you think that plastic soldiers are just plastic soldiers, save yourself money and just tape a piece of paper onto a base with an arrow on one side that indicates facing forward, and go play with a free gaming system with good competitive rules like KoW. Your whole army will take you 10 minutes to build and cost you $20 in bases off of eBay. Why buy models at all?
I definitely play for narrative. I want to have fun pretending a full story. I understand there are fluffers and crunchers, I'm definitely on the fluffy side myself. I don't see how people can completely rule out the other side though, its so, as you said, antisocial and narrow-minded.
AOS appeals to me for that reason. I can play a narrative and Endure 6 turns against a huge orc onslaught as an elite group of Sigmarines, or I can go hunting for a Daemonlord of Chaos. Feels a lot more story driven than "throw your army against mine over and over until one of us runs out of models."
AncientSkarbrand wrote: But Bull0, are you saying the way theyve told us to play this game is actually balanced inherently? You really dont ache for more advanced rules and game setup than this?
I didn't say it's balanced, I'd have to play a lot of games to know that, I said it has balancing mechanics. You alternate while you're setting up units, and you can take *anything*, so if one of you is picking Nagash, the other can also pick Nagash. If one of you continues to put units down, the other can continue to put units down. Two balancing tricks here - the player that finishes setting up first chooses who goes first in round 1, and if one of you has a bigger army than the other, the underdog gets a sudden death objective. Balancing mechanics.
They introduced the mechanic where monsters' attacks diminish as they take wounds over the course of the game, levelling the playing field between these large, multi-wound models and regiments of single-wound models. Balancing mechanic.
Close combat is fought in nominated order instead of initiative order, meaning a player can prioritise which attacks they make and in some cases defeat powerful enemies before they've attacked, which previously wouldn't have been possible. Balancing mechanic.
All of these things have been done to make the game more balanced, because going back through the hundreds of units in the back catalogue assigning points costs to them would've been an utter nightmare. People who have played the game are generally reporting it works well enough, and the legacy warscrolls are clearly a stopgap measure while more new Age of Sigmar stuff comes out, Age of Sigmar isn't intended to be the game of using WFB units forever.
I think it works great, and I'm excited to see what else comes out and how the campaign books are going to work, etc.
AllSeeingSkink wrote:FWIW, I actually find 15mm models easier to paint than 28mm. 15mm is my sweet spot, there's a lot of tricks you can get away with to make painting easier that don't work on larger models because it'd look too messy, but the models are still large enough to make out the smaller features of a mansized model (unlike 10mm and 6mm where models start to not look human any more).
Yup. IMO painting gets easier the smaller you go, because the the smaller scales become much more forgiving of quick, basic wash, drybrush and other techniques.
The only thing I prefer about 28mm models is you can't really convert 15mm models very easily, but that's not a problem if you just want to fill out ranks of tons of troops.
The more I look around the hobby, the more I think this is the way it should be. Keep character conversions and heaps of special rules for small 28mm skirmishes, and let mass battles be mass battles, about whole 15mm- units and regiments wheeling about on the table.
This in diametric opposition to Games Workshop's philosophy.
Games Workshop is about making really cool models with which to build a model collection, and then giving some context to play them. For 30 years, they have not been about writing a wargaming system, and then building models for that system. It's all about making awesome 28mm miniatures, spending thousands of hours painting them, and playing with them -- or sometimes not, and just displaying them or building dioramas. The problem with 15mm is that it's impossible to make your infantry awesome, with the sort of detail you can get into 28mm. They're miniatures sized for gaming, not sized for painting.
The last thing in the world I want is miniatures that require just a quick drybrush to paint. I probably spend 5+ hours on every single model, even the most repetitive infantryman (and I'm pretty quick); an army represents, literally, thousands of hours of work that was all highly enjoyable.
If "the best" wargaming system is what you're interested in, look elsewhere. You'll *never* find it in GW, because they're more concerned with the models, and you can't heap on more cool models with more cool powers all the time, and keep a game balanced.
If you think GW models are awesome, and want an context in which enjoy them in games, GW games are perfect.
For me, I am definitely in the second category. I can and do have fun with almost any wargame rules. I have tried dozens, and frankly, it doesn't matter to me how good or bad they are. What's most important is a table that looks awesome, and an opponent who is someone I enjoy playing with. I have no desire to compete with strangers to show my tactical superiority, and the last thing I want to do is humiliate my friends. I see this hobby as a miniature hobby with a wargame that's as much social as strategic; I don't see the hobby as an export of a computer game.
I totally disagree with your fundamental argument that you can't make 15mm infantry look awesome. 15mm can look awesome and in fact IMO are EASIER to make look awesome. You can also spend hours on each individual model to make them look insanely good.
28mm models might *photograph* better because being bigger you effectively end up zooming in on them more (the same way 54mm photographs better than 28mm!) but in real life 15mm looks just as good if not better to me because even though you might not make it look as good under a magnifying glass, to the eye it still looks awesome.
In the end it's just personal preference as to which looks *more* awesome. Do you like the aesthetic of individual models painted with higher detail, or the aesthetic of a more realistic sized battle with dozens of tanks and hundreds of soldiers. I prefer the latter. I think a Flames of War (or indeed even Epic 40k) army deployed across a well constructed table is a more impressive sight than your typical 40k army.
Individually, sure, a 28mm looks (subjectively) nicer and photographs better, but then a 35mm model looks nicer and photographs better again, and a 54mm model looks nicer and photographs even better! As a whole force, 15mm looks (subjectively) nicer.
Mediocre painters will roughly drybrush and wash their way to a painted army regardless of whether it's a 28mm army or a 15mm army and good painters will spend time layering and blending and weathering regardless of 28mm or 15mm as well.
Personally, I know I'm not a great painter, but my 15mm models are some of my favourite in my entire collection. In fact they currently hold the most prominent place on my display shelf because I LOVE the aesthetic of a dozen tanks rolling across a battlefield (sure, you can do that with 40k, but the scale is all fethed up and it looks silly having a dozen tanks lined up not much more than 4 tank-lengths from the enemy).
Also you mention GW for the "30 years", in that time they've released Dreadfleet, Warmaster, Inquisitor and Epic 40k while Forge World have also had Aeronautica Imperialis. GW certainly aren't unfamiliar with other scales, they've just decided to place all their eggs in the 1 basket of 28mm 40k and WHFB.
Yes, I agree. As I've said before, this is philosophically what GW believes in, it's built into their company's DNA, and everything I've ever seen of them is that they are a company that loves awesome miniatures first, friendly/casual/social games second, fluff third. Competitions are like, an afterthought.
Except for, you know, WHFG 6th and 7th editions and 40K 4th and 5th editions, which coincidently where the periods in which they experienced the biggest growth... funny that.
Bull0, I see what you're saying. Ive only played one game, and it seemed balanced but we attempted to put balanced forces out there on our own. I suppose i never particularily looked at ALL the things you stated as balancing mechanics. I suppose i'll have to play more games and watch more batreps to form a deeper opinion..
Still, sadly i believe my group won't be very interested in it outside of one-two people. Im more upset by the lack of unit value designation because of it's affects on the experiences and opinions of others than my own. I know i'm never going to cheese my friend's army off the table, but i cant say the same for the whole group, and if even one person does that or wants to do it, it will ruin it for the whole group and cause bad feelings between players, which would further alienate the game from the rest of us.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I totally disagree with your fundamental argument that you can't make 15mm infantry look awesome. 15mm can look awesome and in fact IMO are EASIER to make look awesome. You can also spend hours on each individual model to make them look insanely good.
28mm models might *photograph* better because being bigger you effectively end up zooming in on them more (the same way 54mm photographs better than 28mm!) but in real life 15mm looks just as good if not better to me.
In the end it's just personal preference as to which looks *more* awesome. Do you like the aesthetic of individual models painted with higher detail, or the aesthetic of a more realistic sized battle with dozens of tanks and hundreds of soldiers. I prefer the latter. I think a Flames of War army deployed across a well constructed table is a more impressive sight than your typical 40k army.
Individually, sure, a 28mm looks nicer and photographs better, but then a 35mm model looks nicer and photographs better again, and a 54mm model looks nicer and photographs even better!
Fair enough
In my opinion, on 15mm, you can't do details like writing on a model's name on their shoulder pads, or picking out visor lenses, or detailing heraldry. You can't effectively wet-blend non-metal metallics on 15mm infantry, you can't detail the runes on a sword, or paint OSL or other things.
I believe that 28mm is the smallest scale that allows you to do this type of thing, even for painters that are way more skilled than me. You can't really imagine a 15mm infantryman winning a Golden Demon, right? Also, 15mm is not a good size for expressing facial expressions or dioramas.
To your point, armies look awesome, and the more models the more awesome. So yeah, lots of 15mm models look really awesome. But lots of 28mm models on a slightly bigger table look even more awesome, IMO, but to each their own. The problem with going beyond 28mm is that tables can only be so big, and at some point, even though your 1 model might look cool, you can't field an army, because the table isn't big enough.
I'm not dissing smaller scales -- I think they're great in a game like FoW, and I've seen great looking armies. I just don't think you can put nearly as much detail into each individual model, even if you're prepared to put the time into it, but that's just my opinion and experience.
Edit: I would add that I agree with you that smaller scales are technically better for wargames that are a larger scale. The problem for me is that they're less satisfying individually to paint and personalize I do not get the same sense of completion when a model is done. Philosophically, every infantryman in my army is unique, and I want to express that; I don't want rows of nearly-identical soldiers, even though I fully understand this is how a real army works (incidentally, this is why I don't like Guard, and why I like "heroic" factions like Eldar/Marines, where every model is intended to be exceptional). I've never seen multipart, configurable small-scale models either But this is just my own preference!
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AncientSkarbrand wrote: Bull0, I see what you're saying. Ive only played one game, and it seemed balanced but we attempted to put balanced forces out there on our own. I suppose i never particularily looked at ALL the things you stated as balancing mechanics. I suppose i'll have to play more games and watch more batreps to form a deeper opinion..
Still, sadly i believe my group won't be very interested in it outside of one-two people. Im more upset by the lack of unit value designation because of it's affects on the experiences and opinions of others than my own. I know i'm never going to cheese my friend's army off the table, but i cant say the same for the whole group, and if even one person does that or wants to do it, it will ruin it for the whole group and cause bad feelings between players, which would further alienate the game from the rest of us.
Yeah, the latter is really the problem with "casual gaming" in the pickup or open scene. It only takes one cheesemeister to ruin it for everyone.
agnosto wrote: And so GW learns the downside of free rules.......
Definitely a gamble on their part. If you don't want the AoS minis from the box, why would you buy the box? blue whippy sticks, dice, and the fluffbook are the only other things in there.
That said, i think a lot of people will buy this box. Models are awesome.
I'm more talking about the 264 page fluff book. It will sell, just not as much as a book that's pretty-much required due to rules content.
Rayvon wrote: I wonder if GW expected so many heads would be exploding at the thought of no points values though, It should be expected somewhat, they have been doing it since the start, stands to reason its one of the key things that people expect with a GW game.
GW Suit: Jervis, you forgot the points values for models on scrolls.
Jervis: No, I forgot them from the rules. Most historical WARGAMES don't have points values, just forces available for scenarios.
GW Suit: Whatever nerd!
Points have never balanced a game, but certainly give the illusion of it. As a Rogue Trader player I can tell you their points value calculators didn't yield good points values. Like everything else, severely under or over costed and couldn't take into account edge cases where the model under or over performed.
The real problem is that GW has to fight against the inertia they created. Only in the GW bubble are these even things. Latter people followed their lead to re-inforce the belief it's the one try way.
The thing is, all this self-policing, reasonable player stuff was the excuse trundled out for 40K and WHFB's glaring imbalances - as if only unreasonable players cared about balance - and it didn't help matters. What's different this time?
Also, women who complain about the rules for their dwarfs should just be ignored. That's a special kind of lack of self-awareness, right there. About on par with the assertions that this is a perfectly sensible post.
It just boils down to the folks who just want to play a game and having a good time -- rather than folks who are actively looking for a way to break the game. GW games are generally fantastic for the former crowd and lousy for the latter.
You know there are more than just two options in that world, right? I'm casual but not grow a beard and make fart noises to get bonuses casual; I like tight rules but I don't try to break the game, I just don't like stopping the game to discuss unclear rules.
agnosto wrote: And so GW learns the downside of free rules.......
Definitely a gamble on their part. If you don't want the AoS minis from the box, why would you buy the box? blue whippy sticks, dice, and the fluffbook are the only other things in there.
That said, i think a lot of people will buy this box. Models are awesome.
I'm more talking about the 264 page fluff book. It will sell, just not as much as a book that's pretty-much required due to rules content.
I don't see how anyone could disagree with that
It's not nearly as many scenarios as I would have liked, though. Since I never read End Times and only know the story in the vaguest of ways (I don't follow WHFB fluff, and don't play it), I really am not attached enough to buy it for the fluff. I'm not sure I'd even read it, because I only have so much time, and there's other stuff I'm behind on reading that takes a higher priority.
The warscrolls will be free anyhow, I imagine, right? So it's only 8 scenarios; they'd have to be something awesome for me to buy the book. I guess if the artwork were incredible, or it had some other gaming purpose.
That's a huge book, by the way. Bigger than the new Codex: Space Marines LOL.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I totally disagree with your fundamental argument that you can't make 15mm infantry look awesome. 15mm can look awesome and in fact IMO are EASIER to make look awesome. You can also spend hours on each individual model to make them look insanely good.
28mm models might *photograph* better because being bigger you effectively end up zooming in on them more (the same way 54mm photographs better than 28mm!) but in real life 15mm looks just as good if not better to me.
In the end it's just personal preference as to which looks *more* awesome. Do you like the aesthetic of individual models painted with higher detail, or the aesthetic of a more realistic sized battle with dozens of tanks and hundreds of soldiers. I prefer the latter. I think a Flames of War army deployed across a well constructed table is a more impressive sight than your typical 40k army.
Individually, sure, a 28mm looks nicer and photographs better, but then a 35mm model looks nicer and photographs better again, and a 54mm model looks nicer and photographs even better!
Fair enough
In my opinion, on 15mm, you can't do details like writing on a model's name on their shoulder pads, or picking out visor lenses, or detailing heraldry. You can't effectively wet-blend non-metal metallics on 15mm infantry, you can't detail the runes on a sword, or paint OSL or other things.
I believe that 28mm is the smallest scale that allows you to do this type of thing, even for painters that are way more skilled than me. You can't really imagine a 15mm infantryman winning a Golden Demon, right? Also, 15mm is not a good size for expressing facial expressions or dioramas.
To your point, armies look awesome, and the more models the more awesome. So yeah, lots of 15mm models look really awesome. But lots of 28mm models on a slightly bigger table look even more awesome, IMO, but to each their own. The problem with going beyond 28mm is that tables can only be so big, and at some point, even though your 1 model might look cool, you can't field an army, because the table isn't big enough.
I'm not dissing smaller scales -- I think they're great in a game like FoW, and I've seen great looking armies. I just don't think you can put nearly as much detail into each individual model, even if you're prepared to put the time into it, but that's just my opinion and experience.
In the end it just comes down to personal preference whether you prefer an individual model to look nice or the force as a whole I think.
When I started WW2 stuff, I had to choose between 28mm (Perry, Wargames Factory, Bolt Action, etc) and 15mm (Flames of War, Plastic Soldier Company and so on). In the end my decision was largely based on aesthetics, I'd rather have a 1 square foot region of my gaming table taken up by half a dozen tanks and 20 to 30 men than taken up by 1 to 2 tanks and a dozen or so men Individually, the 28mm models would have looked nicer, but as a force, the 15mm stuff looks pretty cool to me.
But if you like painting the names of individual soldiers on the shoulder pads, 28mm is obviously better (and 54mm probably even better again).... but I tend to reserve that stuff for small scale games like Space Hulk
agnosto wrote: And so GW learns the downside of free rules.......
Definitely a gamble on their part. If you don't want the AoS minis from the box, why would you buy the box? blue whippy sticks, dice, and the fluffbook are the only other things in there.
That said, i think a lot of people will buy this box. Models are awesome.
I'm more talking about the 264 page fluff book. It will sell, just not as much as a book that's pretty-much required due to rules content.
I don't see how anyone could disagree with that
It's not nearly as many scenarios as I would have liked, though. Since I never read End Times and only know the story in the vaguest of ways (I don't follow WHFB fluff, and don't play it), I really am not attached enough to buy it for the fluff. I'm not sure I'd even read it, because I only have so much time, and there's other stuff I'm behind on reading that takes a higher priority.
The warscrolls will be free anyhow, I imagine, right? So it's only 8 scenarios; they'd have to be something awesome for me to buy the book. I guess if the artwork were incredible, or it had some other gaming purpose.
That's a huge book, by the way. Bigger than the new Codex: Space Marines LOL.
TBF, the artwork shown so far looks nice and they do have to establish the new universe so that should take up a fair number of pages, then I'll assume there's some background for the campaign and some for each battle...it all adds up. I hope for their sake that they include more scenarios in later books since that seems to be the way that the game shows any semblance of balance.
You know there are more than just two options in that world, right? I'm casual but not grow a beard and make fart noises to get bonuses casual; I like tight rules but I don't try to break the game, I just don't like stopping the game to discuss unclear rules.
Yeah, but every player that I know will be fine with waiving the silly rules, recognizing that they're just silly rules made in homage to the old game and their characters.
I agree that tight rules are better in both technical and practical aspects. I just don't really have a problem with having fun with less-tight rules, and it doesn't affect my fun. Generally, if my opponent really wants something one way or another, I really don't care, as long as they're consistent. The effort I'll spend arguing over what a rule should be during a game can be measured in seconds. I also am not a huge fan of playing with strangers anyhow, so this affects me much less.
TBF, the artwork shown so far looks nice and they do have to establish the new universe so that should take up a fair number of pages, then I'll assume there's some background for the campaign and some for each battle...it all adds up. I hope for their sake that they include more scenarios in later books since that seems to be the way that the game shows any semblance of balance.
Talys wrote: Edit: I would add that I agree with you that smaller scales are technically better for wargames that are a larger scale. The problem for me is that they're less satisfying individually to paint and personalize I do not get the same sense of completion when a model is done. Philosophically, every infantryman in my army is unique, and I want to express that; I don't want rows of nearly-identical soldiers, even though I fully understand this is how a real army works (incidentally, this is why I don't like Guard, and why I like "heroic" factions like Eldar/Marines, where every model is intended to be exceptional). I've never seen multipart, configurable small-scale models either But this is just my own preference!
I can appreciate that, it's just when painting smaller scale stuff I tend to think of it less as "I am painting an individual model" and more "I am painting a squadron of tanks/platoon of men", so each model is a part of a whole rather than an individual. I tend to feel the same way when painting 28mm WHFB regiments as well, I don't want to dynamically pose each and every single model because I want the *regiment* to look cool, not Bob who's standing 3rd from the left in the 2nd rank to look cool
Of course I do also enjoy painting the odd single model to a high standard.... I just don't want to paint the 100 of them required to make an army
But that's why I said earlier in this thread, if GW dropped WHFB in favour of AoS AND simultaneously created a new game of WHFB in 15mm scale for mass battles, that would be the best outcome. I'd probably buy some AoS to paint up here and there while preparing a whole force of 15mm for mass battles.
It's just a shame GW don't have the balls they used to have to venture out in to the likes of Epic 40k or Warmaster or an entirely new 15mm game.
You know there are more than just two options in that world, right? I'm casual but not grow a beard and make fart noises to get bonuses casual; I like tight rules but I don't try to break the game, I just don't like stopping the game to discuss unclear rules.
Yeah, but every player that I know will be fine with waiving the silly rules, recognizing that they're just silly rules made in homage to the old game and their characters.
I agree that tight rules are better in both technical and practical aspects. I just don't really have a problem with having fun with less-tight rules, and it doesn't affect my fun. Generally, if my opponent really wants something one way or another, I really don't care, as long as they're consistent. The effort I'll spend arguing over what a rule should be during a game can be measured in seconds. I also am not a huge fan of playing with strangers anyhow, so this affects me much less.
I hardly play with strangers myself but my friends and I agree on a general dislike of the necessity to stop play and talk about what a rule means or how it is actually interacting in the game due to poor wording; no arguments but usually a "huh, what do you suppose that means?" or "how the heck is that supposed to work in this situation?" moments, it kind of spoils the rhythm of play and concentration on the game.
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Shadowclaimer wrote: I name every person in my rank and file and give them all unique backstories..
I will note, a 15mm Warhammer Fantasy would be cool.
lol. You'd have a hard time doing the former if the later existed due to the massive number of models.
I hardly play with strangers myself but my friends and I agree on a general dislike of the necessity to stop play and talk about what a rule means or how it is actually interacting in the game due to poor wording; no arguments but usually a "huh, what do you suppose that means?" or "how the heck is that supposed to work in this situation?" moments, it kind of spoils the rhythm of play and concentration on the game.
This is a reasonable argument against 40k, but I don't think that AoS suffers this problem. When we played, we didn't discuss rules even once in 6 hours (other than "how does this work", because the game was new to us).
You know there are more than just two options in that world, right? I'm casual but not grow a beard and make fart noises to get bonuses casual; I like tight rules but I don't try to break the game, I just don't like stopping the game to discuss unclear rules.
Yeah, but every player that I know will be fine with waiving the silly rules, recognizing that they're just silly rules made in homage to the old game and their characters.
I agree that tight rules are better in both technical and practical aspects. I just don't really have a problem with having fun with less-tight rules, and it doesn't affect my fun. Generally, if my opponent really wants something one way or another, I really don't care, as long as they're consistent. The effort I'll spend arguing over what a rule should be during a game can be measured in seconds. I also am not a huge fan of playing with strangers anyhow, so this affects me much less.
I hardly play with strangers myself but my friends and I agree on a general dislike of the necessity to stop play and talk about what a rule means or how it is actually interacting in the game due to poor wording; no arguments but usually a "huh, what do you suppose that means?" or "how the heck is that supposed to work in this situation?" moments, it kind of spoils the rhythm of play and concentration on the game.
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Shadowclaimer wrote: I name every person in my rank and file and give them all unique backstories..
I will note, a 15mm Warhammer Fantasy would be cool.
lol. You'd have a hard time doing the former if the later existed due to the massive number of models.
15mm too small to 'look good'? nonsense! I have /6/mm Dropzone Commander Infantry that I think looks good and has plenty of room for personal touches.
Scale doesn't matter, model quality does. But the model size does have an effect on game quality: Some games suffer because of model mismatch: For example, Apocalypse, as a game, has no reason to exist in it's scale. It'd be a superior GAME as a smaller model game, as your individual infantry positions no longer matter.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I can appreciate that, it's just when painting smaller scale stuff I tend to think of it less as "I am painting an individual model" and more "I am painting a squadron of tanks/platoon of men", so each model is a part of a whole rather than an individual. I tend to feel the same way when painting 28mm WHFB regiments as well, I don't want to dynamically pose each and every single model because I want the *regiment* to look cool, not Bob who's standing 3rd from the left in the 2nd rank to look cool
Of course I do also enjoy painting the odd single model to a high standard.... I just don't want to paint the 100 of them required to make an army
But that's why I said earlier in this thread, if GW dropped WHFB in favour of AoS AND simultaneously created a new game of WHFB in 15mm scale for mass battles, that would be the best outcome. I'd probably buy some AoS to paint up here and there while preparing a whole force of 15mm for mass battles.
It's just a shame GW don't have the balls they used to have to venture out in to the likes of Epic 40k or Warmaster or an entirely new 15mm game.
I hear you, and largely agree Pretty much everything except the part about painting a hundred models to a decently high standard to make an army, because that's largely where my hobby time goes, but everyone's thing is different.
And yeah, 15mm would have been very cool to see WHFB. I remember watching so many games of Epic, and thinking the tables looked awesome! The Eldar titans just looked so good in Epic.
I do not know if this information has been posted yet.
Standing by my reputation in the rumor tracking thread, I reveal this
The Age of Sigmar $74 Book:
74 dollar book is NOT a big rule book. its the campaign setting. new warscrolls, new scenarios, full background, some new rules (but NO balancing rules). takes the place in official gw display rack of whfb 8 rulebook. It is different than the AoS box set 96 page book. different. its like a campaign setting for a rpg basically, with background and stats and adventures. but adventures for miniatures called scenarios.
dice cups for $40:
sculpted painted cast resin with fancy stuff on them geared to each faction. set of 8 special dice. symbols on ONES for whatever reason
new miniatures sets coming out:
different sprues of the same guys from AoS set, with weapon options like swords and 2-h hammers. arrows/bows.
clamshell is the main good guy from the AoS set, but on foot instead.
I will definitely buy the book. I am also looking forward to seeing the dice shakers and dice. But eight dice seems a bit stingy and I don't like the idea of symbols on ones. Why associate your faction symbol with poor rolling?
agnosto wrote: And so GW learns the downside of free rules.......
Definitely a gamble on their part. If you don't want the AoS minis from the box, why would you buy the box? blue whippy sticks, dice, and the fluffbook are the only other things in there.
That said, i think a lot of people will buy this box. Models are awesome.
I'm more talking about the 264 page fluff book. It will sell, just not as much as a book that's pretty-much required due to rules content.
Absolutely. 10%? 5%? 1%? Really hard to say. The Basic Rulebooks were always a 50-100 per store order for me, depending on whether we already had the rules in a starter set. For a not needed Fluff book like this I'll be getting Pre-orders +1. Can't take a chance with expensive items like that, that no one needs. Then you take a look at the product, order more the next week if it's needed or you have faith in it.
Manchu wrote: I will definitely buy the book. I am also looking forward to seeing the dice shakers and dice. But eight dice seems a bit stingy and I don't like the idea of symbols on ones. Why associate your faction symbol with poor rolling?
I have seen somewhere in recent days someone who has had custom dice made. Hell of a lot cheaper, and slap those symbols on the sixes. Everyone knows Rackham and Mantic splat dice roll way better because of that, haha
judgedoug wrote: I do not know if this information has been posted yet.
Standing by my reputation in the rumor tracking thread, I reveal this
The Age of Sigmar $74 Book:
74 dollar book is NOT a big rule book. its the campaign setting. new warscrolls, new scenarios, full background, some new rules (but NO balancing rules). takes the place in official gw display rack of whfb 8 rulebook. It is different than the AoS box set 96 page book. different. its like a campaign setting for a rpg basically, with background and stats and adventures. but adventures for miniatures called scenarios.
dice cups for $40:
sculpted painted cast resin with fancy stuff on them geared to each faction. set of 8 special dice. symbols on ONES for whatever reason
new miniatures sets coming out:
different sprues of the same guys from AoS set, with weapon options like swords and 2-h hammers. arrows/bows.
clamshell is the main good guy from the AoS set, but on foot instead.
Killionaire wrote: 15mm too small to 'look good'? nonsense! I have /6/mm Dropzone Commander Infantry that I think looks good and has plenty of room for personal touches.
Scale doesn't matter, model quality does. But the model size does have an effect on game quality: Some games suffer because of model mismatch: For example, Apocalypse, as a game, has no reason to exist in it's scale. It'd be a superior GAME as a smaller model game, as your individual infantry positions no longer matter.
Like I said, certain things which 28mm painters like to put onto single models is not possible (or practical) in smaller scales, like lettering, heraldry, OSL, facial expressions, jewels, NMM, et cetera. I think smaller scales can look AWESOME as a whole, but if you compare an individual infantryman in 15mm to an individual infantryman in 28mm, it's just not comparable. Show me an individual infantryman painted in 15mm that looks anything like a Golden Demon winner for a 28mm infantryman, and I'll take it all back.
Manchu wrote: I will definitely buy the book. I am also looking forward to seeing the dice shakers and dice. But eight dice seems a bit stingy and I don't like the idea of symbols on ones. Why associate your faction symbol with poor rolling?
I have seen somewhere in recent days someone who has had custom dice made. Hell of a lot cheaper, and slap those symbols on the sixes. Everyone knows Rackham and Mantic splat dice roll way better because of that, haha
Chessex is a company that makes a lot of custom dice for different clubs and tournaments.
Shadowclaimer wrote: You may dislike it, but the level to which you feel you need to repeat yourself about it "not being a game" or being "childish drivel" just destroys your own argument. You can have a scholarly discussion without resorting to immature hyperbole.
I was referring to the new fluff when I called it 'childish drivel' - which it is. It reads like fan fiction, at best. 'Sigmarite'? 'Bloodsecrator'? I do not see how it can be taken remotely seriously - and if it's not meant to be, why does it try so very hard to convey itself as such?
Shadowclaimer wrote: Many of us have played games by "winging it" on points and what you table in the past across a dozen different systems, hell the number of times I've had to tell someone just to "play what you have". I've told players to slam their armies together and do 2v1's without counting points and had a blast doing it. Whether you want there to not be a community is irrelevant, there are rules, there is a game, and even without a current point/balance system it is playable and on that fact alone people will play it.
And on the other side of the anecdotal coin, in all the years I've played wargames I've never 'winged it' on points, or just put down whatever I felt like, because I would not find that particularly enjoyable. I play these games, at least in part, as a friendly competition between players on an even footing - that's what is fun about them, to me. What people find fun is variable, which is precisely the point I was making. There was a time where you could take your army for Fantasy or 40k to any wargaming club and be able to play the same game by the same rules against anyone, but AoS opens up a vast disparity in what people consider reasonable. A player might find that the army he was using in his local club, which no one objected to, is suddenly rejected as 'being a ****' in another club, because that group has a different idea about what fairness and 'powergaming' are. So individual groups will have their own interprtations, thus making that inter-group play that much harder.
What I personally want is not relevant to the discussion, and is not what I was talking about.
Shadowclaimer wrote: The rules for the old armies are imbalanced and the silliness is absurd (albeit, Warhammer Fantasy always had a dose of that, so I'm not too shocked, I think people just prefer to forget it was ever a humorous game, same with 40k) but as a core system starting with this starter set going forward I definitely see potential for a very solid and interesting game to come into being (thankfully without more joke rules going forward.).
Humour is fine, but it feels entirely forced in this context, and really does not have a place in the mechanical side of the game. You yourself acknowledge that you don't want there to be any more of these sort of rules, and plenty of others say to simply ignore them. So why even put them in? In the context of the release, they feel like an insult, an expression of the contempt GW has for veterans by making the old armies one big joke, a series of jibes at the 'manchildren' they believe those customers to be.
Shadowclaimer wrote: I give Games Workshop credit here, we've been bitching for years the story had stagnated (oh no, another Everchosen..) and that the gameplay was being run in the ground without proper fixes, and they finally decided to DO something with it, and even if it fails, I'll give them kudos for at least trying.
'We' are not a hive mind, and do not all share the same opinion on the matter. Speaking for myself, I was perfectly happy with the Warhammer setting being just that: a setting, not a story that needed to progress. But even with that aside, I very much doubt anyone who wanted the story to advance wanted what we got: an end to the story they loved, and the beginning of an entirely different one with tenuous links to what came before.
Shadowclaimer wrote: Aesthetic is entirely opinion, the aesthetic is no worse to me than the old one (given the Eternals are just Knights of the Blazing Sun-level detail on models that could be made with better technology now, and artwork of the Old World had shown intricacies far worse than this.) If Games Workshop had the ability to make models of this quality ten years ago they would've done it in the same methodology/style, the "squat" style models are just a relic of a bygone age when models couldn't have hanging limbs/scale properly.
Aesthetic is subjective, I agree. But I don't agree that the current GW style is a natural evolution of what came before. There is far more emphasis on an ever-increasing amount of detail and an abandonment of any subtlety in designs. Encrusting a model with 'stuff' does not automatically make it better.
Chairman Aeon wrote: But seriously, let me tell you of a little game called AD&D. It existed in a pre-Internet era where the only "communities" were magazines (I use this term vaguely), stores and gaming clubs. And while there was some difference in house rules, there were almost universally accepted groupings of interpretation of rules. This was actually a feature not a bug because it allowed you to assess new groups by their house rules. (Rogue Trader also existed pre-Internet with lots of interpretations and it seems to have done fine.)
I don't see how an RPG is comparable. An RPG does not require you to invest as much time (or money, at least by GW's current pricing standards) in creating your 'playing pieces' for the game, so to shift 'house rules' around is not going to have such a profound effect on the pieces used. Not to mention that, were a player to join a new group's game, they would surely be creating a new character in any case - which does not require the assembly and painting of an army of miniatures. It's not a question of the internet as a factor. I'd also argue that wargames and RPGs are both considered more 'socially acceptable' than they were back then, and certainly more widespread and with a greater variety of choices. So given the choice between a wargame where you can guarantee a (reasonably) fair matchup whomever you play against - because of a balancing mechanism like points that aims to keep both sides equal - or a wargame where the 'fairness' of your army can vary enormously depending on the person you play and where there is nothing in place to ensure the game doesn't devolve into a one-sided affair (intentionally or not), which do you think any prospective new player would prefer?
Chairman Aeon wrote: Right now Warhammer in all its incarnations is tournament focussed. I don't play tournaments and exacting total balance for me is not important. I generally don't like the people who play in tournaments. I wouldn't play with them socially now that I've seen their black hearts. But now I am free to find players who interpret the rules like I do and to play fun rather than competitive games. It happened with Rogue Trader, a game that was less balanced than AoS in spite of having points, and it will soon enough happen with AoS.
This is a good example of the behaviour I was talking about - the glee at the prospect of ousting 'competitive' players from the game because they don't play 'for fun', like you do. But fun is entirely subjective, and for some a fair competition where both sides are evenly matched is fun. Who are you to tell them that they're wrong? How can deliberately excluding people from the game, just because they don't play it the same way you do, ever be a good thing?
Chairman Aeon wrote: The thing you liked is gone and I understand that upsets you. But give this new thing its own chance. It's not here to replace your old thing, only it's retail space. You can still play your old thing, there are no shortage of stand in WHFB proxy minis.
Actually, I loathe 8th edition, and dropped out of WHFB when it was released, but that is beside the point. Functionally, AoS *has* replaced WHFB, and therefore anyone who wants to play 8th (or any other version) is going to find it very difficult to find games of it. Not everyone has the luxury of a close-knit gaming group that they can agree to stick to old rules with. Some are entirely dependent on pick-up games, and AoS makes those practically impossible.
The 'thing' I'll be playing is Kings of War, as I have happily been for several years, so my feelings towards this affair are divorced from personal investment.
And I don't much appreciate your condescending tone.
judgedoug wrote: I do not know if this information has been posted yet.
Standing by my reputation in the rumor tracking thread, I reveal this
The Age of Sigmar $74 Book:
74 dollar book is NOT a big rule book. its the campaign setting. new warscrolls, new scenarios, full background, some new rules (but NO balancing rules). takes the place in official gw display rack of whfb 8 rulebook. It is different than the AoS box set 96 page book. different. its like a campaign setting for a rpg basically, with background and stats and adventures. but adventures for miniatures called scenarios.
dice cups for $40:
sculpted painted cast resin with fancy stuff on them geared to each faction. set of 8 special dice. symbols on ONES for whatever reason
new miniatures sets coming out:
different sprues of the same guys from AoS set, with weapon options like swords and 2-h hammers. arrows/bows.
clamshell is the main good guy from the AoS set, but on foot instead.
new terrain: balefull realmgates
The rulebook thing has been posted in spanish, so it is leaked.
judgedoug wrote: clamshell is the main good guy from the AoS set, but on foot instead.
Makes sense, since $33 sound too low for a mounted figure.
Yeah. I think the real litmus test of how successful this is, is how many people buy the clack $33 mini compared to, say, the DA chain or the new Librarian. Or, the Death Jester, if you want a less prominent faction.
Also, how many of the ginormous book sell, because both of these (and the sigmarite box) aren't easy auto-buys for 40k fans.
Edit: if I can build the sigmarites in the box to either bow/arrow or hammer, they might get me to buy a box I will probably pass on clampack solo though.
Manchu wrote: I will definitely buy the book. I am also looking forward to seeing the dice shakers and dice. But eight dice seems a bit stingy and I don't like the idea of symbols on ones. Why associate your faction symbol with poor rolling?
'Cause, it's a single symbol, like the single pip of the normal 1 on a die. My buddy has a bunch of Space Wolf dice he had custom made, put the faction symbols on the sixes, and it tricks me a lot more than I thought it would. It just looks like a one at a glance... and especially if you're not used to the dice. I could see it on a die where they usually just put the #, but most of my d6's are pips.
Manchu wrote: I will definitely buy the book. I am also looking forward to seeing the dice shakers and dice. But eight dice seems a bit stingy and I don't like the idea of symbols on ones. Why associate your faction symbol with poor rolling?
'Cause, it's a single symbol, like the single pip of the normal 1 on a die. My buddy has a bunch of Space Wolf dice he had custom made, put the faction symbols on the sixes, and it tricks me a lot more than I thought it would. It just looks like a one at a glance... and especially if you're not used to the dice. I could see it on a die where they usually just put the #, but most of my d6's are pips.
I have specifically avoided any dice that have the faction symbol on the "1" (other than the LOTR dice from GW, but I only use them for LOTR), so I'm entirely used to the symbol meaning "great success!!" (or in the case of Bolt Action or Warmaster or other command/morale roll high=bad, exclaiming "DO NOT WAAANNNNTTT")
Sigvatr wrote:All this "Players will work it out!" talk reminds me of how well the allies thing in 40k worked out. Everyone used it to build fluffy armies and...wait.
Players seem to be working things out nicely in this forum.
Chairman Aeon wrote:
Rayvon wrote: I wonder if GW expected so many heads would be exploding at the thought of no points values though, It should be expected somewhat, they have been doing it since the start, stands to reason its one of the key things that people expect with a GW game.
GW Suit: Jervis, you forgot the points values for models on scrolls.
Jervis: No, I forgot them from the rules. Most historical WARGAMES don't have points values, just forces available for scenarios.
GW Suit: Whatever nerd!
Points have never balanced a game, but certainly give the illusion of it. As a Rogue Trader player I can tell you their points value calculators didn't yield good points values. Like everything else, severely under or over costed and couldn't take into account edge cases where the model under or over performed.
The real problem is that GW has to fight against the inertia they created. Only in the GW bubble are these even things. Latter people followed their lead to re-inforce the belief it's the one try way.
Iain.
I just wanted to be sure you are not insinuating that GW introduced points systems into tabletop miniature wargaming. I used the points system in Chainmail when I played my first ever tabletop wargame (on a sand table no less) back in '77.
judgedoug wrote:I do not know if this information has been posted yet.
Standing by my reputation in the rumor tracking thread, I reveal this
The Age of Sigmar $74 Book:
74 dollar book is NOT a big rule book. its the campaign setting. new warscrolls, new scenarios, full background, some new rules (but NO balancing rules). takes the place in official gw display rack of whfb 8 rulebook. It is different than the AoS box set 96 page book. different. its like a campaign setting for a rpg basically, with background and stats and adventures. but adventures for miniatures called scenarios.
dice cups for $40:
sculpted painted cast resin with fancy stuff on them geared to each faction. set of 8 special dice. symbols on ONES for whatever reason
new miniatures sets coming out:
different sprues of the same guys from AoS set, with weapon options like swords and 2-h hammers. arrows/bows.
clamshell is the main good guy from the AoS set, but on foot instead.
new terrain: balefull realmgates
I think we can say the new hardcover being fluff, scenarios, and warscrolls is 100% confirmed now.
Manchu wrote: I will definitely buy the book. I am also looking forward to seeing the dice shakers and dice. But eight dice seems a bit stingy and I don't like the idea of symbols on ones. Why associate your faction symbol with poor rolling?
I have seen somewhere in recent days someone who has had custom dice made. Hell of a lot cheaper, and slap those symbols on the sixes. Everyone knows Rackham and Mantic splat dice roll way better because of that, haha
Chessex is a company that makes a lot of custom dice for different clubs and tournaments.
judgedoug wrote: clamshell is the main good guy from the AoS set, but on foot instead.
Makes sense, since $33 sound too low for a mounted figure.
Yeah. I think the real litmus test of how successful this is, is how many people buy the clack $33 mini compared to, say, the DA chain or the new Librarian. Or, the Death Jester, if you want a less prominent faction.
Also, how many of the ginormous book sell, because both of these (and the sigmarite box) aren't easy auto-buys for 40k fans.
Edit: if I can build the sigmarites in the box to either bow/arrow or hammer, they might get me to buy a box I will probably pass on clampack solo though.
Given the cost, I would do what I've been doing with plastic models for years. I use a dremel tool to carve out a 1/8" wide by 1/16" deep circular hole in the shoulders and every arm, then use very thin rare earth magnets to magnetize all arms and models so that switching out weapon builds is simple and cost effective. For less than a buck per model, each model can be loaded out with any weapons choice available on the sprue.
Killionaire wrote: 15mm too small to 'look good'? nonsense! I have /6/mm Dropzone Commander Infantry that I think looks good and has plenty of room for personal touches.
Scale doesn't matter, model quality does. But the model size does have an effect on game quality: Some games suffer because of model mismatch: For example, Apocalypse, as a game, has no reason to exist in it's scale. It'd be a superior GAME as a smaller model game, as your individual infantry positions no longer matter.
Like I said, certain things which 28mm painters like to put onto single models is not possible (or practical) in smaller scales, like lettering, heraldry, OSL, facial expressions, jewels, NMM, et cetera. I think smaller scales can look AWESOME as a whole, but if you compare an individual infantryman in 15mm to an individual infantryman in 28mm, it's just not comparable. Show me an individual infantryman painted in 15mm that looks anything like a Golden Demon winner for a 28mm infantryman, and I'll take it all back.
Spoiler:
For example:
or:
[spoiler]
I'm cheery picking best of the best 15mm, but still:
agnosto wrote: And so GW learns the downside of free rules.......
Definitely a gamble on their part. If you don't want the AoS minis from the box, why would you buy the box? blue whippy sticks, dice, and the fluffbook are the only other things in there.
That said, i think a lot of people will buy this box. Models are awesome.
I'm more talking about the 264 page fluff book. It will sell, just not as much as a book that's pretty-much required due to rules content.
Absolutely. 10%? 5%? 1%? Really hard to say. The Basic Rulebooks were always a 50-100 per store order for me, depending on whether we already had the rules in a starter set. For a not needed Fluff book like this I'll be getting Pre-orders +1. Can't take a chance with expensive items like that, that no one needs. Then you take a look at the product, order more the next week if it's needed or you have faith in it.
I think it will sell more than a strictly fluff book because AoS appears to work better when played through a set scenario. Not that you need an "official" scenario but it's faster and lazier if something's already set-up. Plus the folk who like narrative games will probably want it to play out the battles in the story. Hmm..might appeal to LotR players? The killer here is the price for what you're getting but I don't think that they could have done it any other way.
Armchair developer mode:
I would make a book like this for each of the major factions (chaos, death, etc.) that include a number of scenarios that involve all of the armies belonging to each and a bit of the story from that faction's perspective. That would be more of a must-have item, I would think. 8 scenarios is a bit slim unless each one has options for different armies which would take up more space and add replay value. /armchair developer mode
Killionaire wrote: 15mm too small to 'look good'? nonsense! I have /6/mm Dropzone Commander Infantry that I think looks good and has plenty of room for personal touches.
Scale doesn't matter, model quality does. But the model size does have an effect on game quality: Some games suffer because of model mismatch: For example, Apocalypse, as a game, has no reason to exist in it's scale. It'd be a superior GAME as a smaller model game, as your individual infantry positions no longer matter.
Like I said, certain things which 28mm painters like to put onto single models is not possible (or practical) in smaller scales, like lettering, heraldry, OSL, facial expressions, jewels, NMM, et cetera. I think smaller scales can look AWESOME as a whole, but if you compare an individual infantryman in 15mm to an individual infantryman in 28mm, it's just not comparable. Show me an individual infantryman painted in 15mm that looks anything like a Golden Demon winner for a 28mm infantryman, and I'll take it all back.
Spoiler:
For example:
or:
[spoiler]
I'm cheery picking best of the best 15mm, but still:
Spoiler:
I can't paint 32mm models to that standard. *hangs head in shame*
Xyxox wrote: After much playtesting, Miniwargaming found that this game does not work, then they devise a points system that appears it may work:
Point system actually looks pretty descent.
However, the game still was essentially shuffling units forward and dicing it out. I fail to see where there is room for player-decisions, with the possible exception of which unit you pick in alternating cc.
Games Workshop is about making really cool models with which to build a model collection, and then giving some context to play them. For 30 years, they have not been about writing a wargaming system, and then building models for that system. It's all about making awesome 28mm miniatures, spending thousands of hours painting them, and playing with them -- or sometimes not, and just displaying them or building dioramas. The problem with 15mm is that it's impossible to make your infantry awesome, with the sort of detail you can get into 28mm. They're miniatures sized for gaming, not sized for painting.
The last thing in the world I want is miniatures that require just a quick drybrush to paint. I probably spend 5+ hours on every single model, even the most repetitive infantryman (and I'm pretty quick); an army represents, literally, thousands of hours of work that was all highly enjoyable.
I hate this attitude so much, because it represents everything that wrecks wargaming. Players who come in with awesomely painted armies who can't play for ****, and "just want to have fun" then whine when a better player stomps them and call them TFG or WAAC -- it's a WAR game, go do something other than WAR if "fun" is all you want, and leave wargames to people who are tactically minded and who want to do battle. Of COURSE I want to win. What other possible reason could I be playing a WAR game?
Who cares if your plastic toy soldier took 5 hours to paint or 5 minutes to paint? It's just a plastic soldier. The game is in figuring out what to do with it once you play it. If you want to take a thousand hours to fill a display case, good for you, but it dont expect me to make a weak army to play you.
If it's just all about miniatures, GW should rename themselves to Miniatures Workshop and get rid of all their stupid rules, and I'd be happy. But better that they go out of business, so they stop stealing customers from companies that properly test an balance games!
This mentality is so harmful to the community. I can't imagine you play the same opponent more than once, as who wants to deal with this attitude.
Xyxox wrote: After much playtesting, Miniwargaming found that this game does not work, then they devise a points system that appears it may work:
Point system actually looks pretty descent.
However, the game still was essentially shuffling units forward and dicing it out. I fail to see where there is room for player-decisions, with the possible exception of which unit you pick in alternating cc.
Did you notice they reverted to measuring base to base? Piling minis on top of bases looks like garbage in video.
GW seems to have put a lit of thought into inventing this game, then went to sleep and forgot everything they thought of and quickly put together a piece of gak.
Rayvon wrote: I wonder if GW expected so many heads would be exploding at the thought of no points values though, It should be expected somewhat, they have been doing it since the start, stands to reason its one of the key things that people expect with a GW game.
GW Suit: Jervis, you forgot the points values for models on scrolls.
Jervis: No, I forgot them from the rules. Most historical WARGAMES don't have points values, just forces available for scenarios.
GW Suit: Whatever nerd!
Points have never balanced a game, but certainly give the illusion of it. As a Rogue Trader player I can tell you their points value calculators didn't yield good points values. Like everything else, severely under or over costed and couldn't take into account edge cases where the model under or over performed.
The real problem is that GW has to fight against the inertia they created. Only in the GW bubble are these even things. Latter people followed their lead to re-inforce the belief it's the one try way.
Iain.
I disagree. Look at Infinity. It has points and is incredibly balanced.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Killionaire wrote: 15mm too small to 'look good'? nonsense! I have /6/mm Dropzone Commander Infantry that I think looks good and has plenty of room for personal touches.
Scale doesn't matter, model quality does. But the model size does have an effect on game quality: Some games suffer because of model mismatch: For example, Apocalypse, as a game, has no reason to exist in it's scale. It'd be a superior GAME as a smaller model game, as your individual infantry positions no longer matter.
Those look great! I agree, even small scale models can look awesome. And Dropzone is an awesome game, BTW!
Killionaire wrote: 15mm too small to 'look good'? nonsense! I have /6/mm Dropzone Commander Infantry that I think looks good and has plenty of room for personal touches.
Scale doesn't matter, model quality does. But the model size does have an effect on game quality: Some games suffer because of model mismatch: For example, Apocalypse, as a game, has no reason to exist in it's scale. It'd be a superior GAME as a smaller model game, as your individual infantry positions no longer matter.
Like I said, certain things which 28mm painters like to put onto single models is not possible (or practical) in smaller scales, like lettering, heraldry, OSL, facial expressions, jewels, NMM, et cetera. I think smaller scales can look AWESOME as a whole, but if you compare an individual infantryman in 15mm to an individual infantryman in 28mm, it's just not comparable. Show me an individual infantryman painted in 15mm that looks anything like a Golden Demon winner for a 28mm infantryman, and I'll take it all back.
Spoiler:
For example:
or:
[spoiler]
I'm cheery picking best of the best 15mm, but still:
Spoiler:
Those are fantastic 15mm paintjobs, and they highlight my point exactly. If you said they were 28mm, they wouldn't even cone close to Golden Demon quality. They're also spectacularly hard to paint in 15mm, but would just be 'great' in 28mm, and not at all comparable to the 2 GD models in terms of visible intricacy.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not belittling the paintjobs; they're better by a mile than I could do in 15mm. I'm sure those same painters could do even nicer looking models in 28mm, too. Basically, whether your painting 15mm or 28mm, the smallest brush stroke is still the smallest brush stroke (about 0.1mm or a little less), so a bigger model just gives you more canvas.
By the way, I took silver and gold golden demon 2014 winners, so it's not like I wasn't cherry picking the 28mm either, though those two are probably not *the* best models I've seen, ever.
Xyxox wrote: After much playtesting, Miniwargaming found that this game does not work, then they devise a points system that appears it may work:
Point system actually looks pretty descent.
However, the game still was essentially shuffling units forward and dicing it out. I fail to see where there is room for player-decisions, with the possible exception of which unit you pick in alternating cc.
Did you notice they reverted to measuring base to base? Piling minis on top of bases looks like garbage in video.
GW seems to have put a lit of thought into inventing this game, then went to sleep and forgot everything they thought of and quickly put together a piece of gak.
Yep, really a silly thing to go back to measuring from the models. We tried in the first game, didn't work well, and we started getting a list of odd problems and questions, and just went back to using the bases. I've just made it a house rule and explain it in the rules for the tournament on Sunday. At this point, i'm not too worried by the "unbalance" that might be caused by square vs round bases, not with all the other new factors.
That's not a real balancing system. It's a five minute drum-up of some bare-bones guidelines to silence customer complaints. It even says "for your customers who feel that they need something like this to be successful."
Assuming that that's real correspondence and not just a hoax.
Accolade wrote: I think GW has bought into its own koolaid, and seems baffled that people would enjoy a balanced experience.
If that instruction sheet is real, then it's hilarious. They use "balanced" like a parent referencing the lingo of kids these days.
"Gosh, is that what kids are into these days? 'Balanced' games? Sheesh, what is he world coming to?"
You should humor them and try a few random games with random proxy units before you rush to judgement. If balance is defined as both sides having a decent chance to win, it actually is pretty good, either just eyeballing the armies or adding up wounds. Our games (3 myself, 10 or so between us) were remarkably close, way closer than we thought it would be.
Xyxox wrote: After much playtesting, Miniwargaming found that this game does not work, then they devise a points system that appears it may work:
Point system actually looks pretty descent.
However, the game still was essentially shuffling units forward and dicing it out. I fail to see where there is room for player-decisions, with the possible exception of which unit you pick in alternating cc.
Did you notice they reverted to measuring base to base? Piling minis on top of bases looks like garbage in video.
GW seems to have put a lit of thought into inventing this game, then went to sleep and forgot everything they thought of and quickly put together a piece of gak.
Yep, really a silly thing to go back to measuring from the models. We tried in the first game, didn't work well, and we started getting a list of odd problems and questions, and just went back to using the bases. I've just made it a house rule and explain it in the rules for the tournament on Sunday. At this point, i'm not too worried by the "unbalance" that might be caused by square vs round bases, not with all the other new factors.
Hummm... yeah, bases are a problem. The RAW are: "A model’s base isn’t considered part of the model – it’s just there to help the model stand up – so don’t include it when measuring distances."
If you can't overlap bases then you could just use an oversize base to prevent anybody from being in range for combat. This clearly isn't the intent, so the RAW require overlapping bases. Or you need a house rule that says all measurement is from the base.
those guys remind me (although look nothing like) Uther Lightbringer and all the quotes he would say in the series.
I can hear it as they smash their hammers!
then again... I have not read much of the lore so they could be spirits inside the amours and maybe they just whisper like Tyriel from Diablo or something ....
one thing is for sure, I cleaned my desk of Orks last night and wiped all my Tomb Kings! and painting up my heroes! ready to roll some dice and raise Dead!
Crimson wrote: Am I imagining it or was there also a pic of the regular Eternals (not the hero) with halberds and swords floating in this thread at some point?
MalusCalibur wrote:Humour is fine, but it feels entirely forced in this context, and really does not have a place in the mechanical side of the game. You yourself acknowledge that you don't want there to be any more of these sort of rules, and plenty of others say to simply ignore them. So why even put them in? In the context of the release, they feel like an insult, an expression of the contempt GW has for veterans by making the old armies one big joke, a series of jibes at the 'manchildren' they believe those customers to be.
This is a good example of the behaviour I was talking about - the glee at the prospect of ousting 'competitive' players from the game because they don't play 'for fun', like you do. But fun is entirely subjective, and for some a fair competition where both sides are evenly matched is fun. Who are you to tell them that they're wrong? How can deliberately excluding people from the game, just because they don't play it the same way you do, ever be a good thing?
Very much this. Games can be decently-written, and balanced, and competitive, and narrative, and fun, all at the same time.
Jambles wrote:'Cause, it's a single symbol, like the single pip of the normal 1 on a die. My buddy has a bunch of Space Wolf dice he had custom made, put the faction symbols on the sixes, and it tricks me a lot more than I thought it would. It just looks like a one at a glance... and especially if you're not used to the dice. I could see it on a die where they usually just put the #, but most of my d6's are pips.
Xyxox wrote: After much playtesting, Miniwargaming found that this game does not work, then they devise a points system that appears it may work:
Point system actually looks pretty descent.
However, the game still was essentially shuffling units forward and dicing it out. I fail to see where there is room for player-decisions, with the possible exception of which unit you pick in alternating cc.
Did you notice they reverted to measuring base to base? Piling minis on top of bases looks like garbage in video.
GW seems to have put a lit of thought into inventing this game, then went to sleep and forgot everything they thought of and quickly put together a piece of gak.
Yep, really a silly thing to go back to measuring from the models. We tried in the first game, didn't work well, and we started getting a list of odd problems and questions, and just went back to using the bases. I've just made it a house rule and explain it in the rules for the tournament on Sunday. At this point, i'm not too worried by the "unbalance" that might be caused by square vs round bases, not with all the other new factors.
Hummm... yeah, bases are a problem. The RAW are: "A model’s base isn’t considered part of the model – it’s just there to help the model stand up – so don’t include it when measuring distances."
If you can't overlap bases then you could just use an oversize base to prevent anybody from being in range for combat. This clearly isn't the intent, so the RAW require overlapping bases. Or you need a house rule that says all measurement is from the base.
You could just mount your models on 1' x 1' tablescape tiles and make life miserable for your opponents. The solution in AoS is to tell your opponent that they're being a jackass and play with someone else
I think that people using reasonable bases for their models are fine measuring base-to-base, and not using overlap -- after all, anyone with a nicely based model won't want overlap.
Jambles wrote:'Cause, it's a single symbol, like the single pip of the normal 1 on a die. My buddy has a bunch of Space Wolf dice he had custom made, put the faction symbols on the sixes, and it tricks me a lot more than I thought it would. It just looks like a one at a glance... and especially if you're not used to the dice. I could see it on a die where they usually just put the #, but most of my d6's are pips.
Yeah! I've got a bunch of those, but they're still vastly outnumbered by the ones with pips, lol.
I fully acknowledge it's my own problem not recognizing them as sixes, and that it's not even a real problem - but I could see a dice manufacturer having the same reaction as me and going "you know what, let's just keep it consistent" or whatever.
See I don't have a problem wih the few weird rules I've seen
In the warscrolls.
Hand of Dust brings a little bluff and deceit to what would other wise be just another 50:50 dice roll.
Old Grumblers is fine too as I'm very much from the old school of Pew-Pew, Chop-Chop wargaming where the odd sound effect is to be expected. This seems to be true of allot of people that I've met at clubs and tourneys. If people are enjoying a time they enthuse it ergo all the silly discussions that happen while gaming.
Naturally people are welcome to treat the whole spectacle of grown adults playing with toys as 'Serioz Bidnezz', me I like to tKe it as it is and have a laugh.
Talys wrote: The solution in AoS is to tell your opponent that they're being a jackass and play with someone else
But that still didn't make 40K and WHFB any better, or turn the financial reports around...
Frankly, I think AoS is better than FB from my perspective because they could have gone another 20 years and I still wouldn't have played FB. I spend a lot of time on hobby, and WAY more time modelling than most, yet I can't imagine concurrently maintaining FB and 40k. In other words, the two games compete in the same, large model count space. I have lots of time/energy for a second/third/fourth game in the 40 model per army space, though.
Does it hurt the people who like FB instead of 40k for their big battle game? Of course.
IMO, 40k has never been better than it is now, in the post-Necron factions. Both the fun, flexibility, and balance factors are largely addressed (not perfectly, but better than they have been historically)
As to GW's financial reports, I don't own any shares and receive no dividends, and I am not employed by them or rely on them for a living, so I really don't care that much one way or the other
I'd had said 40K has never been in a worse state than it is now, but I've completely given up trying to keep track of what's happening.
Talys wrote: Those are fantastic 15mm paintjobs, and they highlight my point exactly. If you said they were 28mm, they wouldn't even cone close to Golden Demon quality. They're also spectacularly hard to paint in 15mm, but would just be 'great' in 28mm, and not at all comparable to the 2 GD models in terms of visible intricacy.
I'm not entirely sure I get your point; they aren't meant to be as detailed as a (pretty big) 32mm mini, being under half the size (and a quarter of the bulk), and fill a largely different role. For one, they tend to suit the ground scale better (using 15mm mini's on a 6x4 table just seems better with most rule sets) and let you play bigger armies/games, all the way down to 3mm where you can host an entire 1:1 scale roman legion on a normal sized table, all 5448 of them, there's just no way you can do that in 28mm with any size of table.
That said, those 15mm mini's are painted better than the majority of us will paint 28mm's, it's better than my 54mms...
notprop wrote: Old Grumblers is fine too as I'm very much from the old school of Pew-Pew, Chop-Chop wargaming where the odd sound effect is to be expected. This seems to be true of allot of people that I've met at clubs and tourneys. If people are enjoying a time they enthuse it ergo all the silly discussions that happen while gaming.
Nothing wrong with sound effects to your game, but they should be spontaneous rather than proscribed.
Even Old Grumblers will get old the 6th time you've had to grumble in a game (after looking up the sheet for what grumbles are allowed). I can't imagine how bad it'd be having to pretend to ride a horse for the umpeenth time against the same people or the 19th time I've challenged my moustacheless gaming buddy to a moustache competition in order to get a special move. If it was a bonus card in something inherently silly like Munchkin, that came up rarely then it's a different matter.
But then I guess it's partially my fault for trying to treat Warhammer as a more serious strategy game like I would with Flames Of War or DBA.
notprop wrote: Old Grumblers is fine too as I'm very much from the old school of Pew-Pew, Chop-Chop wargaming where the odd sound effect is to be expected. This seems to be true of allot of people that I've met at clubs and tourneys. If people are enjoying a time they enthuse it ergo all the silly discussions that happen while gaming.
Nothing wrong with sound effects to your game, but they should be spontaneous rather than proscribed.
Even Old Grumblers will get old the 6th time you've had to grumble in a game (after looking up the sheet for what grumbles are allowed). I can't imagine how bad it'd be having to pretend to ride a horse for the umpeenth time against the same people or the 19th time I've challenged my moustacheless gaming buddy to a moustache competition in order to get a special move. If it was a bonus card in something inherently silly like Munchkin, that came up rarely then it's a different matter.
But then I guess it's partially my fault for trying to treat Warhammer as a more serious strategy game like I would with Flames Of War or DBA.
Yup. I'm all for a bit of silliness in my games. For example I recited Theoden's "Ride to ruin!" speech from ROTK when I was using my Vlad3 "Charge of the Horselords" theme list in a Warmachine game recently when I used his feat. I got some funny looks, but it was appropriate and had an air of spontanety to it.
When you make these things are part of the rules there's nothing like that other than an air of "mandatory fun!".
OgreChubbs wrote: when 4th came out "think it was 4th" when they ditched all the old books. Didn't they give us free pds of the rules til the books where updated?
5th-6th was a similar situation. We got a free pamphlet containing simplified lists for the existing factions. That's why some of the outrage over the Ravening Scrolls seems a bit overblown. These are just a band-aid until the new rules are released.
Herzlos wrote: I'd had said 40K has never been in a worse state than it is now, but I've completely given up trying to keep track of what's happening.
Talys wrote: Those are fantastic 15mm paintjobs, and they highlight my point exactly. If you said they were 28mm, they wouldn't even cone close to Golden Demon quality. They're also spectacularly hard to paint in 15mm, but would just be 'great' in 28mm, and not at all comparable to the 2 GD models in terms of visible intricacy.
I'm not entirely sure I get your point; they aren't meant to be as detailed as a (pretty big) 32mm mini, being under half the size (and a quarter of the bulk), and fill a largely different role. For one, they tend to suit the ground scale better (using 15mm mini's on a 6x4 table just seems better with most rule sets) and let you play bigger armies/games, all the way down to 3mm where you can host an entire 1:1 scale roman legion on a normal sized table, all 5448 of them, there's just no way you can do that in 28mm with any size of table.
That said, those 15mm mini's are painted better than the majority of us will paint 28mm's, it's better than my 54mms...
Hey Herzlos,
I agree that those minis are painted with much more skill than the vast majority of 28mm's.
My point originally (that AllSeeingSkink was replying to) is that 28mm gives painters a much greater canvas to paint details like writing, heraldry, freehand, NMM, OSL, et cetera. I believe, personally, at 28mm infantry (which can be somewhat taller than 28mm) is the smallest scale where these details can be expressed. For example, in the rightmost shoulder pad in the row below, it says "BLOOD ANGELS" (in double-lined text, no less!):
Spoiler:
In 15mm scale, no matter how talented the painter, it would be impossible to achieve with a paintbrush and manual painting (and the resultant lettering would be too small to read without a magnifying glass anyways). By the way, when you see that actual shoulder pad in person, it's damn impressive, as the space is very, very short. in height. I don't think I could do that in double-lined even if I tried super hard -- but I'm going to give it a go when I get around to using that shoulder pad
This is why my preference is for 28mm scale rather than 15mm scale. I don't need it to be larger than 28mm scale, because at that scale, I can create details as fine as I'm able to with a brush, and as small as the naked eye can comfortably see when you put it right up to your nose or when you photograph it anyhow. Plus, even at the tabletop level, a high quality paintjob really shines at 28mm. Like, you can REALLY see the difference between so-called "display" quality versus "tabletop" quality paintjobs (using those terms in the absolute loosest sense).
Skink had a good point that 15mm is better for expressing regiments rather than solo models, and that he didn't want to spend 10+ hours on each of an infantry model, and I get that -- but at this particular stage of my hobby, I'm happy to spend that kind of time, or whatever is needed, to achieve "really good" tabletop models, that aren't necessarily my very best effort, but that represent a pretty good effort, and where every single model I paint is interesting in some way and improves my skill a little bit.
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OgreChubbs wrote: when 4th came out "think it was 4th" when they ditched all the old books. Didn't they give us free pds of the rules til the books where updated?
I think it would be a very kind gesture to give out the old books as PDFs. I don't see how that would hurt GW's bottom line, as they aren't charging for Sigmar rules or warscrolls anyways, and what the heck, you still need minis, right?
OgreChubbs wrote: when 4th came out "think it was 4th" when they ditched all the old books. Didn't they give us free pds of the rules til the books where updated?
5th-6th was a similar situation. We got a free pamphlet containing simplified lists for the existing factions. That's why some of the outrage over the Ravening Scrolls seems a bit overblown. These are just a band-aid until the new rules are released.
Ya so I was kinda right, thank you . I wonder if this will be the same have a easy play mode for several months til the new faction "or is it 2" get enough models then the army books and brb will come out. I was readin the scrolls and alot of them they didn't even change the wording from their 8th edition rule book.
So all in all thats my bet, it will stay a quick pdf for a couple months and then poof hit with hard covers. Since they did change their what 9 foot statue outside their main office and such. Taking a gamble and giving everything away for free is kinda.... bad business. Only thing right now thats actually "for sale" is the starter set. Cant see it staying that way for long.
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kind yes but costly since someone has to writ them all up and make the new rules new wounds ect for ALL models. That would take them what month or more to be nice?
Yes, I agree. As I've said before, this is philosophically what GW believes in, it's built into their company's DNA, and everything I've ever seen of them is that they are a company that loves awesome miniatures first, friendly/casual/social games second, fluff third. Competitions are like, an afterthought.
Except for, you know, WHFG 6th and 7th editions and 40K 4th and 5th editions, which coincidently where the periods in which they experienced the biggest growth... funny that.
This.
On the other hand tournament players have black hearts so maybe it's good that GW finaly started to fight such evil.
Really this game has the biggest special snowflakes players number of any games I've ever played. Table footbal, a causal game you play drunk with slightly silly young ladies with oxygenated hair has more fierce competition and more acceptance of a fierce competition. It's like the stereotype jocks and their footbal, only here people outcast you and call you names when you are good lol.
Xyxox wrote: Don't look now, but I think the number of items on the Wood Elf store is decreasing.
The old models are probably just left over stock, I'd imagine quite a few models are going to start disappearing from the website over the next few months.
Just because you like an edition better doesn't make it philosophically different. I have no idea how you imagine 3e or 5e as balanced. I tend to tend to think of 5e as glory days of the Grey Knights.
There's other products like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Advanced Heroquest, Space Hulk, Hours Heresy (the box set without minis) and at one point Talisman, too. There are plenty of Specialist games you can point to. But other than Epic, all of these were minor endeavors that GW didn't pursue, I believe because they don't follow GW's vision of miniatures first. Even Epic, which was popular was abandoned.
Anyways, for a very long time, they've focused on building cool minis and then finding a way to insert it onto a game. Which is just fine with me. I would hate a GW that didn't make a model because it was disruptive to the game ecosystem.
OgreChubbs wrote: when 4th came out "think it was 4th" when they ditched all the old books. Didn't they give us free pds of the rules til the books where updated?
5th-6th was a similar situation. We got a free pamphlet containing simplified lists for the existing factions. That's why some of the outrage over the Ravening Scrolls seems a bit overblown. These are just a band-aid until the new rules are released.
According to the FW N&R thread GW sent some poor sod to answer AOS questions at the FW open day.
These are the new rules. Nothing else is coming if that source is to be believed.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Forgive me if this has been posted but do we have prices for the Sigmarine sets?
Will the bigger than big guys with the 2 handed hammers be coming out on their own?
I see "stormcast eternal liberators" on my sheet for 50 dollars US. Not sure how many in a box. I think they make all the different weapons, including the hammers.
Hammers really messed me up last game, i have healthy respect for them now.
OgreChubbs wrote: when 4th came out "think it was 4th" when they ditched all the old books. Didn't they give us free pds of the rules til the books where updated?
5th-6th was a similar situation. We got a free pamphlet containing simplified lists for the existing factions. That's why some of the outrage over the Ravening Scrolls seems a bit overblown. These are just a band-aid until the new rules are released.
According to the FW N&R thread GW sent some poor sod to answer AOS questions at the FW open day.
These are the new rules. Nothing else is coming if that source is to be believed.
I should have been more clear. I was referring to the new miniature releases. The reimagined versions of the races we are familiar with. Presumably in the new larger scale of the AoS boxed set.
It might be a tad early to tell but I don't think this has a very good chance of saving WHFB.
I know their wasn't really anything to lose but it seems like GeeDubs has purged what kept people playing (Fluff, background, aestehtics, etc.) and magnified everything that was stopping people from playing (excruciating prices and terrible rules.)
If that Lord Celestant is as big as he looks, and hopefully includes the babygryph, I guess that isn't that bad of price, especially once you can get the usual discounts from a game store.
I have a pile of consignment credit at my FLGS and I'm probably going to just use it all on Sigmar stuff.
Those Sigmarines are still going to end up dwarfed by all my Darklands stuff.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Feth that Kyoto, you're missing the big 'un in the room:
FOURTY DOLLAR 'DICE SHAKERS'!!!
I mean WTF?
They finally did some market research and you throw it back in their faces? So they didn't realize it was derogatory when people called their games glorified Yahtzee, at least they're listening...
Hell yeah. Thse new balancing rules started making some more sense. Just have to get rid with my old wood elves (and all the sentiments/nostalgia that come with them) and I'm ready fro brand new game
But losing sure does ruin 
There is a load of skirmish games out there!
There are times i've worked 100 hours a week, and then don't take home a paycheck that month because i need it for the business. My family is very frugal at times 
Not the first game I've had to fix. Or the first time i've written scenarios or events for 
