The reason why I’m not playing AoS right this very moment is because I was tabled in 1 turn by a Death Monster Mash. And Round 2 doesn’t start until 1.
Da Boss wrote: I have not read any of that stuff. I will give it a go on my kindle if I can pick the books up. Any recommendation?
All the BL stuff is on Amazon kindle with the exception of some short stories (though the way AOS releases its easier to get msot of them in collected books anyway)
I'd recommend
Legends of the Age of Sigmar: Omnibus 1 - it contains Fyrslayers, Sylvannath and Pestilens. Fyrslayers stuff sort of didn't grab me (the opening did but the story in one is just a long list of battle events iwthout much character stuff going on). Sylvannath really needs you to have read a few of the earlier Realmgate novels to get (Realmgate Wars Vol 1 would catch you up where you'd need to be). However Pestilens is the real gem of the book in a big way - its a whole novel (and they do sell it on its own but at the same price as the omnibus so might as well get more stories). Pestilens is in all ways a really epic read and great fun!
After that check out the Novellas:
Warqueen, Heart Of Winter and if you've read up a lot on Gotrek then The Bone Desert (personally I'm still going through Demonslayer and plan on going through all their adventures before getting into the AoS Gotrek stuff). The Red Hours is also good but isn't the best of the novellas (the story is good and the plot really neat but the pacing feels off and like the author really wanted double the page count to flesh it out).
Then there's Inferno 1 and 2 which contain short stories from everything GW currently makes (40K, Horus, AoS, Necromunda and some Bloodbowl).
That's mostly what I've read and recommend so far. Realmgate novels are good to read as a start to the setting, but they can get a little heavy on the war and a bit too light on characters. That said they do establish a fair bit of world building and set the stage for the invasion of Stormcast as they hit back against a chaos ravaged wordl
MonkeyBallistic wrote: I because any tension or tragedy in their deaths is instantly dispelled by the lore in which they just keep coming back to life..
But that's not true. Never was. Stormcasts can die permanently, either through exotic means or because they cannot make it out of reforging. These two elements have been outright stated (though the latter was not emphasized enough, I suppose) since the very beginning. And that's without taking into account that reforging is a horrible process.
There's tension in a stormcast getting killed because he either a) Dies (and it's not a nice death, going by Soul Wars and the malign portents shorts) or B) has an awfully high chance of having a fate worse than death (the price of apotheosis from malign portents is a good example).
MonkeyBallistic wrote: I because any tension or tragedy in their deaths is instantly dispelled by the lore in which they just keep coming back to life..
But that's not true. Never was. Stormcasts can die permanently, either through exotic means or because they cannot make it out of reforging. These two elements have been outright stated (though the latter was not emphasized enough, I suppose) since the very beginning. And that's without taking into account that reforging is a horrible process.
There's tension in a stormcast getting killed because he either a) Dies (and it's not a nice death, going by Soul Wars and the malign portents shorts) or B) has an awfully high chance of having a fate worse than death (the price of apotheosis from malign portents is a good example).
So, are you saying that only most of them come back to life? Okay. I feel like my statement was like, 5% wrong
MonkeyBallistic wrote: I because any tension or tragedy in their deaths is instantly dispelled by the lore in which they just keep coming back to life..
But that's not true. Never was. Stormcasts can die permanently, either through exotic means or because they cannot make it out of reforging. These two elements have been outright stated (though the latter was not emphasized enough, I suppose) since the very beginning. And that's without taking into account that reforging is a horrible process.
There's tension in a stormcast getting killed because he either a) Dies (and it's not a nice death, going by Soul Wars and the malign portents shorts) or B) has an awfully high chance of having a fate worse than death (the price of apotheosis from malign portents is a good example).
So, are you saying that only most of them come back to life? Okay. I feel like my statement was like, 5% wrong
I think it's a matter of optics.
Coming back losing part of yourself is about as bad as outright dying, and quite easily worse. You exist, but the things that made you yourself are not there anymore, and you don't see those you cared about, despite those awfully familiar (or not, depending on how bad it is) faces growing more desolate, day after day. I guess you feel tension if you know the feeling in question, but I really do not wish anyone to have familiars with neurodegenerative diesases. I at least find that much worse, the pain doesn't end there, it continues to fester and those around the "reforged"/affected are unable to do anything but watch how the husk of their beloved one continues the downward spiral.
Saying, "eh, but they come back to life" in this circumstances strikes me as beyond callous.
It does require the losing part to be well written tough. Too often in fantasy when employing the trope "they come back at a terrible cost" the terrible cost bit gets forgotten/ diminished.
Honestly I expect that at some point some god is going to throw a big spanner in Sigmar's works. As it stands even without reforging the Stormcast are a legion that will ever grow greater in number. Nagash certainly wants to break that soul harvesting trick and we don't know what Slaanesh might do if he ever escapes prison - a hungry god might well sup upon lightning saved souls to fill his empty belly.
It opens the door for the traditional GW tropes of chaos marines.
Chaos tainted sigmarines (straight up copy/paste chaos marines)
Death tainted sigmarines (the deathcast which are already a thing in the narrative)
Destruction tainted sigmarines
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.
Still doesn't make them worthy of much in the way of sympathy.
They're pretty much single-use items. They don't have families, only have the vaguest recollection of human feelings, etc.
So what if reforging pushes them even further into robot-ness? It's what they are.
Beric Dondarrion sure is an interesting character in isolation but a whole army of them? Not so much.
That's the point actually, the narrative has been intentionally written where the superhero good guys are less and less empathetic. I think it's an interesting line and am interested in how they follow it.
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Overread wrote: Honestly I expect that at some point some god is going to throw a big spanner in Sigmar's works. As it stands even without reforging the Stormcast are a legion that will ever grow greater in number. Nagash certainly wants to break that soul harvesting trick and we don't know what Slaanesh might do if he ever escapes prison - a hungry god might well sup upon lightning saved souls to fill his empty belly.
While never explicitly stated the Stormcast books imply that they are degrading over time as new Stormcast do not keep up with the rate of reforging flaws combined with permadeath. Something worth noting is that some stormcast die and go back but don't make it out of reforging again; just being killed enough times by mundane means can still perma-kill a stormcast.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.
Still doesn't make them worthy of much in the way of sympathy.
They're pretty much single-use items. They don't have families, only have the vaguest recollection of human feelings, etc.
So what if reforging pushes them even further into robot-ness? It's what they are.
Beric Dondarrion sure is an interesting character in isolation but a whole army of them? Not so much.
That's the point actually, the narrative has been intentionally written where the superhero good guys are less and less empathetic. I think it's an interesting line and am interested in how they follow it.
I'm not implying it's not a deliberate choice. I just find it, well, an odd path to take. And not in a good way.
To be fair, GW hasn't done themselves many favors in dispelling the "Stormcast have infinite respawns" claim. The Role Models comic has had a couple respawn jokes. It's still not a part of the lore, though. Sometimes GW embraces the memes a little too much.
I have a feeling we're going to be getting treated to what happens when they respawn too much with a new faction added to one of the primary other three (death, destruction, or chaos)
EnTyme wrote: To be fair, GW hasn't done themselves many favors in dispelling the "Stormcast have infinite respawns" claim. The Role Models comic has had a couple respawn jokes. It's still not a part of the lore, though. Sometimes GW embraces the memes a little too much.
Roll Models is a very casual and light comic that's half commentary on gamers perceptions and half lore authentic whilst not taking itself too seriously. So I wouldn't read too far into it.
EnTyme wrote: To be fair, GW hasn't done themselves many favors in dispelling the "Stormcast have infinite respawns" claim. The Role Models comic has had a couple respawn jokes. It's still not a part of the lore, though. Sometimes GW embraces the memes a little too much.
They have gone extensively into the infinite respawn thing, it's flaws, and how it has limits. Mentioned in the core book and detailed in the battletome.
I know, I'm just saying that the comic doesn't exactly help the perception of Stormcast when the characters just (literally) laugh off their reforging once per season. For those who haven't read the Stormcast tomes (or their section in the core book) but read the comic, the meme looks more accurate than the lore.
I think Stormcast would have been a lot cooler as "daemons" of Order. I can see why they did not do that, because people like their super heroic "good guys" to be relatable, but I think the game is more boring for having them the way they are.
I do like that they are of both genders though, that is cool.
I am thinking of getting the Start Collecting and painting them up as servants of Order for my Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.
EnTyme wrote: I remember in the early days, GW talked about non-human Stormcast. I'd love to see some Dorfcast or Elfcast represented as models.
Should they actually do that I wouldn't hate the SCE so much.
As of now I find them dull/lame/lazy and I haven't seen to many of them on the tables in my area...
Except that bolt thrower artillery thing allied to other armies.
EnTyme wrote: I remember in the early days, GW talked about non-human Stormcast. I'd love to see some Dorfcast or Elfcast represented as models.
Should they actually do that I wouldn't hate the SCE so much.
As of now I find them dull/lame/lazy and I haven't seen to many of them on the tables in my area...
Except that bolt thrower artillery thing allied to other armies.
Keep in mind that this is from the very early days of AoS, and was basically in the context of "You don't know what's under the mask. Could be a man or woman. May not even be a human". It was from the period when all Stormast had the same armor with a helment. Since then, they've released multiple helmetless options and female bodies. They may have ret-conned the potential for non-humans to become Stormcast, but I'm not sure why they would. If anything, I think it's more likely they'd add even more races who could potentially be reforged.
I converted this guy with an Eldar (or maybe Elf?) head, back when it was rumored that Stormcast had Aelves in their ranks, too (as odd as it is for Elves to be shouting to Sigmar for salvation to get their revenge on Chaos). He (still) is the token non-human in my skirmish warband of Stormcast.
Da Boss wrote: I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.
They could also be so lost to this rudimentary concept of "Order" that they become "Lawful Evil". I like it.
Da Boss wrote: I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.
They could also be so lost to this rudimentary concept of "Order" that they become "Lawful Evil". I like it.
I would much prefer lawful neutral in the totally amoral sense.
"You are guilty of murder, the punishment is death."
"You are guilty of theft, the punishment is death."
"You have violated curfew, the punishment is death."
Da Boss wrote: I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.
They could also be so lost to this rudimentary concept of "Order" that they become "Lawful Evil". I like it.
I would much prefer lawful neutral in the totally amoral sense.
"You are guilty of murder, the punishment is death."
"You are guilty of theft, the punishment is death."
"You have violated curfew, the punishment is death."
Charistoph wrote:Evil is always from perspective. In this case, not just evil to us, but evil to Sigmar or the Free People.
I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.
My understanding of the lore is that Sigmar chooses them pretty much because they hate chaos. They're what they are by definition. A tool or a plot device more than a character, so losing their humanity would make them better at their job, not different.
If they refuse Sigmar deal they become knights of shrouds instead.
They hate chaos, but they're not mindless drones as you're suggesting. It was either in one of the realm gate books or the current battletome (somebody correct me please) where they had a temporary "alliance" with Valkia against a bigger Nurgle threat.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.
Still doesn't make them worthy of much in the way of sympathy.
They're pretty much single-use items. They don't have families,
They do have families, though? In soul wars you see a mother meet her daughter, and recognize her. In Palace of Memory two stormcasts, both wife and husband, do serve together (there's of course, a twist).
And even on an informal level you have other cases, like in the lightning golem, where the protagonist, Issakian, is in an informal relationship with a Vanguard-Hunter, Agrevaine (which would bring us to the question: define family).
only have the vaguest recollection of human feelings, etc.
Ehm... yeah, I am going to go for [citation needed]
Because outside of the realmgate wars you see a wide bank of emotions shown (and in the realmgate wars kind of, but not really developed at all).
We've seen pedantry, we've seen snark galore, we've seen how they do get heartbroken and desolate, etc.
So what if reforging pushes them even further into robot-ness? It's what they are.
I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.
My understanding of the lore is that Sigmar chooses them pretty much because they hate chaos. They're what they are by definition. A tool or a plot device more than a character, so losing their humanity would make them better at their job, not different.
If they refuse Sigmar deal they become knights of shrouds instead.
Eh, your understanding is a tad flawed. Knights Excelsior are drawn from those that do have a seething hatred of chaos. Stormcasts are just people whom showed acts of heroism, from peasants that took a desperate last stand to kings that led operations of resistance. Just hating chaos isn't really their sole factor, as showcased with the Redeemed, which are entirely formed from former chaos champions/worshippers whom were deemed to still hold a redeeming mote on their beings.
The big problem with a lot of early Stormcast Lore is that its tied up in the Realmgate Novels which are basically each a huge battle to retake a realmgate from Chaos. So what we see of them is very focused on those battles, which can result in Stormcast appearing very automaton warrior like because that's basically what they are doing - fullfilling the divine reason for their creation in glorious war against Chaos in the name of Sigmar.
I think it masks some of the complexities of their character which is only now starting to come out. I also think the writers were a bit hampered with early AoS and were almost as unsure of the setting as the players were. The newer works are much tighter and present new angles.
Inferno has a Stormcast who has fallen from Sigmar's grace; we hear hints of infighting and politics in Heart of Winter. The hints are around to be found, but they are not boldly thrust forward as the warrior aspect is.
There's also other things waiting- the vast arena where Stormcast train where they cannot die within has a nefarious ulterior motive that we likely won't find out until the new "Dark Aelf" faction is released
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.
Still doesn't make them worthy of much in the way of sympathy.
They're pretty much single-use items. They don't have families,
They do have families, though? In soul wars you see a mother meet her daughter, and recognize her.
Which probably means they used to have a family rather than have one. Do SCE take their sons to learn to ride? Do they teach them to forge a sword? etc etc
Eh, your understanding is a tad flawed. Knights Excelsior are drawn from those that do have a seething hatred of chaos. Stormcasts are just people whom showed acts of heroism, from peasants that took a desperate last stand to kings that led operations of resistance. Just hating chaos isn't really their sole factor, as showcased with the Redeemed, which are entirely formed from former chaos champions/worshippers whom were deemed to still hold a redeeming mote on their beings.
They have a choice (otherwise there wouldn't be such a thing as knights of shrouds). Hating or having a drudge against chaos is the only reason why you would choose to fight Chaos post-mortem.
They're boring in the same way khorne is the most boring of the chaos gods. They're (re)born for a purpose, and the purpose is war yadda yadda.
They do actually have and maintain family ties. One example that springs to mind is a stormcast who regularly visits his family and ancestors during his downtime. In fact he finds it quite funny when he visits ancestors further down in time as they freak out when he appears for a family catch up. It sounds like you're just looking for things to hate. And as stated above we've got at least one example of a married couple that fight together.
Gates of Azyr has a lot of problems but even there the stormcast characters are pretty clearly defined as fully capable emotional beings. Notably to their detriment when one character is so desperate to kill a Khorne champion before he can fulfill a prophesy and decapitate his BFF he ends up getting himself decapitated instead.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: They do actually have and maintain family ties. One example that springs to mind is a stormcast who regularly visits his family and ancestors during his downtime. In fact he finds it quite funny when he visits ancestors further down in time as they freak out when he appears for a family catch up.
That's just the nature of the thread, same reason the same points get brought up over and over; one can cite examples across black library and the battletomes all day but once that aspect of the discussion dies down for a few pages you'll see someone claiming stormcasts are robots again.
Captain Joystick wrote: Gates of Azyr has a lot of problems but even there the stormcast characters are pretty clearly defined as fully capable emotional beings. Notably to their detriment when one character is so desperate to kill a Khorne champion before he can fulfill a prophesy and decapitate his BFF he ends up getting himself decapitated instead.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: They do actually have and maintain family ties. One example that springs to mind is a stormcast who regularly visits his family and ancestors during his downtime. In fact he finds it quite funny when he visits ancestors further down in time as they freak out when he appears for a family catch up.
That's just the nature of the thread, same reason the same points get brought up over and over; one can cite examples across black library and the battletomes all day but once that aspect of the discussion dies down for a few pages you'll see someone claiming stormcasts are robots again.
They may or may not be robots. But they really do lack any sort of character. All gold. All sigmar. All awesome. All the time.
Captain Joystick wrote: Gates of Azyr has a lot of problems but even there the stormcast characters are pretty clearly defined as fully capable emotional beings. Notably to their detriment when one character is so desperate to kill a Khorne champion before he can fulfill a prophesy and decapitate his BFF he ends up getting himself decapitated instead.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: They do actually have and maintain family ties. One example that springs to mind is a stormcast who regularly visits his family and ancestors during his downtime. In fact he finds it quite funny when he visits ancestors further down in time as they freak out when he appears for a family catch up.
*descendants
Quite right. That's what I get for trying to multitask.
Captain Joystick wrote: Gates of Azyr has a lot of problems but even there the stormcast characters are pretty clearly defined as fully capable emotional beings. Notably to their detriment when one character is so desperate to kill a Khorne champion before he can fulfill a prophesy and decapitate his BFF he ends up getting himself decapitated instead.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: They do actually have and maintain family ties. One example that springs to mind is a stormcast who regularly visits his family and ancestors during his downtime. In fact he finds it quite funny when he visits ancestors further down in time as they freak out when he appears for a family catch up.
That's just the nature of the thread, same reason the same points get brought up over and over; one can cite examples across black library and the battletomes all day but once that aspect of the discussion dies down for a few pages you'll see someone claiming stormcasts are robots again.
They may or may not be robots. But they really do lack any sort of character. All gold. All sigmar. All awesome. All the time.
Did you actually bother to read the last couple of pages?
They may or may not be robots. But they really do lack any sort of character. All gold. All sigmar. All awesome. All the time.
Until they fail - there's a neat short story (I forget if its in Inferno 1 or 2) which deals with a Stormcast who has lost his way.
Seriously people need to read the books that are not focused on Stormcast and which are a bit more modern (though some of the early ones ilke Pestilens are great)
Pancakey wrote: They may or may not be robots. But they really do lack any sort of character. All gold. All sigmar. All awesome. All the time.
I feel like you've proven my actual point better than I ever could.
Let me clarify. In game and on the table Stormcast lack any sort of character. All gold. All awesome. All the time.
So you've only an issue with gold ones? So if they are painted pink or bright blue or silver or rusty orange that's ok?
What color are your stormcasts?
Plastician Grey
Although the only stormcast I own are Gryph hounds and they will likely be a variety of colours (at least one will have a grey-blue head and brown body) probably involving reds and silvers and some gold because they will be working for Daughters of Khaine.
I've also got some mounted units somewhere that I might paint up for further allies; if I do get round to them chances are I'll lean toward a reddy gold shade to fix with the DoK themes (you know hearts and blood and all that). I've no actual interest in building a proper Stormcast army - not that I don't like the models - heck the hyena pegasus I would love to own and field.
It is a shame that so many people were put off by the early fiction. The first three novels were just novelisations for the campaign books. The authors were given very little freedom to play with the setting. The more recent books from city of secrets on have done a much better job of exploring the setting, givng the sense of place that many felt were lacking at the start, and contextualising the place of the Stormcast.
A lot of the early stories felt like an excuse to show a few battles and nothing more.
Nick Horth’s books, eight lamentations, the two Evan Dicken stories and the Gotrek audio drama are all excellent.
Soul wars was the best warhammer tie-in book I have read. It is essentially a story about a city preparing for a siege and the fighting doesn’t really break out until the last quarter of the book.
The Stormcast may not be human but their whole story is about humanity, about what it means to be human and whether it is worth sacrificing your own humanity to protect others.
The soul wars was a great hook to tie the second edition to. With Slaanesh and more Aelves still to come, I hope it continues to be explored from some time.
To answer the op question the reason I’m not playing the game much is time and the existence of more sub games.
With two small children time is at a premium so I find that warhammer underworlds does a good job of scratching the gaming itch.
I have dabbled with skirmish, but I really want an expanded version with the kind of attention that has been given to kill team before I fully jump in.
I also play silver tower every now and then, which I still find enjoyable.
auticus wrote:It opens the door for the traditional GW tropes of chaos marines.
Chaos tainted sigmarines (straight up copy/paste chaos marines)
Death tainted sigmarines (the deathcast which are already a thing in the narrative)
Destruction tainted sigmarines
Which gives you a super hero enemy army.
As sad as that would be if it happened, when I was trying and still trying to make my Storm Casts, I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god. Then I realized I am basically copying 40K version without even thinking of it. I guess since Stormcasts act so much like Space Marines, the classic "turning on your father" story fit's so easily. So I guess I wouldn't mind Chaos/bad Stormcasts.
After all that is what my minis are. Just haven't put a scheme together for it yet.
Chaos Stormcast would just be bigger Chaos Warriors, which is not super interesting. We already have some pretty beefy chaos dudes. It will probably happen though.
I am thinking about picking up the SC that is the Stormcast half of the old starter and painting them as "elemental" themed golems of Law. Bronze/Fire themed for the hammer wielding dudes, Lightning/Air themed for the flying dudes, Stonecast for one of the foot units and some sort of Iron with a turquoise detailing for the other. Gives me a bunch of Golems for use in roleplaying games but also the possibility to run them as celestians, archons or whatever.
Pancakey wrote: They may or may not be robots. But they really do lack any sort of character. All gold. All sigmar. All awesome. All the time.
I feel like you've proven my actual point better than I ever could.
Let me clarify. In game and on the table Stormcast lack any sort of character. All gold. All awesome. All the time.
So you've only an issue with gold ones? So if they are painted pink or bright blue or silver or rusty orange that's ok?
What color are your stormcasts?
Bare metal plate, with green cloth and their shields and shoulders have a green and black split livery. All of my small force travel around the city they are stationed in and the area nearby (I only play them in skirmish setting) bare-faced to reassure the populace that they are people, not monsters. I wanted them to be oversized knights, kind of a nod to Brettonia in AoS, and each one has a pose matched with their face.
auticus wrote:It opens the door for the traditional GW tropes of chaos marines.
Chaos tainted sigmarines (straight up copy/paste chaos marines)
Death tainted sigmarines (the deathcast which are already a thing in the narrative)
Destruction tainted sigmarines
Which gives you a super hero enemy army.
As sad as that would be if it happened, when I was trying and still trying to make my Storm Casts, I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god. Then I realized I am basically copying 40K version without even thinking of it. I guess since Stormcasts act so much like Space Marines, the classic "turning on your father" story fit's so easily. So I guess I wouldn't mind Chaos/bad Stormcasts.
After all that is what my minis are. Just haven't put a scheme together for it yet.
But stormcast don't act like Space Marines, Generally. And where are you getting this Sigmar is a coward thing from? Also I don't think we need chaos stormcast, when we already have chaos Warriors, blood Warriors and blight Kings.
auticus wrote:It opens the door for the traditional GW tropes of chaos marines.
Chaos tainted sigmarines (straight up copy/paste chaos marines)
Death tainted sigmarines (the deathcast which are already a thing in the narrative)
Destruction tainted sigmarines
Which gives you a super hero enemy army.
As sad as that would be if it happened, when I was trying and still trying to make my Storm Casts, I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god. Then I realized I am basically copying 40K version without even thinking of it. I guess since Stormcasts act so much like Space Marines, the classic "turning on your father" story fit's so easily. So I guess I wouldn't mind Chaos/bad Stormcasts.
After all that is what my minis are. Just haven't put a scheme together for it yet.
But stormcast don't act like Space Marines, Generally. And where are you getting this Sigmar is a coward thing from? Also I don't think we need chaos stormcast, when we already have chaos Warriors, blood Warriors and blight Kings.
I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god.
That's his own headcannon. You know. The stuff that is allowed and GW used to encourage at least before they made decision to ignore what their settings were(ie settings) and turned things around to "story".
auticus wrote:It opens the door for the traditional GW tropes of chaos marines.
Chaos tainted sigmarines (straight up copy/paste chaos marines)
Death tainted sigmarines (the deathcast which are already a thing in the narrative)
Destruction tainted sigmarines
Which gives you a super hero enemy army.
As sad as that would be if it happened, when I was trying and still trying to make my Storm Casts, I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god. Then I realized I am basically copying 40K version without even thinking of it. I guess since Stormcasts act so much like Space Marines, the classic "turning on your father" story fit's so easily. So I guess I wouldn't mind Chaos/bad Stormcasts.
After all that is what my minis are. Just haven't put a scheme together for it yet.
But stormcast don't act like Space Marines, Generally. And where are you getting this Sigmar is a coward thing from? Also I don't think we need chaos stormcast, when we already have chaos Warriors, blood Warriors and blight Kings.
I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god.
That's his own headcannon. You know. The stuff that is allowed and GW used to encourage at least before they made decision to ignore what their settings were(ie settings) and turned things around to "story".
GW does encourage people to create personal lore in the AoS setting. However in my opinion there is a such thing as personally created lore that could happen in the setting and personally created lore that is highly unlikely to happen in the setting. Otherwise what's the point of having a setting.
Stormcast in open revolt is almost never going to happen, especially not in large numbers and they would not survive long. They would not be able to be reforged, the priest would lose their powers. And they will be hunted down by the forces of Chaos, order and death. They have also met their God, Sigmar is the opposite a coward.
auticus wrote:It opens the door for the traditional GW tropes of chaos marines.
Chaos tainted sigmarines (straight up copy/paste chaos marines)
Death tainted sigmarines (the deathcast which are already a thing in the narrative)
Destruction tainted sigmarines
Which gives you a super hero enemy army.
As sad as that would be if it happened, when I was trying and still trying to make my Storm Casts, I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god. Then I realized I am basically copying 40K version without even thinking of it. I guess since Stormcasts act so much like Space Marines, the classic "turning on your father" story fit's so easily. So I guess I wouldn't mind Chaos/bad Stormcasts.
After all that is what my minis are. Just haven't put a scheme together for it yet.
But stormcast don't act like Space Marines, Generally. And where are you getting this Sigmar is a coward thing from? Also I don't think we need chaos stormcast, when we already have chaos Warriors, blood Warriors and blight Kings.
I just don't like Sigmar, so I am thinking how to use those mini and they bascially end up realizing Sigmar is a coward and false god.
That's his own headcannon. You know. The stuff that is allowed and GW used to encourage at least before they made decision to ignore what their settings were(ie settings) and turned things around to "story".
GW does encourage people to create personal lore in the AoS setting. However in my opinion there is a such thing as personally created lore that could happen in the setting and personally created lore that is highly unlikely to happen in the setting. Otherwise what's the point of having a setting.
Stormcast in open revolt is almost never going to happen, especially not in large numbers and they would not survive long. They would not be able to be reforged, the priest would lose their powers. And they will be hunted down by the forces of Chaos, order and death. They have also met their God, Sigmar is the opposite a coward.
But I digress, it's headcanon.
Correct it's my head cannon. I thought from me saying Stormcast being something like Chaos Space Marines would show why they turned on Sigmar. In my army that I gave up on, but trying to restart it now, While I sort of like the minis (may as well use them since I bought the boxsets for the game) that they are "Stormcasts" that rebelled against Sigmar but not Chaos Stormcasts. For me I am going by the real fluff at the time, so not sure if it was retconned or not, that ANY race could be a Stormcast Eternal, since Sigmar the Coward, Sigmar the False God (again, head cannon) took these Warriors and Kidnapped and totured them against their own free will. So for me at the time I was starting a Destruction army with Beastclaw Raiders. (or is it riders? Been ages need to relearn everything again.)
After so many reforgings, and or, someone else made the reforged Stormcasts remember who they were. For some, a hero was defending his villiage but because Sigmar wanted him/her/it when he was "taken" the hero couldn't defend the villiage and they were slaughtered, tortured and worse. Or the Hero was defending his loved ones/family and was taken so his loved ones/family died. Others, dying in battle was the Honourable thing, but Sigmar took that Honour away from them.
So the "brothers and sisters" joined together and rebelled to go back and live among their kin. Some were welcomed back even though milliena passed by, others stay in their armour for thier "shame" because now they are human when before they were not, so will not take the armour off in public and only come out to defend their kin.
Others are not welcomed back from their kin at all, and for some, since they Can't hurt Sigmar physically, they hurt Sigmar emotionally by still wearing the armour. Others still wear the armour to give Stormcasts a bad name and others yet while HATING Chaos, take on Chaos and become mutated so they can harm Sigmar physically by fighting his armies and also "defiling" Stormcast armour by having "taint" of chaos. I was going to use Tyranid Gargoyle wings to show how they took on, what they hate because their hatred for Sigmar is even worse.
The faction I wanted to main got axed, and had next to no support. Oh well. Guess I'll need to save up for Ironjawz or use these Orruks as Bonesplittaz.
Because no rank and flank phalanx style spear troops. No high elves and stormcasts astheticly look like space marines to me. Im sure the game plays well. But theres already a great skirmish game called middle earth strategy game. And its got a proper fantasy setting. Lots more reasons but mainly the setting.
I've been meaning to write this for awhile now. This is also going to be a bit of a blog post but here we go.
I was on the boat of not playing Age of Sigmar, even after trying to get into the game twice. I had a few reasons for not getting into it, all of which have already been said by someone else in this thread. "Not interested in the lore, my army isn't a thing, miss the old world, I'm playing other games, etc..." Then Warmahordes released MKIII and took a big dive in my area. I also was coming to terms with Warmahordes not being the game for me. Its a great game and I hope it does well but its not for me. So I sold off all of my Warmahordes and went to Nova looking to replace my main game. I showed up ready to play Infinity, Star Wars Legion, and to pick up some Malifaux. I left Nova confirming that they were all great games but just not for me.
While I was at Nova I took a painting class with Duncan and walked the halls of Nova checking out other games. Between Duncans enthusiasm for the game and the models I fell in love again. I bought the Sepulchral Guard after the class and hit up a buddy of mine selling his Ironjawz before we made it home. I came out of Nova wanted to play all things Warhammer. None of my friends followed. So I dove in on my own. I bought everything I needed to start playing and then started hitting up the local game store for games. It didn't take long before all of my friends started picking up there own armies. I'm now sitting on a complete IronJawz army and I'm currently putting together Sylvaneth. I have my eye on Warcry and I'm still eagerly awaiting Tyrion and Malerion releases. I've also been getting in more games of AoS in a month then I ever have of other games in several months.
Currently I'm enjoying the game. The lore has grown on me. I have armies to play currently and the 2 I've been eyeing might be a thing soon. And the only other game that can pull me away is Underworlds.
Alokin1988 wrote: I've been meaning to write this for awhile now. This is also going to be a bit of a blog post but here we go.
I was on the boat of not playing Age of Sigmar, even after trying to get into the game twice. I had a few reasons for not getting into it, all of which have already been said by someone else in this thread. "Not interested in the lore, my army isn't a thing, miss the old world, I'm playing other games, etc..." Then Warmahordes released MKIII and took a big dive in my area. I also was coming to terms with Warmahordes not being the game for me. Its a great game and I hope it does well but its not for me. So I sold off all of my Warmahordes and went to Nova looking to replace my main game. I showed up ready to play Infinity, Star Wars Legion, and to pick up some Malifaux. I left Nova confirming that they were all great games but just not for me.
While I was at Nova I took a painting class with Duncan and walked the halls of Nova checking out other games. Between Duncans enthusiasm for the game and the models I fell in love again. I bought the Sepulchral Guard after the class and hit up a buddy of mine selling his Ironjawz before we made it home. I came out of Nova wanted to play all things Warhammer. None of my friends followed. So I dove in on my own. I bought everything I needed to start playing and then started hitting up the local game store for games. It didn't take long before all of my friends started picking up there own armies. I'm now sitting on a complete IronJawz army and I'm currently putting together Sylvaneth. I have my eye on Warcry and I'm still eagerly awaiting Tyrion and Malerion releases. I've also been getting in more games of AoS in a month then I ever have of other games in several months.
Currently I'm enjoying the game. The lore has grown on me. I have armies to play currently and the 2 I've been eyeing might be a thing soon. And the only other game that can pull me away is Underworlds.
This is so similar to me. I was a die hard warhammer fantasy player and when GW axed the game for AoS, I like many others, was livid. All of my favorite armies and lore were gone, stormcast looked like stupid space marine knock-offs to me, and at the time it appeared the game literally did not have a points system (I don't know if people remember, but the rollout was pretty poorly executed with GW basically coming right out and saying they didn't have any intention of making games for competitive play anymore. I played like 1 test game of AoS when that little ~4 page rulepack got released, and was dismayed. Sold pretty much my entire collection of GW mini's and swore the company off forever. Tried warmachine hordes, hated it. All my friends got into Malifaux, I played it half heartedly for a while and liked it a bit more, but it did not in any way scratch the itch that got me into wargames to begin with, massed fantasy battles... I basically slowly but surely dropped out of the hobby completely, but the itch to wargame never left, it just seemed like there wasn't anything for me. Then like 6 months ago I talked to a gaming friend I had lost touch with for the first time since AoS hit, and he had nothing but good things to say about where the game now was, and that enthusiasm from someone I trust really forced me to re-evaluate, put my bias against GW asside and give it another look. Much to my surprise I realised pretty much everything that had made me love Warhammer Fantasy for so many years was pretty much all back in AoS. The names and lore had changed, but the rules had gotten a make over and GW was once again committed to matched play. So here I am 6 months later obsessed all over again, and getting in deeper by the day. Really can't stress enough how pleasantly surprised I have been at the strides GW has made with this game over the, what 3 years now? Since warhammer fantasy got destroyed.
The GW that launched AoS was a very different company to the one we have today. They did a major turnaround in 2016. I personally think that the 'proudly do no market research' team actually believed the people were buying their models primarily to simply collect, and that the game was an afterthought. They launched AoS expecting it to go over well thanks to all those new models and abundant tools for people to forge the narrative, and were shocked that the sales were terrible. A change of leadership decides that maybe that whole market research thing is a good idea, and they are illuminated as to the public's actual perception of GW and how that very much matters.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The GW that launched AoS was a very different company to the one we have today. They did a major turnaround in 2016. I personally think that the 'proudly do no market research' team actually believed the people were buying their models primarily to simply collect, and that the game was an afterthought. They launched AoS expecting it to go over well thanks to all those new models and abundant tools for people to forge the narrative, and were shocked that the sales were terrible. A change of leadership decides that maybe that whole market research thing is a good idea, and they are illuminated as to the public's actual perception of GW and how that very much matters.
Aye, the issue wasn't just lack of market research but I also think that the upper staff had gotten so isolated from their actual fanbase that they no longer even knew proper gamers at large. Don't forget in that time too GW didn't do any social media stuff, not even forums. Heck we had to rely on rumours back then to actually get any solid heads up that anything was coming ever. GW was totally isolated at the top end from its customer base, which isn'ta shock when you look at how they'd release short term products and axe others just before a shareholders meeting - they were far too focused on that meeting to the point of damaging the company to get a good return.
Ironically they had been holding the returns back because when they had that huge attitude change their profits skyrocketed through the roof so far that they not only had to build a new factory to handle production but actually had the money do to it - no loan, no big investor they could do it themselves and give their staff the world over a bonus too.
AoS was a bad start but it was the act that helped clear the air and reshap much of how GW works
I'm still a fan of WHFB, but from what I see is that GW is slowly trying to bring old miniatures back into AoS whether it's new sculpts or just simple repacking them with round bases. When I see armies like Beastmen or Skaven get tomes, endless spells, etc. It gives me hope that other old armies will come to AoS.
The big one for me personally is Greenskinz, though GW stopped selling their Start Collecting boxes they still do have warscrolls and are still a playable army (though kind of crap if you play them by themselves.) I'll keep playing Ironjawz until I see that Greenskinz get a battle tome.
Yeah but its more than just AoS. Bloodbowl - Adepticus Titanicus - Aeronautica - Necromunda all games brought back since the big GW shakeup. And there's Underworld and Blackstone and likely a few others to come too.
Overread wrote: Yeah but its more than just AoS. Bloodbowl - Adepticus Titanicus - Aeronautica - Necromunda all games brought back since the big GW shakeup. And there's Underworld and Blackstone and likely a few others to come too.
I think those would have happened regardless of Fantasy dying. I think Fantasy dying is less a sacrifice for more games and more a final casualty of bad management.
Well AoS is making a come back at my FLGS. We played it when it first came out but interest rapidly declined to the point i sold my army.
However we are kick starting it again with a start collecting tourney. All lists are made up from the contents of a start collecting box, and if you buy a box from the store it's free entry.
Also they are having a bunch of pre-painted ready to go armies so if people just want to take part without buying a box they can use one of the house armies.
Seems to have got a lot of interest both from old fantasy players and the 40k players like myself.
40k is loosing it's appeal due to how hyper competitive it's become which is sucking the fun out of playing the game. (I've actually sold one of my armies to fund a LoN army).
So AoS is actually really appealing to me now, and I've always loved anything to do with Vampires! Extra bonus points is that my Mrs also loves Vampires so is loving the models! So no guilt trips when i buy something else!
I'm weighing up Astreia Solbright as my entry for the upcoming Everchosen, and if so possibly follow it up with Storm Strike a little later on. It says on the GW site that Storm Strike comes with extra warscroll cards for other characters, but unsure if that includes Astreia's. I don't suppose anyone can confirm that?
I'm weighing up Astreia Solbright as my entry for the upcoming Everchosen, and if so possibly follow it up with Storm Strike a little later on. It says on the GW site that Storm Strike comes with extra warscroll cards for other characters, but unsure if that includes Astreia's. I don't suppose anyone can confirm that?
Cheers.
Stormstrike includes Solbright, Grimhailer, Dreadblade Harrows, and Celestar Ballista cards in addition to the Glaivewraiths, Myrmourns, Sequitors, and Castigators. There's also a card for the Gryph-Hound.
I'm weighing up Astreia Solbright as my entry for the upcoming Everchosen, and if so possibly follow it up with Storm Strike a little later on. It says on the GW site that Storm Strike comes with extra warscroll cards for other characters, but unsure if that includes Astreia's. I don't suppose anyone can confirm that?
Cheers.
Stormstrike includes Solbright, Grimhailer, Dreadblade Harrows, and Celestar Ballista cards in addition to the Glaivewraiths, Myrmourns, Sequitors, and Castigators. There's also a card for the Gryph-Hound.
I'm weighing up Astreia Solbright as my entry for the upcoming Everchosen, and if so possibly follow it up with Storm Strike a little later on. It says on the GW site that Storm Strike comes with extra warscroll cards for other characters, but unsure if that includes Astreia's. I don't suppose anyone can confirm that?
Cheers.
Stormstrike includes Solbright, Grimhailer, Dreadblade Harrows, and Celestar Ballista cards in addition to the Glaivewraiths, Myrmourns, Sequitors, and Castigators. There's also a card for the Gryph-Hound.
It doesn't. Stormstrike is just sequitors, castigators vs myrmourns and glaivewraiths.
I'm weighing up Astreia Solbright as my entry for the upcoming Everchosen, and if so possibly follow it up with Storm Strike a little later on. It says on the GW site that Storm Strike comes with extra warscroll cards for other characters, but unsure if that includes Astreia's. I don't suppose anyone can confirm that?
Cheers.
Stormstrike includes Solbright, Grimhailer, Dreadblade Harrows, and Celestar Ballista cards in addition to the Glaivewraiths, Myrmourns, Sequitors, and Castigators. There's also a card for the Gryph-Hound.
It doesn't. Stormstrike is just sequitors, castigators vs myrmourns and glaivewraiths.
Games Workshop wrote:4 Warscroll cards are included – these cards contain the rules and statistics you need in order to field your miniatures, laid out for ease of use in a handy card format. A Warscroll is included for each type of miniature in the box. A further 5 Warscroll cards are in the box detailing some of the other miniatures in the range (available separately), giving an insight on how to expand your armies with your next purchases.
That's what he was asking about. That's what I stated comes with it. There's 5 extra cards, I asked someone with the boxed set to check. Those were all the Storm Strike cards.
I'm still a fan of WHFB, but from what I see is that GW is slowly trying to bring old miniatures back into AoS whether it's new sculpts or just simple repacking them with round bases. When I see armies like Beastmen or Skaven get tomes, endless spells, etc. It gives me hope that other old armies will come to AoS.
The big one for me personally is Greenskinz, though GW stopped selling their Start Collecting boxes they still do have warscrolls and are still a playable army (though kind of crap if you play them by themselves.) I'll keep playing Ironjawz until I see that Greenskinz get a battle tome.
Yeah, the return of Tomb Kings was heavily hinted in April this year.
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Chikout wrote: It is a shame that so many people were put off by the early fiction. The first three novels were just novelisations for the campaign books. The authors were given very little freedom to play with the setting. The more recent books from city of secrets on have done a much better job of exploring the setting, givng the sense of place that many felt were lacking at the start, and contextualising the place of the Stormcast.
A lot of the early stories felt like an excuse to show a few battles and nothing more.
Nick Horth’s books, eight lamentations, the two Evan Dicken stories and the Gotrek audio drama are all excellent.
Soul wars was the best warhammer tie-in book I have read. It is essentially a story about a city preparing for a siege and the fighting doesn’t really break out until the last quarter of the book.
The Stormcast may not be human but their whole story is about humanity, about what it means to be human and whether it is worth sacrificing your own humanity to protect others.
The soul wars was a great hook to tie the second edition to. With Slaanesh and more Aelves still to come, I hope it continues to be explored from some time.
To answer the op question the reason I’m not playing the game much is time and the existence of more sub games.
With two small children time is at a premium so I find that warhammer underworlds does a good job of scratching the gaming itch.
I have dabbled with skirmish, but I really want an expanded version with the kind of attention that has been given to kill team before I fully jump in.
I also play silver tower every now and then, which I still find enjoyable.
Put off by the early fiction?
Nope, it was primarily the removal of rank & flank and other important rules and aesthetics of the sigmarines which look like they are members of the Blood Angels sanguinary guard. But I have to agree that the fiction is less than stellar.
I’m trying to convince my two oldest friends to make the plunge with the books, since they have sizable dispossessed and dwelling coven/DoK armies available to themselves, but they’re afraid of change. We all had the “AoS, wtf?!” attitude at the beginning, but I’ve seen the improvements and have jumped in full force. I think once they get familiar, they’ll feel the same.
Forbidden power is mostly supplement, but the endless spells from it are generally accepted as part of matched play. The rules for them are free and you can always ebay/convert the models you need if you want to use them.
For malign sorcery, the realm spells are sometimes used while the realm artifacts are largely considered mainline. The endless spells are part of the main game and very commonly used, but again the rules for those are free and the models can be obtained separately.
So for an average player you do not need to purchase either one or be familiar with the contents beyond the endless spells. The realm artifacts from malign sorcery are extra artifacts anyone can take, but they are optional the vast majority are more for fun/fluff than anything. The handful that see serious use you'll become familiar with pretty quickly.
I should note that the price for both Malign Sorcery and Forbidden Powers is darn good concsidering the size of the models you get. You few fewer models in Forbidden Powers, but they are all very large ones, whilst several of the spells in Malign are much smaller.
All in all they are worthwhile to get, but at the same time you don't have to start with them and if you play a faction which has had faction spells released for it then their own pack of endless spells is often a very powerful starting point.
Somewhat related, I preferred the Malign Sorcery model of predatory endless spells. The immobile ones (and worse offenders - mobile ones that specifically don't affect a faction's units) take a lot of the danger out of these potentially devastating spells.
I'm still a fan of WHFB, but from what I see is that GW is slowly trying to bring old miniatures back into AoS whether it's new sculpts or just simple repacking them with round bases. When I see armies like Beastmen or Skaven get tomes, endless spells, etc. It gives me hope that other old armies will come to AoS.
The big one for me personally is Greenskinz, though GW stopped selling their Start Collecting boxes they still do have warscrolls and are still a playable army (though kind of crap if you play them by themselves.) I'll keep playing Ironjawz until I see that Greenskinz get a battle tome.
Yeah, the return of Tomb Kings was heavily hinted in April this year.
If I could be allowed to bother you, what are the rumours about this? This is for me one my top 5 reasons "How I might play Age of Sigmar".
If I could be allowed to bother you, what are the rumours about this? This is for me one my top 5 reasons "How I might play Age of Sigmar".
It's from one of David Guymer's "Hamilcar Bear-Eater" stories. He makes a comment about the Anvils of the Heldenhammers(a Stormhost known for having "heroes from a lost age") and a Lord-Celestant known as Settrus.
There's been a bit of a walkback as it wasn't meant to be "HERE'S SETTRA!" but rather a nod to a possible thing.
There's been a fresh wave of "TombKings Maybe" over on the Grand Alliance forums but its all 100% Rumour and Hope. GW have released no official word that the TK or any models of theirs or any similar force is coming.
There is only that they mentioned at the last event that there were still Battletomes to come for each Grand Alliance, and since currently Death has all of its 3 armies with current edition Battletomes that strongly suggests a new Death Army. However what form it might take is totally unknown, it could even be a simple readjustment of the alliances within it or even a new "Grand Alliance Death" book.
The rest is all guesswork from hints in stories and hope and interpretations. Importantly one has to remember that BL novels often have lots of things that never make it table side; from early stage projects that get cancelled through to ideas that the author comes up for on their own. Even if it has to go through the GW filter for accepting such creations the authors still have some freedom to play with the setting and characters. So Settra might well be Settra or not; but it means nothing to if TK are coming or not.
Basically there's hope, but no concrete information nor even strong rumours (like leaked points, concepts, models, sprues etc..).
Yes Daughters of Khaine kinda does that already, but how about large scale - vampires bleeding their chattle to provide stocks of blood to fuel dark magics to power huge constructs! Vampire lords calling the dead from their graves to fight alongside them; living humans slaved through generations to serve their vampire masters willingly and - leading it all - dark masterful vampires oozing power
Gives you new death; new undead; new vampires and new tombking constructs
Wait, an undead army composed of constructs powered by imprisoned souls with an Ancient Egyptian theme, isn't that Necrons? Well were this to become true, it wouldn't be the first time GW's gone full circle.
Guys, you're missing the biggest reason for the Tomb Kings' return. I asked for their return in April's survey, and I asked outright nicely. What more reason does GW need?
But yeah, rumor is all good and well, but the idea that with all current undead sorted out we're still awaiting another Death battletome is probably the most exciting thing for me. I'll believe that I get back my Tomb Kings when I see it, but who knows, maybe GW is going to do the only right thing. We are getting plastic Battle Sisters, after all. Not exactly comparable, but a good sign nonetheless.
I might even play Age of Sigmar if we got back the only army worth collecting.
Venerable Ironclad wrote: Wait, an undead army composed of constructs powered by imprisoned souls with an Ancient Egyptian theme, isn't that Necrons? Well were this to become true, it wouldn't be the first time GW's gone full circle.
Egyptian undead in Warhammer predate Necrons, whose Egyptian touch predates the separation of undead into a Tomb Kings army book, which predates retconning Necrons to Tomb Kings in space, which predates the Tomb Kings army book with even more undead constructs. And we're only now coming full circle? My head is already spinning from all those earlier circles.
I stopped playing AOS mostly because I felt they were going too crazy, each new army seemed crazier than the last one, and the game as a whole didn't appeal as much to me as 40k. Also, the local group that was formed is mostly ex-Warmahorde players who are playing AOS in a more competitive setting and I don't really want that.
The new thing in GHB2019 that expands 1000 point games might be enough to draw me back though, I like smaller point games anyway. That and playing at the GW store where games are way more casual and laid back could be a thing in the future.
I find the rules off putting and shallow. I could probably fix them for personal use, they're not the main problem though.
It's ridiculously high fantasy. I'd prefer some middle ground, can see myself play high fantasy WH from time to time but that's not the main problem either.
The main problem are stormcast, they ruin the setting immediately for me. The sm-esque shoulder pads, the fat body armor shape, the mask in multiples, they appear awful and cheap and shoehorned. It was a slightly bit better when I thought they are some kind of golems, at least there was sth different/ interesting about them but no, they're guys/ gals in helmets, bleh.
Not to seem like a hater (heh), I'm actually grateful to GW for AoS, I'm quite certain that at some point stormcast eternals would fall onto the unsuspecting Old World, ruining it completly along with my childhood memories. Also it made way for a barrage of video games, including TW which would be impossible otherwise because GW thinks that video
games too similar to TT ruins sales (I think it's exactly opposite but whatever). Not to mention, AoS cured my GW fantasy obsession and spearheaded changes to 40k fluff and rules that cured my 40k obsession - I'm now a free man instead of a collector and it's been great.
Plumbumbarum wrote: I find the rules off putting and shallow. I could probably fix them for personal use, they're not the main problem though.
It's ridiculously high fantasy. I'd prefer some middle ground, can see myself play high fantasy WH from time to time but that's not the main problem either.
The main problem are stormcast, they ruin the setting immediately for me. The sm-esque shoulder pads, the fat body armor shape, the mask in multiples, they appear awful and cheap and shoehorned. It was a slightly bit better when I thought they are some kind of golems, at least there was sth different/ interesting about them but no, they're guys/ gals in helmets, bleh.
Not to seem like a hater (heh), I'm actually grateful to GW for AoS, I'm quite certain that at some point stormcast eternals would fall onto the unsuspecting Old World, ruining it completly along with my childhood memories. Also it made way for a barrage of video games, including TW which would be impossible otherwise because GW thinks that video
games too similar to TT ruins sales (I think it's exactly opposite but whatever). Not to mention, AoS cured my GW fantasy obsession and spearheaded changes to 40k fluff and rules that cured my 40k obsession - I'm now a free man instead of a collector and it's been great.
Initially I was no fan of the stormcast either, but I would recommend reading Josh Reynold's Soul Wars novel. They seem much more "human" and more natural part of the setting after that (at least my opinion)
Thanks, I might just try it. My problem with Stormcast is one of aesthetics though and I fear no amount of fluff can save them in my eyes. I treat this hobby as a visual one in general, used to ignore the stories and went for impressions, visual message etc.
On a positive note, I really like the nightgaunts, guess GW is still going to earn on me heh
Plumbumbarum wrote: Thanks, I might just try it. My problem with Stormcast is one of aesthetics though and I fear no amount of fluff can save them in my eyes. I treat this hobby as a visual one in general, used to ignore the stories and went for impressions, visual message etc.
On a positive note, I really like the nightgaunts, guess GW is still going to earn on me heh
I got a bunch of stormcast. Plan on painting them up as a bunch of Golems and Archons (from Dungeons and Dragons). Happier with that conception of them. The Fantasy Space Marines thing is pretty boring and not very interesting.
I am not playing because despite my long held belief that AoS is a terrible set of rules with all the depth of a puddle in the Sahara.
I let myself get talked into playing a slow grow league by a mate at the local store, however a couple of games in and before I got a chance to play most people dropped out because and I quote “AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
The only good thing is I had spent nothing and was using old warhammer kits I had stashed away.
I let myself get talked into playing a slow grow league by a mate at the local store, however a couple of games in and before I got a chance to play most people dropped out because and I quote “AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
I'll take "Things that didn't happen" for $500, Alex.
Also, hot take from the dude who brought us this quote that aged as well as a puddle in the Sahara :
SeanDrake wrote: 9th edition is currently in production as they could not pretend it was just fantasy having poor sales when mantic are selling out of KoW even after the ks.
I'm still a fan of WHFB, but from what I see is that GW is slowly trying to bring old miniatures back into AoS whether it's new sculpts or just simple repacking them with round bases. When I see armies like Beastmen or Skaven get tomes, endless spells, etc. It gives me hope that other old armies will come to AoS.
The big one for me personally is Greenskinz, though GW stopped selling their Start Collecting boxes they still do have warscrolls and are still a playable army (though kind of crap if you play them by themselves.) I'll keep playing Ironjawz until I see that Greenskinz get a battle tome.
I think GW has over the past 2 years - after all the rework of their company - realized that they have strong and desirable IPs that they should capitalize on. Old GW really didn't know what it had as they never engaged with the audience at large, but Nu-GW is much more aware of how people perceive their world and characters. This is why I think the return of Tomb Kings is more inevitable than not, along with other factions. What remains to be seen is whether they feel obliged to rework the old sculpts or not.
I'm still a fan of WHFB, but from what I see is that GW is slowly trying to bring old miniatures back into AoS whether it's new sculpts or just simple repacking them with round bases. When I see armies like Beastmen or Skaven get tomes, endless spells, etc. It gives me hope that other old armies will come to AoS.
The big one for me personally is Greenskinz, though GW stopped selling their Start Collecting boxes they still do have warscrolls and are still a playable army (though kind of crap if you play them by themselves.) I'll keep playing Ironjawz until I see that Greenskinz get a battle tome.
I think GW has over the past 2 years - after all the rework of their company - realized that they have strong and desirable IPs that they should capitalize on. Old GW really didn't know what it had as they never engaged with the audience at large, but Nu-GW is much more aware of how people perceive their world and characters. This is why I think the return of Tomb Kings is more inevitable than not, along with other factions. What remains to be seen is whether they feel obliged to rework the old sculpts or not.
I agree I think the old "no marketing" Kirby era wound up with an upper management (or at least the power holders within it) being so isolated from the market that they lost focus and were relying purely upon things like their sales data. Which would explain why at launch the AoS game had very light lore, very light to no rules and was basically focusing on being a boutique model line. In a way it was almost like GW was also giving up on rules and going "well let them use Kings of War rules, they can just keep buying our models as we are the best".
You can also see it in how we got many leaks back then, clearly staff in good positions realised that starving the fanbase of any marketing or communication wasn't good. It was building bad vibes and thus we got far more leaks - today we hardly get any real leaks of information. But GW has Facebook staff; it has a marketing team pumping out an article (several most times) every single day; it has engaged with two major community surveys and also more feedback in general from regular lines like email.
SeanDrake wrote: I am not playing because despite my long held belief that AoS is a terrible set of rules with all the depth of a puddle in the Sahara.
I let myself get talked into playing a slow grow league by a mate at the local store, however a couple of games in and before I got a chance to play most people dropped out because and I quote “AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
The only good thing is I had spent nothing and was using old warhammer kits I had stashed away.
“AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
My store has mostly 40k players so you have to schedule early with someone and get there on time, and sometimes even then theres boards taken by people doing 2-3k games.
Also to turn this slightly around, i prefer sigmar because there isn't this desire to cheese things out. With every single havoc in 40k being slaanesh bothers me. Oh hey... these guys are all nurgle, but the heavy weapons guys... well they are slaanesh. I get that you can mark the guys however, but it's all to do the endless cacophy/veterans and of course those dudes also happen to be red corsairs so they will have the extra cp for it too. It's just boring and optimization.
i prefer sigmar because there isn't this desire to cheese things out.
Lucky you lol. This has been a struggle for me since day one.
Perhaps I am lucky in that regard, and I've sought to power down my lists or take suboptimal things, but I seeing the number of Slaanesh/Nurgle chaos players in 40k is perplexing. Or Tzeentch/Nurgle also.
SeanDrake wrote: I am not playing because despite my long held belief that AoS is a terrible set of rules with all the depth of a puddle in the Sahara.
I let myself get talked into playing a slow grow league by a mate at the local store, however a couple of games in and before I got a chance to play most people dropped out because and I quote “AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
The only good thing is I had spent nothing and was using old warhammer kits I had stashed away.
“AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
No truer words were ever spoken on the interwebz.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not just picking on AoS I think 40k 8th edition is a better game but only when compared to AoS, it’s fething boring as sin and strikes me as the rules you would get if you had spent 18-24 months AoSing 40k only to see AoS nearly tank the company and having a panic stricken 6mths trying to polish a turd into a new-new edition.
SeanDrake wrote: I am not playing because despite my long held belief that AoS is a terrible set of rules with all the depth of a puddle in the Sahara.
I let myself get talked into playing a slow grow league by a mate at the local store, however a couple of games in and before I got a chance to play most people dropped out because and I quote “AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
The only good thing is I had spent nothing and was using old warhammer kits I had stashed away.
“AoS makes 40k look like a tactical and strategical masterpiece”.
No truer words were ever spoken on the interwebz.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not just picking on AoS I think 40k 8th edition is a better game but only when compared to AoS, it’s fething boring as sin and strikes me as the rules you would get if you had spent 18-24 months AoSing 40k only to see AoS nearly tank the company and having a panic stricken 6mths trying to polish a turd into a new-new edition.
I felt the opposite, that AoS was the much better game.
I find 40k and AOS both share the same traits that irritate me about modern wargame design - its about the combo synergy and emulation of what I feel are card game mechanics with models.
However I find that 40k really craps the bed with how you farm CPs because it makes it another "you should always do this to the max" pillar of listbuilding, whereas AOS you don't farm the CPs and I prefer that.
auticus wrote: I find 40k and AOS both share the same traits that irritate me about modern wargame design - its about the combo synergy and emulation of what I feel are card game mechanics with models.
However I find that 40k really craps the bed with how you farm CPs because it makes it another "you should always do this to the max" pillar of listbuilding, whereas AOS you don't farm the CPs and I prefer that.
I did think that AoS skirmish is better than kill team, and we play a lot of skirmish,
It comes down to time, when I painted and played WFB I was single and had the time. Now with a family I had to make choices on what games I could continue to paint and play.
auticus wrote: We have had a few people try to bust the gw stranglehold but it never lasts.
Though ive gotten a decent ragnarok and saga event attendance building.
Until 8th edition GW was on the decline here. Then 8th came, and everything else dried up overnight. The Warmahordes people went further south and was quietly killed off after a few weeks of zero attendance, Guild Ball had already died out long ago, Kings of War I think died out but might still have a few people, and every other game has had no FLGS support so never gets off the ground because nobody wants to buy elsewhere and play at a store, and the store doesn't see the benefit of stocking it. The tiny section that had 40k now is like over 50% of the store.
I've had a couple job opportunities in Tampa. There may be a chance I'm relocating down there in the next few years. If that happens I will likely not be trying to do public gaming but will build up a private campaign group like I have done here.
auticus wrote: I've had a couple job opportunities in Tampa. There may be a chance I'm relocating down there in the next few years. If that happens I will likely not be trying to do public gaming but will build up a private campaign group like I have done here.
Have tried in the past to get in to AoS but hmmm I miss the old world and my dwarfs damn it. Yes to me they will always be called dwarfs. Can’t say I really like the look of the new fyreslayer dwarfs although the overlords look ok.
Would have loved airships that had the aesthetics of the old gyrocopters. But not buying any sigmar or even 40k stuff anymore my precious hobby cash goes to other companies which is good for them I guess.
xKillGorex wrote: Have tried in the past to get in to AoS but hmmm I miss the old word and my dwarves damn it. Yes to me they will always be called dwarves. Can’t say I really like the look of the new fyreslayer dwarves although the overlords look ok.
Would have loved airships that had the aesthetics of the old gyrocopters. But not buying any sigmar or even 40k stuff anymore my precious hobby cash goes to other companies which is good for them I guess.
I recently looked at AOS again and played some games with my dwarves - now Dispossessed. I am considering starting a new army but what holds me back is the lack of support for the Dispossessed.
I have heard comments before that GW wants you to buy a new army - that is why there is little love for the old armies/models. While I get that argument, I see a different way of looking at it.
We are in the second version of AOS. If GW updated the Dispossessed (and other armies) to bring them in line with other 2.0 armies (whether a battletome or a real update to bring the units up to grade) then not only would I have more desire to play my Dispossessed army (and buy additional kits to expand it - and more so should new kits arrive one day), but when i see that GW cares enough to value the money and time I have spent on their products I would be more inclined to buy additional armies (more money for them). But when they don't I have to worry that any new army I do buy might be left hanging at some point - either an army that is good now getting nerfed and not fixed for many years or an army with great models but poor rules now never getting properly fixed.
This keeps me from buying more GW product and undermines my desire to play AOS (and keeps GW from getting more of my money).
My armies aren't min/maxed (mostly old Fantasy Collection) I've yet to have a good game. Most end up being a Two to Three hour game of Rock Paper Scissors my collection is not well suited to. The fact I've won more than I've lost and still haven't enjoyed myself is worrisome.
I find it frustrating as I still love my armies and have enjoyed the background of AoS since the release of City of Secrets. I'm excited to see what the new Death army is and want to start a Hysh Elves army if the models excite me.
Rather torn at the moment as I very much enjoyed the recent Path to Glory campaign I joined but the CCG Uber combos at full points matches irritate me.
Why I don't play? Ask me a few months ago and I'd have said fantasy wargaming wasn't my thing, and that I preferred 40k and the like.
Now, after having played a little Total War Three Kingdoms, which made me think hard about ye olde tactics, I'd say the only things stopping me are lack of space and indecision about a faction.
Since I have a (small amount of) Thousand Sons, my gaming group says to get Tzeench and, specifically, Tzaangors, but I don't like the Chicken barbarian aesthetic.
The Lizardmen, sorry, Seraphon, look cool (and easy to paint with Contrast out now), but I've been told that, unless you use a lot of Skinks, they don't do hordes and are closer in gameplay to Stormcast.
While I prefer horde armies (possibly with good movement), the horde armies I know of (Skaven, Gloomspite Gitz, Daughters of Khaine) don't have an aesthetic I like.
So, I don't know what I want, and even if I did, I don't have the space at my place for it (yet).
Now, after having played a little Total War Three Kingdoms, which made me think hard about ye olde tactics, I'd say the only things stopping me are lack of space and indecision about a faction.
Have you tried Total War Warhammer 1 or 2? If not try that out when the game is on sale. DLC policy sucks (but sort of good in a way) If not, as I said when the next sale is on, try it, might like it if you liked Total War Three Kingdoms. While I have never tried a Total War game on the Warhammer ones, they are fun as well. It's that game that wants me to try Age of Sigmar again.
I think after I finish my Tyranids for 40k I'll revisit AOS. Despite them being good, FEC isn't appealing to me anymore, and Maggotkin is in the same boat so might be time for a different army. That's likely not until the end of the year or early into next (really want to focus on finishing a project for once lol) so it may be a different landscape at that time.
Wayniac that is likely going to be a really fantastic time to get into AoS. Early next year is about where I'm estimating GW to finish adding Battletomes to existing armies, so by around that time most armies should have a 2.0 battletome or be very close to getting one. So it should be a really free time to pick whatever force you want without any risk of a nearby rules change or army merger etc...
Overread wrote: Wayniac that is likely going to be a really fantastic time to get into AoS. Early next year is about where I'm estimating GW to finish adding Battletomes to existing armies, so by around that time most armies should have a 2.0 battletome or be very close to getting one. So it should be a really free time to pick whatever force you want without any risk of a nearby rules change or army merger etc...
I mean, 40k is a gakshow and AOS isn't much better, but visually I think AOS is way more appealing. Everything looks fantastic and cool, 40k still largely looks like regular sci-fi to me. The biggest issue I have with AOS is the lack of good terrain outside GW. Most third party terrain is too small to be much use, or still WHFB/historical style medieval buildings. Very little in the way of weird fantastic themed terrain.
But we will see. I consider switching to AOS a lot, since I played it first, but the armies I have don't appeal to me right now (despite FEC being super good), and I have too many projects I'm looking at doing anyways lol. Plus I'm kinda waiting for them to move forward with updates to AOS, in the hopes they get most of the major factions with updated battletomes.
If we assume Ogre Kingdoms+BCR, Ironjawz+Greenzkins (maybe Bonesplitters), Aelves together, it could be done I think. I doubt a lot of those will be 100% independent armies, they'll likely be rolled up into others.
That lists out the current standing of all the armies at present.
Death is finished
Chaos only really has Slaves and Everchosen which appear to be listed as one army on the store and thus likely a shared battletome. Tzeentch is a bit hit and miss (some argue it needs a new Tome others not).
Destruction needs a lot of attention, but at the same time it might also be made into fewer armies. That GW has put both Orruk armies into the Warcry as separate armies suggests that they might be getting two Tomes, but then again the Trolls aren't included in the Gloomspite listing.
Orgors are a fairly confident single Tome -bringing together Gutbusters and Beastclaw raiders
It's really just Order that's in a total mess and a LOT of that is the Aelves. We really have no clue how GW is going to handle them and sort them out. They could be covered in a single Battletome "United Aelves" or in two "light and dark"; could be rolled into the "new" armies that GW has strongly hinted at coming; they could be dropped in part or in full etc.... They could even roll them into existing forces eg Scourge heads off to join Idoneth and Darklings join up with Daughters of Khaine etc....
Other than Aelves most of the rest appear sane, though I'd not figured that GW would put Dwarves and Humans together in Free Peoples, but they could.
Arcanis161 wrote: While I prefer horde armies (possibly with good movement), the horde armies I know of (Skaven, Gloomspite Gitz, Daughters of Khaine) don't have an aesthetic I like.
Are you averse to splinters, sir?
Sylvaneth dryads move 7 inches, enjoy an army-wide psuedo-teleport mechanic, get a defensive buff if they are in groups of 10 or more, have enough reach on their weapons to support the 'engulfing blob' behaviour you see in large units and have a rule that encourages them to focus fire on individual units.
Overread wrote:Wayniac that is likely going to be a really fantastic time to get into AoS. Early next year is about where I'm estimating GW to finish adding Battletomes to existing armies, so by around that time most armies should have a 2.0 battletome or be very close to getting one. So it should be a really free time to pick whatever force you want without any risk of a nearby rules change or army merger etc...
Are we back to square one now? By that I mean we are back to armies not updated and we have to wait to see if they may or may not be updated anytime soon. Coming back to see if I want to continue 40K, or Age of Sigmar, and it seems we are back to where we were 5 years ago. :(
We have many factions that either have never had an update yet since initial launch in 2015 or armies that have not had a "2.0" army book yes.
There is a lot of fan positivity that "most will be updated by the end of next year" for whatever that is worth.
I've been waiting for a slaves to darkness book worth more than burning garbage for four years now. If they don't give me one by the end of the year I'm just going to write one myself.
Overread wrote:Wayniac that is likely going to be a really fantastic time to get into AoS. Early next year is about where I'm estimating GW to finish adding Battletomes to existing armies, so by around that time most armies should have a 2.0 battletome or be very close to getting one. So it should be a really free time to pick whatever force you want without any risk of a nearby rules change or army merger etc...
Are we back to square one now? By that I mean we are back to armies not updated and we have to wait to see if they may or may not be updated anytime soon. Coming back to see if I want to continue 40K, or Age of Sigmar, and it seems we are back to where we were 5 years ago. :(
I think some areas of the game are still like that, such as the Aelves, however overall we are far stronger and safer in general now than before.
One issue is that over those 5 years AoS has had at least 3 major shifts in its design of which two of them were under different management teams.
It's launch was very much "models without rules" approach to miniature production and whilst there were rules, they were jovial and super casual rules without any points system at all.
After that there was a rapid kneejerk reaction to produce rules and a game system which spawned the first generals handbook and a few early Battletomes which were just warscrolls and fluff, nothing else.
Then there was the proper 1.0 rules which were quite a muted affair all told, again it was still in that kneejerk reaction phase.
Then fast forward to last year and we had 2.0 drop and with that we got a big shift. Battletomes now had lore, alliance abilties, equipment, spell lores, warscrolls and points. The General's Handbook shifted to a correction/adjustment/balancing document rather htan an emergency set of points. We also got new mechanics such as Endless Spells and the beginning of faction terrain making itself known as well. From there things have grown in strength, the GHB this year is even more than just a corrections document, indeed it contained some new rule concepts and ideas and methods of play. In addition GW committed to 6 month updates on points/rules and have also committed to FAQ/Errata being released a month or so after each respective Battletome.
2.0 has honestly been the product we should have had at the start of AoS. For me its honestly where I consider the "game" of AoS to begin its life in proper earnest. It's been a darn long time coming, it was stunted at the start and wasn't helped by poor management at the very beginning; went through a huge management and attitude shift at GW head office and a new CEO. It's had a rough life and one can argue that a company in GW's position and with tehir resources should never have given it the rough start it had. But it happened, its done now and moving on AoS is growing in strengths.
There are still some risks to armies and models. We are still all unsure what GW will do with the Aelves, but I think we can rest easy that most of the other Grand Alliance armies are safe. Or at least the models are and if the army vanishes its likely being absorbed into another. Give it half a year and I wager we'll see a good portion of the game Battletome read; a full year from now and AoS should be complete in terms of Battletomes.
I just hope a new StD book has that artifact that gives a model the benefit of all four gods; throw that on like a Manti-Lord and watch him go ape-gak. I do wanna see that book too. I have a full StD army already, minus a centerpiece Archaeon, but I’ll get one for a workable StD army.
I used to, but had some of the grievances this post isn't about airing.
Mostly to do with how GW treat their games and customers.
Also other games. Kings of War is a mass battle game that offers all the strategic thinking I want. Gaslands offers the don't think too hard and destroy stuff (that AoS could provide) really well for a fraction of the cost and less arguing about rules because they are written badly. Plus I also play Malifaux, Infinity and ancients, so I don't really have time for the games I do play.
Overread wrote: Wayniac that is likely going to be a really fantastic time to get into AoS. Early next year is about where I'm estimating GW to finish adding Battletomes to existing armies, so by around that time most armies should have a 2.0 battletome or be very close to getting one. So it should be a really free time to pick whatever force you want without any risk of a nearby rules change or army merger etc...
I mean, 40k is a gakshow and AOS isn't much better, but visually I think AOS is way more appealing. Everything looks fantastic and cool, 40k still largely looks like regular sci-fi to me. The biggest issue I have with AOS is the lack of good terrain outside GW. Most third party terrain is too small to be much use, or still WHFB/historical style medieval buildings. Very little in the way of weird fantastic themed terrain.
But we will see. I consider switching to AOS a lot, since I played it first, but the armies I have don't appeal to me right now (despite FEC being super good), and I have too many projects I'm looking at doing anyways lol. Plus I'm kinda waiting for them to move forward with updates to AOS, in the hopes they get most of the major factions with updated battletomes.
and when the RPG drops, you wil have plenty of models
I was playing a lot of AoS for awhile and enjoyed it. But lately, I haven't had the time because I have a lot of house projects and that takes up more of my time. Though, I do manage to paint my mini's an hour before I go to bed.
I have been slowly putting together a gaming table so I can have friends come over and play..
I'm slowly coming back around to AOS the more I think about it. Just the main group at the larger FLGS is pretty competitive, so I'll likely avoid that and focus on a smaller more close-knit group at a smaller but closer hobby store and the Warhammer store.
I unfortunately am never going to play AoS in full army-scale fashion. With two small kids, my days of painting entire armies are pretty much over for a few years. Plus I've hit this weird point where I just can't stand painting many multiples of the same figure, even though I have several Space marine forces from years past. It's especially bad as I usually have to have two forces painted to get a game in (one gets loaned to my buddy, father, or wife to play while I play the other, as my area is somewhat dead, with only one store to play at about 25 miles away).
Skirmish gaming is great, though. Small forces and the increased ability to make sure each force has the right amount of uniqueness among figures is great. I currently have 5 skirmish forces of about a dozen models each or so, and am planning at least one more in the near future (Fyreslayers).
Not really feeling Warcry at all, and haven't felt the urge to chase the Jan and Feb White Dwarf issues, so I am sticking with a mix of Skirmish 1.0 and Hinterlands.
But who knows? There is a GW store opening in my town in two months, so maybe I'll expand one of my Skirmish forces into a full army, if the expanded exposure gets other people to get into the game..
Of late, we've wanted to get into AoS but don't quite want to lay down too much wonga for something we're just not 100% sure on. The attractive thing about AoS is that all warscrolls are just a download away, and the builder is very helpful too.
Basically, we're going to start with a handful of models and see how it goes.
I would have had interest in old fantasy battle because of the regiment system, ditching it obviously makes the successor of Fantasy Battles far less worth getting into as far as I'm concerned.
Look at Parabellum Conquest. The designer of 6th edition WHFB wrote Conquest. He took parts of WHFB, mixed them with parts of Warmaster, and then added his own spin to it.
I'm not playing AoS because Age of Fantasy from One Page games is more fun. Much simpler, but more fun, and I can use every single model from AoS in Age of Fantasy. They also have a perfectly workable skirmish version, as well as both a skirmish and army-scale version of 40K.
AoS (as well as 40k currently) feels like I need an encyclopedia of rules to play. It's really intimidating to get into from scratch, and this is from a 25-year vet of GW games. GW just has a bad history of spreading info out between many different sources.
AoS is still like most other GW games - Rulebook and Battletome and away you go. You can even get the core rules for free on the website or pretty cheaply on ebay (all their duel army bundles come with a printed version of the core rules so they are often up for sale second hand or from split packs on ebay and the like).
That's all you really need to get stuck into the game and begin.
From there there are FAQ and Errata documents for each publication which help adjust and elaborate the rules.
Generals handbook 2019 - updated points for many armies and additional rules for 1K battles as well as other features to add to the game .
Maligan Sorcery is an expansion that is broadly accepted in most places as default use and it gives you the basic Endless spell rules and also realm abilities as well as warscroll cards and models for all the generic endless spells in the game
Forbidden Powers is similar, though has a fewer number of spells (the models are larger) as well as a generic terrain feature (for any army).
However all these latter publications are additions to the core game that you can easily add over time as you want them. For getting started they are in no way required.
AegisGrimm wrote: I'm not playing AoS because Age of Fantasy from One Page games is more fun. Much simpler, but more fun, and I can use every single model from AoS in Age of Fantasy. They also have a perfectly workable skirmish version, as well as both a skirmish and army-scale version of 40K.
I played Seraphon early on in 1st edition, after the points came. I don't play now for various reasons, and even though the community here is great, I don't feel I'd be able to really compete.
Some of my reasons are as follows:
- 40k really is taking most of my hobby time, so my army is still mostly unpainted. That and 40k games take my game time as well, as that community is a little more active here.
- Old models that I like, but also don't like [Aesthetic]. Salamanders and the weedy sauras spring to mind immediately. I don't even bother with regular kroxigors (have three Woogity Proxigors...)
- I haven't really looked at the changes made, though I'm aware of the majority of them (both for my army and the main rules of 2nd), so it's both daunting to try and relearn a game I was okay at to compete with some of the guys here.
- I'm not a fan of bringing a good portion of my collection in cardboard trays, because I have yet to get a suitable bag/magnet box to fit most of them. I feel like because of summoning, I'd need to bring 4000 points to a 2000 point fight.
- Summoning seems cool, but I can't effectively use it on the units I like to bring, like Guard, Warriors, Carnosaurs. Always skinks. (Hearsay mostly, I've not got a firm grasp of what's the best for summoning)
- The quasi-mythic status of Seraphon in the lore, plus not having an updated battletome after the first. It makes me slightly worried that when it does come, portions of the range will be axed, much like with FCoS. Or that we WONT see a new battletome.
And most unfortunately, this all sort of pushes any thought of playing/hobbying with my AoS force onto the back burner until later. I love the game, and the faction, but it's a vicious cycle until I hear something.... good/exciting about my army, I guess.
Compounded because I bought into Parabellum's Conquest for the Spires....
auticus wrote: Look at Parabellum Conquest. The designer of 6th edition WHFB wrote Conquest. He took parts of WHFB, mixed them with parts of Warmaster, and then added his own spin to it.
It just came out.
Still hasn't arrived in France though. I don't even see a French version of the rules, and that would never fly in France.
auticus wrote: Thats awful. Sorry to hear... and odd considering that the company is in Greece. I would expect multiple language versions of the rules out.
It's not because they're in a EU country that automatically they are catering to all others member countries, you know. And it's not that surprising, actually. French market is often looked down by english game companies. To be honest, it's not that big a market in comparison to others...and a lot of players got used to play in english meanwhile.
Parabellum isn't GW. They don't have the same ressources and they still have choices to make. It makes sense they consolidate their main market first, then think about the rest if it works. Privateer Press did the same as well, after all.
auticus wrote: Thats awful. Sorry to hear... and odd considering that the company is in Greece. I would expect multiple language versions of the rules out.
It's not because they're in a EU country that automatically they are catering to all others member countries, you know. And it's not that surprising, actually. French market is often looked down by english game companies. To be honest, it's not that big a market in comparison to others...and a lot of players got used to play in english meanwhile.
Parabellum isn't GW. They don't have the same ressources and they still have choices to make. It makes sense they consolidate their main market first, then think about the rest if it works. Privateer Press did the same as well, after all.
Parabellum is Greek though, not English, and when I asked on their FB they said they'll have the rules in French.
auticus wrote: Thats awful. Sorry to hear... and odd considering that the company is in Greece. I would expect multiple language versions of the rules out.
It's not because they're in a EU country that automatically they are catering to all others member countries, you know. And it's not that surprising, actually. French market is often looked down by english game companies. To be honest, it's not that big a market in comparison to others...and a lot of players got used to play in english meanwhile.
Parabellum isn't GW. They don't have the same ressources and they still have choices to make. It makes sense they consolidate their main market first, then think about the rest if it works. Privateer Press did the same as well, after all.
Parabellum is Greek though, not English, and when I asked on their FB they said they'll have the rules in French.
I didn't like nuking the old world. Even so, I tried AoS when it first came out.
It was billed as a fast paced skirmish game. But it had absurd rules like bonuses for the player having a beard, and despite that, the gameplay experience itself had very little character. One or two tries was enough to confirm I'd be sticking to Malifaux and Mordheim for my fantasy skirmish needs.
Now I'm hearing that it's a decent game, though clearly not a skirmish game anymore. There's an active local meta, and some of the new models are really nice, so I may give it a try and some point, but it's more likely I'd do Kings of War.
Its skirmish in that everything is in "skirmish formation". There are no facings, you can move wherever you want, and terrain doesn't impede movement at all.
auticus wrote: Its skirmish in that everything is in "skirmish formation". There are no facings, you can move wherever you want, and terrain doesn't impede movement at all.
Well, that might be what skirmish means to AoS now. Originally AoS meant skirmish in the traditional "fewer models" sense. Or at least, that was my takeaway from the few games I played and the other people I knew who were trying it at the time.
Ah. Honestly I've played AOS since day one and it was never low model count. Maybe in the days before official GW points, but once GHB 2016 hit with points, the model count has always been what whfb was except for armies like beast claw raiders.
Yeah at launch you might have had more skirmish fights with people taking far fewer models simply because, being a "new game" many might have had new armies so didn't have all that many models to put on the table. Plus with no formal points or rules system many might have also taken fewer models because there was less to encourage them to "buy more" and with a system that was rather loose they might not have wanted to put down loads of models and out-do their friends etc....
Launch AoS had a LOT of problems as a game, in fact at launch it really wasn't even a proper game as such. It was the jovial rules thrown together in a few moments with no points or real structure. GW was really into the whole "lets just make cool looking models" marketing spiel at that time and AoS with the culmination of that way of thinking.
Most of the people I see who super enjoyed AoS at launch were those who were keen to write their own rules and with no real AoS rules those people got to have far more local uptake of people trying out their rules.
AoS now on the 2.0 system is honestly where it should have been 5 years ago. It's a decent system and whilst it hasn't got facings or formations like the Old World system had; it is a capable game system.
Also if you're into skirmish there are now 3 ways to play that!
1) Underworlds - small preset bands of fighters with each band themed around a particular army or niche of an army. They have unique rules and the game plays out on boards and is closer to a board game, but gives you that skirmish fight feel.
2) Skirmish - the book is now out of date, whilst the batteltomes do still have skirmish profiles in them. In addition an update to the rules was released in White Dwarf (start of the year 2019 but I forget which month). Though its not as heavily marketed by GW at present and might be vanishing; its future is uncertain.
3) Warcry - released only this last month its a skirmish battle system and currently supports around half the factions or so (with more to be released likely within a short span of time). IT gives you warbands of around 10 or so models at 1K points (it uses its own internal points system); though can go higher to larger bands. It has a campaign system which has a regular mode and also a singleplayer mode whereby you can tell a tale with your own warband through random fights with other people. It also features neat terrain objective and risk cards per game which can encourage not only varied play but very fast setup.
It has a chaos focus in so mcuh as the story is its set in the Chaos infested lands of the 8points and it launched with 6 chaos themed warbands (slaves to darkness) and has 2 more to come; but all the factions can come and play
Overread, the core rules for Skirmish 2019 is in the January edition of White Dwarf. They mention a second part for campaigning in the Febuary edition, but sadly I'm unable to locate a pdf of the article.
I must agree that the options for skirmish play is what drew me to AoS. While I dream of having two armies of Order and Death, being able to start small with just a handful of models seems sensible and a fundamental part of the hobby, allowing for growth. It would be nice if GW kept vanillia skirmish going, even if just in the general's handbook.
It's better, if you are going the Skirmish route rather than Warcry, to track down a copy of Hinterlands by Bottle (the guy who worked on Warcry). It uses AoS warscroll entries like Skirmish, but with much better internal balance, especially when adding several small rules that cap damage output so models like a Knight Incantor can't kill an entire warband in one attack (but still remain a useful character to lead a warband).
AegisGrimm wrote: It's better, if you are going the Skirmish route rather than Warcry, to track down a copy of Hinterlands by Bottle (the guy who worked on Warcry). It uses AoS warscroll entries like Skirmish, but with much better internal balance, especially when adding several small rules that cap damage output so models like a Knight Incantor can't kill an entire warband in one attack (but still remain a useful character to lead a warband).
Just downloaded Hinterlands. Looks good, and - is this correct? - one doesn't have to select a hero as a general. The underdog feature is interesting too. Probably give it a shot after a few more games...
AegisGrimm wrote: It's better, if you are going the Skirmish route rather than Warcry, to track down a copy of Hinterlands by Bottle (the guy who worked on Warcry). It uses AoS warscroll entries like Skirmish, but with much better internal balance, especially when adding several small rules that cap damage output so models like a Knight Incantor can't kill an entire warband in one attack (but still remain a useful character to lead a warband).
Just downloaded Hinterlands. Looks good, and - is this correct? - one doesn't have to select a hero as a general. The underdog feature is interesting too. Probably give it a shot after a few more games...
As far as I know, no. The only restriction is that you can;t have more than half the warband be Heroes. Also Heroes are going to be a better choice for a leader as they are inherently higher quality, especially in a low-numbers game where you need a solid core model.
I personally have blended the older version of Skirmish (the one in Shadespire) with Hinterlands, to a pretty satisfying effect.
I know when AOS was first teased/announced it *appeared* like it was going to be a much smaller scale game. Not "skirmish", but not like WHFB. It seemed like you would have maybe no more than 50 figures, and probably less than that.
*THAT* would have been a good game. Instead, we have WHFB with round bases.
Wayniac wrote: I know when AOS was first teased/announced it *appeared* like it was going to be a much smaller scale game. Not "skirmish", but not like WHFB. It seemed like you would have maybe no more than 50 figures, and probably less than that.
*THAT* would have been a good game. Instead, we have WHFB with round bases.
I think when it first appeared there wasn't a game at all. It was whatever you wanted it to be without any real rules from GW itself. The armies were often split into smaller ones but that wasn't so much to make it a skirmish game; but more (I think) to make it so that GW could retire whole armies at once and introduce new ones with only a handful of models. Relying on gamers to collect within the Grand alliances and simply take "soup" armies to games. REmembering that at that time their view was that it was going to be more a case of people buying masses of models because of the designs and not for any game related purposes.
I have an obsession with having to have all my models painted before I play, so that probably won't happen anytime soon thats a bit more painting than I want to do right now lol
auticus wrote: In my neck of the woods the preferred mode of play is as many monsters as possible to keep the model count low.
Shouldn't you be able to run lots of troops, throw buckets of dice and roflstomp them then? In AOS it really seemed like quantity > quality every time.
In fairness slaanesh is the very extreme of it mostly because of how depravity works. It's something I do hope they change not just for allowing more variety but also because it really cuts down on the variations of armies you can build with the army when you want to put most of your points into leaders and most of your summons also being leaders. I want GW to give me more reasons to field fiends; or to do a cavalry and chariot cascade over the battlefield etc....
auticus wrote: Slaanesh builds here are 3 keepers with a small handful of daemonettes.
I prefer triple units of Hellstriders, myself. Ten points cheaper, more mobility, more armor, same number of wounds. Best used as objective grabbers. Add in an epitome, Cogs, and a cheap mortal hero and then two battalions and enjoy your near infinite command dice, guaranteed choice of turn and three magical weapons; one for each keeper.
I've been enjoying Conquest immensely the past couple weeks post-gencon because the rules are 1000x what I want to play with, and the game isn't built around ccg buffing heroes and units but rather combat maneuvers and positioning. We had a game last saturday where defending a water feature made all the difference (because if half of your unit or more is in water feature, you are at -1 to hit which ended up being the end game difference for the last clash). The heroes are a lot like warmaster. They are minor buffs but don't dominate the game.
We have our AOS campaign starting in a couple weeks (I should say... its a game built on AOS rules, but heavily houseruled so its not really AOS anymore) and I am struggling to find my motivation now that Conquest is a thing.
As far as I know, no. The only restriction is that you can;t have more than half the warband be Heroes. Also Heroes are going to be a better choice for a leader as they are inherently higher quality, especially in a low-numbers game where you need a solid core model.
I personally have blended the older version of Skirmish (the one in Shadespire) with Hinterlands, to a pretty satisfying effect.
Kanluwen wrote: Frankly, just play Path to Glory if you don't want to do WarCry.
They've got a copy of that in the local gaming store, but wondering if its worth getting. As I understand it, you start off with a small warband and progress in a campaign to a full blown army.
Unfortunately, no matter how good it is it will likely be one of those games that nobody has heard of (because nobody apparently follows any company but GW online), no game store stocks and therefore nobody is interested in it in any way, shape or form no matter if the rules are free or not.. Or the old immediate "those models are crap compared to GW" comparisons that always crop up.
I am writing a set of AI rules to play solo. Additionally after I finish a current android side scroller that I am developing for the google store, I am going to be working on a tabletop simulator specifically to play Conquest on that will have an AI as well as multiplayer.
Wayniac wrote: Unfortunately, no matter how good it is it will likely be one of those games that nobody has heard of (because nobody apparently follows any company but GW online), no game store stocks and therefore nobody is interested in it in any way, shape or form no matter if the rules are free or not.. Or the old immediate "those models are crap compared to GW" comparisons that always crop up.
Frostgrave had some interest at my old LGS for a while. Of course, I think part of that was because AoS was flopping and not everyone had caught on to 9th Age, yet. It pretty much matches that description, though.
Wayniac wrote: Unfortunately, no matter how good it is it will likely be one of those games that nobody has heard of (because nobody apparently follows any company but GW online), no game store stocks and therefore nobody is interested in it in any way, shape or form no matter if the rules are free or not.. Or the old immediate "those models are crap compared to GW" comparisons that always crop up.
Frostgrave had some interest at my old LGS for a while. Of course, I think part of that was because AoS was flopping and not everyone had caught on to 9th Age, yet. It pretty much matches that description, though.
How many people are catching onto T9A?
Been into KoW myself and haven't heard much T9A noise for a wile.
There is zero T9A where I am. KoW has a fairly large following here, significantly larger than our AOS players. However, they come together at large cons or our annual KoW tournament as opposed to playing weekly at a store.
Wayniac wrote: Unfortunately, no matter how good it is it will likely be one of those games that nobody has heard of (because nobody apparently follows any company but GW online), no game store stocks and therefore nobody is interested in it in any way, shape or form no matter if the rules are free or not.. Or the old immediate "those models are crap compared to GW" comparisons that always crop up.
Frostgrave had some interest at my old LGS for a while. Of course, I think part of that was because AoS was flopping and not everyone had caught on to 9th Age, yet. It pretty much matches that description, though.
How many people are catching onto T9A?
Been into KoW myself and haven't heard much T9A noise for a wile.
This was back before AoS had released the first General's Handbook. I've moved since then, and getting to the new game store is a bit of a pain on several levels, but I haven't heard a word of T9A or KoW there.
As for lately? I might have seen a posting for it on the local AoS Facebook page in the last year, maybe.
There seem to be a lot of 9th age people playing here. AoS and AoS playing people get little love here in some cities. Posting about AoS on some polish forums about AoS can get you banned.
I have just decided that One Page Rules Age of Fantasy is good enough for what I want and fixes a lot of the issues I see with AoS that put me off playing.
- rules are easy to access and designing a list is uncomplicated
- Alternating unit activation rather than IGOUGO - terrain rules are generic in nature but have a meaningful and "realistic" in game effect.
- All Old World Fantasy armies are supported along with the new Age of Sigmar armies.
- Rules are simple to teach to new players (I am gonna be starting a club from scratch)
- Base size is not hugely important to the game.
Very excited to get some games in when I sort out terrain and stuff, will post some reports on the relevant forum.
I decided on it rather than Kings of War because I figure regiment games are a bit more of an acquired taste, especially for people whose first miniature gaming experience was Dungeons and Dragons. The small warband approach with fairly free movement rules will go down easier, I think.
Feeling more positive about wargaming than I have in years since discovering that ruleset, even rekindled some of my excitement about Warhammer 40K with their Grimdark Future rules.
Overread wrote: I thought the world had moved on from the AoS stance of 5 years ago?
Sounds about right, being forever offended about something is a polish pastime
When was the last time brits informed your country that they are going to nuke your entire country, if you do not remove a veteran hospital that is 40km away from their border?
Remember, this is Karol- who lives in a version of Poland where it's like Mad Max times over there. I'd take what he says with a pinch of salt.
Biggest Polish non w40k forum is border princes, ask anyone here who is not me, and polish how open they are there to posting anything, other then hate, about AoS. There are other Poles posting here.
But isn't Border Princes (from my 5 seconds googling and lack of understanding of anything Polish) a 9thage focused site anyway? So isn't a core concept of the site that its bypassing AoS and focusing on the continuation of rank and file fantasy through the 9th Age rule system.
Ergo a place far more likely to be a somewhat hotbed of people who are disgruntled through to open hate of AoS; possibly preserved and somewhat exaggerated by an echo-chamber of self supporting views and the general fact that many people often play things up online than in reality.
It was a WFB one, and then the Polish WFB community did not take the whole no points and dancing while stroking your beard thing very well. AoS is limited to face book, and large cities like Warsaw, and even there from what I understand it isn't specificaly the main Warsaw, but the people that live in towns that were around Warsaw. They and the people that live in the main city often dislike each other. For example historicaly when communist were doing purges on university they were taking people from towns around Warsaw, because they hated each other. On top of that there is political stuff, Warsaw main is left supporting and WFB playing, outskirts are AoS, nationalists and mob towns.
Or TLDR Disgruntled doesn't really describe well a situation when a group is in a majority. Same way star wars fans can't be disgruntled about the new movies.
Thats probably the only good model that was revealed. The rest look like a hybrid between sylvaneth and necron and tyranid and they all have a cartoon grin on their face that makes them look absurd.
auticus wrote: Thats probably the only good model that was revealed. The rest look like a hybrid between sylvaneth and necron and tyranid and they all have a cartoon grin on their face that makes them look absurd.
A matter of taste. I think the line is more attractive to me than the majority of the current Death line and a good competition for the Tomb Kings, once accounting for model age (a lot of that line had some long teeth). It might even be enough to bring me in, once I have a workable budget, but they're currently competing with the Beasts and the Trees.
I like everything but the grins, which are unsettling in the wrong way. Too goofy rather than creepy.
But they still feel like they are Nagash's answer to having skeletal hordes that can stand up to all the supersoldiers that are appearing on the battlefields of the Realms. Like he decided that skeletons and zombies just don't cut the mustard anymore, so his army got an upgrade. I may not like ALL the design choices, but it's a fair way to expand the lore.
auticus wrote: Thats probably the only good model that was revealed. The rest look like a hybrid between sylvaneth and necron and tyranid and they all have a cartoon grin on their face that makes them look absurd.
I was also thinking, did they really need another undead army. Its like they need to rebrand to age of Negash.
auticus wrote: Thats probably the only good model that was revealed. The rest look like a hybrid between sylvaneth and necron and tyranid and they all have a cartoon grin on their face that makes them look absurd.
I was also thinking, did they really need another undead army. Its like they need to rebrand to age of Negash.
The number isn't the problem, Death actually has relatively little in terms of the numbers of armies. The problem is that Death just have had a lot of Releases, which makes them seem numerous, especially when compared to Alliances which have had many of their armies never have had a book. It doesn't help that with Tomb Kings going extinct, they were limited to one of the old Army Books compared to the Chaos' 4, and almost innumerable Order's list.
Don't get me wrong, that's no excuse to leave the old classics behind, but there is a method behind it.
I do have a constructed Khorne Daemon army that I could use, but I've heard that Khorne followers have been somewhat nerfed in AOS. Same with Tzeentch armies.
I figure that at some point we'll see Destruction get a massive slew of new models to bolster it. They already started the year strong with Gloomspite so at some point Orruks and gutbusters will need massive releases of their own (currently I'm not expecting the release this year to be huge for Gutbusters - though if it is I'd be more than happy to see them get the attention and boost)
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
Aren't the Warcry warbands basically all Slaves to Darkness? Doesn't that mean S2D has gotten the most new releases of any of the Age of Sigmar factions?
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
GW releases are not determined by which faction or alliance have waited for a release or fairness.
They care about what their design team has and what new thing they can sell. Everchosen might get something, but I'm quite certain they're getting left behind to fade away like the other Old World armies.
I had Warriors of Chaos, they felt... Outdated in AoS.
The only time they felt like elite badasses was as a Varangur army. Mantic has made their game a home for old armies, balanced lists with miniature agnostic rules. They would like you to buy their stuff, but know that more people playing the game is good for it; even if you don't spend money on it. They respect you as a gamer, you love your stuff but will always need more.
GW has more than enough people playing, they have no reason to care about how much you love your old army, they want you to buy the new hotness.
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
Aren't the Warcry warbands basically all Slaves to Darkness? Doesn't that mean S2D has gotten the most new releases of any of the Age of Sigmar factions?
That does absolutely zero for playing Age of Sigmar. That would be about the same as trying to say Underworlds factions also count in AOS.
GW has more than enough people playing, they have no reason to care about how much you love your old army, they want you to buy the new hotness.
I've given up on trying to make my old chaos army work in AOS. I realize capitalism is capitalism and that trying to make old models be competitive is like whizzing in the wind and getting mad that it came back all over my face. I would however like to play the game of Age of Sigmar (not warcry, or underworlds) with a slaves to darkness force, as that is my primary force and the one that draws me to the game the most, without getting a gag ball shoved down my mouth and whipped nine ways to sunday because I chose the wrong faction because their rules are flaming trash.
Actually the way they've done the rules for Warbands they perfectly fit into AoS far better than Underworld Warbands do. I fully expect that GW might remove the Marauders and replace them with the Underworld Warbands for Slaves. I also expect the "cultist" keyword might well replace the "mark of chaos" rule - letting GW cover the same ability but only having to write it out once rather than in half the army.
Also I fully expect Slaves to Darkenss getting a rules update around Christmas - either before or not too long after. Heck at the current rate we'll hit Christmas with only Slaves, KO and Seraphon in need of new Tomes and that's if GW doesn't squeeze one more in (we don't yet know the November to December release rumours - though we roughly know up to October with the new Reaper army for AoS)
Patience Auticus - or based on your graphic description perhaps just start a Slaanesh army for a while to tide you over with your er - excess of torment
While the way they do warcry units may fit better in AOS than underworlds, there is nothing that has been released for warcry that even holds a candle against the min/max stuff that other factions get, and Slaves to Darkness is stIll pretty much garbage tier that you'd only play to punish yourself or enjoy getting your face rubbed into the table over and over again. I know that that might appeal to some people but for me its not an option.
I'd like an Everchosen book that brings all the Slaves units together with the Varanspire stuff. Crank the Allegiance power way way up to allow the Slaves units to be on the level of the other armies in Allegiance but aren't just way better when conscripted into the god specific factions.
auticus wrote: Thats probably the only good model that was revealed. The rest look like a hybrid between sylvaneth and necron and tyranid and they all have a cartoon grin on their face that makes them look absurd.
I was also thinking, did they really need another undead army. Its like they need to rebrand to age of Negash.
I mean, Death is a grand alliance, and has the least Battletome armies out of any grand alliance... Yeah, I would say they needed it.
It seems that AOS has sort of lost popularity here the past few months. It was growing and then it's slowly dropped, but I wonder if it's not just at this one store because the group that plays there play more competitive than I suspect a lot of people want. I personally have been dabbling in games other than Warhammer as well as having some other things taking up my time (World of Warcraft: Classic) to worry about Warhammer for now.
I have vowed never to get sucked into WoW again. So far so good.
But yes other games have been taking my time (kings of war and conquest). Though our AOS campaign starts this weekend so I will be back in that, but it is heavily houseruled and I wouldn't consider it AOS.
auticus wrote: Thats probably the only good model that was revealed. The rest look like a hybrid between sylvaneth and necron and tyranid and they all have a cartoon grin on their face that makes them look absurd.
I was also thinking, did they really need another undead army. Its like they need to rebrand to age of Negash.
I mean, Death is a grand alliance, and has the least Battletome armies out of any grand alliance... Yeah, I would say they needed it.
Considering I do not have or want to use a whole grand alliance. It still looks kinda bad.
So I can still sum it up as a why I am not playing point :p
Overread wrote: The intention of this thread is not to air grievances or hates of AoS, but rather to be a spot where people can be encouraged to ask questions that give them pause in starting AoS. This might be understanding the lore a bit better; or the way the grand alliances work or which armies are good to take or how to use endless spells etc....
So use it as an opportunity to ask questions and find answers so that you can get into the Age of Sigmar fantasy game
Well, I've just jumped into AoS!
Was reluctant to start as I'd missed the transition from WHFB to AoS, and I'd been a big fan of the former. The new game, lore, system seemed very strange/alien to me. Very different to 40K, which I got into very easily (although I guess I have been reading lots of 40K for years).
Kinda on hold for a moment due to less time with my brother( Kill Team and Ravenloft take up most of our time ), but I've been working on a solo mode, which is a bit like a skirmish version of Ravenloft or Blackstone Fortress. Thankfully I'm a super-fan of Atari's Gauntlet which is a big influence here...and it works really well!
AoS is ****ing cool and I love the game for what it is and how easy it is to get into. If I had more disposable income there is a tonne of AoS stuff I'd be over the moon to get like the Gaming Book, one of the starter sets, and that Stormcast dude riding the awesome Stardrake. Its at this stage I kinda regret bothering with Adeptus Titanicus and wish I had gone in with AoS instead.
AOS has been on hold for me for a while, for a variety of reasons (dabbling in historical gaming, etc.) but I recently began painting the remaining stuff of my Maggotkin army and I'm getting the urge to try it out again. From what I understand a lot of the competitive ex-Warmahordes players have moved on and the game store wants to broaden its terrain (a lot is still WHFB/Kings of War type of stuff) so there's hope that there will be a growing community that wants to try all types of play not just the boring old "2000 point matched play pitched battle we may as well be playing a tournament round" stuff.
I've boxed my stuff up and put it in storage. Waiting for 3.0 or the new whfb to see what they have done with the rules. Cautiously optimistic about that.
Vanguarding for conquest now and writing a campaign supplement for that as well as breaking my old school chaos out for kings of war.
Can't blame you. If I didn't have a casual/narrative-minded group I sure wouldn't be playing AoS. Competitive play is in a really terrible state in the moment, and the bonereapers have made it worse.
Its a mix of narrative minded people dominated by the handful of guys that only own competitive tournament armies.
I figure if I have to play like that, I 'm going to play a game that is better suited for that style of play and whose rules don't make me want to house rule everything every 5 seconds
Kings of War and Conquest we seem to not be having anywhere near the same issues.
I'm hoping AOS 3.0 reigns in free summoning and addresses some of my issues, or that the whfb reboot is something that I can get into. If not - we are building an alternate community brick at a time. Our conquest group is already the size of the current AOS group.
It must be nice. I don't think I've heard a single person online or at the store in my groups even mention Conquest at all; it may as well not exist. Not sure if the KoW crowd is still around either.
When Conquest was announced I made a big push to get it going here. I run a fairly large and diverse wargaming group that stemmed from a campaign group that began in the 90s. Over the years its grown and we have like 645 people on our facebook now, so the word gets out.
We have a lot of people that love fantasy but do not love AOS. Our first game day we only had 4 people. Getting people to buy in to a non-gw game is very hard. However we've been doing monthly meetups since summer and we have i believe 13 with or preordering armies and another 5 on the fringe waiting for either more models, more factions, or to finally see we're not going anywhere so their investment is somewhat safe. This is a far cry from the 55 or so people I had registered for my last WHFB campaign event in 2015, but is on par with our AOS participation, so that encourages me.
Kings of War is different. I have tried getting that going for YEARS. It is fairly big about an hour south of me so some of the guys will do tournaments there. Conquest is currently our main fantasy game and I have invested in 1000 points of all four factions currently released, and two of those are now fully painted. (for demos)
We also are dropping a campaign supplement (much the same as i have done yearly for whfb and then AOS up until this year where the kingmaker campaign I wrote and linked here is my last AOS campaign) and the PB guys are even interested in looking at it, so the game's activity level has started growing in a very positive way.
To get it going if you are interested, get the very cheap starter box (seriously $80 for what you get is the best deal I think ever) and get it painted and start doing demos. Even petition PB to be a Vanguard for your area if there is not one already and join the discord and facebook groups.
auticus wrote: I've boxed my stuff up and put it in storage. Waiting for 3.0 or the new whfb to see what they have done with the rules. Cautiously optimistic about that.
This is why I've opted out of GW games.
You're always waiting for the next version or update to fix the game, but it never does. It always disappoints.
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.
Slaves to Darkness is also my army. Was my original WFB army, back when it was called "Chaos Warriors" and you could put daemons in the army and different gods' daemons would bicker with each other. And beastmen were idiots. Before marauders even existed.
I tried to play Slaves to Darkness a couple of times with some older models I have + some of the newer ones, and I have to say they weren't as effective as I'd like. And I've compared their performance to Stormcast Eternals (which honestly were a lot of fun), and I can say they really need some love with the new book.
When it drops, and the new models drop, I'll go back into AoS.
Also, I'd like for the WarCry warbands to be battle line.
I have been playing AoS since its launch in 2015, after playing WHFB since 2010.
I only stopped playing AoS four months ago.
One of the reasons is the release of new Space Marines Codex(WH40K equivalent of Battletome), which drastically improved the performance of what was usually considered to be low tier 40K army. And I was glad to finally have a renovated codex that could more than compete with strong contenders of the meta.
On top of that, I was already having a surfeit of random turn order system in AoS.
No matter how I try to overcome the risk of double turn tactically, the system seemed too random with little reward for tactical play.
All I could do to "prepare" against double turn was to conservatively hold my army back, while opposing army boldly claimed objectives everywhere.
Another reason for not playing AoS would be GW's relatively slow reaction agianst the outliers of the meta.
Granted 40K also suffers the same issue, as can be observed from Iron Hands literally dominating the podium during September to mid-October.
However GW took unusually swift action to nerf some of the key outliers in the Iron Hands supplement and considerably toned down the Iron Hands.
Even latest Salamanders supplement received nerfs on abilities which were considered to be overpowered via FAQ.
On the other hand even after more than six months after the release, I still see Hedonites and the Skaven(and to some extent Flesh Eater Court) dominating the top places while rest of the factions are nibbling at what is basically the leftover of the two powerful factions.
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.
Garbage tier vs powergaming goodness. I am told you should just enjoy the game for what it is, and not care about winning and just rolling dice and drinking beer or else play a power faction. You won't have much fun with slaves to darkness right now. The new book may help but their typical release schedule highlights their two teams... one likes power books, the other likes fluffy narrative but only ok books. Since the nagash masters of the universe book is pretty broken on the level of the triple keeper slaanesh list, I would bet you most anything that the new slaves to darkness book will be on par with khorne and the goblins. Which means fun, but you'll get crushed against the power books.
If you are new to GW games, you either love to be competitive, in which case you have to do your homework on what factions (particularly what certain build in that faction) can compete. Otherwise you have to love drinking beer and lol'ing and not caring about the outcome of games and just chuck dice with whatever models you like, and when you get hammered by power builds, just realize you are playing for the fun of playing and socializing. Both of those personalities seem pretty regularly encountered.
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On the other hand even after more than six months after the release, I still see Hedonites and the Skaven(and to some extent Flesh Eater Court) dominating the top places while rest of the factions are nibbling at what is basically the leftover of the two powerful factions.
That has been a feature of pretty much every GW game since the power trifecta of 7th edition fantasy in 2007. Its frustrating.
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.
F vs A.
Also, a Battletomed List versus one of the last, if not the last faction that still uses a Grand Alliance book. Could switch out Bonereapers with Seraphon and I’d bet the results would be the same vs. S2D.
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Sagittarii Orientalis wrote: On the other hand even after more than six months after the release, I still see Hedonites and the Skaven(and to some extent Flesh Eater Court) dominating the top places while rest of the factions are nibbling at what is basically the leftover of the two powerful factions.
I feel like the issues with HoS and FEC need a bit more than just some simple rewording, like how Iron Hands had their abilities reworded in the errata/FAQ.
The AoS team seems much more conservative with how they fix some of these issues, probably a little too conservative. Still feel your frustration though. I play Fyreslayers and have a HoS army in my play group.
Yeah, you have an army that doesn't have a book yet; there's no way it goes well for you unless your opponent meets you on the same playing field (no army traits, can only use general traits and items out of GHB/Malign Sorcery). Wait until next month; you're getting an army book before Christmas. If the discrepancy between armies is still there, it'll suck. But you have literally the last real army to get a book against something brand new with all the bells and whistles. It's currently a comparison between Waffle House and Texas Roadhouse instead of a comparison between Texas Roadhouse and Longhorn Steakhouse.
-I recognize these are not amazing establishments, but everyone should be able to get my drift.
auticus wrote: As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.
I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.
Slaves are not alone, most of the factions that had no battletome or only a first generation one (which were basically just warscrolls in the book and nothing else), do really REALLY badly against any of the armies with a battletome. You can easily find complaints from everyone who is a fan of an army without a battletome complaining that their army under-performs. However the GOOD NEWS is that GW has been updating the game over the last year. In fact since AoS 2.0 launched (in fact a few months before as several armies came out with 2.0 Tomes before the Big Rulebook dropped)they've pretty much added one new Tome (army) per month (sometimes two). The only slowdown was middle of this year when there was a shipping delay and GW just didn't have the stock to release. However best news for you is that on December 14th Slaves to Darkness gets a brand new Battletome released (pre orders on the 7th and the 1st you should see a preview window on the Sunday and then likely several articles in the following two weeks up to the retail release). So hopefully your Slaves will get a very nice boost like the other arimes.
There's a few enigmas like Slaaneshi which are working really rather too well - however many of the new Tomes have been pretty solid releases. Furthermore there's a new update in Janurary which is said to include changes to Slaanesh and some other forces and might help to curb some of the power-play issues with the army.
Ossiarchs I don't see being adjusted yet, they are too fresh, though in fairness its mostly Petrifax (the +1 save) that people have issues with. I think the rest of the army "issues" is people learning that you don't beat them by charging them fast and trying to beat them all up at once - target prioritizing and maximising early game advantage and location/objective securing to put the Ossiarch player in an early uphill struggle.
FEC mostly it seems to be their summoning and I forget what's broken in Skaven. In general though I'd say that barring Slaanesh AoS isn't in too bad a spot really - certainly many of the competitions are showing quite a wide range of armies.
Ossiarchs are riddled with design issues where elements may not be -unbalanced- but are absolutely -unfun- to play against. Also petrifax elite obviously need to be nerfed, but everyone knows that and has known that since the preview where we were saying "either that blanket +1 to saves has a big downside or that sub-faction is OP."
Do you know the common theme I see when people talk about what is not fun / negative play experience / broken?
Summoning. Summoning. Summoning. Summoning. Its their summoning. They can summon too much. They just summon more in easily. Summoning.
What is summoning? The ability to go over your point limit. What can it also be construed as? Pay to win. If I have the ability to bring 4000 points into a game against your 2000 ... why would I never want to do this? Where is my drawback? What game mechanic makes this a move that isn't something that you should always seek to max out on?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Ossiarchs are riddled with design issues where elements may not be -unbalanced- but are absolutely -unfun- to play against. Also petrifax elite obviously need to be nerfed, but everyone knows that and has known that since the preview where we were saying "either that blanket +1 to saves has a big downside or that sub-faction is OP."
I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.
I also agree that Summoning has often been a huge issue. Heck I'm not a fan of how depravity works by the nature of basically making you only want to take leaders and then summon more leaders into a slaanesh force. It cuts out loads of deamonet, chariot and fiend heavy army combinations which I think takes some of the fun out of building a Slaanesh army. I was sad to see the "double depravity bubble" in the White Dwarf issue. I guess their thinking was that encouraging all those units to be taken instead of leaders meant that they wanted a mechanic to boost depravity because you were "sacrificing" so much to take more troops. However in practice it also works even if you don't take loads of troops so suddenly its giving you an insane bonus.
auticus wrote: I would bet you most anything that the new slaves to darkness book will be on par with khorne and the goblins. Which means fun, but you'll get crushed against the power books.
Ah, two of my favorite books/forces!
Khorne: Last winter/spring as I returned to AoS, playing full on 2k pt+ games with all the bells & whistles, I had great fun with Khorne - Demons & Mortals.
My W/L ratio (about 50/50) would've likely been higher had I not been changing my list every week, trying out every permutation I could muster out of my existing stuff.
Gloomspite Gitz: My force of choice for our next Path to Glory campaign.
Strongest book? No. But I'm going to have plenty of fun & still chalk up the wins.
And yes, I fully expect to be facing Bonereapers. Nighthaunts, Skaven, Stormcast, Nurgle, & Seraphon as well. And about 3-4 others that're still unknowns.
auticus wrote: If you are new to GW games, you either love to be competitive, in which case you have to do your homework on what factions (particularly what certain build in that faction) can compete. Otherwise you have to love drinking beer and lol'ing and not caring about the outcome of games and just chuck dice with whatever models you like, and when you get hammered by power builds, just realize you are playing for the fun of playing and socializing. Both of those personalities seem pretty regularly encountered.
I almost definitely fall into the later category. It's not that I don't care about winning, it's that I know that it's irrelevant beyond the moment. And I don't make my living winning miniature gaming tournaments. So whatever I'm using, for whatever reason, I will always attempt to both win & provide a good game. But W/L/D? The sun keeps rising & my little metal/resin/plastic troops re-spawn for the next game. And over the decades I've learned that, whatever the opinions of others as to what's strongest/weakest etc, I can win my fair share of matches & provide good games using almost anything. So I might as well be doing it with models/lists I like. I also tend to like a challenge. So when it turns out that Squigs vs Bonereapers is comically lopsided & not in my favor? "Eh". (I'm still likely to win though. Don't tell our new BR player that just yet & spoil the surprise for him.)
I consider myself casually competitive; I play hard to win, try to optimize my list to the best I can do, but I don’t do tournaments or study every army book out there. A good chunk of my enjoyment comes in list building/creating and watching it in action. I almost never run the exact same list twice either. Newest “plan” is a bum-rush 30 man Blood Warrior unit that sprouted wings and rushes 30+ inches in a single turn with charge. My playstyle is honestly “try something they won’t see coming”. Which is the reason I was a bit glum when I saw triple Keeper become a thing...but I don’t like the additional units people have in their HoS armies; mine is 5 characters and 15 Hellstriders in two battalions. Plus one Endless Spell.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Ossiarchs are riddled with design issues where elements may not be -unbalanced- but are absolutely -unfun- to play against. Also petrifax elite obviously need to be nerfed, but everyone knows that and has known that since the preview where we were saying "either that blanket +1 to saves has a big downside or that sub-faction is OP."
I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.
I also agree that Summoning has often been a huge issue. Heck I'm not a fan of how depravity works by the nature of basically making you only want to take leaders and then summon more leaders into a slaanesh force. It cuts out loads of deamonet, chariot and fiend heavy army combinations which I think takes some of the fun out of building a Slaanesh army. I was sad to see the "double depravity bubble" in the White Dwarf issue. I guess their thinking was that encouraging all those units to be taken instead of leaders meant that they wanted a mechanic to boost depravity because you were "sacrificing" so much to take more troops. However in practice it also works even if you don't take loads of troops so suddenly its giving you an insane bonus.
A catapult shoots your character from 36" away, rolls some dice, and your character is instantly slain. Your opponent is camping an objective with a unit that has 3+ re-rollable saves and the faction you play has no troops with rend -2. You try to snipe an ossiarch character only to realize the unit 3" behind it intercepts wounds on a 2+. The main caster for your army is stuck at -1 to cast/unbind the whole game because of a terrain feature sitting in the middle of the board. To say these things can just be 'played around' is a slap in the face for many factions who, in fact, can't.
Now they may be balanced on a broader sense due to the point costs involved, but it's the sort of mechanic that frustrates me as a community organizer. I cringe at the thought of a new player encountering such a thing, because they may not have the experience or units to do something about it or even realize that something can be done.
I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.
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what about armies that only have a massive charge as their only valid way to play?
I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.
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what about armies that only have a massive charge as their only valid way to play?
I don't think there are any.
Oh to be sure there are many close combat only armies or armies where ranged options are few and might not appear on the battlefield often. However there are no armies which work simply by putting models down and running toward the enemy without thinking.
Like I said for Ossiarchs going against them you might well consider focusing on moving faster units forward to secure objectives early for points because the Reapers can likely not reach them in the first turn nor perhaps the second. Sure they can use spells and some abilities to boost speed, but not over the whole army at once.
You might use that to your advantage; setting down faster chaff units to tarpit the ossiarchs - you don't aim to beat them just to slow them so that they cannot easily reach objectives that you now hold and contest. Deny them points for enough turns and they cannot then move onto them in the latter turns. Even if they win through martial means they lose through objectives.
Other aspects might be charging so that you focus your heavier hitters and rending units at very specific Ossiarch units. Aiming not to engage them all at once but to take out units. Ossiarchs don't summon, they repair and replace. This means if you can take an entire unit off the table they can't bring it back. Maybe you go for that Harvester, skirting your fast close combat units around the Guard; maybe you avoid one whole half of the game board knowing that the Reapers can take 1 objective there, but not have the speed to come around to secure the middle and the one on your side. They have no deep-striking units so they can't suddenly throw down units behind your lines like Daughters of Khaine might with Khinerai.
Again its about thinking about the game several turns ahead and also not just playing into the ossiarchs strength. Their strength is long lasting close combat whilst dealing effective wounds. Their weakneses are mortal wounds; speed; if they don't take a crawler they've no range outside of spells.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Ossiarchs are riddled with design issues where elements may not be -unbalanced- but are absolutely -unfun- to play against. Also petrifax elite obviously need to be nerfed, but everyone knows that and has known that since the preview where we were saying "either that blanket +1 to saves has a big downside or that sub-faction is OP."
I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.
I also agree that Summoning has often been a huge issue. Heck I'm not a fan of how depravity works by the nature of basically making you only want to take leaders and then summon more leaders into a slaanesh force. It cuts out loads of deamonet, chariot and fiend heavy army combinations which I think takes some of the fun out of building a Slaanesh army. I was sad to see the "double depravity bubble" in the White Dwarf issue. I guess their thinking was that encouraging all those units to be taken instead of leaders meant that they wanted a mechanic to boost depravity because you were "sacrificing" so much to take more troops. However in practice it also works even if you don't take loads of troops so suddenly its giving you an insane bonus.
A catapult shoots your character from 36" away, rolls some dice, and your character is instantly slain. Your opponent is camping an objective with a unit that has 3+ re-rollable saves and the faction you play has no troops with rend -2. You try to snipe an ossiarch character only to realize the unit 3" behind it intercepts wounds on a 2+. The main caster for your army is stuck at -1 to cast/unbind the whole game because of a terrain feature sitting in the middle of the board. To say these things can just be 'played around' is a slap in the face for many factions who, in fact, can't.
Now they may be balanced on a broader sense due to the point costs involved, but it's the sort of mechanic that frustrates me as a community organizer. I cringe at the thought of a new player encountering such a thing, because they may not have the experience or units to do something about it or even realize that something can be done.
I was that new player. My first game of AoS this week was unmitigated disaster. If was fairly new to miniatures wargames I would quit the hobby on the spot and never looked back after what I went through. If my opponent wasn't so friendly, even I would seriously considered stopping playing any sort of PUG ever again. Maybe take an extended break from the hobby too.
My game was 500 points Slaves to Darkness (Sorcerer, Chaos Warriors (Shields) x5, Chaos Warriors (Shields) x5, Chaos Knights x5 (Glaives) vs. Bonereapers (Boneshaper, Guard x10, Stalkers x3 I think). The Bonereapers also had the bird endless spell whatever it does. It never made it on the table. The mission was just kill the other side. I was tabled early in round 3 after the Bonereaper double Initiative. I caused 3 causalities that got up again. So I literally lost my entire force while not causing any causalities to my opponent's.
I thought even at 500 points we still had to have minimum requires of 3 battleline units so I split up my warriors (big mistake on my part). I further made the mistake to spread my force out and lead with my knights. I made a lot of big tactical blunders in the game. Just the same, I don't really think I could have managed to get the charge with all my units and some how fit them all within 1" and still manage to take out even the Guard before being torn to pieces by the rest of the force. My impression of the guard was they either were or could be buffed to hit more often and make my save practically worthless while being hard as nails (something I thought my force would be with heavy armor, shields and Mark of Tzeentch but weren't) and having a kind of reanimation protocol. Heck, being on smaller bases allow my opponent to get more attack in since they could first rant, second rank far better than I could. The only weakness I can say they seemed to have was kinda more expensive per wound and low-ish movement, but I think they have way to increase that for a unit too if they really need to. I also wouldn't call being 1" slowing than my footmen really being slow either. I currently don't really have any ranged weapons (Iron Golems Bolas and the Untamed Beasts harpoon don't look like something to hang a hat on) so I don't have much of an option but to get stuck in. Outside my Knight Glaives on the charge, I don't have any Rend to weaken their Save and my Terror Tactics has no effect.
I am not complaining. Just pointing how my first game felt getting absolutely drummed. It is still early in the League, and I am brand new to the game. I also appear to have a very under-performing faction and limited options to reach minimum points for my games. I know I was fielding my force very poorly and didn't make the most of them since I am literally using the datasheets (or warscrolls I guess) that came with the models. However, I never did expect that I could l play a miniatures wargame where I could get tabled and not cause a single casualty to the enemy. I am going to keep playing in this league. Though, me picking up more models for AoS has been greatly reduced at this point. I am already building and painting what I have more for using running a D&D game than playing AoS now. How the rest of the league goes and if the new S2D battletomb doesn't continue to keep the faction terrible (or goes too far and makes them OP) will decide whether I continue or join with auticus in shelving my army remains to be seen.
Your playgroup did you a disservice by not warning you how much of a burning trash fire slaves to darkness are. And if their book is only khorne or goblin level powerful (which I suspect will be the case) you will still get drummed by the four or so power factions that are popular.
Overread wrote: Again its about thinking about the game several turns ahead and also not just playing into the ossiarchs strength. Their strength is long lasting close combat whilst dealing effective wounds. Their weakneses are mortal wounds; speed; if they don't take a crawler they've no range outside of spells.
Funny thing is I thought good portion of those things were going to be my armies strengths and weaknesses. A far I can tell S2D have the lasting in close combat as long as I don't have to deal with Rend -2, Bravery not withstanding, and not being all that fast (Chaos Warriors are really only a 1" faster). I don't deal effective wounds, but I do have something to protect from mortal wounds. I definitely don't see much ranged weapons in my faction though.
auticus wrote: Your playgroup did you a disservice by not warning you how much of a burning trash fire slaves to darkness are. And if their book is only khorne or goblin level powerful (which I suspect will be the case) you will still get drummed by the four or so power factions that are popular.
Well I knew they were bad. But I figured they would be like ten man squads of CSM x3 for your troop choice bad. I would lose every game, but I would at least make the opposing army hurt a little doing so. This is next level bad.
Indeed. They are trash fire bad. They have been trash fire bad even in 2015 with the very first scrolls. I have no idea who designed their warscrolls or how inept they must be as game designers to have allowed those to exist in the condition that they are.
I say that because at that very same time, stormcast warscrolls also were out, and David & Goliath isn't even being fair to discern the differences between the two power levels.
The chaos knights, one of the most awesome units in the narrative, instilling fear in the heart of any opponents... have nerf lances and their weapons are sheathed in rubber so as not to hurt anyone.
The only shining star in that entire list were the chaos warriors for their tanking abilities.
But no damage abilities at all mean you can't hurt the other guy, and you can't win games by having rubber weapons.
Definite agreement in the fact that regular warriors and knights have been disappointing since the beginning. My very first game in 1.0 I took three units of 10, multiple daemon princes, Archaon and Hellcannons. The Warriors did nothing but tarpit. Their damage output was garbage. I expect them to become a force to be reckoned with next month. But right now...winning with them against the new power toy...not gonna work at all. If you use a currently supported army, you’re likely to have a good game. Using an army that hasn’t received an update won’t work. Judge them when they get an update.
Of course there's also the fact that 500pts games are complete joke in terms of any balance. The games starts being properly balanced at 1500, and is balanced (as much as any GW game can) at 2k. The lower you get, the worse the power balance gets, at 500pts all it takes is one strong unit to dismantle most of the army.
Argive wrote: So Aos has a random double turn mechanic?
Yes Initiative is rolled every game turn, so if you went second there's a chance you can win initiative and go first the next round, effectively getting two turns in a row (e.g. Round 1 go second, Round 2 go first) before your opponent can do anything.
It's simultaneously the most hated and liked feature of the game. It adds a lot of dynamic to it, just it's very polarizing because if the player who is "ahead" gets a double turn, there's a good chance they can just dominate the enemy and decide the game. A lot of house rules ignore it, but there's also a lot that feels it's a good thing
Personally its my observation that its very rare to lose a game if you get a doubleturn within the first handful of turns. Furthermore it means that an opponent has to spend two turns only able to roll saves and remove models. If they are against a ranged army that's all they can do - agianst a close combat one each combat is done one at a time alternating who starts first; however its again only reacting to combats rather than being able to start fresh ones.
Overall its something I wish they'd move to Open Play. For competitive you can't plan for it save to not move for a turn (ergo hold back) which is pretty pointless in a game of only 6 rounds (at most) where most objectives are going to be out in the middle of the table.
Some like it because they either get it more often than they don't others like it because "its random and other games don't do it (probably cause its really not a good idea)". Some seem to like it just because its "AoS" and such.
Personally I find that whenever I read reviews I see far too many situations where whoever gets a doubleturn first tends to win the game.
The double turn is the worst aspect of AOS in my opinion. The biggest buzz kill and negative play experience that exists. Even more so than when 3 keepers generate another 2000 free points in your mouth and tell you to take it.
It would be cool if you had alternate activation with that mechanic, because then its not as impactful and you're not standing there for two full rounds taking it in the face while doing nothing at all but removing models while your opponent lulz.
Me and my group house rule out the random initiative. It’s almost literally never fun and is always annoying. You feel bad when you do it to someone, and the other person sighs and accepts defeat.
We’ve been having a lot more fun since we stopped using it.
I usually go second and tell my opponent I won't be double-turning them, even if it means losing. Given a choice of house rule I've found I like deploy-first-go-first where one player puts everything down first but gets first turn, and initiative alternates.
nels1031 wrote: Love the double turn myself. It means every game has a chance of being different.
Surely just an opponent who thinks and ins't just charging forward mindlessly also makes every game different on its own.
For me the problem is that the doubleturn is such a powerful game swinging element that relies on a single dice roll. That's not a chance based game that's just boiling the whole game down to a handful of key dice rolls.
Surely just an opponent who thinks and ins't just charging forward mindlessly also makes every game different on its own.
Counterpoint: Surely just an opponent who thinks and isn't just charging forward mindlessly is able to work with the priority roll, win or lose.
Overread wrote: For me the problem is that the doubleturn is such a powerful game swinging element that relies on a single dice roll. That's not a chance based game that's just boiling the whole game down to a handful of key dice rolls.
It is indeed powerful, not disputing that, but its a unique mechanic that I've come to enjoy for what it is. Its won me some games that I thought I was losing and vice versa. Doesn't bother me, and I think folks that home brew their solution to what they feel is a problem only open up more complex balance and game play conundrums. At a glance, at least. I have no qualms with that, if its what makes them enjoy the game more, more power to them but its not for me.
Does any AoS youtuber play with alternating turns that I can see how it actually functions? I only see folks on forums say that they do the more traditional WHFB turn sequence and it always leaves me with a lot of questions.
I go, you go, you go, you win wouldn't make for a good battle report video.
I don't like the double turn. Regardless of it's impact on the game it simply isn't a fun mechanic. If it were an optional rule I suspect the overwhelming majority of players would not use it.
I go, you go, you go, you win wouldn't make for a good battle report video.
It doesn't make for a good game period, particularly a game you pay hundreds of dollars to play.
My AOS campaigns for five years have now used alternate activation sequence of units. It was wildly more popular than double turn so was accepted by my community as our way of playing. (been voted in 100% for the past three campaigns out of 15 or so players)
The latest incarnation that they are playing right now is here:
Overread wrote:Ossiarchs I don't see being adjusted yet, they are too fresh, though in fairness its mostly Petrifax (the +1 save) that people have issues with. I think the rest of the army "issues" is people learning that you don't beat them by charging them fast and trying to beat them all up at once - target prioritizing and maximising early game advantage and location/objective securing to put the Ossiarch player in an early uphill struggle
Hang on. Wait up.
The new army is too new to be balanced? How long do they get to stomp new players and everyone else?
The fact that people have come to accept this kind of bs somehow is *nods to OP* is why I am not playing AoS. Seriously? "This army is new so I guess I'll just loose then". How is that remotely acceptable to anyone? The army should have been balanced from the start, most companies need to adjust things or fix a typo, but this gak is ridiculous.
GW so obviously doesn't give a feth about putting out a good game, they care about the new release selling.
The good news is not that Slaves to Darkness are getting new rules. Those rules will disappoint you like every new edition, or battle tome has.
The good news is that the new player can use those models for other games.
Wayniac wrote: care to summarize? I don't always buy White Dwarf and it's been years since they've let you backorder
Its from JJ’s article, the broader theme being that dealing with bad luck is part of the game and how you can take steps to mitigate it. The quote below is only about 1/10th of the article.
THE DREADED DOUBLE TURN
Nowhere is the importance of forward planning more obvious than in the vexed issue of the dreaded ‘double turn’. This is where the player that move second in the last round wins the roll to pick the player who goes first in the next round and in effect gets two turns in a row. Because the player order stays the same if the dice roll is tied, the odds are slightly against the double turn, albeit not by much. This means that it quite often happens during a game, and I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been told that a game was won ‘just because the winner got to do a double turn’. Now, I’m not going to try and say that getting a double turn can’t have an impact on the outcome of a battle, but it isby no means such a sure thing as some might say. How do I know this? Well it’s because people like Jack Armstrong and Ben Johnson can play through two or three tournaments in a row, against tough opponents, and not lose a single game. The chance of their being able to do this without suffering a double turn now and then is pretty much zero, which means that they still won the games when it happens. And how do they do this? By planning for it and making their moves accordingly, so that they will never be defeated just because an opponent got lucky and took two turns in a row. Specifically, they make their moves in such a way that if they suffer a double turn it will not be catastrophic for them, rather than making their moves on the assumption that the double turn will not happen (and then blaming bad luck for the loss if it does!).
But the only planning for a double turn I can see is just holding back until the dice says you’re safe to go. To me it’s like sitting in an intersection, looking at the red light as your opponent dominates the table and takes all the objectives, because if you head out you’re likely to get violently destroyed by oncoming traffic.
I’m by no means a tactical genius, and probably not overly smart, but to me it’s just an annoyance and hinders fun in all ways.
Tiberius501 wrote: But the only planning for a double turn I can see is just holding back until the dice says you’re safe to go. To me it’s like sitting in an intersection, looking at the red light as your opponent dominates the table and takes all the objectives, because if you head out you’re likely to get violently destroyed by oncoming traffic.
I’m by no means a tactical genius, and probably not overly smart, but to me it’s just an annoyance and hinders fun in all ways.
Not to mention many competitive players pick top tier factions which through the sheer power of their battletomes can more than manage to weather double turn from weaker factions. And when those powerful factions get double turn for themselves, in many cases it is game over for the weaker factions. Hedonites taking double turn to summon keepers two turn is vastly different from, say, slaves to darkness or gloomspites taking double tirn.
I also read Jervis Johnson's White Dwarf article with great scepticism.
It is because I think he is a wargame designer most unsuitable for competitive play.
Long time ago, he wrote in his article that wargames without points are the best ones.
He does not seem to have changed his opinion.
Early this year, in White Dwarf issue he wrote that games without points are ideal and matched play was initiated due to great demand from customers.
My impression was that he begrudgingly accepted matched play as an official format only because of market demand.
Jesus, I’d rather play the I go, You go, I go method than play that. Seems more random than the double turn and not to mention convoluted. How many points are your campaign games?
Roll for Initiative
Before a unit activates, players roll a D6 and the highest activates a unit. Ties go to the player that did not have the last activation. This adds some random element in the game of not knowing when you will activate next, and having to be careful with overextending forces lest you get a cold hand and not get the supporting units up in time. This initiative lasts until all players have activated a unit.
So you have to plan for the unknown, which is decided by a dice roll. Sounds familiar...
I already know that everything about how i like to play is polar opposite to how you play and that you and I would never face off against each other pretty much ever even if we were next door neighbors *shrug*
Seems more random than the double turn and not to mention convoluted.
Our campaign games are 2000 points.
Its not random at all. You activate an entire unit then I activate an entire unit. There's nothing random about it other than who gets to activate the first unit. Additionally for convoluted, I guess I'm a product of the 80s and older editions of games that go beyond 4 pages of pew pew. Everyone seems to pick up the system after the first game, and a lot of those guys are new to wargaming in general, so my experience over the past few years is that its pretty easy for almost everyone universally to pick it up, and even the ones that don't like it like you would pick it up quite fast, though complain its convoluted ... because truthfully when compared against 4 pages of pew pew it is a lot more complex. If someone's primary goal is a four page pew pew ruleset then sure this wouldn't be their cup of tea.
So you have to plan for the unknown, which is decided by a dice roll. Sounds familiar...
Except that you don't stand there for two entire turns straight taking it in the face which pretty much everyone I know, and the majority of people I talk to online hate.
The number of people that cheer for double turn always seem to be a very tiny minority.
I would anticipate with the GW surveys being a thing now that the double turn will be transformed in the next version of the game. I have a feeling that the mechanic in warcry will be a lot closer to your new reality than the current manifestation. I'd bet the farm that 3rd ed won't have the current version of double turn... or the new whfb whatever that is will be their more complicated ruleset which will let people like me not have to endure four page pew pew any longer. One or the other. We have a few years to wait though for that.
(pew pew doesn't mean poop it means pew pew noises)
auticus wrote: I already know that everything about how i like to play is polar opposite to how you play and that you and I would never face off against each other pretty much ever even if we were next door neighbors *shrug*
Meh, I’d like to think we’d give it the old college try. At least with AoS.
Core rules of AoS have been 18 pages cover to cover since Soul Wars. And thats bare minimum. The recently released 89 page Gaming Book plus Battletome of choice is more indicative of what you’ll need to play fully nowadays.
auticus wrote: Except that you don't stand there for two entire turns straight taking it in the face which pretty much everyone I know, and the majority of people I talk to online hate.
Which doesn’t happen every game, lets be honest. I feel like alot of hyperbole surrounds that mechanic on both sides of the argument if were being truthful.
auticus wrote: The number of people that cheer for double turn always seem to be a very tiny minority.
Might just be confirmation bias, but I feel the opposite. And we probably operate in separate circles.
auticus wrote: I would anticipate with the GW surveys being a thing now that the double turn will be transformed in the next version of the game. I have a feeling that the mechanic in warcry will be a lot closer to your new reality than the current manifestation.
I’d be cool with that. I’m not married to the concept of the double turn, I just think most solutions to the problem create their own set of problems when looked at with a bit of scrutiny. Your alternate activation rules for instance completely changes the landscape of balance and how certain mechanics work and not for the better imo. Not to mention needing tokens. There is already enough gak on the board in base AoS.
auticus wrote: I'd bet the farm that 3rd ed won't have the current version of double turn...
Would be interesting to see, and after some thought, sounds like something GW would do to reset battletomes. $$$!
auticus wrote: or the new whfb whatever that is will be their more complicated ruleset which will let people like me not have to endure four page pew pew any longer.
There are plenty of games out there now. And theres the 4 page thing again. No offence, but that seems like a weird fixation for a dude that should know its been alot more than 4 pages for some time.
Wayniac wrote: care to summarize? I don't always buy White Dwarf and it's been years since they've let you backorder
Its from JJ’s article, the broader theme being that dealing with bad luck is part of the game and how you can take steps to mitigate it. The quote below is only about 1/10th of the article.
THE DREADED DOUBLE TURN
Nowhere is the importance of forward planning more obvious than in the vexed issue of the dreaded ‘double turn’. This is where the player that move second in the last round wins the roll to pick the player who goes first in the next round and in effect gets two turns in a row. Because the player order stays the same if the dice roll is tied, the odds are slightly against the double turn, albeit not by much. This means that it quite often happens during a game, and I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been told that a game was won ‘just because the winner got to do a double turn’. Now, I’m not going to try and say that getting a double turn can’t have an impact on the outcome of a battle, but it isby no means such a sure thing as some might say. How do I know this? Well it’s because people like Jack Armstrong and Ben Johnson can play through two or three tournaments in a row, against tough opponents, and not lose a single game. The chance of their being able to do this without suffering a double turn now and then is pretty much zero, which means that they still won the games when it happens. And how do they do this? By planning for it and making their moves accordingly, so that they will never be defeated just because an opponent got lucky and took two turns in a row. Specifically, they make their moves in such a way that if they suffer a double turn it will not be catastrophic for them, rather than making their moves on the assumption that the double turn will not happen (and then blaming bad luck for the loss if it does!).
Having read the article it more or less just says this in several different ways. Like nearly all pieces defending the double turn it emphasizes that it 'can be planned for' and goes to great lengths emphasizing that it 'can be planned for' yet never provides a single specific example of what that looks like. Why? Because in practice the plan is to either secure second turn with low drop count, or alpha strike so hard there isn't enough enemy left to capitalize on a double. Both of those happen in the listbuilding, which is why tournament players manage to do consistently well in spite of the double turn existing. I know, because I've done it. My original tourney army was specifically built to exploit getting double turns.
As someone trying to come back to the game I too find the "play expecting it" odd advice for mitigating the double turn.
The top tier armies seem like they put out savage shooting damage or have such crazy movement that anything outside turtling in a corner won't end well. And if you do that how far behind on the turn based objective scoring are you?
Some details examples of it in action would be really helpful.
