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On the other hand, with the PPC screening rules, even the Hellfire loses some of its effectiveness because the target will still get screening bonus from indirect fire. Without these rules, the real benefit will be the weapons that can fire indirectly, since it doesn't matter where you are then. Stand behind a blocking terrain all you want, you'll get no benefit from it if shot by an indirect fire weapon.
With the screening rules, the indirect weapons have their effectiveness toned down because you can actually gain a benefit from hiding from them. That's because it would be harder to calculate the distance needed to hit something if you cant even see the target you need to hit.

Since there isn't a clear majority on whether or not screening should remain in the PPC, we will leave it in for our next update. The -1 to hit for shooting in/out of melee will be gone though.

Smellingsalts wrote:
I for one am against splitting command abilities from Heroes and making them an upgrade. I am also against charging separate for the lantern on the Knight Azyeros. Here I am being consistent with my stance on changing the rules. Point costing a unit as a whole is one thing, but allowing for lesser variants without all the bells and whistles is another. If we are truly trying to make the PPC universal, so that it becomes the accepted set of tournament rules (like E.T.C), then we must change only what is absolutely necessary. If the Stormcasts have a high point cost because of all their cool special abilities, or if a Hero has command abilities that make him cost more, then I think that is one of the agonizing choices one will have to make when designing a tournament list. The more that the PPC becomes a set of home brew rules that alter the rules based on what one faction prefers rather than rules as written, the less people will use it.

I don't agree with this at all. Putting separate costs for heroes and heroic abilities are about as far from homebrewing rules as it gets. It's literally no different than putting separate costs for weapon options, totems or command groups. In addition, it simply doesn't make any sense to force players to pay for the command abilities of all their heroes, even though they will only be able to use one due to only having one general. That would just make heroes useless in comparison to other options. Not good game design.

If command abilities are being factored into the price cost of a hero then its fair to say that it has been miscalculated if there not the general or there isnt a way to use the abilities any way.

Reposting from the other thread:

Smellingsalts wrote:
If we are truly trying to make the PPC universal, so that it becomes the accepted set of tournament rules (like E.T.C), then we must change only what is absolutely necessary. If the Stormcasts have a high point cost because of all their cool special abilities, or if a Hero has command abilities that make him cost more, then I think that is one of the agonizing choices one will have to make when designing a tournament list. The more that the PPC becomes a set of home brew rules that alter the rules based on what one faction prefers rather than rules as written, the less people will use it.

What you say has a great deal of merit but is also not the be-all-end-all of PPC. Keep in mind we could tone down the rule changes to literally nothing, even leaving summoning as it is and costing wizards to compensate. That wouldn't be very popular. The strength of PPC is a stronger balance than other comp systems have provided; we could simplify it at the cost of balance but Azyr comp already has that niche covered. With some changes I'm split (like screening) but with command abilities I am less so. Simply put, if we don't separate them then we must price assuming the command ability is being used, meaning models with strong command abilities are now unbalanced as anything but the army general. If we separate it there is a (very small) degree of complexity added, but now we provide a balanced option for that model as the general and not as the general. This flexibility is not something other comp systems provide, and we already have it in regards to command groups, weapon upgrades, etc. Further, there really wasn't a rule change at all since the ability still works the same way; it is simply either present or not present.

As for Battalions, the more I look at them, the more I feel like this was an attempt by GW to give a framework for army building. I think they were meant to be used Battalion vs Battalion with no other models beyond what comes in the Battalion. If you point caost the Battalion, I have a bunch of other questions. If I enter a tournament in which the points I am given exceed the cost of the Battalion, are the extra models in my army also part of the Battalion? If not, why not? If I pay for a Battalion (for it's rules), will the cost for the Battalion take into account other models in the army (if Battalion rules are applied to the whole army, not just what is in the Battalion)? If we say that Battalion rules only apply to models listed in the Battalion, have we just made up a rule that didn't exist previously, as no more models than what's in the Battalion are assumed? This could be a sticky wicket.

It seems to me like all of your questions relate to what models are included in a Battalion. They are good questions, but I don't know of a single battalion that doesn't specify its benefits only applying to models of that battalion. Everything I have read says "models in this battalion..." are there ones that don't?

Why not simply phrase it like this

"This model costs X points, or Y points if it is your general"

Seems simple enough. No need to take away or purchase abilities.

 Mymearan wrote:
Why not simply phrase it like this

"This model costs X points, or Y points if it is your general"

Seems simple enough. No need to take away or purchase abilities.

There are problems with that, mainly in the shape of using generals such as Archaon or HE Prince on Dragon that allow other heroes to use their own abilities. The strength of Archaons command ability depends 100% on the strength of the other command abilities present in the army. That would make it very hard to put a cost on using Archaon as general. Most likely the cost would be set assuming the army contains a certain number of other command abilities, and would then be balanced only for battles of certain sizes. Let's say that a 2000 point army has on average 5 heroes, and that the cost of Archaon i based on that. Then Archaon will only be balanced for 2000 point battles. In smaller battles, where you might only have 1-3 heroes, he will be severely underpowered, while in larger battles where you have more than 5 heroes he will be overpowered. It would be possible to have his cost scale with army size, but then we are reaching an unnecessary complexity of army design that will put people off. Associating the cost with the command ability instead circumvents the problem, because then the prize for Archaons ability would be rather low, but to use it effectively you would have to buy command abilities for the other heroes in your army as well.

I don't know. I just don't see the drawback. It's not about modifying or changing rules, it's about adding options to enable fair unit costs. If these options are not added, then all heroes with command abilities that are not used as generals will not have a fair cost. Which will essentially create a system where a lot of heroes are simply not viable. There's no way around that.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Further, there really wasn't a rule change at all since the ability still works the same way; it is simply either present or not present.

I might add that it is already present or not present on the board - it's just a question of whether the option of having it not present in the army list exists.

Hi all:

Okay, in response to Attila regarding screening, I thought the idea behind screening was to add some kind of real world physics to the game. But in the real world, if you are getting a bonus to defense based on difficulty seeing you, and I shoot you with a weapon that doesn't need to see you, then logically you shouldn't get a screening bonus. On the other hand, if you are adding the rule because you think Heroes will get picked off and killed without it, well that just has not been my experience. I can only report on things I have seen and I have not yet seen a reason for screening. Perhaps if someone reading this thread can write about several battles where shooting was so intense that screening was necessary. Everyone who is on the pro-screening side of the argument, maybe some battle descriptions where it was really needed would help. I'm not talking about theory hammer, I'm talking about games you actually watched and/or played where you felt not having screening penalized the losing player.

In response to Solaris regarding separate costs for Command Abilities. In my opinion, Command Abilities are absolutely not like weapon choices and unit upgrades. All of those are listed as options. Possessing a Command Ability is mandatory. You always get it. It is not an option. Further, I believe tournaments are all about list construction and making tough choices. Do you take that cool Hero, even though he might cost more because of Command Abilities you won't be able to use? Or do you go with a more cost effective choice? This is also a way to moderate Lord level characters and steer players towards taking smaller, more cost effective Heroes.

In response to Ninth regarding Command Abilities. I really feel that if a player really wants to be a power gamer and pile on Lord level Hero (and by this I mean Greater Demons, characters riding monsters, characters that are monsters, gods like Nagash, etc.) after Lord level Hero, the fact that he is paying for a bunch of Command Abilities he can't use is a disincentive to this behavior, and I for one do not enjoy playing players that do this in or out of tournaments.

In response to Ninth regarding Battalions, I feel that the rules for Battalions are not really clear. Mainly, I am not sure whether one group of models can satisfy the requirements of two or more battalions. Can one Mighty Lord of Khorne satisfy the requirements for both the Goretide Warband and the Vengeful SkullHunt, for instance?

I would in full disclosure, add that I am a game store owner and I am looking for a balancing system for AOS units, not a set of rules to change it into something else.I really don't care about making the game play differently. In games I play with people that I have been playing with for years, we can add/make up any rules we please. But when you run a store league or a tournament, your pool of players is diverse and I just feel that you should keep rules as written as much as possible. In this spirit, I have read hundreds of reviews and the most common problems cited are unit balance, measuring base to base (most advocate it), summoning, stacking abilities, and failing on a roll of 1 (most want it). Beyond that, I am not interested in rules changes. If the PPC includes a bunch of other rules, then when I run a tournament, I have to write my guidelines like this, " Use the point cost for Warscrolls as listed in the PPC. Use the following rules......, don't use the following rules.....". Hey here is an idea that just occurred to me. What if you just letter all of the rules that are major deviations from rules as written and label them optional. Then, all I would have to do is say,"Use the PPC and the following optional rules: A, C, and F." Best of both worlds guys! Cheers!

Smellingsalts wrote:
Hi all:

Okay, in response to Attila regarding screening, I thought the idea behind screening was to add some kind of real world physics to the game. But in the real world, if you are getting a bonus to defense based on difficulty seeing you, and I shoot you with a weapon that doesn't need to see you, then logically you shouldn't get a screening bonus. On the other hand, if you are adding the rule because you think Heroes will get picked off and killed without it, well that just has not been my experience. I can only report on things I have seen and I have not yet seen a reason for screening. Perhaps if someone reading this thread can write about several battles where shooting was so intense that screening was necessary. Everyone who is on the pro-screening side of the argument, maybe some battle descriptions where it was really needed would help. I'm not talking about theory hammer, I'm talking about games you actually watched and/or played where you felt not having screening penalized the losing player.

For me its not about physics or real lif at all, but to ensure models such as grudge throwers, trebuchets, and even sometimes archers dont need to be priced higher because there is no hiding from them. I have bee on the recieving end of a treb too many times where I just felt it was unbalanced. Sure, it can all be solved by raising costs instead, but that would also limit their uses in smaller games where they would work better if screening is allowed. But I too want to keep rules changes to a minimum, so screening is a tough choice, now that we will slim the PPC Comp by removing shooting penalties in melee.


In response to Ninth regarding Battalions, I feel that the rules for Battalions are not really clear. Mainly, I am not sure whether one group of models can satisfy the requirements of two or more battalions. Can one Mighty Lord of Khorne satisfy the requirements for both the Goretide Warband and the Vengeful SkullHunt, for instance?

Maybe it doesn't say anywhere in the AoS rules (can't check right now) but since the very same thing exists in 40k I'd say its safe to assume it works the same way. You need to have exactly the units listed in the Battalion, and any units in it only count towards tha batallion. One model cannot belong to two battalions, and neither can a model not specifically belonging to a battalion benefit from its bonuses.


I would in full disclosure, add that I am a game store owner and I am looking for a balancing system for AOS units, not a set of rules to change it into something else.I really don't care about making the game play differently. In games I play with people that I have been playing with for years, we can add/make up any rules we please. But when you run a store league or a tournament, your pool of players is diverse and I just feel that you should keep rules as written as much as possible. In this spirit, I have read hundreds of reviews and the most common problems cited are unit balance, measuring base to base (most advocate it), summoning, stacking abilities, and failing on a roll of 1 (most want it). Beyond that, I am not interested in rules changes. If the PPC includes a bunch of other rules, then when I run a tournament, I have to write my guidelines like this, " Use the point cost for Warscrolls as listed in the PPC. Use the following rules......, don't use the following rules.....". Hey here is an idea that just occurred to me. What if you just letter all of the rules that are major deviations from rules as written and label them optional. Then, all I would have to do is say,"Use the PPC and the following optional rules: A, C, and F." Best of both worlds guys! Cheers!

And we truly appreciate your feedback, especially when we do not always agree since that helps the development alot.
I can number the rules in the PPC for ease indeed!

To Smellingsalts regarding screening; personally I don't advocate for it because heroes are easily picked off, and I'm not sure anyone here is. I advocate for it because it adds tactical options, some semblance of realism, and perhaps more importantly makes shooters easier to balance since it reduces the spread of performance. But I also think this is where your argument for rules simplicity is very strong, because this is an extra rule and is one where things can be made balanced without it. Regardless, numbering the rules is a very good idea.

tournaments are all about list construction and making tough choices

That's true, but the problem we are seeing isn't tough choices, its not having them. The Sea Helm example, for instance. You will take him as the general or not at all. There isn't a tough choice to be made since he simply is not cost effective without being able to use his command ability. The argument about stacking powerful heroes is somewhat irrelevant since many powerful heroes have relatively crappy command abilities (GUO -.-) or even none at all (Skarbrand), while some cheaper heroes have really good command abilities (Orc Warboss). Using the latter example, say I want to pad out my Orc force with some extra heroes for combat punch in a tournament; I will never use an Orc warboss because without the command ability he will be hugely overcosted. Its not a tough choice at all. Now if I could take said warboss without the command ability, then I would have to choose between more of those or other heroes that may or may not do the job better. Having command abilities separate adds choice that was simply not present before.

For reference to everyone (ok maybe mostly me) so we don't have to keep looking these up;

Sea Helm command ability: Target Highborn within 16" cant move or charge this turn but re-rolls hits, wounds, and saves until your next hero phase.

Great Unclean One command ability: Nurgle Daemons that roll a 7 to charge this turn get +1 attack on each of their weapons in the ensuing combat phase.

Orc Warboss command ability: All Orruk units from your army within 12" get +1 attack with each of their weapons in the ensuing combat phase.

I feel that the rules for Battalions are not really clear. Mainly, I am not sure whether one group of models can satisfy the requirements of two or more battalions. Can one Mighty Lord of Khorne satisfy the requirements for both the Goretide Warband and the Vengeful SkullHunt, for instance?

The rules aren't clear, that's for sure. That said, I'm pretty certain that models can't satisfy the requirements for more than one battalion because otherwise there is nothing to stop me from taking forty thousand copies of the same battalion and having the given models satisfy the requirements for all of them. But it might be worth just defining in the PPC that the assumption is made that a given unit can only be counted for membership of one battalion warscroll, and similarly a given battalion can only be counted for membership of one multi-battalion warscroll.

I still feel that separating Command Abilities from Heroes is the same as making up new Warscrolls and does not belong in the body of the PPC rules, but perhaps as an optional rule it could work. I for one would never allow a Hero without his Command Ability in any tournament I run for the same reason that I would not allow a Warscroll a player made up at home in the tournament. That is really straying from the path and I would urge the PPC not to incorporate it as official. It sucks, but I think the other armies are just going to have to wait their turn and then I am sure they will get a plethora of characters, just as the Stormcasts and Bloodbound did.

Smellingsalts wrote:

In response to Solaris regarding separate costs for Command Abilities. In my opinion, Command Abilities are absolutely not like weapon choices and unit upgrades. All of those are listed as options. Possessing a Command Ability is mandatory. You always get it. It is not an option. Further, I believe tournaments are all about list construction and making tough choices. Do you take that cool Hero, even though he might cost more because of Command Abilities you won't be able to use? Or do you go with a more cost effective choice? This is also a way to moderate Lord level characters and steer players towards taking smaller, more cost effective Heroes.

In response to Ninth regarding Command Abilities. I really feel that if a player really wants to be a power gamer and pile on Lord level Hero (and by this I mean Greater Demons, characters riding monsters, characters that are monsters, gods like Nagash, etc.) after Lord level Hero, the fact that he is paying for a bunch of Command Abilities he can't use is a disincentive to this behavior, and I for one do not enjoy playing players that do this in or out of tournaments.

I think that the best way to prevent lord stacking is through force organization. In a 2000 point battle, you already cannot bring Nagash due to him costing more than 50% of your alotted points. In addition, by setting points costs for other units well, lord stacking simply won't be an effective strategy.

I agree with you that at least part of tournament play is list building. But for that to be the case, there needs to be options - if there are no options, then all lists from the same faction in a tournament will look the same. Lord level characters are not the ones that will suffer in your preferred system, hero level characters with command abilities will. Ninth has already given some examples of that, so I'll just add some reasoning to it. The Sea Helm, for example, has a really crappy profile. Without a totem or command ability, he's worth maybe 40-50 points in my opinion - basically a glorified unit champion. With his totem (+1 to wound for all highborn within 8", and all sea guard within 16") his strength shoots through the roof, and he's easily worth 80-90 pts. His command ability is also strong, and probably worth 20 pts more. So then we end up with a hero level character that in your system costs 20 pts too much if he's not your general. That's about 20% too much. He's never going to be used. And there are other heroes like him, heroes that would be cool and flavourful to use as supporting characters for your infantry blocks (I think it would be cool to throw in a cheap Sea Helm for 40 pts and just let him run together with a Sea Guard unit, to add a tiny bit of punch and a lot of flavour to the unit). But in your system that doesn't exist. It's general or bust. The 20 point price difference is quite harsh for weak hero level characters like the Sea Helm (+20% cost), but paying 20 pts extra for a lord level characters is not nearly as big a problem. You can easily take a Mortarch and pay 20 pts extra - that's only a 3-4% price increase, so it's not nearly as big a problem. So your suggestion doesn't penalize lord level characters nearly the same as it penalizes hero level characters.

Hey all,
Any word on a ETA for skarbrand points?

I'm really liking Smellingsalt's idea of numbering the rules. I'm thinking of something where every modification has a number with a note at the top saying points are based on the following rules being in play, but feel free to customize. 1 could be base2base measurement with 2 being auto-fail 1's since those are both simple and unlikely to have a lot of disagreement, followed by 3 for summoning, 4 for screening, and 5 for command abilities. The screening rule could even say something simple along the lines of "if screening is not used, add +1 ppm to all non-hero units with a shooting attack, or +2 if the models have 3 wounds each or more" to help balance for people who want to play without it.

Smellingsalts wrote:
Hey all,
Any word on a ETA for skarbrand points?

ETA is today, as a blog post, with the rest of Daemons update to 0.6 following tomorrow.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm really liking Smellingsalt's idea of numbering the rules. I'm thinking of something where every modification has a number with a note at the top saying points are based on the following rules being in play, but feel free to customize. 1 could be base2base measurement with 2 being auto-fail 1's since those are both simple and unlikely to have a lot of disagreement, followed by 3 for summoning, 4 for screening, and 5 for command abilities. The screening rule could even say something simple along the lines of "if screening is not used, add +1 ppm to all non-hero units with a shooting attack, or +2 if the models have 3 wounds each or more" to help balance for people who want to play without it.

I honestly don't see the point of this. If this was implemented, we would suddenly have 3-4 different systems to try and balance, rather than 1 unified system. Wouldn't it be better to keep rule changes as bare bones as possible, and use points costs to achieve balance? Then everyone can just add house rules for screening and so on as they see fit, whereas the official PPC only remedies things that break the game (summoning for instance).

Solaris, I'm with you, but it seems that some people feel very strongly that changes to the game should be made based on preference rather than need. Without advocates of a more conservative "rules as written" approach posting so that it becomes obvious that changing the rules should be kept to a minimum, the best we can hope for is a bare bones set of rules with an "optional rules" appendix. At this point in the development of the game there are hundreds of people working on balancing systems, either successfully (with points) or still trying to fit a square peg in a round hole (Warscrolls and wound counts). One of them will eventually break out and it will be the most balanced system with the fewest changes to the "rules as written". I really appreciate all of the hard work that Attila and the others have done on the PPC and I am a huge advocate of the system. But the more it deviates from the rules, the less likely it will break out from the pack and become universally referenced. I know for a fact that the lfgs down the street from me knows about the PPC and is doing their own rules anyway. Why do you think that is? Either they think they can balance it better (hard to believe as they have not playtested it) or there is something in the PPC rules that they did not like. Individuals and stores can always add the things they like to a system, but once something is made part of the official rules, it is hard to subtract. I am going to be in charge of the AOS for the Broadside Bash in San Diego and right now I think PPC is the system I am going to use, as long as I can keep it as close to "rules as written" as possible. I have been to a lot of tournaments, both as an organizer and a player. If you change a game rule you are without a doubt going to get poor sportsmen who will whine about the change you made to all who will listen. But if you stick to the rules, then they can just vent their anger on GW and not your event!

Smellingsalts wrote:
If you change a game rule you are without a doubt going to get poor sportsmen who will whine about the change you made to all who will listen. But if you stick to the rules, then they can just vent their anger on GW and not your event!

This is a really, really good point. Enough for me to cast my vote in favor of no screening.

Anyways, I think I did a poor job communicating what I meant to say. I wasn't arguing in favor of screening (just giving an example of it since it is currently included), and I wasn't suggesting a modular system. Instead, just number/categorize all the rules (much like they are already) that are used in PPC so people can easily say "lets play PPC but without rule 4" or "this tournament uses PPC, but only rules 1-3" while everything is still balanced based on all the rules being present. The +x ppm thing was an idea on giving people guidelines if they choose to omit a given rule but on second thought it doesn't really add much.

After having read all opinions and done alot of thinking about Screening myself, I will talk to the rest of the group next time we meet. It will probably go away, as PPC aim for as few changes to the rules as possible - and Screening does change the game. In my personal view both screening and -1 hit to shoot in melee are very good addons that brings tactical decisions to the game, but since they are not originally part of AoS and we can balance cost without them, there is no need for them. Time will tell, but maybe its just as easy as lowering cost for heroes and increasing for ranged. Or maybe the cost works out anyway. We'll see.

So for future games of PPC, please play without screening and let me know (in the points thread) how ranged units do with their current cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now that I am closing in on finishing the v0.6 update of Daemons of Chaos, I have a suggestion I'd like some input on.

As of now, you purchase one of a few summoning spells for one of your wizards. Each spell succeeds on a set value and summons a set points value accordingly. I'd like to combine these spells into just one with a variable casting value. So, each time you cast the spell, you select how difficult it will be to cast and depending on your choice you get a number of points to summon.

So there would for example only be "The Grand Invocation" that has a casting value of 7/8/9/10 and summons 100/130/150/200 pts of models. I think this would be a way to make the summoning more flexible and easier to use, but is there any negative side to this in your opinions?

Cheers!

I like that, since then higher values are more difficult to get off anyway it becomes risk vs reward.

I have been very depressed today, and I don't really know what to do about it. I am the sponsor of the biggest GW tournament in San Diego, called the Broadside Bash. In previous years I have not been a part of the actual running of the tournament, but this year was different. With the death of WFB and the advent of AOS, there was a question about what to do at the Broadside Bash. 3 out of 5 of us have joined the crowed that have registered their anger by switching to Kings of War. In addition, the founders of the Broadside Bash are friendly with the guys at Frontline. Frontline are the designated representatives for the West Coast Masters Tournaments, the largest being the Las Vegas Open. The members of the Masters Tournament voted to replace WFB with KOW. Basically, the entire structure of tournaments that once supported WFB coast to coast have moved to KOW. Now I convinced my friends to stick with GW, that I could use the PPC to run a successful AOS tournament. I have been advocating for AOS across Dakka Dakka. But even on threads where fans of AOS gather to talk about it, I am bombarded by people trolling AOS and pushing KOW. It made me second guess myself. I gave GW a call and talked to my contact there. Here are the things he basically said. First, GW is a miniatures company. They are not really interested in designing games. GW doesn't care if KOW is successful, even over AOS. As long as people buy their figs they are fine with it. When AOS first came out, my GW rep said that the US trade team was called into a meeting where they were told AOS would be for tournament players as well as casual. With all of the hype going on I went ahead and bought into AOS. Now that I have, my contact at GW says that AOS is for the casual crowd. If tournament rules are created by players, great, but they aren't going to do it. Nor are they going to support the tournament scene, or help those of us who are. In fact, I was told that at GW HQ it's all about Tau right now and I should get ready for a whole lot of 40K. So my friends are choosing KOW over AOS. The tournament scene is doing the same. GW does not care and can't be bothered to support the retailers who bought into AOS, they made a quick buck off of us. I will continue to play AOS, but for the good of the Broadside Bash I may have to switch to KOW, and that sucks. Really, the worst part about it was the way GW just pivoted from AOS to 40K and is leaving it to founder until after the new year. I know this is a thread about PPC Comp. I guess this fits in under the subset, should we even keep trying?

That sounds pretty bad there smellingsalts, I can tell that you're venting. Did he say anything about prize support etc? Didn't you write in the other thread that you did get such support from GW? Or was that someone else? About the 40k stuff, that's expected. They have two games to support and it's been all AoS since July, which has left the 40k players out in the cold and chomping at the bit for new stuff. We don't know that it'll be 40k only until the new year, could be AoS again in November or December. But obviously there will be new AoS stuff later, and a lot of it. I don't think all they wanted was a "quick buck", or they wouldn't have made such a huge commitment to AoS!

Yeah, I understand your frustration Smellingsalts, but I agree with Mymearan. They made a huge commitment by even creating AoS in the first place, and from what I've heard, AoS is selling way better than WHFB did the last 5-10 years. They're not going to haphazardly abandon it.

As for game design, I'm actually happy that they've taken a step back and not tried to balance the game. Because historically, they have been crap at it anyway. I've been deterred from playing the last couple of WHFB editions because they simply weren't fun to play for me. They didn't scale well between different army sizes, they contained too much overpowered bs magic that could end the game on turn one, army books were blatantly imbalanced depending on who had written them, etc etc... Now, for the first time, we actually have the opportunity to do it ourselves! It's awesome Don't despair, it's fine if it starts off small. As long as we design a system that is fun to play, it will grow on people. And heck, even if it doesn't, then we still have a fun game to play!

I understand why the competitive scene switched to KoW; it is the same type of game as WHFB while AoS is not. AoS is certainly a casual skirmish game and no comp is really going to change that, but if we make it balanced at least there can be tournaments. They won't be prestigious and shouldn't be highly structured, but I believe AoS players will be much more receptive (and even prefer) more narrative or scenario-driven tournaments. Something like playing within a certain realm adds global rules that seriously change the meta; in a WHFB or WMH tournament players would grumble about that but in AoS I think even those same players would be happy to roll dice and have fun. Because neither style is right or wrong and despite internet extremism most people know that on some level.

In short, it doesn't have to be AoS or KoW, especially because they aren't even the same type of wargame. AoS probably won't be as successful in terms of formal events but lets not forget that fast food chains outsell full service restaurants.

I guess I am most upset about the way GW is supporting AOS. With WFB in the beginning, they ran Grand Tournaments, they advertised independent store events in White Dwarf, they had Rogue Trader tournament packets that stores could purchase to hype their events (and they included trophies). They had Outriders that went to conventions and traveled to obscure locations to do in store demos. The power of their games didn't just appear over night. They worked at it. At some point they decided that the fans were running it on it's own and gave up control to the fans. The problem is now those fans are angry and they are voting with their loyalty and switching to KOW. The entire infrastructure that GW created is shifting. It took GW 20 years of effort to create it and they are just letting it go. I don't feel that I alone have the resources to create the infrastructure. To a certain extent the internet can connect people, but it can't focus them. For instance, I choose to promote PPC in my area and run AOS, but someone else does the same but goes with Gates of Azeyr for his balancing tool. Another guy runs an AOS tournament, but uses the comp rules from GW World. None of us know about each other. We can't decide on which comp tool to use. GW will supply prizes, but that's it. No help with advertising, no tournament packs, hell, GW is even against what we are doing because they're saying AOS is for casual play. Meanwhile Mantic is doing all of the above and they have taken the infrastructure. There is some hope. GW could change it mind, but it takes months if not years to put programs in place. The US Masters are going with KOW, but in Europe, the ETC are going with their own creation, Warhammer Fantasy 9th Edition. So their scene is also fractured and there will not be a "World" competition. GW's attitude just sucks. And there isn't even a way to contact them to tell them.

I've read about your feelings, and I can agree with them - GW have a true chance at creating something really good with AoS, but need to make sure they don't lose it to KoW or other good games by making bad decisions and not communicating! My own group also got close to KoW before we decided on AoS, and we are people who have enjoyed Warhammer for a long time!

But I believe that in time, AoS will grow a healthy community as well!

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And now something different:

I'm thinking about making a PPC version of a FAQ, would this be of interest? I don't mean me and my own judging rules, but instead trying to summarize what the community seems to agree on, as well as things we can discuss here on this thread. That way we can together create a PPC that deals with many of the question that often arises.

So a listing of which community rules PPC costs by? That would be a good thing to include. On a similar note, I was wondering about if the Soul Grinder's caught by the claw ability is considered to go off automatically (because its a 'silly rule') or if it's priced off a 1/6 chance (chance of doubles on 2d6). I assume the latter but want to make sure.

On a different note, I thought of an alternate way to do scaling point cost units; break them into multiple entries. Using Plaguebearers as an example, they would have a 'regiment' of 10 that can add models for 8ppm but has a maximum size of 20. Then a second entry would be a 'horde' that comes as 20 and can add models for 12ppm with max. What do you guys think?

Question; does the PPC use sudden death rules? It seems like those were GW's (utterly failed) attempt at bringing some semblance of balance, which isn't needed since that is the entire -point- of PPC (c wut i did dere?). But my local league gets rid of them anyway, so I never actually thought to ask.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So a listing of which community rules PPC costs by? That would be a good thing to include. On a similar note, I was wondering about if the Soul Grinder's caught by the claw ability is considered to go off automatically (because its a 'silly rule') or if it's priced off a 1/6 chance (chance of doubles on 2d6). I assume the latter but want to make sure.

On a different note, I thought of an alternate way to do scaling point cost units; break them into multiple entries. Using Plaguebearers as an example, they would have a 'regiment' of 10 that can add models for 8ppm but has a maximum size of 20. Then a second entry would be a 'horde' that comes as 20 and can add models for 12ppm with max. What do you guys think?

The Soul Grinder has a 1/6 chance. I'd say the silly rules only apply to non-chance rules that requires you as a player to be or do something special to achieve the result.

The breaking of scaling points could well be an idea. Maybe it's possible to combine the current system with the one you say, so the entry reads as a min-max unit and an associated cost/model. I'll think about that one.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Question; does the PPC use sudden death rules? It seems like those were GW's (utterly failed) attempt at bringing some semblance of balance, which isn't needed since that is the entire -point- of PPC (c wut i did dere?). But my local league gets rid of them anyway, so I never actually thought to ask.

Well, "officially", the PPC has its own set of scenarios, neither which uses the Sudden Death. As you say, its the GW way of trying to balance things out and it just doesn't work...maybe even less so when using points costs as well.
We will begin creating some better scenarios to use soon, that's not as static as the current ones. Feel free to chime in with scenario ideas!

I think an assassination/banner seize scenario would be cool. Something like normal victory points, but generals and standard bearers are worth more. Also one or more 'lopsided' scenarios where each side is balanced but not identical (like an attacker-defender situation) would be nice to see. Potentially have more exotic scenarios set in a given realm, though that may need to wait for more realm rules to come out. Anything that makes use of certain terrain features (those with warscrolls) would be cool to include as well.

How do you guys think about removing the Warmachine/Monster limitation?

We've started to feel that it's not really filling a function - as long as the units are properly costed and the Engineer type units can not be abused for warmachines, you should have the freedom of creating your army as you wish. Would it be abuseable if we removed this non-RAW limitation, and how?