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I would be interested to hear exactly how it does not go against modern game design.

It goes against modern game design in that there are no points, no army composition rules, and that it relies on agreements with your opponent (in effect a cooperative game where modern game design would have made it a competitive game) to succeed.

auticus wrote:
I would be interested to hear exactly how it does not go against modern game design.

It goes against modern game design in that there are no points, no army composition rules, and that it relies on agreements with your opponent (in effect a cooperative game where modern game design would have made it a competitive game) to succeed.

thats not unique or new, many mini games of the past have done that as well, granted most of them are failures or not mainstream. The problem with the agreements mentality is you cant play a basic pick up game without alot of it at the beginning. It seems that AoS was not meant to expand the hobby at all, it felt to me like a game where if you already had a regular group you were ok, since you all knew each other and got along anyhow.

auticus wrote:
I would be interested to hear exactly how it does not go against modern game design.

It goes against modern game design in that there are no points, no army composition rules, and that it relies on agreements with your opponent (in effect a cooperative game where modern game design would have made it a competitive game) to succeed.

Very like Little Wars, published 1913.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that approach, it has a long tried and trusted place in wargame history.

auticus wrote:
I would be interested to hear exactly how it does not go against modern game design.

It goes against modern game design in that there are no points, no army composition rules, and that it relies on agreements with your opponent (in effect a cooperative game where modern game design would have made it a competitive game) to succeed.

The way things are defined is important, because it sets a tone and opens for specific interpretations.

Just saying that AoS is "against modern design" could suggest that AoS is so avant-garde that defies modern design (and dumb, conservative gamers do not understand its genius), or has some warm old-school feel. This is just too much generous with something designed is such a lazy, cost-cutting, dishonest way.

Better use instead a more fitting definition: that is an unpolished, unfinished t**d.

in effect a cooperative game where modern game design would have made it a competitive game

Co-op games are actually a pretty popular game style, competitive is probably the oldest style of game and two a penny. Introducing coop is arguably a much more modern take on things.

Arkham horror and Pandemic being obvious examples, but there are also plenty of combined coop + competition style games as well.

RPGs are of course the ultimate coop games, but they were a direct evolution of wargames that already had army lists and points and a competitive bent, so clearly in that regard Coop is way more modern than anything you mentioned above.

What makes you describe AoS as a turd?

The game works. People enjoy it.

What do you think is wrong with it and how would you have done things differently?

Just saying that AoS is "against modern design" could suggest that AoS is so avant-garde that defies modern design (and dumb, conservative gamers do not understand its genius), or has some warm old-school feel. This is just too much generous with something designed is such a lazy, cost-cutting, dishonest way.

Wasn't my intent at all. People don't like change first and foremost. Gamers expect modern game design.

They expect points. They expect pick up game friendly. They expect world wide tournament support. They expect prizes. They expect rankings. They expect rules that should have no house rules.

AOS goes against all of these things. It was going to have an uphill struggle even if the rules weren't so ambiguous.

Points aren't modern design either. They were introduced at least as early as WRG Ancients in 1969.

RPGs are of course the ultimate coop games, but they were a direct evolution of wargames that already had army lists and points and a competitive bent, so clearly in that regard Coop is way more modern than anything you mentioned above.

I'm not aware of a coooperative tabletop wargame. All of the coop games I know of don't have you vs your friends, you are on the same side as your friends in those games against a game master.




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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Points aren't modern design either. They were introduced at least as early as WRG Ancients in 1969.

Perhaps. But when I started playing, Points weren't used until 1995. I went from 1989 - 1995 without ever using points. From 1995 on... always points.

Points are expected now. Thats what I mean by modern design. Modern design would always use points today.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What makes you describe AoS as a turd?

The game works. People enjoy it.

What do you think is wrong with it and how would you have done things differently?

People invested a lot in WH miniatures so of course they cannot accept that GW tried to milk them expanding WH as much as possible and then, when it finally collapsed, GW is now selling them this new product designed with zero effort. "Look! no points! you will not suffer anymore the imbalances we created! no rules to restrain buying our models... I mean having FUN!"

"people enjoy it" is not an argument for quality. Can be an argument for success, but people enjoy objectively bad stuff. Look the success of Michael Bay Transformers.

Personally, when the first glimpses of AoS were available, I was negatively surprised by the warcraft-esque models, but I was looking forward the rules because I expected something like the Lotr SBG. I am actually shocked by the fact that GW did not use that as a framework.

Lotr SBG is a skirmish, but has ways to field armies that use formations* of some sort - you use pikes, shieldwalls and move the minis in base of that.
And, thanks to the warband system and the good/evil factions, you have enough freedom in the choice of the army, but with a minimum of coherence.
If you want an hero army there are ways and the very framework of the game allows fielding monsters without breaking the game in half (compare, instead, LoW in 40k and the impact they had on the game).
Scenarios are well made and the fantastic background allows for custom ones. Designers created specific ones related to the story, with guidelines. Point cost is reasonable, especially for basic infantry.
Stats of the models interacted with the stats of enemy models: feels different for an Uruk-hai to fight a Rohirrim or to fight an Elf.

So I was expecting a similar game with similar sweet spot in balance, structure, gameplay, background. I mean, is the same company. If you want to be lazy, use something you already have and know that works. If you focus on few models, such hero centric system is fantastic. I was optimistic.

I was wrong. What we had was a sorry mess without any structure. The rules (no model stats interaction, shoot in melee) kill immersion; the lack of framework does not bring to an idea of structured army and kills the will of collecting. The lack of constraints kill a fast pickup game, a common ground between foreigners. There is not a single thing i can defend of AoS (except the gaunt summoner, did I already say that is awesome?).


* not in the 40k sense of course



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auticus wrote:

Just saying that AoS is "against modern design" could suggest that AoS is so avant-garde that defies modern design (and dumb, conservative gamers do not understand its genius), or has some warm old-school feel. This is just too much generous with something designed is such a lazy, cost-cutting, dishonest way.

Wasn't my intent at all. People don't like change first and foremost. Gamers expect modern game design.

They expect points. They expect pick up game friendly. They expect world wide tournament support. They expect prizes. They expect rankings. They expect rules that should have no house rules.

AOS goes against all of these things. It was going to have an uphill struggle even if the rules weren't so ambiguous.

I agree 100% with you then. Sorry for the tone (and I had to apologise even if we did NOT agree, of course).

No worries

In the 80's we sometimes used points, sometimes didn't. In the 90's, we always used points. I'm not sure that the battles were anymore balanced in the 90's with points. The armies had the appearance of potentially being balanced, but there were always figures that were more efficient for their points cost, and less efficient for their points cost. You would see people bringing powerful ability troops with a flaw, because the powerful ability overcame the flaw (i.e. pikemen without armor in a game where pikemen never lose in melee, why spend points on armor?), Trolls with low experience (what do regenerating trolls need experience for?), etc.

Kaiyanwang wrote:

"people enjoy it" is not an argument for quality. Can be an argument for success, but people enjoy objectively bad stuff. Look the success of Michael Bay Transformers.

This would all just be subjectivity. You don't like it, you think something's bad, but obviously the people who like it don't think it's bad. Everyone growing up tends to malign this about the world, "Why does that terrible music top the charts when my underground favourite band can't even pay its bills?" But the world is more nuanced than that, and playing the superiority in taste card is naive in my opinion.

What you think is bad about Transformers, other people may find charming about it. I've never seen the movies myself. Lots of people like "bad" shows or music for many reasons, including the same reasons someone else thinks it's bad.

I would say "people enjoy it" is the fundamental argument for quality. You can make the most well-designed whatever, but if people don't like it, it's worthless. You might hate that some seemingly simplistic competitor's version is wildly popular, but they've done something that you couldn't do. The fact you can't figure out what that is doesn't make it "objectively" bad.

I can't think of anyone who thought Transformers was good; most people enjoyed it, but the consensus was it was a bad movie. Which is fine.

Movies and games can be objectively bad; you can count the number of plotholes, or violations of golden rules of design, or number of mistakes, or number of vague rules etc.

For AoS you could also look at the number of people who play the game as written, and even of those, how many actually do.

That there were 2 fan comps in progress within hours of the AoS launch indicates that enough people thought it was too bad to use as is.

Even the AoS fans on the whole seem to feel that it's a bad game, and needs some minor (or major) tweaks. Most of the AoS fans also seem to think that the fluff is pretty terrible (and the fluff is objectively bad, it's shallow, repetitive, value, and absoultely terribly written).

Just for the record then, I play the game as written and really enjoy the fluff and the continued progress into the eight realms.

If I'm feeling particularly competitive then I'll use the Azyr comp but otherwise it's scenarios and fun.

Back to the topic at hand, I would've brought the story of AoS back to the point where the Mortal realms were beating back the forces of chaos and went from there. Lots of unexplored territory with the kingdoms that still stood, the aelves searching for their lost kin and Nagash's betrayal.

(Hopefully GW will make some fun sidegames for those moments.)

I know that this has been beaten to death but... with the current landscape of miniature games, are you sure that if AoS was not for GW, would you have started playing it? IMHO, it would have been laughed into obscurity soon. The whole thing seems like a big catastrophe of marketing associated with underpaid designers (or the studio losing talents. Or people fired and not substituted properly. Or the same talented people but less in number. With more tasks and growing tired and/or disenfranchised).

Why everything must be adjusted to the lowest common denominator? I hear people saying "is simple, is good for kids" but I was actually more strict and demanding as a kid because I had not money to waste and my wishes were limited. I wanted stuff with long re-playing potential. And as a (hopefully) future parent, I want to buy for my kids something with taste, well designed and that can stimulate them Intellectually. A point based game teaches how to work under a framework, under restraint. Among other things, points are educative. As if a game that encourage choices on the field. I charge so I shut down enemy shooting. Stuff like this.

My question is: does GW deserves to be rewarded for this? Mind it, is kind of hypocritical from my part, because I buy GW products* for other games that satisfy me

* but I am leaning toward Ebay more and more with the secondary, explicit intent of not giving GW money. What brought me to Ebay? OOP lotr models. I would have preferred to buy from them excellent small scale orcs from the Perry than the bloated mess of the bloodgoreskullkillers.

Is it a cop out to say I wouldn't have culled the High Elf, Empire, or even Brett lines?

No, certainly not.

I'm very sad about the culling of the lines - my first Fantasy opponent was Wood Elves and my most memorable Fantasy Campaigns were against Empire and Brets.

I'm gonna go buy some of those wood elf kits if I can. I just assumed they'd always be there for me when I got around to it.

This is Squats 2, the Squattening.

Another thing I would have done differently?

Alternating unit activation. I got my first wargame-scaled taste of it with Rackham's two games of AT-43 and Confrontation: Age of Ragnorok, and good god it's fun and engaging. So tired of half my lovingly painted army be swept off the table before I can even play with them because I failed a single dice roll ten minutes ago, and waiting around for another player to make descisions for every unit in their army.

With Alternating Activations, you get to do something meaningful every other minute or so. I don't know why GW has ignored this for everything but Epic 40k. I'm only able to put up with it in Kings of War because it's such a great game.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Another thing I would have done differently?

Alternating unit activation. I got my first wargame-scaled taste of it with Rackham's two games of AT-43 and Confrontation: Age of Ragnorok, and good god it's fun and engaging. So tired of half my lovingly painted army be swept off the table before I can even play with them because I failed a single dice roll ten minutes ago, and waiting around for another player to make descisions for every unit in their army.

With Alternating Activations, you get to do something meaningful every other minute or so. I don't know why GW has ignored this for everything but Epic 40k. I'm only able to put up with it in Kings of War because it's such a great game.

This is what made chronopia so much better than warhammer fantasy.

I've never really been bothered by the IGOUGO system of 40k and WHFB, at least as long as each turn isn't absurdly long which can become a problem in games with lots of models and you move each one indivudually. Alternating activations never really did anything for me except in circumstances where it was really called for (like Aeronautica Imperialis).

I find the alternating activation is great for smaller games but bogs down a bit in bigger games as you need markers to record who ha done what and who can still react and so on. That said, AoS scale would be fine with some sort of alternate activation, but WHFB was getting too big for it.

One thing I've found about alternate (or random) activation, is that it involves paying a lot more attention; you can zone out a bit during their turn on IGOUGO.

Herzlos wrote:
Even the AoS fans on the whole seem to feel that it's a bad game, and needs some minor (or major) tweaks. Most of the AoS fans also seem to think that the fluff is pretty terrible (and the fluff is objectively bad, it's shallow, repetitive, value, and absoultely terribly written).

I like AoS. I think it is a good game. And the Age of Sigmar App is awesome! I think the fluff compares with the WHFB and WH40k fluff. Or for that matter most of the D&D fluff except the original DragonLance and Drizzt novels.

I think one of the advantages of AoS is that it is a lot easier to tweak than War Hammer Fantasy Battle was. Yes, you could have made house rules with WHFB, but we have played with more different House rules with AoS than we ever did with WHFB.

Some of the easy tweaks we have tried:
1) points or no points;
2) measure from base or model;
3) only figures that can reach fight, all figures in a unit fight.
4) various summoning approaches;
5) victory conditions
6) turn order by rolling or choice
etc.