Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

@mikhaila: You should totally make a thread about those rules.

I've already saved those rules Mik put up and sent them on to my frind with a store. He's testing them out tonight and loves them from a quick glance. He thinks it's enough to save AoS, which he hated on arrival.

Demandread wrote:
That's not really a counterpoint to a support of freedom of choice. Besides the answer is almost always $$.

Sorry, I think I misunderstood you. I thought you were advocating the removal of choices like that because there should only be the "right" option and that's it. I strongly disagree with that point of view due to personal preference. For example, I loved taking hordes of Marauders even though I knew they were overcosted and underwhelming. It just felt *wrong* to have all Chaos Warriors on foot and all Maraduer horsemen cavalry. Yes, I intentionally and knowingly handicapped myself in games but I'd rather play with an army I like than one that will undoubtedly crush almost anything.

 Kriswall wrote:
Out of curiosity... and this is mainly aimed towards mikhaila... how do you plan on handling new players who don't have a background in Fantasy or 40k and aren't used to a points system? As an example, I've shown a friend who is a big board game nut the game and he's super excited. He thoroughly enjoyed the easy to pick up rules. We're actually going to be coming up to your store next week to get him started with some models.

I'm not a big tournament guy, but I know he's into league type play. So, the general question is... how do store owners/operators handle fixed house rules? Will there be some sort of "rules supplement" available? I'm obviously interested in your store in particular, but I'm also interested in the greater community. A large number of people are obviously not happy with the current rules for army construction. Do we strive for a fixed, published document (similar to the INAT 40k FAQ), or do we make do with a series of poorly documented, store specific house rules?

I'd much rather be able to say, "Here are your 4 pages of official rules and here is your Community Update v1.2". Explaining that he'll have to learn different rules for different venues will immediately turn him off.

It's not a new problem at all. I've been running demo games and teaching people to play Warhammer for 25 years. You teach the rules, teach painting, teach putting models together. After some games with a new player you ease them into an existing league or group. Any league we've ever done has had it's own rules for scoring or scenarios, and sometimes house rules specific to that league. There is just a lot more of this to do with Age of Sigmar.

I can't strive for something like INAT. I know how much work that takes them. And how little some people appreciate that work. My current goal is to give players in my area a structure to play games. A couple of the local stores are giving some feedback to me, and whenever we have a group of gamers in I ask them for ideas or to point out problems. So hopefully I'll have a system for the local community that has a lot of feedback from that community.

What I expect will happen, is that the groups/stores/clubs that keep hammering away at things will eventually produce several good systems, and maybe one of those gets adopted by a majority of people. We'll have to see.

I'm very happy with the effort put into the PDF of the points system i linked earlier. They did a lot of work. Saved me an awful lot of work. I'll be stealing what they have, tweaking it a bit, dropping it in my system and replace wounds as points. Then hold another tournament and play a lot of games. Really hopeful for it.

 Lord Corellia wrote:

Demandread wrote:
That's not really a counterpoint to a support of freedom of choice. Besides the answer is almost always $$.

Sorry, I think I misunderstood you. I thought you were advocating the removal of choices like that because there should only be the "right" option and that's it. I strongly disagree with that point of view due to personal preference. For example, I loved taking hordes of Marauders even though I knew they were overcosted and underwhelming. It just felt *wrong* to have all Chaos Warriors on foot and all Maraduer horsemen cavalry. Yes, I intentionally and knowingly handicapped myself in games but I'd rather play with an army I like than one that will undoubtedly crush almost anything.

Misunderstandings happen. I think we are in agreement with your point.

 mikhaila wrote:

 chaosmarauder wrote:
uh what pdf?

http://www.louisvillewargaming.com/Files/AzyrComp.pdf

Really not finding this a whole lot better than going by wounds, honestly. Stormvermin are better than Clan Rats, but not twice as good as this cost would indicate. And Stormvermin and Warriors of Chaos both weighing in at 2 for 10 is really off, since WoC are superior to Stormvermin in every way except for being an inch slower.

Stormvermin vs Slaves in 8e: 7ppm vs 2 ppm; 3.5:1
Stormvermin vs Slaves in this: 2 for 10 vs 1 for 20. Roughly .2ppm vs .05ppm; 4:1

I guess relative cost stayed close to the same, but relative power is nowhere even approaching close.

2 points I can get 10 stormvermin or 3 stormfiends. 3 stormfiends have 18 wounds (more if you go CC stormfiends). They're simply more powerful and more versatile for the same cost.

I get that this isn't supposed to be hard and precise. I do. It just seems like even for narrative campaign and "loose feel" that this is really off.


I also really, really hate that practically every single army builder attempt out there wants to limit hero slots as if all heroes are equal. It completely screws with armies that needed (and still need) a bunch of cheap, weak hero models to make their other units passable. (See: Pack Masters for Moulder units)

Agreed on the limiting of hero slots.

I'm using the points system for my next tournament, but not convinced that there is a need to limit heroes, especially when so many heroes are more utility than "legendary god of battle".

But all of these attempts at rules and points systems are work towards a better system down the road. Remember that this took a lot of work. I was halfway through a similar system and had a couple dozen hours in just typeing all the units into a spreadsheet, and starting to put down basic points. Happy to adopt a similar work, that is more polished.

Going forward people can test and we adjust numbers. Looking at your example from Skaven, i'd say Stormvermin need to be cheaper, like 2 for 15. And stormfiends are way too cheap Probably should be 3 points for 2, comparing them to similar models in other lists. The combat versions have more attacks than Ironguts and 7 wounds vs 4. The ones with warpfire are just scary as hell.

 mikhaila wrote:

But all of these attempts at rules and points systems are work towards a better system down the road. Remember that this took a lot of work. I was halfway through a similar system and had a couple dozen hours in just typeing all the units into a spreadsheet, and starting to put down basic points. Happy to adopt a similar work, that is more polished.

Yeah, very true. I understand a lot of work goes into doing it, I just get a little dismayed when every version that comes out seems favored towards small elite units; I play skaven, I don't really have a "small elite" option.

I am actually curious how the various Formations would point-out with that cost book though. I'll have to run a few.

Curses.....you made me look at skaven, and now i want to do a new army of Clan Skyre monstrosities.

Skaven are one of the few WFB armies I don't personally own, outside of several bags of old metal and small army one of my employees did years ago for one of the stores.

Think I may use rats for my army for our league. GW has a wonderful referal bonus for helping new stores get into GW, and I have many $$$$ of credit sitting around looking for an army to be spent on

Skyre doesn't usually do monstrosities. That's Moulder's territory, or at least was. The Stormfiends are a strange exception in that they are an actual collusion between two major clans.

Holy crap... I just compared the HPA to the Flamespyre Phoenix; both are costed at 3. It's just... wow. WOW. Flamespyre OP as all get out. A Plague Furnace costs more then a Flamespyre?

Anyway, just for fun:

Verminus Clawpack:
-1 Warlord (5 wounds)
-2 Stormvermin (10 models)
-3 3x Clan Rats (30 models)
-3 3x Weapon Teams (3 models; 9 wounds)
-----------------------------
9pts 44 models 54 wounds

Moulder Clawpack:
-6 6xPackmasters (18 wounds; also illegal in every format in the pdf)
-2 2x Giant Rats (10 models)
-2 2x Rat Ogres (6 models; 24 wounds)
-3 Hellpit Abomination (12 wounds)
------------------------------------
13pts 23 models 64 wounds

Pestilent Clawpack:
-4 Plague Furnace (12 wounds)
-1 Plague Priest (5 wounds)
-3 3x Plague Monks (15 models)
-------------------
8pts 17 models 32 wounds

Eshin Clawpack:
-1 Assassin (5 wounds)
-3 3x Night Runners (30 models)
-1 Gutter Runners (5 models)
--------------------
5pts 36 models 40 wounds

I wish I had a better idea what to make of the comparisons. I find it strange that the Eshin Clawpack points as low as it does, but has the second most models (which relates to Sudden Death). Moulder Clawpack seems the most fun to me, but not even APOCALYPSE format in this PDF would allow for it to be used.

That first set of rules is just that, A first try. The guys down at Louisvillegaming are constantly talking online about the points system, and are testing a lot of things out in games.

I expect that a lot of little things will get adjusted and changed. One thing that might need to happen is to ease restrictions on the smaller heroes like orc bullies, engineers, skaven packmasters, and other "working class heroes". A skaven packmaster is only 3 wounds. Hardly what you think of as earth shattering, and pretty easy to kill.

Played a 30 point game tonite, Ogres vs. Orcs. I got lucky and got bottom of 1 followed by top of 2. I'd pushed forward far and my whole army charged. Two rounds later we called on account of lack of orcs. Probably would have been much closer without getting stuck in with a StoneHorn, thundertusk and 6 Rhinox so early in the game.

We're still talling in games, got around 30ish games played with the restrictions as shown above. Will report back when we got more results. Feedback on most races so far.

RE: Stormvermin: Tough case. Stormvermin are clearly better than Clanrats, but not doubly so, especially with the new rules. First feedback suggests sth. like 2 per 17 or 18, but that's...hard to balance. 2 per 15 would likely be too strong. 2 people hinted that Clanrats are better ppm if taken in larger units in order to get their bonuses, but Stormvermin are better in smaller, disrupting units.

RE: Warriors of Chaos: Definitely undercosted. 3 per 10 would still be an amazing deal.

The biggest issue I can find is that there are no rules listed for Sigmarines yet. People will undoubtably want to play them. I've gotten postive reviews after passing these rules on, but that's the only black spot.

I think they were waiting until today when the bigger fluff book came out, that has all the various sigmarite troops listed. Could be pretty soon

Ah, great. I'll be looking forward to it. My friend with a store is running all AoS tournaments with these points in place. He took 6 players in a single night with no interest in AoS and converted them with these rules. They're going over really well in that group.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Ah, great. I'll be looking forward to it. My friend with a store is running all AoS tournaments with these points in place. He took 6 players in a single night with no interest in AoS and converted them with these rules. They're going over really well in that group.

Yes, they're a great start. They still allow for flexible lists but give a reasonable framework. Overall feedback has been good so far. It will never be as tight of a ruleset as KoW is or WHFB 8th (comped) was, but it could be a nice system for a quick match now and then if you don't have a lot of a time at your leisure or just want to wind down instead of playing a strategically deep game such as KoW.

What saddens me about the entire issue is that there seemingly are people at the rules writing divison at GW who know what they're doing yet those people get shut down by their superiors...or rather their greed. Sad waste of potential :(