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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You don't have to worry about any of those things if you stop trying to pretend that the game must be a fair contest of skill between evenly matched opponents. AOS isn't that, but it is fun if you game for the journey and not the result.

It's very hard to enjoy the journey when one side mercilessly slaughters the other, and all you get to do is roll dice to see how many turns it takes before all of your models are removed. You can maybe argue that a beer and pretzels game doesn't demand the fine points of competitive balance, but it really needs to be a game, not an execution.


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
An exciting or memorable death is often preferred to a successful play through.

Being wiped off the table with overwhelming force is hardly exciting or memorable. And that's what AoS encourages.

@OP - no, you should not re-base your models - that would be foolish.

There are 3 choices, each with their own Pros & Cons

1. AOS - this is the GW default. AoS plays like WFB, but is a simple skirmish game, greatly simplified for gaks & grins (4 pages of core rules, but lots of special rules on the units). Take what you like, play what you like, it's easy & fun. Newbie friendly. NO competition support whatsoever.

2. KoW - this is largely where America is going. It's a pure block units battle game, and arguably more streamlined than AoS overall (simple rules, extremely generic units). Models don't matter at all, and it doesn't really match the GW stuff.

3. Ninth Age - this is where Europe is going. It's a fan-write of WFB, a true successor to WFB8, with complex rules but somewhat simplified units.

Overall, Americans are doing the stupidest thing, abandoning GW out of pique, and hoping Mantic will save them (Mantic won't, BTW). The Europeans are a quite bit smarter about this, abandoning AoS because it's clearly not (and deliberately designed not to be) a tournament-oriented system. The Casuals are simply playing AoS, even though GW failed to sufficiently simplify and genericize the unit rules.

However, none of this really matters. If you play, you will simply play whatever your friends play.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Newbie friendly.

At least as long as you have experienced players around to help the newbie deal with the complete lack of balance. If you just try to drop newbies into the game without any help (or, worse, put them in an environment where people want to get easy wins instead of helping new players) the results will not be good.

Overall, Americans are doing the stupidest thing, abandoning GW out of pique, and hoping Mantic will save them (Mantic won't, BTW).

I don't get this at all. People aren't abandoning GW out of pique, they're doing it because AoS is unplayable garbage and WHFB is no longer supported or available to buy. People have no obligation to move to a new GW game just because GW published a game they used to play.

People aren't abandoning GW, GW threw us out the door and then put up a poster in the window for a new game.

Nope. AoS plays far more like WFB than KoW.

And that's much of the problem. AoS would be a *far* superior game if the units were designed like KoW, with the occasional generic special rule sprinkled here and there.

As KK notes, GW failed badly, by not going far enough in streamlining AoS.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Nope. AoS plays far more like WFB than KoW.

How on earth do you figure a skirmish games plays more like a mass battle than a different mass battle game would play like the first mass battle game?

I'll give you that is has the same focus on heroes and powerful magic, but the core of WHFB was maneuvering blocks of troops in formation.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
As KK notes, GW failed badly, by not going far enough in streamlining AoS.

And you know, by putting zero effort into making it a playable game "out of the box".

 Peregrine wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
As KK notes, GW failed badly, by not going far enough in streamlining AoS.

And you know, by putting zero effort into making it a playable game "out of the box".

Yeah I'd say streamlining is a non-issue in the face of a lack of balancing mechanic.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Nope. AoS plays far more like WFB than KoW.

How on earth do you figure a skirmish games plays more like a mass battle than a different mass battle game would play like the first mass battle game?

I'll give you that is has the same focus on heroes and powerful magic, but the core of WHFB was maneuvering blocks of troops in formation.

That is a very deliberately obtuse way of saying "I don't understand.". Anyhow, for me, AoS has the same bulk movement, the same workflow, the same tracking of special rules, the same tracking of individual models as WFB. AoS feels like playing WFB, just less messy because there are zero cross-references or lookups.

WFB has *never* been about blocks. WFB has always been about individual models. That's why WFB and AoS models are wound counters; the only difference is that AoS is truer to being a per-model game. The only block aspect of WFB is non-Skirmisher movement. Everything else might as well be 40k.

KOW is a pure block game. Blocks move and blocks fight and blocks die. You never reduce or erode a block in KoW. KoW blocks don't need individual models at all. A 1/2" thick wooden block with the appropriate equipment on top is generally sufficient (and superior) to using WFB models.

It's a minor point in terms of what is the best game, but what kind of company do you want to support ?

One for whom the only prerogative is sales volumes of the miniatures and resolutely ignore any feedback from fans, actively try and undermine fan communities and websites with legal C&D notices, and have basically destroyed the tournament scene for WHFB through their actions?

For an industry that has traditionally been small, personable and relaxed (based as it is on people's enjoyment of gaming and creativity) GW's behaviour has been ugly and there is no sign that they will become any less voracious. If anything it is becoming more extreme, as evident by them torpedoing one of their core games and replacing it. I could add another 10 examples.

Mantic are certainly not without fault and have had a lot of teething problems but because they constantly go through feedback processes with their rules and engage with their playerbase you get the feeling that they are at least trying to make better games, not just fleece the people that play them. They are a minnow and trying to grow and because of that can't afford to behave like dicks! There is no chance that they will suddenly turn around and remove KoW from sale, for AoS you will never have that certainty that you won't be left high and dry with a game that's suddenly not being supported or developed.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Nope. AoS plays far more like WFB than KoW.

How on earth do you figure a skirmish games plays more like a mass battle than a different mass battle game would play like the first mass battle game?

I'll give you that is has the same focus on heroes and powerful magic, but the core of WHFB was maneuvering blocks of troops in formation.

That is a very deliberately obtuse way of saying "I don't understand.". Anyhow, for me, AoS has the same bulk movement, the same workflow, the same tracking of special rules, the same tracking of individual models as WFB. AoS feels like playing WFB, just less messy because there are zero cross-references or lookups.

WFB has *never* been about blocks. WFB has always been about individual models. That's why WFB and AoS models are wound counters; the only difference is that AoS is truer to being a per-model game. The only block aspect of WFB is non-Skirmisher movement. Everything else might as well be 40k.

KOW is a pure block game. Blocks move and blocks fight and blocks die. You never reduce or erode a block in KoW. KoW blocks don't need individual models at all. A 1/2" thick wooden block with the appropriate equipment on top is generally sufficient (and superior) to using WFB models.

WHFB had problems with counting it's soldiers as individuals for some reason but you couldn't break your individual soldiers out and run off in 8 different directions. 8th ed at least WAS block movement game, even if it had a weird amount of model-by-model tracking added on top.

I agree that WFB is a wierd hybrid game of blocks and individuals - that's why KK calls it "mass skirmish", and I agree with that labeling.

I played very little of 8th, preferring 6E/7E - and not just because that's the last edition in which my Dogs of War were a legit, recognized army. I quit playing WFB after a few deeply unsatisfying games of 8E.

For how I personally conceive of WFB, something like AoS suits me better than KoW - at least I can field my homebrew DoW in AoS without worrying that I've done something unfair.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
- at least I can field my homebrew DoW in AoS without worrying that I've done something unfair.

Because the game "out of the box" is so utterly broken that you can't make it any worse?

I can only speak from experience with AoS, since I don't know anybody who has played KoW. AoS is very simple, but it still has depth. I suspect people who talk about "pushing models around and making pew-pew noises" have not played it, or only played a couple of games. It's a wargame, plain and simple. It has simple base rules but complex unit rules, it has tactics, it has unit synergies and interactions that require strategic thinking. Tournaments are playing it and finding it quite worthy of competitive play. It's also tons of fun. If you want to use points, there are many systems out there, the most popular being Azyr, PPC and AoS Independent UK comp. Scenarios are key to the enjoyment of the game, whether they be simple objective-based scenarios a la 40k or more involved narrative scenarios. I can't recommend it highly enough.

 Mymearan wrote:
It's a wargame, plain and simple.

No it isn't. It's an exercise in spending the most money on Games™ Workshop™ Products™. Even if you ignore the literal auto-win armies* AoS has no mechanism for ensuring remotely equal forces besides hoping that both players spend relatively equal amounts of money on the game. You don't get to call your product a wargame, or even a game at all, if the best strategy is to simply spend more money than your opponent.

*As in "I deploy my army. I win". I am not exaggerating.

Tournaments are playing it and finding it quite worthy of competitive play.

No they aren't. No legitimate tournament is playing AoS. Some tournaments are playing their own games that are based on some of the AoS rules, but that's not the same thing.

I won't bother responding to the first part of your post. As to the second part, I see you're american, it's mainly being played in UK tournaments. And yes, they are "legitimate" whatever that means?

 Mymearan wrote:
I won't bother responding to the first part of your post. As to the second part, I see you're american, it's mainly being played in UK tournaments. And yes, they are "legitimate" whatever that means?

So people in the UK are literally playing AoS as-written? No point system? No balance of any kind? It's perfectly legal to fill your entire deployment zone with the most powerful character models (if you can afford to buy them), or bring literal auto-win armies?

They aren't, just like no one is playing WHFB or 40k as-written in tournaments either.

 Mymearan wrote:
They aren't, just like no one is playing WHFB or 40k as-written in tournaments either.

No, but at least WHFB and 40k are mostly playable as-written and just need a bit of fine-tuning. Creating a functioning version of AoS requires writing the entire half of the rules that GW didn't bother with, on top of fixing the same kind of individual-unit issues that WHFB and 40k have.

A 40k tournament usually has

- An extensive FAQ (24 pages for Adepticon)
- Restrictions on individual units
- Restrictions on army construction (limiting number of detachments, formations etc)
- Complete removal of Unbound (a HUGE rules change)
- Custom scenarios

As for WHFB, an example would be Swedish comp, an 84-page document that is essentially another layer on top of the existing points system.

I wouldn't call any of those "a bit of fine-tuning" to be honest.

Even if I agreed with you, it wouldn't bother me. The changes have been made, lots of people use them, I use them, it works great. What I care about is playing the game, and that works just as well with these custom points systems, in fact it probably works better than an official system would, if their previous efforts are anything to go by.

 Mymearan wrote:
A 40k tournament usually has

- An extensive FAQ (24 pages for Adepticon)
- Restrictions on individual units
- Restrictions on army construction (limiting number of detachments, formations etc)
- Complete removal of Unbound (a HUGE rules change)
- Custom scenarios

And AoS has to have all of these things, plus a lot more.

As for WHFB, an example would be Swedish comp, an 84-page document that is essentially another layer on top of the existing points system.

Swedish comp is stupid and irrelevant. We shouldn't be talking about bad tournaments here.

I wouldn't call any of those "a bit of fine-tuning" to be honest.

They really are. The page count might be long because of the sheer size of 40k, but the goal is to take a game that is already playable (if unbalanced) and turn it into a balanced tournament game. With AoS you have to do a lot of work just to get the game to a point where you can even consider playing it. Forget fine-tuning for perfect balance, you're just trying to make the game function.

Even if I agreed with you, it wouldn't bother me. The changes have been made, lots of people use them, I use them, it works great. What I care about is playing the game, and that works just as well with these custom points systems, in fact it probably works better than an official system would, if their previous efforts are anything to go by.

The point is that the game is no longer AoS. You can't play AoS "out of the box", so the question is not "AoS vs. KoW" it's "WHFB is gone and AoS is unplayable, which non-AoS game do you want to play".

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

3. Ninth Age - this is where Europe is going. It's a fan-write of WFB, a true successor to WFB8, with complex rules but somewhat simplified units.
[...]
However, none of this really matters. If you play, you will simply play whatever your friends play.

Agree with the last point, but there is not only 9th Age in Europe. We have also WarhammerCE, FluffHammer, Warhammer Darkness Edition, and KoW. No one can say which System will make it in the end.
9th Age is doing their Beta test at the moment and they are talking about a 10th Age now of being the real goal because 9th will just be a FAQ Edition to have something ready for the ETC (at least this is what some people which are involed in the project are saying).

The others are older because they started their work during Warhammer EndTimes and have finished rules and army lists. But because they were not hyped by the ETC players they are more or less unknown outside their local groups.

Peregrine, at this point we're arguing semantics. You can call AoS+comp "non-AoS" if you want, and call WHFB/40k+comp "a bit of fine-tuning" if you want, but what's the point? People play it and enjoy it, no matter what you call it. Why do you care?

 Mymearan wrote:
Peregrine, at this point we're arguing semantics. You can call AoS+comp "non-AoS" if you want, and call WHFB/40k+comp "a bit of fine-tuning" if you want, but what's the point? People play it and enjoy it, no matter what you call it. Why do you care?

The point is that people are talking about AoS vs. KoW like you can just decide "I'm going to play AoS" and have a functioning game. You can't. You have to pick which AoS variant you want to use, and you have to get everyone else in your group to agree to use the same version.

 Mymearan wrote:
They aren't, just like no one is playing WHFB or 40k as-written in tournaments either.

But they are playing KoW as-written

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
Peregrine, at this point we're arguing semantics. You can call AoS+comp "non-AoS" if you want, and call WHFB/40k+comp "a bit of fine-tuning" if you want, but what's the point? People play it and enjoy it, no matter what you call it. Why do you care?

The point is that people are talking about AoS vs. KoW like you can just decide "I'm going to play AoS" and have a functioning game. You can't. You have to pick which AoS variant you want to use, and you have to get everyone else in your group to agree to use the same version.

Well you certainly can play it without using a points system. I have and enjoyed it. The only house rules used were to measure from bases instead of models, which is a pretty small change. So it's not unplayable by any means. But yes, generally you would want to use a comp. Might be a problem in a FLGS setting, but I wouldn't know since I have a group.

AoS is a complete and playable fantasy battle game out of the box.

It has rules for unit composition, army selection, terrain set up and effects, deployment, turn sequence, movement, fighting, magic, and victory conditions. There are playable wargames with fewer rules that that.

What's there could have been simplified, and other rules could have been included to give more options, but what is there works within its own ambit.

You may not like it, you may not want to play it, but to say it is unplayable is incorrect and detracts from any arguments about the virtues and vices of the AoS rules and the many alternatives.

I fear the 9th age (etc) initiatives Europe is working with will be difficult to maintain in the long run, even if one of them becomes dominant. I have noted this earlier - that the whole community might fragment into different successors systems, or, if they settle on one, might start having problems with either the system becoming static or not having the necessary resources to maintain a living scene of the same size. This isn't Blood Bowl, after all.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You may not like it, you may not want to play it, but to say it is unplayable is incorrect and detracts from any arguments about the virtues and vices of the AoS rules and the many alternatives.

Fair enough. You can play it out of the box, with like minded players, but as you'll be able to tell by the number of patches created for it, it's not a particularly clear experience.

TheAuldGrump wrote:You do realize that your disagreement is only making AoS more redundant, yes?

Are you saying that's a bad thing?

judgedoug wrote:I like and play both.

Well, let me put it this way, I _love_ Kings of War and it is simply one of my favorite rulesets in the history of the universe. I've been playing it for three years. It exercises the tactical portions of my brain most satisfyingly. It's one of the most balanced rulesets ever made. It revitalized my interested in mass combat games after I stopped playing Warhammer when 8th edition came out - and I bought roughly a half dozen entirely new armies just to model and play with just for KoW in addition to my 6th/7th ed Warhammer armies.

Have you played anything else? Something a bit more back-and-forth than IGOUGO? Something where the simple placement of units can affect how well an adjacent unit does? Something where commanders command, rather than run around roaring and tw... swatting things? No games of HC from the hallowed and beatificent Warlord Games?

KoW improves on WFB by introducing unit elements and nerfing magic, but in many ways it hasn't moved much beyond the 'avoid spears if you're cavalry and hit 'em in the flank' tactics of the latter, that other block manoeuvre games start with. (The most interesting tactical innovation is the optional chess clock thing)

Which, I guess, is why it's so popular.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:AOS isn't that, but it is fun if you game for the journey and not the result.

And thinking about your moves, deciding which manoeuvres will be best rewarded by the mechanics, watching your plan come together... is not that?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
There are 3 choices

Hey! Is this thing on?

Overall, Americans are doing the stupidest thing, abandoning GW out of pique, and hoping Mantic will save them (Mantic won't, BTW).

Not that I necessarily disagree, but why not?

If you play, you will simply play whatever your friends play.

Why is everyone here always the guy that goes along with what their friends are doing? Why don't those friends who steer the gaming choices ever post here?

jonolikespie wrote:
How on earth do you figure a skirmish games plays more like a mass battle than a different mass battle game would play like the first mass battle game?

What John already said: Warhammer was never a mass battle, unit block, grand manoeuvre game - it was just dressed up like one.

Mymearan wrote:It has simple base rules but complex unit rules, it has tactics

That seems like a contradiction in terms. Most tactical games do it the other way, so to speak: deeper basic mechanics, some universal special rules, and very few unique unit rules.

Or do you mean 'tactics' in the same way as, say, the '40K tactics' board? 'Cos the first part of your line does sound like a basic description of that game.

it has unit synergies and interactions that require strategic thinking.

Oh, 'unit synergies'. You do mean it that way, and like Warmachine and Malifaux: 'strategic' listbuilding to make sure you bring the right units to pull off the right combo of special rules.

I'm interested to know how that squares with the freewheelin' 'journey' of AoS.