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The only reason Ninth is branded as competitive is because the only players who cared enough about 8th to put the thousands of hours of work to get the project off the ground were the people who played it competitively.

In that way, they removed or toned down a lot of the things that made the game random and swung games on a single dice roll. 6 Dicing spells is more dangerous, spells are less powerful, champions grant minimum charge range, more rewarding flank/rear charges simultaneously lessening the power of steadfast, less random tables, less random abilities, no more insane courage and the like. If you follow the Pokemon scene is exactly the same as the Smogen ruleset, which bans evasion and 100% accuracy confusion moves, it all ensures that the game is tactical rather than uncontrolable.

If that's your definition of casual, then I guess Ninth isn't for you. Yes Ninth makes for a better competitive game, but that is because it makes a better wargame in general. As for not wanting to learn a new rule set, it is very, very similar to 8th in all aspects apart, it only changes in some of the details. I can rattle off the only big changes here;

1) Wizard levels have changed, lvl 1-2 grant +1 to cast, lvl 3-4 grant +2 to cast. Generating magic dice is capped at 2 and the sevarity of the miscast is based on how many dice used. No more Vampires being sucked into the warp turn 1 for 2 dicing invocation.

2) Models have height levels now, which determin LoS and cover modifiers. Infantry are 1, Cav 2 and Monsters 3. An example of this is if your Vermin Hulks (Rat orges) are in front of your Vermin Guard (stormvermin) they block the LOS against other height 1 archers if they aren't on elevated terrain.

3) No more multiple wounds D6. It's now multiple wounds Ordanance, which is D3+1 or D3+2 against Fliers. For example if a Warp Lightning Cannon wounded a Dragon is will always at least do 3 wounds.

4) Small changes in wording of special rules and a few new ones. No more ASF, now Elves get a straight +1 to hit. Flaming only disables regen for flaming wounds, not whole phase. New Lightning attacks (Skaven have loads of this) does D6 auto Str 4 hits when it hits a flier. Flammable re-rolls to wound not double wounds. little things.

If you don't want to play with those snobby people, you don't have to. But if you have any friends who played Warhammer but didn't like the colossal change over to AoS then Ninth is the way to go (KoW just doesn't have the pazazz that Warhammer has). Just give the Vermin Swarms army book a look through, you know enough about Warhammer to evaluate it without knowing the nuances of the new rule set, and if it utterly repulses you then you have your answer. If it's too you liking give it a practice game. I think you owe your Skaven army at least that.

I play 9th age (Highborn elves - my only fantasy army since I came back to the game in 2014 - after a 20-ish year absence.)

It seems to be an ok game, but I don't have the attached baggage that many of the WHFB players seem to have - having started with 3rd ed, and then jumping straight to 8th - and only having the one army (at a pinch I could maybe do 3500pts with it).

That said, I also use the same army for KoW - which is generally played in one of my clubs, as a beer and stuff game.

 chromedog wrote:
I play 9th age (Highborn elves - my only fantasy army since I came back to the game in 2014 - after a 20-ish year absence.)

It seems to be an ok game, but I don't have the attached baggage that many of the WHFB players seem to have - having started with 3rd ed, and then jumping straight to 8th - and only having the one army (at a pinch I could maybe do 3500pts with it).

That said, I also use the same army for KoW - which is generally played in one of my clubs, as a beer and stuff game.

Exactly! That's the great thing: you can just play both :-) (you can also combine it with AoS, because AoS doesn't have any base restrictions)

If you are interested in the history of the project, T9A just celebrated its one year anniversary . There are tons of statistics in the celebratory post showing how far the project has come in just one year.

Draecarion wrote:

Exactly! That's the great thing: you can just play both :-) (you can also combine it with AoS, because AoS doesn't have any base restrictions)

I tried.
I gave AoS a chance (several), but it's not the game I want to play.
Not because it's not "competitive" (if you saw my 8th ed army lists, you'd never accuse me of being competitive at all) but simply because it's TOO simple and it bores me (and besides, it's also not the kind of skirmish game I want to play when I have better ones already).

I'm glad this project is going well. Love it that so many passionate gamers have come together, and been so organised and coherent about it. Honestly, I actually find it quite heartening.

It's removed some of the elements from 8th that put me off the game, and have now pushed me into collecting again. I think there were some great points in the OP about that, that this game no longer needs change for the sake of change (which really is the biggest criticism that you can ever place at the feet of the core GW games) - now the game creators can concentrate on making the best designed and balanced game possible, without having to worry about selling that new plastic kit, or pushing people into buying a terrain piece.

And no problem at all with making a competitive/balanced game. One of the biggest (and for me, most frustrating) misconceptions with game design these days is that those things have to come at the expense of a fun and narrative game. There is no reason that you can't have both!

9th age is awesome my game store all jumped on to that train they did a great job at balance.

I have no problems with 9th Age being written for competitive play.

It is how i would do it and it learns the lessons of both GW and PP.

IMHO the best way to write wargaming rules of a given level of complexity is to write them with a view to being obsessive over balance. Get the balance done well, even if it means that units are seemingly overpowered or underpowered.

GW writs casual rulesets and generates an atmosphere of exploitation more than PP who writes its rules from the games design point of view of extreme gamesmanship. Give people room to exploint nd people will exploit, write the rules to counter out exploitation and people are encouraged to find balance.
While I am blessed in that my local gaming community doesn't have a meta, its is inevitable in 40K for instance because the game is so unbalanced you need to avoid half the units and even some whol armies not to be tabled on turn 2. My poor orks vs endless Tau and Eldar players. I can forgive the Taudar because players of those want to still have a chance to win on turn 5.
With my Menites of Khadorans if I am defeated its my fault, and I can afford to add in a different warjack or unit and still end up with a playable list because the army books were written with care and attention.

Now PP goes to extremes, as in they dont just balance the game analy they write it up the same way, and the show because integrally competitive.

I can see that 9th hits the same spot as DZC, the rues are writtn casually, but are pointed up and made for balanced play, with a good reason to take almost any unit in the army list, though some need working on. My main problem is translating the fluff back. Not everything translates back to Warhammer lore. I dont mind additions. The blessings of the Lady for by Brets have two subtypes

It's certainly great to see a community driven rules set doing well regardless of it's core focus being on competitive play.