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.

Its silly right now and what causes the game to feel nothing like an actual battle.

AOS is the only "wargame" I know of on the market that lets you target pinky fingers with your entire army.

It along with the nonsensical shoot wherever/whenever you want mechanic even if you are getting clubbed in the face, is what holds a giant chunk of my city's wargaming community out of AOS and would go infinitely far in bringing in players.

Even them adding an optional "advanced" ruleset that makes an AOS game feel like an actual battle as opposed to a game that resembles a Magic the Gathering with expensive models would go far in bringing in players again, and then those that want to keep to the simplistic mechanics of today can continue to do so and everyone can be happy.

Honestly I don't want them to add restrictions to shooting. Being so incredibly simple is one of the few upsides to AOS. Adding more complexity is a bad thing IMO.

That said I think the shooting is stupid and I have done since a mortar shot my Dwarfs fighting the crew which were miraculously safe.

Just make it -1 to hit heroes that are not monsters unless they are the closest model. Bam, simple, done.

For added fixage make it so a unit in melee gets -1 to hit when shooting a unit they aren't in melee with.

I get the complexity is bad thing. I play battletech and Infinity, both super complex systems. Particularly in the repair phase lol.

I guess I don't consider adding a look out sir or -1 to hit penalty for going through forests and 20 enemy models that complex though.

Some interesting information throughout this thread, so thank you for everyone who has/is contributing.

I have actually done a U turn and decided on Stormcast Eternals, as I want to keep it quite simple and they seem a ideal beginner army.

Though I am unsure how competitive they can be or are, any thoughts?

Shinzra wrote:
Some interesting information throughout this thread, so thank you for everyone who has/is contributing.

I have actually done a U turn and decided on Stormcast Eternals, as I want to keep it quite simple and they seem a ideal beginner army.

Though I am unsure how competitive they can be or are, any thoughts?

2nd best army at tournaments after Tzeentch.

Yeah stormcast are one of the heavy weight champions of the world right now. GW's chosen alongside the space marines, I'm surprised Tzeentch didn't get hammered with the last GHB.

But the pendulum will be swinging again soon with GHB 2018 and we'll see what happens then.

 auticus wrote:
I get the complexity is bad thing. I play battletech and Infinity, both super complex systems. Particularly in the repair phase lol.

I guess I don't consider adding a look out sir or -1 to hit penalty for going through forests and 20 enemy models that complex though.

At risk of sounding pretentious to others, keep in mind that a lot of players aren't nearly as invested into the mechanics of games as we are. Something super simple or even reflexive to dedicated wargamers can be a chore for more casual players to factor in. I have to remind myself that sometimes.

At any rate, giving cover for shooting through cover would also be a good addition. A simple rule of 'if line of sight must be drawn through an area of cover then the target has cover' would be easy to add. Drawing through units is trikier because it requires defining what 'through a unit' means. Which is obvious in a practical sense but translating that into rule form is surprisingly difficult.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
Yeah stormcast are one of the heavy weight champions of the world right now. GW's chosen alongside the space marines, I'm surprised Tzeentch didn't get hammered with the last GHB.

But the pendulum will be swinging again soon with GHB 2018 and we'll see what happens then.

TBF Tzeentch did get nerfs, which is terrifying to think of because they were even stronger back in GHB1. Of course the massive unit discount on tzaangors was a significant buff.

I'm ok with them keeping a super casual version of the rules for people that want that.

But I also wish they'd consider the other giant chunk of the player base that needs just a little bit more.

 auticus wrote:
I'm ok with them keeping a super casual version of the rules for people that want that.

But I also wish they'd consider the other giant chunk of the player base that needs just a little bit more.

We both know everyone will bandwagon onto one version or the other

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I get the complexity is bad thing. I play battletech and Infinity, both super complex systems. Particularly in the repair phase lol.

I guess I don't consider adding a look out sir or -1 to hit penalty for going through forests and 20 enemy models that complex though.

At risk of sounding pretentious to others, keep in mind that a lot of players aren't nearly as invested into the mechanics of games as we are. Something super simple or even reflexive to dedicated wargamers can be a chore for more casual players to factor in. I have to remind myself that sometimes.

At any rate, giving cover for shooting through cover would also be a good addition. A simple rule of 'if line of sight must be drawn through an area of cover then the target has cover' would be easy to add. Drawing through units is trikier because it requires defining what 'through a unit' means. Which is obvious in a practical sense but translating that into rule form is surprisingly difficult.

Ehhhh...I'm gonna say no. Because doing it your way becomes a haven for nonsense arguments like "Your guys are in cover and firing out of it, thus I get cover!".

Sorry, I didn't mean that exact wording, just something to that effect.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Sorry, I didn't mean that exact wording, just something to that effect.

It doesn't matter how it's worded. People will argue it.

That's deliberately obtuse or resoundingly unimaginative.

"If line of sight for a shooting attack must be drawn over or through an area of terrain that grants cover then the target recieves cover from that attack. Ignore terrain within 1" of the attacking model for the purposes of this rule."

Thats ok. Those people can argue things like that all day. To forcibly knee cap a ruleset and make it a non intuitive board game just because people can argue rules like blithering waac bags otherwise is not something I consider.

I don't play against those people period. Those type of people can force rules arguments in the 4 page ruleset now... and do.

The real question will be if GW is doing any market research and considering the gains they could make by adding a couple paragraphs more to the rules or leaving it the board game with models and tape measure that it is now. Either direction they take there will be people angry. Of course, my giant collection of over 25 years would rather be used than sitting in boxes waiting so I will push for some meaningful changes.

For my money I'd rather them leave the easy rules for the people that want it and give us an advanced ruleset. And yeah people tend to pick one or the other, so that would be a perfect litmus to see what the majority of the community favors anyhow, which would be the direction the designers SHOULD be going anyway I'd think if they want to maximize earnings. (and who knows, maybe the super easy board game version of a wargame is what the majority wants, we won't know until we see)

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
That's deliberately obtuse or resoundingly unimaginative.

"If line of sight for a shooting attack must be drawn over or through an area of terrain that grants cover then the target recieves cover from that attack. Ignore terrain within 1" of the attacking model for the purposes of this rule."

So now we need to rejig the cover rules, since it's "within or on a terrain feature"?

I get that you might think I'm just arguing for argument's sake, but I can't see a really good way to make this kind of thing work and I personally feel like any negative hit modifiers are going to be ridiculous given that very few missile troops, in my opinion, have easy Hit values.

I also cannot agree with the idea of "any non-monster characters" getting a negative hit modifier or protections. Not unless you do things like Balewind Vortices rendering it invalid as an example.

Its exactly how middle earth rules do it, which having played it for years and years has had no issues.

It makes positioning and cover actually mean something other than being decorations.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
That's deliberately obtuse or resoundingly unimaginative.

"If line of sight for a shooting attack must be drawn over or through an area of terrain that grants cover then the target recieves cover from that attack. Ignore terrain within 1" of the attacking model for the purposes of this rule."

So now we need to rejig the cover rules, since it's "within or on a terrain feature"?

I get that you might think I'm just arguing for argument's sake, but I can't see a really good way to make this kind of thing work and I personally feel like any negative hit modifiers are going to be ridiculous given that very few missile troops, in my opinion, have easy Hit values.

I also cannot agree with the idea of "any non-monster characters" getting a negative hit modifier or protections. Not unless you do things like Balewind Vortices rendering it invalid as an example.

Cover is the +1 to saves a unit already gets for being entirely on/within a terrain feature, this rule just extends that to units behind such a terrain feature as well. The -1 hit penalty I was proposing was when targeting non-monster characters -that aren't the closest model-, making sniping more difficult while not removing it entirely. It also means low accuracy attacks are less useful for that purpose, which totally makes sense.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
That's deliberately obtuse or resoundingly unimaginative.

"If line of sight for a shooting attack must be drawn over or through an area of terrain that grants cover then the target recieves cover from that attack. Ignore terrain within 1" of the attacking model for the purposes of this rule."

So now we need to rejig the cover rules, since it's "within or on a terrain feature"?

I get that you might think I'm just arguing for argument's sake, but I can't see a really good way to make this kind of thing work and I personally feel like any negative hit modifiers are going to be ridiculous given that very few missile troops, in my opinion, have easy Hit values.

I also cannot agree with the idea of "any non-monster characters" getting a negative hit modifier or protections. Not unless you do things like Balewind Vortices rendering it invalid as an example.

Cover is the +1 to saves a unit already gets for being entirely on/within a terrain feature, this rule just extends that to units behind such a terrain feature as well.

No, your idea is that anyone firing through such a terrain feature basically grants their enemy a +1 to their save. Most ranged weapons are sitting at 0 Rend, why are we punishing that?

We gonna make bowmen get Mortal Wounds all the time instead?

The -1 hit penalty I was proposing was when targeting non-monster characters that aren't the closest model, making sniping more difficult while not removing it entirely.

Who the hell is "sniping" at this point? I mean this in the nicest possible way, I'm just not seeing crazy amounts of actual long ranged units.

I'm seeing more spam for spellcasters--do we make it so they get penalties at long range too? Do we give bow carrying units a profile for "volley" firing, where they don't hit but can ignore LOS? Do we give Waywatchers and characters like them a Bowwind Vortex that they can summon and increase the range on their bows?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
Its exactly how middle earth rules do it, which having played it for years and years has had no issues.

Other than not really being played outside of very insular groups that have lots of house rules, sure.

It makes positioning and cover actually mean something other than being decorations.

Most pieces of terrain have special rules associated with them that "mean something" other than them simply being decorations.

Anyone who says positioning doens't mean anything is full of it right now.

What I'm seeing is the argument of 'it isn't perfect so why bother at all?' And more of an interest in arguing than actually providing meaningful input.

Edit: Actually this is all off topic anyways so I'll just bow out at this point.

Well Middle Earth had a decent size tournament going on at Adepticon and is quite alive here as well so no not insular groups with tons of house rules. I'm not sure how that discredits or counters the fact that its a rule that exists in a system and I feel its a pretty good one or how that would suddenly be bad for AOS if it incorporated something like that.

Compared to proper wargames like kings of war, hail caesar, battletech, infinity, bolt action, classic WHFB, even warmachine etc... AOS maneuver is mostly non existent. You get into range of your attacks, and then you roll a bunch of dice. Thats the general gist of AOS, and yes I play a lot of AOS and have since it came out so I'm not speaking out of turn with no actual experience. Additionally GW devs themselves have posted or said as much in interviews, conventions, etc that their design goal was a game that even novice players that have never done wargaming could understand and master without having to get or understand the common nuisances of traditional wargames (maneuver, getting out of position, things that were labeled "not fun")

The actual positioning part revolves around getting into position so you can roll lots of dice. Which is why armies like tzeentch dominate the game, because they have the best ranged attacks so get to roll their dice well before most armies can get into range to do so.

You can't really get pulled out of position because you can move 360 degrees and have a move plus run (plus charge for a lot of armies). Additionally you have armies that don't even care about the movement phase... they simply point where they want to start the game and show up and can even charge.

 auticus wrote:
Well Middle Earth had a decent size tournament going on at Adepticon and is quite alive here as well so no not insular groups with tons of house rules. I'm not sure how that discredits or counters the fact that its a rule that exists in a system and I feel its a pretty good one or how that would suddenly be bad for AOS if it incorporated something like that.

Compared to proper wargames like kings of war, hail caesar, battletech, infinity, bolt action, classic WHFB, even warmachine etc... AOS maneuver is mostly non existent. You get into range of your attacks, and then you roll a bunch of dice. Thats the general gist of AOS, and yes I play a lot of AOS and have since it came out so I'm not speaking out of turn with no actual experience. Additionally GW devs themselves have posted or said as much in interviews, conventions, etc that their design goal was a game that even novice players that have never done wargaming could understand and master without having to get or understand the common nuisances of traditional wargames (maneuver, getting out of position, things that were labeled "not fun")

The actual positioning part revolves around getting into position so you can roll lots of dice. Which is why armies like tzeentch dominate the game, because they have the best ranged attacks so get to roll their dice well before most armies can get into range to do so.

You can't really get pulled out of position because you can move 360 degrees and have a move plus run (plus charge for a lot of armies). Additionally you have armies that don't even care about the movement phase... they simply point where they want to start the game and show up and can even charge.

I could see AoS greatly increasing its fan base simply by having a second tier of rules, keep the simple and make a second one for more in depth.

That is my thought as well, and my wishlist.