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 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

The Malign Portent abilities cost from 1 to 5 points depending on their description. 1 point abilities are not common in the Malign Portent book. About 1 such ability per faction.

Cool. I should have got that book.

Also, is it +1 point per wizard/priest or a flat point for having each type period?

Again, I like CPs, but they need to be careful with how they implement them.

No, +1 PP for each Wizard/Priest. I wouldn't be surprised if GW wants to push the Herohammer aspect of the game considering how many heroes there are in certain factions.

As an example of Malign Portents Prophecy Abilities:

1 PP: Reroll Unbinding, Make one extra unbinding, or something to do with unbinding.
2 pp: One model rerolls a saving throw.
3 pp: Get FnP for Mortal Wounds for the rest of the phase as long as unit is within interpreter(hero in this case) or reroll saves for a unit.
4 pp: Add 1 to roll on a table(MP specific) or pick a unit and roll for each model. 6+ is a Mortal Wound
5 pp: Add 1 to hit rolls for a unit

In Malign Portents you can only use each sign once per turn and often the targeted unit must be close enough to the hero who is an interpreter.

 Kanluwen wrote:
My biggest concern is that they're going to 'remove' the ability to snipe characters like in 40k.
It would make the biggest benefit for Idoneth cease to be relevant.

The idea of removing shooting out of combat is just...ugh as well. Shooting units are, IMO, already kind of pathetic aside from a few standouts. Anyone trying to say that Dark Riders, Scourge Privateers, or Shadow Warriors are great is full of it.

Those rules are one reason I'd never play RAW AOS and what is keeping my community from playing the game. The non immersion board gamey mechanics like shooting out of combat. Some shooting units may be subpar due to their bad point costs but the current list of busted units right now all have strong missile attacks or strong ranged mortal wound output for the most part.

Sniping characters from across the table behind two rows of forests and through five or six enemy models because Lord Bob's thumb is visible also needs to go IMO. Things like that are unintuitive.

Just removing shooting into combats is a good first step in that direction because at least you can try to lock down missile units now instead of watching the entire enemy army target Lord Bob, which is an absurd mechanic that would never make it into a narrative or cinematic moment except for a cartoon blooper reel.

If they truly want to make AOS "THE" fantasy wargame, they need to make it a wargame. In wargames you don't have entire armies targeting a dude on foot hidden behind rows of his own guys and walls because true line of sight lets you pick out the horn on his helmet from across the table.

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Are you not excited for no shooting out of combat?

When I posted this the only info I had other than what I posted was that the developers said they didn't want to monkey too much with the core mechanics because "that wasn't fun and traditional wargaming tropes have proven to be not fun", so i took that to mean shooting was not being affected.

Hearing no shooting into combat will be a thing has me on the positive side of the fence currently.

What the hell game are you playing where people are having entire armies of missile troops with range across the board?

Christ, even with an all Waywatcher army at the launch of AoS I still couldn't pull off things like what you're talking about provided people weren't just throwing Lord Bob out in the open.

 Kanluwen wrote:
What the hell game are you playing where people are having entire armies of missile troops with range across the board?

Christ, even with an all Waywatcher army at the launch of AoS I still couldn't pull off things like what you're talking about provided people weren't just throwing Lord Bob out in the open.

I have seen such forces of freeguild and dispossessed. not common, but does happen.

Happens plenty enough against tzeentch loaded down with skyfires, sylvaneth loaded down with hunters, free guild gunners, khadron overlords, and lizardmen dinosaur artillery.

The name of RAW AOS has always been to kill the enemy heroes in turn 1 or 2 with missile fire. (which is why running 7 wound or less heroes is a giant gamble and people opt for the big wound heroes) Been a staple of the game since 2015 unless you're using house rules to stop it by adding a look out sir or cover rules.

Regardless if its entire armies technically or every missile element in the opposing army targeting the hero through all of those obstacles, its absurd.

All he said was 'no shooting out of combat' which could mean a lot of things. Shooting into combat could still be fine, as well as shooting while in combat but only on what you are in combat with. At any rate being able to stop a unit shooting freely by tieing it up in melee would be a sufficient nerf to character sniping IMO.

Correct.

Davor wrote:Just coming back. I am happy the roll for priority or is it initiative every turn is staying.

I just hope it doesn't become Age of 40K in the mortal realms.

Fafnir wrote:I just hope they don't screw it up. AoS is in a solid place right now, and there's a lot of baggage they could bring over from 40k that would not go over so well.

The feeling I'm getting is that they are trying to "align" AOS and 40K. AOS' massive swing in design style was a push to see how far they could push 40K as well, and the immediate backlash, no matter how much it seems to have died down since the GH, made the shift in 40K less prominent. Now I think both systems are going to get baby to toddler pushes towards a unified middle. Just my outsider opinion, and logging it so it can be declared right or wrong later.

A little bit of overreacting going on here. So far we only know 3 important details. 1- you can't shoot out of combat any more. A good change 2- all heroes will get to use command abilities. 3- the double turn will stay but will change somehow.

There are certain things we can infer with a good amount of confidence.
Sniping heroes will not go away. The books since Nurgle have all been written with AoS 2 in mind. I imagine that is why there was such a long gap after Ko.
If sniping goes away it makes the Deepkin special rule pointless so it will stay.
I think the command dice and all heroes getting to use their command ability is linked. I think we will use command points for these and we will not get stratagems. I have a feeling that command pints will be fixed and not strongly tied to Composition. The battleline, Behemoth, hero system works well enough to encourage interesting composition and mitigate the worst spam.
It will be interesting to see how magic is dealt with. It looks like it has been one of the major focuses of the new edition.

The models revealed so far are absolutely fantastic. I was a not fan of Stormcast initially but each subsequent release has been better and has given them more of their own identity.
The nighthaunt army is amazing and looks like it will have between 15 and 20 warscrolls, so it will be a substantial army. We are also getting a new female Mortarch which is great.
Unifying the recent lore into a new core book is something that many new starters have been asking for. The lore has improved considerably since the game first appeared so I am definitely going to buy it.

I am very excited about the new edition and I am very happy that it is not messing with things enough to invalidate all the battletomes I have already bought.

I will be interested to see how the command ability thing will work since there are a large number of utterly ridiculous cheese combos that could be done if it were simply 'all heroes can use their command abilities'.

We all Archaon now!

Man and I haven't even picked up the last General's Handbook yet! Well we shall see what they do. I just hope they properly price shooting units if they can be locked out of shooting due to combat.

As for magic...ehhhh. I kinda like the way magic works now as it helps but isn't crazy. I imagine they are just adding a new phase after the Hero phase for magic which would be fine as I generally don't run magic much anyway.

Well after some conversations with people that were there, shooting OUT of combat is gone, but you can still shoot INTO combat with no penalty and no worries about hitting your own guys.

Sniping heroes through multiple forests and over multiple models to hit the chaos lord's horn on his helmet is still equally absurd.

So that brings me back to where I was. If they are serious about making AOS "THE" fantasy *WARGAME* then they need to actually bring those wargaming tropes back and make the battle feel like a battle and not some dice rolling exercise targeting enemy model's horns on their head.

Isn't that entirely subjective on what you like from wargames

Every opinion is entirely subjective. Thats why they are opinions.

From a numbers standpoint, stating they want to be THE Fantasy Wargame would indicate that they want it to be the #1 on the market wargame. And these unintuitive rules are always cited by large groups of people that won't touch it for those reasons. So I think that they do need to throw a bone to the other half of the potential gaming pool by making their game a little more intuitive if they want to really be "#1" or "THE" game.

There's a lot of problems that stem from the original design of super easy to pick up and play with no official rules, though I don't believe the character targeting is one of them. Bolt Thrower level of ranged weapons in units that also have good range or speed are the real problem.

The double turn and shooting while engaged into other units are fairly bigger culprits of core rules issues.

Not sure why everyone being able to use command abilities is being implemented, since it limited some synergy and also forced you to be mindful when picking a general. Archaeon has fairly mediocre stats to make up for the fact he unlocks synergy; Settra was just broken beyond belief.

So I used to play WHFB but quit when AoS hit and a least initially the possibility to play a strategic game based on movement was replaced by creative list writing and tricks such as having multiple chaos lords being able to Summon units of any size.
Since then a lot seems have happened including the generals handbook that brings order into matched play. On a side note I have also tried getting into 40k but again that game seems to be about listwriting, doing a decent setup, going first and then proceed with target prioritization and rolling lots of dice. Most of the games I have played are usually determined before the first shot is fired or the first charge performed.
What is the status for AoS today? Can someone motivate me to do a comeback inte the mortal realms?

Looking forward for this new edition, command points system is intresting. And if I can play with the recent books/models, that would safe a lot of money.

 auticus wrote:
Well after some conversations with people that were there, shooting OUT of combat is gone, but you can still shoot INTO combat with no penalty and no worries about hitting your own guys.

Sniping heroes through multiple forests and over multiple models to hit the chaos lord's horn on his helmet is still equally absurd.

So that brings me back to where I was. If they are serious about making AOS "THE" fantasy *WARGAME* then they need to actually bring those wargaming tropes back and make the battle feel like a battle and not some dice rolling exercise targeting enemy model's horns on their head.

I'm as aware of the balance/rules issues as you are and I don't mean to discredit those concerns at all, but let's at channel a little Bottle here and look on the positive end. Not shooting out of combat is much better than the current setup. It means they are willing to address core parts of the rules, so there's hope that they will get around to line of sight/cover problems eventually. Also TBF characters are rarely shot at just from having a tiny piece visible; it's usually much more than that.

And before someone says 'theyll fix other things too!' yes, I know, but they will inevitably mess some things up and it remains to be seen how those balance out

 auticus wrote:
Well after some conversations with people that were there, shooting OUT of combat is gone, but you can still shoot INTO combat with no penalty and no worries about hitting your own guys.

Sniping heroes through multiple forests and over multiple models to hit the chaos lord's horn on his helmet is still equally absurd.

So that brings me back to where I was. If they are serious about making AOS "THE" fantasy *WARGAME* then they need to actually bring those wargaming tropes back and make the battle feel like a battle and not some dice rolling exercise targeting enemy model's horns on their head.

Seems silly that I can't shoot out of combat but I can shoot into it.

pm713 wrote:
Seems silly that I can't shoot out of combat but I can shoot into it.

Unless you're Legolas, it makes sense that you can't shoot out of combat as you'll be readying your melee weapon. Personally I don't like shooting into combat without a chance of hitting your own troops.

 Ghaz wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Seems silly that I can't shoot out of combat but I can shoot into it.

Unless you're Legolas, it makes sense that you can't shoot out of combat as you'll be readying your melee weapon. Personally I don't like shooting into combat without a chance of hitting your own troops.

It was silly when AoS launched years ago and it's still silly now, nothing changed on that front.

 Ghaz wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Seems silly that I can't shoot out of combat but I can shoot into it.

Unless you're Legolas, it makes sense that you can't shoot out of combat as you'll be readying your melee weapon. Personally I don't like shooting into combat without a chance of hitting your own troops.

I'm wondering if there's a bit of crossed wires and the statement should have read that you can still shoot while in combat. Because right now, that's a saving grace for some missile troops.

What is scenery dice? What does it do? Does anyone know how they work?

IT's actually in the core rules. Technically, you are supposed to roll for every bit of terrain to know an additional effect on them (like taking D3 mortal wounds to get +1 to hit for a turn)...

It's one of the most skipped basic rules in AoS however. Lots of third party dice makers already make them, I guess GW wants in on the action too.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Well after some conversations with people that were there, shooting OUT of combat is gone, but you can still shoot INTO combat with no penalty and no worries about hitting your own guys.

Sniping heroes through multiple forests and over multiple models to hit the chaos lord's horn on his helmet is still equally absurd.

So that brings me back to where I was. If they are serious about making AOS "THE" fantasy *WARGAME* then they need to actually bring those wargaming tropes back and make the battle feel like a battle and not some dice rolling exercise targeting enemy model's horns on their head.

I'm as aware of the balance/rules issues as you are and I don't mean to discredit those concerns at all, but let's at channel a little Bottle here and look on the positive end. Not shooting out of combat is much better than the current setup. It means they are willing to address core parts of the rules, so there's hope that they will get around to line of sight/cover problems eventually. Also TBF characters are rarely shot at just from having a tiny piece visible; it's usually much more than that.

And before someone says 'theyll fix other things too!' yes, I know, but they will inevitably mess some things up and it remains to be seen how those balance out

Reviewing my past dozen or so battle reports, all of my characters that were killed in the shooting phase or maimed in the shooting phase are behind two full units and other terrain features. So at least in my world, my characters are for the most part hidden except an arm or a boot or a horn sticking up getting targeted (or the stupid model has the sword raised in the air which looks cool but lets everyone target him)

This isn't counting obvious things like my greater demons. I would expect those to be easier to pick out and that really isn't very jarring to me. My priests, sorcerers, and other champions though...

Anymore NONE of my new models have their arms in the air and any model that comes with some cool scenic piece of terrain that raises their elevation gets nixed immediately because it just lets my opponents target them easier. Which is hot-garbage IMO because cinematic and looking cool SHOULD be the #1 thing driving our modeling and ultimately our games.


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 Kanluwen wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Seems silly that I can't shoot out of combat but I can shoot into it.

Unless you're Legolas, it makes sense that you can't shoot out of combat as you'll be readying your melee weapon. Personally I don't like shooting into combat without a chance of hitting your own troops.

I'm wondering if there's a bit of crossed wires and the statement should have read that you can still shoot while in combat. Because right now, that's a saving grace for some missile troops.

Its possible, but multiple sources are citing it from the interview they had at warhammer fest, so unless the gw dev misspoke, thats what was communicated.

For my money I don't mind units that have short ranged missile weapons like throwing axes or javelins or whatever firing into their own combat, but things like skyfires and hunters and cannons and other artillery pieces doing so is very jarring.

Kind of siezed on the least important part of my post there...

At any rate I choose to look forward to the upcoming release. Sometimes I wonder if the reason GW doesn't balance things out as well as they could is simply because so many people will inevitably find a way to be unhappy with the game regardless. It would be very de-motivating for me at least.

I was super excited during 6th edition. Super excited for part of 7th and super excited for part of 8th until the playerbase wrecked it and the concept of "meta" solidified.

Ultimately... I play for narrative and immersion. GW has said several times that they are gunning for a narrative experience and a "cinematic" experience; that was something they HARPED on at warhammer fest. CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE.

That means the games should play out like you'd expect in a movie or one of their novels. (correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I just have cinematic experience and my expectations in two different places then they should be, which is possible)

That is what hooked me into them in the first place because they've been saying that for twenty plus years that is what they want out of their system.

So if they continue to keep rules that are anti-cinematic, they are defying their own goal and there will be a ton of disappointment from people who are here because they expect the game to play out like a movie or book and it should feel like an actual battle.

The house rules that I use are actually quite small these days and allow me to enjoy the game and be perfectly happy with it. They aren't major changes that add pages of complexity. They are simply:

* if you shoot into a combat you can hit your own guys and randomize who gets hit

* if you shoot through terrain features or cross enemy models to hit your target you get a -1 penalty to hit cumulative up to -3 (similar to LOTR which uses a similar mechanic only its a 4+ each terrain feature or enemy model you cross to hit)

Just two things. I keep the double turn, we keep the min/maxing stuff ... just those two things. The problem is that our culture HATES house rules even if they agree with them. As an event organizer if I use house rules, I take a dump truck full of profanity laced tirades in my inbox or second hand down at the store, which raises the drama level over a game because a house rule is in place for my event.

So if what you are saying is I'd be pissy and whiney no matter what they did, you'd be wrong. AOS is about 80% in a place that I could fully enjoy and do RAW. If they'd fully get rid of the silly unintuitive rules.

Just those two things would make me fully fine with no houserules. Additionally I'd be ECSTATIC if they brought back maneuver and made terrain more than a decoration (and if they had some kind of mechanism where shooting across terrain penalized you, that would be a step toward that)

There is currently an echo chamber with TGA and twitter thats all positive 100% of the time. Thats part of the problem.

I want AOS to be "THE" fantasy wargame because I have a huge investment in it. My current city/region had 150ish registered fantasy players in 2014 and 2015. 55 of those were campaign players. Roughly 80 of those were tournament players and the rest were casual at home players that were a part of our group. Today, our AOS group is about 30 players. The 120 other players have either moved to other systems like Kings of War, or are waiting the AOS thing out for a ruleset that appeals to them and what brought them into WHFB in the first place. To be "THE" fantasy wargame, GW needs to address numbers like that. I know anecdotal, but this is an anecdote that a lot of people seem to share.

I would really like an updated skirmish book with the newest stuff in it, we play a LOT of skirmish

You say you want to see a cinematic kind of play with AOS but then harp on and make one of your two biggest concerns something that isn’t how combat played out back when you had two lines of warriors crashing into each other.

Generally there was a very distinct separation between one line and the other line. You would stand in line with your comrades, and stab at the other line of shoulder to shoulder standing enemies.

So why do you think that not being able to shoot into a combat is a good thing. I think that’s wrong from a historical, cinematic, and gameplay perspective. This was a tactic used all the time. Pin an enemy down, and rain projectiles on top or to the side of them. That was the only way to effectively handle some heavily armored kinds of warriors too. Same logic can apply to Sigmar. How am I supposed to tackle something like Mortarchs, Bloodthirsters, Carnosaurs, Treelords, Terrorheists, etc. when I can’t even reliably shoot at them? Why is throwing a unit that I deem as the least necessary to tie them down for a turn so the rest of my army can focus it down so abhorrent to you?

I think shooting out of combat is also fine for most units - ie squishy foot soldiers- why should my unit of 40 Corsairs all focus on a single Zombie that makes it into combat with them when Nagash is knocking on my door? But I’m in the minority with this one and can see the validity of the argument against it at least.

But the shooting into combat thing I wholeheartedly disagree with you.