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flamingkillamajig wrote:So apparently Marlov is TFG.

For me i'm just insulted there are no points values. It's like instead of weighing something on a scale you guess somebody's weight or same goes for somebody's age. Sure you might get an estimate but it's not always accurate esp. for really big things. I mean imagine if people were like, "Instead of carbon dating this we're just gonna eyeball it and guess how old this fossilized tree is."

No, but I would rather play TFG than a whiney fluff-bunny that's going to complain because they lost to a decent list. It's everyone's own job to build a good army for the game they're playing. It's not my job to babysit them, or make them feel better about themselves, or be their camp counsellor.

I like point values EXACTLY because of what Talys said a page or two ago. As much as I think he's flying rodent gak crazy about so many things, he's right on there, except that I don't hide it at all. I WANT an advantage. I mean, BUILDING an advantage is part of the game: nobody faults a Magic player for building a good deck right?? If 95% of the game is coming prepared, then COME PREPARED!

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:Wow, that guy has something to prove. With tiny plastic army men and random dice rolls...

Glad to hear your idea of a good time is to make sure your oponnent doesn't.

Whether my opponent has a good time or not makes no impact on me having a good time. I really don't care, not any more than the guy I killed in BF4 or StarCraft. It's a game. You're supposed to win or lose. If you bring a crappy list, you'll probably lose. Which is just fine with me, as long as you don't complain about it after, because really what did you expect.

After a football game everyone shakes hands, right? Well and good, and I can shake hands with my opponent too. But nobody is sorry that they used whatever tricks they needed to win the game. And when Brady won the Superbowl, did he really care if the other guys had a good time? I don't even think he cared that anyone called him a cheater.

@Marlov - there is a HUGE difference between (a) playing someone that you don't know the name of, that you'll never meet, and (b) playing someone that is in front of you, that you're likely to see again.

If all you want is a hypercompetitive game, why not stick to PC games, where that's rewarded with wide recognition, and, in some cases, significant cash prizes?

The problem that you run into with playing wargames with real people is that there's no matchmaking, so sure, you might get 2/10 people who are also hypercompetitive, but you'll sometimes get 2/10 people who are new or who just want to kick back and play for fun. And 6/10 people are somewhere in between.

But anyways, what's the point of winning (or playing) if you know you're going to win because your list is vastly superior? Why not just feel good about yourself that you are awesome, declare "Mission Accomplished", go home, and save yourself the time, and the other guy the aggravation?

Edit: Oh yeah, using Tom Brady as an example of "sportsmanship" (or whatever... an ideal pro athlete?) is not a winning argument, man. That's like winning a GT because for all the rounds before the final, you had loaded dice.

Marlov wrote:

Spoiler:

......
Whatever you want to call it, it isn't a wargame. Not even close. You can't play out some vignette of a war... It's just a bunch of godly superheroes biffing it out and using magical powers.

But my brother has now convinced me that Age of Sigmar is a GOOD thing. One thing I despise about so-called "casual" players is that there is endless whining if they lose to "TFG" or whatever. Like, they refuse to learn to play the f***ing game, and then want to rage quit when they lose. So now at last there's a game for them, and they can leave serious wargamers to other games. It's great: anyone who likes Age of Sigmar I'll know I never want to play with. "Do you like Sigmar?" "Yes" (scratch off of list). That simple.

Yes, everyone is entitled to play their game, however dumb it might be.

But WARGAMING is a serious thing. A wargame REQUIRES competitive play (playing to win) and should involve it in every step from preparation to victory or defeat. If you can't prepare your army right, you deserve to LOSE. I don't play to make my opponent feel good... I think this is a ridiculous concept, but ok, if that's your thing, go for it. I want them to run away with their tail tucked between their legs because they got butthurt so bad... then come again another day to have another go at me. I feel great when I smash someone to bits and table them. I love when they feel hopelessness and despair. I feel angry with myself for being an idiot if I get tabled, but I focus that on being constructive and figure out what I need to do to win the next round.

So anyways good on GW for making a game for the people that I didn't want to play with anyways.

Whooe there sparky!

All games place an objective on the player to meet the win conditions either with or against the other players, but the aim is to have fun

If your playing for any other goal (I think the only cliche you missed was 'lamentation of their women!') then I'm afraid your being a bit of an arse.

You also used the words 'serious' and 'angry' in conjunction with a discussion about grown men playing toy soldiers, that alone should be enough to convince you that you might be doing it wrong.

 Talys wrote:

There is, however, no guarantee that a game will be fair or fun.

There is no guarantee that anything will be fun but if there has been at least some effort put into balancing and structuring a game then at least there is a reasonable chance that it will be fair (dice willing), surely that is obvious?

 Talys wrote:

Flames of War is much easier to balance than a game like Age of Sigmar, or Warhammer 40k. Imagine in FoW, if you introduced Martian units with lasers, and the Germans had dirigibles that could drop concussion bombs and the Brits built giant robots that dwarfed the L'Arc de Triomphe you were trying to protect. Imagine if the largest model is literally so big that an infantry unit can climb through the visor (actually, one sits inside, in the model) --

Such giant models don't belong in 15mm games (never mind 28mm) as its hard to balance something that barely fits on the tabletop. However, its entirely possible to create all kinds of weird units in most rulesets simply by the use of an appropriate statline and the judicious use of special rules. In the above Martian example, veteran infantry MG team stats with an increased AT rating and the Breakthrough gun special rule would be a a pretty good approximation without having to resort to extra special rules and the attendant rules bloat.

Things like this are simple to do and, providing that there is sufficient play testing, works well.

Why can't you understand that a game which provides a structure and reasonable limits on what you can field on the tabletop in a given game will all but certainly result in a better experience than a game where you can field anything you like? One of the key reasons why I disiked 7th ed was the extremely unbalanced nature of the game, I remember playing games where I had almost no chance of winning (in one particularly galling example by an army made up entirely of unpainted proxies);how is that in anyway fun and how will AoS prevent this from happening?

 Talys wrote:

If all you want is a hypercompetitive game, why not stick to PC games,

Indeed, expecting any wargame to be hypercompetative is a fools hope. There are far too many variables and they are usually too hard to define to make something absolutely balanced (which is essential for a real competitive game, not inbuilt exploits). The fact that you are looking for exploits means that you aren't actually a competitive gamer in the true sense of the word, in the PC gamer sense you are closer to a hacker Marlov.

There are pretty well balanced historical wargames, but they don't constantly inject new special rules every time someone has a "rule of cool" idea after a particularly boozy lunch.

DBA for example has been in use for 25 years now in popular casual and tournament play, and the only real area of imbalance is that the "Blades" troop variety has a slight statistical advantage.

Even so, everyone in the world doesn't play Roman armies, which have a lot of Blades, because there is enough variation of terrain and possible enemy armies to ensure that Romans have some "Achilles Heels".

Core AOS actually does look pretty balanced in terms of the basic stat lines. It doesn't look hard to put together balanced forces of standard units. It is the Monty Haul of special rules that is liable to ruin it.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
So apparently Marlov is TFG.

For me i'm just insulted there are no points values. It's like instead of weighing something on a scale you guess somebody's weight or same goes for somebody's age. Sure you might get an estimate but it's not always accurate esp. for really big things. I mean imagine if people were like, "Instead of carbon dating this we're just gonna eyeball it and guess how old this fossilized tree is."

Why insulted? It's not like GW has written "feth you guys and your points too" in there lol. It's just making it easier to build an army is all. I imagine for a lot of newcomers (which are mainly the target here) it can be a bit overwhelming.

 angelofvengeance wrote:

Why insulted? It's not like GW has written "feth you guys and your points too" in there lol. It's just making it easier to build an army is all. I imagine for a lot of newcomers (which are mainly the target here) it can be a bit overwhelming.

I can see why he feels insulted; GW sure didn't write this but people used to the old rules can feel this as a betrayal or an insult. You know, in the past, GW designers actually said why they used points value in their systems for a reason of having "fair" armies with relevant content rather than anyone being able to take 12 canons and 1 giant if they feel like it. And here in AoS, it is exactly the opposite of what they were doing before. Hell, it's actually the situation they were trying to prevent!

Times change and priorities as well ("our customers are mainly collectors!"), but memory remains...at least for those who were there at that time and still remember to say "yeah, that existed".


Newcomers don't really have that problem. Since they don't know what was before, they can take the game as it is right now - and have plenty of fun with it. So, beginners aren't actually overwhelmed, IMHO. It is harder to swallow for old vets, however. Some will adapt, others will quit...but this situation is still new. Let's give time to us players...and see what GW will really give us in the following months (no, "weeks" aren't enough to have a "big picture" of the real future of the game).


About the rules of AoS...they don't really matter if you play with your usual friends/circle of players. However, troubles come when you play "pick up" games with people you never met before. Unclear rules are then something in the way, because interpretations can be very different from one guy to another. When you're used to play one way, arguments will unavoidably happen when you play with someone who has another.

That's why having clear rules and a way to have "fair games" by balancing armies lists (points value or whatever else) is useful; you spend less time arguing with your opponent and more time actually playing. It has nothing to do with "not having fun" and "winning at all costs".

After all, the more time you spent thinking on house rules because the main ones aren't really good or clear, the less time you spent playing a game with something that doesn't need any clarification.

But, like I said, it's fine when you play with the same people all the time. It's just when you get out of that "comfort zone" that the true flaws of GW rules can be seen on the long term.

At least, that's my point of view.

The game is boring as watch flies smash into the window.
If would be a kickstarter from a new company, I doubt would raise more than 100k. GW is living on the glory and addict of the past. They are gonna go down, that's why they keep on raising G the model price,is the only way to keep those fat profit in their pockets.
There are way much more funny and entertaining game out there.
Or even real life.
But that can wait.
Can it?!

I think I am going to buy the starter box just for the models. I may not be a great painter, but the models in that box are amazing. I can also use them for my 40k chaos, I don't think anyone in my FLGS would mind that they don't have backpacks.

Being competitive has no bearing whatsoever on you army list. If you were actually competitive you would play someone with the exact same models and see who is the better general. What you are doing is attributing a positive trait to you ability to recognize probability ratios better than someone else. That is not competitive.

Also, how about this for balance of armies. Did you notice that the more expensive models have slightly better rules? If two players spent the same $ they would have to start playing the last edition (1/2 $80 for corebook, $35 for army book, $70 for models) you would actually have a very balanced game between the two. Negash could be defeated by any other $115 worth of models in the game, because at that point he isn't able to summon anything. If you buy things to summon, his price goes up, and your opponent needs to buy more things to stop him.

The price may just be the key factor to balance, we just didn't want to admit it out loud...

$ cost doesn't always translate into points though, with the proliferation of dual-kit boxes. It works for some things, but not enough to make the best model.

I find it odd that people can say the lack of balance is perfectly fine for WHFB, but couldn't work in 40k. It feels like the narrative is being led by 40k players who don't care if WHFB is that structured because all they wanted was a smaller game they could put a little investment in on the side from 40k.

Lack of a balancing mechanism will be fine for people in their friend groups- but then, they never needed help in the first place. Otherwise, I think the success of AOS will continue to be severely diminished beyond the new sheen glow of this first box set.

This

Not sure if troll.

If you want to be hyper competitive, then you should choose a game with more balance (like flames of war).(though I'm not sure if your implying that its alright to cheat, which would get you beaten up at FOW tournament )

I think this Age of Sigmar is a response to this. GW were always like "it's a narrative game guys".

bob82ca wrote:Thing I don't get about AOS is that I love making the army lists. I don't think I know anybody that dislikes it.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:I hate making army lists... WHFB game outcomes seemed to be determined in the list-writing phase, which makes WHFB less a contest of tactical skill or adaptive thinking so much as a contest of who wastes more free time on that particular part of the hobby. You can have that win every time.

I also gave up on GW's core two because they were too much about listbuilding (overloaded on 'strategy', to be generous), sometimes to a ridiculously nitpicky degree, relying on the 'meta' rather than the game. This was even before the hunt for the optimal units and builds in the unbalanced mess evolved into that mathhammer thing. You won because you have an army book, a calculator, and a knowledge of basic probability. Good for you. I'm so impressed I almost slipped into a coma.

Now you don't need a calculator to win in Warhammer, just a wallet.

However...

For me, the hobby is all about the models and the fluff. Maybe I'll be generous and including thinking about how I might want to paint my minis, too.

Wait, what was all that pining for tactical skill and adaptive thinking?

Maybe if I knew more people who aren't secret d-bags, I could appreciate some of the competitive nature of a war game, but as it is I'm done playing to win.


So, JohnHwangDD, if you're still interested we should game sometime.

Ah, so it was a stealth moan about people who think wargaming is about more than giggling at the dice result. Any dice result.

I'm not sure why you two should get together to game. The chances of one of you doing better than the other are just too great - a horrifying situation to contemplate! I guess you could play a narrative scenario about BFG ships entering the warp, using rubber bands. (be careful not to notice how much further one of you might manage to send them. Best to wear blindfolds while playing)

Kilkrazy wrote:
You are making the assumption that the purpose of army lists is to create an important strategic game play function for people to write army lists to maximise their chance of winning the game.

The original purpose of army lists was to ensure that the armies deployed on table top were realistic in composition and gave a fair fight. The purpose was not to find exploits that made one list stronger than another. This concept came into GW games because GW proved incapable of maintaining balance in their lists.

Just a pity the former's what GW turned it into, then.

Da Boss wrote:I'm tired of this WAAC vs. Casual debate. I really am. I feel like especially the "casual" side uses WAAC as a sort of straw man that shapeshifts to fit the needs of the situation.

Wanting a balancing mechanism does not make you WAAC. Playing to win does not make you WAAC.

I enjoy doing themed campaigns and scenarios with my friends. We will often swap sides after a campaign and play it again, and this is very satisfying.

I also play in tournaments. When planning a tournament list, I often come up with a background or model based concept for my army, and then build it as well as I can within that context... I will then go to the tournament and try my best to win every game without cheating and while being fair and polite to my opponent - my aim is to win, but also to be happy at the end of my game to buy my opponent a drink. A close fought game where I felt I gave it my all is the pinnacle of the tournament experience. I can lose the game and still walk away happy if a game was closely fought (winning it is obviously better, though!). I can also walk away from a loss if it taught me a lesson. I dislike losing due to obvious list imbalances however, as it teaches me nothing except "Chaos Daemons are unbalanced in 7th edition" for example.

Perhaps I am projecting, but I can't help but feel that the Studio feel that people like me who enjoy tournaments are "the wrong sort" and that this is an attempt to push us out or re-educate us into the right way of doing things. This seems crazy to me.

Thank goodness you turned up! I was starting to think things were a bit crazy myself, as if liking some listbuilding; liking balance and tactical play; liking to play to win and have fun*; liking settings, themes and scenarios; liking the personal challenge all that brings; and liking models, lovingly converted and painted; all at the same time, was my individual misconception of the entire wargaming hobby.

*GW said it, and amazingly I agree: the object of the game is to win, the point of the game is to have fun.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:+1. I'm incredibly sick of it, and it gets discussed in such black and whites when in reality most people lie somewhere in between. Things that particularly get on my nerves.

Spoiler:

"it's about having fun not being competitive" as if they are mutually exclusive. I have fun BECAUSE I am playing a competitive game, not in spite of it!!!!!

"It's not about whether you win or lose it's about having fun" as if this has anything to do with the price of fish in China. Just because I'm playing competitively doesn't mean I break down and cry when I lose, am TFG when I win or that any of that has an impact on how much I'm enjoying the game.

"As long as you play with reasonable people it's fine" Yeah, because it's sooo unreasonable to want well written and balanced rules

"it's fine if you just play casually instead of competitive" as if these mutually exclusive Personally I'd say I'm an incredibly "casual" player, I don't enter tournaments, I don't keep any tally of my wins or losses, I don't care whether I win or lose, I play for the sake of meeting up with friends more than anything.... but I still want to be somewhat competitive and have some structure to what I'm doing otherwise I might as well just be sitting in a bar chewing on nachos with mates or shooting spitballs at a wall.

"It's about narrative so these things don't matter" as if forging a narrative was independent of a solid rules base or indeed as if GW wrote narrative rules in the first place!. Fact is, I like narrative gaming, but I still like to use a solid rules base to start from and a proper points system to try and arrange the scenarios, otherwise it's just meaningless "pew-pew-pew"-ing to me.

"It's fine if you're willing to adapt the rules" as if it wouldn't be better if you didn't have to bend rules to make a workable game. I'd say I'm a very adaptable player, but I still like to have a set of clear and concise rules as my base so that when I'm adapting rules it's not just to fix blatant oversights of the writers but it's actually to forge new and interesting narratives! If you first have to fix the damned rules then it just takes me one step further away from forging a good narrative game.

I do tire of reading these sorts of comments.

Kew

Eff

Tee.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Being competitive has no bearing whatsoever on you army list. If you were actually competitive you would play someone with the exact same models and see who is the better general. What you are doing is attributing a positive trait to you ability to recognize probability ratios better than someone else. That is not competitive.

if someone really thinks they're a better general, and not just a better listbuilder, they should be prepared to swap sides

 Vermis wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
You are making the assumption that the purpose of army lists is to create an important strategic game play function for people to write army lists to maximise their chance of winning the game.

The original purpose of army lists was to ensure that the armies deployed on table top were realistic in composition and gave a fair fight. The purpose was not to find exploits that made one list stronger than another. This concept came into GW games because GW proved incapable of maintaining balance in their lists.

Just a pity the former's what GW turned it into, then.

It's actually turned into what you make of it.

When we play 40k, we do EXACTLY what Kilkrazy says. We compose armies and quasi-scenarios (most of which are planned) which we think are pretty fair, and will give more points to one side if we think it's not, and we build armies, generally, that fit some theme of our devising.

The number of games in a year where we play a list that remotely resembles what one would see in a tournament, you can count on your the fingers. Mostly, it's to answer questions like, "Is Skyhammer any good?" or, "Is Decurion beatable?" or, "How good are scatter laser jetbikes in practice vs theory?"

This is probably why we actually enjoy 40k. And how they play it (or how their group plays it) is probably why 40k makes some people really miserable. There's nothing wrong with competitive game play, but it's not fun if that's not what you're looking for, and the games can get pretty repetitive pretty quick.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
Why can't you understand that a game which provides a structure and reasonable limits on what you can field on the tabletop in a given game will all but certainly result in a better experience than a game where you can field anything you like? One of the key reasons why I disiked 7th ed was the extremely unbalanced nature of the game, I remember playing games where I had almost no chance of winning (in one particularly galling example by an army made up entirely of unpainted proxies);how is that in anyway fun and how will AoS prevent this from happening?

Of course I understand. As I've said before, I like points, I like making lists (I have thousands!), and 40k is my thing. I happen to like the giant stompy robots, tanks, jets, and infantry, by the way, even though I totally agree that balance-wise, it makes no sense to have titan size models in a 28mm game. I think it's awesome, and that's all that matters to me.

However, I'm stating, however a few things, that I hope that you can likewise understand.

1. Points are a blunt instrument to balance armies, and in the case of games like AoS, WMH, and 40k (where the number of possible models and combinations of magical powers is extremely high) they often result in the illusion of fairness, because competitive vs casual 30 points or 25 wounds or 2000 points can wildly vary in strength.

2. You can achieve better, or nearly-perfect fairness between by either playing a preplanned scenario (read: start with these units, use this table size and layout), OR by working with your opponent to create such a scenario. It's even more fair if you cointoss to see who plays which side before the game starts, or if you are willing to iterate the scenario and improve upon its fairness.

3. If you simply want to do battle with two armies in AoS, it's actually not hard to balance those two armies.

4. In tabletop gaming, my experience is that I play against people with wildly varying skills, models, and experience levels. In games with points and lists, I therefore tune what I play to match my opponent. There will be games where I try my best with my best army and lose, for sure (and I don't mind). But there will be lots of games where I purposely select a less competitive army so that I can have a good game. In a game where I have any familiarity, with a measly 30 models, I don't need points to tell me if it's going to be close. This isn't too different from Magic (well, when I played it), where I have competitive decks as well as any number of casual decks because 75% of the people I play with would have no fun against a really good deck.

5. For some people, apparently quite a few who read Dakka, winning or losing is the result of the game. The process of the playing the game, or even the food during a break, is much more important. In tabletop gaming, I clearly fall into this category, with the caveat that miniatures and models are very important to me.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Talys wrote:

If all you want is a hypercompetitive game, why not stick to PC games,

Indeed, expecting any wargame to be hypercompetative is a fools hope. There are far too many variables and they are usually too hard to define to make something absolutely balanced (which is essential for a real competitive game, not inbuilt exploits). The fact that you are looking for exploits means that you aren't actually a competitive gamer in the true sense of the word, in the PC gamer sense you are closer to a hacker Marlov.

In fact, on the PC, I am probably much more competitive than Marlov. I never exploit and never cheat in the technical sense of the word (ie break the terms of service or game rules); however, I do look to abuse the rules to the maximum extent possible. In a few extremely popular games, I've hit the #1 worldwide and/or server ladder spot. Street Fighter 2 Turbo, too I've won cash prizes that were nothing to sneeze at, too (orders of magnitude higher than what you would ever be awarded at a tabletop wargame championship).

But the PC is a different world: while you're learning, you play against equally clueless players that that might as well be AI, and matchmaking makes it so that you advance past there in no time at all. When you reach the top (which won't take long), then you're competing against a handful of people as bloodthirsty as you, with the singular goal of reaching the top 10 or 20 on a ladder that contains millions or tens of millions of people. You will never compete (the game won't let you except by direct consent) against unskilled/unequipped players.

In other words: you're not spoiling anyone's fun, and you're not "TFG" if you and your opponent are like-minded and doing the same types of things.

To me, a PC game is the perfect environment for hypercompetitiveness, because the server matches you up with like-minded hypercompetitive players. Plus, you might not say 20 words to another player in an entire game. In contrast, a tabletop game is the perfect environment for social encounters, because that's exactly what it is.

I think it's a fool's errand to try to squeeze rules a PC game out of miniatures.

Can someone be hypercompetitive in one, and totally noncompetitive in the other? Well obviously, because you're looking at someone that fits that bill


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MadMarkMagee wrote:
I think this Age of Sigmar is a response to this. GW were always like "it's a narrative game guys".

Yep. That's how I see it too. The rules, at least as they exist so far, make it impossible for someone to just bushwack you with a "competitive list" when you wish to play narrative, because as soon as you identify it, you say, "Wow, that's more powerful than what I've got, wanna tone it down?" instead of thinking, "Well, nothing I can do, that's 1850".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Blackscale wrote:
I think I am going to buy the starter box just for the models. I may not be a great painter, but the models in that box are amazing. I can also use them for my 40k chaos, I don't think anyone in my FLGS would mind that they don't have backpacks.

The models are spectacular!

We played Age of Sigmar yesterday night for the first time, using unpainted models out of the starter box.

The game was tons of fun! Having played Warmachines once, Age of Sigmar is much easier to learn, and the simplicity of the basic rules is just much easier for me. There's not much that to remember (or forget!) and all the hard stuff is in the special rules, which you only have to read for your own units.

By the way, my desire to play a "competitive" game is zero. I don't need to prove how smart I am (or validate how smart I'm not!). I just want to have fun.

I don't see the problem with playing scenarios if Games Workshop sells books with enough of them that it's not repetitive. I'm much happier playing scenarios where the company tells me what units to field than building lists. I hate building lists, anyways, because I can never put in what I want. It always ends up being, my BF tells me, "That unit really sucks" or "That weapon really sucks", so I never get to build or paint what I want. Well obviously, I can, but then I know that I'm crippling myself, and I hate that.

I also hate getting bushwacked by some bunch of models that I'm not expecting to be able to flatten me without a hope of me doing anything interesting. It's not that I mind losing. I do that plenty with a smile as long as I have a good time. I just mind not doing... anything.

Also, I don't know how anyone can say that Age of Sigmar is expensive. As far as these things go, it just isn't, and pointing to expensive accessories to say what an evil company Games Workshop is, is just being silly. That's like saying movie theatres are evil for selling expensive popcorn.

 Talys wrote:


4. In tabletop gaming, my experience is that I play against people with wildly varying skills, models, and experience levels. In games with points and lists, I therefore tune what I play to match my opponent. There will be games where I try my best with my best army and lose, for sure (and I don't mind). But there will be lots of games where I purposely select a less competitive army so that I can have a good game. In a game where I have any familiarity, with a measly 30 models, I don't need points to tell me if it's going to be close. This isn't too different from Magic (well, when I played it), where I have competitive decks as well as any number of casual decks because 75% of the people I play with would have no fun against a really good deck.

Amen!

If GW puts out lots of good missions and scenarios, and puts effort into some thought of how to get games with all the army's smooth. I think Age of Sigmar will be ok.

Right now it's still a mess with people not even sure where to start with the game here, at this point the list building is efectivly just done with what you choose to buy. Seems front loaded to the sale entirely.
GW going to have to work realy hard for my community to gain faith again to start the game.

You know, what really saddens me about this entire discussion, is that for most people, the world is black and white.

If you don't like points, you're a casual peasant, if you want points, you immediately become a TFG WAAC COMPETITIIIIIIIVE player.

 Sigvatr wrote:
You know, what really saddens me about this entire discussion, is that for most people, the world is black and white.

If you don't like points, you're a casual peasant, if you want points, you immediately become a TFG WAAC COMPETITIIIIIIIVE player.

Yeah, I see a lot of this. Personally, I want a game on a balanced playing field because I find it more enjoyable. Yes, I enjoy doing my best to win (an aim which I think is also best suited to an even game) and would certainly not enjoy losing a ridiculously one sided game vs 10 Nagashes or whatever, but that doesn't make me WAAC. People also seem to forget that, just because a certain game has a points system in place, doesn't mean you have to use it. Just like many players are house ruling "wounds=points" for AoS, you can easily just slap your whole 40k collection on the table against an opponent who has done the same, and completely ignore points.

 Sigvatr wrote:
You know, what really saddens me about this entire discussion, is that for most people, the world is black and white.

If you don't like points, you're a casual peasant, if you want points, you immediately become a TFG WAAC COMPETITIIIIIIIVE player.

Have an exalt .

So true!

 Sigvatr wrote:
You know, what really saddens me about this entire discussion, is that for most people, the world is black and white.

If you don't like points, you're a casual peasant, if you want points, you immediately become a TFG WAAC COMPETITIIIIIIIVE player.

Realy there is still a system that's efectivly points, just every war scroll is pointed as 1. There will still be list building and all that, and will almost certenly be TFG and WAAC people in the world.


The game is difernt, but I don't think it's realy doing much difernt from most other games on the market in the end.
I am curious what GW actuly has coming in the next 6 months, there new army's I think will have to be amazing if they want to get this game of the ground.
From personal chats the eternals are a negative for the game within my community, with a lot of players just sick of the way GW already handles space marines they are quite unwilling to jump into this game with them.


The bases thing just seems like GW is too weak willed to take the risk of telling players that the round bases will improve there games, which is odd considering the huge risk they have taken with Age of sigmar.
I think GW still got a long way to go.

A lot still to see though yet I hope.

I've not played WFB in years but I do still have my Dwarf army. I've not played AOS so cannot comment as to my own experiences, but I will say this. From my own local community I've not heard a single negative comment about AOS from anyone who has actually played the the game.

There have been those who have dismissed it on principal without even trying it, but of those who have approached it with an open mind and given it a go I've heard only good things.

I've been of the opinion that WFB needed to be rebuilt from the ground up for a while now and as I've always been a historical gamer at heart I've never been that interested in forces being 'balanced'. After all no real battle has ever been fought between balanced armies.

Obviously all gamers are different but personally I've never been than enamoured by battles between roughly even forces on neutral ground. I prefer to achieve fairness through scenarios rather than force composition. Obviously this makes 'pick up and play' games difficult so I understand why many gamers prefer the comfort of points, but not me.

AOS sounda like a real breath of fresh air to me and I'm keen to give it a go.

Apple fox wrote:
Realy there is still a system that's efectivly points, just every war scroll is pointed as 1. There will still be list building and all that, and will almost certenly be TFG and WAAC people in the world.

This actually isn't great, because not all warscrolls are equally effective; also, some warscrolls have unlimited maximums and others are limited to 1.

A better system that people seem to have settled on is Wounds and Keywords. If the two sides have about the same number of wounds, and are restricted to a similar number of types of units (warmachines, heroes, named heroes, etc.), the game will probably be reasonable, though of course, it still bears scrutiny, as not all heroes are made the same, nor ar all weak troops.

Apple fox wrote:
The game is difernt, but I don't think it's realy doing much difernt from most other games on the market in the end.
I am curious what GW actuly has coming in the next 6 months, there new army's I think will have to be amazing if they want to get this game of the ground.
From personal chats the eternals are a negative for the game within my community, with a lot of players just sick of the way GW already handles space marines they are quite unwilling to jump into this game with them.

I'm very curious as to where it goes too! The whole Space Marine meme is not going to hurt Games Workshop. An overwhelming number of GW fans like Space Marines, so a lot of people who don't like the similarity with Space Marines would never have bought Sigmar anyhow. A more general statement is that Sigmar moves Fantasy from the realm of regimented, ranked up models to superheroes, immortals, wizards, and godly beings doing battle.

Aside from the mechanics, this is just a dramatic shift. Personally, I prefer the superheroes battle than the "realism" of mortal soldiers, but this, I think, more than "Space Marines" will hinder or help Games Workshop. With this shift, they win over one sizable demographic and outright lose exclude the interest of another sizable demographic.

Personally, I don't think it's possible to make both camps happy: you can't have a game with sub-40 models that supports both normal humans and supernatural immortals with any semblance of sense.

i dont get it still lol.
this game is super competitive.

everyone cries and says that because someone can take 300 nagash models and the other guy takes 300 skaven slaves and both armies are 'legal' that the game is broken.

thats never going to happen.

the way the armies deploy keeps the game fair. put out what you think you need to play that battle the way you want to play it.

yea it's kind of dull right now playing deathmatch, but the new scenarios will fix that. its easier to get a feel for the game by a simple death match and then add in scenarios once you know the rules.

as for tournaments, it'd be a crying shame if they put points on things. what they SHOULD do is approve the collection of models someone brings to a reasonable limit. each individual game, you can play whatever you want.

hate to break it all of you whining, but this isn't a real war. it's not a simulation. furthermore, in real war, things aren't fair. the sides aren't always fair.
if i knew my opponent was running a full tank company, why wouldnt i bring anti tank weapons?

the idea of a balanced, take all comers, pointed out list is so freaking boring and bland that i've quit tournaments all together.

AoS is competitive from the second you decide to start playing the game. movement and deploying is even more important than it used to be. the game is way better than it used to be. your big cool monsters don't get obliterated by one stupid cannon ball.

you don't get smoked because one spell goes off. every model on your shelf is now usable.

40k? not competitive. if you want competitive 40k, go play starcraft.

these miniatures games were built for fun and to nerd out. i dont care who you are, what blog you read or what tournaments you play. the whole idea of competitive 40k and fantasy was all about seeing who could manipulate the rulebook to break the game the best.

the game is more fun now, its easier to play and more people at all of the stores i frequent are showing interest in the medieval, fantasy aesthetic (which i much prefer to the sci-fi side) so my review? this is awesome.

and to everyone throwing a fit, keep putting your armies on ebay, ill keep buying them at pennies on the dollar and those models will see the tabletop for many hours of fluffy and competitive fun.



on a final note of my rant, it turns out that i can still be quickly outsmarted during deployment even with the new AOS rules. i need to stop getting baited into putting too many models down lol.

For me AoS is a "Major" Mind Set Change that does affect how we play and used to play.
It is like the difference between 1st Edition D&D and 4th Edition D&D.
In 1st Edition D&D and WHFB (or 40k for that fact) it was Me (The DM) vs. the Players and there was little to suggest different. In WHFB it was You and your Opponent shows up with Pre-Made Armies and basic said "Deal With It!".
4th Edition D&D Actively and Repeatedly encouraged everyone to work together. GW is going that route, they want Both! Players to stop and talk to each other about what Both! Players want our of the game they are about to play.

I am seeing this a lot in the discussion that reminds me of when I started my first 4e D&D Game I ran. I told the players to wright down and give me 5 Items/Goals that they wanted for their Character to achieve (As suggested in the DMG). I got a lot of 'Deer In The Headlight' looks and had one player said this was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. When I started the Second Campaign though everyone showed up with their list ready to hand in to me.

Personally I like this new direction. It will encourage better games in the long run when everyone starts to get into the rhythm of the new 'Mind Set'.

@raoiley - I agree with quite a bit of what you said. A fundamental question is: Does the game start on the coin toss, or does it start before we ever see each other and we're building lists?

The philosophy of many players is that, 'I build my list for an advantage' is no different than building a deck for advantage in Magic. Obviously, building a list is part of the game; the problem arises when one person wants to play their collection and compete with that, while another person thinks the competition stars before they've bought their first model (again, you could say the sane thing about Magic, and specifically just buy the cards you want).

The part that you said about seeing how much you can break the game is absolutely true; this is also the philosophy of min-max competitive players, but keep in mind that this is where their fun is at - figuring out super duper combos (or worse, reading them off the Internet) and using them on the table.

Personally, I am very happy with the philosophy that the game should start on a coin toss or die roll, and prior to that, we should work constructively to build a game where we both have an even chance of winning - or at least go into it thinking that.

 Sigvatr wrote:
You know, what really saddens me about this entire discussion, is that for most people, the world is black and white.

If you don't like points, you're a casual peasant, if you want points, you immediately become a TFG WAAC COMPETITIIIIIIIVE player.

Can't forge a narrative with grey. Though I have to say the black and white narrative is poor, people need to learn how to be better story tellers.

 Anpu42 wrote:
For me AoS is a "Major" Mind Set Change that does affect how we play and used to play.
It is like the difference between 1st Edition D&D and 4th Edition D&D.
In 1st Edition D&D and WHFB (or 40k for that fact) it was Me (The DM) vs. the Players and there was little to suggest different. In WHFB it was You and your Opponent shows up with Pre-Made Armies and basic said "Deal With It!".
4th Edition D&D Actively and Repeatedly encouraged everyone to work together. GW is going that route, they want Both! Players to stop and talk to each other about what Both! Players want our of the game they are about to play.

I am seeing this a lot in the discussion that reminds me of when I started my first 4e D&D Game I ran. I told the players to wright down and give me 5 Items/Goals that they wanted for their Character to achieve (As suggested in the DMG). I got a lot of 'Deer In The Headlight' looks and had one player said this was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. When I started the Second Campaign though everyone showed up with their list ready to hand in to me.

Personally I like this new direction. It will encourage better games in the long run when everyone starts to get into the rhythm of the new 'Mind Set'.

I...feel like you and I have a very different experience of D&D.

I do agree, though, that WHFB vs. AoS has a lot in similarity to D&D 3.5 vs. 4E. However where I think you're wrong is in how positive of a comparison that is.

3.5 was certainly bloated and overcomplicated. Revenue was falling because everyone had bought what they needed for the game, and they needed to shake things up if they wanted the product to survive. And so came 4E. They take many of the valid concerns with 3.5 (that non-wizard classes seemed boring, that 1st level players seemed really weak, that people wanted more cinematic battles) and implemented a bunch of changes meant to make that better.

The result? Combats that took an hour. Powers for every class that took players forever to design. And a game so focused on combat that a great many players completely forgot about the roleplay elements. Though many players liked the system, WotC quickly realized how problematic many elements were. They stripped it back first with Essentials, and then replaced it entirely with 5E.

5E is what GW should have been going for. A lightweight but fair system, which is both easy for new players to get into but also contains all the depth that experienced players crave. In short, its a great core of a system that you can really take off and run with. 3.5 was a bloated mess, 4E was bloated in a different way, but 5E is the goldilocks solution between the two.


Age of Sigmar, like 4E, seeks to address many of those same problems. However the method of execution is fatally flawed, and simply adds so many more issues. The "simple and elegant" balancing mechanic in sudden death / model count breaks down EXTREMELY quickly. Though the game is designed as a skirmish game, it's clearly meant to scale up to large battles (skeletons have rules for up to 40 models per unit) but moving that many models individually is ridiculously tedious. The "measure to the model" actually actively discourages people converting their models, since it changes how the model is treated in game.

It's just a mess. Yeah it can be fun, like 4E was, but this is no goldilocks and never will be. It needs a ground-up rebuild.

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
You know, what really saddens me about this entire discussion, is that for most people, the world is black and white.

If you don't like points, you're a casual peasant, if you want points, you immediately become a TFG WAAC COMPETITIIIIIIIVE player.

Can't forge a narrative with grey. Though I have to say the black and white narrative is poor, people need to learn how to be better story tellers.

It's like politics. Pander to your base for the primary votes, then drive to the center when it comes prime time.

In other words, act all crazy online, be a pretty reasonable guy at the table Must be, because the ratio of reasonable people when I actually play is like... 95%, but you'd never know it in a forum. HATE IT! LOVE IT! DIE! DIE! DIE!

This game is garbage no matter if you are competitive or casual. If it was published by Mantic or PP, the same people here that like it would eat it alive. It happened wih KoW v1 that was 100x better ruleset than Age of Shame but all the GW crowd were like where's customisation, too simple too streamlined etc, well I guess not anymore.

The worst offender here is not even the ridiculous lack of balance, it's the lack of meaningful tactics, there are some ofc but compared to whfb 8th it's weak and to whfb 7th or KoW it's like checkers to chess. It's just dumber 40k which makes it quite dumb heh, just like the aesthetic atm is less balsy 40k. Why would I ever play this when I can play 40k.

Really to reboot such a huge game and waste potential to get it right, it's just sad. Not even a question of 4 pages, simple rules can be tactical hard to master etc. To release such a boring, uninspiring point and click simpleton where there are rulesets like SW Armada or Warmachine or KoW, they have no shame. I actualy hate Warmachine to the bone, aesthetic fluff even gameplay but Axing of System is like a meaningless, badly cut down version of that.