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 Sqorgar wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Tournaments represent 'organised play'.

That is how they are seen currently, but there's no evidence that it is the only way to conduct tournaments.

At it's most basic level a tournament is a contest between people going for an overall prize or achievement. That requires a structure in order to actually decide who plays who in what round. That is organization. It also requires people to create the event as I don't believe they exist in nature, that means finding a venue, setting a date and spreading awareness of it's existence.

If you don't consider that organized then please do tell just what the hell you would.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
When you see the outcome of a skirmish, why does there have to be mechanics for the outcome, instead of saying the side that won was able to get a flank or hole to open up and pushed the advantage? When the game allows you to represent the chance for victory however you want it to, why does it matter mechanically how the victory was achieved?

My guys are making one attack roll, ONE. They can't push back and forth or target specific models. They represent the general position of the soldier on the battle field, and their overall chance of killing an opposing warrior.

I wasn't disputing what was said, I was disputing the idea that the game can't represent those situations without adding more rules that really aren't needed to play.

This is true.

To be frank, though, you could just roll dice and whoever scores higher is the winner of the entire battle, without bothering even to lay any figures on the table. But AoS and other tabletop games are about moving the models around in order to gain tactical advantages.

Generally, the larger the scale of the game, the less point there is in micro-managing what your units are doing. In Marechal de l'Empire (Polemos 6mm Napoleonic rules) for example, you do not have to form square against cavalry. It is assumed if you rolled low and the attacking cavalry rolled high so you lost, that your infantry failed to form square in time, or something. But in this game, a unit is an infantry brigade consisting of a single base representing 1,000 to 3,000 troops. You might easily have 100 such units in your army. You are the C-in-C and cannot be expected to micro-manage a unit that represents under 0.5% of your total force. That is for the sub-commander running down through corps, to division, to brigade generals.

AoS however is a small scale skirmish with roughly 30 to 50 individual figures per side, many of which are grouped into units. There may be fewer individual models in an entire game of AoS than there are officers in a single brigade base of Marechal de l'Empire, which is only one of 500+ Units involved in the battle.

The point of AoS is how you manoeuvre individual models. Potentially everything that gives you more options with your models is enhancing the game. That is why the game has rules for the difference in length between a spear, a sword and a dagger.

And while maneuvering my models I am able to be rewarded by getting into my opponents weak side or rear and getting more opportunity to cause damage and later battle shock tests. Which means the most effective way to place your troops for defense is to make a brick so there isn't a weak side and all your opponent can do is hit them head on. That's why I enjoy the system so much for who is engaged and how they are reacting to the units around them. There are tactical and fluff reasons to place your models however you want and they will change the outcome of the game and how you have to play in order to win. It doesn't really need more than that in regards to mechanics. IMO, of course.

 Sqorgar wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Tournaments represent 'organised play'.

That is how they are seen currently, but there's no evidence that it is the only way to conduct tournaments.

No, it's pretty much how they're done. Or are you saying tournaments are unorganised, or don't have to be organised? You know. Venues. Times. Rule packs. Mission packs. Boards. Scenarios. You know. The kind of stuff you have to 'organise'?

 Sqorgar wrote:

No, the problem is, if everyone uses whatever ststem they like, you remove and destroy the key strength of tournaments - this idea of a universal, systemic, ordered, defined and consistent rules set.

In your opinion.

No, it's pretty much 'by definition' that when everyone goes off and uses 'any system they like' then the great strength of having a universal, systemic, ordered defined and consistent rules set doesn't really exist or work.

 Sqorgar wrote:

This is not good for stability, growth or sustainability. Or maintaining any kind of common perspective.

The basic rules and the models are the common perspective. Whether one group uses points and another uses wounds, it's not going to change the fact that they are both playing Age of Sigmar. It's like playing Quake with mods. It's still Quake, but you can choose how to have fun with it. Some people like Capture the Flag or Counter Strike more than Deathmatch - and the differences between AoS mods will likely be far less extreme.

For tournaments though, the play books are also part of the 'common perspective'. Just like the nfl or how any governing body in any organised sport defines how competition is organised. Nfl follows the same rules in Nebraska as New Jersey.

And I dunno about the differences being extreme. It's the differences that are important. Considering you don't have a defined size, house rules (the op had something like 20 pages of extra rules), various errata (are all elements raw or rai), various limitations (unit caps, hero caps), mission set (specific ones from the book, or home brewed?), timed turns (yay or nay), board size, various soft scoring (painting, sportsmanship, none at all). Turn limits. Number of games. Etcetera.

It's all still aos, as you say. And as you say, everyone still plays some various form of it, but they're all different. Those differences count. A lot of those mods are great at home with your mates, but the second you go to a large venue and you have lots of people playing in lots of different venues, these things can often break down beyond the local scene because there isn't a governing body, or a universal set of requirements. Sadly, I've seen it back home in Ireland with 40k.

You miss the point about computer games. quake mods are not the same game. Same foundation - sure. And yes, you can have a capture the flag tournament. Or a death match tournament. Different 'formats'. As I said. Privateer press have iron gauntlet, who's the boss, spell draft, steamroller, masters, mangled metal, highlander etc. capture the flag, and death match are already defined and governed. They're already universal, You know how they work. And what to do. Aos tournaments don't have this structure or this direction. There is no governing body. It risks turning into herding cats. And frankly, unlike with computer gsmes, we don't have the luxury of millions of players to divide amongst dozens of sets of tournament rules where this can still work. We have thousands, on a national scale, and dozens in a local meta.

 Sqorgar wrote:

The second you get organised though, and want something bigger, or something tgr community as a whole can get behind, it falls down. Because you no longer have a community. You have a whole bunch of different people doing different things. This is fine for different people doing different things. But for something organised - 'there can only be one'.

I couldn't disagree more. I think that because tournaments tend to be built around only one type of player, it is not surprise when that one type of player is all that shows up. However, it is a mistake to assume that there's only one way to define tournaments.

This just shows how narrow minded you are and how limited your experience is. Tournaments don't just cater to 'one type' of player.thats simply and ignorant and uninformed statement. Do you know all tournament players? Do you know their motivations? Hmm? No. Didn't think so, get off your high horse. Thst dismissive and condascending attitude does you no favours. And it's not your first time acting this way in this thread.

 Sqorgar wrote:

My point is that maybe wargame tournaments are the way they are because some major game came along, probably 40k, which set expectations a certain way, introducing a bunch of new players to the genre, and ended up defining what is acceptable. That's not to say there is only one way to do things, just that the popular way is so dominant that it ultimately scares people who are accustomed to the old way. And because it is virtually impossible for a competitor to come along and do it a different way, old mannerisms are never challenged. Games Workshop doing this with Age of Sigmar has a real chance of creating a more varied and diverse gaming landscape, and we should applaud that effort.

There were tournaments and wargsmes before 40k. Gw didn't invent the hobby, despite their protestations. Historical players have been running tourneys since the Fiftys. Amusing you barker back to the 'old way' when tournaments have always been a thing. I would argue that it's less scaring off people and more an evolution of the wants and desires of the playerbase. To do things successfully on a large scale, you simply need to be organised. That is true for absolutely everything.

You are right. Aos of sigmar harken back to how a lot of historical players do their games. I think it's great that there is a chance that more people will get more proactive about their gsmes and get in the driving seat. It will make games more varied. And like I said I applaud this. I also acknowledge its limitations and where this approach works best. games at your house with like minded friends, when you have time and space and can do what you want, and tournaments are two totally separate beasts. Aside from small local events and heavily tweaked and altered versions, I don't think aos suits a tournament game, especially on a global scale. I can see it breaking down quite easily outside of a local meta.

 Sqorgar wrote:

Personally, I'd love to play in a tournament, so long as I didn't have to play against tournament players. That says to me, at least, that it is not the only option possible, but because tournaments are how they are, it is the only option available. I'm not willing to write off different possibilities.

How small minded of you. This is quite possibly the most ignorant thing you've said, and you've got a few doozies to your credit. Quite simply, your attitude stinks (not the first time I've thought this) and I am officially done talking to you.

 jonolikespie wrote:

At it's most basic level a tournament is a contest between people going for an overall prize or achievement.

But that achievement doesn't have to be victory. Warhammer World, for example, had a tournament where they awarded the most fun to play with and best painted army, with the victory ratio deciding some sort of fluff later.

That requires a structure in order to actually decide who plays who in what round. That is organization. It also requires people to create the event as I don't believe they exist in nature, that means finding a venue, setting a date and spreading awareness of it's existence.

If you don't consider that organized then please do tell just what the hell you would.

I agree that these events must be organized by people and that they must take place in a venue, and so on. They are events that involve a number of people and thus require some level of logistical planning to pull off. I don't agree that sharing the same rigid gameplay structure between every single one is required. That is, it must internally organized but not globally organized.

It's perfectly fine for each game in each tournament to use different rules. For instance, using a different scenario for each game, or at a grander scale, using a different army organizational system for each tournament. As long as the players know what to expect ahead of time, they can plan accordingly and still have their uber competitive games of one upmanship.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

At it's most basic level a tournament is a contest between people going for an overall prize or achievement.

But that achievement doesn't have to be victory. Warhammer World, for example, had a tournament where they awarded the most fun to play with and best painted army, with the victory ratio deciding some sort of fluff later.

That requires a structure in order to actually decide who plays who in what round. That is organization. It also requires people to create the event as I don't believe they exist in nature, that means finding a venue, setting a date and spreading awareness of it's existence.

If you don't consider that organized then please do tell just what the hell you would.

I agree that these events must be organized by people and that they must take place in a venue, and so on. They are events that involve a number of people and thus require some level of logistical planning to pull off. I don't agree that sharing the same rigid gameplay structure between every single one is required. That is, it must internally organized but not globally organized.

It's perfectly fine for each game in each tournament to use different rules. For instance, using a different scenario for each game, or at a grander scale, using a different army organizational system for each tournament. As long as the players know what to expect ahead of time, they can plan accordingly and still have their uber competitive games of one upmanship.

Just to clarify when you say each game in each tournament do you mean round 1 plays with rules A, round 2 plays with rules B?

If so I'd take issue with that, but let's focus on what I think you mean, that tounrey A can use X rules, tourney B can use Y rules.
On the surface there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Hell, it is probably a good thing, variety is the spice of life after all.
Until you want to get serious about tournaments and run country or even world wide events with player rankings carrying over form one event to the next and regional qualifiers to get into national events, or god forbid even international. Once you get to that level of play you do need standardized systems so people know EXACTLY what to expect and there can be no issues with Australians playing it one way, Europeans another, and Americans a third way.

Infinity's ITS system does this very well.
Warmachine does it quite good too, and they have several different 'standards' of play (I think this was mentioned earlier in this thread). THe thing is each of those 'standards' of play are exactly that. Standards across the board. If I am tolled I am going to an Iron Gauntlet I know exactly what to expect. If I am told it is steamroller I know exactly what to expect.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Just to clarify when you say each game in each tournament do you mean round 1 plays with rules A, round 2 plays with rules B?

Yes. I would be perfectly okay with that.

If so I'd take issue with that, but let's focus on what I think you mean, that tounrey A can use X rules, tourney B can use Y rules.
On the surface there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Hell, it is probably a good thing, variety is the spice of life after all.
Until you want to get serious about tournaments and run country or even world wide events with player rankings carrying over form one event to the next and regional qualifiers to get into national events, or god forbid even international. Once you get to that level of play you do need standardized systems so people know EXACTLY what to expect and there can be no issues with Australians playing it one way, Europeans another, and Americans a third way.

Nah. They can all play it different ways and the winners of their respective tournaments can then play each other with a fourth set of rules. Would it really offend you if the winner of the European tournament won through a different set of challenges than the Australian one?

Infinity's ITS system does this very well.
Warmachine does it quite good too, and they have several different 'standards' of play (I think this was mentioned earlier in this thread). THe thing is each of those 'standards' of play are exactly that. Standards across the board. If I am tolled I am going to an Iron Gauntlet I know exactly what to expect. If I am told it is steamroller I know exactly what to expect.

So it is unpredictability that offends you? The idea that you may face a challenge you are not prepared for?

 Sqorgar wrote:

Personally, I'd love to play in a tournament, so long as I didn't have to play against tournament players.

Good lord.

Next time I show up to a gaming night im going to say "I'll only play people I know im going to win against" or maybe "I'd love to play a casual game so long as i don't have to play against casuals"
So people who show up to a tournament with a focused army that they have spent time refining over the months and are showing up to try to win the tournament are bad players and you don't like them because they show up to an event thats based around winning to try to win ok If I invent i time machine I'll make sure to tell those jousting knights that they're ruining the jousting tournament for trying to win it.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Yes. I would be perfectly okay with that.

Nah. They can all play it different ways and the winners of their respective tournaments can then play each other with a fourth set of rules. Would it really offend you if the winner of the European tournament won through a different set of challenges than the Australian one?

So it is unpredictability that offends you? The idea that you may face a challenge you are not prepared for?

I'm not quite sure how you got 'offence' from 'issue' but whatever.

Yes, unpredictability is a bad thing in tourneys. It leads to situations people will think are unfair or where they have won or lost a game on a factor that is entirely outside of the game itself. I think you missed the point about the international thing, if a country wins their way into an event using X rules, then the event uses Y rules that can put them at an unfair disadvantage against all the others who predominantly use Y rules.


And as for the idea of each round in a single tourney being different, that's grossly impractical. So I take my models over to the table I was assigned, I meet my opponent, ask what he's playing, etc, etc. Then we decide to talk about what rules we want. He says he wants to include X rule. I can see that X rule will give him a huge advantage so I say no. He presses the point, I stand my ground. Now we are arguing and wasting time we should be playing in, something you can not be doing at a tourney. Obviously the way to resolve it is either take it to the TO (at which point why not just make it a standard rule) or roll off, in which case the game may be decided by that single roll of a d6 before the game has even started.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
When you see the outcome of a skirmish, why does there have to be mechanics for the outcome, instead of saying the side that won was able to get a flank or hole to open up and pushed the advantage? When the game allows you to represent the chance for victory however you want it to, why does it matter mechanically how the victory was achieved?

My guys are making one attack roll, ONE. They can't push back and forth or target specific models. They represent the general position of the soldier on the battle field, and their overall chance of killing an opposing warrior.

I wasn't disputing what was said, I was disputing the idea that the game can't represent those situations without adding more rules that really aren't needed to play.

This is true.

To be frank, though, you could just roll dice and whoever scores higher is the winner of the entire battle, without bothering even to lay any figures on the table. But AoS and other tabletop games are about moving the models around in order to gain tactical advantages.

Generally, the larger the scale of the game, the less point there is in micro-managing what your units are doing. In Marechal de l'Empire (Polemos 6mm Napoleonic rules) for example, you do not have to form square against cavalry. It is assumed if you rolled low and the attacking cavalry rolled high so you lost, that your infantry failed to form square in time, or something. But in this game, a unit is an infantry brigade consisting of a single base representing 1,000 to 3,000 troops. You might easily have 100 such units in your army. You are the C-in-C and cannot be expected to micro-manage a unit that represents under 0.5% of your total force. That is for the sub-commander running down through corps, to division, to brigade generals.

AoS however is a small scale skirmish with roughly 30 to 50 individual figures per side, many of which are grouped into units. There may be fewer individual models in an entire game of AoS than there are officers in a single brigade base of Marechal de l'Empire, which is only one of 500+ Units involved in the battle.

The point of AoS is how you manoeuvre individual models. Potentially everything that gives you more options with your models is enhancing the game. That is why the game has rules for the difference in length between a spear, a sword and a dagger.

And while maneuvering my models I am able to be rewarded by getting into my opponents weak side or rear and getting more opportunity to cause damage and later battle shock tests. Which means the most effective way to place your troops for defense is to make a brick so there isn't a weak side and all your opponent can do is hit them head on. That's why I enjoy the system so much for who is engaged and how they are reacting to the units around them. There are tactical and fluff reasons to place your models however you want and they will change the outcome of the game and how you have to play in order to win. It doesn't really need more than that in regards to mechanics. IMO, of course.

No man. Hitting head on asap will be better majority of times anyway for early double damage and you will have the same or similar battleshock test anyway. You only need to maneuvere to "weak side" (not sure what you mean saying "rear", there's no rear in AoS) if there's not enough place on the front or the enemy unit is big enough so you can limit guys piling in, still the guys not engaging the "flanking" unit can probably hit the other unit they are fighting with so not much difference tbh and sounds like a bit nuanced double tap not flanking. Also the random roll for who's first and order of attacks will influence the outcome of the game much more and outside dedicating right amount of units/ models to right parts of opponent force, the maneuvering will matter little.

If I play battle part of Heroes of Might and Magic (sorry for pc games references again but that's what I play atm), I also can't put two units in one hex/ square so attackng with the second unit I have to walk around a bit or be positioned so I can get to the other hexes. There's also a situational bonus for attacking with second unit because most units only retaliate once. Noone calls it flanking though because it's not, they announced flanking for incoming HoMM 7 to get some depth into battles and it will be hard bonus based on facing. Repeat, facing.

Btw HoMM is a good example of another thing. The series is imo super shallow especialy battles (which are somehow similar to AoS btw) but the strategic part is simplistic too imo and the choices few. You can't build cities, have limited number of units to recruit, global magic is weak, leveling your heroes random and limited. Now, Age of Wonders has everything, flanking in battles, number of attacks depending on how far you had to move to engage, penalties for leaving combat also building cities, recruiting units based purely on economy, control of heroes leveling, powerful global spells, positioning on strategic map inflluencing battles (as everything from surrounding hexes fights). Now while I sunk hundreds of hours into AoW 3, I totaly stoped playing it atm for Heroes 5 despite the latter being relatively shallow and pointless game and yes I'd say quite dumb. It has awesome dragons though lol and I love to watch them fight also gather all those shiny crystals and the shivers that come from getting the lucky double turn. It's not a problem to play a game I consider dumb/ shallow and it doesn't make me dumb and shallow. It's not a problem to admit that Heroes is much more shallow and worse game than AoW mechanics wise either.

But that achievement doesn't have to be victory. Warhammer World, for example, had a tournament where they awarded the most fun to play with and best painted army, with the victory ratio deciding some sort of fluff later.

So the person who had the most friends with him on that day or a group of people that decided to vote for one person won? Nice tournament where the same group of people would be winning over and over again, and get free prizes while others would pay entry fee and never win.

Makumba wrote:

But that achievement doesn't have to be victory. Warhammer World, for example, had a tournament where they awarded the most fun to play with and best painted army, with the victory ratio deciding some sort of fluff later.

So the person who had the most friends with him on that day or a group of people that decided to vote for one person won? Nice tournament where the same group of people would be winning over and over again, and get free prizes while others would pay entry fee and never win.

You're marginalizing something that is very unlikely to happen. This is akin to "What if my opponent has 500 bloodthirsters?". Exaggerating this much warps the debate. The AoS event organized for Warhammer World is a campaign and the beginning of a series of campaigns. There are no prizes for "winning" except deciding the next realm for a campaign and naming a hero that would take part in it.

But there are a lot of units where their bonuses come into play when they aren't hitting head on, but letting the enemy come at them. And I say rear because I may need that unit to not move forward due to it being able to threaten something I really don't want to have crushed. With regards to the computer game, if your soldiers are pulled to one side of a hex, does it make it harder to get to the next hex? The main strategy for attacking from different angles in age of sigmar, besides limiting enemy retaliation, is the fact that you are drawing you enemies forces in a certain direction, or they aren't able to fight effectively.

Any game where you get to force your opponent into bad positioning as a core mechanic is going to have a pretty big strategic element. When you watch the more recent battlereports on YouTube, you are starting to see people taking the strategy more seriously. That is because after playing for a while they have started paying attention to how the mechanics are changing their game's outcome and are now actively trying to utilise those rules.

 CoreCommander wrote:

Makumba wrote:

But that achievement doesn't have to be victory. Warhammer World, for example, had a tournament where they awarded the most fun to play with and best painted army, with the victory ratio deciding some sort of fluff later.

So the person who had the most friends with him on that day or a group of people that decided to vote for one person won? Nice tournament where the same group of people would be winning over and over again, and get free prizes while others would pay entry fee and never win.

You're marginalizing something that is very unlikely to happen. This is akin to "What if my opponent has 500 bloodthirsters?". Exaggerating this much warps the debate. The AoS event organized for Warhammer World is a campaign and the beginning of a series of campaigns. There are no prizes for "winning" except deciding the next realm for a campaign and naming a hero that would take part in it.

I have seen best painted and best army in action, when people voted on it. The locals always take the prizes every time, because there is more of them. Always.

Makumba wrote:

 CoreCommander wrote:

Makumba wrote:

But that achievement doesn't have to be victory. Warhammer World, for example, had a tournament where they awarded the most fun to play with and best painted army, with the victory ratio deciding some sort of fluff later.

So the person who had the most friends with him on that day or a group of people that decided to vote for one person won? Nice tournament where the same group of people would be winning over and over again, and get free prizes while others would pay entry fee and never win.

You're marginalizing something that is very unlikely to happen. This is akin to "What if my opponent has 500 bloodthirsters?". Exaggerating this much warps the debate. The AoS event organized for Warhammer World is a campaign and the beginning of a series of campaigns. There are no prizes for "winning" except deciding the next realm for a campaign and naming a hero that would take part in it.

I have seen best painted and best army in action, when people voted on it. The locals always take the prizes every time, because there is more of them. Always.

I've shown up at random local gaming stores running tournaments and won both best painted and best sportsmanship where everyone got a vote. Maybe the locals in your scenario just felt the newcomers legitimately weren't the best choice.

Your idea of a tournament is people getting together, doing random things and then everyone gets a blue ribbon for participation. That's not a tournament. Playing to win isn't a bad thing. Many consider it fun.

 Kriswall wrote:

I've shown up at random local gaming stores running tournaments and won both best painted and best sportsmanship where everyone got a vote. Maybe the locals in your scenario just felt the newcomers legitimately weren't the best choice.

Yeah, best sportsmanship is always a nice award to hand out and fun to vote on. I would always vote for the most animated/role-playing type of fella.

Don't mean to derail this thread ( ), but Age of Sigmar at NOVA was a glorious success! Thanks again to all who participated and looking forward to next year.

Especially appreciated the conversations/reflections in the lounge. I like the idea of providing a "tax" for multi-wound infantry models when using wounds as a list building mechanism, and glad to see the discount on massing single wound units worked well. This is also assuming we do not switch to something like a pool system for next year (highly recommend checking out scrollbuilder.com !)

Similarly, we all saw how powerful summoning is, even when limited to one unit per turn, so we will definitely take a close look at that going forward. I actually really like the idea of retaining summoning, but having all summoned units removed as casualties (and count as such when calculating mission results) if/when the model that did the summoning is killed. Adds a decent amount of risk to balance an otherwise unmitigated ability.

Happy to field questions about the event and/or my thoughts as TO.

quiestdeus wrote:

Happy to field questions about the event and/or my thoughts as TO.

I'll take advantage of that:

First, what was your (and others' TO if there were any) reasons for including the following rules:

You cannot shoot into or out of close combat.

Heroes without the monster keyword get "look out sir" of 4+ if within 3" of a
friendly unit.

Remove closest non-command models first when removing casualties

Was it to make the battles more realistic? Did you feel people won't play the game without these? Did you personally like a comp system of which these are part? I'm shooting blind here so just share your thoughts, please.

Second, regarding the attending players:

1. Did you notice a dominant trend to move units into block formations, skirmish formations, strangely shaped formations etc?
2. How much terrain was there per table (% of table are for example). Why did you choose not to use mysterious terrain and I assume any terrain with special abilities at all?
3. Were there any tactics . Ok, couldn't help myself, it is a running "joke" on the forums. You can treat this as a general question if there was some ingenious move, during a game, that was considered masterful among the attending players? I know that as a TO you may not have had much time to walk around sight seeing, but still...
4What did the old players think of all the above? What about the completely new ones? What was the new/old players ration

Thanks.

 CoreCommander wrote:

quiestdeus wrote:

Happy to field questions about the event and/or my thoughts as TO.

I'll take advantage of that:

Happy to answer (let me know if anything is not clear!)

 CoreCommander wrote:

First, what was your (and others' TO if there were any) reasons for including the following rules:

You cannot shoot into or out of close combat.

Heroes without the monster keyword get "look out sir" of 4+ if within 3" of a
friendly unit.

Remove closest non-command models first when removing casualties

Was it to make the battles more realistic? Did you feel people won't play the game without these? Did you personally like a comp system of which these are part? I'm shooting blind here so just share your thoughts, please.

In order:
The shooting decision was to try and balance how powerful ranged attacks can be when units who have them (especially those who have short ranges, such as pistols) are able to use them with no check or balance (i.e., close combat). Ogres especially, Maneaters with their D3 wounds shots and multi-damage melee attack can already absolutely brutalize almost anything, and giving them the ability to continue to shoot even when locked in combat just exacerbates the power-curve. Ranged is very powerful in AoS, and is typically balanced by units who shoot having lackluster combat stats (e.g., most elf archers are 4s to hit/wound in ranged, but 5s in close combat... allowing them to continue to shoot while locked in combat gives them another attack and turns them from rather weak to very powerful). Without limiting shooting, there is almost no point to not taking archer units compared to pure-melee alternatives.

Long story short on the LOS ruling: Heroes on their own can be very squishy, we just over estimated how-much-so. Doing things again I would definitely remove the "look out sir" house rule as it was unnecessary. The sheer power of heroes is balanced by their fragility, and while I do not think this ruling was used very frequently during the event, it definitely feels unnecessary now.

Finally, I do not have a very good reason for why we had models removed closest-first. This was a holdover from the GW FAQ/Errata we used as the foundation for our packet (given how quick a turnaround was necessary for us to generate, attempt to test, and disseminate the AoS pack for NOVA). While it does mirror 40k behavior (and thus did not seem too foreign to me at the time), skipping command models proved to be unnecessarily complicated and led to weird coherency issues, and I am unlikely to use it in future events.

 CoreCommander wrote:

Second, regarding the attending players:

1. Did you notice a dominant trend to move units into block formations, skirmish formations, strangely shaped formations etc?
2. How much terrain was there per table (% of table are for example). Why did you choose not to use mysterious terrain and I assume any terrain with special abilities at all?
3. Were there any tactics . Ok, couldn't help myself, it is a running "joke" on the forums. You can treat this as a general question if there was some ingenious move, during a game, that was considered masterful among the attending players? I know that as a TO you may not have had much time to walk around sight seeing, but still...
4What did the old players think of all the above? What about the completely new ones? What was the new/old players ration

Thanks.

1. Absolutely. Almost everyone still had movement trays in some shape or form for at least one unit in their army, and used them for movement during the first one or two turns of the game. Once units started approaching each other and preparing to charge or be charged though, the models often came off their trays (and did not seem to return to them). No "strange" formations were really used, but that also depends on your definition of strange. I do think the players did enjoy and make use of the freedom AoS movement provided, especially for things like Brets and Wood Elves for what that's worth. Lots of curved lines (attempting to wrap/envelope a unit I assume) and "W"-esque formations to maximize contact between two units.

2. We did not use mysterious terrain to ensure each game on each table was similar and, given terrain layouts we intended to be consistent across tables, games each round were pretty consistent (specifically, not decided by "poor" or "one-sided" terrain rolls). I used "a lot" of terrain according to most players at first glance, but once they started playing on the tables (we allowed open gaming on them the night before) it was definitely praised. I used the 40k rule for density, that is at least ~25% of the table being covered in terrain with at least 1 (often 2) line of sight blocking pieces. There were a few pieces of ambiguous pieces unfortunately (specifically, a few hills that were LOS blocking to dwarves and skaven, but not humans or elves) which I will do away with next year though.

3. Every game went to time, and, based on my ability to observe, indicated relatively thoughtful gameplay. I was honestly surprised, as I made sure to have 2.5 hours for each round and definitely thought I was being more than generous, but I did NOT get the feeling games were taking that long because people were just padding their rounds. People *definitely* had strategies though, I think only one game of all the ones I observed actually devolved into a "melee-in-the-middle." There was some interesting wrapping of a screaming bell to maximize its movement while ensuring the vermin had maximum attacks available in ensuring combats, placement of dwarven miners (two players had these) and which turn to drop them on the table definitely seemed more thought-provoking than I would have assumed. Generically? Determining how to ensure you were in an odd number of combats while minimizing your opponent's ability to retaliate was probably the most shared tactical decision across all the armies. It is hard to differentiate what tactical decisions were a result of the game itself, and which were evoked by the missions we generated... but at the end of the day the fact that those such decisions existed is probably proof enough it is possible to do more than just push models to the center of the table and roll die. Does that make sense/answer the question?

4. We only had one new player, everyone else was a "WHFB vet" to some degree (we had one gentleman who had even been playing since 5th ed, and I cannot stress this enough, feedback was unanimously positive. There were definitely areas for improvement, but no one walked away expressing the belief AoS was not a tournament-ready game, nor did anyone have a "boring" game. Our anonymous surveys go out soon though, so I will need to see if anyone changes their tune when given the time to reflect further, but the other organizer and I were braced for the worst and could not be more pleased with the reality.

An interesting tidbit? Obviously this is anecdotal, but we had 4 unique groups (a 20-something, a father with his sons, a trio of folks, and a group of 6) all come ask for and receive demos of the game. While this was a self-selecting audience, all of them were very excited about the potential of AoS with reasons ranging from: "I can finally afford to get back into fantasy," to "I love how it is similar to 40k without having 2++ rerollable deathstar or flying-spam shenanigans." COMPLETELY anecdotal, but I think it is definitely indicative of things to come in terms of where our playerbase is headed. Remember, GW is NOT targeting us old curmudgeons with AoS (we were not buying enough product to keep WHFB alive as it was, why would we suddenly start with AoS?) - they are targeting exactly these groups (returning players who could not afford the giant fantasy blocks necessary, 40k players who were put-off by the aesthetic or fundamental differences between the two games).

All in all I am more excited than ever (#AoScheerleader? ) and really excited to actually get to play in some other events coming up (e.g., Da Boyz GT)

Whew! That was a lot... anyone else?

I sent a PM, but feel free to post a response to it on the forum!

quiestdeus wrote:

All in all I am more excited than ever (#AoScheerleader? )

That is exactly how I am approaching the game at the moment.

Good work, looking forward to the report for your next event!

Glad to see both fun and tactics confirmed from players

 Thunderfrog wrote:
I sent a PM, but feel free to post a response to it on the forum!

You got it! Answering the pieces below I feel like I can comment on...

 Thunderfrog wrote:

For the last little bit I've been working on a wound-based set of rules for tournaments in the states.

I run a yearly event called The Slobberknocker GT, out of Oklahoma City. I've been working on setting up some AoS rules and I found mine are very similar to yours.. and in some places, exactly the same.

Here's a link.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_YI4jZrGimQj8PmEvc1d39Kym8bNqI13rnx5QtpmPCQ/edit

Things we have discovered in our smaller tournaments.

The Good!

1. Special Characters destroy the wound to power ratio. They are anathema to tight tournament play.
2. Limiting characters to 25% of wounds instead of 30% has been good.
3. Setting up a wound cap on units. By using 30, we have found that you see 7 ogres -> 15 Warriors -> 30 goblins in a group.

4. Summoned monsters are limited to a summoning pool, submitted with the list ahead of time. Think of it like a MtG sideboard.
5. Summons cannot act the first turn, do not return to the summoning pool when they die, and award victory points per wound lost as opposed to when the unit is destroyed.

6. We give each player a 15 point and 10 point object to place to encourage small units of chaff as objective campers.
7. We generate terrain per the rule-card, but each player is allowed to nominate two pieces of terrain as magical before the game begins, also to encourage strategic play.

1) I am definitely leaning this way too. Some are not too bad, but there are a few insane ones for sure. I'm not sure I would go as far as to call them an anathema hahahaha , but I have also considered making them cost 1.5-2x their actual wound value.

3) I really like this idea actually. A limit on the number of total warscrolls and a cap on how many wounds can be present in each could be a pretty elegant way of balancing the multi-wound infantry madness

4+5) I'll discuss this a bit further down, but I COMPLETELY agree that when summoning is allowed they absolutely cannot act that first turn and they have to award victory points. One of the ideas I just proposed to another TO is that if you kill the unit who did the summoning, ALL of their summoned units are also removed as casualties. At that point it actually begins to add an element of risk to the otherwise unmitigated reward for summoning units out of thin air.

7) I like the notion of allowing players to pick pieces to be magical/mysterious, that definitely beats letting it be completely random. I will have to check that out!

 Thunderfrog wrote:

Troubles!

1. Wound mechanic balancing doesn't solve the issue of 1 wound to 1 wound inequality. Why take a goblin when a plaguebearer will do? In a 30 v 30, goblins are gone in 3 turns compared to only losing 4 plaguebearers. I would rather bump weak units than tax strong ones.
2. Summoning is still strong, and some armies can't do it without organizing by alliance rather than by army. It basically is going to become an auto-include, especially for summoning things like pink-horrors, which are one of the best units in the game.

Yeah, I hear that too (with respect to point one). I considered identifying two or three "basic" troops for each army and making them the only units able to score in one of the missions, but that did not seem to be necessary. I also think this argument is true in a vacuum, but less reflective of real lists seeing tabletop action. As such, I am willing to let the problem really start to actually emerge before acting to address it. All units seem to have some beneficial synergies and I am still in a bit of wait-and-see approach, incentives may definitely be necessary the more people figure out how to exploit the system, but that is true no matter what (see: Swedish Comp ).

Further, I agree about summoning, unfortunately I went from being on the fence to being pretty firmly convinced it needs to be banned as-is. In addition to the ideas above, I have floated the idea that summoning could essentially be used to pull units from reserve and place them on the table (rather than deploying them). At that point, it really just turns into a reserve/deployment manipulation tool rather than an ability to create new units, but I am not sure that is the best solution either.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

Thoughts.

1. We are tinkering with either just posting a line item of certain units that get static bonuses. (ie for every 10 wounds of gobbos, slaves, zombies you get 5 free.) or a formula. (ie, if hit + wound = 10 or more, get 2 free per 10 models. If 11+, get 5 free per 10 models.
2. Switching to your system of no shooting in/out combat.

Yeah, I began down that route with giving away 2 single wound infantry models for each wound after the initial 10 and it worked very well (especially from our Skaven representative's perspective) but I am very curious to see what other alternatives people come up with. And I may be bias, but limiting shooting definitely worked out well and feels almost mandatory if you want list diversity.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

I feel like once weak to standard to mutli wounds are established, AoS is a very great game. It's not WFB8th, but great in a different way. I very much support a simple wounds mechanic to a complicated points structure, and feel like your tournament going that route helped vindicate me against my detractors a little.

Glad to hear it!!! I definitely agree that Age of Sigmar is not 8th, it is more like 40k if anything, but it is still a fun game on its own right. I am really curious to see where GW goes with the other armies once the Sigmarite line is complete, but I have no problem using my existing models until then.

quiestdeus wrote:
Don't mean to derail this thread ( ), but Age of Sigmar at NOVA was a glorious success! Thanks again to all who participated and looking forward to next year.

Especially appreciated the conversations/reflections in the lounge. I like the idea of providing a "tax" for multi-wound infantry models when using wounds as a list building mechanism, and glad to see the discount on massing single wound units worked well. This is also assuming we do not switch to something like a pool system for next year (highly recommend checking out scrollbuilder.com !)

Similarly, we all saw how powerful summoning is, even when limited to one unit per turn, so we will definitely take a close look at that going forward. I actually really like the idea of retaining summoning, but having all summoned units removed as casualties (and count as such when calculating mission results) if/when the model that did the summoning is killed. Adds a decent amount of risk to balance an otherwise unmitigated ability.

Happy to field questions about the event and/or my thoughts as TO.

1. Do you play range measured from the model or base?

2. Do you play pile-in per the AoS rule or the 40k mosh-pit?

3. Do you allow spell/ability stacking?

4. Are slain summoned models re-summonable (this is the reserve vs out-of-play argument)?

Sounds like you had a great event. Congrats!

Snapshot wrote:

1. Do you play range measured from the model or base?

2. Do you play pile-in per the AoS rule or the 40k mosh-pit?

3. Do you allow spell/ability stacking?

4. Are slain summoned models re-summonable (this is the reserve vs out-of-play argument)?

Sounds like you had a great event. Congrats!

Easy peasy ones:

1) Base, models were explicitly not allowed to overlap bases

2) Unsure what you mean, models were allowed to pile-in however they were able to as long as they ended their move closer to the nearest enemy unit than they started it (they did not need to pile-in in a straight line, and could wrap-around)

3) Negative

4) Also negative, once they were gone they were gone (N.B., I do not believe this actually made a difference in any game though, careful screening and just chain summoning of archer units is a brutal, brutal thing, especially when you roll up the boosted version)

And thanks!!! I had a great co-lead and some amazing support from the on-site staff there, it was an awesome weekend for sure.

 Mymearan wrote:
Glad to see both fun and tactics confirmed from players

Why would you want tactics confirmed? It's obvious there are tactics in AoS.

@quiestdeus.

Thanks for the replies - all were helpful and interesting. I'm glad that AoS saw a flying start at a big tournament.