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I would really like to see an AOS version of Killteam. Path to Glory is fun but is not the same as Killteam. Something that centers on a small handful of models that all level up, I think that the way AOS is set up that that type of game would really be where it fits well as opposed to a mass battle game.

It's called Skirmish - its got a rule book and the Battletomes still come with stats for it - its just not being pushed by GW at present.

Skirmish doesn't come anywhere near what Killteam does in terms of depth and flavor. Skirmish is essentially AOS with only a handful of models. Path to Glory is a step up from Skirmish in that it has skill ups but is centered around growing a warband but still lacks the depth of killteam.

Skirmish does not allow you to level up individual members. Skirmish doesn't have skill ups or wargear options you can gain.

 Overread wrote:
It's called Skirmish - its got a rule book and the Battletomes still come with stats for it - its just not being pushed by GW at present.

Man that is awesome news. Thank you very much for the info.

auticus wrote:WHFB simply wasn't the type of game that the masses wanted anymore.

More like that WHFB wasn't the type of game that NEW PLAYERS wanted. There were plenty of old players who liked the basic structure of the game, and often played previous versions that they enjoyed. Part of that problem is that old players had the collection they wanted, and didn't need to get several more masses of units to keep playing the game.

From there we go to:

Overread wrote:When it comes to price hte price that balks people isn't the total price of a huge army; its the getting your foot in the water - getting started price.

It's why so many other companies built their games on the skirmish model; because it WAS cheaper to get people into and thus the price for trying it out is really small. It's why GW is now pushing Kill Team way more so than in the past. In the past Kill Team was just a few pages in the rulebook or an issue of White Dwarf - ergo it was optional rules for those already invested into the franchise. Now its a game mode with its own rule book, boxes and product advertising - its its own thing to lure and tempt people in with a really low price to get started.

"Huge" is a relative term. The average 1000 point WHFB army is much larger than the average 40K army of the same price point and time period. That makes it seem "huge" in comparison. 2 boxes to complete a unit doesn't feel to bad, but when you need 3-4 for one, one starts getting wary. From there, you need 2-3 of those sets to even field the army it gets even more scary. In 40K, that was limited to Tyranids, Orks, and the Imperial Guard, while in WHFB you went Ogres, Bretonnians, or Chaos Warriors to avoid them.

I think Tomb Kings required 800 points in order to be fielded legally from 6th till their update in 8th. Part of that was the number of Characters needed to be legal which wasn't required by any other army in the game. And if you wanted to go Skaven or Zombies, whoa, you were already looking at a time and money sink.

More like that WHFB wasn't the type of game that NEW PLAYERS wanted.

Partially true. Most new players did not want WHFB you're right. The allure and pull of warmachine style wargaming was pretty compelling in my area anyway.

However we had a number of older players that also wanted to move away from whfb but stayed simply because they already had their collection and we still had a very active whfb community up until 2015 when AOS dropped so they were satisfied to continue to use their investment even though they hoped the game would change to be more akin to warmachine and less about blocks.

Those players here were largely very happy when AOS got points and they jumped right in with both feet and a big smile on their face once the first GHB became a thing and GW chose what system "official points" was going to be. From there, our AOS community has cycled up and down in popularity for reasons I've already documented elsewhere.

auticus wrote:

More like that WHFB wasn't the type of game that NEW PLAYERS wanted.

Partially true. Most new players did not want WHFB you're right. The allure and pull of warmachine style wargaming was pretty compelling in my area anyway.

However we had a number of older players that also wanted to move away from whfb but stayed simply because they already had their collection and we still had a very active whfb community up until 2015 when AOS dropped so they were satisfied to continue to use their investment even though they hoped the game would change to be more akin to warmachine and less about blocks.

Those players here were largely very happy when AOS got points and they jumped right in with both feet and a big smile on their face once the first GHB became a thing and GW chose what system "official points" was going to be. From there, our AOS community has cycled up and down in popularity for reasons I've already documented elsewhere.

For my local community it was some of the power marching that was recognized in late 7th and some of the roughing up their armies took with 8th which started killing it off. The base game they liked, but it was racheting up of power that left old armies behind which started souring older players.

Those were ones who wouldn't touch AoS until the GHB came out, and tried to get Kings of War and 9th Age going in its place.

Demons and vampire counts in 7th certainly did take a toll here too yes.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If GW didn't overprice the models to the point of 10 models costing 30 when we needed 30 of them to make a viable unit, then perhaps we would have.
GW's greed and incompetence killed WHFB in the end, not us.

Yes. Yes. We were never complicit in WHFB death.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If GW didn't overprice the models to the point of 10 models costing 30 when we needed 30 of them to make a viable unit, then perhaps we would have.
GW's greed and incompetence killed WHFB in the end, not us.

Yes. Yes. We were never complicit in WHFB death.

Lets just accept that both sides were in the wrong for different reasons and that the divorce is now over and we've moved on with the new relationship.

Lol. Exalted!

Honestly right now it's because 40k lore satisfies me so much more. Lots of my urge to play is to see models I like the lore for on the tabletop. I absolutely love the gameplay of AoS, it's just fun. Lack of tons of shooting makes for a more enjoyable gaming experience. Walking across the field as you get shot to pieces is 3/5 40k games, and that is boring as beans.

Summoning in AoS is just cool, and the army wide things like the tides and maggotkin wheel are really satisfying. Plus, everything does crazy overkill, and it works well. I don't have to worry about points for upgrades, or if my big scary model will be hit with a tarpit because that huge attack will kill D6 models, not just super squish one.

Our group keeps thinking about doing a slow grow build intro into AOS, but the real deterrent for me is the factions. Not one of them grabs me that much. Used to play High Elves and Bretonnians a long time ago, plus some undead. 2 of the guys have basically started a small collection...Deepkin and Nighthaunt, so those 2 are out for me now. Used to like the WE aesthetic but the Sylvaneth are just too much tree, not enough elf.

I have a pile of 40K stuff that does excite me and they're not all painted yet, how well am I going to do with an unbuilt/unpainted army that doesn't excite me?

Oddly enough, Wood Elves are not as tied to the Sylvaneth as they used to be. They can actually bring some of the old High Elf models with them now in the same group as they fall under the same group while the trees do not. Not to say that you couldn't bring them in the same army since they are both Order, but it's not as tight as it was in Fantasy Battles.

Like many of the old Fantasy Battle armies, though, they do lack for a Battletome, even after all this time, which has limitations against those that do.

 Charistoph wrote:
Oddly enough, Wood Elves are not as tied to the Sylvaneth as they used to be. They can actually bring some of the old High Elf models with them now in the same group as they fall under the same group while the trees do not. Not to say that you couldn't bring them in the same army since they are both Order, but it's not as tight as it was in Fantasy Battles.

Like many of the old Fantasy Battle armies, though, they do lack for a Battletome, even after all this time, which has limitations against those that do.

yeah, even though I love some of the old HE models that are still available, I'm not going to dive into something that is probably going to go away unsupported or fall so far behind the power curve.

If you're competitive minded and want to place in tournaments you definitely don't want to touch factions that have not had a tome yet.

auticus wrote:
If you're competitive minded and want to place in tournaments you definitely don't want to touch factions that have not had a tome yet.

Not going for top tier, but also will not be having much fun if the force is wiped every game. The army would have to have a Tome for me to invest in it.

True true. That is the other side of things that I failed to consider in my post above... just wanting to have decent games and not being powerbombed through the table based on picking the wrong army.

You have the right of it.

 bullyboy wrote:

auticus wrote:
If you're competitive minded and want to place in tournaments you definitely don't want to touch factions that have not had a tome yet.

Not going for top tier, but also will not be having much fun if the force is wiped every game. The army would have to have a Tome for me to invest in it.

And this is one of the worst aspects of GW's current business model. They are presenting all of Warhammer, Sigmar and 40K, as one product line, which severely limits their release schedule. PP can get away with that in WMH because they are still the same game, and Monsterpocalypse doesn't going to be slowing down their WMH releases much, either. It really feels like GW's design team works on one faction at a time, no matter the system. They need to get better at dividing up the labor to smooth out their releases and to help bring some oldy-but-goody factions up to par instead of this dribble-out manner. Seriously, if they focused on the first part of the month being one and the second being the other, they could have everything caught up in books by now. And those books are what give reasons to buy the models.

People that chase the meta would have less of a reason to buy new armies every release though if there was no constant meta change with new books being drip fed.

Because AoS doesn't scratch my fantasy massed battle itch.

I want to see LOTS and LOT of troops arranged in RnF looking across the field at the same thing. I want to see monsters flailing about wrecking models and themselves getting destroyed by cannons and even larger monsters. I want to see wizards wiping out swathes of the enemy, and getting blown up themselves when they reach for too much power.

AoS just doesn't do that. If I want fantasy skirmish I'll play Mordheim, Warmachine, or LoTR, which are all much better systems.

You know that is like saying that, because Stalin is dead, everything is going to be ok now in the soviet block in the late 50s.

I played wood elves and GW has forgotten about my tree hugging friends. Would love to dive back into AOS, but for now sitting on the sidelines looking at the Welves on a shelf.

Darkmind wrote:
I played wood elves and GW has forgotten about my tree hugging friends. Would love to dive back into AOS, but for now sitting on the sidelines looking at the Welves on a shelf.

FWIW they ("Wanderers" now) have their own allegiance in the GHB and it's pretty good. Still had a bunch of units cut though.

Darkmind wrote:
I played wood elves and GW has forgotten about my tree hugging friends. Would love to dive back into AOS, but for now sitting on the sidelines looking at the Welves on a shelf.

A "welf on a shelf" perfect

I'm currently not playing sigmar due to me being busy with different conversions and models.

I'm also not playing sigmar due to my local store has 3 tables with mostly 40k being played and all of the 40k players have huge armies so they never play 1k games. Also because of the lack of room, smaller tables were designed for the kill team games, and those players will play on a 6 x 4 cause it wasn't being used at that exact moment on the most busiest of days instead of asking for the 1x2 they need.

My store needs to take over next door, it has nearly triple the room, you could easily fit several more tables in there.

I was slowing down my collecting when Kirby blew up the old world.

When AoS came out I didn't care for the game play, no point values and not really interested in the High fantasy theme it was going for.

Now, I am slowly picking up fantasy miniatures again but not playing, If tomorrow I had crazy money and time, I think I would buy
into shadow spire / Underworlds before going back to AoS. It kind of feels like an ex wife.. happy to see they are doing better, just
don't want to get back with them.

Plus Empire was my favorite army and they are a shadow of what they once were..

I own everything to play but haven't been excited in a while. Having very mixed Chaos and Orc and Goblin forces hurts as everything feels really "follow this recipe to function"

Has 2.0 improved combined arms? Or is it still primarily take auras and those they benefit and don't diversify?

2.0 is not much different from 1.0 in regards to what does well. Its a buff / synergy game around the pillars of mortal wounds, summoning, and alpha striking as its central tenants.

Just wanted to duck in here and mention that the new Gotrek audiobook/drama is basically an ongoing conversation between a WHFB veteran and an Age of Sigmar player.

Gotrek, looking at Age of Sigmar thing: What nonesense is this?!
AoS character accompanying Gotrek: That is *insert AoS name of person/place/thing*, which has-
Gotrek: *Brian Blessed Noises* The Old World was better!