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 Ratius wrote:

It should be clear why some people didn't take your list as just "why i like AOS" when it comes off more of "i like AOS and these are the reasons why other games cant do any of these things"

I'd suggest thats your negative coloration of the topic since you've referenced WHFB 4 times in your post.
This has nothing to do with WHFB despite you needing it to.
Its about AoS.

I quoted times he referred to it in his original post....... It had several pointed points aimed at WHFB. I quoted them for you if you want to go back and read my post.

For those who figured the thread was about what makes AoS special, it's hard to blame you. The list begins like this, after all:

MongooseMatt wrote:
In days gone by, you were locked into a single army list, [...]

So it's clearly an explanation of how you can do something in AoS that you could not do in WHFB. I guess that is less true of the other suggestions. I mean, to the extent that GW doesn't have a squad of goons who come to your house to force you to play with your toys exactly as their books dictate, you could do anything you wanted and claim you were playing WHFB. I think Matt's point is, the stuff he suggests would not really be welcome in a pick up game context, which context AoS pretty well ditches. So, put it another way, just because AoS is not tailor built for pick up game play doesn't mean it is incomplete or terrible; there are other ways to play miniatures games. For those not born and bred to GW, like Kilkrazy for example, this will be pretty obvious. For those who have grown up with the GW-centric experience, this could be a genuinely new set of concepts.

I quoted times he referred to it in his original post....... It had several pointed points aimed at WHFB. I quoted them for you if you want to go back and read my post.

Thats my mistake. I apologise.

coldgaming wrote:
AoS graciously also lets you never have to play the game to post every day on a forum about the game about why it doesn't work.

This insightful quote (exalted btw) easily explains, well, literally, everything!


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's the fact that it is an AoS-specific board that makes the title "blah blah blah for AoS" unnecessary and therefore open to interpretation as a two fingers up to everything that isn't AoS.

You only need to read the results to see that this is true.

Haha, hahaha. This is excellent. Blaming the victim is always correct - Matt deserved to get trounced because he antagonized a bunch of whiny babies! (not naming names, I'm sure there's NO whiny babies on this thread whose sole purpose in life is to complain about Age of Sigmar)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

To those of you that dont like Matts post and ideas, why even bother to post?
Its a post about some cool things you can do in AoS, in an AoS thread, in an AoS subforum for fun.

Welcome to the internet. You'll notice that 90% of the posts in this thread are spewed garbage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
to the extent that GW doesn't have a squad of goons who come to your house to force you to play with your toys exactly as their books dictate

No, but several posters feel the need to tell you that the game you play is terrible and who believe it's their duty to inform you of such at every possible opportunity.

Dakka was making such progress with the unrequited AoS hate... and then Warseer went down...

Dakka posters waiting for a positive AoS post

Edited by Manchu - please don't post images containing swears. Thanks!

That's not how a discussion board works. People can voice their opinion on a topic whether it is positive or negative. If you feel a post is off topic then alert the mods.

Thats not in debate.

All Im suggesting is that those who have either a mild dislike or outright hatred of AoS and its associated topics ease off the gas a bit.
Because do you know what the ultimate outcome will be?
Those that do try to post positive/interesting/engaging/fun topics will simply give up.

And the forum will be a much less interesting place.
There'll be no winner or loser here. It simply mean that the AoS subforum becomes a desert and that helps no one. Whether you agree with Matts views, hes a regular and intesting contributor here, with batreps, book reviews, modelling ideas.
When he and others give up because almost every thread degenerates into a whine/bitching fest do you think the forum will be better or worse off?

 Sqorgar wrote:
Dakka was making such progress with the unrequited AoS hate... and then Warseer went down...

You think GW has anything but contempt for it's playerbase?

@Ratius

Fair enough I suppose. But wouldn't it behoove the AoS guys to ignore the "haters"? It's not like their minds can be changed about the game.

And for the record I don't hate Matt or AoS. I think the guy is very passionate about his game and that is admirable. AoS seems like a fun game to kill an evening with a buddy but I'd never play in a tourney without some sort of comp system.

Fair enough I suppose. But wouldn't it behoove the AoS guys to ignore the "haters"? It's not like their minds can be changed about the game.

Yes we could ignore the "haters", thats fair enough.
It just gets very difficult and fairly tedious when several ongoing/new threads have a negative connotation or input.

Anyway, its been an interesting read, I think I've said my piece

 Ratius wrote:
Whether you agree with Matts views, hes a regular and intesting contributor here, with batreps, book reviews, modelling ideas.

I totally agree; can't stand Age of Sigmar personally, but Matt seems like the sort of person I'd be happy to play a game with and I always look forward to his pictures! Don't think you'll really get much dissent on that, honestly. I can't remember anyone making a post that could be considered critical or antagonistic in any of those topics. Really, this one's only drawing flak because it reads a bit like that one article GW put out about 'why we like Age of Sigmar' - albeit much more well-thought-out and not hawking gold paint. There's a lot of 'you couldn't do this before', when you clearly could have - and, in many people's cases, did.

I've created multiple corners of the Border Princes (I know Renegade Crowns was for roleplaying rather than wargaming, but AoS badly, BADLY needs a book in that style right after getting a General's Compendium), Warband rules were great for collecting small forces, and I used to love playing Arena of Death hero deathmatches over forums...honestly, I think they were a lot more interesting with the level of customization WHFB had. I'd see people kit up giant killing machines with armor and ward saves falling out the unmentionables...and I'd quietly shuffle in a goblin warboss with the Amulet of Protectyness. Much fun was had.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Dakka was making such progress with the unrequited AoS hate... and then Warseer went down...

To be fair, those posting in this thread have been on Dakka for a long time. So I don't think Warseer going down is the issue...unless Dakka users secretly vent all their frustration/hate about AoS onto Warseer to keep Dakka Dakka from being Whine Dakka . I am not familiar with Mongoose Matt's posting record on Dakka Dakka, but it seems people are reading way too much (or adding more to it) than what is actually stated in the OP.

The only "cool thing" about AoS for me is that there is a great freedom to field whatever you want. Yes, you could do that with other game systems by ignoring rules of those games. Majority of those game systems have rules that specifically states the intention of the game is to play with defined restrictions to the type of force that you can field. For better or worse (and it seems the worse for many users), it seems the philosophy or intentions of the Age of Sigmar system is to provide a bare bones framework for the players to play games of their "own devising."

 Ratius wrote:

All Im suggesting is that those who have either a mild dislike or outright hatred of AoS and its associated topics ease off the gas a bit.
Because do you know what the ultimate outcome will be?
Those that do try to post positive/interesting/engaging/fun topics will simply give up.

And the forum will be a much less interesting place.
There'll be no winner or loser here. It simply mean that the AoS subforum becomes a desert and that helps no one. Whether you agree with Matts views, hes a regular and intesting contributor here, with batreps, book reviews, modelling ideas.
When he and others give up because almost every thread degenerates into a whine/bitching fest do you think the forum will be better or worse off?

What comes out depends on what goes in. Matt's batreps, reviews and scenario idea threads are all great and thus bring out decent discussion.

A post that's a copy of a blog with a click-bait title that acknowledges it's click-bait sounding, and then goes on to be a pretty generic post that sounds a lot like that GW "Why AoS is Cool" shill piece that was universally derided when it came out isn't going to be as well received.

Honestly, I think this thread would have received a much warmer welcome if it had been posted in the General subforum and focused on a broader approach, something like:

"You know, playing Age of Sigmar has really revitalized my hobby and given me a refreshed perspective on looking outside the confines of a ruleset to do some unique things in game. So here's a list of some AoS inspired ideas that I think others should try in their games:

1. Break force limitations to find new, interesting combinations
2. Play a game with only the heroes/important individuals your ruleset uses
3. Use different table shapes, or even try playing in confined areas if your rules allow for it
4. Have a battle that focuses on certain types of models available in the game - an all flyer game, for instance. Or all cavalry, or all monsters
5. Trade armies with your friends, and try playing difference forces
6. Become a game master
7. Get together with your community and map out your own in-game world/places (important for #10)
8. Make up your own units
9. Play through official campaigns and then
10. Create your own campaign"

 akai wrote:

To be fair, those posting in this thread have been on Dakka for a long time. So I don't think Warseer going down is the issue...unless Dakka users secretly vent all their frustration/hate about AoS onto Warseer to keep Dakka Dakka from being Whine Dakka .

I'm seeing a lot of unfamiliar names here (as well as a couple known posters I haven't seen for a while). Probably has nothing to do with Warseer, but I think this thread would've looked a lot different a month ago.

I am not familiar with Mongoose Matt's posting record on Dakka Dakka, but it seems people are reading way too much (or adding more to it) than what is actually stated in the OP.

Perhaps the problem, because MongooseMatt's contributions to this forum are without equal. He's the kind of community leader that makes forums a better place for everybody, and his posts here have been a boon not just to AoS, but to the entire hobby. He's also an unapologetic fan of Age of Sigmar. His gleeful enthusiasm (and absurd painting output) is well known... and infectious.

The oonly "cool thing" about AoS for me is that there is a great freedom to field whatever you want. Yes, you could do that with other game systems by ignoring rules of those games. Majority of those game systems have rules that specifically states the intention of the game is to play with defined restrictions to the type of force that you can field. For better or worse (and it seems the worst for many users), it seems the philosophy or intentions of the Age of Sigmar system is to provide a bare bones framework for the players to play games of their "own devising."

If you think of game design as an onion, designs occur in layers. In the very center of the layer is the basic engine of play, upon which things like factions, model rules, special abilities, terrain rules, point systems, and so on are built. AoS is content with giving only the first few layers to players and letting them decide how large the onion will be, and what it will look like, for themselves. Other game systems give you the whole onion and expect you to prune away the bits you don't like. In both cases, I guess you can design the onion you want to, but it is by no means the same process.

Great post Matt, has given me some cool ideas for sure. Thanks for that!

 Sqorgar wrote:
If you think of game design as an onion, designs occur in layers. In the very center of the layer is the basic engine of play, upon which things like factions, model rules, special abilities, terrain rules, point systems, and so on are built. AoS is content with giving only the first few layers to players and letting them decide how large the onion will be, and what it will look like, for themselves. Other game systems give you the whole onion and expect you to prune away the bits you don't like. In both cases, I guess you can design the onion you want to, but it is by no means the same process.

If I'm paying the price for a bag of onions, though, I don't expect to get a packet of seeds. Especially when the onion salesman just lit a firecracker in my steak and onion dinner.



Alternatively - not everybody likes onions.

 Spinner wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
If you think of game design as an onion, designs occur in layers. In the very center of the layer is the basic engine of play, upon which things like factions, model rules, special abilities, terrain rules, point systems, and so on are built. AoS is content with giving only the first few layers to players and letting them decide how large the onion will be, and what it will look like, for themselves. Other game systems give you the whole onion and expect you to prune away the bits you don't like. In both cases, I guess you can design the onion you want to, but it is by no means the same process.

If I'm paying the price for a bag of onions, though, I don't expect to get a packet of seeds. Especially when the onion salesman just lit a firecracker in my steak and onion dinner.

Luckily you are not paying the price of a bag of onions for a packet of seeds. Unless for some reason you actually paid money for the free AOS rules

 akai wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
If you think of game design as an onion, designs occur in layers. In the very center of the layer is the basic engine of play, upon which things like factions, model rules, special abilities, terrain rules, point systems, and so on are built. AoS is content with giving only the first few layers to players and letting them decide how large the onion will be, and what it will look like, for themselves. Other game systems give you the whole onion and expect you to prune away the bits you don't like. In both cases, I guess you can design the onion you want to, but it is by no means the same process.

If I'm paying the price for a bag of onions, though, I don't expect to get a packet of seeds. Especially when the onion salesman just lit a firecracker in my steak and onion dinner.

Luckily you are not paying the price of a bag of onions for a packet of seeds. Unless for some reason you actually paid money for the free AOS rules

That was probably badly phrased, but I meant it more at the game as a whole. The rules, such as they are, are free - except for the scenarios, the formations, the setting rules...along with the soaring cost of the models, the setting itself being locked behind expensive hardcover books, and so on and so forth.

Hm. Probably should have just gone with the Shrek reference, in retrospect.

@Squorgar

Yes but not really.

As a "hater", I can tell you that it's not about enthusiasm. The opening post here wasn't "I have so much fun this is great never had so much fun because this or that", I'd feel bad belittling something like that and never seen someone do around.

Mr. Moongoose though tends to post in a way that warrants discussion, either a lot of questionable statements, AoS is balanced, rules are genius etc or like here, posted things you can do with most games like those were unique to AoS. I could give him benefit of the doubt ofc that it's just a cool light hearted fun post but I chose not to, it's not the first time and it sometimes borders on trolling. As a troll myself I can tell and you can troll with positivity you know.

As for salt and hate, I for example only came back for a while because of the axing of TK and will be gone soon, don't worry guys. Not sure about the rest of the foaming at the mouth detractors and fun killerz though.

 Spinner wrote:

If I'm paying the price for a bag of onions, though, I don't expect to get a packet of seeds. Especially when the onion salesman just lit a firecracker in my steak and onion dinner.

Edit: I was mean. I'm sorry.

RoperPG wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

coldgaming wrote:
You don't even need a game at all to do any of these things, just make it all up and use bottle caps. Or even just imagine it completely. This could go on forever...

AoS graciously also lets you never have to play the game to post every day on a forum about the game about why it doesn't work.

Or even more graciously move 100+ models one after another, all precisely measured for tactical advantage.

Which incidentally, is *also* something that isn't unique to AoS.

Let's just accept Matt's at fault because he didn't title the thread "Ten Cool Things to do in the Age of Sigmar that I completely understand are not unique to the system and might even work better in other game systems but as I like Age of Sigmar that makes me an idiot child so I need others to spell out to me how to have fun properly, and I'm terribly sorry for making you read this."

Good one heh

The notion that the OP is "borderline trolling" is about as absurd as it gets (onions aside).

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

1. Build a table with crazy terrain!

Spoiler:

OMG Bottle I never knew you were into Mordheim!

Haha, I would LOVE to play mordheim. Too bad my local is a GW... I would try and play it a home but I've already got a full Necromunda set up for that which scratches a no doubt similar itch! :-)

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That immediately created the possible impression that these things you listed are special to AoS. That might be a false attribution (to borrow a concept from cognitive psychology) but it is easily understandable.

On an AoS-specific board?

Seriously?

It may surprise you that recently posted in threads show up in the recent threads list, regardless of what section they are posted in.

I saw the title, was interested in seeing some opinions about good things in AoS, and got a list of fairly generic points that can be made about pretty much any wargame and stated as much.

I don't play AoS, mostly because I have zero interest in sinking any money into GW, and there are no players who play it in my gaming club. I play KoW for my mass fantasy battles, 40k as my main sci-fi mass battle game, and a wide range of table and board based skirmish type games; I'm always interested in trying out and reading about new things. I was hoping to hear about some unique selling points about AoS... but didn't really see any.

 Sqorgar wrote:

WMH has field allowances and the points only apply to a specific number of models....

Erm... so ignore them, much like AoS does?
Any game style that can be applied to AoS, can be applied to all the other games out there. AoS is not the special little snowflake you like to make it out to be.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

If I'm paying the price for a bag of onions, though, I don't expect to get a packet of seeds. Especially when the onion salesman just lit a firecracker in my steak and onion dinner.

I know, metaphors are hard. But if you take your time, and think real hard, I'm sure that one day, eventually, you'll make sense.

Hah, wow. Speaking of salt...

text removed

Reds8n

Well, this is the trainwreck I expected it to be.

OT, these are some cool ideas and could be fun, even if AoS is a let down. I think these would make for some fun messing around missions with some friends.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lou_Cypher wrote:
So basically, if something nice can be said about Age of Sigmar, it's not worth posting anything about because somewhere out there, it can also be done despite the fact other miniature war games are allowed to borrow concepts from each other without anyone batting an eye.

Well, feth you, dakka community. feth you posters who try to belittle everything about a game every time a positive topic about it appears.

Sorry, but this isn't new. Trust me, 40k is just as filled with it's decriers. There are literally tons of posts of something new coming out and people saying "Look, more 40k trash!"

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

WMH has field allowances and the points only apply to a specific number of models....

Erm... so ignore them, much like AoS does?

WMH has several units that are flat out broken if you are allowed to take multiples (which the tier lists use as their primary selling points). WMH doesn't limit bonus stacking (which AoS, in a roundabout way, does), which means if you can play six units that all yield the same bonus, you can get 6x the bonus. For instance, a Necrosurgeon can spawn a grunt for 3 soul tokens, but if you had 3 Necrosurgeons standing close to each other, they'd each get a soul token every time a grunt died - thus if three grunts died, you could respawn 3 grunts the next turn. And if you have more Necrosurgeons, like six of them within 5" of a Mechanithrall unit, they could spawn six grunts for ever three that they lose. The field allowance is the one balancing factor here, preventing Necrosurgeons from spamming the field with reanimated corpses every turn. And this is by no means the only example of this in the WMH rules. So you can't really ignore field allowances and points in WMH without fundamentally making the game broken.

AoS doesn't have many exponential abilities. Only one I can think of is the whole summoning things that summon things. Not being a combo-orientated game, AoS does not meet such a dire fate without FA or points putting limitations on things.

Any game style that can be applied to AoS, can be applied to all the other games out there. AoS is not the special little snowflake you like to make it out to be.

I never said AoS was a special snowflake. I just said that AoS can do things that Warmachine can not - at least by that I mean that AoS can do things while still being recognizably AoS, while doing the same things in WMH would require fundamentally changing it into a different game.

Nice thread with some cool ideas from the OP, thanks for that mate.

Ten cool things AoS is doing for me.

1. Warscrolls jazz.
- I hate Ipods, Ipads, Iphones on my wargamming, nothing beats pen and paper and Im a sucker for illustrations and graphics, so I have plans to do some fancy scrolls for my units and print them in nice old paper in a reduced card size. All tooled up to each individual army visual. So this alone will keep me having fun with AoS & Design/ illustrations.

2. All is there for freeeee
- Yup no need to pay for rules its all there so now I can just pick armies at random and start collecting them without the heavy investment on rules. Its easier to pick up factions now.

3. Size does not matter
- I can build an army/warband the size I want so a small warband is as viable as big one and unlike 1500pts minimum. No need for regiments with 50 models now.

4. Rank & file is gone
- Yeah no more constrains there so I can go wild on the poses and sizes of the minis which is refreshing.

5. Rebasing
- Funny on what in paper is a PITA but in the end turned out quite an enjoyable activity to rebase my old armies into round bases. They look more sexy now too and gave me the opportunity to make them more consistent.

6. Mix and match
- Alliances are quite flexible and this does open the door to many crazy home-brewed fantastic alliances.

7. Rule of cool
- A mix of point 3 and 6... how cool would be a pack of trolls roaming around or giants avalanche etc... thats really one of the best bits about AoS the flexible nature of the setting.

8. Your previous army got bigger!!!
- No joking with the formations thing now you can split your already big army into subfactions and to complete those subfactions you can potentially increase the size of your army... for example 3 strong units of black orcs is bigger than my previous regiment of 25 and they need more standarts and musicians etc. So my previous organization and models are having a boost and facelift.

9. Start collecting
- Wooooot! Deep discounts on new warbands box sets?! That is a huge change that GW introduced and makes me go back to planing new warbands alliances and get me started into a new army.

10. Freedoom
That is what basically AoS did to my wfb addiction it broke the rules and removed things that compromised my enjoyment. Now I can start, reshuffle, increase, reduce, convert my collections with little problems and cheaper.

YEES I can do some of these points on some other games (and I do)but thats not the point here.
What did this freedom bring of negative? Lots of things but that is not the point here either.
I can say that my final balance is positive for AoS.

 Sqorgar wrote:

WMH has several units that are flat out broken if you are allowed to take multiples (which the tier lists use as their primary selling points). WMH doesn't limit bonus stacking (which AoS, in a roundabout way, does), which means if you can play six units that all yield the same bonus, you can get 6x the bonus. For instance, a Necrosurgeon can spawn a grunt for 3 soul tokens, but if you had 3 Necrosurgeons standing close to each other, they'd each get a soul token every time a grunt died - thus if three grunts died, you could respawn 3 grunts the next turn. And if you have more Necrosurgeons, like six of them within 5" of a Mechanithrall unit, they could spawn six grunts for ever three that they lose. The field allowance is the one balancing factor here, preventing Necrosurgeons from spamming the field with reanimated corpses every turn. And this is by no means the only example of this in the WMH rules. So you can't really ignore field allowances and points in WMH without fundamentally making the game broken.

Eh, no. That's not how it works. Like, at all. What you say is not even remotely true.

(1) Nearest necrosurgeon gets the corpse token, not all three. The rules are quite clear. So that ends that whole made up scenario right there. Three grunts die generate three corpse tokens which can bring back one mcthrall, assuming they all go to the same necrosurgeon in the first place.

(2) spawned grunts must be added to a mcthrall unit in its command range. So kill the unit in question and nothing can be added to it. Those corpse tokens go to waste then, And to be fair, there are plenty mass infantry removing techniques available.

(3) kill the necrosurgeon itself. No spawning. It's not hard. Either take it out with blast damage, put a few sprays towards it (and those sprays are equally good at getting rid of those mcthrall hordes) or get it with axe to face. As a khador player, I can immediately think or mortars, victor, bombards, greylord ternion or murder ponies, winter guard infantry sprays, kayazy, (regular, and eliminators) and then there are specific counters like irusks air burst. No end of plays.

(4) indirect methods such as control abilities that prevent the mc thrills doing anything or reduce their effectiveness. Having loads of them means diddly when they can't move, charge, or attack for whatever reason, or if you can hold them in place with a tarpit while you go after the caster or grab scenario points in the other zone.

Far from 'broken', despite what you claim (and it's quite obvious you don't actually know how the game works or have thought about counters to it) and there are plenty ways of dealing with it. Spamming stuff is generally not always a smart move. It opens you up to hard counters and quite often, reduces your playbook and the 'answers' your army can provide.

If you are going to criticise warmachine for stuff, getting your facts right in the first place helps Enormously.