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 auticus wrote:
Let me clear on what I deem "tournament culture"

* all games must be balanced at all times

* scenarios that are not balanced shall never be used

* scenarios that seem balanced but are not because they make unit points inaccurate shall never be used. Ex: unit may be good at pitched battle but cannot hold objectives well, so its points are high for pitched battle but "thats not fair" for the objective mission.

* scenarios that are not seen in tournament play are heavily discouraged

Also you will notice that everyone's builds are very samey. They are the "optimal builds" which renders 90% of what you could see wasted.

That is what I consider tournament culture. It makes story-based gaming very difficult because a lot of story scenarios are *not* balanced.

If everyone could play how they liked it wouldn't be a problem but thats not often the case. You typically must conform to how your community plays if you want to participate.

Personally - I like points. I think points are great. I don't want to be mandated that I have to use the SCGT system though and I don't want to be prevented from playing campaign styled unbalanced scenarios, and that has been an issue I've fought for twenty plus years where I am.

Those things are fine... for a tournament. But WHFB of old had imbalanced scenarios (Last Stand, anyone? IIRC the Attacker had twice as many points as the Defender) and was still flavorful for narratives. I think you are blowing this out of proportion. Points allow for the above, which is great if you want to have a tournament and people want to prep for it. It's not mutually exclusive to having imbalanced forces or scenarios as part of a narrative game where there are custom objectives that fit the story.

 auticus wrote:

Also you will notice that everyone's builds are very samey. They are the "optimal builds" which renders 90% of what you could see wasted.

I agree with this. With a tournament scene present a meta-environment eventually surfaces. It would be splendid if its influence was limited to tournaments only, but unfortunately, IMO, it seeps out. Most players tend to have limited amount of cash and would want to buy only stuff that would give them maximum bang for their buck (utility, power, ratio points/models etc). Having the tournament meta seeping out of its borders may reflect on their purchases, hence the "samey" lists you're seeing.

 auticus wrote:
Let me clear on what I deem "tournament culture"

* all games must be balanced at all times

* scenarios that are not balanced shall never be used

* scenarios that seem balanced but are not because they make unit points inaccurate shall never be used. Ex: unit may be good at pitched battle but cannot hold objectives well, so its points are high for pitched battle but "thats not fair" for the objective mission.

* scenarios that are not seen in tournament play are heavily discouraged

Also you will notice that everyone's builds are very samey. They are the "optimal builds" which renders 90% of what you could see wasted.

That is what I consider tournament culture. It makes story-based gaming very difficult because a lot of story scenarios are *not* balanced.

If everyone could play how they liked it wouldn't be a problem but thats not often the case. You typically must conform to how your community plays if you want to participate.

Personally - I like points. I think points are great. I don't want to be mandated that I have to use the SCGT system though and I don't want to be prevented from playing campaign styled unbalanced scenarios, and that has been an issue I've fought for twenty plus years where I am.

I understand your concerns but as long as there is no 'roll for game-type' like we saw in 8th - I don't think we'll see players abandoning all the amazing scenarios. They will still be a big part of AoS as they are so central to the campaign books.

I want to use both together - unbalanced scenarios with points. When a scenario says one side should be a third bigger (like the ritual does IIRC) then I want to play with one player having 33% more points. You could even do that with the sudden death rules in the 4 page rules - could be fun :-)

I really think that GW have done an amazing job at pushing the narrative play of AoS and offering an alternative is not going to destroy all that hard work. I imagine the implementation of the points system to be very unintrusive too, perhaps just a quick link at the bottom of the website like the legacy PDFs

Anyway, words cannot express how excited I am :-)

Auticus, I don't think that GW releasing their own points is going to kill community comps because the latter has had almost a year to get its roots in. What I do think it will do is filter out the comps that simply don't cut it in terms of what people are looking for; it will set a minimum benchmark that a comp needs to exceed in quality in order to draw a following. Also note that SCGT favors big expensive models as being worth more on a per-point basis (see: the winning tournament armies). With GW involved I doubt that will change. In fact I believe that is part of the reason they got involved with SCGT in the first place; if they had run a successful tournament where most players brought cheaper plastic kits I am not sure GW would have jumped on board. Players who get sick of having their blocks of infantry run over by the latest $100+ model release will be looking for something else.

Thats fine. I'm going to get out of this hobby for a few years and check back then and see how things are. Sometimes taking a step back for a few years is what is needed. I know in the hey day of 7th edition I had to do the same thing because I was pretty burnt on the community and tournament gaming then and when I came back a few years later it was pretty strong and I had a lot of fun.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Auticus, I don't think that GW releasing their own points is going to kill community comps because the latter has had almost a year to get its roots in. What I do think it will do is filter out the comps that simply don't cut it in terms of what people are looking for; it will set a minimum benchmark that a comp needs to exceed in quality in order to draw a following. Also note that SCGT favors big expensive models as being worth more on a per-point basis (see: the winning tournament armies). With GW involved I doubt that will change. In fact I believe that is part of the reason they got involved with SCGT in the first place; if they had run a successful tournament where most players brought cheaper plastic kits I am not sure GW would have jumped on board. Players who get sick of having their blocks of infantry run over by the latest $100+ model release will be looking for something else.

Ha! Probably right. Armies of 5 centre piece models! Although it will be interesting to see how SCGT scales at lower point values (say 50 or 25) and if there are going to be any restrictions on army structure or not.

 auticus wrote:
Sometimes taking a step back for a few years is what is needed.

I think that is very true. Good luck to you sir, I may not have played Azyr personally but I respect the work you did for the AoS communitty.

 Bottle wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Auticus, I don't think that GW releasing their own points is going to kill community comps because the latter has had almost a year to get its roots in. What I do think it will do is filter out the comps that simply don't cut it in terms of what people are looking for; it will set a minimum benchmark that a comp needs to exceed in quality in order to draw a following. Also note that SCGT favors big expensive models as being worth more on a per-point basis (see: the winning tournament armies). With GW involved I doubt that will change. In fact I believe that is part of the reason they got involved with SCGT in the first place; if they had run a successful tournament where most players brought cheaper plastic kits I am not sure GW would have jumped on board. Players who get sick of having their blocks of infantry run over by the latest $100+ model release will be looking for something else.

Ha! Probably right. Armies of 5 centre piece models! Although it will be interesting to see how SCGT scales at lower point values (say 50 or 25) and if there are going to be any restrictions on army structure or not.

To be honest, I'll be chilling with my buds playing PPC regardless of how it turns out. I have next to no faith that GW will produce a points system balanced enough for what I want in a game.

Baron Klatz wrote:
@VeteranNoob, 90% of Warseer posts are usually nothing but complaints. That's even before AoS arrived.

After I saw that Ultimate life form fellow get upset about the red sauce, brown sauce joke-yeah, never going browsing through that site again.

Kudos to you for always being a positive light in a troll cavern, though.

It's not all bad but I've rolled back my involvement. Hobby blogs are nice and the "AoS-friendly" threads are nice for AoS as users respect that request to leave those areas alone. The BL portion is my fav. But sometimes you just have to step away for a bit. The ignore button...I endorse this

I think with a balancing mechanism, AoS becomes a lot more attractive to me as a fast, loose, easy to get into game.

If I can get a game done in an hour and have a good time I might end up playing again, which frankly would be great as I don't get to wargame much any more.

I rely on PUG and points make sorting that out much easier, especially as I have to do it through my third language!

I am hoping that "standard game size" does not happen or if it does it is at the skirmish end of thing. One thing that annoyed me about the 40K and Fantasy meta of years gone by was the push for more and more models all the time.

Do I even start complaining about I just bought all the Grand Alliance books and now there is no point costs in there and will now have to buy new GA books with point costs?

I kid. Just joking here.

I am wondering how we will be able to use the GA books. I am hoping that there will be a PDF with a list of the units that will show the point cost and a page number to the corresponding book.

I'd imagine they'll add the points to the app.

Even if they made a "point book" someone would just list the point costs on the forums anyway so that'd be a waste of paper.

I'm more curious on how the FB guy said "We will be adding alot morethan just points" when asked about possible character warscrolls and magic items.

WayneTheGame wrote:
literally pick any old thing you want, plonk it down and tell your opponent to deal with it or feth off elsewhere.

This is really sad to read. I've been playing AoS since October and not once an opponent did or said that. It always comes down to a conversation, a bargain, or a challenge, and it's always been in good spirits.

What you're saying is exactly how points work: Here, I have this OP comp I found on internet, it's legit, deal with it or feth off elsewhere.

 auticus wrote:
GW endorsing one killed all the others off. Now its either SCGT comp or sorry for your luck.

And now GW's will even kill that one. But that is the goal, or at least one of them. When 100+ people are getting together for a single event, which they themselves organized with zero official support, and they're using fan-made rules ... this is a problem for Nottingham. For GW, rules are part of the marketing for models. And GW naturally wants to control how its products are marketed.

 Haechi wrote:
What you're saying is exactly how points work: Here, I have this OP comp I found on internet, it's legit, deal with it or feth off elsewhere.

Exactly correct. And in fact, that is one of the main goals of the points mechanic. "If it is legal, you cannot object."

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Auticus, I don't think that GW releasing their own points is going to kill community comps because the latter has had almost a year to get its roots in. What I do think it will do is filter out the comps that simply don't cut it in terms of what people are looking for; it will set a minimum benchmark that a comp needs to exceed in quality in order to draw a following. Also note that SCGT favors big expensive models as being worth more on a per-point basis (see: the winning tournament armies). With GW involved I doubt that will change. In fact I believe that is part of the reason they got involved with SCGT in the first place; if they had run a successful tournament where most players brought cheaper plastic kits I am not sure GW would have jumped on board. Players who get sick of having their blocks of infantry run over by the latest $100+ model release will be looking for something else.

I think what it will likely do is drive comp back to where it was in the days of 8th, likely they will be an additional flavouring on top of the official points that GW provides. It's very difficult to sell comps like they are at the moment (Which is largely re-pointing effort), as it'll be hard to get buy-in from players. They'll always have the question of "Why aren't we using the official points".

That being said, I have high hopes for it. I *hope* that GW will commit to revising points on a regular basis like the current comp systems do. Every 6 months or however long, take a look at the feedback, revise points, post an updating version on the website. This is one of the huge advantages of not printing the points on the warscrolls themself, and that's the fact you can always tweak the points cost. We won't have to sit through entire editions of the game anymore where one or a few armies totally own the meta-game because they're too cheap for what they do.
I also hope that they stick to something simplistic in terms of points like Clash/SCGT (I mean, all indications lead to it likely being SCGT anyway). I don't think we really want to go back to precise points anymore.
Hoping they tidy up summoning rules as well.

Overall, definitely keen to see what comes out of it. Non-fussed about them introducing points, in fact, I think it's a good thing in some ways that they didn't do it straight away. If they had done it straight away, people would've been asking why they don't just print the points on the scrolls. Now, they can have a supplementary document that has more fine-tuned rules for competitive play as well as points that can always be changed at any time.

I don't think this will have any impact on Scenario based gameplay. We play scenario games as well as using the Clash comp pool choices document, haven't played a standard 'kill' game since 2015. Points certainly won't be the death of that, and I'll be really interested to see what GW do in terms of campaign based games as well.

Overall, young kids or people new to the game, they can just play with warscrolls right out of the box and not have to worry about points or any of that stuff. Just play with the standard rules. Those looking for a more evenly matched playing field, they can look to the points and the fine-tuned rules. Works for all I reckon.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The big plus of this is that it shows GW are beginning to learn from their mistakes. The next step is for them to stop such mistakes from being published in the first case.

Indeed. GW never should have assigned "points" or supported "competitive" play... Those were huge mistakes.

Finaly GW making sense about AoS, the free warscrolls are perfect engine for an ongoing balanced effort. It was really a shame to see the potential getting wasted.

Hope enough people ask for better rules now.

Also hope enough people ask for sigmarine-less whfb lol.

Anyway good sign for the future, GW trying to fix their mistakes. Also while the signs of positive changes could be seen before, I think this in particular is quite an indication of sales being far below expectation.

Barring the lottery chance that GW pulls off a perfect comp, I'll be continuing with PPC. If someone doesn't want to play with that then I have no issue, I just won't be playing with that person because what we want out of the game is different. I have enough friends that will keep using PPC that I'll still get in pick-up games at the least.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The big plus of this is that it shows GW are beginning to learn from their mistakes. The next step is for them to stop such mistakes from being published in the first case.

Indeed. GW never should have assigned "points" or supported "competitive" play... Those were huge mistakes.

Generally speaking, both the 'use of points' and 'competitive play' are fine.

A better approach is to simply assign a more robust points system and support competitive play properly rather than gw's usual 'dartboard' approach. It's amazing the results when you do things properly.

Generally speaking, not every game needs to be tailored to competitive and/or pick-up play. The results of looking at things from a different perspective once in a while are amazing.

Everyone benefits from balance built in from the core, even if points are never released, because it lets designers make new units that aren't going to be stupidly good (Eldar Scat Bikes) or stupidly bad (Vespids.) I am sure that everyone realises there is no fun in playing with units that are auto-win or auto-lose.

The basic movement and combat of AoS is simple enough that the statline can easily be "costed". The key words and the special rules are what will cause problems, as with 40K.

As soon as you start invoking "good" and "bad" in those terms, you're already assuming a PUG perspective. And even setting aside the tautological nature of arguing that balance is good because it's balanced, that's not even applicable here - because the goal of AoS is not PUG-style balance, which is completely evident from the design. Adding points on the back end of a design that does not care about balance does not suddenly transform the design into its opposite.

When you look at how stats work in AoS, you're not going to find a system that elegantly creates genuinely different options. KK, I believe you have even posted about this elsewhere. But the insight I draw from that observation is not that AoS should have been XYZ instead; rather I am more interested in why it is the way it is - and I'm not just going to dismiss the designers as stupid and/or lazy. I think the clunkiness of the statline system serves a purpose: even if units are mathematically very similar, what matters is that they feel different when you play them. In a more pure sense of gaming, there may actually be very little difference in some of the units, barring their crazy highly random/highly dramatic special rules, but as long as there is an illusion of difference that comes out while dice are being rolled, the system is pulling its weight.

 Manchu wrote:

 Haechi wrote:
What you're saying is exactly how points work: Here, I have this OP comp I found on internet, it's legit, deal with it or feth off elsewhere.

Exactly correct. And in fact, that is one of the main goals of the points mechanic. "If it is legal, you cannot object."

So is it all pick up games again or what? Because I thought it's about circles of mature gamers and the bliss of communicating.

You guys can't just make claims like that after months of preaching about a new better gamer enabled by AoS.

I'm not really sure what you are on about.

PUGs are fine. But not every game needs to be one. Very simple.

RoperPG wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:


It's not really so trolly down here so, whatcha 'all think?

Admire your optimism, but there's already 3 names I know I'll see in here before the end of the day...

I'd be disappointed if one of those three isn't me.

 Manchu wrote:
I'm not really sure what you are on about.

PUGs are fine. But not every game needs to be one. Very simple.

It seems like you are suggesting that point system will somehow corrupt the playerbase into "wrong" (for AoS) type of playing and that somehow people will be forced to accept broken armies because point system. Looks weird after all the claims that AoS is mainly played by established groups that can solve everything through communication. If it is really like that then point system is not a problem for those players at all, only helps those that want it.

Well ... no.

The problem I have with tacking on a points system is that it creates a false impression that suddenly AoS will be fine for pick-up gaming when it will actually still suck for pick-up gaming, at least compared to a game actually designed for that.

Also I have no faith that GW's points assignments will please anybody - not least of all because I expect them to be created in the usual GW black box method with no transparency.

We will continue to play AoS as we have been and will just disregard any tacked-on points nonsense. I expect we will not be alone in that. But the fact that such a thing is even out there will function as a kind of trap for gamers. One thing very clearly established by the debate around AoS is that many folks cannot or can just barely imagine a world in which minaitures games do not absolutely require points costed options ... which is of course terrifyingly myopic but that's the way it is, nonetheless. And so even a points system that is a total afterthought will end up having too much prominence, certainly far, far more than it deserves.

The other thing is, the real worry for anyone who actually like AoS, rather than the well-meaning busybodies who want to "fix" it, is that GW will basically shift the whole game laterally back to some kind of hot mess of meaningless points like the current 40k morass.

To be fair, this will be the first time in a LONG time GW have pointed up units all at once. A significant part of the problem that WHFB had and 40k still has is that GW don't update point costs as they change editions. Doing everything together at once has the best bet of being balanced of anything GW have done in the last decade. It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off or not.

Honestly, whatever random numbers end up painted over the AoS units won't matter, at least as far as balancing goes. No part of the game incorporates any meaningful attempt at balance. Wrapping it up in points values is not going to change the contents. But it will change the expectations of people trying to play. Or I should say, it will reinforce the expectations of those who approach AoS as if it is/should be a PUG.

 jonolikespie wrote:

RoperPG wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:


It's not really so trolly down here so, whatcha 'all think?

Admire your optimism, but there's already 3 names I know I'll see in here before the end of the day...

I'd be disappointed if one of those three isn't me.

Should I punch the card as well? xD

ITT - you can have a community enjoying a balanced game without the TFG/Tournament mindset kicking in.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
you can have a community enjoying a balanced game without the TFG/Tournament mindset kicking in

True and shouldn't even be in dispute. Anyone who doubts this, please take a look at the Great British Hobbit League tournament scene, which reportedly has a very high ratio of fluffy armies. That said ... the current iteration of SBG has been carefully calibrated over successive versions to create a more and more balanced game, even despite being initially marketed for scenario play rather than as a PUG. But that is a design that, in KK's words above, entailed "balance built in from the core" ... unlike AoS.