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I'm wondering how armies with a lot of shooting are doing in this version. Are they going to become the dominant thing the way they tend to be in 40K?

I dont think so, however i'm not familiar with all the units. Static to hits and to wounds means that anything like cavalry which is fast enough presumably to catch shooty units in the backfield is more likely to survive on the way there because they have no weaknesses exploited by the shooting model's stats or weapon profile. Furthermore, shooting weapons have fairly reduced rangd from what i can tell, making most units have to come somewhat within charge distance to be effective damagewise. Loading up on full shooty means you have nobody to tie them up in the middle while you support the combat with shooting.

Seems to me like the really powerful builds will be a mixture of every element of war, synergizing with eachother to multiply their force. Or the ones nobody will play against twice. it just seems like the AoS system rewards having all your bases covered. Maybe im wrong though.

Still wondering this myself. I haven't experienced a shooting skew list yet, but the lack of modifiers beyond -1 for terrain combined with the inability to escape shooting in combat plus the ability to shoot AND fight in combat seems to suggest AOS favors units with shooting attaks, at the very least.

I also feel like the comp packs I'm seeing that ban shooting into and out of combat are changing things too far and actually creating a game that favors close combat, whether or not AoS as is is a game that favors shooting.

The problem seems to be the lists that abuse some seriously potent shooting - Skaven lists that lock somebody up with an HPA and then shoot into combat with spammed jezzails. But this situation isn't unlike 7E, where armybook imbalance led to tiering and flatout bad matches.

Soooo that's another call for army balance before house rules

- Salvage

From what i've played, no.

And why would you ban the rule to shoot into/out of combat? Reactionary. It knackers the Sudden Death element and slows the game down.

ShaneTB wrote:
And why would you ban the rule to shoot into/out of combat?

Because it's silly, I imagine.

hmm perhaps the ability to shoot in combat, then fight, all whilst shooting as the enemy advances, all shooting units need to go up in poi.... nevermind....

Shooting is incredibly powerful now. I had a shooting phase with sister of averlon (and lothern Sea Helm) with 30 models with 1 A, at 18" attacking twice needing 3's to hit and 2's to wound with rerolls on both.

I was destroying a unit a turn, which is 40k level good. Shooting was never that good in 8th edition.

Most games I've seen were armies that didn't have a lot of shooting, but I thought that might be the case.

mrfantastical wrote:
Shooting is incredibly powerful now. I had a shooting phase with sister of averlon (and lothern Sea Helm) with 30 models with 1 A, at 18" attacking twice needing 3's to hit and 2's to wound with rerolls on both.

I was destroying a unit a turn, which is 40k level good. Shooting was never that good in 8th edition.

I'd venture that some of the high elf units with the right heroes are the ones that are the issue. Shadow Warriors w/Alith Anar and Sisters of Avalorn are the big bads. Outside of those units I'm not seeing shooting dominating the game like it does 40k. The reduced range leave it possible to get into combat without being shot at at all or only taking a single round of shooting.

But I think we'll see how it goes over the course of the next few weeks as people play more and more.

Dwarven artillery is also pretty lethal - 2 dice hitting on 4s with rerolls (for engineers), wounding on 2s and causing D6 wounds that you can reroll against big units.

On the other hand, they kind of replace monsters in duardin lists, so I've no real problem with this...

For the most part, units can reliably reach an enemy quite a way away, so yeah, shooting in combat is about the only way close-quarter stuff like warpfire throwers are ever going to fire.

mrfantastical wrote:
Shooting is incredibly powerful now. I had a shooting phase with sister of averlon (and lothern Sea Helm) with 30 models with 1 A, at 18" attacking twice needing 3's to hit and 2's to wound with rerolls on both.

I was destroying a unit a turn, which is 40k level good. Shooting was never that good in 8th edition.

Fun Fact: NE US tournaments have capped shooting in 8E for years. You can blame the dark elves for that one.

- Salvage

mrfantastical wrote:
Shooting is incredibly powerful now. I had a shooting phase with sister of averlon (and lothern Sea Helm) with 30 models with 1 A, at 18" attacking twice needing 3's to hit and 2's to wound with rerolls on both.

I was destroying a unit a turn, which is 40k level good. Shooting was never that good in 8th edition.

no rend though...and the units you are shooting at get +1 save when in cover

try shooting an entrenched cannon that saves on a 3 rerolling 1s

dwarf shooting is BS OP as usual

waywatchers are a lot better now I felt

BAN wrote:
waywatchers are a lot better now I felt

They really are, decided to run two units of x10 of them and they absolutely wrecked the Stormcast Eternals from the starting Box Set. Also mass shooting works really well, I also had x2 units of x8 Ellyrian Reavers that put out a whopping 24 shots needing 4's to hit and wound, it was pretty brutal to say the least.

 The Shadow wrote:

ShaneTB wrote:
And why would you ban the rule to shoot into/out of combat?

Because it's silly, I imagine.

This is my take on it. I don't like that the rules don't include any danger to your own side by firing into the mash up of struggling warriors. What my friend and I are going to implement and give a try is, you fire as normal if not the unit engaged but hit your own side if you roll a 1 (unless you are firing at a monstrous creature). Also, we may not allow shooting if you are fighting in the combat yourself. Stowing your melee weapons to pull out a distance weapon, all while trying to take aim and defend yourself from others trying to hack you to bits is just ridiculous. I don't care that it may extend games a bit, I'm not looking to rush through them as quickly as possible anyway.

Shooting is crazy now.

Had a game with my wife she took 20 elf archers and 2 blocks of 20 sea guard.

In the past she would have had 60 shots a turn (all in range) with 4's to hit and 5's to wound (Warrior of chaos) and I would have got a 3+ save.

Now she needs 4's to hit and 4's to wound and I need 4's to save.

On top of that she also has the ability to double her shots.

She pretty much wiped out my army before I got into combat.

 The Shadow wrote:

ShaneTB wrote:
And why would you ban the rule to shoot into/out of combat?

Because it's silly, I imagine.

Depends on your army. Goblins would have a field day shooting into their own guys.

mrfantastical wrote:
Shooting is incredibly powerful now. I had a shooting phase with sister of averlon (and lothern Sea Helm) with 30 models with 1 A, at 18" attacking twice needing 3's to hit and 2's to wound with rerolls on both.

I was destroying a unit a turn, which is 40k level good. Shooting was never that good in 8th edition.

Odd, I went into that unit with 2 units of wolf riders. They have enough speed to go from out of range to in combat without the sisters getting normal shooting. The special shooting can only target 1 of the 2 units charging in.
The sisters shooting is about twice as good as the wolf riders; but the wolf riders get to pick the fight.
I've seen similar results with other fast cav.

Some things don't change, death stars are still countered by MSU.

Alith anar, the shadow king(boss man)
Shadow warriors x15
Shadow warriors x15
Shadow warriors x15

Shadow blade
Shadow blade
Dark elf assassin
Dark elf assassin
Shades x15
Shades x15

100 points With free move and if you go first over 150 attacks at range.

To me that's a crazy comp. free move and tons of shots

How about for comp, only half of your the wounds in your force can shoot.
For warmachines, crew count as shooters, as well as the machine.

Yeah, cannons are even better now. My great cannon shoots twice, hits on fours,mounds on 2s, -2 rend, and d6 wounds? And the ME lets me Reroll? I'll take that to the bank.

Even better now, since you can use it to blow away characters.

I was watching a 100 wound game of AoS played in my local store between Beastmen and Empire and I really saw the power of shooting. The Beastmen player took a unit of 40 Ungors, backed up by shaman casting and the warlord command. They were able to move (+3"), run AND shoot - which seemed like a fair warlord bonus. Then, when it came to shooting, the had 4+ to hit, re-rolling any 1s and 2s… 34 hits were made in the first shooting phase.

To me, that seemed insanely powerful. Especially as the Beastmen rolled for the second turn and got to do it all over again!

Apologies if any of the terminology is off there. I haven't had a chance to read the Beastmen list yet.

 slowclinic wrote:
I was watching a 100 wound game of AoS played in my local store between Beastmen and Empire and I really saw the power of shooting. The Beastmen player took a unit of 40 Ungors, backed up by shaman casting and the warlord command. They were able to move (+3"), run AND shoot - which seemed like a fair warlord bonus. Then, when it came to shooting, the had 4+ to hit, re-rolling any 1s and 2s… 34 hits were made in the first shooting phase.

To me, that seemed insanely powerful. Especially as the Beastmen rolled for the second turn and got to do it all over again!

Apologies if any of the terminology is off there. I haven't had a chance to read the Beastmen list yet.

You got pretty much everything right, except the Ungor your talking about are Ungor Raiders, I wouldn't even mention it but the melee Unit is called Ungor while the ranged unit is called Ungor raiders. Its literally the only way to tell the two apart, and they serve way different purposes. Not trying to be nitpicky, just trying to educate people in the great ways of the goat people.

The armies that I've been up against in my small time playing Aos have been fast. I have also found that most shooty-things have rubbish close combat so having a missile weapon is just a minor bonus rather than anything extremely game changeing

Shed_pon3 wrote:
The armies that I've been up against in my small time playing Aos have been fast. I have also found that most shooty-things have rubbish close combat so having a missile weapon is just a minor bonus rather than anything extremely game changeing

It's all about buffing, from what I've seen. I can't quite remember what the guy was running, but his Empire Handgunners were hitting and wounding on a 2+, both of which were re-rollable. His whole army didn't move an inch the whole game and he wiped the board clean despite playing a against a summoning heavy Daemon army. To me, it seemed unfair, and I'm pretty sure the guys he was up against didn't really enjoy it either. It was essentially the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan, but no-one actually reached the gun lines…

I'm yet to find a combination as powerful as that in my O&G war scrolls. A Black Orc set list from the formations seems pretty powerful, but they'd have to manage to get into combat first.

Shooting is stronger now because

1- you can fire at untis in melee (since the only shooting restrictions are for the shooting units, the target only need to be in range)
2-You can move and fire now, including handgunners, crossbowmen and even Artillery!
3-you can fire in any direction

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
Shooting is stronger now because

1- you can fire at untis in melee (since the only shooting restrictions are for the shooting units, the target only need to be in range)
2-You can move and fire now, including handgunners, crossbowmen and even Artillery!
3-you can fire in any direction

And:

1a - shooting units in melee can fire.

Saldiven wrote:

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
Shooting is stronger now because

1- you can fire at untis in melee (since the only shooting restrictions are for the shooting units, the target only need to be in range)
2-You can move and fire now, including handgunners, crossbowmen and even Artillery!
3-you can fire in any direction

And:

1a - shooting units in melee can fire.

In YOUR shooting phase.

I don't think that's right. You can only fire in your shooting phase and you can only melee in the charge phase.

Even if you can fire in your shooting phase while in melee.

The Balance for range is in the stats I believe, but current vanilla rules give major advantages to range. Being able to shoot why in melee, chance of you get back to back shooting phases.