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I don't think Path to Glory is trying use its structure to balance the game, necessarily, but instead to give a progression system in which to give players guidance on what to buy/build next. PtG creates very unbalanced games, but that's okay because it was never trying to. If people min-max those choices, they may ultimately be ruining their own experience because PtG isn't about min-maxing. But min-maxers will be min-maxers.... what can you do, right?

Panzerkanzler wrote:I've been interested in AoS for a while, but while most of the newly released minis are very nice they don't scratch my particular itch...an Empire style army. I REALLY liked oldhammer Empire and something similar to it might draw me into AoS. Though I guess it's possible no such army will be forthcoming.

I wouldn't dismiss the possibility so readily. They are still officially being sold on their site unlike the Khemri and Bretonnians. They are just split up between the Free Peoples, Devoted of Sigmar, Ironweld Arsenal, and Collegiate Arcane. You can even run them all together, for the most part, if I remember things properly.

But the Empire and the Elves point out the army issues most glaringly in the transition from FB to AoS in that they are so spread out. Realistically, it makes some sense to split up the Wood Elf book between the tree spirits and the elves, but there was no reason to split up the most of the rest of the armies like this, especially if you're designing the game to allow a freeform army build to be in place as it is.

Truthfully, I expect them to introduce a Battletome that will be remarkably close to the old Empire book, much how the Beastmen book is remarkably close to a combination of the old Beasts of Chaos and 7th Ed Beastmen books. It's more a question of "when" rather than "if" for me. If there is a lot of differentiation it will be focusing more on how mixed the old Empire was, such as how Nuln was its own thing, so that it would be a mix of Free Peoples and Ironweld, and then another Battletome which focuses more on the Devoted of Sigmar mixed with the Free Peoples, and so on.

EnTyme wrote:I think cleaning up the factions and giving everything a battletome would go a long way toward making the game more accessible to new players and old. If I had any input in GW's business strategy, this would be my first suggestion.

Specifically to AoS, maybe. My first suggestion would be to split up their systems so they aren't concentrating so much at one time on one of their systems. Their biggest issue is that it leaves massive holes in their systems for years on end. With their current Warscroll/Datasheet setup it shouldn't really be hard to have development going on both 40K and AoS at the same time so edition changes can be caught up rather quickly, and then add eDocs for new model kits later one, and one can alternate releases rather reliably.

Of course, that depends on internal company structure being sufficient to the task. If they only can have enough developers to work on one project at a time, that would be one reason for their lop-sided release schedules.

 Sqorgar wrote:
I don't think Path to Glory is trying use its structure to balance the game, necessarily, but instead to give a progression system in which to give players guidance on what to buy/build next. PtG creates very unbalanced games, but that's okay because it was never trying to. If people min-max those choices, they may ultimately be ruining their own experience because PtG isn't about min-maxing. But min-maxers will be min-maxers.... what can you do, right?

Agreed. Narrative play has never meant no structure or balance mechanism at all, it just means the mechanism is loose and tied to the narrative feel over having an equal balance of power.

To that end I feel like certain open play elements, like sky battles, are far more suited to narrative play.

 thekingofkings wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It might be that this is why GW is pushing Skirmish forward "early " In my view. I'd have thought they'd wait for more battletomes to be out, but perhaps they want skirmish out there sooner to tempt more people into AoS the same way killteam does for 40K

While even with 2nd edition, AoS as a mass game has little appeal to me, but I LOVE the original skirmish and would equally like to see it expanded on. The game lends itself to be a better mordheim than mordheim and campaigns in hammerhal are a blast.

This x100

AoS is a great game at skirmish size. Loses most of its charm when playing at tournament point levels.

 Orlanth wrote:
Remember thst the 'popularity' of AoS is recorded by the huge increase in sales, not visible fan base.

People are not playing AoS in great numbers, what they are doing is buying AoS miniatures which is attributed to AoS.

Respectfully, I’d say thats demonstrably false. One example is looking at Adepticon attendance. AoS first Adepticon Championship tourney: About 40 folks. Second year, double that. This year, it more than doubled yet again at 184, with waitlist. A separate Team tourney is filled to capacity at 152, with waitlist. I may be wrong, but I believe these events sold out within hours of open registration. AoS Youngbloods Tournament is the only AoS (pure AoS, not WH:Underworlds, which are also strong) event not sold out, currently at half capacity.

Kings of War has one event currently at full capacity as I type this, and their biggest and most prominent event(from what I gather, correct me if I’m wrong. It sounds prominient lol ) Clash of Kings 2019 North America Championship is capped at 48, with remaining capacity at present.

9th Ages “Adepticon-adjacent” tourney titled Cornerhammer has 14 signups as I type this.

I can’t find any Oldhammer events as I peruse the Adepticon events list. Do they still happen at Adepticon?

All of those events could reach capacity before registration closes, and that would be awesome for the wargaming community, but just look at the numbers disparity and speed at which the events are selling. The hype and ardour to play seems to be vastly in AoS’s favor.

Granted this is only one example, but I think its pretty telling and counters your premise of “People are not playing AoS in great numbers”. If that is true, then they are playing the other games you list at #4 in even fewer numbers.

 Orlanth wrote:
It should really be attributed to four factors.

I think your premise is mistaken and this list is incredibly suspect, but I do think its missing a 5th factor: Collectors + Painters. Don’t discount the fact that some great looking mini’s, barring personal taste, have been released for AoS. A painter could hate AoS, but still appreciate the kits coming out and buy it up.

 Orlanth wrote:
1. AoS, because despite what i say above it isn't a dead system.

And judging from the numbers above, its probably the healthiest system. For instance, imagine the shitstorm if the Kings of War and AoS numbers for Adepticon listed above were flipped. AoS would be hailed by every hater and troll as an epic flop, I’d wager.

 Orlanth wrote:
2. A general renaissance in sales post Kirby, mostly linked to more client sensitive pricing policies..

I’d factor in increased community interaction, post Kirby more than pricing. Sure GW made some great discounted battleforces and a good bulk of the rules are free, but its still on average head and shoulders above any of their competitors in terms of money needed to buy in. That hasn’t really changed. GWs attitude toward its fans is certainly a paradigm shift, and I think that counts for more than pricing.

 Orlanth wrote:
3. A rush of panic buying of deleted or soon tom be deleted items. hough this phase is now over.

I think this was/is vastly overstated. Most of the stuff cut, barring Tombkings were and still are in abundance secondhand as well as having cheaper alternatives from other companies.

 Orlanth wrote:
4. Continuing popularity of legacy gaming via Oldhammer, 9th Age or Kings of War.

Like above, I think I think this is overstated, as well as less and less true as time passes. Not to say that those games aren’t popular in their own fashion, but that they are somehow fueling AoS’s sales growth seems suspect. Once again, use the Adepticon numbers as a barometer.

What I mean is, as AoS has gotten and gets more and more distinct from its predecessor, the contribution of those three games systems has/will decline. For example, who is bringing their Kharadron Overlords to a 6th Edition WHFB or 9th or KoW game? Do any of those systems support the newer releases? And even when those new releases can be backwards/cross compatible, the models scale/footprint is different, look at the new black coach for example.

I always looked at the “AoS is only selling because of X game” with a wary eye. It usually came from the mouths of people who couldn’t countenance AoS being successful. There is also really no way to prove it as well, so its a bunk statement meant to promote ones preferred non-AoS WHFB successor, while backhandedly downplaying the growth of AoS.

I think Nels hit the nail on the head.

A few months ago, I was also of the opinion that AoS wasn't really being played. This mainly derived from my initial views of the launch. Which, to be fair, was pretty awful to say the least.

When I actually started looking into it, I found the exact opposite. AoS was actually quite popular, filling up on game nights in a pretty large store. They recently just started an escalation league and it far exceeded expected signups with about 40 people joining.

This is of course all anecdotal, but I think a lot of people are probably in the same situation I have, and not really looked into where and the times it's being played. Instead, they are remembering it's initial release and not realizing how much it's really grown.

 Sasori wrote:
When I actually started looking into it, I found the exact opposite. AoS was actually quite popular, filling up on game nights in a pretty large store.

Maybe the AoS players were so tired of getting gak on by 40k players that the intentionally moved their games to a different night to avoid them...

I've been out of AoS too long (I've still been buying the models to paint, but haven't been playing), but from what I can tell, AoS players seem to be fairly happy with the game (outside of the double turns) and with their community, but they seem to be somewhat wary of proselytizing anymore.

Played a LOT of fantasy...and a LOT of 40k.

Got into AoS when it game out...really enjoyed for awhile. Then bettter spells, points costs, command traits....liked it even more.

But the only "tactics" to the game are the type of minutia listbuilding garbage that I hate. If I had local players to play narrative games with, I'd get back in....but I hate the competitive scene so much I wanna puke.

Very happy with local 40k

But 40K and AoS rules systems are nearly the same now! There's certainly far less difference than there used to be back when rank and file was a big change in movement and combat resolution.

Well he mentioned listbuilding, which is completely different between the two systems.

 Sasori wrote:
I think Nels hit the nail on the head.

A few months ago, I was also of the opinion that AoS wasn't really being played. This mainly derived from my initial views of the launch. Which, to be fair, was pretty awful to say the least.

When I actually started looking into it, I found the exact opposite. AoS was actually quite popular, filling up on game nights in a pretty large store. They recently just started an escalation league and it far exceeded expected signups with about 40 people joining.

This is of course all anecdotal, but I think a lot of people are probably in the same situation I have, and not really looked into where and the times it's being played. Instead, they are remembering it's initial release and not realizing how much it's really grown.

IT is definately a regional thing, I have had folks point out events I was trying to get going as evidence of the game being alive and well and telling me "see, here is a group you can play with". But I have noticed that games are popular based more on geography than anything else., goes back to "one man's trash is anothers treasure" around here, guildball and infinity (I dont like either) can clear tables even from magic.

AoS is slowly picking up where I live, but I see a very clear distinction between new players and old WHFB players. Many WHFB players are still very salty over the entire thing and outright refuse to try AoS out. However, we are getting newer players in and they are excited about the entire system.

Eventually the older generation will just phase out and a new one that doesn't have the same nostalgia for WHFB will be building up the community. At best there are a few WHFB who are just core gamers(they'll play anything as long as it is fun) who will occasionally bring out their old units for a game or two and they seem to be having fun with the new system.

I'm playing AoS, but infrequently. I have a Nurgle daemons army that I use in both AoS and as part of a daemons army in 40k.
The reason I'm not playing more AoS, beyond the local player count favoring 40K is that few of the armies really appeal to me.

I like the Fyreslayers in concept, but the models are expensive and the army is reliant on numbers. The army also lacks variety and seems to have been shelved by GW in with a lack of new models and rules. If the army got one more new unit and a new battletome, maybe some endless spells, I would probably start them. And before anyone starts 'but Fyreslayers don't use magic' there are definitely moments where Fyreslayers use magic-like rituals and abilities in the black library stories. I could see that making a functional conversion over to AoS.

If I could field a full daemons of chaos army in AoS like I can in 40K without resorting to the significantly weaker Grand Alliance: Chaos Alliegence abilities and artifacts, I would.

So it's not so much that I don't want to play AoS.

Warhammer and 40k were never truly alive at my local store and even the large store 50 minutes away doesn't garner much AoS activity. I'll be honest and say that I've become rather lazy and don't want to spend the time driving down there to potentially (maybe) find a game. Miniature gaming, besides 40k really seems to be on life support where I am at.

I suspect it comes down to a lot of different factors, but I don't have time or money to buy and paint two armies to evangelize the game. The game isn't good enough to me yet to warrant that as the background still feels really soulless to me even though I've read all the books. Perhaps if my daughter, coming in April, ever has an interest then I'll dip a toe back in, but my hobby time and money has really turned to D&D and board games these days.

I asked at the local GW store if there was anyone playing locally and he said there was maybe a pair of guys playing infrequently and I would have to try and arrange it online. I might see if he has time to show me the ropes when I have my stuff sorted.

Meanwhile, SE of the famous Las Vegas in the less-scorching-now-that-we-are-in-December Valley of the Sun, they have regular game days at several of the local game stores, and a pretty regular tournament schedule. While I don't play, I keep up on the Facebook group where such announcements are made. It's not quite as prevalent as Warmachine, 40K, or X-Wing, but I see more on it than I do most other systems.

Ignispacium wrote:

I like the Fyreslayers in concept, but the models are expensive and the army is reliant on numbers.

Daughters of Khain also suffer the same with very expensive basic troops. It's because GW took models that were elite choices in large armies and made them core troop choices for new armies. The result is that we have a model that has changed its market focus without changing its price. It's honestly an anomaly and its odd that GW hasn't moved to change this as it clearly holds those armies back.

The original price of those models was high because GW never expected you to buy more than a couple of boxes of them. They were a small part of bigger armies designed to be thrown down on their own and used as an elite choice. Now that they are troops GW should safely lower the price on them as gamers are expected to purchase more individual boxes. Or if they don't want to reprice they should release a new boxed set with them in and give that a new price.

Daughters of Khaine is weird in that the Witch Aelves are expensive as hell and a number of their hero models are only found in the Bloodwrack Shrine, which is direct only. They don't have a Start Collecting and the Blood Coven box went out of print the moment it launched.

I suspect that they'll get their Start Collecting in January (and it'll basically be the Blood Coven box), but right now, they are in a weird place as far as major parts of their army are concerned.

They have a Christmas bundle, at least. Fyreslayers have a Start Collecting which comes with 10 vulkites, but you really need at least 60 to be viable and they are $60/10 on their own.

Daughters do have one bonus in that (esp if you use magnets) the Blood cauldron kit basically has all their leaders in it barring Morathi. So for less than you'd get separately, you get almost their entire roster - and they are all viable and valuable choices.

The Blood Coven set went out of print, but there was quite a lot of it in the distribution network. 3rd parties were still getting stock of it quite a long while after it went out of print although I think its now gone. Though yes the new army boxed set easily replaces it.

One bonus both Daughter and Fyreslayers have is that because their ranges are so small in variety of models, they are actually all pretty much worth buying and using. There's no chaff in those armies. It's also really nice to see GW making functional working armies with very small model counts. Though more would be nice to see!

Personally I'm hoping the DoK embrace things like the old Dark Aelf beast trainer and introduce more fantastic monsters into the army.

 Overread wrote:
Daughters do have one bonus in that (esp if you use magnets) the Blood cauldron kit basically has all their leaders in it barring Morathi. So for less than you'd get separately, you get almost their entire roster - and they are all viable and valuable choices.

The Blood Coven set went out of print, but there was quite a lot of it in the distribution network. 3rd parties were still getting stock of it quite a long while after it went out of print although I think its now gone. Though yes the new army boxed set easily replaces it.

One bonus both Daughter and Fyreslayers have is that because their ranges are so small in variety of models, they are actually all pretty much worth buying and using. There's no chaff in those armies. It's also really nice to see GW making functional working armies with very small model counts. Though more would be nice to see!

Personally I'm hoping the DoK embrace things like the old Dark Aelf beast trainer and introduce more fantastic monsters into the army.

DoK also have quite a few metal Witch Aelves available second hand. I am currently running a 20 Aelf squad of Metal Witches. Sure, the plastic looks better, but the nostalgia look of the old ones is a bit charming. Plus they are not as greedy for space(ie. very simple poses) so storing them is less of a hassle.

I also agree that it would be nice to see some of the dark elf line move more to DoK. Like the War Hydra, sorceress, and sorceress on the black dragon. I was actually surprised that the Sorceress didn't make the cut as she kinda has the Witch Aelf asthetic for the most part. It would have been an easy way for them to add an HQ that doesn't come in a box with ton of other bits. Hell, if they had added Sorceress to DoK they could easily have released a Start Collecting without relying on the Bloodwrack shrine.

AoS interests me. I had a small mix of Orcs, Vampires, and a ton of High Elves back in the 6th/7th days. I’ve since sold the elves and orcs. I loved Black Orcs, dwarfs, and everything involving wood elves. I find the new system intimidating. I don’t know how armies are formed, how the game is played, I find the new factions a bit kooky, and I fear the game seems like 40j allies where “grand alliance order” is like Imperium with access to a plethora of builds and broken combos while something like orcs might struggle to be relevant. Obviously I haven’t had a deep dive into it to figure it out but that’s what has me cautious to dip my toes in.

Bremon wrote:
AoS interests me. I had a small mix of Orcs, Vampires, and a ton of High Elves back in the 6th/7th days. I’ve since sold the elves and orcs. I loved Black Orcs, dwarfs, and everything involving wood elves. I find the new system intimidating. I don’t know how armies are formed, how the game is played, I find the new factions a bit kooky, and I fear the game seems like 40j allies where “grand alliance order” is like Imperium with access to a plethora of builds and broken combos while something like orcs might struggle to be relevant. Obviously I haven’t had a deep dive into it to figure it out but that’s what has me cautious to dip my toes in.

Grand Alliances work on several levels.

First you have the grand alliance in the lore. This is a loosely allied group of factions who have the same general agenda even if they dont' actually get along. For example Order are only allied because they all hate and loath chaos and generally build settlements and civilizations. Destruction hate Chaos too, but they are more your nomadic and warrior peoples who are not going to found great settlements or build noble houses and such. Death are, well, pretty much undead and allied to Nagash in some form and Chaos is, well Chaos.

In the game each Grand Alliance has distinct armies with a battletome (or rules in the Generals Handbook) can be fielded as its own army. An army has not just units, but traits, army wide abilities, spell lores (for faction wizards to pick from), battalions (like formations - groups of units that get a bonus though the battalion itself comes with a cost in points too).
Each army can also take a limited number of allied units which cannot be more than 1/4 in points and model count (the warscroll builder on the GW website helps with the maths on this). For example at 2K points you can only take 400 points worth of allies. These allies are further limited as each army (with a battletome) has a strict limited pool of armies it can draw from in the Grand Alliance.

For example Daughters of Khaine can draw allies from basically the entire pool of factions based on the old Dark Elves army (so Scourge Privateers, Shadowblades, etc...) and the new Idoneth Deepkin. They can also take Stormcast Eternals who are the only Order army who can take allies from every other Order force.


So as you can see whilst you can have allies there are limits on what you can and cannot take within the army. Furthermore the point and unit count limits mean that you can't overwhelm your army with another force so it keeps its original army flavour and feel.



Now there ARE ways to take whatever you want, you can take an army that is a Grand Alliance army which lets you pick from whatever you want. But you lose out on the army wide traits and abilities. Furthermore wizards can only take spells from the spell lore in their army Battletome, which means allied wizard can't take any spells that are not on their warscroll (because you're not using their battletome to form your army around)

Chaos also has some tricks for taking more allied forces within a Chaos force, but there are limits there too (I'm not as familiar with them though).







SO Basically yes there are allies, yes you can get messy. But there are limits and in general pure armies with a few allies are the most well rounded and powerful. The "soup" isn't isn't really here like it is with Warhammer.

Thank you very much for that info Overread, that actually has me more interested in AoS. Soup, CP generation and stratagems running rampant are putting a serious damper on my enjoyment of 40k these days. I’ll have to dig further under the surface of AoS, I’m still a sucker for fantasy settings. I was pretty irate with GW for blowing up the Old World even though I was on a long hiatus from their games at that time. 17 years ago I was a big big fan of Tyrion and Teclis lol.

Right now Aelves are in a little bit of a mess faction wise.

After they captured Slaanesh and sealed him within a prison they started to harvest the souls trapped within his belly. Teclis took his allocation of souls and tried to forge new bodies for them and made the Idoneth Deepkin. But their souls are damaged and withered and they must act like soul-vampires sucking the souls from others to survive. They live within the deep seas and when they come to land to war they bring with them magic that lets the wind of magic flow like water so that their sharks, eels and great beasts of the deep can rise to war with them upon land.


Morathi has taken the title of Oracle of Khaine and stolen his heart (the only part thus found of the old god). She syphons the energy he would get from worship to herself (as she got eaten by Slaanesh but escaped on her own - so unlike the other great Aelves that survived she didn't get to become a god). He Daughters of Khaine are women focused and shadowy - a powerful glass cannon style army that dances over the battlefield to strike with blades.

Wood elves got split too as their treekin allies basically gave up on the Aelves and are now their own thing. The Treekin have their own faction and power whilst the old Aleves that once fought by their side are now allies at best; although the Aelve half hasnt' yet had any battletome.


There's also talk that Tyrion has made Angelic Aelves with his allocation of souls and that Malarion has made demonic/draconic style ones (in appearance only they are not chaos born). Though as yet neither of those forces have arisen.

The other Aelf forces are a bit hit and miss in terms of if we know if they will continue on their own or not. Darkling Covens has their own page in the Generals Handbook with faction abilities and the like and they've a fair decent core to an army. Others we just have no idea on what will happen to them.


AoS also has battalions like formations for 40K, but they are not the be-all and end-all. They are nice to have but can be quite expensive to take (and that's even with minimum forces allocated to the batallion and not bumping up units to larger squads). So they are a choice to make, but not the prime focus.
I would say that the structural choices of AoS are generally very good, where it lets itself down is the number of factions that have battletomes at this stage. Whilst its been out for longer than 8th edition 40L, AoS has had to wrestle with its early days when the focus was far different to what it is now; that and the last year was a very heavy 40K period. Many are hoping that 2019 is going to be the year of AoS and that it will get a similar treatment to what 40K had this year - with a lot of Battletomes rolling out.
Many are also hoping that a handful of the most early tomes also get updated as they are not in keeping withthe changes and maturing of the rules of AoS

1) release the books for everything that has not had a book yet. Its well past tiime.

2) after this, begin going through and solving all of the false choices in the game and broaden the bell curve of power, both internally and externally.

Externally, the balance is broader than it has been in fantasy other than the 2000-2003 days, but there are still some really bad stinkers.

Internally, most factions have an obvious path to play, and if you're lucky you get 2 or even 3 paths to play, but if you don't follow that path, the math of the game will hammer you if you're up against someone opting to take the obvious path to play.

Last things like summoning need checked. I understand people love their free things, but there are a couple outliers that wreck the game if someone is playing on their obvious path to play with summoning.

Of interest: if they'll begin opening the game up to more "soup" (right now its not as efficient or as optimal as it is in 40k so its not seen as much).

Honestly I hope they keep soup limited.

When you have a strong element of soup its hard to build weakness into an army without having an ally then solve that weakness. Soup also dilutes army identity, which is a shame as its often a specific army that gets people into the game rather than a visual mish-mash of factions.


Personally I think as the game matures and GW introduces more features and questions into the game structure we might see soup increase and then degrease based on army variety. Eg lets say they add a siege mode where you need siege gear. Right now the options are limited and if you're in order you're going to have to bring Stormcast Ballista.

However if GW then turns around and gives other factions/alliance blocks artilery and siege gear then the soup for Stormcast should reduce.

Because I just played Vanguard, and it's far, far better. I don't play at clubs, I just play socially with friends, and with so many rule sets out there, who has time for subpar rules?

 pancakeonions wrote:
Because I just played Vanguard, and it's far, far better. I don't play at clubs, I just play socially with friends, and with so many rule sets out there, who has time for subpar rules?

I can never work out if Kings of War miniatures are just years behind GW in terms of the style that they've gone for; or the painter that they've chosen or both. A lot of their core stuff certainly has a very retro feel to its design. I think my issue is that whilst I love the concepts for their armies the models have never really "wowed" me. Granted it could be their paintwork and that I'm seeing photos not real miniatures.

Some of their newer stuff is looking better and the Vanguard stuff is starting to look a little more advanced in terms of design.

Their target is more on gameplay and less on the models. So the models do look worse than GW, much so in many cases, but also cost a lot less.

Also you can use any models you wish, which a lot of people use their gw figs for their armies but using a ruleset that they feel is better.

The mantic models have come a long way though, but a lot do look pretty bad in many cases. And the mold lines...