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I keep hearing here and there about this "9th Age" Warhammer-like ruleset.

I went to their forum and browsed on their topics...then I read the rules changed not so long ago and it seems the community is quite split.

It feels like looking at AoS' debut with the horrible debate between the old guard, the new players, the veterans who were happy to try and the others.

I remember the Blackhammer project, with a team with similar ambitions about "fixing Warhammer" and "have a balanced game for organized/competitive play". Now it's nearly forgotten, with only a handful of people playing.

Do you think the 9th Age can succeed where GW and older other projects failed? As far as I read, it really looks like a project made by players a bit too focused on the competitive setting (it's main argument is that it is the official ruleset for the ETC tournaments). It's quite funny, but I noticed a lot of similarities with some of GW decisions before...last changes for their ruleset was pushed by their "design team" so that they can go away from the Warhammer franchise, but reading the reactions, I feel like there is a significant part of their Community who doesn't want to go away from it - those people are actually looking for a new balanced edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Maybe they didn't hear what their Community really wanted first?

Anyway, for now, I guess it's a bit soon to make the jump. Their rules are bound to change again, so far as I read. Do you also think it's better to wait so that the rules matured and get a clearer road? Do you think these rules are really intended for casual play? Do you think they are the new "Warmachine/Horde" for the Warhammer Fantasy Battle old guard, not willing to stay with 8th edition?

9th Age is overstepping its purpose.

What they should do is to have a set of rules that 'fixes 8th' called 9th Age. Then have their follow on system under a different name, like 10th Age or some such.

Moving 9th Age on to a post warhammer system is OK so long as the system remains as is.

9th Age ver 1.1 is fairly well fixed warhammer, editions beyond that start to become their own ruleset.

Despite the rules changes, Ninth age still ''feels'' like Warhammer, and it does so in a way no currently supported gaming system does.

KoW simply doesn't offer the same level of customisation or intricacies of Warhammer, and AoS doesn't encompass the same sense of grandeur with the amount of models most people play with.

So yes, Ninth age is moving away from warhammer but only aesthetically. New names, new fluff, hell even all new lores of magic and army compositions but everything that was quintessentially warhammer is still there.

On the otherhand, it's undeniable that Ninth is a game developed for competitive players. New army compositions limit skewed lists (not all skewed lists where power list offenders, but now a Saethla style Wood Elf avoidance army is impossible for example), new magic is reduced in game altering effects, almost every unit has counter play (divine attacks vs ward saves, etheral nerf to 3++/5+++, cannons doing more wounds to fliers). While all of these things lead to a healthier tournament scene I can see how they'd be off putting to someone who just wants to field a 3 gargantula forest goblin army.

So in conclusion. Yes, Ninth can go the distance. In many ways, it already has, securing both tournament and model support. While it will always have it roots in warhammer, it's an evolving project. The rule set is fun and we're getting a big fluff reveal with the big rulebook being released at Christmas, giving us our first look at the new background holistically. So suggest you wait and give that a look before disregarding the direction it's moving into, you might just be able to draw your favourite parallels between warhammer and the new universe.

I am finding competitive rulesets and army lists help enormously for casual players.

I only play casual Warhammer and 40K because at heart I am a collector. Making a 'fluffy' list for most armies in warhammer is difficult, in 9th Age it is easy.

Taking my current project as an example the points balance between chaos warriors and marauders is improved, so if I want a marauder horde, I can have one because the value of my units is fairly tallied for play. I find this way I csan have my toys in my lists, take multiple horse chariots etc, make my army look cool and not have to worrit if an awesome looking army organisation is going to end up miscosted.

My 40K is not fan fixed yet, so taking my primary army which I have had for nearly twenty years now, Saim Hann, currently they are broken, but in previous editions they swung from overpowered to useless and back again through the editions. I still took my Singing Spears, still took my Wind Riders, even when they were ludicrously priced and sucked. Eldar are an extreme example, more so thatn can be found in WHFB so I stepped away to the other game for the example to present. But the same can be said of a lot of warhammer armies, whether ignored lines like Brets or armies with massive lists of options where the core often gets overlooked, as with Empire.
My peasant heavy Bretonnians can be fielded without worry because they are more reasonably balanced. i want an Empire army which closely resembles a historical rennaisance army with an added monster plus a wizard or two. I think 9th Age will have me covered, official Warhammer rarely did. You had to wire up your army or see it fail.

As a Dogs of War player, Ninth Age said they'd support us as Mercenaries. However, they actively discourage any fan development of such, telling people to wait until they have everything else "perfect". That's crap, because things will never be "perfect". So I'm not a fan of Ninth Age.

Kings of War isn't doing anything either.

Nor Age of Sigmar. However, AoS is the simplest ruleset by far, and it has a non-competitive play mode. So I would play AoS, if we hadn't all packed up our Fantasy toys.

I think if you're running the 8th Ed WFB engine, it is a bad system. I went retro, back to 6th Ed, but I hope 9th works for you if that is what you want.

I'd agree with playing 6E over 7E, much less 8E / 9A.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'd agree with playing 6E over 7E, much less 8E / 9A.

I'm curious; I started playing WHFB in 7th and felt that most of the problematic changes (random Winds of Magic, too-big spells, pre-measuring/random charges/auto-hitting cannons, free Stubborn on all large units, difficulty of flank disruption, too-big special characters) came in 8th, but I hear a lot of older veterans saying they'd prefer 6th to 7th. What were the big changes in the 6th-7th transition that make you say that?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'd agree with playing 6E over 7E, much less 8E / 9A.

I'm curious; I started playing WHFB in 7th and felt that most of the problematic changes (random Winds of Magic, too-big spells, pre-measuring/random charges/auto-hitting cannons, free Stubborn on all large units, difficulty of flank disruption, too-big special characters) came in 8th, but I hear a lot of older veterans saying they'd prefer 6th to 7th. What were the big changes in the 6th-7th transition that make you say that?

6E kept the dirt in the army books to a lesser level than 7E did, when it spiralled way way out of control.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'd agree with playing 6E over 7E, much less 8E / 9A.

I'm curious; I started playing WHFB in 7th and felt that most of the problematic changes (random Winds of Magic, too-big spells, pre-measuring/random charges/auto-hitting cannons, free Stubborn on all large units, difficulty of flank disruption, too-big special characters) came in 8th, but I hear a lot of older veterans saying they'd prefer 6th to 7th. What were the big changes in the 6th-7th transition that make you say that?

6E dialed WFB down from Herohammer, to something where troops mattered. 6E was still "new" and exploratory to most players. 6E wasn't overladen with specials, and the power levels were a lot flatter, esp if playing Ravening Hordes. In 7E, the Army Books added a lot of chrome, and things got out of control.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

So in conclusion. Yes, Ninth can go the distance. In many ways, it already has, securing both tournament and model support.

Tournament support, I get it (especially with the ETC), but model support secured? All I saw so far is that there are a few kickstarter projects that are "9th Age friendly", otherwise they usually talk about companies that edit suitable miniatures to play. GW is much less "square based units" friendly since their miniatures are clearly not thought to be used in close formations because of their "dynamic poses" and slightly higher scale.

So far I read, there is no intention to secure a true and complete 9th miniature line. To me, that's far from being a "secure way for long term projects".

I'm quite wary of the Kickstarters, because there is no guarantee the miniatures sold will stay available to people outside of the Kickstarter for a long time. That, and of course, the difficulty to have everything in one place where you play regularly. We can complain all we want about old GW ways, but we can never say they were bad at delivering their miniatures to a great number of people with fair regularity, so that they can play whatever army they like for their favorite games.

I admit those Kickstarter and small businesses where what I had in mind when I made the claim, however we also shouldn't discount them. Avatars of war has some fantastic Ninth age Warriors of the Dark Gods sets. Shieldwolf miniatures has shown lots of support and are currently working on an Undying Dynasty starter set. Fireforge is working on Kingdom of Equatain and I personally have already gotten my hands on a Hidden Dreams Sylvan Elf Shapeshifter prince.

So while model support is in it's infancy and it's unlikely every model will be provided due to different companies taking on the projects they like best I'd say it's fair to say Ninth has enough company support to back it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'd agree with playing 6E over 7E, much less 8E / 9A.

I'm curious; I started playing WHFB in 7th and felt that most of the problematic changes (random Winds of Magic, too-big spells, pre-measuring/random charges/auto-hitting cannons, free Stubborn on all large units, difficulty of flank disruption, too-big special characters) came in 8th, but I hear a lot of older veterans saying they'd prefer 6th to 7th. What were the big changes in the 6th-7th transition that make you say that?

6E dialed WFB down from Herohammer, to something where troops mattered. 6E was still "new" and exploratory to most players. 6E wasn't overladen with specials, and the power levels were a lot flatter, esp if playing Ravening Hordes. In 7E, the Army Books added a lot of chrome, and things got out of control.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. Also, 7th allowed a unit to fight in two combats a phase if you timed it right. Add in autobreak from being outnumbered by a fear causing unit, and it was happening more ofthen than not. My brother and myself, along with one of the clubs I frequented referred to the tactic as "the Bear Trap."

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
[...] Shieldwolf miniatures are currently working on an Undying Dynasty starter set.[...]

There must be a misinterpretation, we have other projects set in motion but UD is not among them.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
[...] Shieldwolf miniatures are currently working on an Undying Dynasty starter set.[...]

There must be a misinterpretation, we have other projects set in motion but UD is not among them.

That probably should read TMS who were looking for feedback on what minis to include in a boxed set.

Since their KoE (Brets for those not in the 9th age loop) indiegogo seems to go fine the guy is on record saying the starter set will be UD and KoE.

You focus on those gorgeous forest gobbos. Missed the KS once, won't do it again.

@jouso
Yeah, the Forest Goblin army will get one more chance to become a reality next year. We are going to work on them more however, otherwise they risk never becoming a reality.
Retail sales of the Shieldmaiden army should help them out but we need to wait and see the numbers first.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
@jouso
Yeah, the Forest Goblin army will get one more chance to become a reality next year. We are going to work on them more however, otherwise they risk never becoming a reality.
Retail sales of the Shieldmaiden army should help them out but we need to wait and see the numbers first.

Maybe next time make a campaign that doesn't look like it was set up during one afternoon when your CAD guy was bored. Thant kind of thing doesn't instill buyer confidence.

On topic:

9th age is holding on much better than I ever expected and they are making a lot of good choices in moving away from WHFB. Competitive balance is great for casual play, too. What is not great for casual play is that they are retaining all the bloat of WHFB. I tried going through one army book the other day to see if I could make my WHFB 6th ed army, now converted to KoW, compatible with T9A and I gave up halfway through the book, there are just too many meaningless small options presented without any real context.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
@jouso
Yeah, the Forest Goblin army will get one more chance to become a reality next year. We are going to work on them more however, otherwise they risk never becoming a reality.
Retail sales of the Shieldmaiden army should help them out but we need to wait and see the numbers first.

Maybe next time make a campaign that doesn't look like it was set up during one afternoon when your CAD guy was bored. Thant kind of thing doesn't instill buyer confidence.

On topic:

9th age is holding on much better than I ever expected and they are making a lot of good choices in moving away from WHFB. Competitive balance is great for casual play, too. What is not great for casual play is that they are retaining all the bloat of WHFB. I tried going through one army book the other day to see if I could make my WHFB 6th ed army, now converted to KoW, compatible with T9A and I gave up halfway through the book, there are just too many meaningless small options presented without any real context.

Then probably you made the right choice by moving to KoW. Part of 9th age appeal is to keep with the spirit of WHFB and that includes a certain degree of granularity that KoW lacks.

Meaningless to one is flavourful or immersing to others.

You cant get tghe 1.1xrules and list anymore on the 9th Age site.

You have to go with 1.2 instead. Though there are multiple cases of 1.2.

I dont like thi as 1.1 was heavily based on Warhammer, it was 8th editin with fixes. 1.2 is heading towards its own system and itsdragging the playerbase wth it, like it or not.

The people behind 9th Age really ought to have two projects.
1. Fix 8th edition and then leave it alone.

2. Do their own separate 10th Age that progressively changes the game ino the new form.

1.2 has became the cut off as the points system is not too radically changed. One cannot take a copy of 8th a copy of 9th age and mix and match the two to the desire of the players. Not impresed that they deleted 1.1 content, but I am glad I downloaded it all first.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
@jouso
Yeah, the Forest Goblin army will get one more chance to become a reality next year. We are going to work on them more however, otherwise they risk never becoming a reality.
Retail sales of the Shieldmaiden army should help them out but we need to wait and see the numbers first.

Maybe next time make a campaign that doesn't look like it was set up during one afternoon when your CAD guy was bored. Thant kind of thing doesn't instill buyer confidence.

For a project that looked like it was set up during one afternoon it is great we still got 23 thousand dollars pledged for. Just saying...
We have every confidence it will fund next time, we have no worries there :-)

 Orlanth wrote:

1.2 has became the cut off as the points system is not too radically changed. One cannot take a copy of 8th a copy of 9th age and mix and match the two to the desire of the players. Not impresed that they deleted 1.1 content, but I am glad I downloaded it all first.

Copyright issues were behind some of the changes from 1.1 to 1.2, so naturally 1.1 had to be removed.

Anyone asking for the files at the 9th age forum gets a PM with a link to get them elsewhere.

Ok there is some sense to that.

However the entire game is a rip of WHFB, and they renamed all the units, so I am curious as to what they had to change.

Straight from the source:

http://www.the-ninth-age.com/news/index.php?news/464-version-1-2-why-change-from-version-1-1/

Yeah I certainly get their reasoning for doing what they did with 1.2. The problem is is that quite a few of the people who jumped on to the bandwagon didn't do it because they wanted a new wargame. People just wanted a fixed Warhammer and, most importantly, a stable system.

I mean 1.1 came out in June and in less then 6 months they already overhauled? Yeah...no.

Fortunately the backlash has been such that I hope 1.3 restores things back....well see though.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Competitive balance is great for casual play, too.

Ha. I used to think that too. Now I'm much more nuanced.

The thing is, casual players usually play with their friends or a small gaming circle. They are much more prone to game agreements and are used to some specific playstyles. They also know each other, and there is not much value to get angry with their friends.

They also tend not to react that much on game forums, especially in the tournament/rules sections.

The truth is, competitive balance isn't that important for casual play. What is more important is that a game has rules both players enjoy and bring not too much headaches (sometimes, something simple also helps to remember rules when you play really occasionnally and keep forgetting the rules). It's the feeling, mostly. Competitive balance only really matter to people playing in tournaments with other players they don't know. Because they don't have time to know each other with a complete stranger with different points of view about the game, and they need a good common basis to lose less time in petty arguments/uninteressing games.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

What is not great for casual play is that they are retaining all the bloat of WHFB. I tried going through one army book the other day to see if I could make my WHFB 6th ed army, now converted to KoW, compatible with T9A and I gave up halfway through the book, there are just too many meaningless small options presented without any real context.

Rule bloatness was one of the big flaws of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. By trying to keep the same flavor, 9th Age is bound to repeat that same mistake. And they already end up with the same trouble; bringing new players to the game.

The rules aren't a trouble for a veteran used to play many games with it, because this kind of people already know nearly everything by heart (especially the tables). That's not the case for a new players. He needs to involve himself, and eventually will have to balance the time (and money) needed for that while looking if it's really worth it. A game made by some unknown people with rules changing that often and still being that bloated...it's not really that attractive, honestly. Especially when the rules for building an army are so restrictive, killing creativity and having the risk to eventually the same kind of army over and over at tournaments.

Yes, there are people who love complicated rules and are always looking after Perfect Game Balance (which is Saint Graal; it doesn't exist). They usually aren't the ones playing occasionnally/many other game systems/have a busy real life outside of games. That's the reality and it really is about numbers. Bringing new blood to 9th Age was always the trouble of that group.

 Sarouan wrote:


Rule bloatness was one of the big flaws of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. By trying to keep the same flavor, 9th Age is bound to repeat that same mistake. And they already end up with the same trouble; bringing new players to the game.

There's a beginners rulebook coming in January that cuts a lot of the bloat.

It's still self contained so it can be either used to learn the ropes or as a game on its own.

jouso wrote:

There's a beginners rulebook coming in January that cuts a lot of the bloat.

It's still self contained so it can be either used to learn the ropes or as a game on its own.

Come on, you know perfectly the intention isn't to make it "a game on its own". It's to introduce new players to the rules and let them gradually learn how to play.

But that is a good step to help new players to involve themselves into 9th Age. It's just that GW did that before as well, and we know how WFB ended. So this alone isn't the solution, IMHO.

 Sarouan wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Competitive balance is great for casual play, too.

Ha. I used to think that too. Now I'm much more nuanced.

The thing is, casual players usually play with their friends or a small gaming circle. They are much more prone to game agreements and are used to some specific playstyles. They also know each other, and there is not much value to get angry with their friends.

They also tend not to react that much on game forums, especially in the tournament/rules sections.

The truth is, competitive balance isn't that important for casual play. What is more important is that a game has rules both players enjoy and bring not too much headaches (sometimes, something simple also helps to remember rules when you play really occasionnally and keep forgetting the rules). It's the feeling, mostly. Competitive balance only really matter to people playing in tournaments with other players they don't know. Because they don't have time to know each other with a complete stranger with different points of view about the game, and they need a good common basis to lose less time in petty arguments/uninteressing games.

I want to agree with this but I cannot.
Yes for a true casual friendly game winning isn't important. For example casual players might play an asymmetric scenario, a last stand for example which one side cannot win. The competitive game doesn't account for that. However casual players tend to have more than just a lack of competitiveness differentiating them from competitive gamers.
For a start casual games are competitive, it is just that the tension is removed from the competitiveness. Many casual gamers believe they should fight their battle rather than just play it, fight it to win it, not via the rules but via the capability of the units, because a good challenge, or even a crude beating is the best game experience they can give the army of a friend. Game balance is crucial to that, to prevent overpower units dominating, or to prevent players from having to avoid said units.
Casual games tend to be thematic, when they don't involve whatever is available and painted. Have a unit of light infantry that makes sense to have in your army, but it is a waste of points, with a balanced game that unit is now worth what you pay for it and can be included without crippling your list. Want to have chaff units in something other than minimum rows of five, you can now take two ranks at less than double the price. I really like this part and run warhounds and other similar things in blocks of ten, mainly because it looks better. It is how the were sold.
All this occurs because of hard balance intended to competitive play. I am a collector first and a gamer second, if I like the theme and look of a unit I will likely take it, even now I have to agonise over what I take and I cant have everything, especially not two daemon princes, but by giving eveything a role and a fair price everything is usable and everything can get its share of table time.

 Sarouan wrote:

jouso wrote:

There's a beginners rulebook coming in January that cuts a lot of the bloat.

It's still self contained so it can be either used to learn the ropes or as a game on its own.

Come on, you know perfectly the intention isn't to make it "a game on its own". It's to introduce new players to the rules and let them gradually learn how to play.

Still, it's written so that if players feel it's enough complexity it can be played on its own.

Then it's down to each group to decide.

jouso wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
9th age is holding on much better than I ever expected and they are making a lot of good choices in moving away from WHFB. Competitive balance is great for casual play, too. What is not great for casual play is that they are retaining all the bloat of WHFB. I tried going through one army book the other day to see if I could make my WHFB 6th ed army, now converted to KoW, compatible with T9A and I gave up halfway through the book, there are just too many meaningless small options presented without any real context.

Then probably you made the right choice by moving to KoW. Part of 9th age appeal is to keep with the spirit of WHFB and that includes a certain degree of granularity that KoW lacks.

Meaningless to one is flavourful or immersing to others.

As a WHFB vet, I feel like I should chime in and agree that I don't feel the appeal of T9A, and am likewise surprised that it is doing so well, when I assumed its players would have dispersed like the rest of us or simply embraced the Oldhammer cause like other Warhams refugees through the decades of new editions. I remember reading through T9A's rules pack and seeing a very complicated thing with new names for everything (for IP reasons I always assumed) and even more rules, rather than the simple fixes to 8E's most galling issues that always felt so obviously needed through the life of the edition.

While I used to play AOS occasionally and sometimes think about rolling down to the LGS for a lark, KOW is firmly where massed battle is at for me. A good deal of that appeal is the generous support for Counts As modeling - including how easy it is to do with regimental bases - but the game itself is fast, fun and immensely satisfying (which I didn't really anticipate when I ported my Skaven over into Ratkin for my first games). I enjoy making lists for KOW, but it's because listbuilding is an extension of the modeling part of wargaming for me - how can I best put these models on the table, what makes sense as a cohesive force both aesthetically and as a list - and absolutely not the supposed immersion that WHFB 7E or 8E (especially not 8E!) offered. You know, when everybody took Obviously Good Things and only weirdos took those Fluffy Rarely Taken Things closer connected to the lore. This is not to say I can't straight up guess what magic items I'll face in any given KOW game, but I feel like there isn't as much pretense that the unit customization in that game is doing a ton beyond in-game abilities or perhaps matching a model's loadout better.

- Salvage