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Wow, that was a fun game. Played my first game against someone who played their first game as well. No points. Just bring what we want. I might have had more points than him with the Icewind Assault but him being able to summon or is it resurrect (he called it summoning) his skeleton units and dragon carrion (forgot his name). He said that balanced out the game.

We had no terrain, just a straight rush to each other to get to "learn the ropes" through actual practice. He thinks like me, you can read something so many times but actually playing it you can see if it's fun or not.

He would like another game without points and I agreed. He thinks like me, if his summoning (or what ever it's called) is over powered or if someone brings in too many points, the other side will be compensated so a fun game will be had by all.

In the end he conceded. I still had my to big Stormtusks or what ever they are properly called still on the field and he had a few skeletons left by turn 4. Or was it 5? We still have lots to learn and so far we don't see the big deal of summoning. Now my question here is, is he really summoning if this was a "points game" or is resurrecting units different? Where in the General's Handbook represents this about units coming back from the dead. I thought there is a difference between summoning and resurrecting. If it was a points game would he have to allocate points for resurrected units? I thought no, but can't find it to see if that is the case or not.

Looking forward to the next game. Hopefully I don't slow the game down from forgetting how to play.

Very cool. Summoning was one of the few problems we found with the no points version (and I imagine it's also problematic in points since GHB addresses it).

Originally, summoning was extremely powerful and outright broken in places. The general consensus is that the GHB overcompensated and made summoning too weak.

If you were playing a matched play game, he would have to reserve point ahead of.time to pay for summons during the game. The potential advantage here is positioning of the summoned units and the ability to have 'shreodinger's points' that can be spent to specifically counter an opponent's strategy during the game. However, especially to newer players, its probably better to just start with the units on the field rather than summoning them. The end result would be that your army would be the same and instead of summoning your bud would just start off with a much larger army.

Not exactly sure what you were referring to on the skeletons. They have an ability to add models to an existing unit via the banner or musician (which ever it was). That does not need any points setting aside if using the match play rules.

However anything that adds models can only bring the unit back up the original strength. I think skellies ability already only add killed models anyway, but for things like Flesh eaters the ability adds models even above the starting strength. In that case the Match play rules pegs that back to you can add models but only back to start strength.

If you are adding a unit to the table (whether it was killed earlier or not) then you are 'summoning' and need to have kept back some points under match play rules.

All that is p108 of GHB.


As to how good is summoning and the need to reserve points. This is a matched play rule and it is worth bearing in mind that the rest of the matched play stuff is really geared around taking and holding objectives and not just slaughter each other. In an objective game the ability to place units via summoning is powerful, as positioning and capturing or preventing the opponent getting to objectives is key and summoning provides a whole set of additional tactics/strategies.

In a simple kill all it is a lot less potent, it can still be useful, but no where as potentially game winning as in objective games.

puree wrote:
Not exactly sure what you were referring to on the skeletons. They have an ability to add models to an existing unit via the banner or musician (which ever it was). That does not need any points setting aside if using the match play rules.

That is what I am referring too. Once his skeletons have died the banner would bring them back. Since we were not playing Matched play it didn't make a difference, but my opponent thinks in matched play he needs to pay points to bring them back. I thought you didn't have to so I thought I would ask here since I am the only person in my group that will play without points. Everyone else says you need points to play a game so if he wants to play there, he think he needs to reserve points to bring his units that died back.

Thanks for the page reference.

*edit*

Just want to make sure, after reading page 108, since he is bringing back units to an existing unit he doesn't have to use any reinforcement points. Question for me is does he still need reinforcement points even though they cost zero?

As long as he's putting models back into an existing unit and not increasing beyond starting size no additional points are needed.

Thank you Hulk. That is what he was doing. I think he will be happy to know he can use his army in a Points game or Matched Play games. That is the proper term correct?

Yup, match play.

Matched play is fun and it forces listbuilding quite a bit. IMO it quite encourages players to take TAC lists since the mission requirements for victory vary quite a bit.

AoS can be fun to play. This is what people recognize once they played a game. I think AoS is underrated especially by Fantasy veterans. They are just too ignorant to give it a go.

It can be alot of fun, but it gets old, real fast. I was a big fan of the warhammer setting (mostly for rpgs and mordheim) but not the miniature game so much, but I would go the opposite, AoS is grossly over rated for being 4 pages of "rules". I certainly wouldn't consider them ignorant for not trying it, if they are fans of rank and file games then AoS really has nothing to offer them. It does let you recreate battles from the novels that you could never do with regular warhammer. I had enough fun with AoS the first several dozen games, but after that it got really old,. I hear alot about "depth" but I just havent seen it.

 thekingofkings wrote:
I had enough fun with AoS the first several dozen games, but after that it got really old,. I hear alot about "depth" but I just havent seen it.

Well, here is a thing: I have played about 100-odd games of AoS. However, in that time and outside of GW events, I have not played the same scenario twice. Every game is, quite literally, different.

When we did WHFB, we tended to play the same six scenarios over and over and over...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thekingofkings wrote:
I had enough fun with AoS the first several dozen games, but after that it got really old,. I hear alot about "depth" but I just havent seen it.

Well, here is a thing: I have played about 100-odd games of AoS. However, in that time and outside of GW events, I have not played the same scenario twice. Every game is, quite literally, different.

When we did WHFB, we tended to play the same six scenarios over and over and over...

Matched Play Summoning is an odd one to get your head around.

At first, having to set aside points seems unfair - as you're kicking off with effectively an understrength army.

But as others have said, for Objective based games, being able to bring your unit on where your opponent least expects it can be useful.

For me, the main strength is that you only put points aside. Until it's time to roll up your sleeves and waggle your fingers in the air, you don't have to say what those points are for. Need to swamp an objective? Get some Zombies or Skellies on it. Opponent's general in dire need of a good kicking? Drop a Zombie Dragon riding Vampire on him, that ought to do the trick. And of course, everything in between.

Right there you get a really enviable level of flexibility.

Provided of course I don't spot your game and rumble your manor by making sure the first things I duff up are all those capable of casting :p

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Matched Play Summoning is an odd one to get your head around.

At first, having to set aside points seems unfair - as you're kicking off with effectively an understrength army.

But as others have said, for Objective based games, being able to bring your unit on where your opponent least expects it can be useful.

For me, the main strength is that you only put points aside. Until it's time to roll up your sleeves and waggle your fingers in the air, you don't have to say what those points are for. Need to swamp an objective? Get some Zombies or Skellies on it. Opponent's general in dire need of a good kicking? Drop a Zombie Dragon riding Vampire on him, that ought to do the trick. And of course, everything in between.

Right there you get a really enviable level of flexibility.

Provided of course I don't spot your game and rumble your manor by making sure the first things I duff up are all those capable of casting :p

Which is why you should bring in plenty of terrain and hide your deathmages that way you ain't gonna get sniped easily.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

For me, the main strength is that you only put points aside. Until it's time to roll up your sleeves and waggle your fingers in the air, you don't have to say what those points are for. Need to swamp an objective? Get some Zombies or Skellies on it. Opponent's general in dire need of a good kicking? Drop a Zombie Dragon riding Vampire on him, that ought to do the trick. And of course, everything in between.

What spell summons a vampire lord on zombie dragon? There's the outdated Zombie Dragon warscroll that allows summoning an inferior dragon, and no spell I know of summons vampires.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
I had enough fun with AoS the first several dozen games, but after that it got really old,. I hear alot about "depth" but I just havent seen it.

Well, here is a thing: I have played about 100-odd games of AoS. However, in that time and outside of GW events, I have not played the same scenario twice. Every game is, quite literally, different.

When we did WHFB, we tended to play the same six scenarios over and over and over...

In defense of WHFB - as always - that's not something I'd pin on the game...quite apart from the wealth of official scenarios - campaigns, the General's Compendium, White Dwarf, free stuff like the Winter of Woe and Against the Ogres on the old GW website, and so on and so forth - there was a bunch of fan content out there if you felt like switching things up. I had a lot of fun with a scenario generator that had you divide your army into Vanguard, Main Force, and Rearguard, then set up a battle with objectives. Lots of fun!

Always happy to see someone having an enjoyable game with any system, of course.

To each their own. I've had a blast just playing the pitched battle scenarios over and over, though a large part is because the army I play and play against varies as well.

Pretty much agree with musketeer. Army variety is key too. We can play a 1000+ scenarios but after 20 or so of facing the same opponent in a row it will grow BORING.

Lord Kragan wrote:
Pretty much agree with musketeer. Army variety is key too. We can play a 1000+ scenarios but after 20 or so of facing the same opponent in a row it will grow BORING.

That was a big part of our problem here, with AoS being essentially dead, it was the same 5 of us every fight.

 thekingofkings wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Pretty much agree with musketeer. Army variety is key too. We can play a 1000+ scenarios but after 20 or so of facing the same opponent in a row it will grow BORING.

That was a big part of our problem here, with AoS being essentially dead, it was the same 5 of us every fight.

Auch. Yeah, my LGS almost universally switched to AoS (well, plenty play 9th and KoW, but they use those armies too for AoS).

Lord Kragan wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Pretty much agree with musketeer. Army variety is key too. We can play a 1000+ scenarios but after 20 or so of facing the same opponent in a row it will grow BORING.

That was a big part of our problem here, with AoS being essentially dead, it was the same 5 of us every fight.

Auch. Yeah, my LGS almost universally switched to AoS (well, plenty play 9th and KoW, but they use those armies too for AoS).

only GW allows AoS here, so we dont have to worry about being bumped except for the rabid 40k groups. Basically we are giving up the ghost.

 thekingofkings wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Pretty much agree with musketeer. Army variety is key too. We can play a 1000+ scenarios but after 20 or so of facing the same opponent in a row it will grow BORING.

That was a big part of our problem here, with AoS being essentially dead, it was the same 5 of us every fight.

Auch. Yeah, my LGS almost universally switched to AoS (well, plenty play 9th and KoW, but they use those armies too for AoS).

only GW allows AoS here, so we dont have to worry about being bumped except for the rabid 40k groups. Basically we are giving up the ghost.

Man that's rough. Well, I guess that's what happens when a game is "young" not all people play it. Hope you guys get better.

Lord Kragan wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Pretty much agree with musketeer. Army variety is key too. We can play a 1000+ scenarios but after 20 or so of facing the same opponent in a row it will grow BORING.

That was a big part of our problem here, with AoS being essentially dead, it was the same 5 of us every fight.

Auch. Yeah, my LGS almost universally switched to AoS (well, plenty play 9th and KoW, but they use those armies too for AoS).

only GW allows AoS here, so we dont have to worry about being bumped except for the rabid 40k groups. Basically we are giving up the ghost.

Man that's rough. Well, I guess that's what happens when a game is "young" not all people play it. Hope you guys get better.

A lot of these younger games is why AoS does so poorly here. X-wing, Malifaux, and Warmahordes (and of course M:TG) pretty much run the shops.

Lord Kragan wrote:


Man that's rough. Well, I guess that's what happens when a game is "young" not all people play it. Hope you guys get better.

The game's age has nothing to do with it. The problem lies in the fact that aos offers a wide range of tt experiences while having a very simple rules pack. For people that want to play completely different things and have the necessary pool of models (a BIG requirement) it can be satisfying. For those that want the variety to come from the subtleness of a given situation and gameplay based on more predictable outplaying the opponent - not that much. Theking's situation is the latter and i don't blame him because i'm with him regarding the complexity of the game. I just happen to have alot of different models as opposed to 2 large armies for example and with some effort can come each game with varied story scenarios for my 2 opponents (and my rpg group will follow them soon).

 CoreCommander wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:


Man that's rough. Well, I guess that's what happens when a game is "young" not all people play it. Hope you guys get better.

The game's age has nothing to do with it. The problem lies in the fact that aos offers a wide range of tt experiences while having a very simple rules pack. For people that want to play completely different things and have the necessary pool of models (a BIG requirement) it can be satisfying. For those that want the variety to come from the subtleness of a given situation and gameplay based on more predictable outplaying the opponent - not that much. Theking's situation is the latter and i don't blame him because i'm with him regarding the complexity of the game. I just happen to have alot of different models as opposed to 2 large armies for example and with some effort can come each game with varied story scenarios for my 2 opponents (and my rpg group will follow them soon).

Basically I am down to a GBT, a "freeguild" and some tombkings/vampire death forces left. In this edition about the only army I enjoyed playing was the GBT. but folks get fed up fast fighting the same anvil force.

So, assuming I'm an "ignorant" fantasy and 40k veteran since 1990, who's been out of both games since the Old World went away... I'm looking at trying my first game of AoS with another of my fellow ignorant fantasy vets, and my question is, for our first game, would it be better to make armies by points or one of the other options (like wounds, ect)? I've glanced over the rules and GHB only thus far.

Summoning? If you don't do matched play, is summoning as game breaking as I think it will be?

 Wight Lord wrote:
So, assuming I'm an "ignorant" fantasy and 40k veteran since 1990, who's been out of both games since the Old World went away... I'm looking at trying my first game of AoS with another of my fellow ignorant fantasy vets, and my question is, for our first game, would it be better to make armies by points or one of the other options (like wounds, ect)? I've glanced over the rules and GHB only thus far.

Summoning? If you don't do matched play, is summoning as game breaking as I think it will be?

IMO points are the "best" handle to get by. They are decent but, like all points systems, aren't perfect. If you want to, don't bring batallions as, as a rule, they are slightly undercosted. Behemoths generally are undercosted, though there's a few exceptions to this rules (like the Ironjaw mawkrushas or Nagash), so it goes a bit more on a case by case basis. Now, the truly most balanced method is the PPC system that NinthMusketeer sponsors. I haven't tried it myself but they say it's very solid. Of course, it's not the "official" so it can be harder to apply than GHB.

Your best bet for balance without knowing too much is:

a) Bringing in GHB as it is but not batallions.

b) Bringingi in PPC as it is. Batallions as a rule of thumb are properly costed. Monsters too.

Depends. Are you guys bringing in Nagash and/or a dozen necromancers? Then yes, it's ball-bustingly game-breaking. If you put a few caps on yourselves is A-OK. Just remember: tabling makes the game end but it's irrelevant for victory purposes: whomever had more points wins.

lol, no Nagash. I used to use necromancers a bit though. I'm leaning towards Wight Kning plus vampire or necromancer right now. I've always been a proponent of massed zombies and skeletons. I hear horde armies aren't so hot though.

I wanted to start with some sort of official way of army building before I branch out into another way. So I can at least give it a try and form my opinion.

 Wight Lord wrote:
lol, no Nagash. I used to use necromancers a bit though. I'm leaning towards Wight Kning plus vampire or necromancer right now. I've always been a proponent of massed zombies and skeletons. I hear horde armies aren't so hot though.

I wanted to start with some sort of official way of army building before I branch out into another way. So I can at least give it a try and form my opinion.

That's a solid statement.

Actually hordes don't do that bad, they are very good in objective games (like... half of the missions go by body count). Not as ridunculous as 4-ranks+banner of intantry in 8th edition, but solid.

If you go that route I think it wouldn't wreck balance too hard. Generally speaking you only can summon 10 or so models (generally between 100 and 120 pts) so it's not too much of a problem outside mathed play. Of course, just don't try to summon a dozen units, that would put a bit of a wrench in the match's balance.

Still, I recommend trying either PPC or GHB. They make the job easier.

Thanks mate. I appreciate you taking the time to respond, and pleasantly at that. It seems like the community is very fractured now. Reminds me somewhat of Pathfinder vs D&D that happened at my FLGS years ago. Never thought I'd see it happen to my game. Looks like I missed a lot of the drama thankfully.

We are used to using points, and I have the GHB, may start with that. I'm interested to try the no points down the road, at least once, just to see how it goes. I'm sure my buddy would be down to try at some point. He's still got a DE army, I talked him into trying an AoS game with me before he put his stuff on E-bay.

I used to be that guy, that would anchor my center with a regiment of 40 skeletons and a regiment of zombies, with a necromancer on a corpse cart between and behind them to heal/enlarge units. So if hordes are okay, I think I want to try a huge mob of zombies at some point, just to see what happens. Plus I've got all these figures just sitting on my shelf, feel like I need to do something with them.

I like the look of the round bases but rebasing 70-something zombies doesn't sound appealing right now, may have to sick with my squares for now. Plus I hear there's something called "9th Age" out there I've been told I need to look at before I rebase...