Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Greetings.

So as my friends and I are getting older, meeting regularly for RPGs is becoming problematic (kids, work, etc.), and I have accumulated so many damn fantasy figs over the years, some of us are thinking that meeting for some battles would require a lot less commitment other than the game itself.

I haven't played WFB since GW split my undefeated undead army into Vamps and Mummies (NERD RAGE QUIT!) So I have some questions before I start looking for rules and codexes.

1: I really prefer the old blocks of infantry/cavalry method of combat. It doesn't look to me that AOS supports this, so which of the older rule sets do you think was/is the best.

2: If I said I liked more general-ship than realiance on spells and big monsters, would that change your answer?

3: For smaller scale skirmishing, is AOS the rules to use, or does GW have Kill-Team thingy for fantasy? And if its Mordheim, feel free to call me an idiot, but let me know which is better to use.

Thank you for reading this and any answers/suggestions you can provide are greatly appreciated.

1) 6th edition (2000-2004) was IMO the best for blocks. 7th edition was fine rules-wise but the army balance was utterly and completely shattered by demons, vampire counts, and dark elves.

8th edition was ok but things like steadfast not being capped and the utter ridiculousness of the super powered magic meant that the obvious choice for army building was laid out for you in the beginning.

2) AOS is about synergy and combo chaining. Technically that can be considered "generalship". If you are wanting a game that relies more on player skill than on listbuilding combos and spells etc, AOS would disappoint you. If you are just saying you want an army that is not about big spells and monsters, that is certainly doable in AOS.

3) AOS has path to glory. path to glory is basically mini-AOS. Kill Team takes the concept to the next level which is what I wish AOS would also do in terms of experience and skills and what not but Path to Glory is fine minus a few really bad balanced items in a couple spots that if dealt with inside your group make it a non issue.

Ok first up bad news and nerdrage moment - when AOS launched GW killed both Bretonia and TombKings - not just weakened, totally removed the ranges from the game and sale.



Ok thankfully that was under Kirby Management and the new Manager is FAR different and AoS is a totally different beast to what it was at launch; but its still somewhat dealing with that troublesome start and as such some armies have Battletomes and some don't and some got fractured into 5 or so smaller sub-armies (of which many still don't have a battletome or even viable army nor rules).

Now Beasts of Chaos came out last and very recently and GW combined several smaller subfactions back into a functional army. So there's hope, but AoS is still somewhat finding its feet in the world whilst dealing with its troublesome start in life.



AoS is also much more like 40K in style of the rules, rather than being based on blocked infantry. Now the bonus there is it means that tables can be more dense on terrain; and getting started doesn't require huge infantry blocks to be built up first (even though fantasy could work at 500points it generally didnt work well until 1K).
A smaller scale skirmish game is out there, there's also AoS Skirmish rules; however both are a bit older and I think GW is honestly holding a revamp to a skirmish AOS on hold until more of the range is Battletomed and updated; then I'd fully expect them to roll out the same as they've done for 40K and market their own AoS "killteam" Style game.

AoS also shifted from square to round bases, there's a base size chart in the community update on the FAQ tab on the GW website. It might be worth considering rebasing or basing new models on round bases so that you're AoS compatible and then use a custom movement tray that can hold round based models teasily (magnetic sheets and magnets in the base work well).

Alongside there is AoS Underworlds which works with small groups of 5 or so models (unqiue ones) and uses its own rules set and structure. It's a mini-game if you will and is a nice small game that isn't as time intensive and might suit your group if you have short spans of time when you can't dedicate it to a full proper battle.



As for Fantasy Classic there's 9th edition floating around, which is a community driven set of rules. I can't give links as I've honestly not invested into it. It's one option and the more likely to get games at the local level these days.

I'd also suggest checking out Total War Warhammer; being as they are aiming to put every single army into the game and they do have all the great old armies such as Vampires, Undead, Brets and even some new ones like the recent Undead Pirate faction. Whilst its a computer game and not tabletop it might help satisfy that rank and file desire you've got; esp if you suddenly develop and interst in an army like Skaven, but don't want to put together a hundred thousand rats.

7th edition with 6th army books is my holy grail of Warhammer Fantasy.

Agreed with that. That was the best time to play the game. So much fun with Orcs and Goblins vs. Empire and Beastmen vs. Bretonians.

It is a shame it got so thoroughly broken due to incompetent designers.

Wow, thanks for all the info everyone! Looks like I have a few options and will be scouring Ebay for some army books, as I just shudder at re-basing all those minis.

On the other hand, though, AOS skirmishing, I doubt I really need to change the bases.

You've given me a lot to ponder.

The only reason you'd need to rebase your collection is if you plan on playing in AOS tournaments where that will be mandated.

The official GW rule is play with the base that came with your model. Be it square, or circle or whatever.

I also came to AoS straight from WFB 3. I actually vastly prefer AoS. It really feels like less *work* to play a game.

MKoth wrote:

1: I really prefer the old blocks of infantry/cavalry method of combat. It doesn't look to me that AOS supports this, so which of the older rule sets do you think was/is the best.

Regimented maneuvering still works, but more from a tactical standpoint rather than being explicitly enshrined in the rules. With AoS 2nd edition, abilities that target individual models make the long chain skirmishy line type formations which happened with the first edition a Really Bad Idea. Blocks and blobs don't suffer from getting cut off. Also applies if you surround something big that eats models (stardrakes, giants).

The key difference to this is that models can turn freely (there's no 'facing' in AoS). This actually makes the game flow a bit better.

2: If I said I liked more general-ship than realiance on spells and big monsters, would that change your answer?

Play the battleplans. They're pretty good fun. They key points in AoS (from a play perspective) are:
1) Keeping buffs in range and protecting them. Heroes in AoS (although some are rock hard) are more often than not a source of really important bonuses for your regular mooks. This means you want to keep them close enough to provide bonuses but not risk them unduly if they're fragile. A canny opponent will look for keystone abilities in your army and target them as priority.

2) Knowing in what order to activate your units - in your combat phase both you and your opponent (starting with you) take turns to activate a unit, which can then make a pile-in move (up to 3". must end closer or same distance from nearest enemy model) and then attack.

3) Keeping an eye on the objectives. You can table an opponent and still lose the game on points. Some battleplans need decisive moves to claim points, some you'll need to goad your opponent into leaving points undefended.

3: For smaller scale skirmishing, is AOS the rules to use, or does GW have Kill-Team thingy for fantasy? And if its Mordheim, feel free to call me an idiot, but let me know which is better to use.

AoS has a skirmish supplement, or there's the rather nice fan-made Hinterlands one. Hinterlands has a bit more 'depth', the official one is, er, official. There's also 'Path to Glory' which is a tale of X warlords kind of escalating campaign type system.

Re the basing, as written AoS is becoming less base agnostic, in tournaments you'll end up having to rebase or measure 'as if the model was on an appropriate base'. For friendlies, just fudge it and play casual. It's not a 'serious' wargame (but neither was WFB intended to be, really).

auticus wrote:


The official GW rule is play with the base that came with your model. Be it square, or circle or whatever.

Aye but that's mostly just a short term plaster.
In the real world chances are that round bases will be more and more expected by most players even in casual hookup games. Esp since osme have had base size increases as well. Simply put because so much is measured "to the base" the size of the base does affect gameplay.

If you're on smaller bases or bases that link together tighter then you can move more tightly, get more units into close combat range etc..



Note there are some 3rd party companies who do make some round upgrade parts. So you can look up those as an option so that instead of rebasing you just add the round "wing" bits to the base to make it the right size.

Otherwise I would say start rebasing steadily so that eventually you're on the round bases.

Fortunately in the three years I've been doing AOS I've not had to deal with people getting angry over my bases being either squares or on 25mm rounds when GW decided to bump up to 32s as I'll never rebase my existing collection.

The only time basing was an issue for me is at Throne of Skulls. PB's being on 25's rather than 32's was fine (I've since put my own adapter rings (shop.winterdyne.co.uk) on all those anyway) but my oldschool GUO needed a new base and height or, with opponent's permission, to measure 'as if' the model were a new GUO.

To be fair the Great Unclean one, like all (save slaanesh which is next on the list to update) the greater demons, got a huge upgrade in size with the new model. It's really a night and day difference between the old and the new in physical size.

The only people who seem to have an issue with base size are WAAC'ers who want to find something - anything - to catch you out, and diehard AoS fanboys who desperately want to bury anything and everything than can be tied back to Fantasy and by not rebasing, you're one of 'those' nasty old fogies who needs to get over it, old man.

Faffing over base size is so tiresome. I really wish they made it unimportant, like in Saga or KoW.

I agree. The only thing that people fixating on base size does is add stress to those that have already invested in a model collection that put a lot of effort into appearance and are now faced with a collection that cannot be used because a base is now 7mm too small.

GW has constantly altered base size for literally decades and this has been a debate/argument the entire time.

Make base size unimportant is something i dearly hope they figure out. Unless its part of the marketing scheme to trigger people into buying new forces so that they can keep playing in tournaments or against people that for all intents and purposes use casual games the same as tournaments.

You don't need to buy anything from GW except new bases if you're rebasing. And I seem to recall that for the longest time GW bought in their bases so they are likely a really low profit item for them (they might have it in house now, but still I'd wager regular bases are a really small sale item for them in general).

I think its more likely at the game testers muck around with just bases or card cutouts. Plus every so often a major wave of changes likely gets pushed through such as we've recently had.


Like a lot of things I doubt its part of some grand master plan to make huge amounts of profit. Esp since many forget that the majority of gamers are casual; not competitive. Heck just start buying miniatures on ebay and you'll find most people don't even remove mould lines!

Da Boss wrote:Faffing over base size is so tiresome. I really wish they made it unimportant, like in Saga or KoW.

Which "they"? AoS only cared about the model when it originally launched. That has changed since then because of the all the bounce-back from the players. I can't say anything about the tournaments because I never kept up with it.

Overread wrote:You don't need to buy anything from GW except new bases if you're rebasing. And I seem to recall that for the longest time GW bought in their bases so they are likely a really low profit item for them (they might have it in house now, but still I'd wager regular bases are a really small sale item for them in general).

It REALLY depends on the base. Some people have some really ornate bases that would have to be rebuilt because of the rebasing.

 Overread wrote:
You don't need to buy anything from GW except new bases if you're rebasing. And I seem to recall that for the longest time GW bought in their bases so they are likely a really low profit item for them (they might have it in house now, but still I'd wager regular bases are a really small sale item for them in general).

I think its more likely at the game testers muck around with just bases or card cutouts. Plus every so often a major wave of changes likely gets pushed through such as we've recently had.


Like a lot of things I doubt its part of some grand master plan to make huge amounts of profit. Esp since many forget that the majority of gamers are casual; not competitive. Heck just start buying miniatures on ebay and you'll find most people don't even remove mould lines!

If one is just interested in the game and doesn't really care about their models, then what you are saying is true.

However for those that put a lot of time and care into their bases and models, having to rebase is not a trivial matter. It is in many cases easier for those people to just buy all new models on bases than to destroy an existing base or use an "add on" that destroys the aesthetic of the work that was created.

Then there's the matter of the model themselves growing in size. Scale creep does destroy aesthetics and does make a lot of people scrap their existing army for the display case and if they want to keep playing go out and buy a new army to "keep up". This is why I love that other games that I don't need to mention here don't care about your base individually but rather as a unit.

 Arbitrator wrote:
diehard AoS fanboys who desperately want to bury anything and everything than can be tied back to Fantasy and by not rebasing, you're one of 'those' nasty old fogies who needs to get over it, old man.

I've... never seen this pop up from "die hard fanboys". Shitposters on tg wanting to send a thread down the drain at most and that's it.

auticus wrote:

If one is just interested in the game and doesn't really care about their models, then what you are saying is true.

However for those that put a lot of time and care into their bases and models, having to rebase is not a trivial matter. It is in many cases easier for those people to just buy all new models on bases than to destroy an existing base or use an "add on" that destroys the aesthetic of the work that was created.

Then there's the matter of the model themselves growing in size. Scale creep does destroy aesthetics and does make a lot of people scrap their existing army for the display case and if they want to keep playing go out and buy a new army to "keep up". This is why I love that other games that I don't need to mention here don't care about your base individually but rather as a unit.

Then there's matter of movement trays etc that would likely go "poof". For me with 40k orks and bases changing guess how much money we are talking about? Over 200€. Before adding in whatever I need to pay to actually do the rebasing(whether rip model out of base(not easy) and put on new or use extender(which would always end up visible where the extender is unless I go for ridiculous level of spending time on doing what with starting with 32mm would be much faster). Not to mention time and effort.

Good luck for anybody to get me rebase my orks. Nope. Not going to do. Somebody really wish that then he can pay it all and do the job and he better do it so that there's no visible spot where extender starts or some other crap like that.

 Da Boss wrote:
Faffing over base size is so tiresome. I really wish they made it unimportant, like in Saga or KoW.

Are you being facetious? Base size is the single most important thing in Kings of War.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Faffing over base size is so tiresome. I really wish they made it unimportant, like in Saga or KoW.

Are you being facetious? Base size is the single most important thing in Kings of War.

He probably means it doesn't matter on an individual model basis. You can have round-based models on trays, you can have square-based models on trays, or you can glue the models directly onto the tray, as long as the tray itself is the right size, the rest is unimportant.

Yeah that is right, I think of the tray for the unit as being distinct from the base for the miniature. I have minis on a variety of bases so I like Kings of War because I just have to arrange them on the tray.