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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, they should have a fiery bonfire brazier right on top of their helmets.

The Runemaster should have a pipestaff that uses fire and earth magic to reach down into the earth and tap a vein of magma, allowing him to shoot volcano lava and hot hail at the enemy.

hehe, I'm going to assume none of this is sarcastic The runemaster does that with Volcano's Call, and ability I'm getting way more mileage out of than I should as a psychout to keep enemy units off objective terrain and even direct them away from the volcano. In his hero phase Neckbeard runemaster picks any terrain piece within 20" and that turns to lava, any model one terrain or within 1" takes a mortal wound on a 6+. Then the terrain footprint itself is dangerous terrain until his next hero phase and anyone running, charging or ending on it dies outright on roll of 1. I killed a treelord with this once (guess his bark was a little too dry). But yeah, I like having their mohawks and beards be flaming jets coming out of their magma-like bodies

Not sarcastic at all. I really think AoS is meant to be epic fantasy on steroids and some of the models are turning out a bit pedestrian compared to what they could have been.

To me, the Fyre Slayers are just a bunch of nearly nude dwarves with Etruscan style helmets. They could have been so much more!

Volcano Call is a perfect rule to attach to the magma drill pole-staff I described. Or to put it differently, wouldn't it be more exciting for the Rune Master figure to equip a weapon that really embodies his magic attack rule?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Not sarcastic at all. I really think AoS is meant to be epic fantasy on steroids and some of the models are turning out a bit pedestrian compared to what they could have been.

To me, the Fyre Slayers are just a bunch of nearly nude dwarves with Etruscan style helmets. They could have been so much more!

Volcano Call is a perfect rule to attach to the magma drill pole-staff I described. Or to put it differently, wouldn't it be more exciting for the Rune Master figure to equip a weapon that really embodies his magic attack rule?

Totally fair

 Sitpaintandplay wrote:
So as of late I've given warmachine a little love and watched some battle reports and I suddenly realized that it roughly is the same as AOS in some ways. The basics are cast spells in a hero phase, move your guys, get into combat with the enemy. (Yes I realize this is the basis of most war games) but when I went through and watched some reviews of AOS all anyone every talked about was how simple AOS had become. Yet this is basically the same concept between the two games but AOS gets so much hate? Why is that? Fill me in if I'm missing anything about warmachine that could change my opinion because I'm a little jaded against it.

It's not that AoS is simple, it's that AoS is shallow. You can have a simple game with tremendous depth but you can also have a predictable and obvious simpleton like AoS. Also, while I don't really like Warmachine and models wise I'd rather buy into AoS than something from there, as games AoS and Warmachine don't belong in the same sentence.

I don`t get the "4 pages of rules!!!! Insulting!" people.

Chess has how many pages, guys?

No, AoS is not chess, the most genius tactica game,
but it might hide a certain curve, some haven`t discovered yet.

But what about fun?

Plumbumbarum wrote:

It's not that AoS is simple, it's that AoS is shallow.

I wouldn't go that far, but it isn't a super deep game. That's okay. It's deep enough. There's some skill involved in winning, but the randomness does somewhat even the odds for less skilled players. But there's enough decisions to be made at the micro and macro levels that you aren't bored. It's a fun game. It's not rocket science, but it is a pleasant enough way to pass the time.

But where AoS shines is in the variety of experiences you can have with it. There is a HUGE variety of rules, models, factions, scenarios, customizations - you never have to play the same game twice. It's not the same 4 builds in the one tournament scenario on the same flat and mostly empty table. And there's so many options that players can pick and choose their experiences and tailor it to their tastes, rather than just hoping their tastes line up with the one experience offered. Age of Sigmar is not deep, but it is as broad as the ocean. It's for the explorers.

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
I don`t get the "4 pages of rules!!!! Insulting!" people.

Chess has how many pages, guys?

No, AoS is not chess, the most genius tactica game,
but it might hide a certain curve, some haven`t discovered yet.

There's a very big difference between 'short, skimpy rules' and 'elegant, simple yet extremely in-depth' rules. Go for example, has virtually no rules, yet is one of the most sophisticated games in existance.

AoS meanwhile, pretty much is just 'roll a bunch of 4+s, mash your stuff together! No rules! Make your own'.
There is no room for depth there. None. Because depth is as much about what you disallow as it is what you allow. There is no secret sauce, because game design is quite a discrete craft as much as it is an art. 'No points' is by itself, not inherently bad. But combine it with the minimal options and barest framework for a game, and what you have is watered down beer and dollar store pretzels. Suggesting there's tactics in a game where no rules exist except what you decide with your opponent, and some 'non-rules' are so inherently broken as to make the game unplayable (my model for measurement? Bases have no physical presence? Infinite summoning?), then... well. That's more of an exercise in make-believe than a game then.

Comparing it to Warmachine? Sheesh. You can have your opinion on if you prefer Warmachine or not, but that's an actual game with depth and competitive balance.

With just a few tweaks it can be very tactical and playable - as demonstrated by the SCGT. The more AoS grows, the more I am quite happy for GW to leave the game in the hands of the community and focus instead on releasing great models, campaign books and boardgames.

 Killionaire wrote:

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
I don`t get the "4 pages of rules!!!! Insulting!" people.

Chess has how many pages, guys?

No, AoS is not chess, the most genius tactica game,
but it might hide a certain curve, some haven`t discovered yet.

There's a very big difference between 'short, skimpy rules' and 'elegant, simple yet extremely in-depth' rules. Go for example, has virtually no rules, yet is one of the most sophisticated games in existance.

AoS meanwhile, pretty much is just 'roll a bunch of 4+s, mash your stuff together! No rules! Make your own'.
There is no room for depth there. None. Because depth is as much about what you disallow as it is what you allow. There is no secret sauce, because game design is quite a discrete craft as much as it is an art. 'No points' is by itself, not inherently bad. But combine it with the minimal options and barest framework for a game, and what you have is watered down beer and dollar store pretzels. Suggesting there's tactics in a game where no rules exist except what you decide with your opponent, and some 'non-rules' are so inherently broken as to make the game unplayable (my model for measurement? Bases have no physical presence? Infinite summoning?), then... well. That's more of an exercise in make-believe than a game then.

Comparing it to Warmachine? Sheesh. You can have your opinion on if you prefer Warmachine or not, but that's an actual game with depth and competitive balance.

If warmachine has so much competitive balance why are some models left on the shelf?

 Killionaire wrote:

AoS meanwhile, pretty much is just 'roll a bunch of 4+s, mash your stuff together! No rules! Make your own'.
There is no room for depth there. None. Because depth is as much about what you disallow as it is what you allow. There is no secret sauce, because game design is quite a discrete craft as much as it is an art. 'No points' is by itself, not inherently bad. But combine it with the minimal options and barest framework for a game, and what you have is watered down beer and dollar store pretzels. Suggesting there's tactics in a game where no rules exist except what you decide with your opponent, and some 'non-rules' are so inherently broken as to make the game unplayable (my model for measurement? Bases have no physical presence? Infinite summoning?), then... well. That's more of an exercise in make-believe than a game then.

Age of Sigmar is not a particular deep game. It is a very broad game. And that's okay. Some people like that. You, obviously, do not. Luckily, we are not all beholden to your tastes and ideology. We can decide for ourselves. For some players, it's deep enough. It's tactical enough. It's playable enough.

Comparing it to Warmachine? Sheesh. You can have your opinion on if you prefer Warmachine or not, but that's an actual game with depth and competitive balance.

It is a game that has depth and competitive balance, but it is not a game because it has depth and competitive balance. It admirably succeeds in its goals for depth and competitive balance, but you should understand that other games may have different goals they strive for, that they admirably succeed at as well.

 Sqorgar wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

It's not that AoS is simple, it's that AoS is shallow.

I wouldn't go that far, but it isn't a super deep game. That's okay. It's deep enough. There's some skill involved in winning, but the randomness does somewhat even the odds for less skilled players. But there's enough decisions to be made at the micro and macro levels that you aren't bored. It's a fun game. It's not rocket science, but it is a pleasant enough way to pass the time.

Yes ofc there is skill involved, it's shallow vs your average tabletop wargame but still is a strategic game. I don't agree that it's deep enough but that's because I look at it as a wasted opportunity. GW free of the burden of army books, free to make rules without concern for breaking metas! With their decades of experience, I expected a damn good and very tactical game, simple yes but a mind burner. But yes it is good enough if you just want to pass the time, I have that with HoM&M series on PC, shallow but enjoyable for me at times.

Btw it's really good to see an AoS fan recognise that it's not a deep game. It's not a problem in itself after all but some people took that as an insult and argued the depth of an inverted T to death. It is a problem for me ofc and I hate it in the whole context but that's an entirely different discussion.

Idle curiosity, but what unit of measurement is 'depth' in a wargaming discussion?
Complexity or volume of rules?
Amount of decision making? Significance?

WMH may be the polar opposite of AoS in some ways, but that doesn't automatically mean it's "better".
For instance, if you're using terrain, scenario and time of War rules in AoS, then planning what you'll do *before* you set your minis up is kinda pointless because so much can happen in-game. The game's the important part.
From my experience, WMH is won or lost before either side has set up. The game becomes an exercise in positioning and sequences.
That to me isn't a 'better' or 'deeper' experience. It's programming with minis.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry, just to clarify, I have enjoyed playing WMH in the past and I know for a lot of people it is 'their' game. But its goals are not the same as AoS. So judging one as objectively inferior or superior to the other is like arguing whether F1 or football is the better sport.

Number of meaningful choices, how far you plan ahead, how obvious and predictable the game is. It's been done to death.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Not sarcastic at all. I really think AoS is meant to be epic fantasy on steroids and some of the models are turning out a bit pedestrian compared to what they could have been.

To me, the Fyre Slayers are just a bunch of nearly nude dwarves with Etruscan style helmets. They could have been so much more!

Volcano Call is a perfect rule to attach to the magma drill pole-staff I described. Or to put it differently, wouldn't it be more exciting for the Rune Master figure to equip a weapon that really embodies his magic attack rule?

Please correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong but it sounds to me like you think his weapon would do the same function but the staff would be modeled to be a drill, possibly take a turn to draw magma in and fire next round? It seems like he already does what you are asking but just isn't sculpted with that weapon design. Perhaps I'm wrong But, I do think his handheld weapon is kinda lame and he has some presence which could have been better sculpted. I love painting and playing with them but fully admit the Fyreslayers vulkites and most characters could have been way way way better. But that's a diff discussion we've already had.

Now, if you are familiar with the Trollbloods rune shapers it would be cool to have his pose as making the rock and lava drawn up from the ground in the sculpt. That's the inspiration I have to do a second version of the runemaster when I'm home with all my hobby stuff




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Killionaire wrote:

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
I don`t get the "4 pages of rules!!!! Insulting!" people.

Chess has how many pages, guys?

No, AoS is not chess, the most genius tactica game,
but it might hide a certain curve, some haven`t discovered yet.

There's a very big difference between 'short, skimpy rules' and 'elegant, simple yet extremely in-depth' rules. Go for example, has virtually no rules, yet is one of the most sophisticated games in existance.

AoS meanwhile, pretty much is just 'roll a bunch of 4+s, mash your stuff together! No rules! Make your own'.
There is no room for depth there. None. Because depth is as much about what you disallow as it is what you allow. There is no secret sauce, because game design is quite a discrete craft as much as it is an art. 'No points' is by itself, not inherently bad. But combine it with the minimal options and barest framework for a game, and what you have is watered down beer and dollar store pretzels. Suggesting there's tactics in a game where no rules exist except what you decide with your opponent, and some 'non-rules' are so inherently broken as to make the game unplayable (my model for measurement? Bases have no physical presence? Infinite summoning?), then... well. That's more of an exercise in make-believe than a game then.

Comparing it to Warmachine? Sheesh. You can have your opinion on if you prefer Warmachine or not, but that's an actual game with depth and competitive balance.

I find a surprising amount of syngery, tactics and depth when I play AoS now in events or at the club/store. It was a concern when it came out but until GW comes out with an updated version of the rules we go with a player-made comp system. Can't speak to AoS without any houreruling nor do I find that productive as, while they exist, my path comes across gamers who play AoS with a system. Games 1-3 after release in July were the push to middle mash-up you describe but then we got scenarios, realized that's how to play the game, and problem solved. Pre game: "Clash Comp, SCGT, Azyr?" "name one" "ok, X points?" done. Nothing more, because these systems already have the few very basic houserules, most importantly measure from base In WMH there's the objectives but personally i prefer the many more options in AoS scenarios which go beyond hold this objective and win/stop. But i like WMH still a lot, and was disappointed when AoS didn't provide a power attacks option where I get my headbutts and throws

Anyway, like WMH, AoS has ever changing synergy and combos with army which adjust to "the meta" and characters, much like warcasters or warlocks. No competitive system created like PP does for its game, and not sure I would want it to be honest, player-made ones are fine and my gut tells me would be better that what GW would make. Less restrictions on powers on the warscroll leave a lot of doors open .

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Number of meaningful choices, how far you plan ahead, how obvious and predictable the game is. It's been done to death.

I'll grant AoS almost actively discourages planning ahead (it's definitely more reactive), but I'd say it's a far, far less predictable game than WMH.

Both of these are the result of the combat mechanics the games use.

Are people really trying to compare AoS to chess...Just no.

Consistently, the people who have the hardest time imagining there can be any depth to AoS are people who haven't played it or possibly tried it once.

There's nothing wrong with straight up not liking the game after you've tried it, or even never being interested to try it. No game is for everyone. Warmachine appears to market itself to a very different gamer, and there's room for both in the world.

But trying to talk with authority about a game you have little to no experience with is a bit silly. And it's obvious when that's the case.

The people who have the hardest time theorizing about the game almost all come from the 8th ed/previous Warhammer mindset. They see the rules and make their own conclusion based on the paradigm in which they understand Warhammer. AoS changes that paradigm. It makes sense that so many people have trouble conceptually with it.

RoperPG wrote:
Idle curiosity, but what unit of measurement is 'depth' in a wargaming discussion?
Complexity or volume of rules?
Amount of decision making? Significance?
...
....

To me it is the amount and complexity of decision making.

AoS is simpler and more limited in that respect than various other wargames. I'm not sufficiently motivated by that relatively low amount of involvement to spend the money and time to build up an army. I've already got 40K, which quite strongly resembles AoS.

I haven't played WHM and I've never been interested in it, but I've played loads of other games over the decades, so I've got a wide experience to make comparisons.

hobojebus wrote:
Are people really trying to compare AoS to chess...Just no.

Uh... No. The point was that the rules for chess are simple, so stating that simple rules automatically mean a shallow game are demonstrably false.

That's not the same as saying AoS = Chess or AoS isn't shallow.

@coldgaming

I played a thousand strategy games in my life, I can see a shallow game from a mile.

You are free to believe that AoS is a deep game though, I doubt I can really change your mind after discussing it multiple time already here.

@Roper how is AoS unpredictable? I hope you don't mean the randomness.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I played a thousand strategy games in my life, I can see a shallow game from a mile.

You are free to believe that AoS is a deep game though, I doubt I can really change your mind after discussing it multiple time already here.

@Roper how is AoS unpredictable? I hope you don't mean the randomness.

Exaggeration much?
I'm not stating that AoS is some insanely deep clash of minds, but it's not the throwaway experience a lot of people think. (See coldgaming's post above).
Of course random elements of the game add to unpredictability, that's a given.
What I've found is that the standardisation of hit/wound rolls toward the 4+/4+ everyone keeps bemoaning removes a number of 'dead cert' situations.
Yes, a Bloodthirster is *always* going to lay waste to a unit of basic infantry.
But charging a unit of cavalry or elite troops into a mob of grunts isn't the foregone conclusion it was in WFB, or is pretty much in WMH.
Yes, unit special rules will have effects, but the best you can hope for a lot of the time in AoS is "I'll do that this turn and see what happens".
That's the unpredictability. In WFB and WMH I've seen plenty of games where rolling the dice was pretty much a formality, AoS I've never been able to count on a unit to get a job done like I could in WFB. It's why I've found AoS plays a lot more reactively than stuff I've played before because you can't rely on your plan holding for more than a couple of turns at the absolute most.

The first half of my post was to mr. coldgaming, I hit reply next to hit post but when submitted, there were 2 new posts between already. Sorry.

Predictability is about decisions, not outcomes. Ofc excessive randomness can make your best choice go bonkers bad but still it was probably obvious what it was.

As for Warmachine, I think it's the meta that is predictable not the game itself. Imagine starting fresh with it now without access to meta knowledge, how much more skill it would take both pre game and in game to play good vs AoS.

RoperPG wrote:
Idle curiosity, but what unit of measurement is 'depth' in a wargaming discussion?
Complexity or volume of rules?
Amount of decision making? Significance?

If you look at a game as a series of decisions, you can graph these decisions as a tree structure. These tree structures have both breadth (how wide they are) and depth (how deep they go). Or, to put it more succinctly, a game's breadth is the number of choices available to you while a game's depth is how much it affects the game state down the line. Chess, for example, is considered an extremely deep game because of the huge number of game states that each choice creates or eliminates. Age of Sigmar is a broad game because of the huge number of choices available with regards to creating each scenario, even though the choices are largely not that meaningful.

Warmachine is a game that attempts to be both wide (lots of options) and deep (importance of options), but that rarely works out in practice. When there are a lot of important options, it usually turns out that some options are more important than others, creating a dominant strategy - that is, a choice which is objectively superior to another choice. When a choice becomes obvious, it ceases to be a choice. The end result is that even though Warmachine technically has a bunch of branches available, only a limited subset of those choices become viable strategies. The less fruitful branches are effectively pruned. In my opinion, Warmachine has far too few fruitful choices available, with specific scenarios, builds, and tactics becoming dominant choices that ultimately remove much needed breadth from the game.

There is also the complication that with broad trees, people who seek mastery of the system are faced with too many meaningful choices and they seek to intentionally reduce the problem set to something more manageable. With everything you have to know and remember about Warmachine and its various strategies, just playing Steamroller rules has a rather unmanageable choice graph. But if you factor in that the graph basically doubles if you also play a second scenario (like Heavy Metal, jacks only), with a completely different set of choice pressures (certain tactics stop working, others change in effectiveness, new tactics appear), then you end up with something completely unwieldy. This is why many Warmachine players self-impose limitations on the breadth of the game in order to make it manageable (also known as "the meta").

Age of Sigmar is a breadth-first game, which means that while it has mostly shallow decisions to make, it has an epic ton of them. A shallow decision is fine to make once or twice, but it can become tedious to keep making it. Thankfully, in Age of Sigmar, you never have to make the same decision twice. There are so many options with regard to how to you build the game that variety is enough to keep the game interesting for years or decades. I'm actually reminded of the board game Super Dungeon Explore, which has the reputation that the game is only replayable if you keep buying new expansions to keep it fresh. The problem with AoS, for some players, is that because the decisions are largely shallow, there is simply less to master about the game, and some people would prefer to pick one army and one strategy and focus on that - which is going to be unsatisfying for the reasons listed.

Note though that I said that Age of Sigmar has "mostly" shallow decisions to make. There are a bunch of decisions which are quite deep indeed, and I don't think AoS gets nearly enough credit for them. But AoS is rather selective about when it decides to be deep and most certainly has chosen breadth as its focus over depth.

Great response on what the meta does. Thank you. Thats exactly my problem with the meta as well.

With games like WM or WHFB or 40k, players take the decision tree, as you have shown, and trim it down to the most obvious choices and replay those over and over for years. It is the main reason I got out of wargaming for a while from 2007 - 2010 - WHFB was my main game and every game seemed to be for the most part the same with minor variance because the meta kept the decision structures as slim as possible and wanted to stick with that.

Its also why a lot of people where I am were so against doing anything other than Battleline. They had mastered battleline, they had an army that was good at Battleline and they weren't interested in having to master another scenario. The end result was years of nothing but Battleline over and over again.

RoperPG wrote:

Of course random elements of the game add to unpredictability, that's a given.
What I've found is that the standardisation of hit/wound rolls toward the 4+/4+ everyone keeps bemoaning removes a number of 'dead cert' situations.
Yes, a Bloodthirster is *always* going to lay waste to a unit of basic infantry.
But charging a unit of cavalry or elite troops into a mob of grunts isn't the foregone conclusion it was in WFB, or is pretty much in WMH.
Yes, unit special rules will have effects, but the best you can hope for a lot of the time in AoS is "I'll do that this turn and see what happens".
That's the unpredictability. In WFB and WMH I've seen plenty of games where rolling the dice was pretty much a formality, AoS I've never been able to count on a unit to get a job done like I could in WFB. It's why I've found AoS plays a lot more reactively than stuff I've played before because you can't rely on your plan holding for more than a couple of turns at the absolute most.

With regard to randomness, it's effect on the decision tree is rather interesting. What it does is increase breadth by decreasing depth. That is, it increases the number and complexity of the choices available to you (you now have performing an action, almost performing an action, and failing an action, all resulting in different game states, with the percentage chance of happening allowing you to decide how much emphasis to give to each possibility). However, because it makes the game non-deterministic, it becomes impossible to predict the game state the further into the predictive future you go. You can guess what you're opponent will do in the next turn, but not in three or four turns.

The end result is that Age of Sigmar is more tactical than strategic, more reactionary. You are concerned less about achieving goals, and more concerned about moving towards the direction of achieving goals. To quote Al Pacino from Any Given Sunday, it's a game of inches. Perhaps literally as well.

After many games trying different unit types vs. an array of enemy types I've found that the fixed hit and wound is actually a much more enjoyable part of the game go remove part of the forgone conclusion as stated above. But, it works with what I find to be the most enjoyable new part of AoS which Warhammer did not have on nearly the synergy, buffs and debuffs. Had a great example of this over the weekend but I'll just grab the best example, though this happened in every game. Archaon and his posse in 8th would and should have run rampant over my army of slayers. Let's just say it was a dwarf list with only slayers and slayer characters. The opponent does his homework and is prepared for the obvious big challengers especially if he is competing for best overall. Because of the heroes and unit abilities for better resilience the more models are in the units his might, even at full throttle directing everything at one of the targets facing him the battle change and the basic inspiring presence of no battleshock is like the former unbreakabke rule. Now after I remind him how to take away these buffs he has to commit troops, change battle plan of scoring objectives, etc. Were this 8th we both and spectators know it should have been in the bag. But in the assurances of overwhelming power the reality of play was a shock. My army had no prayer vs, his in a straight up battle line but with scenario rules, terrain, objectives and varying combinations between troops and characters it was a completely different, and exciting for both sides, story.

As others have said - AoS forces you to have backup plans and to react.

With WFB, I could have written a list, given my kid brother my models and some basic instructions, and he would have been competitive.

 KiloFiX wrote:
As others have said - AoS forces you to have backup plans and to react.

With WFB, I could have written a list, given my kid brother my models and some basic instructions, and he would have been competitive.

You never needed backup plans in WHFB? Never failed a surefire Leadership test or had your combat troops eaten alive by archers in melee? Never misjudged a distance (or got a poor charge roll in 8th edition) that left your unit able to be charged?

I dunno, I played a goblin horde so I needed at least three contingencies at any given moment, but this seems like a bit of an exaggeration. You don't need to let your opponent have a surprise extra round of combat for things to go wrong.

Need back ups in any game it was commonly refereed to in 8th (and other game systems as well) as Rock Paper Scissors matches or lists. Hell, local WMH players use that.