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.

Whose to say HOW they determine equal units.

You can eliminate POINTS and still have a Value.

What I mean is, get rid of all the math of adding a unit value.
So no more of this:

Empire Swordsman 8 pts, + 1 for shield, +10 for standard, +5 for musician, +15 for champion


You can easily say this:

Empire Swordsmen
10-20 figures
2 Unit slots

Goblin Spearmen
20-30 figures
1 Unit slots

Chaos Warriors
5-10 figures
3 Unit Slots


So you can have 3 Goblin Units = 1.5 Empire Swordmen Units = 1 Chaos Warrior Units.

That is not POINTS per se, but makes army building dead easy... and still VALUES things for balance.

What's amuses me is that we've probably come up with better "No Points" selection systems in the last 30 minutes than GW has bothered with for AoS

Another thought about marketing strategy.

The ENTRY PRICE is not just MONEY.

The entry price is knowledge.
It is a STEEP learning curve to buy into a new game with established gamers who know all the rules inside and out.

VERY intimidating, especially for younger kids.

So now GW has flattened the world and the playing field.

We have all become equal. Beards and Noobs alike.

Picked this up from the warhammer forum. The poster is a pseudonym for antoher poster who wants to be anonymous - no idea on its veracity but putting it out there for info.


http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=129049&start=120

I have touched the promo set. I have seen it. It is real. Here's what I know.

- you do not need to re-base your armies. Bases have one function only; to make your model stand up. All measurement is done from the model itself. A wing, a horn, the very tip of a sword sticking out...doesn't matter. If you want to re-base your army, stick your models on tiny weights so you can group them up as tightly as possible. Why? Because each model now fights against any model in a 360 degree arc. A sword can reach models 1" away, a spear can reach 2" away, etc.

- army books are gone but the new rules are free. And not just the rules but the rules for EVERY FANTASY MODEL GW CURRENTLY SELLS. So you're going to want to buy a printer because each unit comes with it's own card. The old stats are gone and have now been replaced with the cards. Whether a Human swings at a Dragon, a Steam Tank, or a Zombie, he hits on a 4+. Zombies however are easy to hit so on the Zombie card they might have a rule that anything swinging at them gets +1 to hit so the Human would then hit on a 3+. However when the Human swings on a Chaos Warrior, he may hit on a 4+ but because of their armor, he may be -1 to wound them. Every unit has its own cards (I now understand why this is a low model count game). You can now field anything from any army. If you want an army to consist of warp lightning cannons led by a Wood Elf on a dragon, knock yourself out. But the minimum unit size is whatever was sold in the box. Witch Elves are sold in boxes of 10 so that is their minimum unit size. Only 1 Screaming Bell comes in a box so minimum unit size is 1. There are no maximum unit sizes. Weapon specifications also come on the cards. Elvish archers have a bow, it shoots 24" and always hits on a 4+ for example. Orcs have Choppas that give +1 to wound on the charge. It's all on the cards themselves which is why the rules pack is so small.

- Brettonians and Beastmen still exist. There are cards for EVERY model.

- Whatever your units used to do, it has all changed. It might be the same. But it probably isn't.

- Wizards have cards just like everyone else. But they list the spells they can cast. So magic does exist. A Goblin Shaman casts different spells than a Necromancer.

- This game cannot be used for tournament play. When Player A achieves one of a handful of victory objectives (like killing Player B's General), Player B then gets a "hail mary" shot where they can specify a particular condition they have to meet and if they do it, they win. For example, Player A kills Player B's General. Player B picks the option to kill player A's General within a single turn. If he does it, Player B wins. If not, Player A wins. It's like adding weights to the winner to make his actual winning more difficult.

And then we run into the real problems. I am going to guess that the geniuses at GW did not bother to playtest the game because I saw no rules for fielding armies. Just show up, put down some models.
"I brought 39 Skaven Slaves led by an Ogre. What did you bring?"
"I brought 40 Star Dragons."

WTF?! There is no points system? Like...none?!?!?! Just throw some **** on the table and start rolling dice?! Are you freaking kidding me??????? Ok, I get that you can now buy a box of anything and you can play. They figured out a way to beat the high entrance cost of the game. But...words fail me at the stupidity of the game. In its current release form, it is completely unplayable. In absolutely no way do I see how this could be even fun as it is. Without some kind of balance, there is no game. Now the rules are free and in theory they could update them at any time with point costs. And if that happens instantaneously, great! But IMHO the folks at GW needed to get it right and in the beginning or there will just be an exodus of players. If they fix this 3 months from now, people will have found a new game they like and not bother with the train wreck this looks to be. I would guess they have 30 days to fix it or their fantasy product is done.

#8theditionforever

 Flashman wrote:
What's amuses me is that we've probably come up with better "No Points" selection systems in the last 30 minutes than GW has bothered with for AoS

We don't know that yet, but it worrying. As models move into multiple slots in similar systems it does become harder to balance, with the big ist worry being that big centerpeace models end up just being swarmed or that they are too hard to kill by equivalent amounts of units.
I think anything like nagash or greator demons will need to be toned down a lot in feel to make it work right now.


When they mean model I hope they are saying centre of the model, sorta anoying if a ini holding there sword out would have a advantage over one holding it closer to there body.

Yeah, I dunno, this sounds like a load of grox droppings. The good AND the bad.

It's a LOT of very big departures from GW's modus operandi.

Hmmm, if they say it scales up well....

but has no rules for what you bring....

how is there any type of scale? This sounds odd as hell.

jim30 wrote:

Spoiler:

Picked this up from the warhammer forum. The poster is a pseudonym for antoher poster who wants to be anonymous - no idea on its veracity but putting it out there for info.


http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=129049&start=120

I have touched the promo set. I have seen it. It is real. Here's what I know.

- you do not need to re-base your armies. Bases have one function only; to make your model stand up. All measurement is done from the model itself. A wing, a horn, the very tip of a sword sticking out...doesn't matter. If you want to re-base your army, stick your models on tiny weights so you can group them up as tightly as possible. Why? Because each model now fights against any model in a 360 degree arc. A sword can reach models 1" away, a spear can reach 2" away, etc.

- army books are gone but the new rules are free. And not just the rules but the rules for EVERY FANTASY MODEL GW CURRENTLY SELLS. So you're going to want to buy a printer because each unit comes with it's own card. The old stats are gone and have now been replaced with the cards. Whether a Human swings at a Dragon, a Steam Tank, or a Zombie, he hits on a 4+. Zombies however are easy to hit so on the Zombie card they might have a rule that anything swinging at them gets +1 to hit so the Human would then hit on a 3+. However when the Human swings on a Chaos Warrior, he may hit on a 4+ but because of their armor, he may be -1 to wound them. Every unit has its own cards (I now understand why this is a low model count game). You can now field anything from any army. If you want an army to consist of warp lightning cannons led by a Wood Elf on a dragon, knock yourself out. But the minimum unit size is whatever was sold in the box. Witch Elves are sold in boxes of 10 so that is their minimum unit size. Only 1 Screaming Bell comes in a box so minimum unit size is 1. There are no maximum unit sizes. Weapon specifications also come on the cards. Elvish archers have a bow, it shoots 24" and always hits on a 4+ for example. Orcs have Choppas that give +1 to wound on the charge. It's all on the cards themselves which is why the rules pack is so small.

- Brettonians and Beastmen still exist. There are cards for EVERY model.

- Whatever your units used to do, it has all changed. It might be the same. But it probably isn't.

- Wizards have cards just like everyone else. But they list the spells they can cast. So magic does exist. A Goblin Shaman casts different spells than a Necromancer.

- This game cannot be used for tournament play. When Player A achieves one of a handful of victory objectives (like killing Player B's General), Player B then gets a "hail mary" shot where they can specify a particular condition they have to meet and if they do it, they win. For example, Player A kills Player B's General. Player B picks the option to kill player A's General within a single turn. If he does it, Player B wins. If not, Player A wins. It's like adding weights to the winner to make his actual winning more difficult.

And then we run into the real problems. I am going to guess that the geniuses at GW did not bother to playtest the game because I saw no rules for fielding armies. Just show up, put down some models.
"I brought 39 Skaven Slaves led by an Ogre. What did you bring?"
"I brought 40 Star Dragons."

WTF?! There is no points system? Like...none?!?!?! Just throw some **** on the table and start rolling dice?! Are you freaking kidding me??????? Ok, I get that you can now buy a box of anything and you can play. They figured out a way to beat the high entrance cost of the game. But...words fail me at the stupidity of the game. In its current release form, it is completely unplayable. In absolutely no way do I see how this could be even fun as it is. Without some kind of balance, there is no game. Now the rules are free and in theory they could update them at any time with point costs. And if that happens instantaneously, great! But IMHO the folks at GW needed to get it right and in the beginning or there will just be an exodus of players. If they fix this 3 months from now, people will have found a new game they like and not bother with the train wreck this looks to be. I would guess they have 30 days to fix it or their fantasy product is done.

#8theditionforever

The above, once your remove the angry, sounds a lot like how Wrath of Kings (and other games I'm sure) plays and works. I'm still excited to see the product. And since it's free I don't have to get antsy about it before "purchasing".

 mikhaila wrote:
Hmmm, if they say it scales up well....

but has no rules for what you bring....

how is there any type of scale? This sounds odd as hell.

The Most Important Rule.

It could be that the scenarios state, for example, "Player A defending X for five turns. Player A gets 1 Hero, 2 Troops, 1 Rare. Player B gets 1 Hero, 2 Troops, 1 Fast, 1 Rare."

I dont see a No-Points game being feasible, or a realistic expectation.

Even if you remove the arbitrary points costs there will always be a structure of army creation and, correspondingly, a benchmark for comparison of unlike things, which is traditionally the role of points values.

You can remove the points per model, or points per unit even, but there must be some point of equilibrium that both sides agree to if you are going to have a "fair/balanced" competition.

And then we run into the real problems. I am going to guess that the geniuses at GW did not bother to playtest the game because I saw no rules for fielding armies. Just show up, put down some models.
"I brought 39 Skaven Slaves led by an Ogre. What did you bring?"
"I brought 40 Star Dragons."

That's not even right by his own rules.

Skavenslaves come to 20 per box.

So it'd be 40 star dragons vs 780 skaven slaves and an Ogre Hero (or maybe 6 ogres bulls or whatever)

 mikhaila wrote:
Hmmm, if they say it scales up well....

but has no rules for what you bring....

how is there any type of scale? This sounds odd as hell.

Maybe it's the same sort of "Forge the Narrative/aka Deal with it" attitude we got with things like Unbound in 40k?

I don't know, I like a lot of what you heard mikhaila but I don't like a lot of what was posted from the warhammer forum. And I'm typically not very trusting of the GW reps when it comes to this sort of stuff.

But at least there seems to be frees rules. I've always been of the mind that if GW wasn't going to actually put effort into their rules, then they should just make them free and that would alleviate 80% of the issues people are having.

Just going to sit here and keep waiting...

Right, so the boxed game (with a big book of scenarios and preselected armies) has no points cost/army selection rules - because your army is already selected.

This doesn't mean that the "army scrolls" or whatever that they put on the web won't have a system.

Maybe they're saying card vs card, everything is equally as tough. So if your card is 10 handgunngers, they're just as tough as 1 nagash?

Kiwidru wrote:
I dont see a No-Points game being feasible, or a realistic expectation.

Even if you remove the arbitrary points costs there will always be a structure of army creation and, correspondingly, a benchmark for comparison of unlike things, which is traditionally the role of points values.

You can remove the points per model, or points per unit even, but there must be some point of equilibrium that both sides agree to if you are going to have a "fair/balanced" competition.

As it has been mentioned a few times already, you do not have to have points, in order to give units a value, there have been many examples of how it can be done above already.

Or maybe GW cannot write a good game to save their lives

Apple fox wrote:When they mean model I hope they are saying centre of the model, sorta anoying if a ini holding there sword out would have a advantage over one holding it closer to there body.

Yeaaaaa if this is a thing, I'mma vote for measuring from the middle, m'k? This is extremely reminiscent of 'modeling for advantage' crap from 40k, including the horrible stuff in 4E or whenever about killing defilers by targeting a leg spike or mounting your tank's turrets waaaaaay above the body

Hulksmash wrote:The above, once your remove the angry, sounds a lot like how Wrath of Kings (and other games I'm sure) plays and works. I'm still excited to see the product. And since it's free I don't have to get antsy about it before "purchasing".

Finally people are bringing up WoK with more frequency, rather than just chanting about KoW. I actually kickstarted the game and my club has tried it a few times, does seem rather worth opening that KS box now ...

- Salvage

RacerX wrote:
Another thought about marketing strategy.

The ENTRY PRICE is not just MONEY.

The entry price is knowledge.
It is a STEEP learning curve to buy into a new game with established gamers who know all the rules inside and out.

VERY intimidating, especially for younger kids.

So now GW has flattened the world and the playing field.

We have all become equal. Beards and Noobs alike.

Because , as a wise man once said, 'Anything that's hard to do isn't worth doing .'

Kiwidru wrote:
I dont see a No-Points game being feasible, or a realistic expectation.

Even if you remove the arbitrary points costs there will always be a structure of army creation and, correspondingly, a benchmark for comparison of unlike things, which is traditionally the role of points values.

You can remove the points per model, or points per unit even, but there must be some point of equilibrium that both sides agree to if you are going to have a "fair/balanced" competition.

One way you could do it is have each unit have a certain set of options unique to them but balanced so that holistically one an army should be about on par with another. For example, a block of 12 Chaos Warriors could choose to add another 6 warriors, halberds. shields or a mark of chaos. Redo the rules so that most of these options are viable.

 Necros wrote:
Maybe they're saying card vs card, everything is equally as tough. So if your card is 10 handgunngers, they're just as tough as 1 nagash?

Except the card doesn't give you the power of ten of something, it gives you the abilities of one of that thing.

 Rayvon wrote:

Kiwidru wrote:
I dont see a No-Points game being feasible, or a realistic expectation.

Even if you remove the arbitrary points costs there will always be a structure of army creation and, correspondingly, a benchmark for comparison of unlike things, which is traditionally the role of points values.

You can remove the points per model, or points per unit even, but there must be some point of equilibrium that both sides agree to if you are going to have a "fair/balanced" competition.

As it has been mentioned a few times already, you do not have to have points, in order to give units a value, there have been many examples of how it can be done above already.

And dont they all just involve assigning smaller 'points' values to larger groupings of models?

The difference between 20 one point goblins fielded together, and 1 unit of that consists of 20 goblins is pure semantics

jim30 wrote:

Spoiler:

Picked this up from the warhammer forum. The poster is a pseudonym for antoher poster who wants to be anonymous - no idea on its veracity but putting it out there for info.


http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=129049&start=120

I have touched the promo set. I have seen it. It is real. Here's what I know.

- you do not need to re-base your armies. Bases have one function only; to make your model stand up. All measurement is done from the model itself. A wing, a horn, the very tip of a sword sticking out...doesn't matter. If you want to re-base your army, stick your models on tiny weights so you can group them up as tightly as possible. Why? Because each model now fights against any model in a 360 degree arc. A sword can reach models 1" away, a spear can reach 2" away, etc.

- army books are gone but the new rules are free. And not just the rules but the rules for EVERY FANTASY MODEL GW CURRENTLY SELLS. So you're going to want to buy a printer because each unit comes with it's own card. The old stats are gone and have now been replaced with the cards. Whether a Human swings at a Dragon, a Steam Tank, or a Zombie, he hits on a 4+. Zombies however are easy to hit so on the Zombie card they might have a rule that anything swinging at them gets +1 to hit so the Human would then hit on a 3+. However when the Human swings on a Chaos Warrior, he may hit on a 4+ but because of their armor, he may be -1 to wound them. Every unit has its own cards (I now understand why this is a low model count game). You can now field anything from any army. If you want an army to consist of warp lightning cannons led by a Wood Elf on a dragon, knock yourself out. But the minimum unit size is whatever was sold in the box. Witch Elves are sold in boxes of 10 so that is their minimum unit size. Only 1 Screaming Bell comes in a box so minimum unit size is 1. There are no maximum unit sizes. Weapon specifications also come on the cards. Elvish archers have a bow, it shoots 24" and always hits on a 4+ for example. Orcs have Choppas that give +1 to wound on the charge. It's all on the cards themselves which is why the rules pack is so small.

- Brettonians and Beastmen still exist. There are cards for EVERY model.

- Whatever your units used to do, it has all changed. It might be the same. But it probably isn't.

- Wizards have cards just like everyone else. But they list the spells they can cast. So magic does exist. A Goblin Shaman casts different spells than a Necromancer.

- This game cannot be used for tournament play. When Player A achieves one of a handful of victory objectives (like killing Player B's General), Player B then gets a "hail mary" shot where they can specify a particular condition they have to meet and if they do it, they win. For example, Player A kills Player B's General. Player B picks the option to kill player A's General within a single turn. If he does it, Player B wins. If not, Player A wins. It's like adding weights to the winner to make his actual winning more difficult.

And then we run into the real problems. I am going to guess that the geniuses at GW did not bother to playtest the game because I saw no rules for fielding armies. Just show up, put down some models.
"I brought 39 Skaven Slaves led by an Ogre. What did you bring?"
"I brought 40 Star Dragons."

WTF?! There is no points system? Like...none?!?!?! Just throw some **** on the table and start rolling dice?! Are you freaking kidding me??????? Ok, I get that you can now buy a box of anything and you can play. They figured out a way to beat the high entrance cost of the game. But...words fail me at the stupidity of the game. In its current release form, it is completely unplayable. In absolutely no way do I see how this could be even fun as it is. Without some kind of balance, there is no game. Now the rules are free and in theory they could update them at any time with point costs. And if that happens instantaneously, great! But IMHO the folks at GW needed to get it right and in the beginning or there will just be an exodus of players. If they fix this 3 months from now, people will have found a new game they like and not bother with the train wreck this looks to be. I would guess they have 30 days to fix it or their fantasy product is done.

#8theditionforever

This is the way the game ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

So long WHFB, we hardly knew ye...

Photos of the next White Dwarf. Free model and rules included: https://twitter.com/Chumphammer

Edit: Seems all the rules are in WD.

Bretonians you say....

RacerX wrote:
Another thought about marketing strategy.

The ENTRY PRICE is not just MONEY.

The entry price is knowledge.
It is a STEEP learning curve to buy into a new game with established gamers who know all the rules inside and out.

VERY intimidating, especially for younger kids.

So now GW has flattened the world and the playing field.

We have all become equal. Beards and Noobs alike.

This is a very important point, I think. I was getting into Fantasy in mid-6th as an experienced wargamer and it was a daunting experience, what with all the rules materials, FAQs and unwritten gaming conventions.

Kiwidru wrote:
I dont see a No-Points game being feasible, or a realistic expectation.

Even if you remove the arbitrary points costs there will always be a structure of army creation and, correspondingly, a benchmark for comparison of unlike things, which is traditionally the role of points values.

You can remove the points per model, or points per unit even, but there must be some point of equilibrium that both sides agree to if you are going to have a "fair/balanced" competition.

There are a ton of game systems that use scenario driven force selection instead of points. I personally don't care for it but it's not new and it's honestly a good option for narrative type gaming IMO. The problem is, when you have a limited number of scenarios you have a limited use for your collection of models, so I prefer to be able to pick and choose which models I'm using and concoct my own strategies. Check out some 15mm gaming communities for opinions supporting it since that's where I have seen most of the non-points based gaming.

Wow the rules are Bad

A wizard can cast one spell at beginning of each turn. Roll 2D6. If equal to or higher than the casting value it works. An enemy wizard within 18" of the caster can then 2D6; if it beats the score rolled by the caster it's dispelled.

That's the magic phase summed up.

I eagerly await those of you with more patience than I to sift through those small pics and pull out the rules!

 lord_blackfang wrote:

This is a very important point, I think. I was getting into Fantasy in mid-6th as an experienced wargamer and it was a daunting experience, what with all the rules materials, FAQs and unwritten gaming conventions.

Sure. And the rules certainly could have been streamlined and clearer.

There's an awful lot of gradient though between 'too complicated' and 'you win on a 4+'... It's kind boggling that GW have jumped straight to that extreme, even with their history of over compensating for issues in their games .