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That sigmarite guy would actually make a great Minotaurs Chapter marine

It is not good for casual beer & pretzel gaming. How could it be?
It is flawed in its core. Want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army.


it is the worst ruleset in the last 20 years of wargaming. IT IS UTTERLY FLAWED TO THE BONE.

 Vain wrote:

Tank_Dweller wrote:
Despite everything I was still considering this game until I saw that picture. It is the size which for some reason makes me not like it. I think it is because it just doesn't blend with my other miniatures. Is there any known reason why these guys tower above reg humans or is everything in this new game going to be massive?

Because they are not human but divinely supercharged reanimated corpses/spirits given form?

If I am a god set on subjugating/freeing a realm I wouldn't limit myself to human sizing. I would try for XXXXL to throw some shock and awe into my enemies.
I see this as that.

If this is the case and they are super humans well then I don't have issue... I just hope everything isnt going to be a larger scale than what we are used to.

RoninXiC wrote:
It is not good for casual beer & pretzel gaming. How could it be?
It is flawed in its core. Want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army.


it is the worst ruleset in the last 20 years of wargaming. IT IS UTTERLY FLAWED TO THE BONE.

Ugh. Back in your hole please troll. Game's not out yet. No bugger's played it yet. And if you don't like the AoS ruleset, just play WHFB 8th Ed or whatever.

RoninXiC wrote:
It is not good for casual beer & pretzel gaming. How could it be?
It is flawed in its core. Want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army.


it is the worst ruleset in the last 20 years of wargaming. IT IS UTTERLY FLAWED TO THE BONE.

That's just silly.

Are you not aware that points values are a relatively recent innovation in the history of wargaming? Indeed the first 3 editions of warhammer had point values as a supplemental book. Generally you either had a referee building a scenario, or were refighting a historical battle, or just weren't complete dicks to each other. If you can't come to some sort of amicable agreement with another player about this sort of thing, well then that's an issue you need to address.

I suspect one of two scenarios will end up being true about Age of Sigmar:

1) There is some sort of balancing mechanic that we have not yet been privy to, possibly in the 96 page 'fluff' book, or perhaps as a supplement like oldhammer.

2) Narrative gaming will be the way forward, with an emphasis on scenarios and being able to enjoy a game whether you win or not.

Yeah, the rules could've ben simple but nice. They're just...simple. Bad, too. How they managed to create super basic rules that STILL leave room for interpretation or interact badly is an amazing feat.


I still want those golden boys and the Khorne madmen, though. Don't judge me.

Some of these rules can't possibly have been tested AT ALL.

"Oh, my unit is within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving in the Movement phase. Oh, I'm not personally not within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving to pile-in in the Combat phase either. I'll just sit here twiddling my thumbs until the enemy comes to me."


WTF?

Binabik15 wrote:
Yeah, the rules could've ben simple but nice. They're just...simple. Bad, too. How they managed to create super basic rules that STILL leave room for interpretation or interact badly is an amazing feat.


I still want those golden boys and the Khorne madmen, though. Don't judge me.

What room for interpretation? All seems pretty clear to me. Nothing seems to be interacting badly either, but I'll wait until I actually give it a play before I comment further on that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Avian wrote:
Some of these rules can't possibly have been tested AT ALL.

"Oh, my unit is within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving in the Movement phase. Oh, I'm not personally not within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving to pile-in in the Combat phase either. I'll just sit here twiddling my thumbs until the enemy comes to me."


WTF?

...

If any part of the unit is within 3" then any figure in that unit can move up to 3". Think of the 3" as a sort of engagement zone of control.

Avian wrote:
Some of these rules can't possibly have been tested AT ALL.

"Oh, my unit is within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving in the Movement phase. Oh, I'm not personally not within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving to pile-in in the Combat phase either. I'll just sit here twiddling my thumbs until the enemy comes to me."


WTF?

??

If the unit's within 3" it can retreat. That should reasonably apply to all models within the unit. When piling in each model moves 3" towards the enemy – it doesn't say it has to end up within 3".

For my part I'll play test before I throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Yep, they've release truescale marines at long last. Only in the wrong game.

Avian wrote:
Some of these rules can't possibly have been tested AT ALL.

"Oh, my unit is within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving in the Movement phase. Oh, I'm not personally not within 3" of an enemy; guess I'm not moving to pile-in in the Combat phase either. I'll just sit here twiddling my thumbs until the enemy comes to me."


WTF?

Read the rules again, that's not how it works.

 angelofvengeance wrote:

RoninXiC wrote:
It is not good for casual beer & pretzel gaming. How could it be?
It is flawed in its core. Want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army.


it is the worst ruleset in the last 20 years of wargaming. IT IS UTTERLY FLAWED TO THE BONE.

Ugh. Back in your hole please troll. Game's not out yet. No bugger's played it yet. And if you don't like the AoS ruleset, just play WHFB 8th Ed or whatever.

Game is out. We have all the rules. Games have been played. It is bad.

Norsed wrote:

RoninXiC wrote:
It is not good for casual beer & pretzel gaming. How could it be?
It is flawed in its core. Want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army.


it is the worst ruleset in the last 20 years of wargaming. IT IS UTTERLY FLAWED TO THE BONE.

That's just silly.

Are you not aware that points values are a relatively recent innovation in the history of wargaming? Indeed the first 3 editions of warhammer had point values as a supplemental book. Generally you either had a referee building a scenario, or were refighting a historical battle, or just weren't complete dicks to each other. If you can't come to some sort of amicable agreement with another player about this sort of thing, well then that's an issue you need to address.

I suspect one of two scenarios will end up being true about Age of Sigmar:

1) There is some sort of balancing mechanic that we have not yet been privy to, possibly in the 96 page 'fluff' book, or perhaps as a supplement like oldhammer.

2) Narrative gaming will be the way forward, with an emphasis on scenarios and being able to enjoy a game whether you win or not.

"recent" 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy is more than 20 years ago. See what I wrote?

Narrative gaming without proper rules is really not more than shoving around army soldiers. This used to be a game of strategy and tactics. Nothing of that is left.

 Tronbot2600 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Of course.... I'm just struggling to believe that they won't be modified later to bring in some way of balancing the game. I think at this point it's more likely they will be modified later and GW are just so caught up with the idea of secrecy that they'd rather tell people "Nup, this is it!" and surprise them next month than be honest and say "This is just a stopgap like Ravening Hordes was in 6th edition".

Except that Ravening Hordes had a way to facilitate balanced play (i.e. points). Releasing a system that is such a big risk and leaving a bad first impression is just so...well, GW like.

Of course, I more so just meant in the sense that Ravening Hordes were free rules released as a stopgap while more fleshed out rules were being developed. I could imagine this 4 page rules system is simply the "starter rules" and they'll be releasing proper rules later and they either haven't told their reps or they told their reps to not tell stores because they are stupid idiots who think it's a good idea not to tell your customer base anything, even while they are hating you for it

I'm going to be honest... I'm gonna use the Sigmarites for my true-scale marine army. They even fit perfectly with my knightly theme. Might need to bag some of those dragony things for Thunderwolf cav...

RoninXiC wrote:

"recent" 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy is more than 20 years ago. See what I wrote?

Narrative gaming without proper rules is really not more than shoving around army soldiers. This used to be a game of strategy and tactics. Nothing of that is left.

Doesn't matter what you wrote. I was referring to the concept of points and balance as they apply to the history of wargaming. And I have seen a lot worse systems in the last 20 years than this.

And narrative gaming is a lot more than shoving around toy soldiers. And narrative gaming can be just as much about strategy and tactics. I get the impression that you somehow think artificial 'balance' is important to that.

Where exactly do you get the fact that strategy and tactics have now gone from?

I wrote narrative without proper rules. AoS does not have proper rules.

And it doesnt matter that you now refere to the concept of points. That's not what I wrote. I said in the last 20 years. Not since the 19th cent.

No strategy?

Okay.

100% random charges is the worst insult to anyone.
No charge reactions.
No ressources to manage (like focus/fory/magic dice etc)
Worst and most random victory conditions to mankind.
100% random terrain.
100% random ability usage (why the heck do I need to roll a a d6 to make my hero use his ability?)
No force organisation in any kind of form -> worst spamage of unbalanced and untested armies.

Personally I wouldn't be bothered by any of this if it wasn't replacing 8th ed. I hold out hope that this is only the starter and the full game, whenever that comes or even if it will come, will be more structured.

Norsed wrote:

RoninXiC wrote:
It is not good for casual beer & pretzel gaming. How could it be?
It is flawed in its core. Want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army.


it is the worst ruleset in the last 20 years of wargaming. IT IS UTTERLY FLAWED TO THE BONE.

That's just silly.

Are you not aware that points values are a relatively recent innovation in the history of wargaming? Indeed the first 3 editions of warhammer had point values as a supplemental book. Generally you either had a referee building a scenario, or were refighting a historical battle, or just weren't complete dicks to each other. If you can't come to some sort of amicable agreement with another player about this sort of thing, well then that's an issue you need to address.

I suspect one of two scenarios will end up being true about Age of Sigmar:

1) There is some sort of balancing mechanic that we have not yet been privy to, possibly in the 96 page 'fluff' book, or perhaps as a supplement like oldhammer.

2) Narrative gaming will be the way forward, with an emphasis on scenarios and being able to enjoy a game whether you win or not.

Option 2 means complete garbage of a ruleset. I know you narrative players are noblemen, tacticians, writers, rule designers and just good chaps but the typical newcomer will be introduced to a game where majority of matches are meaningless because the outcome is decided
in the packing minis phase. Sure you guys can teach them all that lifting own models or effortless winning for a sake of a simplistic story of a 100000th made up battle is fun and all power to you but is that wargaming really? Sounds like warcuddling tbh.

Personally I wouldn't be bothered by any of this if it wasn't replacing 8th ed. I hold out hope that this is only the starter and the full game, whenever that comes or even if it will come, will be more structured.

From what GW has said so far, this is all of the rules. Which is why people are really upset.

RoninXiC wrote:
I wrote narrative without proper rules. AoS does not have proper rules.

And it doesnt matter that you now refere to the concept of points. That's not what I wrote. I said in the last 20 years. Not since the 19th cent.

My point about points is that people got along perfectly fine without them before. They're a crutch. Points don't ever produce a balanced game anyway.

RoninXiC wrote:


No strategy?

Okay.

100% random charges is the worst insult to anyone.
No charge reactions.
No ressources to manage (like focus/fory/magic dice etc)
Worst and most random victory conditions to mankind.
100% random terrain.
100% random ability usage (why the heck do I need to roll a a d6 to make my hero use his ability?)
No force organisation in any kind of form -> worst spamage of unbalanced and untested armies.

I find it odd that you can find random charges a personal insult but whatever. It's certainly down to personal preference.
Lack of charge reactions is a little annoying I'll admit.
Resource management mini game doesn't make strategy or tactics. And the magic dice thing, whilst fun, was hardly that deep a mini game.
I honestly have no idea how to respond to "Worst and most random victory conditions to mankind." Except to say... no they really aren't. But I guess that's down to personal preference.
Because a real general gets to choose exactly what terrain they'll fight over and where how? Strategy is about making use of what you have in the best way you can at the right time to defeat your opponent. Dealing with terrain you have no control over is very much a part of that.
Where in hell have you got random ability usage from? I think you may have misunderstood something somewhere...
Yes, no force organisation THAT WE ARE AWARE OF AS YET. And if you are playing with someone who spams 30 bloodthirsters at your 10 spearmen, well then I suggest you find someone else to play with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Sure you guys can teach them all that lifting own models or effortless winning for a sake of a simplistic story of a 100000th made up battle is fun and all power to you but is that wargaming really? Sounds like warcuddling tbh.

Well. That's insulting. Kindly grow up.

I quite like the rules, for me just bring what you want and play seems like a good idea.

The more i think about it, It just seems pretty wrong that they are replacing Warhammer with this system, I could understand if it were to run side by side but to replace a fairly competitive game with this just seems pretty backwards.

I hope there is more to it than they are letting on.

RoninXiC wrote:
I wrote narrative without proper rules. AoS does not have proper rules.

And it doesnt matter that you now refere to the concept of points. That's not what I wrote. I said in the last 20 years. Not since the 19th cent.

No strategy?

Okay.

100% random charges is the worst insult to anyone.
No charge reactions.
No ressources to manage (like focus/fory/magic dice etc)
Worst and most random victory conditions to mankind.
100% random terrain.
100% random ability usage (why the heck do I need to roll a a d6 to make my hero use his ability?)
No force organisation in any kind of form -> worst spamage of unbalanced and untested armies.

My opinions on your complaints:
1) you might hate it, but its not new.
2) valid, I agree.
3) sure
4) sudden death is easily ignored
5) easily ignored just like mysterious objectives in 40k
6) how is this different than rolling to hit or to cast spells?
7) the worst offender by far, obviously without this the game cannot be played. But if it exists in some form I don't see any huge problems with the rest of the rules. Aside from 7, your points 2 and 3 are the only ones I fully agree with, and they are not THAT bad. You do have resource management in the sense that you can only use each ability once.

A lack of points doesn't work in a game where there are hundreds of different models to have to play test and know about before making a balanced scenario.

I play historical games with no points, its easy. Simply look up the battle and recreate it or part of it. Any good rule set will produce an accurate result. Troops aren't wildly different either making things easier.

In this Fantasy game, say we played 10 games. The first games will have to be dedicated to finding out how to balance things (how many chaos soldiers is the new sigmite worth?) after wasting our time doing GW's job we can start playing the game a bit. BUT then someone may want to add a Stegadon to fight alongside their sigmite's. This means the balancing has to be re tested again to see what it's worth. New player comes with a mix of goblins, beastmen and bretonians, now imagine having to balance all that out!

Due to the variety of troops and that will be around, unlimited squad sizes (in some cases) and the only army limit being that it fits on the table it means that there are no simply relaxed and easy ways to balance it yourself. You are stuck playtesting to work out how to have a fun game with your unique collection vs someone else's unique collection.

In a fantasy/sci fi game that has little "generic troops" points are somewhat needed.

In my opinion this is a pretty bad start to a game that's already annoyed players through replacing a game. I personally find the rules incredibly bad and will not be trying this. KoW has a better free ruleset (I know only been said 100 times here already). Better off playing somethign thats been done right.

Norsed wrote:

RoninXiC wrote:

"recent" 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy is more than 20 years ago. See what I wrote?

Narrative gaming without proper rules is really not more than shoving around army soldiers. This used to be a game of strategy and tactics. Nothing of that is left.

Doesn't matter what you wrote. I was referring to the concept of points and balance as they apply to the history of wargaming. And I have seen a lot worse systems in the last 20 years than this.

And narrative gaming is a lot more than shoving around toy soldiers. And narrative gaming can be just as much about strategy and tactics. I get the impression that you somehow think artificial 'balance' is important to that.

Where exactly do you get the fact that strategy and tactics have now gone from?

Wouldn't that yeti tactical narrative battle be 10 times better if you could count the disparity between forces? You can still make your narrative battle in a balanced system and as a bonus you have an information for that douche narrative player (and I met and played a few) who makes an unbalanced scenario and then acts like it's his wits alone that provided him victory. Same time I'd have a game that is not a group therapy session for sensible people but one where superior strategy and tactics lead to victory.

Been following this thread with interest and since everyone else is piling in, figured I might as well .

I think this game is exactly what I want and I'll explain why, but whether I'd be able to find anyone else to play it with me remains to be seen.

I'll say that I've always been a pretty casual gamer, me and my mates got into 40K about the age of 9 or 10 (2nd ed 40K), there were quite a few of us who played and we played every game they released. Being kids we'd be a bit competitive but were also too young and stupid to power game, also the internet was barely a thing back then so net-listing didn't exist as far as we were aware.

We all played as a group pretty solidly through our teen years, the only nearby LGSs were GWs so wargaming for me was always chilling with mates, as we got older it was more about lining whatever we had up and getting smashed, having a natter etc with the hobby just providing a focus and an excuse to get together. Games were basically "alright, 2000 points, kill each other for a couple of hours". 40K was our weapon of choice, we did play Fantasy whenever a new edition came out but having to get big armies together meant it never really stuck with us.

All heading off to Uni pretty much killed it, and I didn't really hobby again until about 2010-ish when I discovered there were actually games not made by GW (who knew right?). I started getting into Infinity just as Human Sphere was released and started hitting up a local club where we had great casual games. The people I played with had jobs, mortgages and kids so it was again about just getting away from real life for a bit and jabbering away while we occasionally shuffled models around. DIdn't really matter who won or lost as long as there were some highlights to chat about afterwards. Since getting there got to be a bit tricky and my main opponent moved away I drifted away from the club, especially as Paradiso hit around then and it never really caught on.

Nowadays Infinity to me feels like the focus is really heading towards the competitive scene, maybe that's just the local meta but with the emphasis on multiple objectives and specialists I don't feel like I can play how I did back then, which is show up with no plans, fudge a list together from the models in my bag and have a laugh for a couple of hours because now I actually have to think about my list before the game and a whole bunch of objectives during the game. I still love the models and the gameplay but I don't really enjoy the game as such because it's not the relaxing experience I had before.

So how does any of this babble relate to AoS? Well first of all I won't need to collect a huge army just to play a game. Hobby time is limited and if I can enjoy the look of WHFB without needing to collect a hug army that's awesome! I'm also much more of a fan of streamlined rules nowadays, and an overabundance of special rules pushed me away from 40K, is gradually pushing me away from Infinity and stopped me ever trying warmachine in the first place.

I think GW has provided the perfect litmus test to determine if my fellow gamer is looking for the same experience as me by making balance a requirement of the players; if I can say to an opponent something like "alright, how about no more than 50 mortals, 3 heroes tops, 3 warmachines tops?" and we can agree then we're probably on the same page and will have a pleasant experience. If he kicks up a stink about the rules saying I can use whatever I like and you can't stop me, I've dodged a bullet before investing time in the game. If I just want a 2000pt 40K game god knows what I'd be facing, but I wouldn't know if it'd be fun until I've seen the army on the table.

So what's the conclusion if you bothered reading all that? AoS may just be the casual relaxing hobby I've been missing, and if it's an absolute anathema to competitive players that's ok by me because I'm not one of them. Sweet models, easy access, no hefty rules to lug about, just rock up and plonk some models down. That'll do nicely.

Now feel free to call me a casual scrub idiot

 Manchu wrote:
It seems like UK and USA posters, just to continue with this particular comparison, are equally miffed/excited about this release. I cannot help but think a little more sharing leading up to this announcement would have helped just as much in the UK as here in the States.

I think Mik was referring to how the majority of sales in UK are derived from GW stores so corporate has the latitude to dictate how many boxes are stocked meanwhile in the US trade sales are dominate and non-corporate store owners expect and demand information about items they're expected to stock before deciding how many to order.

Norsed wrote:
[
Yes, no force organisation THAT WE ARE AWARE OF AS YET. And if you are playing with someone who spams 30 bloodthirsters at your 10 spearmen, well then I suggest you find someone else to play with.

See. Thats your/my biggest problem. The rules are so bad that you dont want to play against people who are in their right to follow the rules.
How could we change this? well.. what about point costs? It works in 99% of all other games quite perfecty.
There is no further reasoning behind GWs decision besides saving time and money.

And we have the full rules from the box. There is 0 indication that anything else will come up.

Norsed wrote:

RoninXiC wrote:
I wrote narrative without proper rules. AoS does not have proper rules.

And it doesnt matter that you now refere to the concept of points. That's not what I wrote. I said in the last 20 years. Not since the 19th cent.

My point about points is that people got along perfectly fine without them before. They're a crutch. Points don't ever produce a balanced game anyway.

RoninXiC wrote:


No strategy?

Okay.

100% random charges is the worst insult to anyone.
No charge reactions.
No ressources to manage (like focus/fory/magic dice etc)
Worst and most random victory conditions to mankind.
100% random terrain.
100% random ability usage (why the heck do I need to roll a a d6 to make my hero use his ability?)
No force organisation in any kind of form -> worst spamage of unbalanced and untested armies.

I find it odd that you can find random charges a personal insult but whatever. It's certainly down to personal preference.
Lack of charge reactions is a little annoying I'll admit.
Resource management mini game doesn't make strategy or tactics. And the magic dice thing, whilst fun, was hardly that deep a mini game.
I honestly have no idea how to respond to "Worst and most random victory conditions to mankind." Except to say... no they really aren't. But I guess that's down to personal preference.
Because a real general gets to choose exactly what terrain they'll fight over and where how? Strategy is about making use of what you have in the best way you can at the right time to defeat your opponent. Dealing with terrain you have no control over is very much a part of that.
Where in hell have you got random ability usage from? I think you may have misunderstood something somewhere...
Yes, no force organisation THAT WE ARE AWARE OF AS YET. And if you are playing with someone who spams 30 bloodthirsters at your 10 spearmen, well then I suggest you find someone else to play with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Sure you guys can teach them all that lifting own models or effortless winning for a sake of a simplistic story of a 100000th made up battle is fun and all power to you but is that wargaming really? Sounds like warcuddling tbh.

Well. That's insulting. Kindly grow up.

Didn't you call someone's valid opinion silly and imply that only complete dicks have problem with such a ruleset? Double standards ftw.

Plumbumbarum wrote:


Wouldn't that yeti tactical narrative battle be 10 times better if you could count the disparity between forces? You can still make your narrative battle in a balanced system and as a bonus you have an information for that douche narrative player (and I met and played a few) who makes an unbalanced scenario and then acts like it's his wits alone that provided him victory. Same time I'd have a game that is not a group therapy session for sensible people but one where superior strategy and tactics lead to victory.

It might be, but points systems are rarely accurate enough. Better to take a look at the stats and get an approximation.

How is that douche of a narrative player any different to the douche of a WAAC player (and I met and played a few) who brings the beardiest list imaginable taking full advantage of GW's wonky and unworkable points system and his knowledge of his opponents forces to create an unbeatable monster of an army and then acts like his strategy and tactics are superior? Protip - if a player is crowing victory they aren't a narrative player. Or indeed someone I'd care to play with. It's about how you play, not whether you win or lose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:


Didn't you call someone's valid opinion silly and imply that only complete dicks have problem with such a ruleset? Double standards ftw.

No. I called someone's statement of "want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army." silly. Because it is. It's a completely nonsensical statement.

And I implied that if someone brings 30 bloodthirsters to fight with 10 spearmen, that person is indeed a dick. Nothing to do with whether you like this ruleset or not.

Having no point values though is an inherent statement that all models are equal. Welcome to warhammer checkers.