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That's a nice bit of scenery right there. Love the sculpted (dragony bits) detail on the stonework

PhantomViper wrote:

Norsed wrote:

Okay, so you can't flank people anymore. But historically that only really worked against hoplites and more recent conflicts. But position will still matter.

Flanking worked in every kind of armed human conflict from the time the first caveman picked up a stick to poke his neighbour in the eye as punishment for taking away its dinosaur up to modern days. If your opponents attention is focused elsewhere while you are attacking him your attack should be much more effective (not to mention that in gaming terms it adds tactical depth).

And since there are no LoS restrictions and you can kill models in melee that you aren't engaged with, how does position still matter?

Incorrect - most historical formations were flexible enough to react to someone attempting to attack them in the side - reducing the advantage to simply being one of numbers. This was true until the last few hundred years. Of course, if you don't see them coming it's a different matter, but that would more accurately be termed an ambush. In a pitched battle the sergeants and officers not directly involved in a fight to their front will be prepared for movements on the flank and react accordingly.

And if an enemy model is in range of your melee weapon then you are engaged with them - so I'm not sure what your point is there.

gorgon wrote:
But that's a more adult sensibility, right? And even a lot of adults like more brightness and the concept of the "good guy." Meanwhile, you're trying to sell the game to kids.

This is something that I think some vet GW gamers have trouble accepting. GW games are for kids. We're playing kids' games. Maybe 40K is more adolescent in tone, but it's still sub-18. There's nothing wrong with enjoying kid stuff as your hobby, but I think you have to accept and own that, and with that comes some understanding when GW creates something that seems childish.

Along those lines, it's always perplexing to me how people can get bent out of shape about a single silly name or cartoony story when both Warhammer universes are so incredibly cheesy and over-the-top. It's a drop in an Olympic-sized pool.

I disagree with basically this entire post. They're not kids games. Kids may play them, but that doesn't make them "kids games". Now, I don't have actual demographics for GW customers, so I'm going off speculation and anecdotes, neither of which are actually reliable or anything. But given the costs and requirements for the hobby, combined with the people I see (or at least, saw) in Games Workshop stores and other FLGS stores, saying "GW games are for kids" is completely disingenuous.

And the naming thing? I've rolled my eyes every time they've come out with some ridiculous sounding thing. Bloodcrushers! Bloodfists! So when it comes to ridiculous named things, I am nothing if not consistent in my disdain for GW's recent trend to idiotic names. It's possible to do cheesy and over-the-top without falling into ridiculous. GW used to do that, for the most part.

Now we get "Bloodsecrators".

Klerych wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

But agnosto, they don't look anything like Space Marines!

DO YOU EVEN BLOOD ANGELS, SON? Sanguinary guard!

Space Wolves for life son!

I thought the italicized "anything" showed I was being sarcastic in that post, I've been pretty clear on my "they're space marines for Fantasy" stance.

But the multiple universe thing and armies that may appear depend on the initial sales from AOS. This will be the first starter box that I don't get. the first for like 25 years.

That's huge for me, this is only the second "game" from GW I haven't bought the first being the assassin one.

I bought every army box that I wanted when they did them until they stopped. This is just so sad, like the end of an era.

 mikhaila wrote:
Hopefully I have a package coming today with that sweet scenery piece and the ROB board, and a demo copy. Anxious to get painting on new models, and we'll try out a few games today.

And for those of you in the US, i tossed up a deal for Age of Sigmar box in swapshop. Sorry, can't ship it outside the US. It's 90 bucks to the east coast area, 95 to midwest, 100 to westcoast, I'm covering shipping.

Our local store was supposed to get the same today but that was cancelled for him (in the comments). I don't know the details obviously though beyond what he posted.

https://www.facebook.com/TreefortGames

 streamdragon wrote:
[
Now we get "Bloodsecrators".

I wrote this a few years ago tounge-in-cheek: http://blameitonthedice.blogspot.com/2013/05/40k-random-name-generator.html

It's resulting predictive power has made me weep for the world.

Though "secrators" was out side of even what I thought was possible in 2013.

Norsed wrote:


Incorrect - most historical formations were flexible enough to react to someone attempting to attack them in the side - reducing the advantage to simply being one of numbers. This was true until the last few hundred years. Of course, if you don't see them coming it's a different matter, but that would more accurately be termed an ambush. In a pitched battle the sergeants and officers not directly involved in a fight to their front will be prepared for movements on the flank and react accordingly.

And do you know how those flexible formations reacted to someone attempting to attack them in the side? By reforming and presenting their front to this new attack.

If they were unable to do this because they were already engaged or simply because their attention was elsewhere, then they where outflanked and suffered incredibly because of it.

Here are several historical examples of outflanking in battles throughout history:
http://www.theartofbattle.com/tactics-tutorial

Norsed wrote:

And if an enemy model is in range of your melee weapon then you are engaged with them - so I'm not sure what your point is there.

The point is exactly what I said, when fighting a unit you don't necessarily kill the model that you are engaged with so number of available attacks, for example, will always trump clever positioning of models inside a unit.

 streamdragon wrote:

gorgon wrote:
But that's a more adult sensibility, right? And even a lot of adults like more brightness and the concept of the "good guy." Meanwhile, you're trying to sell the game to kids.

This is something that I think some vet GW gamers have trouble accepting. GW games are for kids. We're playing kids' games. Maybe 40K is more adolescent in tone, but it's still sub-18. There's nothing wrong with enjoying kid stuff as your hobby, but I think you have to accept and own that, and with that comes some understanding when GW creates something that seems childish.

Along those lines, it's always perplexing to me how people can get bent out of shape about a single silly name or cartoony story when both Warhammer universes are so incredibly cheesy and over-the-top. It's a drop in an Olympic-sized pool.

I disagree with basically this entire post. They're not kids games. Kids may play them, but that doesn't make them "kids games". Now, I don't have actual demographics for GW customers, so I'm going off speculation and anecdotes, neither of which are actually reliable or anything. But given the costs and requirements for the hobby, combined with the people I see (or at least, saw) in Games Workshop stores and other FLGS stores, saying "GW games are for kids" is completely disingenuous.

And the naming thing? I've rolled my eyes every time they've come out with some ridiculous sounding thing. Bloodcrushers! Bloodfists! So when it comes to ridiculous named things, I am nothing if not consistent in my disdain for GW's recent trend to idiotic names. It's possible to do cheesy and over-the-top without falling into ridiculous. GW used to do that, for the most part.

Now we get "Bloodsecrators".

So when the CEO goes on and on about kids in his missives...he has no idea who the main TARGET audience is for their products? I think you're deeply in denial. I don't care if there's a retirement community filled with octogenerians playing 40K. That just makes them old people playing kiddie stuff. GW has identified kids as where their bread is buttered.

FW can be described as more adult-oriented, for reasons including prices and the modeling demands of some of their kits. But even there you're still talking about playing battles between little space knight models, right? Pew-pew!

Norsed wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Norsed wrote:

Okay, so you can't flank people anymore. But historically that only really worked against hoplites and more recent conflicts. But position will still matter.

Flanking worked in every kind of armed human conflict from the time the first caveman picked up a stick to poke his neighbour in the eye as punishment for taking away its dinosaur up to modern days. If your opponents attention is focused elsewhere while you are attacking him your attack should be much more effective (not to mention that in gaming terms it adds tactical depth).

And since there are no LoS restrictions and you can kill models in melee that you aren't engaged with, how does position still matter?

Incorrect - most historical formations were flexible enough to react to someone attempting to attack them in the side - reducing the advantage to simply being one of numbers. This was true until the last few hundred years. Of course, if you don't see them coming it's a different matter, but that would more accurately be termed an ambush. In a pitched battle the sergeants and officers not directly involved in a fight to their front will be prepared for movements on the flank and react accordingly.

And if an enemy model is in range of your melee weapon then you are engaged with them - so I'm not sure what your point is there.

We're talking about model versus model here, yes? So that means one on one fights most of the time.

Ever been in a fistfight, a boxing match or an MMA match? It's harder to defend when your opponent is attacking you from the side.

And strange that historically, attacking someone's flank, you know, where their spear aren't pointing or where their shields aren't protecting them is the most basic of maneuvers. But then again, what do I know. I'm sure a formation of 5000 men 6 flanks deep is flexible enough to move in a couple of seconds: just like that!

I do wonder where you're getting your "facts".

Don't oversimplify.

Real men fighting for their lives get awfully worried when enemy are on two sides and they start to think backwards is a really good idea.

Not at all static and formed as these little men on the table...

I always thought that a casualty was either:
1. Dead
2. Curled in a ball on the ground scared
3. Running away (even if the unit on the table stayed).

Wargames need to represent that somehow.
Easier to remove models and call them dead...

PhantomViper wrote:

Norsed wrote:


Incorrect - most historical formations were flexible enough to react to someone attempting to attack them in the side - reducing the advantage to simply being one of numbers. This was true until the last few hundred years. Of course, if you don't see them coming it's a different matter, but that would more accurately be termed an ambush. In a pitched battle the sergeants and officers not directly involved in a fight to their front will be prepared for movements on the flank and react accordingly.

And do you know how those flexible formations reacted to someone attempting to attack them in the side? By reforming and presenting their front to this new attack.

If they were unable to do this because they were already engaged or simply because their attention was elsewhere, then they where outflanked and suffered incredibly because of it.

Norsed wrote:

And if an enemy model is in range of your melee weapon then you are engaged with them - so I'm not sure what your point is there.

The point is exactly what I said, when fighting a unit you don't necessarily kill the model that you are engaged with so number of available attacks, for example, will always trump clever positioning of models inside a unit.

Seriously mate, I'm not going to have someone who referred to cavemen and dinosaurs trying to teach me military history. They did not reform their entire front, they reformed to have more than one front. Of course they still do badly, because this generally results in the opposing side concentrating more force in one place. But that is a separate issue, and one that AoS covers. There is a reason why "flanking manoeuvres" weren't a thing until the period when infantry became vulnerable to fast cavalry.

He clearly wasn't being serious when he said about cavemen and dinosaurs to be fair.

 Klerych wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

But agnosto, they don't look anything like Space Marines!

DO YOU EVEN BLOOD ANGELS, SON? Sanguinary guard!

While I agree about the Sigmarines being 40k inspired it's tough to not think that when all the "Space" Marine examples look like something straight from fantasy. Do Marines even have ranged weapons in 40k any more?

 Manchu wrote:
We actually know a bit about that; yes there are settlements of the other races besieged by Chaos among the various realms of mortals. The Stormcast are heroes from these realms, gathered together by Sigmar. Azyr seems to basically be a sort of Valhalla where Sigmar has been assembling his Ragnarok army.

But that's one of the things that most confuses me about the new background. One of the main reasons people who wanted the setting to change gave for it being necessary in their eyes for the fluff to evolve drastically was that Warhammer had been stuck in a state of limbo, with the clock set at one minute to midnight and everything teetering just on the edge of disaster, for too long. But they're loving this new setting despite the fact that GW have done exactly the same thing; fast-forwarded through all the hundreds of thousands of years of "history" and plonked us down on the first day of the big final battle for dominance.

So, what, in a couple of years time the same people will get over the new-shiny of the rejigged world and start demanding GW rip everything up and start over again?


Also, I would appreciate if one of the folk with the Sigmarine model could take a scale pic alongside a Terminator rather than a standard Marine - it's whether they match the former that's important for truescaling potential.

Could do some really cool lava/water effects with that new robg board piece. And 3 of those archways arranged circular would make a pretty cool arena-esque centrepiece. I like.

ecurtz wrote:

 Klerych wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

But agnosto, they don't look anything like Space Marines!

DO YOU EVEN BLOOD ANGELS, SON? Sanguinary guard!

While I agree about the Sigmarines being 40k inspired it's tough to not think that when all the "Space" Marine examples look like something straight from fantasy. Do Marines even have ranged weapons in 40k any more?

Yes. The ones in that photo have guns on their wrists. But I agree SMs are pretty fantasy. 40k is more fantasy in space than Sci-Fi really.

Popped into my local GW today to try and talk to the staff about AOS...that was fun.

I basically laid out the contents, rules, price etc etc and the staff had to claim that they did not know a thing, not a snippet or even the merest hint of what may come from them.

The end result? It really dampened my enthusiasm for AOS and I really lost some respect for the staff for having to act dumb. Admittedly that is from orders from head office but you would have thought they could offer something given how much has already been leaked about the game. GW continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

Norsed wrote:
There is a reason why "flanking manoeuvres" weren't a thing until the period when infantry became vulnerable to fast cavalry.

Uh, Battle of Cannae? Battle of Pharsalus?

Seriously, where do you get these "facts"?

PhantomViper wrote:


Here are several historical examples of outflanking in battles throughout history:
http://www.theartofbattle.com/tactics-tutorial

Every example there is from a later period or is an envelopment of a flank, not a flank strike as is represented in Warhammer. Two completely different concepts.

The point is exactly what I said, when fighting a unit you don't necessarily kill the model that you are engaged with so number of available attacks, for example, will always trump clever positioning of models inside a unit.

Except that you can't mix two different types of figure in a unit anyway. But what if you have a unit of vulnerable bowmen protected by spears? Very different kettle of fish.

Nevermind, this is like talking to a wall...

 heartserenade wrote:


We're talking about model versus model here, yes? So that means one on one fights most of the time.

Ever been in a fistfight, a boxing match or an MMA match? It's harder to defend when your opponent is attacking you from the side.

And strange that historically, attacking someone's flank, you know, where their spear aren't pointing or where their shields aren't protecting them is the most basic of maneuvers. But then again, what do I know. I'm sure a formation of 5000 men 6 flanks deep is flexible enough to move in a couple of seconds: just like that!

I do wonder where you're getting your "facts".

Yeah, I've been in a fistfight. It was a very confusing experience to be sure. But that's still not relevant. Of course it's harder to defend when you have a second opponent attacking you in the side. But historically, an element of troops was almost always able to prevent that from being an issue.

And you don't have to move all 5000 men. You only have to move a few files on the flank in question.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 heartserenade wrote:

Norsed wrote:
There is a reason why "flanking manoeuvres" weren't a thing until the period when infantry became vulnerable to fast cavalry.

Uh, Battle of Cannae? Battle of Pharsalus?

Seriously, where do you get these "facts"?

Those are both exceptionally good examples of envelopments. Not strikes in the flank of an individual element.

 heartserenade wrote:

Norsed wrote:
There is a reason why "flanking manoeuvres" weren't a thing until the period when infantry became vulnerable to fast cavalry.

Uh, Battle of Cannae? Battle of Pharsalus?

Seriously, where do you get these "facts"?

If he's saying that flanking only occurred with hoplites and more 'recent' conflicts, then probably from Wikipedia.

Then again, he's demonstrated to have very different definitions for words from the vast majority of us (like 'narrative' and 'competitive' games) so I'm not even sure we're thinking of the same thing when it comes to flanking in combat.

Pinch of salt needed here....

Popped into our GW at lunch as my wife wanted to pick up a woodelf box whilst they still came with square bases.

I asked the manager if the current stock is going anywhere, he said "think of AoS as a new game and not 9th edition, we have not been told to take the current line down and all books are still in print"

The AoS will have round bases and current fantasy stuff will have square, sounds like at worst we can still buy 8th stuff and at best have 2 games we can use the stuff with

Then you only have six men facing against the enemy and certainly they'll envelop them. Congratulations, you just lost your flank.

You really don't know much about historical battles, do you? Even Sun Tzu has written about flanking maneuvers in Art of War, and as far as I know heavy cavalry charge is not a thing in Chinese warfare.

Please don't insult our intelligence by pulling stuff out of your ass.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Norsed wrote:

Those are both exceptionally good examples of envelopments. Not strikes in the flank of an individual element.

Envelopment is a flanking maneuver.

Do you like redefining words in order to be correct?

Yeah, I've been in a fistfight. It was a very confusing experience to be sure. But that's still not relevant.

It's relevant because models fight in a per model basis in AoS, and not in formation. I thought that was clear, but clearly I'm wrong.

 mikhaila wrote:
Hopefully I have a package coming today with that sweet scenery piece and the ROB board, and a demo copy. Anxious to get painting on new models, and we'll try out a few games today.

And for those of you in the US, i tossed up a deal for Age of Sigmar box in swapshop. Sorry, can't ship it outside the US. It's 90 bucks to the east coast area, 95 to midwest, 100 to westcoast, I'm covering shipping.

This is a bit of a nitpick, but if you were covering shipping, wouldn't the cost be the same for all US locations? It seems to me that the buyer is clearly covering the shipping via the increased cost.

 heartserenade wrote:
Then you only have six men facing against the enemy and certainly they'll envelop them. Congratulations, you just lost your flank.

You really don't know much about historical battles, do you? Even Sun Tzu has written about flanking maneuvers in Art of War, and as far as I know heavy cavalry charge is not a thing in Chinese warfare.

Please don't insult our intelligence by pulling stuff out of your ass.

There is a difference between an envelopment of a flank and a strike in the flank. The thing people are complaining about is that AoS removed the flank strike thing. THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT CONCEPTS. Please get that into your head and stop insulting me.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
Popped into my local GW today to try and talk to the staff about AOS...that was fun.

I basically laid out the contents, rules, price etc etc and the staff had to claim that they did not know a thing, not a snippet or even the merest hint of what may come from them.

The end result? It really dampened my enthusiasm for AOS and I really lost some respect for the staff for having to act dumb. Admittedly that is from orders from head office but you would have thought they could offer something given how much has already been leaked about the game. GW continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

Have you ever been in the shop before?

Because if you hadn't, then I don't know why you really thought you would be able to have some kind of conversation with them about a major release which has had such issues with leaks.

 undertow wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Hopefully I have a package coming today with that sweet scenery piece and the ROB board, and a demo copy. Anxious to get painting on new models, and we'll try out a few games today.

And for those of you in the US, i tossed up a deal for Age of Sigmar box in swapshop. Sorry, can't ship it outside the US. It's 90 bucks to the east coast area, 95 to midwest, 100 to westcoast, I'm covering shipping.

This is a bit of a nitpick, but if you were covering shipping, wouldn't the cost be the same for all US locations? It seems to me that the buyer is clearly covering the shipping via the increased cost.

Unless you're using flat rate, the cost for different parts of the US is certainly not the same.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
We actually know a bit about that; yes there are settlements of the other races besieged by Chaos among the various realms of mortals. The Stormcast are heroes from these realms, gathered together by Sigmar. Azyr seems to basically be a sort of Valhalla where Sigmar has been assembling his Ragnarok army.

But that's one of the things that most confuses me about the new background. One of the main reasons people who wanted the setting to change gave for it being necessary in their eyes for the fluff to evolve drastically was that Warhammer had been stuck in a state of limbo, with the clock set at one minute to midnight and everything teetering just on the edge of disaster, for too long. But they're loving this new setting despite the fact that GW have done exactly the same thing; fast-forwarded through all the hundreds of thousands of years of "history" and plonked us down on the first day of the big final battle for dominance.

So, what, in a couple of years time the same people will get over the new-shiny of the rejigged world and start demanding GW rip everything up and start over again?


Also, I would appreciate if one of the folk with the Sigmarine model could take a scale pic alongside a Terminator rather than a standard Marine - it's whether they match the former that's important for truescaling potential.

Does seem like a bit of a missed opportunity to actually have their fluff advance for a bit. Could just release a bright and shiny setting and then over the course of a year of releases / campaign stuff, turn it slowly towards darkness again.

 angelofvengeance wrote:

Spoiler:

That's a nice bit of scenery right there. Love the sculpted (dragony bits) detail on the stonework

I love the artwork on the poster :O

..... Almost as much as I hate the fluff posted earlier. Not all of it is awful, but the bad parts, jesus wept, are they ever bad....