Age of Sigmar - Slaanesh Replaced? plus big book, stormcast archers, dismounted celestan

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**Matt.Kingsley**

Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
What I don't is how nowhere in the rules does it give any kind of limitations on heroes. I can legally field an army of 15 Grimgors . How on earth did GW overlook this? Like, not including points was bad enough, but simply stating that you can't have more than one named hero in an army surely isn't that hard?!

_Tim?

This is intended because some Datascrolls tell you to use previously legal models as Special Characters (example being a Master Necromancer on Abyssal Terror, the Vampire Counts scrolls tell you to use them as Arkhan the Black)

**-Loki-**

Best desription I've seen of Age of Sigmar.

Warhammer was a Wargame. Age of Sigmar is a toy game with dice.

**Talys**

MadCowCrazy wrote:
I guess it's too early to tell how this will play out but I think the game is pretty much dead from a competitive side of view as it is right now. If we want any semblance of balance we are going to have to create our own ruleset. Since Fantasy is pretty much dead already I don't think anyone will bother past the first year.

I am pretty sure that GW did not intend for AoS to be a competitive, list-building war game in any way.

Though I'm sure it will be adapted as such.

The real question is how many copies they sell at launch, how well expansions do, and how well it sells a few years from now.

**Some_Call_Me_Tim?**

Thunderfrog wrote:
If you were determined to make it work, you'd need to make force orgs a thing and no special characters.

Then you'd need to take the really big game changers, things like Bloodthirsters, Tomb Kings on Necrosphinx, and probably anything with 12 wounds or more and put them in a Lords of War type category.

(Seriously, Royal Warsphinx are great. 12+ wounds and take half damage? All for the same "points cost" as a regular tomb prince on foot!)

Then you would need to take anything that hits and wounds on 4's or better and move them into an elite category.

Everything else is probably just fine as core troops tend to balance out.

So like, you might have a format of say..

2/50/25/1

2 Characters, 50 general wounds, 25 elite wounds, and 1 lord of war which can be added to any category.

This I like! Might have to give it a go.

_Tim?

**Yodhrin**

Azazelx wrote:
Yodhrin wrote:

I get that, it just doesn't make any sense to me. They can do the whole "unbound erry day", "enthusiasm" kick in their stores with games that have points and rules that don't make groups of people uncomfortable, I know that for a fact because I used to attend exactly those kinds of events when I was a wee kid. They could have included points, or even just some basic balancing mechanism like having a Warscroll specify the size of the unit, and they could push all the shouty-shouty nonsense as suggested ways to play in their usual gushing WD editorials or the 96-page fluff & extras booklet.

It's hard not to take it personally when it very much appears that their intent was to write the rules in such a way as to say "you're not welcome here" to anyone who doesn't fit their idea of the perfect walking wallet...sorry, "hobbyist", with total and utter disregard for people who're not neurotypical(or even just folk who're a bit shy).

Why not put in that minimal extra effort and sell your game to more people?

Ok, I deal with those who have ASD professionally every day. I'll tell you this with a straight face. Do not take it personally. I understand the self-focused nature of ASD (and the internet), and I can also recognise that you seem to be intellectually able to understand things that you may not be able to on an emotional level. They simply do not care. That's not a personal attack towards you on their part. It's indifference and it's a very different thing. I do not have ASD, but I do have an aversion to acting like a fethwit in public. They also don't care about me. But I understand that it's not personal. GW corporate essentially have no idea that you nor I even exist and would neither blink, celebrate or weep if you or I died tomorrow - it's pretty much a definition of impersonal. As individuals, we're not important. Neither you nor I will play the new game in a store. Assuming that you have friends who you're able to game with, then you're welcome to either act like a fethwit in private, or skip that aspect of the new rules entirely. Alone with the other obvious options of just playing something else. Not every game has to be for all of us, of course - and this is no exception.

Don't hold your ASD as making you anything more or less special here than someone who is left-handed or sight impaired. They don't care and won't make allowances for it. Much like the world at large does not care and will generally make only token allowances for it outside of specialist venues and organisations. That's far from the worst of their indifference of course - When was the last time you saw an official GW paintjob painted as a non-caucasian? How many women and non-whites are there in human armies (IG/AM) of the 40th millennium compared to, say the British Army, US Armed forces or the IDF?

Getting back to AoS, I'd suggest that Tournament and competitive players are a comparatively bigger slice of the money pie, and they're pretty blatantly showing that they don't care about them, either. "Tournament Gamers" are not important enough in the context of their comparatively low-selling fantasy genre for them to care about. "ASD Gamers" are are not important enough in the context of their comparatively low-selling fantasy genre for them to care about. This game is aimed at the walk-ins and the new players, and adheres very strongly to the "churn through young teenagers" demographic that has been their target for nigh on 20 years now - as well as "figure collectors" who don't care about the actual games.

Don't get me wrong. I wish they'd included points as well, and the lack of same means I'll be playing far less than I would otherwise (I'll probably have a go with it since the rules are free - which is very telling in and of itself!). I think it's stupid that they did not include points, but I recognise that they (think) they know their market, and are aiming their game very hard at that market.

Hmm, perhaps I should have gone for distinct sentences, but my intent was actually to distinguish between the "perfect walking wallet" bit(which was in reference to style of play etc) and the "disregard for the non-neurotypical" bit with the comma. I don't believe GW are intentionally attempting to exclude autistic people from their games, just that they're trying to format this game in such a way as to clearly convey their...perhaps disdain is too strong a word, but along those lines, for tournament/casual-competitive types, and in the process through their as you say total indifference have made things more difficult for people like myself or those with other social disorders.

**Talys**

infinite_array wrote:

I did. I suppose I'm wrong in saying that you're defending the game, but then I guess I'm saying you're description is actually inaccurate. There's nothing here apart from the starter scenarios that indicate the game has any story driven components than what players make themselves, but I can do that for any games I play already - heck, I do that regularly on my blog! See the intro story to the All Quiet AAR. And a 'campaign based, story driven miniature game' sounds more akin to PP's RPG, or DnD 4th edition, both of which have more than four pages of rules and allows players to actually create an ongoing story with more detail.

Hey, the mechanics are too simple for me, too, although I would argue that the rules actually include all the other stuff, like warscrolls, etc. By the same metric, people consider 40k codex releases as art o the rules.

I'm sure I read somewhere (perhaps it was only rumor?) that the ongoing revenue plan is to advance a story line (in the form of more scenarios/campaigns).

Incidentally, here is another revenue model theory -- to tap the 40k superfan, making and marketing models they'll buy in addition to their 40k stuff. Vertical markets, and all.

**TheWaspinator**

Sudden Death doesn't really work since your opponent picks what you have to kill. I can just pick my largest and hardest-to-kill unit.

**stompygitz**

I feel like this has two ways of ending:
1) they realize that "they dun goof" and do what they did with 40k 6th and pump out a new version of 8th (8.5?) to make up for it

Or

2). Fantasy becomes as popular as the hobbit....

**wana10**

What about using the old army comp with wounds instead of points?

however many wounds
up to 25% can be heroes/wizard
at least 25% must be core
up to 25% can be elite
up to 25% can be lord of war?

**PuddlePirate**

Can anyone tell me how cannons work now? I've looked all over to find out what that star thing is and simply can't find it.

**infinite_array**

Talys wrote:

Hey, the mechanics are too simple for me, too, although I would argue that the rules actually include all the other stuff, like warscrolls, etc. By the same metric, people consider 40k codex releases as art o the rules.

I'm sure I read somewhere (perhaps it was only rumor?) that the ongoing revenue plan is to advance a story line (in the form of more scenarios/campaigns).

Incidentally, here is another revenue model theory -- to tap the 40k superfan, making and marketing models they'll buy in addition to their 40k stuff. Vertical markets, and all.

I've seen the rules on the warscrolls, and like I said earlier, they seem to be more akin to the activities that the children's librarian would run at the library I worked at - albeit with more facial hair and talking to your miniatures than may be socially comfortable, so who knows?

It was just a rumor about the ongoing storyline, likely fueled by the 'battleplans' included in the starter set. But aren't starter specifics scenarios sort of GW's method of getting people to play with the usually unbalanced included miniatures?

And the last theory makes sense - the new rules do bring down the necessary miniature count by a lot (well, depending on who you're playing) and now 40k players no longer have to look over to the table next to them in the GW store and feel fear and confusion at the sight of square bases. But at the same time, isn't it also likely that any 40k player could easily transition his 40k funds over to AoS purchases? And in that case, isn't GW hurting itself by a sort of auto-cannibalization?

**Thunderfrog**

wana10 wrote:
What about using the old army comp with wounds instead of points?

however many wounds
up to 25% can be heroes/wizard
at least 25% must be core
up to 25% can be elite
up to 25% can be lord of war?

You still run into Chaos Warrior vs Goblin syndrome.

If I have to take 30 goblins, and your only tax is 30 chaos warriors, that really sucks for me.

It's why I think "Core" needs redifined as things that have base hit and wound stats of no better than 4's or maybe 5's, with maybe an exception for ogres.

**Kirasu**

Talys wrote:
Kirasu wrote:
This release has stopped me from buying anything from GW (and I have a completely massive collection). It shows me they have no judgment left and Im not risking buying more products.

Be fair though -- you've been pretty down on GW already, and it's not like you were happy with their releases, AoS or otherwise.

Incorrect, ask Mikhaila. I put in a larger order beginning of the year despite not being happy with GW

**nettraper**

man what a treat! TK book allows you to cast on 5+ spawn 10 models and on 10+ you get 20 instead !!!

**BlaxicanX**

It boggles my mind that people are still trying to figure out a way to adapt this into a tournament/pick-up tier game?

WHY? Why not just play 8th edition fantasy in tournaments and pick-ups? Like it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever why anyone would bother going through the house-rule hell of trying to "balance" a game that is unequivocally built from the ground up to NOT be a serious tactical game. Age of Sigmar is literally in the same genre of games as Trouble, Mouse-Trap and Perfection.

Like, someone explain this phenomenon to me.

**wana10**

PuddlePirate wrote:
Can anyone tell me how cannons work now? I've looked all over to find out what that star thing is and simply can't find it.

the star means it a variable number and relates to the chart immediately below. in the case of cannons how effective they are is linked to how many crew remain alive and nearby.

**Azazelx**

Yodhrin wrote:

Hmm, perhaps I should have gone for distinct sentences, but my intent was actually to distinguish between the "perfect walking wallet" bit(which was in reference to style of play etc) and the "disregard for the non-neurotypical" bit with the comma. I don't believe GW are intentionally attempting to exclude autistic people from their games, just that they're trying to format this game in such a way as to clearly convey their...perhaps disdain is too strong a word, but along those lines, for tournament/casual-competitive types, and in the process through their as you say total indifference have made things more difficult for people like myself or those with other social disorders.

I agree with you - they've been pretty explicit in recent years about their disdain for competitive gaming, and this really is an explicit "FU" to that aspect of the gaming scene. It's like the slow slide that Jervis has made over the last decade, writ so large now that it is the final paragraph of the 4-page rule booklet, written as The Most Important Rule - essentially being "roll a D6".

Seriously, you can't beat that!

**Thunderfrog**

PuddlePirate wrote:
Can anyone tell me how cannons work now? I've looked all over to find out what that star thing is and simply can't find it.

The star simply means that the damage from a cannon is based on the crew remaining.

MISSILE WEAPONS Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend Damage
Cannon Ball 40" ✹ 4+ 2+ -2 D6

Crew Table is right below.

So basically, a cannon with three crew makes 2 shots that hit on 4's, wound on 2's, reduces saves by -2, and does d6 wounds per cannonball.

Crew are also separate from the warmachine, which has 5 wounds. Each have their own stats, and the crew can abandon the cannon now and go do melee things if they want. Engineers let you reroll misses. Cannons still pretty stronk.

**Lockark**

wana10 wrote:
What about using the old army comp with wounds instead of points?

however many wounds
up to 25% can be heroes/wizard
at least 25% must be core
up to 25% can be elite
up to 25% can be lord of war?

in all honesty it's so broken at this point it's not worth fixing.

I've seen home brewed warhammer rules with more thought put into it....

**wana10**

Thunderfrog wrote:
wana10 wrote:
What about using the old army comp with wounds instead of points?

however many wounds
up to 25% can be heroes/wizard
at least 25% must be core
up to 25% can be elite
up to 25% can be lord of war?

You still run into Chaos Warrior vs Goblin syndrome.

If I have to take 30 goblins, and your only tax is 30 chaos warriors, that really sucks for me.

It's why I think "Core" needs redifined as things that have base hit and wound stats of no better than 4's or maybe 5's, with maybe an exception for ogres.

chaos warriors are 2 wounds though. so there would be half as many of them as single wound goblins.

still not perfect to be sure but a starting point at least.

this idea would also rely on a dropping of the sudden death rules. or perhaps switching them to be based on wound total instead of model total. so if you want to go for sudden death that's fine but all of a sudden you're taking a quarter less wounds which would then affect the ratio for everything else

**MadCowCrazy**

It's not all bad though since my paranoid schizophrenia now help me win games! Yay!

Saw this over on 4Chan...

10. Nothing in the Scenery warscrolls compendium describes it in such a way that doesn't make it a legal army. A perfectly legal move would be to plop a warscroll-represented building down, claim the Endure Sudden Death condition, and win by default. If your opponent argues that your building ALONE is not a legal army, take a unit of Tomb Swarms to do the same. If your opponent nominates the Tomb Swarm for Endure, burrow them and never resurface. Guaranteed victory. Normally, this would result in a Major Victory if you have no models on the table, but since the building is explicitly your model, well...

11. By taking Fateweaver and a Screaming Bell, you can instantly win the game Turn 1. Just ring the bell, have Fateweaver set the roll to 13, instant win. There's not even any argument about it. It just happens.

**Da Butcha**

What's reallly, really sad to me (other than blowing up the Old World, of course

) , is that Age of Sigmar has a lot of ideas which would have been really good in Warhammer Fantasy Battles:

Liberal use of multiple wounds to more units to represent durability.

Monsters with variable statblocks based on wound levels.

Command units with benefits that varied by army, or even by unit, rather than a single rule for all champions, musicians, and standardbearers.

Creative rules writing for war machines (I really like the Doom Diver redirection ability, and the 'You're next, tubby!' rule).

Relocating special rules to the models, rather than the 'Universal Special Rules', which allows the introduction of new rules for new units.

Rules for weapon reach, which give 'fighting in rank' like benefits, but also allow disordered troops with reach weapons (like, say, whips) to participate.

Free rules! Accepting the idea that you don't charge for information, but for production. If you want to buy the lovely, full-cover, bound rules, you can, but you can also download 'em at home!

Accepting the necessity of rebalancing an edition at one go. Not that this game is balanced, but all of the rules for all of the armies are out there right now.

So many of those things are either fresh ideas, or, at least, new to GW. They put in the work to make an entirely new edition and sat down and wrote all of it out for every army, then gave it to us for free!

And then, of course, gave us this. Where the humans that fled to Sigmar's refuge (which was never mentioned before) have lived there for thousands of years, but haven't changed their technology, or their fashions, and still are obsessed about their former world, but, y'now, not so obsessed that they wouldn't fight with orruks against skaven, even though they're still calling skaven skaven after thousands of years, but have changed the name for Orcs. Where there's no game distinction, whatsover, between placing down 3 ogres, or 30 ogres, or 3 Orruk Warbosses or 3 Bloodthirsters. Where you have to measure the tips of the weapons to fight, so the poor knight with his lance raised can't fight as well as the guy with it lowered. Where they want you to buy, assemble, and paint expensive models, then let someone wedge their models onto the base to get into 'fighting range'.

They were brave enough to rethink the whole game, and diligent enough to rewrite the whole thing, but dumb enough to put out this thing. What a colossal waste.

**Nick Ellingworth**

*head desk*

Really GW really?

They came so close to making what actually looks like a quite fun if rather simplistic fantasy skirmish game but in typical GW fashion buggered it up.

Looking at some of the fundamentals of the game it actually has a lot of potential. The turn structure is interesting and should help prevent the old falling asleep whilst your opponent moves everything that used to plague some larger games (ever seen a MSU O&G or Skaven army?). Though I can't for the life of me work out the Battleshock system. Where is the bravery stat the rules mention? EDIT: Disregard this, my pdf reader was playing silly buggers.

The new stat line is in my opinion a wonderful thing. Though I should state that since I've read the KoW rules (1st ed still waiting for the 2nd ed kickstarter stuff obviously) and played quite a bit of Bolt Action I've become a big fan of simple stat lines.

But the lack of army balancing is worrying. Even for a game that is meant to be simply throwing some models on a table and rolling some dice balance of some description is needed. I guess GW are leaving this up to the players but that will just lead to WAAC types turning up with whatever the unit limit is of whatever the most overpowered unit in the game is. I don't care about having a points system but ensuring that armies aren't hideously unbalanced should be a massive part of the game. Even if it's just something like 0-1 support choice (cavalry, elite infantry, monsters, heroes etc) for every 2 core choices (basic infantry or in the case of brets KOTR) that would be better than nothing.

Then there's the sudden death rules. Stupid and pointless, I will be ignoring them. If they really want to keep it simple just set a turn limit and use a victory point system.

However in spite of my gripes about how the game ends and the complete lack of balance I will atleast give the new rules a go. There's enough potential that it's worth playing and seeing what works and what needs changing.

**AlexHolker**

RoninXiC wrote:
Wow.. I already said that I believe this to be the worst rules in the history of Tabletop.

And Im 100% certain that there will never be again a worse system... ever.

Still better than <The RPG That Shall Not Be Named>.

I think this looks like crap. There is some appeal there as something to be read - a parody of a tabletop game rulebook - but it strikes me less as a real game that real people would play than social media bait.

**RedFox**

So have you guys found any balance within the game or did GW really omitted this crucial part of the rules ?

**Kilkrazy**

I like the rule that let's you make up your own special rules. Here's one I've invented.

When a human infantry unit has taken casualties, during the Battleshock phase, the owning player may shout in a panicky voice, "Run away! Run away!" and in a different panicky voice, "Other left! Other left!" when rolling for models lost to Battleshock. The lost models are then added back to the unit, as confused troops run towards the action instead of away from it.

**PIUS_2**

Xyxox wrote:
Ejay wrote:
Xyxox wrote:
GOOD GOD! $250 in the US!

GW has shot themselves in the foot on this one. They are toast.

looks like someone is using the Australian version of the GW website again

D'oh!

http://dragonsdengaming.com/?p=2568

It's 125$ retail in the US.

Spoiler:

**Pariah-Miniatures**

While logic isn't a thing with gw, I'm failing to understand why they include update rules for special characters that shouldn't exist in any way considering the events that transpired before age of sigmar. This was their chance to wipe the slate clean of characters that don't have a plastic new model and come up with new ones. If forge the narrative is a thing for playing with rules you must act out or vocalize sounds, the. Forging the narrative of not playing with characters that are beyond the realm of the dead

**jaceimba**

MadCowCrazy wrote:
It's not all bad though since my paranoid schizophrenia now help me win games! Yay!

Saw this over on 4Chan...

10. Nothing in the Scenery warscrolls compendium describes it in such a way that doesn't make it a legal army. A perfectly legal move would be to plop a warscroll-represented building down, claim the Endure Sudden Death condition, and win by default. If your opponent argues that your building ALONE is not a legal army, take a unit of Tomb Swarms to do the same. If your opponent nominates the Tomb Swarm for Endure, burrow them and never resurface. Guaranteed victory. Normally, this would result in a Major Victory if you have no models on the table, but since the building is explicitly your model, well...

11. By taking Fateweaver and a Screaming Bell, you can instantly win the game Turn 1. Just ring the bell, have Fateweaver set the roll to 13, instant win. There's not even any argument about it. It just happens.

Again, fateweaver combo is not possible, cause you choose a single dice roll , 13 is not possible with 2d6. It's saying I would choose 100 for my d3 mortal wound roll.

**Talys**

infinite_array wrote:
And the last theory makes sense - the new rules do bring down the necessary miniature count by a lot (well, depending on who you're playing) and now 40k players no longer have to look over to the table next to them in the GW store and feel fear and confusion at the sight of square bases. But at the same time, isn't it also likely that any 40k player could easily transition his 40k funds over to AoS purchases? And in that case, isn't GW hurting itself by a sort of auto-cannibalization?

Speaking as a 40k superfan, who knows many like-minded 40k superfans -- that extra $125 is just going to be on top of a 40k spend, in the same way that buying WMH or Infinity models, or multiple boxes of Space Hulk had any impact on the core 40k models that I want to build armies with. The only way it would decrease the 40k spend is if it were actually a better game (a likelihood of zero, I think), or if you could use the models in 40k.

Essentially, I'm just buying it for the models because I think they're cool, and I might play a couple of games for laughs or, if the game is actually fun, because we finished 40k early or if two of us are both waiting for different gaming partners for the night to arrive.

Not very flattering for AoS or Fantasy, I'll be the first to admit, but it occurred to me that it's a great strategy for GW to get a few bucks out of me without much work. Of course, the Sigmarites having the Space Marine aesthetic (or at least the "heroic paladin aesthetic") helps that immensely.