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Any battle game will just end up as a slugfest in the middle if players expect it to play out that way and don't bother trying, regardless of how deep the rules actually are.

Not claiming AoS is deep, just saying that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Mymearan wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

Spoiler:

xaszatm wrote:
I guess I'm the opposite. I look at the game and tried it and was just not having fun. It's a shame because I really like the new models but nothing in the game is actually interesting for me to play. It certainly doesn't help that every game I played and saw was reduced to all models bunched up at the middle with more coming from the sides creating this giant ball of violence. I'm happy for people who do enjoy this game but this definitely wasn't fun for me.

Oh, and before people say "you just need to try another game", I tried 3 and watched like 5. There's a limit here.

This!
Thank for your input, that was something I observed too and was thinking about it.
The battle reps that I have seen on youtube had exactly the same problem... all ends in a mass of miniatures in the middle of the table, no movement tactics and this does not scale well at all... more minis = bigger mosh pit... Horribly boring.
I will keep on looking at reviews hopefully the more experienced people get they will find some kind of variety on the final outcome.
Warmachines has anyone played with them?

Mikhaila wrote a post saying movement and tactics mattered a lot, and he had no mosh pits.

Not sure what people like in signarines, technicaly very good but characterles and odd, I'd say warcraftish space marines.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Someone compared this to 'The Producers' earlier in the thread. Given what I've just sat through and read in the 'scrolls' for existing armies, that previously sarcastic comparison seems entirely legitimate. It's like they set this entire thing up to fail.

'Dance on one leg', 'tell yourself you're worth it into a mirror', 'shout abuse at your unsuspecting opponent', 'wrestle naked with your opponent like Oliver Reed and that other bloke in Women in Love', because deep down, we hate all of you and think you're all idiots, now dance monkeys, dance... It's Grade A insulting to those of us who have spent our money with the company and loved their work for a long time. It's like some extremely costly and elaborate practical joke, I keep waiting for GW to announce 'fooled ya' and bring us a tight ruleset 9th edition, but I know it's not to be.

This game is drivel. I really tried to stay optimistic, I really tried to wrap my head around 'no points costs' and 'warscrolls', then I read all those 'amusing rules' and saw what was actually going down, it's the emperor's new clothes, it's junk, it's a middle finger waved at us and simultaneously asking us to pay for the privilege to do so.

I'm off. See ya Warhammer, it's been 30 amazing years, I loved all but the last one. I'll never forget pints passed last orders at The Pelican with Lady Dieudonné, or chasing fimir through the hinterlands with a poet and a trollslayer, or any of the hundreds of other memories. It was great, thank you.

Now, Mr Ronnie Renton, if you've not already passed out on champagne and cigars, come on down, I have some money I'd like to put your way...

Yes, I find the silly rules funny to read (though idiotic to actualy perform, ride the imaginary horse lol) but the fact that sigmarines dont have any makes the whole thing a mockery of old playerbase. Not making a clown of myself for GWs fun for sure.

In short, first time I ever say or write this - very nice and thank you GW, now crash and burn.

From my experience if the game turns into a sludgefest you have too many models. Our first game was a right clusterfudge in the centre we gave up at the end of turn 3.

We played 50-80 models a side on a 2ft x 4ft board (2 realm of battle squares)

The second game we played 30-40 models a side on a 4ft x 4ft and this was perfect. Really fun game!

overtyrant wrote:

Mymearan wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

Spoiler:

xaszatm wrote:
I guess I'm the opposite. I look at the game and tried it and was just not having fun. It's a shame because I really like the new models but nothing in the game is actually interesting for me to play. It certainly doesn't help that every game I played and saw was reduced to all models bunched up at the middle with more coming from the sides creating this giant ball of violence. I'm happy for people who do enjoy this game but this definitely wasn't fun for me.

Oh, and before people say "you just need to try another game", I tried 3 and watched like 5. There's a limit here.

This!
Thank for your input, that was something I observed too and was thinking about it.
The battle reps that I have seen on youtube had exactly the same problem... all ends in a mass of miniatures in the middle of the table, no movement tactics and this does not scale well at all... more minis = bigger mosh pit... Horribly boring.
I will keep on looking at reviews hopefully the more experienced people get they will find some kind of variety on the final outcome.
Warmachines has anyone played with them?

Mikhaila wrote a post saying movement and tactics mattered a lot, and he had no mosh pits.

But he has also been house ruling stuff as well has he not? So that could make a difference.

IIRC all he's been house-ruling is measuring from base to base, ignoring Sudden Death and ignoring "no part of the model may move further than the model's move value" rule (since he's measuring from the base in all circumstances, all this does is allow to to pivot models and doesn't give an advantage)

EDIT: Quotes screwing up for some reason...

On the models: So both leaders have skull faces right? I guess you can tell the heavily armored skull faced guys apart by the number of spikes? Just make sure to paint the good one blue and the bad one red, I guess....

Ionus Cryptborn (a hint there) is the battle standard for the Stormcast Eternals, so he is more of a second in command rather than the leader. He has been "plucked from the grave by the power of Sigmar".

 Bottle wrote:
From my experience if the game turns into a sludgefest you have too many models. Our first game was a right clusterfudge in the centre we gave up at the end of turn 3.

We played 50-80 models a side on a 2ft x 4ft board (2 realm of battle squares)

The second game we played 30-40 models a side on a 4ft x 4ft and this was perfect. Really fun game!

I watched another battle rep just now, with low model count and I think you are right mate this game is not something to be played above 50 models.

The low model game looked a lot smoother and more enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, Yakface and Legoburner were getting stick for trying to make the rules of Maelstrom's edge as balanced and as tactically challenging as possible.

A few weeks later, GW dump this ruleset on people, and for some people, its sunshine and rainbows.

It's a funny old world.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
From my experience if the game turns into a sludgefest you have too many models. Our first game was a right clusterfudge in the centre we gave up at the end of turn 3.

We played 50-80 models a side on a 2ft x 4ft board (2 realm of battle squares)

The second game we played 30-40 models a side on a 4ft x 4ft and this was perfect. Really fun game!

I watched another battle rep just now, with low model count and I think you are right mate this game is not something to be played above 50 models.

The low model game looked a lot smoother and more enjoyable.

I'm even thinking of going lower for my next game. Would be interesting to see if 20 models a side plays well too.

What's great about this is every boxset force, every battalion, is now more miniatures than you will ever need. Just add a handful of characters and the army is complete. Collecting multiple small armies is going to be really viable now.

Also allows for further theming of armies. My opponent was a Night Goblin player, he was thinking about fielding a Night Goblin Squig herder army as a sub-theme.

The options for themed armies really make AoS incredibly appealing to my eyes. I think total unbound works amazingly at under 50 models.

Wait, do we have stats for the Khorne guys in the box yet? That seems to be the one thing still missing.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A few weeks ago, Yakface and Legoburner were getting stick for trying to make the rules of Maelstrom's edge as balanced and as tactically challenging as possible.

A few weeks later, GW dump this ruleset on people, and for some people, its sunshine and rainbows.

It's a funny old world.

Now the world don't move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you may not be right for sommmmmmmme~

overtyrant wrote:

Mymearan wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

Spoiler:

xaszatm wrote:
I guess I'm the opposite. I look at the game and tried it and was just not having fun. It's a shame because I really like the new models but nothing in the game is actually interesting for me to play. It certainly doesn't help that every game I played and saw was reduced to all models bunched up at the middle with more coming from the sides creating this giant ball of violence. I'm happy for people who do enjoy this game but this definitely wasn't fun for me.

Oh, and before people say "you just need to try another game", I tried 3 and watched like 5. There's a limit here.

This!
Thank for your input, that was something I observed too and was thinking about it.
The battle reps that I have seen on youtube had exactly the same problem... all ends in a mass of miniatures in the middle of the table, no movement tactics and this does not scale well at all... more minis = bigger mosh pit... Horribly boring.
I will keep on looking at reviews hopefully the more experienced people get they will find some kind of variety on the final outcome.
Warmachines has anyone played with them?

Mikhaila wrote a post saying movement and tactics mattered a lot, and he had no mosh pits.

Going to try out the game tomorrow. Looking forward to using the Minotaur detachment!

I just can't get in to AoS enough to bother playing a game. What I've read so far I don't like and frankly I have no interest in another game of loose formations, especially one with no balance and rules that need significant modifications to work.

 Bottle wrote:
From my experience if the game turns into a sludgefest you have too many models. Our first game was a right clusterfudge in the centre we gave up at the end of turn 3.

We played 50-80 models a side on a 2ft x 4ft board (2 realm of battle squares)

The second game we played 30-40 models a side on a 4ft x 4ft and this was perfect. Really fun game!

Agreed. We've been playing on a 4x6. We'd have really been stuck into a big scrum in the center on smaller.

You have a lot more movement in AOS. Turn 2 seems to always end in a melee or two somewhere. You need the room to maneuver.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A few weeks ago, Yakface and Legoburner were getting stick for trying to make the rules of Maelstrom's edge as balanced and as tactically challenging as possible.
A few weeks later, GW dump this ruleset on people, and for some people, its sunshine and rainbows.
It's a funny old world.

Que?
Personally I cannot find much of "sunshine and rainbows" within this 200+ thread (or the similar one at Warseer) dominated by "tar-and-feathers" posts.

 mikhaila wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
From my experience if the game turns into a sludgefest you have too many models. Our first game was a right clusterfudge in the centre we gave up at the end of turn 3.

We played 50-80 models a side on a 2ft x 4ft board (2 realm of battle squares)

The second game we played 30-40 models a side on a 4ft x 4ft and this was perfect. Really fun game!

Agreed. We've been playing on a 4x6. We'd have really been stuck into a big scrum in the center on smaller.

You have a lot more movement in AOS. Turn 2 seems to always end in a melee or two somewhere. You need the room to maneuver.

Agreed! And I am glad you're having fun. How many models is your 80 wounds? I also found lots of terrain makes the game more fun. I would like to play with Mordhiem amounts of terrain if I can.

 kendoka wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A few weeks ago, Yakface and Legoburner were getting stick for trying to make the rules of Maelstrom's edge as balanced and as tactically challenging as possible.
A few weeks later, GW dump this ruleset on people, and for some people, its sunshine and rainbows.
It's a funny old world.

Que?
Personally I cannot find much of "sunshine and rainbows" within this 200+ thread (or the similar one at Warseer) dominated by "tar-and-feathers" posts.

Different games. Different outlooks on games.

Warmachine isn't balanced. Everything is "broken" by warhammer standards. Everything is a special little snowflake with superpowers. And yet the game works, is playable, has tournaments, tiered lists, balanced play. Just different. I think AOS has some of that. Lots of units have new little abilities. I can't keep them straight, keep forgetting them all Everything unbalanced makes balance? Dunno. Doesn't compute for me mathematically, and I'm a math person.

Flames of War isn't balanced. The best scenarios build in unbalance to mimic one side advancing, or moving towards objectives, the other defending. Germans have better tanks, the US has much cheaper but more plentiful infantry. Russians have crap but so cheap it doesn't matter. But the game is balanced.

Play enough games, it's easier to find the balance maybe.

 insaniak wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

If you set down one of your friends who NEVER heard of warhammer or anything else. How long would it take you to explain every rule in the book to them, then all the rules for their army. Then try and get them to play a game with you and know the rules with out book searching for hours.

Now with that same idea how long would it take you to tell your friend these rules and their army rules?.

I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here.

Yes , complicated things take longer to learn than simple things.

I can teach a friend to play checkers in a much shorter time than I can teach them to play Risk. Which means absolutely nothing if Risk is what we want to play .

If I'm not mistaken you don't even need to be able to read that well in order to play Candy Land, you can just take it out of the box and start playing immediately without having to spend ages in comparison pouring over 4 pages of rules and all your warscrolls.

Therefore, Candy Land = best game ever because you don't need to tell your friends anything in order to start playing, they can very easily figure it out themselves.

So it sounds like Age of Sigmar is basically the rich-man's Candy Land, made for people who somehow have enough time to build and paint models but can't be arsed to read, and thus need a game that basically just requires you to roll dice and know what the numbers mean.

Mymearan wrote:
Mikhaila wrote a post saying movement and tactics mattered a lot, and he had no mosh pits.

It's worth noting that mikhaila was also allegedly stuck with 80 copies of the game and a $5500 investment, and was originally very upset when talking to his GW rep about the game. I don't mean any offense to mikhaila, but I'm not sure if I'd trust any endorsement of the game at this point and I feel the initial reaction to AoS was far more telling. It just feels more like a business decision than anything else, like it was easier to look on the "bright side" and do your best to sell this thing to people than to tell GW it was a farce you want no part of, and put more strain on a relationship with a company that the company itself makes very hard to maintain, despite your best efforts. And even if mikhaila genuinely has changed his mind, he's already conceded that he's had to make changes to the game for organized play in his store, and basically admitted that the game doesn't work as written and needs measurement from the base and a balancing mechanism of some kind (and apparently, a play area much larger than most skirmish games in order to get anything resembling strategic play and not just a mess of models in melee in the center of the board). Apologies if I do offend or if I'm making wild assumptions that aren't true, but I can't help but see it that way.

I mean it makes sense, if I owned two stores and my life and livelihood depended on selling games I'd be doing my best to make this work, too. I'd have to. So I'm not trying to fault you for doing the best with what you were given, I'm just saying it doesn't make a better case for AoS to me.

My mighty chaos warband. Most of it was painted for Dakkacon. Models chosen because I wanted to paint some old metal.

Beastman Shaman, Malagor the Dark Omen. (Ogre Shaman from about 30 years ago)

17 Bestigors (original metal beastmen)

Dragon Ogre Shagoth (The huge dragon ogre from back in 3rd edition)

Gorebeast chariot (pulled by two original beasts of nurgle)

3 spawn (FW nurgle toads)

5 Khorne Bloodcrushers. (my massively converted nurgle warriors on mutated mournfangs, using khorne rules until Plaugerider rules from FW go up)

So a whopping 28 models. Cooper had Daelfs. Two units of 10 executioners, a medusa, a giant, 5 cold one riders, 20 crossbowmen, dreadlord, a hero, a sorceress, 5 witch elves. 55 models.

 kendoka wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A few weeks ago, Yakface and Legoburner were getting stick for trying to make the rules of Maelstrom's edge as balanced and as tactically challenging as possible.
A few weeks later, GW dump this ruleset on people, and for some people, its sunshine and rainbows.
It's a funny old world.

Que?
Personally I cannot find much of "sunshine and rainbows" within this 200+ thread (or the similar one at Warseer) dominated by "tar-and-feathers" posts.

I think the reaction in this thread has been very mixed, some yay, some nay and a good few shrugged shoulders too. Warseer does seem a bit more negative, but that seems like a smaller cross section of the community compared to dakka (I have no idea of figures of members, that is just the way it seems to me).

Going on social media and the like the reaction has been equally mixed. The issue is will the veterans that leave WHFB / GW as they are abhorred by AOS be replaced by new players? And then will those players stick around for the long term? We really have no idea.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

If you set down one of your friends who NEVER heard of warhammer or anything else. How long would it take you to explain every rule in the book to them, then all the rules for their army. Then try and get them to play a game with you and know the rules with out book searching for hours.

Now with that same idea how long would it take you to tell your friend these rules and their army rules?.

I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here.

Yes , complicated things take longer to learn than simple things.

I can teach a friend to play checkers in a much shorter time than I can teach them to play Risk. Which means absolutely nothing if Risk is what we want to play .

If I'm not mistaken you don't even need to be able to read that well in order to play Candy Land, you can just take it out of the box and start playing immediately without having to spend ages in comparison pouring over 4 pages of rules and all your warscrolls.

Therefore, Candy Land = best game ever because you don't need to tell your friends anything in order to start playing, they can very easily figure it out themselves.

So it sounds like Age of Sigmar is basically the rich-man's Candy Land, made for people who somehow have enough time to build and paint models but can't be arsed to read, and thus need a game that basically just requires you to roll dice and know what the numbers mean.

Mymearan wrote:
Mikhaila wrote a post saying movement and tactics mattered a lot, and he had no mosh pits.

It's worth noting that mikhaila was also allegedly stuck with 80 copies of the game and a $5500 investment, and was originally very upset when talking to his GW rep about the game. I don't mean any offense to mikhaila, but I'm not sure if I'd trust any endorsement of the game at this point and I feel the initial reaction to AoS was far more telling. It just feels more like a business decision than anything else, like it was easier to look on the "bright side" and do your best to sell this thing to people than to tell GW it was a farce you want no part of, and put more strain on a relationship with a company that the company itself makes very hard to maintain, despite your best efforts. And even if mikhaila genuinely has changed his mind, he's already conceded that he's had to make changes to the game for organized play in his store, and basically admitted that the game doesn't work as written and needs measurement from the base and a balancing mechanism of some kind (and apparently, a play area much larger than most skirmish games in order to get anything resembling strategic play and not just a mess of models in melee in the center of the board). Apologies if I do offend or if I'm making wild assumptions that aren't true, but I can't help but see it that way.

I mean it makes sense, if I owned two stores and my life and livelihood depended on selling games I'd be doing my best to make this work, too. I'd have to. So I'm not trying to fault you for doing the best with what you were given, I'm just saying it doesn't make a better case for AoS to me.

Me making AoS work really has nothing to do with the store. I could cancel that order of 80. And have Joe Neet from Mantic coming up to talk somw KOW and I'm going to run tournaments. WFB has been dead and stinking, so I'm not losing much at this point, and run a huge number of other games all nights of the week. I don't need it to work. Not the way GW does, that's for sure. But it would be nice to have it work.

I'm making AoS work because I want to a game with my warhammer models and always wanted to have a skirmish fantasy game. I hated AOS with a passion, just looking at the 4 page rules. I hated the laziness of GW, and the direction. Hate no points. I'll hold this grudge forever and my anger will errupt to fly my GW sales rep at random times. All that anger is very much alive. But having 439 pages of Warscrolls gave me the other 99% of the game. So we tried it, and i had fun. The grudge slipped a bit. I read all the rules again, read more scrolls, figured stuff out. Played more games.

I like the game now because I've played it, and in playing it I liked it. Simple as that. And I know i get a league gong and tournaments and have some fun with it. If it was a turd I couldn't polish, I woudn;t bother. What I think we have instead of a turd is a really good game that GW crapped all over by not putting in a points system. I'll have that fixed enough for a tournament next Sunday and we'll get some more testing in with a couple dozen people.

Trust me, I'm pretty blunt. I really hate the GW store experience. I don't push games i don't like. At best I'll shut up if you want to buy a game I hate and not badmouth it and take your money And dakka isn't the store. I'm less inclined to push GW here, for sure.

About the only house rule we use right now is measuring from the base. Just easier and we are used to it. And probably wouldn't affect much. We just aren't tossing anythng at all on the table. Making an attempt at parity. I'm surprised the games have been so close so far. Curious to see how it works when we up the anti to Glotkin, Nagash, and Malekith in a couple of days.

Also *everywhere* I look is reporting White Dwarf sell outs. I assume this will easily be the best selling issue of White Dwarf since the format change. Not a surprise given it has the first free mini on the cover for aeons. It probably means little in terms of profit for GW, but the interest in the new game would appear to be there.

Please dont even mention the "balance" of AoS in the same sentence as the balane in Warmahorde. They are not even remotely close.

One thing to consider:

Playing a new game for the first time will not give you a 100% feedback on the balance. You are just trying things out, you don't know the rules, the nuances etc.

After a couple of games... you'll realize how easy it is to break a game. Willingly or not.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A few weeks ago, Yakface and Legoburner were getting stick for trying to make the rules of Maelstrom's edge as balanced and as tactically challenging as possible.

A few weeks later, GW dump this ruleset on people, and for some people, its sunshine and rainbows.

It's a funny old world.

Turns out, not everyone wanted balanced and as tactically challenging I guess.

Nice, I would love to hear the rules you put forth for your tournament and how it goes. My concern around list building is slowly slipping away, if it becomes an issue i can see limiting heroes/monsters and then using wound count being pretty decent way of doing things. At the very least i forsee some basic guides popping up online.

Wow, I haven't posted here in a long time! My posts count was even reset back to 0!

Here are upcoming Stormcast Eternals that where presented in the Age of Sigmar trailer, some more subtly than others.



Now I want to make a Stomcast Eternals army!

 wonthegame wrote:
Wow, I haven't posted in a long time!

Here are upcoming Stormcast Eternals that where presented in the Age of Sigmar trailer, some more subtly than others.

Wow those are awesome, i love the griffon and that hero guys is pretty good. Still dont like the gold paint jobs but no one is saying i have to use that anyway.

The ones painted blue at the bottom look cool.