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Who else is considering trying to take the big gribbly monster thingy and at least trying to convert it into something cool? For "Fantasy" AoS, or 40K? I'm on the fence, frankly. I feel kinda like I did about the Slaughterbrute. But that was way too expensive to buy for conversion purposes. But since I'm loving the Khorne infantry models, I'm gonna get at least one of these in the mix. Maybe a nasty counts-as greater daemon? A chunky Daemon Prince?

And a little side comment:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That's nice dear...

You do realise this is an internet discussion forum and not a pub where you are trying to start a drunken brawl? Maybe try and be less condescending, eh?

Well, do you realize that this is H.B.M.C. - his default rhetorical mode is snarky (and often totally unnecessary, downright quixotic) condescension? I think it's a psychological tic. I think he's physiologically incapable of turning it off.

-C6

 Talys wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Said it before, saying it again:
GW could go up and down the street giving people free puppies and still there would be people shouting that "GW tried to kill me--I'm allergic to dogs!".

Quite frankly, GW can't do anything without "losing good will with a good portion of the customer base" if you listen to posters on forums.

Most of the people who don't have nice things to say about GW weren't buying GW product anyhow. Like, "I'm going to sell off all my models on Ebay and I'm never going to buy GW again!" Dude, you said you'd never buy GW stuff a year ago.

Well my purchases were never higher than last few months, I'd say $200 a month and it's kind of scary to think about what would happen if GW provided a good ruleset and I'd smell some real money the same time. Now I will probably buy only the things I need to finish and then actively try to avoid GW models. I love them, my hands tremble when I open the box but I'm not supporting all the crap. I already stopped buying codieces because of deviantartey artwork so I guess I will stop with minis as well, or at least considerably limit my spending.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
You do realise this is an internet discussion forum and not a pub where you are trying to start a drunken brawl? Maybe try and be less condescending, eh?

What, and ruin all my fun?

 catharsix wrote:
Who else is considering trying to take the big gribbly monster thingy and at least trying to convert it into something cool? For "Fantasy" AoS, or 40K? I'm on the fence, frankly. I feel kinda like I did about the Slaughterbrute. But that was way too expensive to buy for conversion purposes. But since I'm loving the Khorne infantry models, I'm gonna get at least one of these in the mix. Maybe a nasty counts-as greater daemon? A chunky Daemon Prince?

I want it to be just some random Khornate thing in Dark Heresy/Deathwatch.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
... although that's what the Horus Heresy game will end up being, should it ever come out.

I'm really looking forward to buying this.

Played a demo yesterday, quite a good fun skirmish game with free PDF rules and army list downloads.

Completely ruined by the lack of points values and silly rules though.

GW - "Almost".

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
I like that no one else pointed out "serious game" and the lack of points values, serious scenario play, no standardization of bases, and measuring from models (including weapons) without an extremely restrictive modeling requirements.

This game will never be taken seriously in a competitive fashion and is flushing the good will of whatever remained in the Fantasy base. They're going all-in on a game losing strategy, IMO. Time will tell, but I'd not invest heavily in it unless you're planning 40k conversions... and even then...

You're aware that GW never really wanted serious competitive play, right? That they know they win far harder without competitive players in the mix.

Never?

Never.

Show me a GW-organized tournament for which the "champion" was determined solely by competitive Win-Loss record and margin of victory. Go on, take as long as you like.

GW only ever wanted people to buy more stuff.

The notion of GW actually wanting competitive play? That's a fiction that you've created of of thin air.

It must have been the thin air from around Rick Priestley's mouth when he confirmed that both 40k and fantasy had tourney oriented rulesets.

Or maybe Allesio writes narrative rules lol.

It's actualy your notion that is created out of thin air, coming from your flawed analysis based on your own limited knowledge and influenced by a significant wishful thinking.

Interesting to see that many of those who have actually tried the game seem to like it, or are at least positively surprised. Maybe a company with 20+ years of experience in the field are not totally lost? Maybe it has been quite extensively tested? And while I'm not totally sold on the fluff at least they're trying to do something new to a very conservative genre.

I'm not trying to take sides here. Watching somewhat from the sidelines I find the development interesting.

But I must admit I have a strong temptation to sell off my 40k models, codices and rules and give this a shot...

 catharsix wrote:
Who else is considering trying to take the big gribbly monster thingy and at least trying to convert it into something cool? For "Fantasy" AoS, or 40K?

*raises hand* I have already converted 2 Keepers of Secrets as my Giants of Albion. And two OOP VC Nightmares that I play as Ogres

I own a 3rd KOS, along with a Belakor and Champ on boobworm, for reasons completely forgotten. I think the Boobworm was supposed to convert into a counts as Dark Pegasus, but I have no clue about the Belakor.

Plus a couple Nightmares in the bitz pile as well, to convert into another Ogres & Ogre Maneater. My abandoned DoW was getting kinda nuts.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Played a demo yesterday, quite a good fun skirmish game with free PDF rules and army list downloads.

Completely ruined by the lack of points values and silly rules though.

As you are very much a game/rules based player SS what elements did you think worked and which ones didn't (except the lack of balance obviously).

Are quotes knackered or something? No idea what has happened here.

The game is broken out of the gate. Several instant win combos have already been found. Just take a single Tomb King Carrion, choose the sudden death that lets you win if you survive six turns, and simply fly around the field immune to enemy attentions.

That sounds like fun!

You know what else sounds like fun? Showing up for a pickup game with a handful of units as a new player and getting beaten in the face by crazy summoning spells and special characters/combos galore. You have 50 skaven slaves? Cool! I have 52 Blood Knights that are by this game considered their equal.

The rules have promise, but I am disappointed in the execution. It is a half-cocked product that makes pickup games impossible and that needs to be fixed by the player-base out of the gate. I was really excited about it for a while, but that enthusiasm has been killed in the hardest way possible. GW even put some rules into the game that actively mock their player-base. Really? I have no idea what they were even aiming for at this point. Any other new game that tried this would be laughed out of the market. This deserves no better.

 pinkmarine wrote:
Interesting to see that many of those who have actually tried the game seem to like it, or are at least positively surprised. Maybe a company with 20+ years of experience in the field are not totally lost? Maybe it has been quite extensively tested? And while I'm not totally sold on the fluff at least they're trying to do something new to a very conservative genre.

I'm not trying to take sides here. Watching somewhat from the sidelines I find the development interesting.

But I must admit I have a strong temptation to sell off my 40k models, codices and rules and give this a shot...

Make no mistake, GW is taking a big gamble here, and I am pretty convinced they realize this. For the first time since... well... forever, they've -really- detached themselves from their usual modus operandi. if it works - great for them! If it fails... I imagine we'll see the growth of the tail-spin they seem to have been in the past few years.

So far, AoS seems like it has potential, but it's like they put in things to deliberately sabotage it. No army building rules? Ugh. Out-of-control summoning rules? Ugh.

It really strikes me from time to time, the thought that it is all really stupid.

Moments like this I think, what would a not brain dead company do? A not completly brain dead and blind company would want to have a proper, mass battle, unit based wargame set in the old world released at the time Warhammer Total War is out. The wargame would have to be rebooted anyway because the latest, narrative relaxed casual fun edition was a flop and could turn out to be too clunky and hard to get into for the majority of pc gamers. Why not release a skirmish simpleton in the meantime for a significant cash grab, test the waters in how far they can go with streamlining, draw in new blood like more kids, warcraft crowd etc and maybe make the angry vets sell their stuff, they will come back crawling for a whfb reboot anyway. And the reboot would come with a bang, they'd either pretend that they listened to the community or just go lolol we said no 9th edition but this is not 9th just whfb trololol.

Far fetched maybe and not my hopes or sth, I just really find it hard to believe that a company can be that brain dead and can have such a bad timing.

 Mort wrote:

 pinkmarine wrote:
Interesting to see that many of those who have actually tried the game seem to like it, or are at least positively surprised. Maybe a company with 20+ years of experience in the field are not totally lost? Maybe it has been quite extensively tested? And while I'm not totally sold on the fluff at least they're trying to do something new to a very conservative genre.

I'm not trying to take sides here. Watching somewhat from the sidelines I find the development interesting.

But I must admit I have a strong temptation to sell off my 40k models, codices and rules and give this a shot...

Make no mistake, GW is taking a big gamble here, and I am pretty convinced they realize this. For the first time since... well... forever, they've -really- detached themselves from their usual modus operandi. if it works - great for them! If it fails... I imagine we'll see the growth of the tail-spin they seem to have been in the past few years.

So far, AoS seems like it has potential, but it's like they put in things to deliberately sabotage it. No army building rules? Ugh. Out-of-control summoning rules? Ugh.

Thing is, I don't think they're that stupid. Greedy? Yes. (Corporations are – think Gordon Gekko ) Prepared to kill off lots of fluff and lose a not-very-profitable player base? Yes. Deliberately stupid? No. But as you say, prepared to take a big risk. I think they're quite gutsy in this.

As I suggested several pages ago (and rumors & leaks point in that direction), scenarios will provide balance for new players. Someone above passed on a rumor that we'll see a campaign supplement with a balancing system. That'll probably be directed towards experienced and more competitive players. Of course they'll not provide this for all the old models. The point of their business is to sell new models, they don't make money from armies already bought.

 Manchu wrote:
I'm really looking forward to buying this.

Oh yeah. I just can't wait to yell "For the Warmaster!" to get a re-roll to hit with my Palatine Blades.

But just think, if you punch your opponent in the face and yell "Blood For the Blood God!", Angron will be able to re-roll failed To-Wound rolls

I was having a think about how AoS could work in a competitive setting and, inspired by the rumour of 'hundreds of scenarios' I think I've got an idea of where it could go.

I think the key is going to be not trying to recreate the feel of old FB by choosing an army and fighting 3 pitched battles but rather embracing the unbound style, warscrolls and keywords in a way that encourages a lot of experimentation with armies. I'll outline it here but if anyone has a thread somewhere else I'll happy elaborate there.

My suggestion would be to treat the army building like a deck building game, you start with a soft limit eg bring any 100 models. Literally any models the player likes. However, each round of the tournament is going to place different limits on what can be chosen from that pool. Points are awarded based on how early a major or sudden death victory is achieved, and if a player isn't able to meet the minimum requirements of the scenario the other player gets a small victory. The gamble for the players then is how far do they tilt their armies towards the extremes, knowing that they may lose some games before they even start.

Scenarios should have a lot of variation built in to them. A few examples I thought of:

Tank battle: Min 10 models Max 30. Only models with a save of 4+ or better can be used. Favours the guy who spams elite troops.
Raiding party: A skirmish between advance elements, Min 5 models Max 20. Only models with a move of 8" or higher, or special deployment rules may be used (gives Dwarfs a chance).
The fellowship: Min 5 models, max 10 models. Only models with a wound value of 4 or higher may be used. No mounted models.
Clash of the titans: Min 1 model, Max 10 models. Only models with wounds higher than 5 or monsters may be used.
Battle of the dregs: Min 10 models, Max 40 models. Only models with 1 attack and a save lower than 5+ may be used, no heroes.
Alliance: Min 10 models, mix 40 models: Each unit must use a different warscroll.
Army of the pure: Min 15 Max 40. Models must belong to the same faction eg free people, gitmob. Max 5 warscrolls.
Unbound: Min 20 Max 50. Any models may be used.
Alliance of the free people: Min 20 Max 40. Min 6 unique warscrolls.

So the idea would be to have quite a few rounds played, and the challenge of army building would become about gambling on what scenarios will be played. You can absolutely take 100 bloodthirsters, but will the scenarios that let you use them be enough to counter the scenarios that don't?. I've read through a few army compendiums, and there's some good balance built in there. The weaker swarm troops usually have rules that give them bonuses in large numbers but using up your troop allowance on them will sacrifice the extra synergy and bonuses you can get through having more type of unit. Likewise you can absolutely cherry pick what appears strongest from each army, but may suffer from a lack of synergy in some scenarios versus the guy who picks a single race.

I have to say earlier in the thread I said I was super-casual, but this actually makes me want to run a tournament! I think I'm sold.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
As you are very much a game/rules based player SS what elements did you think worked and which ones didn't (except the lack of balance obviously).

Rolling to wound feels redundant now that toughness isn't a stat. The game would be better off with removing that step entirely, and simply having 'to hit', damage, attacks and rend as weapon stats.

Hero abilities, reactionary charges and random initiative are good.

Seems to be a straightforward skirmish game. Nothing revolutionary, but quick and streamlined, great as a gateway game where someone new to wargames can buy a small handful of minis they like the look of and get playing right away.

I hope the community comes up with a good points value system, the game is worthless without it, and GW reps have said there will never be points values for it.

Community will need to sort out rules amendments and balancing, much like netepic and coreheim, taking it out of GW's hands is actually a good thing.

I agree. Whats the purpose of needing so many steps to remove a model?

Every solution posted in this thread on how the game can work as a competitive game involves either changing or ignoring existing rules.

I hope everyone sees why that highlights the problems with the AoS rules more than any thing else.

 scarletsquig wrote:

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
As you are very much a game/rules based player SS what elements did you think worked and which ones didn't (except the lack of balance obviously).

Rolling to wound feels redundant now that toughness isn't a stat. The game would be better off with removing that step entirely, and simply having 'to hit', damage, attacks and rend as weapon stats.

Not if they're planning on having modifiers to the to-hit and to-wound rolls (or re-rolls of those rolls). And they already do have effects that specify rerolling to-hit or specify rerolling to wound individually.

 catharsix wrote:
Who else is considering trying to take the big gribbly monster thingy and at least trying to convert it into something cool? For "Fantasy" AoS, or 40K? I'm on the fence, frankly. I feel kinda like I did about the Slaughterbrute. But that was way too expensive to buy for conversion purposes. But since I'm loving the Khorne infantry models, I'm gonna get at least one of these in the mix. Maybe a nasty counts-as greater daemon? A chunky Daemon Prince?

If I do end up getting the box to use the models in INQ28 & Mordheim, I dunno...if you tone it down a bit(fill in the melty-skullskin bits, leave off some of the weird bonetail things sprouting out of his shoulders and fill in their sockets, use a decent actual head) it might make a good base for a Chaos Troll? Otherwise it's probably going to end up as DP or Spawn bait.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Only until next year, when 40K will be replaced by Age of Abaddon, with identical gameplay to AoS and new, improved, larger minis...

Don't even joke...

... although that's what the Horus Heresy game will end up being, should it ever come out.

It will probably happen that way GW can copyright the stats system they use.

I was under the impression that rules can't be copyrighted, only the book/file/etc. that contains them?

migooo wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Only until next year, when 40K will be replaced by Age of Abaddon, with identical gameplay to AoS and new, improved, larger minis...

Don't even joke...

... although that's what the Horus Heresy game will end up being, should it ever come out.

It will probably happen that way GW can copyright the stats system they use.

Would that even work? I mean, I can believe GW would think it would work, but I'm sure I remember reading about a series of legal decisions regarding the computer games industry a few years back that basically established you can't copyright game mechanics or even names of game mechanics, only the specific combination of mechanics and names of mechanics that make up your game.

You can't copyright game mechanics. Just the wording.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Community will need to sort out rules amendments and balancing, much like netepic and coreheim, taking it out of GW's hands is actually a good thing.

If you need to do that much work to correct a 4-page rule set, why not just start from scratch and write a good one? Or use a better existing one (KoW 1 was 10 pages and worked quite well)? Or modify a better existing one?

One of the pictures posted in this thread showed off all the models (or their electronic CAD brethren). One thing that it showed was that the Khorne Cultist guys didn't have to have a Standard and a Horn.

Is this correct? Is it possible to not have 2 standard bearers and 2 musicians?

 pinkmarine wrote:
As I suggested several pages ago (and rumors & leaks point in that direction), scenarios will provide balance for new players. Someone above passed on a rumor that we'll see a campaign supplement with a balancing system. That'll probably be directed towards experienced and more competitive players. Of course they'll not provide this for all the old models. The point of their business is to sell new models, they don't make money from armies already bought.

I can only see that as a way for them to spoon feed you army lists to buy. Each scenario starting with a "You need to use the following models...", kind of like historics orders of battle but with even less flexibility.

I like casual gaming, but I don't want that level of spoon feeding or cynical selling.

WTF

I wonder how much their old WHFB line has sold since AoS has been announced.

Both my wife and I have just pretty much finished off the armies we are working on due to the AoS announcement as neither of us want to wait and find the aesthetics for her wood elves and my Goblins change dramatically.

 Nightwolf829 wrote:
The game is broken out of the gate. Several instant win combos have already been found. Just take a single Tomb King Carrion, choose the sudden death that lets you win if you survive six turns, and simply fly around the field immune to enemy attentions.

That sounds like fun!

You know what else sounds like fun? Showing up for a pickup game with a handful of units as a new player and getting beaten in the face by crazy summoning spells and special characters/combos galore. You have 50 skaven slaves? Cool! I have 52 Blood Knights that are by this game considered their equal.

The rules have promise, but I am disappointed in the execution. It is a half-cocked product that makes pickup games impossible and that needs to be fixed by the player-base out of the gate. I was really excited about it for a while, but that enthusiasm has been killed in the hardest way possible. GW even put some rules into the game that actively mock their player-base. Really? I have no idea what they were even aiming for at this point. Any other new game that tried this would be laughed out of the market. This deserves no better.

Broken for competitive play maybe. Most of these "instant win" combos just involve saying. "Right, have an awesome day" and finding another person to play games with. The game can probably be fixed. Just takes a bit of work. I'm running a tournament Sunday. Interested to see how people break it.