Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

However, I'm not going to become the bearded lady just because some dipgak British GW board member got a stick up his ass, nor am I going to put up with being put at a disadvantage becuase I'm unwilling to do so.

 Manchu wrote:
what GW has been evolving toward in 40k

Oh god don't say that

 Manchu wrote:
I guess what one finds all depends on who is looking ...

It cannot be denied. We liked this game. We liked it a lot, and we were not really expecting to. Yes, the lack of points is an issue and we will have to come up with something to handle our games if Games Workshop does not (kinda hoping for Scenario Scrolls to make an appearance). However, the game itself… we cannot really fault. It is simple, it works, and all the frilly bits are on the Warscrolls. There were no great rules debates during the game, other than those caused by our own ignorance (it was our first game) and those will disappear as we get to grips with the mechanics.

We were a bit surprised at the power of horses (two attacks each!), but they did get lucky rolls and probably reflect the use of cavalry quite well. We don’t see any issues developing there (other than me wanting to get Cold One Knights on the table!). The relative strengths of the other units seemed about right, from the Skeletons to the Treeman.

Undead armies could be quite potent due to their ability to summon, well, anything you have models for but, frankly, it does not seem to be as bad as it could be.

Overall, if you ignore the lack of points issue (and yes, I know that is a biggie), I would give this game a solid A grade.

https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/age-of-sigmar-battle-report-vampire-counts-vs-wood-elves/

Interesting write up, although oddly, it seemed like the game turned completely on if the glad riders could get lucky and kill all of the black knights in a turn.

For gamers that have little interest in outcome, this might be fine, but even from a narrative standpoint, I think it would be odd that a grinding stalemate on one flank turned lopsides, game over.

It's just one game, and thus just one data point, but it seems to me that they're being very generous in evaluating a mass combat system on it's engine (the basic resolution of moving, shooting, charging, magic), and giving it a complete pass on points balance and scenario.

Oddly, this might be a useful gaming system to hack for other games.

 Melissia wrote:
However, I'm not going to become the bearded lady just because some gak British GW board member got a stick up his ass, nor am I going to put up with being put at a disadvantage becuase I'm unwilling to do so.

We need some feminists on this, lots of "Game designers make beard rules, sexism!" and "excluding women the corruption and disconnect with its player base at the heart of GW" It has mileage.

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not going to become the bearded lady

The more important question would be, why spend your personal time hanging around someone who would insist you do something you don't want to as a condition of playing the game?

 Manchu wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
AOS is more of a design revolution than it was an evolution from a prior system

On that point, I entirely agree. To me, AoS is the "risky, all-out version" of what GW has been evolving toward in 40k.

That's a solid point, and frankly, I'd be more likely to play the 40k version of this game than the fantasy version, especially since I have KoW as a wicked simple/easy/fast/fun ranks and flanks game.

And why not use Fantasy, which was on life support anyway, to test out a complete revolution of their games?

 Los pollos hermanos wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
what GW has been evolving toward in 40k

Oh god don't say that

The writing is surely on the wall. Sigmar has basically invaded the ruins of the World of Warhammer at the head of a Space Marine legion.

 Polonius wrote:
And why not use Fantasy, which was on life support anyway, to test out a complete revolution of their games?

Exactly. My guess is, Fantasy taken on its own was in the red. Let's be cynical for the sake of argument: GW does not know how to sell Fantasy but it does know how to sell 40k. It has been oft-repeated, and does not seem incredible, that SM alone outsell all of WHFB. AoS makes perfect sense from that angle; it makes even more sense if one suspects GW also wants to go this way with 40k but doesn't want to rock the boat quite so much with the star product line. Not yet, anyhow.

 Manchu wrote:
I guess what one finds all depends on who is looking ...

It cannot be denied. We liked this game. We liked it a lot, and we were not really expecting to. Yes, the lack of points is an issue and we will have to come up with something to handle our games if Games Workshop does not (kinda hoping for Scenario Scrolls to make an appearance). However, the game itself… we cannot really fault. It is simple, it works, and all the frilly bits are on the Warscrolls. There were no great rules debates during the game, other than those caused by our own ignorance (it was our first game) and those will disappear as we get to grips with the mechanics.

We were a bit surprised at the power of horses (two attacks each!), but they did get lucky rolls and probably reflect the use of cavalry quite well. We don’t see any issues developing there (other than me wanting to get Cold One Knights on the table!). The relative strengths of the other units seemed about right, from the Skeletons to the Treeman.

Undead armies could be quite potent due to their ability to summon, well, anything you have models for but, frankly, it does not seem to be as bad as it could be.

Overall, if you ignore the lack of points issue (and yes, I know that is a biggie), I would give this game a solid A grade.

https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/age-of-sigmar-battle-report-vampire-counts-vs-wood-elves/

Bolded for relevancy. The rules are four pages, how many games is it going to take for these people to "get to grips with the mechanics."

Second bolded section. Only if pike/spearmen get a bonus against them...

Ultimately, this is a fluff piece based upon one playthrough but who on God's creation admits to a big piece of the game being missing and still gives it an A? That right there tells me that these people either have an agenda or should otherwise be completely discounted. It's like Car and Driver saying, "We quite like the new Audi and though it's missing any suspension at all and the brakes didn't work, we give it a solid A."

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not going to become the bearded lady

The more important question would be, why spend your personal time hanging around someone who would insist you do something you don't want to as a condition of playing the game?

Any of the three closest LGS locations near me require an hour of commute time total (IE, coming and going).

If the game wasn't full of gakky design flaws, I wouldn't have to worry about wasting half an hour of driving time plus however much waiting and setup time, then another half hour of driving back home just to find out that the random person I end up playing with is intent on enforcing bs official Games Workshop rules like this.

But it is. And I have to deal with it. And my way of dealing with it is to just not play at all and let my models sit on my shelf than waste my time rolling the dice with who I end up gaming with because GW put thoughtlessly misogynistic rules in place. Maybe GW's rules for dwarves will be better than their rules for legacy dwarves, but as the dwarf rules are right now, I've no patience for sexist dumbassery like this.

 Manchu wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm just glad they're finally giving me in-game bonuses for doing the stuff I was going to do anyway.

There is an honest point to be made here. Now, I'm not convinced it is a great design principle to encourage ... er, displays of enthusiasm with a mechanical bonus. But if I spend tons of time and money and effort building an army, you can bet I'm making "vwhooom!" noises when I use a spell.

Definitely. Battlefleet Gothic brought out all kinds of vocalizations for us. Even my son knows that spaceships make different noises.

My wife once noticed--or was "weirded out" by--a noise we would all make unconsciously and independently during the Buffy board game when moving the the stone textured lunar counter. She asked why we were all making the same sound in the back of our throats, the natural noise one expects from stone scraping against stone. Sometimes we just have to have sounds for the the ambiance.

 agnosto wrote:
It's like Car and Driver saying, "We quite like the new Audi and though it's missing any suspension at all and the brakes didn't work, we give it a solid A."

A telling metaphor ... AoS does not include mechanics that you think are absolutely essential for something to be a proper miniatures war game. And yet AoS is far from the first or only game that does not use them. So really, this is not a matter of what is essential but rather what you prefer in a product and/or demand from a product. That's fine. What is not fine, however, is blowing off other people's preferences because they are not the same as yours.

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not going to become the bearded lady

The more important question would be, why spend your personal time hanging around someone who would insist you do something you don't want to as a condition of playing the game?

Because that's how family game night works?

 Manchu wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
And why not use Fantasy, which was on life support anyway, to test out a complete revolution of their games?

Exactly. My guess is, Fantasy taken on its own was in the red. Let's be cynical for the sake of argument: GW does not know how to sell Fantasy but it does know how to sell 40k. It has been oft-repeated, and does not seem incredible, that SM alone outsell all of WHFB. AoS makes perfect sense from that angle; it makes even more sense if one suspects GW also wants to go this way with 40k but doesn't want to rock the boat quite so much with the star product line. Not yet, anyhow.

You know what? If they get rid of bloat, and the game itself is fun, I might even embrace AoS style 40k.

Hell, part of me is into trying AoS as is, but the only painted fantasy I have are Mantic Ogres, and I don't have any gaming buddies in Baltimore.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Even my son knows that spaceships make different noises.

My wife claims boys are born equipped with laser and explosion noises. I reckon girls are, too, but are discouraged from doing so by bad parenting.

 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not going to become the bearded lady

The more important question would be, why spend your personal time hanging around someone who would insist you do something you don't want to as a condition of playing the game?

Any of the three closest LGS locations near me require an hour of commute time total (IE, coming and going).

If the game wasn't full of gakky design flaws, I wouldn't have to worry about wasting half an hour of driving time plus however much waiting and setup time, then another half hour of driving back home just to find out that the random person I end up playing with is intent on enforcing bs official Games Workshop rules like this.

But it is. And I have to deal with it. And my way of dealing with it is to just not play at all and let my models sit on my shelf than waste my time rolling the dice with who I end up gaming with because GW put thoughtlessly misogynistic rules in place. Maybe GW's rules for dwarves will be better than their rules for legacy dwarves, but as the dwarf rules are right now, I've no patience for sexist dumbassery like this.

Just don't take the single unit in the list that requires a beard. Or just don't use the rerolls.

No rule in the Dwarf list requires a beard to play the army.

 Polonius wrote:
You know what? If they get rid of bloat, and the game itself is fun, I might even embrace AoS style 40k.

Hell, part of me is into trying AoS as is, but the only painted fantasy I have are Mantic Ogres, and I don't have any gaming buddies in Baltimore.

I am going to play AoS on an out-of-the-starter-box basis only, at least to begin with. I think that will be great. I am less interested in the back catalog. But I can tell you this, I would buy the hell out of AoS-style 40k.

 pretre wrote:
No rule in the Dwarf list requires a beard to play the army.

This is an irrelevant and pointless non-solution, as it still puts me at a disadvantage.

 Melissia wrote:
the random person I end up playing with

Meet friends, schedule games. This is what I do, precisely because I refuse to play with random people.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The more important question would be, why spend your personal time hanging around someone who would insist you do something you don't want to as a condition of playing the game?

Because that's how family game night works?

#TigerMom

 Manchu wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
It's like Car and Driver saying, "We quite like the new Audi and though it's missing any suspension at all and the brakes didn't work, we give it a solid A."

A telling metaphor ... AoS does not include mechanics that you think are absolutely essential for something to be a proper miniatures war game. And yet AoS is far from the first or only game that does not use them. So really, this is not a matter of what is essential but rather what you prefer in a product and/or demand from a product. That's fine. What is not fine, however, is blowing off other people's preferences because they are not the same as yours.

The problem isn't that we're blowing off other's preferences, because I don't think anybody is. The problem is that the easy part of game design is the engine. The hard part is balancing scenarios and points levels.

The one thing that seperates AoS from any number of semi-balanced fantasy rule sets out there is that there are specific rules for every single GW model.

 Melissia wrote:

 pretre wrote:
No rule in the Dwarf list requires a beard to play the army.

This is an irrelevant and pointless non-solution, as it still puts me at a disadvantage.

No, it really doesn't. Take any of the other hero entries in the list. It is one hero entry (thane with battle standard). There's what... 11 other heroes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
the random person I end up playing with

Meet friends, schedule games. This is what I do, precisely because I refuse to play with random people.

I was going to suggest that as well. I don't think I've ever gone to a game night, with the intent of getting a game, without a game scheduled

 Melissia wrote:

 pretre wrote:
No rule in the Dwarf list requires a beard to play the army.

This is an irrelevant and pointless non-solution, as it still puts me at a disadvantage.

while I see the broader point, I think harping on endlessly about one stupid rule isn't going to sway people.

And it puts you at a "disadvantage" in a game that literally doesn't require balanced armies. This is not a game meant to be won or lost.

 Polonius wrote:
The problem isn't that we're blowing off other's preferences, because I don't think anybody is.

Ahem:

 agnosto wrote:
these people either have an agenda or should otherwise be completely discounted

But I agree with the rest of your post.

 Manchu wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
It's like Car and Driver saying, "We quite like the new Audi and though it's missing any suspension at all and the brakes didn't work, we give it a solid A."

A telling metaphor ... AoS does not include mechanics that you think are absolutely essential for something to be a proper miniatures war game. And yet AoS is far from the first or only game that does not use them. So really, this is not a matter of what is essential but rather what you prefer in a product and/or demand from a product. That's fine. What is not fine, however, is blowing off other people's preferences because they are not the same as yours.

Those other games cost a great deal less than GW games do. The car metaphor is appropriate as I have about as much time and money invested in WHFB to purchase a used car. It's like I came out of the house one morning and Toyota had come and taken the engine out of my car. Sure, I have the rest of the car but I won't be able to enjoy its use again without expending further funds and purchasing an engine from another manufacturer.

 agnosto wrote:
It's like I came out of the house one morning and Toyota had come and taken the engine out of my car.

One more time, what exactly did GW come steal from your house in order to make the metaphor comprehensible?

 Los pollos hermanos wrote:
After going through a bunch of sites and watching a few battle reports online here and there, reading all the comments, it seems to be leaning unanimously among commenters towards two basic lines I keep hearing:

"Rules are sh**"

and

"Wheres the strategy, first two turns charge, rest of game melee mash in the middle of the board"

I can't imagine hearing these complaints from so many people including those who have played the game that it holds no weight or fact.

 Manchu wrote:
I guess what one finds all depends on who is looking ...

It cannot be denied. We liked this game. We liked it a lot, and we were not really expecting to. Yes, the lack of points is an issue and we will have to come up with something to handle our games if Games Workshop does not (kinda hoping for Scenario Scrolls to make an appearance). However, the game itself… we cannot really fault. It is simple, it works, and all the frilly bits are on the Warscrolls. There were no great rules debates during the game, other than those caused by our own ignorance (it was our first game) and those will disappear as we get to grips with the mechanics.

We were a bit surprised at the power of horses (two attacks each!), but they did get lucky rolls and probably reflect the use of cavalry quite well. We don’t see any issues developing there (other than me wanting to get Cold One Knights on the table!). The relative strengths of the other units seemed about right, from the Skeletons to the Treeman.

Undead armies could be quite potent due to their ability to summon, well, anything you have models for but, frankly, it does not seem to be as bad as it could be.

Overall, if you ignore the lack of points issue (and yes, I know that is a biggie), I would give this game a solid A grade.

https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/age-of-sigmar-battle-report-vampire-counts-vs-wood-elves/

That's not really a ringing endorsement... it's great that they had fun playing it (and I am sure people will) but even in that they point out that they have to ignore the lack of points to give it that grade.

I think if you ignored the under-or-over-costed points of almost any wargame, it could get a decent grade... balance is a major part of wargaming and it is completely lacking from both this game and that review.

Other than that, I will totally grant you that it looks like it could be fun between a few friends. That's a huge "but", though... totally okay with folks playing this but I don't think it's going to gain the kind of traction GW is banking on it gaining (as in, buy enough models to fill your deployment zone ). What's the craziest part is, if they had put in points you'd have so many more people buying in... and now you have to establish this new order where people are OK with a completely unbalanced game. It's like cutting off a huge percentage of the market to more exclusively focus on a subset... it could work, but man, that subset is going to need to buy in heavy for it to (imo). At least from GW's financial perspective.

----

Also, regarding gaming with friends - that's fantastic, but I (and many others) like to build armies I can play with others than my closest friends. With this game, that's not really a viable option, so again, they are intentionally limiting / narrowing their market share, and giving the rest to competitors... it will be interesting to see if they can leverage it enough for that to make financial sense.

 pretre wrote:
No, it really doesn't.

Given two identical armies, my army is weaker because I don't grow a beard due to being female. This is, by definition, a disadvantage.

[quote=
I think you need to be a bit more understanding towards those who simply don't wish to or can't throw away how they played the game just overnight after maybe even 20 years.

 Manchu wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
The problem isn't that we're blowing off other's preferences, because I don't think anybody is.

Ahem:

 agnosto wrote:
these people either have an agenda or should otherwise be completely discounted

But I agree with the rest of your post.

Was I wrong? They appear to have no concept of how cavalry mechanics work but praise the game for showing that, they admit that a large piece of the game is missing but determine it's worth an "A". Was that an "A" for effort?

I have no problem with people liking the game. I have a problem with someone saying, "Yeah, it's broken but I'll give it a perfect score anyway." In what reality should that be acceptable?

 Polonius wrote:
while I see the broader point, I think harping on endlessly about one stupid rule isn't going to sway people.

I'n not "harping endlessly", I'm debating. The fact that I defend my points in a discussion on a forum should not offend you.

 Melissia wrote:

 pretre wrote:
No, it really doesn't.

Given two identical armies, my army is weaker because I don't grow a beard due to being female. This is, by definition, a disadvantage.

But we're all glad that you're taking this so well. I know it's tough facing such overwhelming odds, but you've been a real trooper.