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PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

Unless you're intimately familiar with your opponents' army, and he's intimately familiar with yours, then there's absolutely no way you can figure this out. There are simply too many variables, and no yardstick for comparing one unit against another.

That wording sounds familiar.

Also Swas, don't you know, even if you're the nicest guy ever. Even if you let your opponent redo things and help the underdog with advice when they're clearly over their head.

You're a bad person that must be hated, because you want to play competitively.

Forge the narrative in reality, because grey doesn't exist.

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

Unless you're intimately familiar with your opponents' army, and he's intimately familiar with yours, then there's absolutely no way you can figure this out. There are simply too many variables, and no yardstick for comparing one unit against another.

That wording sounds familiar.

Also Swas, don't you know, even if you're the nicest guy ever. Even if you let your opponent redo things and help the underdog with advice when they're clearly over their head.

You're a bad person that must be hated, because you want to play competitively.

Forge the narrative in reality, because grey doesn't exist.

Maybe they are right mate. Maybe I need to buy more models and be nice to GW for all the hard work they have done on their 4 page pdf (they gave away for free dont you know!). Then once I have purchased more models I can begin the path to forging the narrative and being nice.

Then maybe I will understand that what GW is doing is gods work. Only then will I see the Age of Sigmar appear in my bubble of reality and undertand that after all these years, it was my bad attitude and lack of spending that was wrong and lead me on the path of attempting to win.



In all seriousness I used to think like that with 40k (not the buying part) and really I wish I could take that time back and focus on worthwhile games. So much money and time wasted really.

The issue is, this points thing had become really deeply ingrained. There are gamers out there who simply do not know that this is not an essential part of game design.

I agree that points have become a disease, and one need look no further than the myriad points threads under Proposed Rules to see how far this has permeated things.

This is the sort of thing that irks me. Why does one way have to be better than the other? Both of these statements (one more than the other) imply that players are somehow wrong for feeling that a point or equivalent system is essential for their gaming fun. Not that there aren't point-liking players saying the same about the other side, but that annoys me just as much.

Responding to Bob, I would still say there is no downside to a points system. The problems you listed are with players, not with points. In AoS such players can still practice the same abuse of the system only to a much, much, greater magnitude (like the example of hundreds of stegadons). The (quite rational) solution given is to simply not play against those people, but you can do that with a points system as well. There is this pervasive idea that AoS somehow allows people to brush off or avoid WAAC-ish players where it wasn't possible before. That is not true. It was absolutely doable before. Abusive optimization of forces isn't a problem unique to a points system, since it is even easier without one, its a problem with players not the game. All of the things people are saying they can now do with AoS they could have done just as easily before. I sense the counter will be "bout you would have had to discuss/house rule this" yet as is you already have to discuss/house rule for any match because otherwise each has no idea what level of optimization the other is playing at.

I'll say it again; going from having a flawed balance system to no balance system at all is not an improvement. I'd rather have a leaky roof than no roof at all, and either way I'm going to get wet if I choose to be in that building when it rains.

People who like the game better without a points system are quite happy with AoS, and I am glad they are. There is nothing wrong with playing the game that way. Thing is, not all players prefer that (in fact, as we can see, a significant portion of them don't), and having a points system there for players who want it does not invalidate the preferences of players who want to play without it, they can just ignore that section of the rules. Not having any balance method at all, on the other hand, only favors one side rather than both. Game design and winning/funning philosophy aside, it was certainly a poor business decision not to include it.

Though, poor business decisions are kinda GW's hobby these days so I shouldn't be surprised.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

 Talys wrote:

4. If I just know that I'm more experienced than my opponent, and I KNOW that I can win, I would rather help make them a better player than to just win, because winning is hollow and pointless; and making them a more challenging opponent is better for my own fun in the long run.

I'm just going to call you out right now and say that your whole "I don't care about winning" philosophy is total crap. It's got nothing at all to do about winning itself, and everything to do with the very elaborate framework you have built around what a "REAL win" looks like. It's just a rather transparent defense mechanism. If you lose, then it's either because you "let them win" by hamstringing yourself in some way, or your opponent "brought a cheesy list" that you purposely avoided giving yourself the tools to play.


But even still, Age of Sigmar isn't the sort of game that is conducive to this sort of gaming. Because there ISN'T EVEN A FRAMEWORK for figuring out what is or isn't fair. Yeah, OFC 12 bloodthirsters is unfair. But what about 2? What about 3? How many plaguebearers is equivalent to a stegadon? How many mages can one take before it's too much?

Unless you're intimately familiar with your opponents' army, and he's intimately familiar with yours, then there's absolutely no way you can figure this out. There are simply too many variables, and no yardstick for comparing one unit against another.

No, it's not crap. You just can't comprehend how someone can enjoy themselves playing a game without worrying about winning, and I feel sorry for you.

With respect to what I said in point 4, unless there's a prize, winning is meaningless unless it was a fair fight. It doesn't matter if it's tennis, Magic, or AoS, and like it or not, experience is a factor just as list-building. Have you ever played a FPS with an 8-year old nephew? Do you desire to pummel them and show them what a n00b they are? Does that make you feel superior? Or do you let them win, because winning is more important to them and will make them feel great?

1 Bloodthirster is unfair if my opponent can't hurt it. I would never field one if it would predetermine the outcome of the game, or if I thought it would make the game really unbalanced. I'm pretty good at guessing these things.

I know almost nothing about Fantasy, but in 40k I can tell you in 30seconds of looking at a list if the forces are seriously disproportionate, or would result in a stupid game. I have no desire to play a stupid game, no matter if I would win or lose it.

You feel free to play the game the way you like. But at 40+ years of age and 25+ years of gaming, my priorities are different, and on a scale of 1 to 10, winning ranks about 4, maybe less. Models and miniature awesomeness ranks around 9, and enjoying myself and social gaming about 10.

Hell, I rank the pizza between games more important than winning the game.

I'm with you on gaming philosophy Talys. The point of the game isn't to win, it's to have fun. Losing a game and enjoying it aren't mutually exclusive.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm with you on gaming philosophy Talys. The point of the game isn't to win, it's to have fun. Losing a game and enjoying it aren't mutually exclusive.

Very True.
One of my Favorite scenarios I came up with involves 4 Mechs trying to slow down 12 other Mechs long enough for for the rest of his units get off the planet.

I can play that game scenario over and over again.

I posted this over on Warseer, I thought it might be appropriate for this thread as well =)

So a friend of mine and I decided to split the AoS starter set to see what the hub bub was all about. We played the first four campaigns in the starter set and I thought I'd offer my thoughts on the game! This thread seemed as good as any to post in
smile emoticon

A little about my gaming background - right now I'm primarily playing Warmachine/Hordes. I've been playing that for about three years now or so and have been fairly active in the local tournament meta. Before that I played 40k (primarily Orks and Necrons) and never really got into Fantasy. Loved the setting but maybe ever played one, two games tops.

From what I've read the battlebox and AoS are aimed generally at more casual or less experienced players than I suppose I am so my friend and I were trying to play the game mainly at face value. I chose the Khorne portion of the box and he picked up the Sigmahreens. We ended up getting through the first four scenarios in about two and a half, three hours or so and ended up having a pretty fun time of it! Even with the limited ruleset there were some things we forgot (one terrain rule in the book and we forgot to apply Cover to anything . . .) or there were some rules that were a little ambiguous (re-rolls, do you re-roll once? Continually re-roll?) but didn't really take away from the experience at all. It was fun at one point throwing 26 models down against his 8 and thinking to ourselves "it's like GW finally gets to put the fluff of a small handful of Space Marines against hordes of dudes on the tabletop! Except in the wrong setting". The scenarios were probably the most fun bit of the experience. We didn't have to worry about the lack of point values for models - we had our objectives, the scenario dictated how we deployed and what was deployed. Battle shock really helped balance that out for my opponent too. It really did kind of emphasize the fact that if you want to take cheap dudes you'd better take them in a block of 20+ models otherwise you're going to have a bad time. I also really do like the fact that other than saving throws all of the stats are available on your end of the Battle Scrolls. It doesn't matter what my guys are fighting, it doesn't matter if they're fighting two different units at a time, I'm almost always going to need X to hit and Y to damage. WS, BS and T values from Fantasy/40k are aspects of the games I was never super fond of for whatever reason and this takes any aversion to those stats that I used to have right out of the equation.

There were a few negative aspects though that I took away from the afternoon and AoS. While I've never played Fantasy, I know that if Privateer Press did this kind of total revamp of the rules in Warmachine from points based lists and a really tight ruleset to "bring what you want, here's 4 pages of rules!" I would be furious. I can totally, 100% understand why Fantasy players hate this from the outside looking in. If you're a 40k player however I imagine you'll probably like AoS; to me it felt like I was playing a stripped down fantasy version of 40k the entire time. While I like the battle system of you and your opponent each getting a battle phase, the random variable of who goes first in a round makes keeping track of who's turn it actually is confusing at times. We actually wanted to start using a counter or some other kind of token so for future games we would know who's turn it was when we were at the top or bottom of various rounds.

The biggest negative factor for me however is outside of the battlebox or specific scenarios where army lists are pre-determined I don't see myself ever actually playing pick up games of AoS. If a player from any of the old world factions were to come up to me and ask me for a game I would tell them no because neither of us have any way of knowing if we'll be playing balanced matchups. For the scenario games my friend and I were able to give the matchups the benefit of the doubt and trust that the scenario we were playing would balance out the two forces. In a generic pickup game unless my opponent and I are both using warbands or whatever the formation rules are in AoS I can't trust that we're actually playing a fair matchup. I know there are Sudden Death victory clauses and whatever but even with those in play I don't think I'd be able to get over the thought of whether I was cheesing my opponent with my list or if my opponent was cheesing me with his. I've never been a fan of the unbound rules or game type in Warmachine, I enjoy working within specific variables for army composition. If the scenario isn't going to be the balancing factor in a game then the list composition has to be IMO.

Having said all of this I did enjoy my afternoon of AoS. The models themselves are AMAZING (and reminding me once again of why I was hesitant to get into Warmachine in the first place . . . oh look this unit of 10 guys has 10 unique sculpts in AoS! My 10 man unit in Warmachine has 4.) and assemble in a really creative way. With the number of models in the starter I could see army lists sicking that size in terms of model count or slightly higher. The possibility of playing of a 4x4 as opposed to a 6x4 is appealing to me as well (How do you not waste like half the board playing on a 6x4 with the starter contents?!). I'm willing to give the game the benefit of the doubt for the time being and I'm looking forward to getting some more games in against the Sigmarites! Long term however it really is going to boil down to how list construction is going to be handled as the main determining factor for whether or not I end up sticking with the hobby or selling off my half of the starter set. To me the game also seems like it's going to be balanced based off of future releases rather than the previous releases, so maybe for future models something like using wound count to make up army lists will make more sense as opposed to the argument now that I see where not all wounds are valued equally.

I don't think the two "sides" are quite so opposed as they may themselves think.

I play to win -- once I am playing. That means, I try my best to use the forces I have in an effective manner. Although every once in a while, I will try something just for the sake of it being cool or simply memorable. I think that qualifies me as competitive at least in the barest technical sense.

What is mostly boring to me, however, is optimizing builds or breaking games. Nothing makes me roll my eyes quite like another gamer telling me how he capitalized on some issue with wording in the rule set to gain an advantage. Then again, I don't think that is what anybody posting ITT is advocating.

 Talys wrote:


No, it's not crap. You just can't comprehend how someone can enjoy themselves playing a game without worrying about winning, and I feel sorry for you.

Of course it's crap. Absolutely everything you've referred to is tied to various factors that determine who is the "winner."

You can lie to yourself, but I've been in this hobby near as long as you and am fully aware of the sort of mental gymnastics your sort of player will jump through to convince yourselves that you are somehow "morally superior" to the rest of us "gamers who only care about winning."

 Talys wrote:

With respect to what I said in point 4, unless there's a prize, winning is meaningless unless it was a fair fight. It doesn't matter if it's tennis, Magic, or AoS, and like it or not, experience is a factor just as list-building. Have you ever played a FPS with an 8-year old nephew? Do you desire to pummel them and show them what a n00b they are? Does that make you feel superior? Or do you let them win, because winning is more important to them and will make them feel great?

Case in point, that you have built up this image of "competitive gamers" in your head as folks that would gleefully stomp all over a new player just to experience the "thrill of winning."

Which really couldn't be further from the truth. It isn't "winning" that the competitive gamer truly enjoys, but the **PURSUIT** of winning. Exactly the same thing that you purport to enjoy, though you have couched it in different terms so that you can maintain your constructed sense of superiority.

 Talys wrote:
1 Bloodthirster is unfair if my opponent can't hurt it. I would never field one if it would predetermine the outcome of the game, or if I thought it would make the game really unbalanced. I'm pretty good at guessing these things.

Perhaps the first time it is unfair, when you come up against an opponent who has never faced a Bloodthirster before and doesn't know how to respond. However this is an armybuilding game, and if you can't come up with a response to your opponents' threats - given time and resources to prepare - then that is YOUR fault, not your opponents.

Now of course, that doesn't apply when a certain choice is objectively undercosted (meaning that it inherently puts you at a disadvantage), or where it exploits a weakness inherent in an army itself (for instance, TK's historical inability to deal with lots of armour). But most of the time it is fully within the realm of possibility for a player to adapt their strategies in response.


And that right there is what drives me so crazy about your type of player. You refuse to adapt. Instead you simply declare things "cheesy" so that you can reposition the goal posts, protecting you from the unpleasant experience of ever having to learn or adapt. The game changes you but you remain the same, ever redefining what a "true" victory is so that you never have to actually think or grow as a player.

 Talys wrote:
I know almost nothing about Fantasy...

Obviously.

 Talys wrote:
...but in 40k I can tell you in 30seconds of looking at a list if the forces are seriously disproportionate, or would result in a stupid game. I have no desire to play a stupid game, no matter if I would win or lose it.

Welcome to "intimately familiar with your army and your opponent's army." Age of Sigmar is a brand new game, and nobody yet has that familiarity. Further, it should not be EXPECTED that players have a decade of exposure to a game before they can even begin to comprehend how one might set up a reasonably even or enjoyable game.

Cool it on the "your type of player" posts, everyone. Thanks.

Huh. I haven't heard an opinion on this from a player who primarily does Warmahordes so thank you for this. I agree with you on the lack of a balancing factor, so I find your enjoyment of the starter box scenarios particularly relevant. I have yet to get in a balanced game of AoS but I'll have to try out the starter scenarios to get a fresh perspective as I really want to like AoS. Plus, as you said, the models look gorgeous (though aside from frankenskulls I think there is a pretty strong consensus on that).

 Talys wrote:
Have you ever played a FPS with an 8-year old nephew? Do you desire to pummel them and show them what a n00b they are? Does that make you feel superior? Or do you let them win, because winning is more important to them and will make them feel great?

You feel free to play the game the way you like. But at 40+ years of age and 25+ years of gaming, my priorities are different, and on a scale of 1 to 10, winning ranks about 4, maybe less. Models and miniature awesomeness ranks around 9, and enjoying myself and social gaming about 10. Hell, I rank the pizza between games more important than winning the game.

I did a bunch Skylanders Battle Arena fights with my then 5-year-old boy. And I'm not gonna lie, because there were times that I just pounded him into the ground. There were also times that I played punching bag and let him totally slaughter me. Some times, I beat him fair and square, and some times, I took it super easy. And some times, I took "weak" Skylanders to goof around with and explore the move set. Why? Because I wanted to teach him good sportsmanship, which includes both gracious winning and gracious losing, which is a very tough thing for a 5-year-old boy; however, he now knows to congratulate the winner, even if he loses. Eventually, he started winning games fair-and-square, and I congratulated him on those wins. Now, did he know I was doing this? Probably not. But we had fun playing together, and that was the best part of all.

I like how you rank things, and I'm generally similar:
1. social group
2. food & drinks
3. playing the game
4. cool models
5. "winning"
Also, pizza? We're more of a take-out or barbecue group.

Thing I don't get about AOS is that I love making the army lists. I don't think I know anybody that dislikes it. Same with other games like Magic, it's so much fun to design the deck. To me it shows how out of touch GW is.

It's the same with the crappy terrain that does stuff. Like I don't want a magical building that buffs my units, I just want a regular building. I know I'm not the only one who hates mysterious objectives in 40k and do you remember the forests that did random stuff in the previous edition? Like nobody likes this stuff. Even Miniwargamer on YouTube refuse to use mysterious objectives.

Some seriously bazaar game design decisions. Why doesn't GW hire some designers with a pedigree for making good games? Like ex wizards of the coast employees or something. They keep getting their authors to write rules and game systems......but they should stick to making books. I figure any gamer on Dhaka forums could come up with a better game system than AOS.

AOS Bobby Edition:
- points costs and army building
- restrictions on summoning
- attacks of opportunity against models that "flee" from combat range
- measurement from the base and not the model...square or round.
- bonuses for charging
- dynamic spells to cast (league of legends Type of stuff) teleport a friendly unit or push back an enemy. Turn a dragon into a sheep!
- then have the heroes gain in strength with everything they kill....just like monsters getting weaker when they take wounds.
- yes to alternating combats but no to randomising turn order!
- have actual missions with objectives
- more rock-paper-scissors elements in general. Zombies are weak to fire...blah blah you get it.

Bam, there you go. 10x better than AOS in 5 mins. Free of charge GW.

I hate making army lists. To me, that's the equivalent to the pre game setup for a Fantasy Flight Game. WHFB game outcomes seemed to be determined in the list-writing phase, which makes WHFB less a contest of tactical skill or adaptive thinking so much as a contest of who wastes more free time on that particular part of the hobby. You can have that win every time.

For me, the hobby is all about the models and the fluff. Maybe I'll be generous and including thinking about how I might want to paint my minis, too. I read the rules to get a better idea of the authors' intent for the characteristics of various heroes and creatures in the Old World, and how they compare in terms of might, speed, morale and so on. I only remember special rules if they give a being a unique flavor, attitude or ability. I couldn't tell you how many points anything is because I just don't care. The game gives me something social I can do with my minis, and that is the only reason I care about it at all.

Back in the day, I played a lot of Bttlefleet Gothic. I played with family and friends, so long as they were likeminded about what is fun. (For example, two of my friends are so competitive that any game at all becomes a joyless struggle for victory at any cost. I don't play games with them any more.). We would put out fleets based on what felt right, or what Babylon 5/Star Wars/Star Trek battle we were ripping off. The tactics we employed were various and complicated, not to bring about victory, but to be entertaining...and often to give us an excuse to quote The Last Starfighter. What we remember are the times we pulled off some incredible feat or spectacular failure, not who won or lost.

Honestly, I think I would be a terrible WHFB player. I don't play to win. I don't even do my best with what I have. If someone put down 12 Bloodthirsters, I would find it hilarious and spend the entire game running away because Holy crap! Twelve Bloodthirsters!.


All I'm trying to say is that a game does not need to be fair or balanced for tournament play. It doesn't need to be competitive or even a contest of skill. Many gamers expect that, and freak out when their expectations are defied. Chess does that kind of thing just fine for me. I want to unwind and have fun with my minis. Maybe if I knew more people who aren't secret d-bags, I could appreciate some of the competitive nature of a war game, but as it is I'm done playing to win.


So, JohnHwangDD, if you're still interested we should game sometime.

 Talys wrote:

Taking my example above, if Draigo is 2 points and Centurions are 2 points separately, taking them together makes a 12 point unit -- because they'll easily kill 3 times their points in enemy models. In other words, you can't cost things in isolation in a game filled with "special rules". To fix this, you could.................

Of course you can't cost things in isolation nor do you necessarily need to remove special rules and the like. What you need to do though is extensively playtest and have a single unifying design concept and points forumlae. Infinity is far more complex than 40k yet it manages to be very well balanced and it still uses points values.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Have you ever played a FPS with an 8-year old nephew? Do you desire to pummel them and show them what a n00b they are? Does that make you feel superior? Or do you let them win, because winning is more important to them and will make them feel great?

You feel free to play the game the way you like. But at 40+ years of age and 25+ years of gaming, my priorities are different, and on a scale of 1 to 10, winning ranks about 4, maybe less. Models and miniature awesomeness ranks around 9, and enjoying myself and social gaming about 10. Hell, I rank the pizza between games more important than winning the game.

I did a bunch Skylanders Battle Arena fights with my then 5-year-old boy. And I'm not gonna lie, because there were times that I just pounded him into the ground. There were also times that I played punching bag and let him totally slaughter me. Some times, I beat him fair and square, and some times, I took it super easy. And some times, I took "weak" Skylanders to goof around with and explore the move set. Why? Because I wanted to teach him good sportsmanship, which includes both gracious winning and gracious losing, which is a very tough thing for a 5-year-old boy; however, he now knows to congratulate the winner, even if he loses. Eventually, he started winning games fair-and-square, and I congratulated him on those wins. Now, did he know I was doing this? Probably not. But we had fun playing together, and that was the best part of all.

I like how you rank things, and I'm generally similar:
1. social group
2. food & drinks
3. playing the game
4. cool models
5. "winning"
Also, pizza? We're more of a take-out or barbecue group.

Rawr, BBQ! In the summer/spring, we'll flip some patties or steaks on the BBQ. But in our neck of the woods, 7 months of the year there's more rain here than 6e Wave Serpents.

Yeah, for sure, you don't just roll over every game to Junior. It's important for them to taste both sides of the coin and give them a good challenge. Indeed, we have pretty similar values in terms of what we look for in the hobby

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I hate making army lists. To me, that's the equivalent to the pre game setup for a Fantasy Flight Game. WHFB game outcomes seemed to be determined in the list-writing phase, which makes WHFB less a contest of tactical skill or adaptive thinking so much as a contest of who wastes more free time on that particular part of the hobby. You can have that win every time.

For me, the hobby is all about the models and the fluff. Maybe I'll be generous and including thinking about how I might want to paint my minis, too. I read the rules to get a better idea of the authors' intent for the characteristics of various heroes and creatures in the Old World, and how they compare in terms of might, speed, morale and so on. I only remember special rules if they give a being a unique flavor, attitude or ability. I couldn't tell you how many points anything is because I just don't care. The game gives me something social I can do with my minis, and that is the only reason I care about it at all.

Back in the day, I played a lot of Battlefleet Gothic. I played with family and friends, so long as they were likeminded about what is fun. (For example, two of my friends are so competitive that any game at all becomes a joyless struggle for victory at any cost. I don't play games with them any more.). We would put out fleets based on what felt right, or what Babylon 5/Star Wars/Star Trek battle we were ripping off. The tactics we employed were various and complicated, not to bring about victory, but to be entertaining...and often to give us an excuse to quote The Last Starfighter. What we remember are the times we pulled off some incredible feat or spectacular failure, not who won or lost.

Honestly, I think I would be a terrible WHFB player. I don't play to win. I don't even do my best with what I have. If someone put down 12 Bloodthirsters, I would find it hilarious and spend the entire game running away because Holy crap! Twelve Bloodthirsters!.


All I'm trying to say is that a game does not need to be fair or balanced for tournament play. It doesn't need to be competitive or even a contest of skill. Many gamers expect that, and freak out when their expectations are defied. Chess does that kind of thing just fine for me. I want to unwind and have fun with my minis. Maybe if I knew more people who aren't secret d-bags, I could appreciate some of the competitive nature of a war game, but as it is I'm done playing to win.


So, JohnHwangDD, if you're still interested we should game sometime.

We should game, definitely!


I'm OK at listbuilding, started with Car Wars, then Magic, then GW games. Back when I was doing competitive gaming, I took and played strong lists; now, it's not as important.

For me, the hobby is really a reason to get together.

I also played a lot of BFG, and still have my Imperial and Chaos fleets. At some point, I'll revisit that Eldar fleet I started a long time ago.

I was OK at WFB, but it didn't catch my fancy the way that 40k did. AoS is a better match for me. I'm not worried about the Bloodthirsters as none of my friends plays that way, and I don't see AoS being a tournament game.

Speaking of Chess, have you picked up Nightmare Chess? It's back in print.

I'm well past the competitive phase, but I can usually put a decent game together.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I did a bunch Skylanders Battle Arena fights with my then 5-year-old boy. And I'm not gonna lie, because there were times that I just pounded him into the ground. There were also times that I played punching bag and let him totally slaughter me. Some times, I beat him fair and square, and some times, I took it super easy. And some times, I took "weak" Skylanders to goof around with and explore the move set. Why? Because I wanted to teach him good sportsmanship, which includes both gracious winning and gracious losing, which is a very tough thing for a 5-year-old boy; however, he now knows to congratulate the winner, even if he loses. Eventually, he started winning games fair-and-square, and I congratulated him on those wins. Now, did he know I was doing this? Probably not. But we had fun playing together, and that was the best part of all.

I like how you rank things, and I'm generally similar:
1. social group
2. food & drinks
3. playing the game
4. cool models
5. "winning"
Also, pizza? We're more of a take-out or barbecue group.

Rawr, BBQ! In the summer/spring, we'll flip some patties or steaks on the BBQ. But in our neck of the woods, 7 months of the year there's more rain here than 6e Wave Serpents.

Yeah, for sure, you don't just roll over every game to Junior. It's important for them to taste both sides of the coin and give them a good challenge. Indeed, we have pretty similar values in terms of what we look for in the hobby

Before I moved to SoCal, I lived in Michigan. And before that, upstate New York, so I get the rain/snow thing. I'm thinking you're more Vancouver than Toronto, tho. I moved south for a reason!

At some point, he's going to start crushing me at video games, what with those shorter neural paths and all... And that'll be OK. Hopefully, I'll have taught him not to gloat over the old man.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Taking my example above, if Draigo is 2 points and Centurions are 2 points separately, taking them together makes a 12 point unit -- because they'll easily kill 3 times their points in enemy models. In other words, you can't cost things in isolation in a game filled with "special rules". To fix this, you could.................

Of course you can't cost things in isolation nor do you necessarily need to remove special rules and the like. What you need to do though is extensively playtest and have a single unifying design concept and points forumlae. Infinity is far more complex than 40k yet it manages to be very well balanced and it still uses points values.

I don't want to end up talking about 40k and Infinity on an AoS thread But anyhow, the more models and types of models you have, the harder it is to balance a game. Whether it's huge Titans and grots in the same game, or the God of Death and peasant conscripts, the more unit variety you have, the harder it becomes to balance.

When I started wargaming, Warhammer Fantasy Battle -- at least as viewed through my 15 yr old lens -- was like taking the English, French, Germans, Spanish, Monguls, Saracens, and just converting them into fantasy races. Sure, there was a little magic, but mostly, it was about regimented combat of foot soldiers, cavalry, and archers.

Over the years, Fantasy Battle seemed to get a lot more fantasy into it, from griffons and gaints to huge models like dragons, Nagash, and Treeman. I didn't really follow Fantasy Battle, so pardon me if I get the times and types of models wrong. Just my observation from flipping through the Fantasy battle sections of White Dwarf through the years.

Are introducing such models good for the game? Certainly, they're what a lot of players want, as evidenced by terrific sales of models like Imperial Knight, Baneblade, Wraithknight, Riptide, et cetera. Almost as certainly, they are really rough for game balance. Magic, too. Personally, the models and "wow factor" are more just important to me than game balance, but this isn't for everyone.


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 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Before I moved to SoCal, I lived in Michigan. And before that, upstate New York, so I get the rain/snow thing. I'm thinking you're more Vancouver than Toronto, tho. I moved south for a reason!

At some point, he's going to start crushing me at video games, what with those shorter neural paths and all... And that'll be OK. Hopefully, I'll have taught him not to gloat over the old man.

Vancouver We don't see much snow, but we all freak out like it's the apocalypse when there's a quarter inch of it (because we all run around in summer tires, and there's like 8 snow plows for a city of 2 million).

It won't take long, LOL. But it is good when the young Padawan bests the Jedi!

Merging from another thread:

Swatakowey wrote:I have no idea how to balance this game.

Manchu wrote:What exactly do you mean by "balance"? Do you just mean, you have no idea what would be fair against what?

 Manchu wrote:
Merging from another thread:

Swatakowey wrote:I have no idea how to balance this game.

Manchu wrote:What exactly do you mean by "balance"? Do you just mean, you have no idea what would be fair against what?

Not quite, the person said that having no knowledge about each army, unit and rule means the game will be hard. Someone then said that is not true and that AOS some how gets rid of TFG's. I said it is a very good point and explained the difficulty of 2 new people to wargaming will have playing this game without any knowledge besides what can be found on the free PDFs. I then asked him...

How does one play a fair game without knowing each of the units in another persons force? Because according to him it is easy and anyone who doesn't is a TFG who can't hide behind the points excuse, he then logged off.

So can without knowledge of the game create two roughly equal armies? Of course not. Which is the biggest flaw of this game. It is very adverse to new players.

Strikes me as pretty odd to call this game beginner-adverse. I should think two people new to war gaming will likely play AoS right out of the starter box, in which case they will not need to think at all about fairness because the forces seem pretty evenly matched. Even if they did decide to expand their collections from there using older models, I doubt they will have too difficult a time. After all, they will know how to read a warscroll and roughly size up a unit's potential just from their experience with the starter box. I reckon that the greatest stumbling block on that score is being a bit stuck in the "points & builds" mindset, which hardly applies to new players.

If someone understands what a unit's stats mean, s/he should have a pretty good idea about how powerful/useful it is. It is on this basis, after all, that people have posted on Dakka for years that X or Y unit is over/undercosted. Indeed, in light of all those complaints and their basis (theory and practice!), one wonders what use points really have in the first place as a matter of ensuring the sides are fairly matched. (It's almost like that's not the real point at all!) If points in WHFB have only ever given a rough sense of fairness, then surely an understanding based on warscroll stats will serve much the same role.

bob82ca wrote:
Thing I don't get about AOS is that I love making the army lists. I don't think I know anybody that dislikes it. Same with other games like Magic, it's so much fun to design the deck. To me it shows how out of touch GW is.

...
...

You are making the assumption that the purpose of army lists is to create an important strategic game play function for people to write army lists to maximise their chance of winning the game.

The original purpose of army lists was to ensure that the armies deployed on table top were realistic in composition and gave a fair fight. The purpose was not to find exploits that made one list stronger than another. This concept came into GW games because GW proved incapable of maintaining balance in their lists.

However for many people, writing a list is a chore that you do because you want to deploy a fair army, or because it saves time not to have to do the historical research to find out the composition of forces. In many games the lists are pre-selected, or rolled up from tables, avoiding any idea of optimising your list.

At any rate, AOS is not the game for players whose focus is list-building.

If you like list building games, MTG is largely a pre-selection list building game. There are also many 'deck building' card games, such as Dominion, in which the entire game is effectively building your army list (deck).

Very good point there, KK. I came to wargaming through GW. So when I cracked open my first historical games, imagine my confusion at how the term "army list" was used in that context!

For a miniatures game that very heavily emphasizes list building, try WM/H.

Hmm, I'm not entirely sure there won't be any army list in AoS. I suspect it will appear in scenarios or campaigns, with very restricted list of units you may take.

Just like in historical games, litteraly.

What is sure, however, is that the game is not thought for competitive gameplay. I believe it's more like a "return to the historical base" for GW...when they created scenarios for RPG games and it was unbelievable to build a list without having a background behind it.

Not a fan of AoS at all, it has little to no redeeming features in my eyes.

I guess the models are ok, but not what I personally like so I won't be buying any.

this discussion seems to have been lost in pointless debate about what is fun, is the game about winning etc. This is irrelevant. The game should allow you to have fun in whatever way you and your gaming group do it. If you are hypercompetitive then that is up to you and if you are about the fluff and models and casual gaming, then the game should cater for that too. No one is right in this arguement, it is down to personal preference.

The problem with AoS is that it takes none of this into account. The lack of a current balance mechanic is not strictly true because the starter box by all accounts contains two balanced forces. There are more scenarios with pre-determined armies coming in the new book.

So GW intends to balance the game by telling you what to take in your army and you just play it out with your friend. Much like buying a box of backgammon. This may be fine for some people, but it clearly disregards those people who enjoy army buidling/design and theming their own armies, or anything that allows them control of what they buy and put on the battlefield. GW gives no structure or rules for designing your own battles which I think is a serious problem. If I want to face my friends duardins with my seraphons, unless there's a pre made scenario containing those two armies, we have to work out the balance ourselves and will likely fail until we playtest it several times.

I simply don't want to do that. It is not what I consider to be my job or any fun for me and my friend.

It is impossible to ignore this serious omission from the AoS game.

AOS can be considered as a sandbox game. It gives you a minimal set of rules and you can make of them what you like.

Yes, GW will publish scenarios and balanced forces (hopefully!) with which to play them, but at the same time, all the existing WHFB armies have been published in war scrolls, enabling people to make up their own scenarios and campaigns from a large library of existing units. You don't need the starte set. If you want to play with round bases, Litko Aero will whip up suitable discs with square holes in them quickly enough.

To be fair you can of course use any more fully fleshed game as a sandbox. Take a game like WRG Ancients 7th edition and make up scenarios -- you don't have to use the set army lists and historical battles.

But, any way, GW have published AOS and it is what it is.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't understand the term 'game mastery design'.

It means "Don't make an army of uncontrollable berserkers and catapults."

Every unit should have a place in a top-tier army, but that does not mean every unit should have a place in every top-tier army. If you do something stupid - like build an army that wants to fling big rocks at people, but also bubble-wraps your opponent's army with half-naked squishy humans - you deserve to lose.

I'm tired of this WAAC vs. Casual debate. I really am. I feel like especially the "casual" side uses WAAC as a sort of straw man that shapeshifts to fit the needs of the situation.

Wanting a balancing mechanism does not make you WAAC. Playing to win does not make you WAAC.

I play wargames in a variety of ways (though for the last few years my life circumstances have forced me into only one mode of play). I enjoy doing themed campaigns and scenarios with my friends. We will often swap sides after a campaign and play it again, and this is very satisfying.

I also play in tournaments. When planning a tournament list, I often come up with a background or model based concept for my army, and then build it as well as I can within that context. All mounted Warriors of Chaos, or Mercenary Dwarves, whatever it is that tickles my fancy. I will then go to the tournament and try my best to win every game without cheating and while being fair and polite to my opponent - my aim is to win, but also to be happy at the end of my game to buy my opponent a drink. A close fought game where I felt I gave it my all is the pinnacle of the tournament experience. I can lose the game and still walk away happy if a game was closely fought (winning it is obviously better, though!). I can also walk away from a loss if it taught me a lesson. I dislike losing due to obvious list imbalances however, as it teaches me nothing except "Chaos Daemons are unbalanced in 7th edition" for example. Over the course of the tournament I will be constructing a narrative for my dudes in my head, and I do this all the time for all my armies. They might end up with a grudge against a certain foe, or their fortunes might turn a certain way. I enjoy this narrative aspect of play whether it is in a tournament or a casual game or a campaign game- it all gets incorporated into the saga.

Finally, I play pick up games against strangers. Surely the least optimal gaming environment, because you never know what to expect, but sadly the main way I play when I do get a chance to at the moment because of moving country a couple of times and not being fluent enough in the language or having the free time to join a club or the like. In a pick up game I'm mostly looking to toss dice, get to know people, and see how things are in the locality. I do like to win, too, but I wouldn't be as focused on that and would be more likely to take a less powerful list or wacky units.

So. Point of that long monologue? Previous editions of Warhammer Fantasy catered to ALL of those styles of play. I could do narrative campaigns on Wednesday, go to a tournament on the weekend and play pick up games on the Monday, if I so desired. Age of Sigmar allows me to only participate in ONE aspect of the game- narrative gaming with friends. So I say, fair enough, and move on to other systems that allow me to use my miniatures in all the ways that I enjoy.

People make the argument that Warhammer Fantasy has always been somewhat imbalanced. Well, I'd make the counter argument that that does not mean points are always wildly imbalanced and should be done away with. Warmachine and Hordes are very complex games with bajillions of units and factions, and they manage to keep things balanced within a fairly narrow range of parameters (there are weaker lists, but nothing so severe as Warhammer Fantasy). When a game is balanced, you take the stress out of army building because people feel freer to take whatever they like. It is not impossible to build a balanced game, but GW have decided for whatever reason that they don't want to.

Perhaps I am projecting, but I can't help but feel that the Studio feel that people like me who enjoy tournaments are "the wrong sort" and that this is an attempt to push us out or re-educate us into the right way of doing things. This seems crazy to me. I've started more than one gaming club in my time and have introduced countless people into the hobby, as well as running tournaments that attracted people from all over my home country. I'm not really the sort of person they want to make an advocate for their competition.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
But, any way, GW have published AOS and it is what it is.

Given GW don't tell us anything more than a few days in advance, goodness knows "what it is" until they're done with it.

But mostly, "what it is" looks grim to me


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 Da Boss wrote:
I'm tired of this WAAC vs. Casual debate. I really am.

+1. I'm incredibly sick of it, and it gets discussed in such black and whites when in reality most people lie somewhere in between. Things that particularly get on my nerves.

"it's about having fun not being competitive" as if they are mutually exclusive. I have fun BECAUSE I am playing a competitive game, not in spite of it!!!!!

"It's not about whether you win or lose it's about having fun" as if this has anything to do with the price of fish in China. Just because I'm playing competitively doesn't mean I break down and cry when I lose, am TFG when I win or that any of that has an impact on how much I'm enjoying the game.

"As long as you play with reasonable people it's fine" Yeah, because it's sooo unreasonable to want well written and balanced rules

"it's fine if you just play casually instead of competitive" as if these mutually exclusive Personally I'd say I'm an incredibly "casual" player, I don't enter tournaments, I don't keep any tally of my wins or losses, I don't care whether I win or lose, I play for the sake of meeting up with friends more than anything.... but I still want to be somewhat competitive and have some structure to what I'm doing otherwise I might as well just be sitting in a bar chewing on nachos with mates or shooting spitballs at a wall.

"It's about narrative so these things don't matter" as if forging a narrative was independent of a solid rules base or indeed as if GW wrote narrative rules in the first place!. Fact is, I like narrative gaming, but I still like to use a solid rules base to start from and a proper points system to try and arrange the scenarios, otherwise it's just meaningless "pew-pew-pew"-ing to me.

"It's fine if you're willing to adapt the rules" as if it wouldn't be better if you didn't have to bend rules to make a workable game. I'd say I'm a very adaptable player, but I still like to have a set of clear and concise rules as my base so that when I'm adapting rules it's not just to fix blatant oversights of the writers but it's actually to forge new and interesting narratives! If you first have to fix the damned rules then it just takes me one step further away from forging a good narrative game.

I do tire of reading these sorts of comments.