Age of Sigmar - Your Opinions, Impressions, Reviews

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.

**Skullhammer**

Or you could use bugman and his rangers who ambush in your move phase have better shotting when 20+ in the unit and are braver within range of old jo. Sure its not magic summoning but there dwarfs.

**Lythrandire Biehrellian**

What he said^

Also, your cannons will annihilate any summoner across the board from you! They can't hide in units to let peeons die instead, just kill them with giant piles of shooty doom and start winning.

One thing I noticed going through the books is melee centric armies seem to have more access to summoning and reserve style units than shooty armies. I think the intention is it lets them be shot to hell, and still bring enough units to bear to allow them to compete.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The other counter is to put more models on the table to start, that's why limiting things like wounds or datascrolls are a bad idea. It keeps you from using the game mechanics the way they were intended.

Narativly, daemons are starting to open a portal high in the mountains, the dwarvs find them and send a force they think is strong enough to stop them cold. Now the game is can the dwarves cripple the daemons before they lose their numerical advantage...

**Talys**

MWHistorian wrote:
And that's part of the problem for a supposedly "narrative" game. If I wanted to use my Dwarf army because I like the lore, well, feth me. I get punished because I don't want to destroy my favorite army and throw in Bloodthirsters and whatnot.

The idea behind AoS, though, and a requisite to its successful play is that your opponent recognize that you're playing a less powerful army (or accept as such when you point it out), and adjust accordingly, to the point where both of you think the armies are going to have a fair fight.

Obviously, there will be some armies that can *never* be reconciled, because some people will want to play grimy, basic humans, and others will want to play demi-gods and demons.

**NinthMusketeer**

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
If your games are turning into middle of the field mosh pits, you are playing it wrong. Most of the time, you do want to stay in a formation, because the weapons have a rang value and being in a block maximises your damage potential due to reach and needing to move towards the nearest model (meaning if you are swinging around other models and reaching other enemy models, you are actually going against the rules.)

The balance come from your collection. Two players with e variety of units to put on the table are having a good game of it. Those who are trying to force house rules into the system and playing it exactly the same way as before with minimal terrain and a pre built army roster are the ones failing to get the picture.

Watching battlereports I am seeing a slow swing towards favorability by people deciding to play by (all) the rules instead of sitting around complaining about how the game changed. That is because they are letting go of the old, unnecessarily bloated warhammer rules and realising that the game has legitimacy in regards to tactics that aren't reliant on trying to get around shoddy game mechanics.

To the guy who couldn't stop the vampire counts spells, where were your cavalry, archers, deepstirking units, artillery and flyers? When he put down necromancers and sat a box of skeletons to the side, those should have been dropped into your deployment zone first chance you had. If those weren't available, then pile on more models when he gets done and hope to overwhelm him before his reinforcements become a major factor.

The game wants you to bring a collection, not an army. You will start to see more balanced games when you both agree to do that.
This comes across as exactly the sort of holier-than-thou attitude that annoys people. If you want others to listen to what you have to say and successfully argue a point, than insulting those who disagree with you (implied or directly) is the exact opposite of what to do. And as an aside, when playing strictly by the rules formations mean even less than if you add house rules, because you can literally stack your models on top of each other in a pile if you like. Further, any sort of tactical potential is meaningless if your opponent puts down a force ten times stronger than yours or pulls one of the numerous game-breaking combos which are completely legal by the rules given. Of course doing these things is ridiculous, but so is the argument that a large number of disgruntled players are simply "doing it wrong" or even the argument that such people trying to have fun their way could be 'wrong' at all.

As a rebuttal, your being able to stack bases (especially with square ones) means you will still get more models in range if you are in formation. The majority of what I am seeing in regards to complaints are people forcing restrictions and attempting to balance the game themselves are not enjoying themselves. Like the bretonian player above being forced to have the same number of wounds their opponent does, why? They will obviously have a huge number of these models, why are their opponents limiting them arbitrarily because they don't think the game is balanced? I wasn't trying to be condescending, but blaming the game for lack of enjoyment when you have houseruled it before ever putting down models (which people did, the moment the rules leaked. I was reading along on the rumor forum) is not the fault of the game or the company that made it. When you see the comment " we played with 50 wounds a piece, and the game was crap" you did that to yourself, that was you limiting the game in scope, not the game itself lacking depth.

Also, with the 100 times stronger force, every army in the game has access to summoning, board edge reinforcements, and/or artillery. If you want to stop their superior force, choose assassinate and slaughter a single character or monster. It isn't hard to do, they can't hide in a unit for protection anymore.

Though I respectfully disagree about the last point because many situations of strong vs weak will hardly be that simple (10 bloodthirsters vs 100 clanrats; its the stronger side that gets sudden death, summoning units doesn't help if they just summon more, etc) you do have a really good point about people causing their own problems. I read your original post as saying people who wanted a balancing mechanism were wrong, but if players are complaining about crappy balance in a system they put on themselves then I agree it is rather silly. Though to be fair, I believe many players saying the game is crap because of being unbalanced are simply shortening "this game isn't fun for me because there isn't a balancing mechanism included or easily applied" which is a legitimate complaint, since not everyone will want to work out the balance 'manually' before each game. Of course the points-less system can work well, and is certainly best for some people, but the general irritation on the matter seems to be stemming from the fact that GW cares so little they couldn't even be bothered to put in anything when there was no downside to doing so.

**JohnHwangDD**

I started in on noting how AOS is actually a very old GW gaming concept, and it looks like someone else already wrote the article:

http://www.vampirecounts.net/threads/old-jervis-johnson-article-and-age-of-sigmar-design-philosophy.29448/

**mekugi**

I played my first game of AOS on the weekend...
I rolled out my space lizards and absolutely roflstomped the The Stormcast Eternals from the box set.
I applied a balancing mechanism someone at my club had dug up that limited hero wounds and monster/war machines wounds. I had 50 wounds on the dot. Chameleon skinks were bonkers and pretty much everything just mashed through his The Stormcast Eternals.
I came away feeling a bit guilty about the whole thing. I don't see the game as being any fun without more stringent balancing.

**NinthMusketeer**

mekugi wrote:
I played my first game of AOS on the weekend...
I rolled out my space lizards and absolutely roflstomped the The Stormcast Eternals from the box set.
I applied a balancing mechanism someone at my club had dug up that limited hero wounds and monster/war machines wounds. I had 50 wounds on the dot. Chameleon skinks were bonkers and pretty much everything just mashed through his The Stormcast Eternals.
I came away feeling a bit guilty about the whole thing. I don't see the game as being any fun without more stringent balancing.

Same problem when I did my first game as well, though it was my nurgle vs his starter box khorne. Maybe try the comp from Project Points Cost on this very forum (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/655717.page) I have yet to get into it myself unfortunately, but it looks pretty good at a glance.

**Lythrandire Biehrellian**

When fighting the box set armies, your older armies will definitely have an advantage. You have a depth of units and weapon and options they can't bring to the table yet.

Imagine in 40k if you brought an entire space marine army to fight skitarii the first week of the release. They could have equal points, but they won't have the answers available to you much more extensive collection.

Next time don't cap things with wounds or any of that, just play with a smaller deployment zone. Either a 4x4 or a 3x3 and just place models like the core rules say to. You should find everything will have a better go of it at that point

**Lythrandire Biehrellian**

Spoiler:

NinthMusketeer wrote:
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
If your games are turning into middle of the field mosh pits, you are playing it wrong. Most of the time, you do want to stay in a formation, because the weapons have a rang value and being in a block maximises your damage potential due to reach and needing to move towards the nearest model (meaning if you are swinging around other models and reaching other enemy models, you are actually going against the rules.)

The balance come from your collection. Two players with e variety of units to put on the table are having a good game of it. Those who are trying to force house rules into the system and playing it exactly the same way as before with minimal terrain and a pre built army roster are the ones failing to get the picture.

Watching battlereports I am seeing a slow swing towards favorability by people deciding to play by (all) the rules instead of sitting around complaining about how the game changed. That is because they are letting go of the old, unnecessarily bloated warhammer rules and realising that the game has legitimacy in regards to tactics that aren't reliant on trying to get around shoddy game mechanics.

To the guy who couldn't stop the vampire counts spells, where were your cavalry, archers, deepstirking units, artillery and flyers? When he put down necromancers and sat a box of skeletons to the side, those should have been dropped into your deployment zone first chance you had. If those weren't available, then pile on more models when he gets done and hope to overwhelm him before his reinforcements become a major factor.

The game wants you to bring a collection, not an army. You will start to see more balanced games when you both agree to do that.
This comes across as exactly the sort of holier-than-thou attitude that annoys people. If you want others to listen to what you have to say and successfully argue a point, than insulting those who disagree with you (implied or directly) is the exact opposite of what to do. And as an aside, when playing strictly by the rules formations mean even less than if you add house rules, because you can literally stack your models on top of each other in a pile if you like. Further, any sort of tactical potential is meaningless if your opponent puts down a force ten times stronger than yours or pulls one of the numerous game-breaking combos which are completely legal by the rules given. Of course doing these things is ridiculous, but so is the argument that a large number of disgruntled players are simply "doing it wrong" or even the argument that such people trying to have fun their way could be 'wrong' at all.

As a rebuttal, your being able to stack bases (especially with square ones) means you will still get more models in range if you are in formation. The majority of what I am seeing in regards to complaints are people forcing restrictions and attempting to balance the game themselves are not enjoying themselves. Like the bretonian player above being forced to have the same number of wounds their opponent does, why? They will obviously have a huge number of these models, why are their opponents limiting them arbitrarily because they don't think the game is balanced? I wasn't trying to be condescending, but blaming the game for lack of enjoyment when you have houseruled it before ever putting down models (which people did, the moment the rules leaked. I was reading along on the rumor forum) is not the fault of the game or the company that made it. When you see the comment " we played with 50 wounds a piece, and the game was crap" you did that to yourself, that was you limiting the game in scope, not the game itself lacking depth.

Also, with the 100 times stronger force, every army in the game has access to summoning, board edge reinforcements, and/or artillery. If you want to stop their superior force, choose assassinate and slaughter a single character or monster. It isn't hard to do, they can't hide in a unit for protection anymore.

Though I respectfully disagree about the last point because many situations of strong vs weak will hardly be that simple (10 bloodthirsters vs 100 clanrats; its the stronger side that gets sudden death, summoning units doesn't help if they just summon more, etc) you do have a really good point about people causing their own problems. I read your original post as saying people who wanted a balancing mechanism were wrong, but if players are complaining about crappy balance in a system they put on themselves then I agree it is rather silly. Though to be fair, I believe many players saying the game is crap because of being unbalanced are simply shortening "this game isn't fun for me because there isn't a balancing mechanism included or easily applied" which is a legitimate complaint, since not everyone will want to work out the balance 'manually' before each game. Of course the points-less system can work well, and is certainly best for some people, but the general irritation on the matter seems to be stemming from the fact that GW cares so little they couldn't even be bothered to put in anything when there was no downside to doing so.

With the bloodthirstier versus clanrats, I think the clanrats will win that one. A unit of clanrats that size will reroll a bunch of dice, have decent armor, and have so many models to puul from that aren't engaged that they will literally drown the thirsters. Also, limiting deployment zone size in correlation to the you place, I place mechanic will also help balance out most games

**Lord Blackscale**

For those like me who only want the models for painting and display the GW painting studio had a booth at GenCon with a really cool display. I will try to upload some of my shoddy pictures in the next couple of days.

**Kilkrazy**

Out of interest, what attracts you to paint GW models rather than Napoleonic or Mediaeval, which offer a huge range of colourful options of uniforms and heraldry, flags, and so on?

**bitethythumb**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Out of interest, what attracts you to paint GW models rather than Napoleonic or Mediaeval, which offer a huge range of colourful options of uniforms and heraldry, flags, and so on?

for me, its the heroic models, monsters and epic level of everything and I love the steam tank

**Lord Blackscale**

Besides beutiful models? I like the setting of 40K and play that game. I just happen to really like the chos models AoS has put out so far. As far as historic models, they just don't have the same apeal to me. I also buy and paint a lot of models for my RPG games, and some of these new models from GW would work well for that.

**Anpu42**

I like this Warhammer World Event.
It reminds me of the "Holy War over the Holy Chest of Yorba Linda" I once ran for my Medieval Recreation Group. Each Battle gave some special thing for the winner and we had to make up rules along the way to make some of the battles work.
'Like when during the Rescue the Hostage Battle One side untied the hostage they were holding and stated to run of with it. After me and Sir Patric [the other guy helping me run the war] looked at the rules we had set up had to rule that that was legal to do.'
We also had a silly one where we filled the battlefield with Stuffed Animals and the winner was the one who had the most at the end. Sir Patric and me had only came up with the concept, but it was the the two Generals who came up with why, the Armies need food. So in the next Battle you could turn in one of the Stuffed Animals for an Extra Life.
At the end there was no one expect anything as a prize other than bragging rights. [We did give the winning side a Ice Chest filled with beer though.]
To me this is what AoS is and the WHW Event seems to capture the feel of that "Lets Just Go And Have Fun!" Spirit that has been missing for the longest time.

**NinthMusketeer**

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

Spoiler:

NinthMusketeer wrote:
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
If your games are turning into middle of the field mosh pits, you are playing it wrong. Most of the time, you do want to stay in a formation, because the weapons have a rang value and being in a block maximises your damage potential due to reach and needing to move towards the nearest model (meaning if you are swinging around other models and reaching other enemy models, you are actually going against the rules.)

The balance come from your collection. Two players with e variety of units to put on the table are having a good game of it. Those who are trying to force house rules into the system and playing it exactly the same way as before with minimal terrain and a pre built army roster are the ones failing to get the picture.

Watching battlereports I am seeing a slow swing towards favorability by people deciding to play by (all) the rules instead of sitting around complaining about how the game changed. That is because they are letting go of the old, unnecessarily bloated warhammer rules and realising that the game has legitimacy in regards to tactics that aren't reliant on trying to get around shoddy game mechanics.

To the guy who couldn't stop the vampire counts spells, where were your cavalry, archers, deepstirking units, artillery and flyers? When he put down necromancers and sat a box of skeletons to the side, those should have been dropped into your deployment zone first chance you had. If those weren't available, then pile on more models when he gets done and hope to overwhelm him before his reinforcements become a major factor.

The game wants you to bring a collection, not an army. You will start to see more balanced games when you both agree to do that.
This comes across as exactly the sort of holier-than-thou attitude that annoys people. If you want others to listen to what you have to say and successfully argue a point, than insulting those who disagree with you (implied or directly) is the exact opposite of what to do. And as an aside, when playing strictly by the rules formations mean even less than if you add house rules, because you can literally stack your models on top of each other in a pile if you like. Further, any sort of tactical potential is meaningless if your opponent puts down a force ten times stronger than yours or pulls one of the numerous game-breaking combos which are completely legal by the rules given. Of course doing these things is ridiculous, but so is the argument that a large number of disgruntled players are simply "doing it wrong" or even the argument that such people trying to have fun their way could be 'wrong' at all.

As a rebuttal, your being able to stack bases (especially with square ones) means you will still get more models in range if you are in formation. The majority of what I am seeing in regards to complaints are people forcing restrictions and attempting to balance the game themselves are not enjoying themselves. Like the bretonian player above being forced to have the same number of wounds their opponent does, why? They will obviously have a huge number of these models, why are their opponents limiting them arbitrarily because they don't think the game is balanced? I wasn't trying to be condescending, but blaming the game for lack of enjoyment when you have houseruled it before ever putting down models (which people did, the moment the rules leaked. I was reading along on the rumor forum) is not the fault of the game or the company that made it. When you see the comment " we played with 50 wounds a piece, and the game was crap" you did that to yourself, that was you limiting the game in scope, not the game itself lacking depth.

Also, with the 100 times stronger force, every army in the game has access to summoning, board edge reinforcements, and/or artillery. If you want to stop their superior force, choose assassinate and slaughter a single character or monster. It isn't hard to do, they can't hide in a unit for protection anymore.

Though I respectfully disagree about the last point because many situations of strong vs weak will hardly be that simple (10 bloodthirsters vs 100 clanrats; its the stronger side that gets sudden death, summoning units doesn't help if they just summon more, etc) you do have a really good point about people causing their own problems. I read your original post as saying people who wanted a balancing mechanism were wrong, but if players are complaining about crappy balance in a system they put on themselves then I agree it is rather silly. Though to be fair, I believe many players saying the game is crap because of being unbalanced are simply shortening "this game isn't fun for me because there isn't a balancing mechanism included or easily applied" which is a legitimate complaint, since not everyone will want to work out the balance 'manually' before each game. Of course the points-less system can work well, and is certainly best for some people, but the general irritation on the matter seems to be stemming from the fact that GW cares so little they couldn't even be bothered to put in anything when there was no downside to doing so.

With the bloodthirstier versus clanrats, I think the clanrats will win that one. A unit of clanrats that size will reroll a bunch of dice, have decent armor, and have so many models to puul from that aren't engaged that they will literally drown the thirsters. Also, limiting deployment zone size in correlation to the you place, I place mechanic will also help balance out most games

10 bloodthirsters vs 15 clanrats then. The exact models used in the example are arbitrary; the ultimate point is that the two players must work out balanced forces before the game in order for balance to be present. What I'm trying to say here is that the bare-bones RAW do not make for a reasonable game on their own. They require extra investment by the players, the form of this investment varies from gamer to gamer (which is good, people have different preferences), but it is a requirement to play. While I'm coming around to the fluff of AoS as the shock factor of "oh my Sigmar the Old World is gone" wears off I still feel that the rules writing done by GW is lazy and shows that they simply don't care about the game. They really seem to have swallowed their own hype that they are a model company with games on the side, but that is not what made them successful in the first place. Model companies do not fill nearly as much shelf space at FLGS as companies to seriously invest into games with their models, and I think GW's third report in a row of falling sales shows the cost of their current philosophy.

**Lythrandire Biehrellian**

If I put down 15 clanrats, and you put down 10 blood thirsters, I would split mine up into single man units and you could chase them all over the board. Yay cat and mouse!

Let's not be rediculous here. Nobody is going to bring most of a box of clanrats and expect a decent game. Same with someone who bought $1500 worth of bloodthirstier and only brings those to play with.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Out of interest, what attracts you to paint GW models rather than Napoleonic or Mediaeval, which offer a huge range of colourful options of uniforms and heraldry, flags, and so on?

I'm probably even farther from normal gaming than he is, but I like to collect minis just to assemble them, sometimes convert or kit bash them, and to have them. Frankly, Napoleonic minis are terribly boring for me. I like to imagine fantasy events in imaginary worlds as opposed to wondering if the post siege massacre or the starvation will kill more people. I like GW's minis more than some random range's because BL and FFG have provided a lot of context for each mini that gives them a lot of value beyond just the aesthetic, the sculpting or the pose, even if those are also important. Space marines are iconic, and they capture the imagination in a way that random armored spacemen just don't yet. For example, Mantic's enforcers only appeal to me because the design is good and fits in with some of the SF I like to read.

**Makumba**

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
What he said^

Also, your cannons will annihilate any summoner across the board from you! They can't hide in units to let peeons die instead, just kill them with giant piles of shooty doom and start winning.

One thing I noticed going through the books is melee centric armies seem to have more access to summoning and reserve style units than shooty armies. I think the intention is it lets them be shot to hell, and still bring enough units to bear to allow them to compete.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The other counter is to put more models on the table to start, that's why limiting things like wounds or datascrolls are a bad idea. It keeps you from using the game mechanics the way they were intended.

Narativly, daemons are starting to open a portal high in the mountains, the dwarvs find them and send a force they think is strong enough to stop them cold. Now the game is can the dwarves cripple the daemons before they lose their numerical advantage...

have you actualy try to play against a skink summoning list? I mean sure I could technicly buy 1 cannon per every 3 skin models my opponent owns, but it is way out of my budget.

The idea behind AoS, though, and a requisite to its successful play is that your opponent recognize that you're playing a less powerful army (or accept as such when you point it out), and adjust accordingly, to the point where both of you think the armies are going to have a fair fight.

But to adjust he would have to own bad models in the first place. What if he is not crazy and did what everyone else does and bought only the good models. And best the player with the weaker army will be able to face different armies that beat him. Not very fun considering the models cost in money.

**Lythrandire Biehrellian**

Your other counter is speed. They can't be deployed within 9" of your models. So kill one on turn one with your cannons, then gyrocopters swing forward. Even if you're charged retreat to get over and behind the summoned unit turn two and now he won't be able to summon anything within a 9" bubble. Kill another summoner with your cannons. Then push infantry forward like ironbreakers or dwarf warriors to tarpit. When his big models and summoner are dead, shoot the units you tied down with hard as nails infantry with your giant cannons and watch the casualties mount.

I played a game against slaanesh daemons yesterday, it was fun! She summoned a keeper of secrets and a unit of daemonettes during the game, but my high elf bolt thrower almost killed one of the big nasties in a single shooting phase, so it wasn't that intimidating really. Only had two hours to play, which in and of itself is a balancing mechanic, and my opponent had a minor victory. All in all it was a good afternoon spent learning the ins and outs of this game with the Mrs.

**Makumba**

and if he gets turn 1, he summons skinks, more skinks, more skinks, even more skinks, fires with them all. wipes my army out by shoting. But the worse thing happens when he goes second and first in second phase, getting two back to back turns to summon. Then real magic happens.

Also I like how you seem to play on snow plain tables. Because if he puts his summoners behind buildings you can't kill them with cannons at all.

**Skriker**

Deadnight wrote:

Completely true striker. So why not use this one for scenario building as well then?

Firstly it is Skriker, not Striker.

Because the scenario building is all it has. The actual rules are junk. When I use a good rules system to run scenario based games, those scenarios are backed up by the same decent rules. So the scenarios are fun and I don't need to house rule the heck out of the rules to make them useful before I play my scenario.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

To the guy who couldn't stop the vampire counts spells, where were your cavalry, archers, deepstirking units, artillery and flyers? When he put down necromancers and sat a box of skeletons to the side, those should have been dropped into your deployment zone first chance you had. If those weren't available, then pile on more models when he gets done and hope to overwhelm him before his reinforcements become a major factor.

The game wants you to bring a collection, not an army. You will start to see more balanced games when you both agree to do that.

Ahhh so the answer is if someone puts something down you think is powerful, then put down more of your own stuff too. That solves everything, except when one player has a bunch of bigger and better stuff in their collection so that once both full collections are on the table the opponent is still unable to catch up in power level and still loses out of hand.

**bitethythumb**

Skriker wrote:
Deadnight wrote:

Completely true striker. So why not use this one for scenario building as well then?

Firstly it is Skriker, not Striker.

Because the scenario building is all it has. The actual rules are junk. When I use a good rules system to run scenario based games, those scenarios are backed up by the same decent rules. So the scenarios are fun and I don't need to house rule the heck out of the rules to make them useful before I play my scenario.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

To the guy who couldn't stop the vampire counts spells, where were your cavalry, archers, deepstirking units, artillery and flyers? When he put down necromancers and sat a box of skeletons to the side, those should have been dropped into your deployment zone first chance you had. If those weren't available, then pile on more models when he gets done and hope to overwhelm him before his reinforcements become a major factor.

The game wants you to bring a collection, not an army. You will start to see more balanced games when you both agree to do that.

Ahhh so the answer is if someone puts something down you think is powerful, then put down more of your own stuff too. That solves everything, except when one player has a bunch of bigger and better stuff in their collection so that once both full collections are on the table the opponent is still unable to catch up in power level and still loses out of hand.

the rules are great and you are wrong, tell me what stops the player with the "weaker" toys from saying "nah this is unfair, can you remove, this and this, they are overpowered etc" : and continue from then on? what about both players agreeing on sudden death if they feel that one side is overpowered :/

and you would be surprised how "fair" most units are in AoS... I had my unit of 16 skellies kill off a unit of 15 witch elves in melee combat because I used hero powers to boost them...

**Deadnight**

Skriker wrote:
Deadnight wrote:

Completely true striker. So why not use this one for scenario building as well then?

Firstly it is Skriker, not Striker.

Because the scenario building is all it has. The actual rules are junk. When I use a good rules system to run scenario based games, those scenarios are backed up by the same decent rules. So the scenarios are fun and I don't need to house rule the heck out of the rules to make them useful before I play my scenario.
.

and on that, we are agreed.

personally, we use either infinity, flames of war, or various historicals to run cool scenarios. that said, we still home brew the hell out of some stuff.

bitethythumb wrote:
the rules are great and you are wrong, tell me what stops the player with the "weaker" toys from saying "nah this is unfair, can you remove, this and this, they are overpowered etc" : and continue from then on? ...

the rules are basic, bland and uninteresting.

what stops the player? me saying 'no'. because i think they're both fair, fluffy and most importantly, fun. having someone tell me how and what i 'should' be playing is downright insulting. its a step shy of attempting to bully, frankly.

'you cant play with cool stuff'. no, bugger off.

bitethythumb wrote:
what about both players agreeing on sudden death if they feel that one side is overpowered :/
..

them agreeing that one side is overpowered.

**JohnHwangDD**

bitethythumb wrote:
tell me what stops the player with the "weaker" toys from saying "nah this is unfair, can you remove, this and this, they are overpowered etc" : and continue from then on?

The rules?

Conceptually, AoS is about letting players play with their toys. If Player A intends to play with their Giant, then the answer must be "Yes!!, you may play with your Giant." For Player B to say "No" defeats the entire point of the game.

The solution in AoS is for Player B to continue deploying a larger quantity to balance A's higher quality.

What Player B can do is ask Player A to deploy less stuff, taking the first turn, so that the overall game doesn't get too large.

**bitethythumb**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
bitethythumb wrote:
tell me what stops the player with the "weaker" toys from saying "nah this is unfair, can you remove, this and this, they are overpowered etc" : and continue from then on?

The rules?

Conceptually, AoS is about letting players play with their toys. If Player A intends to play with their Giant, then the answer must be "Yes!!, you may play with your Giant." For Player B to say "No" defeats the entire point of the game.

The solution in AoS is for Player B to continue deploying a larger quantity to balance A's higher quality.

What Player B can do is ask Player A to deploy less stuff, taking the first turn, so that the overall game doesn't get too large.

the point of the game is to play and enjoy yourself, I played against someone using only giants, I lost, I still had fun... The games purpose was successful also the game has allowed to build better more thematic armies like 12 steamtanks (the vinci) it has allowed me to create more varied and fun army list that could not happen before like an all flying army, heck I might start a Dogs of war army once again...WHFB could not let me do that AoS can and therefore its succeeded in its purpose rather than failed... What I see a lot is people are seeing WARHAMMER as only a competitive pokemon style game where random players meet up and fight when in reality it is a paint, build and THEN fight game, people are ignoring the 2 other aspects of the game and focus on the gameplay and at the same time only focusing on the bad and ignoring the good, how many people have talked about how much better creating an army has become? I rarely hear anyone mention that you can build almost any type of army you imagine.. Sure some things may be bad but talking to someone fixes that... In short, AoS foes not defeat the purpose of the game, it changed it and for some its for the better.... By the way which rule forces you to play against people you do not want to play against?

**NinthMusketeer**

What I see a lot is people are seeing WARHAMMER as only a competitive pokemon style game where random players meet up and fight when in reality it is a paint, build and THEN fight game, people are ignoring the 2 other aspects of the game and focus on the gameplay and at the same time only focusing on the bad and ignoring the good

No, what you are seeing is a large portion of players who prefer competitive games with points values and balance, and their disapproval of the current edition of Warhammer saying "nah, we aren't going to support your way of having fun" when previous editions of the game going back for decades have. They are focusing on what they liked about Warhammer, and are as justified in doing so as you. Not all players saw the game as an aside to the hobby aspect. Not all players felt that points costs were unneeded baggage. Some players are happy with the game as-is, that's fine. Some player's aren't happy, and their opinions are no less legitimate than the first party. The only 'wrong' opinions here are the ones accusing other players of somehow being wrong in what they like to play.

**bitethythumb**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
What I see a lot is people are seeing WARHAMMER as only a competitive pokemon style game where random players meet up and fight when in reality it is a paint, build and THEN fight game, people are ignoring the 2 other aspects of the game and focus on the gameplay and at the same time only focusing on the bad and ignoring the good
No, what you are seeing is a large portion of players who prefer competitive games with points values and balance, and their disapproval of the current edition of Warhammer saying "nah, we aren't going to support your way of having fun" when previous editions of the game going back for decades have. They are focusing on what they liked about Warhammer, and are as justified in doing so as you. Not all players saw the game as an aside to the hobby aspect. Not all players felt that points costs were unneeded baggage. Some players are happy with the game as-is, that's fine. Some player's aren't happy, and their opinions are no less legitimate than the first party. The only 'wrong' opinions here are the ones accusing other players of somehow being wrong in what they like to play.

and a lot of those players say things like "AoS is bad it has no points" or "player a can use only giants and abuse the game" or "AoS purposes is A and not B and by not doing A defeats its purpose" which are all subjective opinions and in no way make the game bad, they may disapprove but at a certain point it becomes a constant abuse, people have stated their opinions, time to move on, its like every week is the same thing, heck just recently someone posted about AoS tactics and it was hijacked by comments like "AoS has no tactics, lol" its getting rather stale not being able to discuss the game without having to read why someone thinks AoS sucks.... I want to talk tactics and lore and modelling but dakka does not seem like the place for that, just look at the news and rumours page on AoS, half the pages are off topic about how bad things are... I prefer dakka as a website but it seems like other sites are less biased.

**Zognob Gorgoff**

Talys wrote:
MWHistorian wrote:
And that's part of the problem for a supposedly "narrative" game. If I wanted to use my Dwarf army because I like the lore, well, feth me. I get punished because I don't want to destroy my favorite army and throw in Bloodthirsters and whatnot.

The idea behind AoS, though, and a requisite to its successful play is that your opponent recognize that you're playing a less powerful army (or accept as such when you point it out), and adjust accordingly, to the point where both of you think the armies are going to have a fair fight.

Obviously, there will be some armies that can *never* be reconciled, because some people will want to play grimy, basic humans, and others will want to play demi-gods and demons.

indeed, and it works fine for most part, i played a great game the other day my hi elves vs two chaos armies everyone was just excited to see how long i could last!
We decided that the hi elves where buying time for civilians to evac and set an a turn win condition if i died before turn 4 it was a total fail and if i made it to turn 6 is was a draw and turn 8 a win! i made it to turn 8 as my last models the crew for my bolt thrower managed to stab a blood warrior to death then got chomped only leaving and hand full of wounded chaos models, we see the board up as a port the civs being evaced by boat, we all decided that the last of the chaos where broad sided to death by the leaving convoy of boats lol

**bitethythumb**

Zognob Gorgoff wrote:
Talys wrote:
MWHistorian wrote:
And that's part of the problem for a supposedly "narrative" game. If I wanted to use my Dwarf army because I like the lore, well, feth me. I get punished because I don't want to destroy my favorite army and throw in Bloodthirsters and whatnot.

The idea behind AoS, though, and a requisite to its successful play is that your opponent recognize that you're playing a less powerful army (or accept as such when you point it out), and adjust accordingly, to the point where both of you think the armies are going to have a fair fight.

Obviously, there will be some armies that can *never* be reconciled, because some people will want to play grimy, basic humans, and others will want to play demi-gods and demons.

indeed, and it works fine for most part, i played a great game the other day my hi elves vs two chaos armies everyone was just excited to see how long i could last!
We decided that the hi elves where buying time for civilians to evac and set an a turn win condition if i died before turn 4 it was a total fail and if i made it to turn 6 is was a draw and turn 8 a win! i made it to turn 8 as my last models the crew for my bolt thrower managed to stab a blood warrior to death then got chomped only leaving and hand full of wounded chaos models, we see the board up as a port the civs being evaced by boat, we all decided that the last of the chaos where broad sided to death by the leaving convoy of boats lol

I have a mish mash of units (I have not decided on a theme yet, but almost 60% done) and played a game where most of it was a dark elf on a dragon flying about killing my things until the end where my trolls killed him

was fun... thank god for regeneration

**Skriker**

bitethythumb wrote:
[
the rules are great and you are wrong, tell me what stops the player with the "weaker" toys from saying "nah this is unfair, can you remove, this and this, they are overpowered etc" : and continue from then on? what about both players agreeing on sudden death if they feel that one side is overpowered :/

and you would be surprised how "fair" most units are in AoS... I had my unit of 16 skellies kill off a unit of 15 witch elves in melee combat because I used hero powers to boost them...

Our definition of great is clearly not the same.

Nothing stops the player with the weaker toys from saying anything, but equally nothing stops the stronger player from saying No they won't change their force, or the scenario or whatever. Such things go both ways. In my experience over the last 30 years as a war gamer I have found the obstinate response to be the most common when relying on the local store to provide your opponents sadly. Yep you have the power to walk away from the table in such cases, but then you've always had that power when playing any game. 40k is bad enough with its poor balance, why would I want a game that has even less balance than that? No thanks.

You are free to like it all you want, but I will not consider the AoS rules as they stand to be great. No I am not wrong, I just disagree with your position. Totally different things.