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The scenarios in the book make no mention of which forces or suggested forces to use, they're intended for all - but the story has a "historical example" of each scenario because fluff.

I am interested in how these AoS book scenarios work. I haven't seen the book. In my experience and expectation, a wargame scenario consists of a map, orders of battle, starting deployment and objectives for both sides, perhaps with intelligence summaries if there is any hidden aspect to the scenario, time limits, weather and so on as needed.

I suspect that the legacy armies will eventually be left behind in favor of catch-all groupings. Rumors suggested this before Age of Sigmar was announced, and it seems to be somewhat accurate in at least the way the miniatures are being marketed on the website.

It seems to me that there's a transition period going on where units or armies are slowly being split up and redistributed to their new identities and factions. Sylvaneth and Pestilens being separate from Wood Elves and Skaven as current examples.

I'm thinking it would be something akin to Chaos -> Nurgle -> Pestilens
Where Chaos is the overall faction, Nurgle the specific army type and Pestilens being a set of options for the Nurgle army.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am interested in how these AoS book scenarios work. I haven't seen the book. In my experience and expectation, a wargame scenario consists of a map, orders of battle, starting deployment and objectives for both sides, perhaps with intelligence summaries if there is any hidden aspect to the scenario, time limits, weather and so on as needed.

It has all of that except for the order of battle. It's still bring whatever you want.

So you've got a map and an objective, but no suggested forces?

It seems a bit strange not to suggest suitable forces fo each side. The game is aimed at newcomers who could not be expected to know what sort of size of force is needed for instance to capture a bridge.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
So you've got a map and an objective, but no suggested forces?

Yep.

It seems a bit strange not to suggest suitable forces fo each side. The game is aimed at newcomers who could not be expected to know what sort of size of force is needed for instance to capture a bridge.

I don't think being a realistic simulation was ever a goal of GW. The castle scenario for example does suggest you talk with your opponent about what size army you are going to bring....but only because bigger armies require bigger castles

No advice about the force multiplier that fortifications grant to the defender? Nothing about the fact that engineers are much more valuable than cavalry in attacking a castle?

Without taking through the scenarios 1 by 1, difficult to explain.
Some of the scenarios specify that relative army size determines role, some have an extremely limited deployment area, some specify ratio of on-table to reserves, etc.

The main factor is the objective. These aren't as easy as you'd think, and simply having 'more stuff' on the table is pointless.
Some units bring little or nothing to the scenario depending on your objective, while others are potentially so suited to the task you can be looking at a legit turn 1 victory if your opponent doesn't see it coming.

Well, being somewhat of a lurker here I and not actually having played warhammer fantasy battle for a long time (did do WFRP last month though), I am still a bit shocked by the absolutely radical change GW has made to the whole WFB concept.
My first thought after reading through the bits of info available was: "well, that's 30 years of history down the drain"...
For the rest I'm not really THAT interested in AoS or 8th edition, but the wholy damned MYTHOS GW created for it's fantasy world since the 90's is now history.
oh well, At least we'll have the upcoming Total War Game as final tribute to WFB as it once was.

They could have had both dammit... they could've had both!

After a night's sleep I came up with two analogies what this baffling move by GW is like:

1. Metallica ditching their guitars in favour of synths and turn-tables (and a KAOS-pad), dressing up in monkey-costumes and only playing dub-step versions of Bob Dylan songs for the rest of their career, with an occassional remix-parody of Nothing else matters and mr. Sandman.

2. The Imagination Land plot-line from South Park, especially the end in the way that Sigmar=Butters... The world (imagination land- and let's face it, WFB is so a part of that) is destroyed and only "the Key" is left in a blank void and wills it all back into existence (slightly different).
Though GW made it a little more extreme by not doing a "we do a reset everything goes back to 2502"

Sure I've heard people say that the fluff is now closer to what warhammer seemed to become with the Realms of Chaos books of the late 80's and in a way I can see that... but no. It's too clean and tidy in the fluff and too bare-bones in the rules to be like that.

Rules wise it may now be a lot easier for me to get my WFRP buddies playing warhammer battles now the rules are just 4 pages... and those guys don't use the GW Old World anyway so that's no problem.
The rules do remind me of the way me and my friends played warhammer (FB) when we just started as 13 year olds and before we owned any rulebooks or codices: From the quick-start booklets we could get for free at the LGS despite having totally different models than the 4th edition starter set. We did some improvising, some memorization of things read in the books in the lgs and basically played AoS now I think about it. Static to hit and to wound rolls and all (based on race/faction), only with kind-of the 4th ed. psychology rules.

Note that we played this while owning 1 or 2 4th ed. plastics sets (6-10 mini's each) each of either High Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs/Goblins and Chaos (beastmen) and we had some fun with it but the High Elves always won.

Yesterday, I battled Eric with his Skaven against my Khorne army, 75 wounds, using the Toronto supplementary rules, scenario 3 with three flags, 6'x4' battle ground.

We really enjoyed it. At the end it was a draw and we had a great laugh. I think AoS is very playable and more relaxed than WMH and much more playable than 40k.

My army was: Might Lord of Khorne, Bloodsecrator, Bloodstoker, 5 Bloodwarriors, 12 Bloodreavers, 2x5 Chaosknights.

That's a lot of Blood!

 AegisGrimm wrote:
That's a lot of Blood!

Im surprised they didn't take Bloodclotter, Blooddonator or Bloodtransplanter. Some of the most common bloods out there.

I must admit, the main thing that hooked me was how much the starter box art looked like an 80s' metal album.

From what I've seen, it seems like a very enjoyable game; it just seems a lot more a) enjoyable and b) "epic"; whereas before you just had masses of rank and file, now each soldier just seems to be a powerhouse unto themselves.

I don't know, maybe I'm just easily entralled, but it seems like a good game. The one problem I have is the fact they released all of the End Times expansions right before dropping the format.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
That's a lot of Blood!

Im surprised they didn't take Bloodclotter, Blooddonator or Bloodtransplanter. Some of the most common bloods out there.

I'm really biding my time until someone comes up with a powerful anti-Khorne list because I anticipate the nicknames for the list will be quite...classy.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
That's a lot of Blood!

Im surprised they didn't take Bloodclotter, Blooddonator or Bloodtransplanter. Some of the most common bloods out there.

I'm really biding my time until someone comes up with a powerful anti-Khorne list because I anticipate the nicknames for the list will be quite...classy.

"The Towel List". :')

Either that or all blue Tzeentch units will become 'Crip-somethings'.

Our store owner sold more AoS stuff than 40k stuff during the last four weeks.
Most of the players here got interested. Some wait for the Aelf releases. There is just one who refuses to play it. He still stickers with Fantasy 8th ed.

If it was not for the "I have a better mustache then you rule" I would take this game seriously. If it was not for the "space marines" in a mother fething FANTASY setting, I would like this game, If it was not for the death of all that lovely Lizardmen fluff....I would give this game a chance.


.....I bought the starter box just to paint the models and nothing else.


Then there is the "I hide scarabs in the sand and never make them come up- Therefor I instantly win the game regardless of what you do or what army you have" rule.

The pretend to ride a horse rule

The, bring your army and I bring mine army and no points costs rule meaning the "richer" kid wins regardless of how good of a player or how Overpowered every single last unit you have is period will ever be period.

There are so many things wrong with it I have heard about that I will never actually play it....just paint the one kit for it I got.

 Vasarto wrote:
If it was not for the "space marines" in a mother fething FANTASY setting, I would like this game,

They have a Greek god motif going on, looking like the god of war, Ares. The gold coloring mixed with spiked halo is a bit reminiscent of Helios, the sun god. The masks they all wear are not unlike the dramatic masks the Greeks used to wear when representing the gods in their plays. The lightning symbols draws comparisons to Zeus. Although the warhammers and idea of warrior Gods fighting off an apocalypse seem more Norse to me. So it is a mix of influences.

So your mother fething FANTASY setting remains unperturbed by the inclusion of distinctly thematic, fantasy elements.

There are so many things wrong with it I have heard about that I will never actually play it....just paint the one kit for it I got.

Hey man. that's entirely your choice to make. I think you are wrong about some things, or at the very least, by taking an overly pessimistic view on the game, aren't allowing yourself a fair chance to enjoy the game. But you don't have to enjoy something if you don't want to. I think it is pretty nifty though. Even the mustache rule.

Played this on Sunday. Loved it. So easy to pick up and play.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Vasarto wrote:
If it was not for the "space marines" in a mother fething FANTASY setting, I would like this game,

They have a Greek god motif going on, looking like the god of war, Ares. The gold coloring mixed with spiked halo is a bit reminiscent of Helios, the sun god. The masks they all wear are not unlike the dramatic masks the Greeks used to wear when representing the gods in their plays. The lightning symbols draws comparisons to Zeus. Although the warhammers and idea of warrior Gods fighting off an apocalypse seem more Norse to me. So it is a mix of influences.

I agree. IMO, the super-human entities aren't out of place in AoS' setting, which is kind of mythological. In many real world myths there are stories about super-humans, god-like races etc. The stormcast eternals could just be viewed as their equivalent in the new setting. Their appearance wouldn't even be that irritating if one could let go of the pre-buit image that pauldrons = space marines. They're just heavily armoured dudes.

Space Mariens are merely superhumans in pauldrons. So are Sigmarines. That's the way GW wrote them.

We've lived with that SM imagery for over 25 years, so it's going to be a bit difficult to let go.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Space Mariens are merely superhumans in pauldrons. So are Sigmarines.

That's a bit reductionist, don't you think?

Spock is just an elf. Gandalf is just Merlin. Warcraft is just Warhammer. Aliens is just Starship Troopers (Space Hulk is just Aliens). The Fast and the Furious is just Point Break. Cars is just Doc Hollywood. X-Wing Miniatures is just Wings of War. Game of Thrones is just the War of Roses. A Fistful of Dollars is just Yojimbo.

These examples all started as direct copies, but over time were able to create their own identities and move away from their inspirations. Even if Sigmarines are similar to Space Marines now, they'll eventually become their own thing. Personally, I don't think shoulder pads are enough of a similarity, or else every secretary in the 80s would be a Space Marine.

We've lived with that SM imagery for over 25 years, so it's going to be a bit difficult to let go.

Letting go seems to be a big problem with AoS.

 tydrace wrote:
Saw a couple of Age of Sigmar games this weekend. The second game, the Ogre played won before the other player got its first turn due to Sudden Death (Ogres had less models).

Both players still agreed the first match was fun, but that wouldn't want to use the Sudden Death rules anymore.

What, how? Two of the conditions require playing until at least turn 4 and if you picked something close to the Ogre battleline as your 'kill this' option, that's hardly the rules' problem!
If you don't like Sudden Death but don't want to houserule too much, most of the scenarios in the books ignore it as a victory condition.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Vasarto wrote:
If it was not for the "space marines" in a mother fething FANTASY setting, I would like this game,

They have a Greek god motif going on, looking like the god of war, Ares. The gold coloring mixed with spiked halo is a bit reminiscent of Helios, the sun god. The masks they all wear are not unlike the dramatic masks the Greeks used to wear when representing the gods in their plays. The lightning symbols draws comparisons to Zeus. Although the warhammers and idea of warrior Gods fighting off an apocalypse seem more Norse to me. So it is a mix of influences.

So your mother fething FANTASY setting remains unperturbed by the inclusion of distinctly thematic, fantasy elements.

There are so many things wrong with it I have heard about that I will never actually play it....just paint the one kit for it I got.

Hey man. that's entirely your choice to make. I think you are wrong about some things, or at the very least, by taking an overly pessimistic view on the game, aren't allowing yourself a fair chance to enjoy the game. But you don't have to enjoy something if you don't want to. I think it is pretty nifty though. Even the mustache rule.

Dude, they're space marines. Time to admit it. Visually. Thematically. Rules wise.
Them having chapters, assault marines, god-emperor, great crusade, super human, heavy armor(that looks like blood angel armor) should kind of be a clue as well.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Vasarto wrote:
If it was not for the "space marines" in a mother fething FANTASY setting, I would like this game,

They have a Greek god motif going on, looking like the god of war, Ares. The gold coloring mixed with spiked halo is a bit reminiscent of Helios, the sun god. The masks they all wear are not unlike the dramatic masks the Greeks used to wear when representing the gods in their plays. The lightning symbols draws comparisons to Zeus. Although the warhammers and idea of warrior Gods fighting off an apocalypse seem more Norse to me. So it is a mix of influences.

So your mother fething FANTASY setting remains unperturbed by the inclusion of distinctly thematic, fantasy elements.

There are so many things wrong with it I have heard about that I will never actually play it....just paint the one kit for it I got.

Hey man. that's entirely your choice to make. I think you are wrong about some things, or at the very least, by taking an overly pessimistic view on the game, aren't allowing yourself a fair chance to enjoy the game. But you don't have to enjoy something if you don't want to. I think it is pretty nifty though. Even the mustache rule.

Dude, they're space marines. Time to admit it. Visually. Thematically. Rules wise.
Them having chapters, assault marines, god-emperor, great crusade, super human, heavy armor(that looks like blood angel armor) should kind of be a clue as well.

Or, they are both the warriors of Valhalla in a fantasy/scifi universe inundated with thematic elements from multiple sources of the genra to appeal to a broad audience. How many "blessed by the gods to fight evil" groups are there in history/ mythology?

Why can't they just have the same inspiration, instead of automatically assuming GW was just trying to cram space marines into fantasy? Also, the universes obviously cross over, and there has always been speculation that sigmar is a missing primarch. If that is the case then the organization of legions and the need to conquer in the name of humanity is literally written in his DNA.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Dude, they're space marines. Time to admit it. Visually. Thematically. Rules wise.

Visually, I disagree. First time I saw them, I thought of that scene in Spartacus: Blood and Sand where they painted a naked Spartacus gold and gave him a god's mask and then... well, some bad naked stuff happened, but you get my point. Even then, they have a distinctly Trojan style of armor.

I do admit, I may not have immediately leaped to the "By jove, those are space marines!" conclusion because I'm not a 40k player. There may be fluff comparisons I'm not familiar with, but visually at least, they are Greek gods to me.

Them having chapters, assault marines, god-emperor, great crusade, super human, heavy armor(that looks like blood angel armor) should kind of be a clue as well.

I'm not sure I agree with all of it (some of those are common tropes, some from common influence), but even if they were intentionally similar, I'm not sure that is even a bad thing. The 40k and fantasy worlds are not entirely unconnected, thematically, if not in other ways (they share chaos gods too, don't they?). I always thought it was weird that science fiction still had orks and elves, so I guess I'm less perturbed by fantasy having space marines. One could even argue that the thematic merging of the two Warhammer worlds invites the deeper search for patterns and recurring events, which is kind of fun for those who like that sort of thing.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Dude, they're space marines. Time to admit it. Visually. Thematically. Rules wise.

Visually, I disagree. First time I saw them, I thought of that scene in Spartacus: Blood and Sand where they painted a naked Spartacus gold and gave him a god's mask and then... well, some bad naked stuff happened, but you get my point. Even then, they have a distinctly Trojan style of armor.

I do admit, I may not have immediately leaped to the "By jove, those are space marines!" conclusion because I'm not a 40k player. There may be fluff comparisons I'm not familiar with, but visually at least, they are Greek gods to me.

Them having chapters, assault marines, god-emperor, great crusade, super human, heavy armor(that looks like blood angel armor) should kind of be a clue as well.

I'm not sure I agree with all of it (some of those are common tropes, some from common influence), but even if they were intentionally similar, I'm not sure that is even a bad thing. The 40k and fantasy worlds are not entirely unconnected, thematically, if not in other ways (they share chaos gods too, don't they?). I always thought it was weird that science fiction still had orks and elves, so I guess I'm less perturbed by fantasy having space marines. One could even argue that the thematic merging of the two Warhammer worlds invites the deeper search for patterns and recurring events, which is kind of fun for those who like that sort of thing.

yea, they are pretty much space marines but IMO 100x better... They are far more interesting and "human"

I've just introduced AoS to a friend of mine as I was very interested in the reaction of a person that has never played a miniatures game before. So, what's his background:

1. Has played some boardgames - 3 to be precise: Star Realms, Death Angel and Twilight Struggle. Of the three, he prefers Star Realms 99% of the time.

2. Mostly plays PC games in his spare time. A couple of years ago he was heavily invested in DoW2 so I suppose that he has some vision for himself how a warhammer 40k battle should look or feel.

His feedback on AoS was that the game seems to be quick and dynamic. He didn't have problems learning the rules and he didn't have any questions about them. Overall he likes them, but right off the bat he suggested that we should tweak them a little as to make them more reasonable (for him). He thought that each player could only choose one type of attack with any single unit (ranged or melee), that the battle phases should not be locked in order and that players should alternate in activating units. All units should still be allowed only one phase of a type per round (so a unit can't move twice for example). For example:
1. Jim moves his unit A
2. Bob shoots with his unit B
3 Jim assaults with his unit A
4. Bob moves his unit C
etc.

What was interesting for me is that:

1. The player had ZERO problems with tweaking the rules to his liking. I suspect that have they been longer he wouldn't have wanted to. Right now he sees that units can shoot, run, move and assault and is thinking how could these 4 simple actions be arranged so that the game feel right to him.

2. Other players that I have played with, in times past, will not try the game under any circumstances or will try it only to prove their point that it is a "bad" game (what would be a "good" game is another topic). No one was willing to tweak the rules and all were adamant that should the game be played it must be played as is. They see neither possibility for growth nor anything interesting to them in AoS. The players I'm talking about played 40k at some point in the past and then moved to Warmahordes, Infinity and Malifaux.

This is nothing new for any of you, I suppose, but I thought that another comparison between "new" and "old" players' reactions is in tone with the topic. Take it as you want.

Time for the "They're not Space Marines" discussion again...