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 JohnHwangDD wrote:

In theory, if WMH were truly as internally and externally balanced as people say, me taking Deneghra with only my 3 Slayer Helljacks and handful of Deathripper + Defiler Bonejacks would be evenly competitive against equal points of anything and everything else that currently runs the tournament scene.

The point is that "balanced" WMH hasn't always been perfectly balanced, internally or externally. There were periods in Warmachine in which Jacks were considered unplayable from a competitive standpoint. There were internal balance issues in which some Jacks (Seether) were completely superior to other Jacks in the same faction (Slayer).

Even PP didn't do a perfect job of maintaining absolute balance in their supposedly balanced system.

That should be your takeaway.

You miss the point.

It's not about taking a random selection of things up to a certain points limit and having that be as equally effective as anything else all the time all the time and against everything else. Bslance is about as much of everything being a viable choice, with everything having a role to play.
Synnergy is the key in warmachine. In warmachine, pretty much everything can be built into an effective game winner big strategy. Different things work better with different other things. The 'take home' message is not thst because your random hodge podge didn't work, it's that your army's component pieces were fine, but it was the overall synnergies thst were off. And you were playing the previous version of the game, not the current, so your annecdote and your point of view is both innacurate and about five or six years out of date. To answer your question -Taking all jack cryx can work. Look at mortenebra or denny 3 for example. Look to other factions too - as I mentioned protectorste and convergence play very jack heavy quite often and do rather well.

Their multi list formats and sideboards (active duty rosters) go a long way as well to mitigate bad match up issues.

Talking about mark1 is also a red herring. You are correct, the balance in mark1 was all over the place. Thankfully, pp release mark2 and Improved every aspect of the game immeasureably.

DBA has been a tournament set for decades and runs regular tournaments with ranking. The rules are tightly balanced to a point where some accuse it of lacking historical feel, an issue compounded by ahistorical match ups such as Samurai versus Romans, but of course this makes it an ideal tournament set.

Over the years some armies have seen a rise in popularity due to a perceived advantage but it's been more down to player ability than any misbalance.

For me, as a historical player I dislike DBA dye to its balance and lack of flavour or feel of a given setting. It's blandness suits tournament games but lacks for those seeking historical feel.

Conversely Soldiers of God uses points to pick armies but adds in having to choose a battle plan and due to its tight period focus allows plenty of historical feel, all the while allowing players to pick armies that are equivalent. It then comes down to how a player deploys, his tactical choices and luck... pretty much the same factors for a real commander.

With historical games you can indeed have a great deal of fun when utterly outclassed. One stand out game for me was taking a platoon of Volkssturm and acting as the speed bump for a huge Soviet force as a German force raced to the battle. It was a certain death mission with no hope of winning. The satisfaction and enjoyment came from defending so ferociously that the Soviets took such heavy losses the German reinforcements simply shot them to a standstill.

In historical scenarios they can be utterly unbalanced but still highly enjoyable. I do this with 40k too, with games where small forces try to hold out for as long as possible against endless waves of enemies. The 'balance' is interjected by the victory condition.

I have no interest in building killer armies, but the rules we write use points to give players an easy and fast way of putting together a historical scenario. The forces may be roughly equivalent but the scenario and objectives give it the feel of a narrative battle not a points based mash up.

I'm lucky as I have no interest in AoS. The rules and models have no appeal to me. I'm still happy playing 2nd edition Warhammer, and the campaign packs released for that, or using the simple army lists that had a pretence of balance but are just fun to play. I suppose for my group winning is secondary. The important thing is to have fun with a group of friends. I'm happy to lose or fight impossible battles if it's fun.

I'm reminded of a Vietnam game I played in 30 years ago. US forces had to clear a huge valley of VC forces. We encountered locals, who some mistook and killed, we pitched in napalm on we thought was VC in the jungle only to discover some errant and now dead water buffalo. The whole game was an exercise in the difficulty of the conflict and by the end it was revealed that only three VC were in the game. A sniper and an OP team. All escaped us and we lost utterly having killed villagers by accident, livestock dead and wounded and killed through traps and friendly fire. Sometimes you don't need an enemy for an epic wargame...

Big P wrote:
DBA has been a tournament set for decades and runs regular tournaments with ranking. The rules are tightly balanced to a point where some accuse it of lacking historical feel, an issue compounded by ahistorical match ups such as Samurai versus Romans, but of course this makes it an ideal tournament set.

Over the years some armies have seen a rise in popularity due to a perceived advantage but it's been more down to player ability than any misbalance.

For me, as a historical player I dislike DBA dye to its balance and lack of flavour or feel of a given setting. It's blandness suits tournament games but lacks for those seeking historical feel.

Conversely Soldiers of God uses points to pick armies but adds in having to choose a battle plan and due to its tight period focus allows plenty of historical feel, all the while allowing players to pick armies that are equivalent. It then comes down to how a player deploys, his tactical choices and luck... pretty much the same factors for a real commander.

With historical games you can indeed have a great deal of fun when utterly outclassed. One stand out game for me was taking a platoon of Volkssturm and acting as the speed bump for a huge Soviet force as a German force raced to the battle. It was a certain death mission with no hope of winning. The satisfaction and enjoyment came from defending so ferociously that the Soviets took such heavy losses the German reinforcements simply shot them to a standstill.

In historical scenarios they can be utterly unbalanced but still highly enjoyable. I do this with 40k too, with games where small forces try to hold out for as long as possible against endless waves of enemies. The 'balance' is interjected by the victory condition.

I have no interest in building killer armies, but the rules we write use points to give players an easy and fast way of putting together a historical scenario. The forces may be roughly equivalent but the scenario and objectives give it the feel of a narrative battle not a points based mash up.

I'm lucky as I have no interest in AoS. The rules and models have no appeal to me. I'm still happy playing 2nd edition Warhammer, and the campaign packs released for that, or using the simple army lists that had a pretence of balance but are just fun to play. I suppose for my group winning is secondary. The important thing is to have fun with a group of friends. I'm happy to lose or fight impossible battles if it's fun.

I'm reminded of a Vietnam game I played in 30 years ago. US forces had to clear a huge valley of VC forces. We encountered locals, who some mistook and killed, we pitched in napalm on we thought was VC in the jungle only to discover some errant and now dead water buffalo. The whole game was an exercise in the difficulty of the conflict and by the end it was revealed that only three VC were in the game. A sniper and an OP team. All escaped us and we lost utterly having killed villagers by accident, livestock dead and wounded and killed through traps and friendly fire. Sometimes you don't need an enemy for an epic wargame...

if you like the system and have people playing it keep doing it, I like the hobby mainly for building and painting aspect, heck I would be happy playing the chess version me and friends designed years ago (replace chess pieces with units, combat functions the same) I might make a backgammon version, I got a couple of ideas regarding the combat

40k is a game so simple that balancing it to ok balance point should be easy for a company like GW, not to mention taking it public and using tournies data would make make it do itself. Fantasy or not, 3 factions or 20, it's not a valid excuse for getting rid of points.

Honestly, I'm enjoying the "No Points" System.

The addition of keywords is a good one for balancing purposes, and utilizing the scenarios from the Big Book makes for some fun games.

For example, try playing "The Trap" with the following notations in effect:
3 Warscrolls per player--one must have the "Hero" keyword, no Warscrolls with the keywords of "Monster" and "Hero" together allowed.
Taking a Warscroll "unlocks" that unit, meaning you can take as many as you would like--excepting named Heroes.

What this means is that someone can go absolutely bonkers with an army like Skaven, taking an obscene number of Stormvermin or the like and a Hero or Wizard...except that means that individual is now potentially opening themselves up for Sudden Death Victory Conditions("The Trap" specifically disallows these excepting for a situation where the Ambusher is outnumbered by the Invader's models at a 2 to 1 ratio) to come into effect.

I can attest that a match like that, using the Scenarios in the books and a few tweaks here and there(notably just the kind of things where you talk to your opponents beforehand about what keywords you think should be used for that game) makes those scenarios highly interesting.

I played a match a few weeks ago where it was 11 Wood Elf models(my 2 units of 5 Waywatchers and a Waywatcher Lord) versus something like a horde of Beastmen(we're talking something like ~80 models).
Before deploying we decided Sudden Death conditions would be in effect and it became a pretty interesting game with him trying to keep his Bray-Shaman alive while also annihilating 11 Wood Elves.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, I'm enjoying the "No Points" System.

The addition of keywords is a good one for balancing purposes, and utilizing the scenarios from the Big Book makes for some fun games.

For example, try playing "The Trap" with the following notations in effect:
3 Warscrolls per player--one must have the "Hero" keyword, no Warscrolls with the keywords of "Monster" and "Hero" together allowed.
Taking a Warscroll "unlocks" that unit, meaning you can take as many as you would like--excepting named Heroes.

What this means is that someone can go absolutely bonkers with an army like Skaven, taking an obscene number of Stormvermin or the like and a Hero or Wizard...except that means that individual is now potentially opening themselves up for Sudden Death Victory Conditions("The Trap" specifically disallows these excepting for a situation where the Ambusher is outnumbered by the Invader's models at a 2 to 1 ratio) to come into effect.

I can attest that a match like that, using the Scenarios in the books and a few tweaks here and there(notably just the kind of things where you talk to your opponents beforehand about what keywords you think should be used for that game) makes those scenarios highly interesting.

I played a match a few weeks ago where it was 11 Wood Elf models(my 2 units of 5 Waywatchers and a Waywatcher Lord) versus something like a horde of Beastmen(we're talking something like ~80 models).
Before deploying we decided Sudden Death conditions would be in effect and it became a pretty interesting game with him trying to keep his Bray-Shaman alive while also annihilating 11 Wood Elves.

I've been promised a lot from these scenarios, and many of the "Played it, actually pretty fun" reviews have usually come from scenarios. So I guess it's up to GW at this point to see just how free these rules are going to be. Hopefully they stick to it, because the 4 page ruleset is pretty bland. And a game that's focused around more scenario play rather then straight up murder eachother would be a nice way to spice things up. Many of the paytesters giving negative feedback are usually deploying just to kill eachother's armies or do a sudden death. If they don't hide the scenarios behind a pricetag, I bet GW can save themselves a bunch of greif.

 Da Big Mek wrote:
I've been promised a lot from these scenarios, and many of the "Played it, actually pretty fun" reviews have usually come from scenarios. So I guess it's up to GW at this point to see just how free these rules are going to be. Hopefully they stick to it, because the 4 page ruleset is pretty bland. And a game that's focused around more scenario play rather then straight up murder eachother would be a nice way to spice things up. Many of the paytesters giving negative feedback are usually deploying just to kill eachother's armies or do a sudden death. If they don't hide the scenarios behind a pricetag, I bet GW can save themselves a bunch of greif.

Agreed - I think putting scenarios in White Dwarf, and talking about how to make your own, would go a long way toward helping make clear that scenarios are where its supposed to be at.

I also agree that the worst online bat reps seem to be from folks simply playing to kill, but I also notice on Youtube a number of folks still playing with next to no terrain in the middle of the board, and with their units still in rank-and-file formation on movement trays. What I take from that is that they're not getting the most out of the flexibility of 40k style environments and terrain, but also that if we ever get the itch to play AoS like it were an old edition of Warhammer, it still kind of works. You could even add in a flanking and rank house rule, and be pretty much set.

You know, this entire "points poisoning the community" stuff is idiotic.

1. Even without points your going to get unbalanced games, except with Age of Sigmar it's going to be whoever has the biggest collection. Yes having a discussion with your opponent before the battle can help mitigate this, but the exact same argument could be done for points, so that doesn't even matter.

2. I love how every single sample I have seen so far of why points are bad is from GW games. The problem never was points, it's that GW fails at making a balanced game. The best 40k I've ever played was the FFG RPGs, and they've proven they know how to make a balanced points system with X-wing.

3. I have no problem with narrative players. I am not a competitive player. I like both, but here is the thing, in WHFB, if you wanted a narrative game, you could just ask your opponent if he wanted to do one, no point, no limit, etc., etc.,

4. Points are not perfect, but no system is going to be perfect. It's certainly a lot more more balanced than AoS, which is a lot more open to abuse. And yes we do need balance, because even if you are forgin a narrative, are you telling me that spending an entire army watching you army of Imperial State troopers get cut down by a bunch of elite monsters. And don't people won't buy it when we have people buying Revenant Titans, and tournament lists with five imperial Knights, which is a problem in itself. However instead of fixing that problem, which would have required effort, GW instead flip-flopped to the other end of the spectrum

 saithor wrote:
You know, this entire "points poisoning the community" stuff is idiotic.

...
...

Of course it is. That is why the people saying so contantly refer to a single opinion article from 2002, and ignore all the arguments that rebut the claim.

What I don't get is the nasty undercurrent to it all. I mean, what did WFB players DO to you guys?

But whatevs. My interest in AoS declines with each day that passes, and I'm pretty happy that other games I like like KoW are getting a boost from disenchanted ex players. I'll stop bugging you guys on this forum soon enough.

 Da Big Mek wrote:
If they don't hide the scenarios behind a pricetag, I bet GW can save themselves a bunch of greif.

I can see (and would like to see) GW to release scenarios in WD. It's not a huge price tag for people who want access to them (and they could always use someone else's copy - and hopefully GW would release them online for free afterwards anyway) but it also makes them accessible and means there's something actually interesting in WD; a long series of scenario WD could do it a great deal of good.

 saithor wrote:
You know, this entire "points poisoning the community" stuff is idiotic.

Yes, I agree. People who want to play a certain way will do so regardless of whether there are points or not.

 saithor wrote:
1. Even without points your going to get unbalanced games, except with Age of Sigmar it's going to be whoever has the biggest collection. Yes having a discussion with your opponent before the battle can help mitigate this, but the exact same argument could be done for points, so that doesn't even matter.

I think that if you took two hypercompetitive types and threw them into AoS and said "Have fun", they would find a way to edge each other out with lists and collections and defeat the spirit in which the no-points sytem was created.

On the other hand...

What I've seen from some people who appear to have chosen AoS as their game for the moment (whether or not it has lasting power) is that AoS doesn't really attract those hypercompetitive types in the first place. So the people they do encounter have a tendency to be more like-minded in their gaming style.

If NEITHER player wants to get an edge on the other by fielding a superior army, and if BOTH players try to err on the side of fairness, then the AoS no-points system works quite well, and it's not a question of "my collection is better than yours".

 saithor wrote:
2. I love how every single sample I have seen so far of why points are bad is from GW games. The problem never was points, it's that GW fails at making a balanced game. The best 40k I've ever played was the FFG RPGs, and they've proven they know how to make a balanced points system with X-wing.

But X-Wing doesn't look to have unit disparities on the same scale as games like 40k or Warhammer fantasy. If you wanted to put it in X-Wing terms, you'd have to have as a selectable unit a 20th century space shuttle on one hand, and the Death Star on the other. Which is essentially the difference between a peasant and Archaon or Nagash.

AoS is an admission that you can't have that both units in the game (without one being marginalized), unless the players are willing to cooperate to build their game. In the context of "why would you have both in the same game?" perhaps a peasant rebellion against Chaos overlords eventually culminates in the defeat of Archaon by heroes that rise. But no reasonable person would want a band of peasants to go fight Archaon.

 saithor wrote:
3. I have no problem with narrative players. I am not a competitive player. I like both, but here is the thing, in WHFB, if you wanted a narrative game, you could just ask your opponent if he wanted to do one, no point, no limit, etc., etc.,

I think GW did this with AoS to differentiate the product, and appeal to a different base. Essentially, it felt that the current WHFB customer base wasn't generating enough business, and let's be honest: a lot of disaffected GW customers wouldn't return to GW no matter what it did with WHFB. By saying, "this is a totally different game, a fresh start in a new world, that's aimed at a totally different demographic", they have the chance to hit the reset button and find a new following.

Pretty much everyone who talks about AoS that I run into say that "AoS isn't a serious wargame". But a lot of people who say this (including 40k players) would never play WHFB anyhow, and it's undeniable that doing so has made some people who look at AoS, where they might never have considered a WHFB 9e. The question is, "is this group bigger, and will they spend more in the long term?" The people who really like AoS, really like it. But I don't know if the group is large enough, or spendy enough. Time will tell.

 saithor wrote:
4. Points are not perfect, but no system is going to be perfect. It's certainly a lot more more balanced than AoS, which is a lot more open to abuse. And yes we do need balance, because even if you are forgin a narrative, are you telling me that spending an entire army watching you army of Imperial State troopers get cut down by a bunch of elite monsters. And don't people won't buy it when we have people buying Revenant Titans, and tournament lists with five imperial Knights, which is a problem in itself. However instead of fixing that problem, which would have required effort, GW instead flip-flopped to the other end of the spectrum

Again, the idea is not to create a perfect system, but to build a game that attracts and creates a community that largely just isn't interested in competitive play. The scenario that you describe would never occur if AoS is played in the spirit in which it is intended, because the two players wouldn't ever set up a game that way.

I will cautiously say that in this respect, AoS so far appears successful, as I haven't seen a single person who has taken it on as a game they want to play regularly interested in that sort of play (where grunts would be mowed down by elites). They seem to be pretty excited by stuff like the Shimmerfall campaign and talk about who finds Ghal Maraz (or however that's spelled). They like the artwork, background, and narrative in the books, and they're not scared off by a $75 hardcover book filled with such. On the flip side, none of the competitive types that I know have any interest whatsoever in AoS, except in the rare case, starter box models. The last $75 book has sold amazingly well (far, far beyond retailers' expectations, which were quite low) in my area.

My argument against the AoS approach is that the competitive types and the ones that obsess over lists, long term, are the most avid players, so the AoS approach closes the door on a really good potential group of customers. But what do I know; I never thought Magic the Gathering would be so popular among purely casual, noncompetitive types with zero interest in deckbuilding, either.

For me, my feet stand firmly planted in 40k, because it's SciFi, big army, and has cool infantry and vehicles with shooty space guns.

 saithor wrote:
1. Even without points your going to get unbalanced games,

2. I love how every single sample I have seen so far of why points are bad is from GW games.

4. Points are not perfect, but no system is going to be perfect. It's certainly a lot more more balanced than AoS, which is a lot more open to abuse.

1. Duh. The difference is that there's no pretending that the games are automatically "balanced, because points".

2. I was pretty clear that points don't work in WMH, either, despite WMH fanboy saying otherwise. We use GW games, because Dakka is a GW-centric site. Had this been another site, we would have found other examples.

4. Points are never even going to be "good" or "fair", much less "balanced". If you think that Rough Riders and Conscripts are equal to the same points as a Titan, because points, then that's nonsense. Under AoS, there's no pretending that the points make the forces equal.

The real idiocy is the notion that points "work" outside a very narrow range of essentially similar things. Star Wars works because it's all Fighter-type craft with the same 1/270 model and movement scale, with the similar levels of firepower. Change it to include proper Capitol Ships, and it falls apart. A Star Destroyer costs 1000x what an X-wing does (in Imperial Credits), so you'd be fielding 1000 fighters? And the Death Star? Ha! An in-scale Death Star itself would be larger than a McMansion (it'd be half a football field in size).


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 Talys wrote:
My argument against the AoS approach is that the competitive types and the ones that obsess over lists, long term, are the most avid players, so the AoS approach closes the door on a really good potential group of customers. But what do I know; I never thought Magic the Gathering would be so popular among purely casual, noncompetitive types with zero interest in deckbuilding, either.

For me, my feet stand firmly planted in 40k, because it's SciFi, big army, and has cool infantry and vehicles with shooty space guns.

The competitive types are the loudest players. That does not make them the largest pool of revenue, not by a long shot. The simple fact is that casual games vastly outpace competitive game by an enormous margin. It's why competition-oriented WMH is literally nothing compared to casual-friendly Hasbro.

I didn't sell my Dogs of War, and I won't sell my 40k armies, either. I would not be upset if 40k did away with points, though.


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As far as no-points balance goes, the Laws of War PDF is actually quite good. I rather like its approach.

I just wonder if it's actually official GW or not.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Talys wrote:
My argument against the AoS approach is that the competitive types and the ones that obsess over lists, long term, are the most avid players, so the AoS approach closes the door on a really good potential group of customers. But what do I know; I never thought Magic the Gathering would be so popular among purely casual, noncompetitive types with zero interest in deckbuilding, either.

For me, my feet stand firmly planted in 40k, because it's SciFi, big army, and has cool infantry and vehicles with shooty space guns.

The competitive types are the loudest players. That does not make them the largest pool of revenue, not by a long shot. The simple fact is that casual games vastly outpace competitive game by an enormous margin. It's why competition-oriented WMH is literally nothing compared to casual-friendly Hasbro.

I didn't sell my Dogs of War, and I won't sell my 40k armies, either. I would not be upset if 40k did away with points, though.

Indeed -- as my wife is as noncompetitive a gamer as they come, I think, and one of her favorite expression is, "I'd rather be happy than right." She won't ever bang the war drums, but she'll spend her money wherever she wants to and just leave it at that.

The funny thing about 40k is that we effectively *don't* play with points, because often the point disparities are pretty big by design to compensate for balance/fairness. But I do quite enjoy building lists and squeezing out that theoretical efficiency (or just trying out new things), probably 98% of which I've never played... or at least, not with anyone other than myself as the opponent haha.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


1. Duh. The difference is that there's no pretending that the games are automatically "balanced, because points".

2. I was pretty clear that points don't work in WMH, either, despite WMH fanboy saying otherwise. We use GW games, because Dakka is a GW-centric site. Had this been another site, we would have found other examples.

4. Points are never even going to be "good" or "fair", much less "balanced". If you think that Rough Riders and Conscripts are equal to the same points as a Titan, because points, then that's nonsense. Under AoS, there's no pretending that the points make the forces equal.

The real idiocy is the notion that points "work" outside a very narrow range of essentially similar things. Star Wars works because it's all Fighter-type craft with the same 1/270 model and movement scale, with the similar levels of firepower. Change it to include proper Capitol Ships, and it falls apart. A Star Destroyer costs 1000x what an X-wing does (in Imperial Credits), so you'd be fielding 1000 fighters? And the Death Star? Ha! An in-scale Death Star itself would be larger than a McMansion (it'd be half a football field in size).

1. Yea, people just pretend it's balanced because of people talking
2. Points work pretty well, actually, you were shown this. Combined with other aspects of the gsme, like multi list formats and the active duty roster, it goes along way towards imposing balance.
4. Uh huh, well how about comparing things to similar tactical niches? You can't directly compare a Titan with infantry. You can compare tarpits with other tarpits and walkers with other walkers and mould the gaming landscape around thst interaction. You deliberately misconstrue the argument. It's not about everything being equally as good as everything else against everything else, all the time, it's about everything having a role. Different things having different roles is fine. Thst Titan is concentrated force. It packs a lot of dakka, but it can't go everywhere and do everything. It's also vulnerable to anti tank and comes in extremely small numbers. You need boots on the ground. Thry do different things and therefore can't be directly compared. But they can be valued correctly for what they do do.
This argument also ignores the extremely valid question of whether a Titan is appropriate for skirmish level gsmes.

Ypthr argument about fighters and the Death Star is stilly. You don't need the death star in a game. In any case, why can't a game with fighters and capital ships work? Change up the scale. Look at Firestorm armada. It does capital ships and fighters.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

1. Duh. The difference is that there's no pretending that the games are automatically "balanced, because points".

I agree with this statement so much.

The thing I love most about tabletop wargames is miniatures. The thing I hate most about tabletop wargames is being forced to plan what miniatures I have to buy and paint in order to win games. I want to buy the miniatures that I want to buy, and build and paint them, and then play them in a way that's fair and fun.

The problem I ran into with Warhamer 40,000, which I've now given up in favor of Age of Sigmar, is that every other person I played had a much better army than me, and I knew it. But what am I going to do? I don't want to be forced to play models just you can do some super combo and win a game.

No-one used to pretend WHFB was balanced because points. A lot of the complaints were because it wasn't balanced.

Vyxen wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

1. Duh. The difference is that there's no pretending that the games are automatically "balanced, because points".

I agree with this statement so much.

The thing I love most about tabletop wargames is miniatures. The thing I hate most about tabletop wargames is being forced to plan what miniatures I have to buy and paint in order to win games. I want to buy the miniatures that I want to buy, and build and paint them, and then play them in a way that's fair and fun.

The problem I ran into with Warhamer 40,000, which I've now given up in favor of Age of Sigmar, is that every other person I played had a much better army than me, and I knew it. But what am I going to do? I don't want to be forced to play models just you can do some super combo and win a game.

That statement is not something anyone has said.
I actuly love minitures and only buy minitures I love, I take what I feel like will provide the most fun game.
Age of sigmar haven't eliminated any off the issues you have, simply pushing them onto the players, raising the burden of underetanding just as much.
Certen units will be better or worse depending on difernt factors when building an army, now the burden is on both players being able to determine and agree on what will make for a fair and balanced game. With little to go on it could even push good players out simply due to having to keep dropping there own army down.

A game with no thought to synergy could become quite bland very quickly, but from the moment we see the rules for the units in age of sigmar it's apparent that there are units that support and synergyze with each other.

Before it's said, i have effectively quit 40k for the same reason.
GW just didn't realy do justice to this game, it's half of what it should be.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
No-one used to pretend WHFB was balanced because points. A lot of the complaints were because it wasn't balanced.

Then why was everyone expected to play with lists that totalled the same number of points in a manner suggesting a fair match or determination of skill?


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Vyxen wrote:

The thing I love most about tabletop wargames is miniatures. The thing I hate most about tabletop wargames is being forced to plan what miniatures I have to buy and paint in order to win games. I want to buy the miniatures that I want to buy, and build and paint them, and then play them in a way that's fair and fun.

The problem I ran into with Warhamer 40,000, which I've now given up in favor of Age of Sigmar, is that every other person I played had a much better army than me, and I knew it. But what am I going to do? I don't want to be forced to play models just you can do some super combo and win a game.

That's exactly how I feel about wanting to play with miniatures I want to buy rather than buying miniatures I don't like in order to play. For me, a lot of the attitude that seems normal for pick up games is a complete turn off. I would never be the kind of opponent most of those gamers were looking for, and I would enjoy the games even less.


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Apple fox wrote:


That statement is not something anyone has said.
I actuly love minitures and only buy minitures I love, I take what I feel like will provide the most fun game.
Age of sigmar haven't eliminated any off the issues you have, simply pushing them onto the players, raising the burden of underetanding just as much.
Certen units will be better or worse depending on difernt factors when building an army, now the burden is on both players being able to determine and agree on what will make for a fair and balanced game. With little to go on it could even push good players out simply due to having to keep dropping there own army down.

I only mean very, very slight offense by this, but God I hope GW pushes out the type of players who feel a burden to make AOS fair and balanced. It's not made to be played that way, and even if it were, it would be a tremendous waste of time and skill that would be better spent on just about any other game, especially games that are actually designed to support match-style playing. Those players would be happier, and so would the rest of us, if they played a game better set up for their needs.

If Hostess started making steaks, would you really expect their loyal, twinkie-loving fans to take on the burden of filling the steaks with cream? Wouldn't they be happier turning to Little Debbie? Meanwhile, the rest of us would be spared from the sight of angry grognards forcing cream-filled steaks down their gullets and complaining about how poorly steak goes with cream filling.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


I only mean very, very slight offense by this, but God I hope GW pushes out the type of players who feel a burden to make AOS fair and balanced.

You're stating that a balanced game is bad for all participants. Think about that.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


I only mean very, very slight offense by this, but God I hope GW pushes out the type of players who feel a burden to make AOS fair and balanced.

You're stating that a balanced game is bad for all participants. Think about that.

No, he is stating that the sort of people who decide they are qualified to balance a game on behalf of other people are normally the last people you want doing it.
Much like Douglas Adam's president of the universe.
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

I hope that everyone can learn to see that AoS doesn't need points for an enjoyable game.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
No-one used to pretend WHFB was balanced because points. A lot of the complaints were because it wasn't balanced.

Then why was everyone expected to play with lists that totalled the same number of points in a manner suggesting a fair match or determination of skill?


...

People like fair games. The points system is supposed to provide a fair game and according to GW it did so but practice showed it was not good enough, causing people to complete.

I.e. a failure by the game designers.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


I only mean very, very slight offense by this, but God I hope GW pushes out the type of players who feel a burden to make AOS fair and balanced.

You're stating that a balanced game is bad for all participants. Think about that.

I'm saying it's bad for AOS and AOS's most intended audience. A game can be enjoyable without being "good", but making it "good" probably won't make it enjoyable. In fact, I'd say it would defeat one of the most distinctive features of the game.

And what would really be bad for participants in the game would be a toxic community incapable of enjoying AOS on its intended merits, working itself into a fury trying to square the proverbial circle. If you think it's a poor game, please play something else instead of constantly expounding on why it's poor and what your latest scheme is to turn it into a completely different game.

If you have some grand strategy to diminish AOS's sales so that GW will have to love you again, give up now before it's too late for you.

I remember many previous WFB rulebooks having a line in the "army list/construction" section that states that points are not really necessary but a way to come up with "roughly fairly equaliy matched" opposing forces (I'm certain 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th edition had this, 3d probably too).

Also, tournament (and sometimes club) play AFAIK has always been subject to additional limitations on Army selection "for balance" purposes, thus clubs and tournament organisers inventing their own balancing mechanisms has been around for a long time (at least since 5th edition, where tournament play and set-limits had 4 pages dedicated to it in the Battle Book).
In my experience, even pick-up games or casual games were prefaced by a conversation about magic item restrictions etc. (especially during 5th) ... or in 6th edition playing 1500 points games to preclude the use of the most powerful characters and magic items.

None of that stopped optimizers optimizing and min-maxers min-maxing.

I think GW's points systems were/are more about apparent fairness than balance.

Then again, with the new static To-hit/to-wound/save system, the simplest "wound max" army selection provides a modicum of fairness. Remember that in the previous editions some units were practically invulnerable to the attacks of other units due to low strength vs. high toughness, That's gone completely. now, 10 goblins can potentially kill a 10 wounds bloodthirster no matter that he used to have toughness 10 and they strength 3 in the previous editions.

And how much of a discussion/hassle is it to agree on "select your army to a maximum wound count of X"? You can still take your favorite modelling project to the fight and you can look for optimization in your selection etc. etc.
ey, the game rules say "work it out between yourselves", that can be super easy. even with strangers. And frankly, who plunks down their armies to play without talking to each other first?

Deploy whatever we have, wound max, war scroll selection agreements (0-1 of this 1+ of that to a max of x etc), wounds+attacks x special rule/factor=cost, all seem valid for various modes of playing this new version of WFB.

what's wrong with "fair enough"? Even in the previous point values system that's as good as it got, the rest was our brains and dice rolls.

 Herohammernostalgia wrote:
I remember many previous WFB rulebooks having a line in the "army list/construction" section that states that points are not really necessary but a way to come up with "roughly fairly equaliy matched" opposing forces (I'm certain 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th edition had this, 3d probably too).

I think GW's points systems were/are more about apparent fairness than balance.

And how much of a discussion/hassle is it to agree on "select your army to a maximum wound count of X"?

what's wrong with "fair enough"? Even in the previous point values system that's as good as it got, the rest was our brains and dice rolls.

I suspect, but haven't the time to verify, that GW has had that caveat in pretty much every points discussion; however, almost none of the players register it. Same with TMIR and the intent behind the game. At least, for the bulk of pickup gamers in the US... i.e. the loudest portion of the Dakka crowd.

I'd agree that GW points are about getting close, not precision.

I suppose maximum count is fine, although competitive types would game that, too...

"fair enough" is fine, even though people like to think there was more to it, and it's the only way to go.

All the games I've played so far, I've been outgunned. But I've had more fun losing at AoS than I can recall when winning at WFB.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Herohammernostalgia wrote:
I remember many previous WFB rulebooks having a line in the "army list/construction" section that states that points are not really necessary but a way to come up with "roughly fairly equaliy matched" opposing forces (I'm certain 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th edition had this, 3d probably too).

I think GW's points systems were/are more about apparent fairness than balance.

And how much of a discussion/hassle is it to agree on "select your army to a maximum wound count of X"?

what's wrong with "fair enough"? Even in the previous point values system that's as good as it got, the rest was our brains and dice rolls.

I suspect, but haven't the time to verify, that GW has had that caveat in pretty much every points discussion; however, almost none of the players register it. Same with TMIR and the intent behind the game. At least, for the bulk of pickup gamers in the US... i.e. the loudest portion of the Dakka crowd.

I'd agree that GW points are about getting close, not precision.

I suppose maximum count is fine, although competitive types would game that, too...

"fair enough" is fine, even though people like to think there was more to it, and it's the only way to go.

I'm not familiar with the TMIR acronym what does it stand for?
On the intent of the game, every edition talks more about narrative and scenario posibilities than pick-up games and tactics/strategies/list building

Sure, maximum wound count will be gamed by competitive types, just as maximum points value was... There are fewer options to do so than in previous editions though (especially with character models)

TMIR = "The Most Important Rule"

... it is important to remember that the rules are just a framework to create an enjoyable game.

The most important rule then is that the rules aren't all that important

The fact that it's a really big deal to Jervis & co, but not the players is kind of a strange disconnect that speaks pretty strongly to why certain WFB players are so bent out of sorts over AoS.

There are probably the same options to Munch out AoS as any other system, it's just not as obvious as in a points-based system.

A of course, The Most Important Rule: fun. Thanks!


I understand were many people come from concerning the rules and point values, it is a safe way to play a game without disputes... in theory.

I guess many people are just taught the game with points-matches in mind (or by players who play that style). Designer's intend aside, list building was absolutely part of the game for a very long time for many people, even "narrative" gamers. Heck, most of my own scenario's were usually points matches even when they didn't need to be, and maybe because of what my regular opponents at the time prefered (list building). and I usually lost most of my points match games... so it was often thought I wrote scenario's so I could "legally cheat" or something, or limit winning combos my regular opponents liked to use etc. etc. So I also get the AoS defenders view points. especially about the scenario oriented direction.

Actually aside from warhammer skirmish I can think of few published scenario's after 3d edition where there were set forces rather than points limits.