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Ok, so I can be considered amongst those that sincerely disliked my first experiences with Age of Sigmar. I was there Day-1 and playing the game in the first couple of weeks, exactly as printed in its rules was a horrid experience, mostly due to balancing games and the whole "a model, is a model, is a model..." rule of list-building.
That said, I do think the bulk of the rules makes for a promising, fun, and accessible game.
So in an effort to give the game a genuine second chance, I thought I would ask... What are people's favorite "broad stroke" balancing mechanisms? I see, for example, that most people have moved over to playing "X wounds" sized games, versus infinite model madness w/underdog shenanigans.
Beyond that... any quick and dirty ways to roughly make for a more balanced experience?
I am fully embracing that this game, as it is, is too manic, and abusable to be a properly competitive game, but if a group of friends just want to quickly come up with a scenario, and a few army-building restrictions and end up with a game where either player has at least some chance of winning, what scenarios, etc... might I look at?
There are a ton of comp systems out now. THey all basically achieve the same thing. In fact if you make a list and run it through the various comp systems you'll notice that they come out similar.
Pick a comp system you like, run with that.
Wounds as a balancing mechanism fails hard. There is a world of difference between something like a goblin (1 wound) and a sword master (1 wound). From the same army, why take a spearman when the elite version (swordmaster, executioner, whatever) are also 1 wound and a lot better?
I would recommend the Games Workshop School League rules. They are very fun to play with and while not being "up on the website" official, they are semi-official being used for a Warhammer World event and having a professional finish to the document. I posted it all inside this thread:
We do unit to unit, char to char, moster to monster, etc. and then have a quick discussion about who gets a little more for power balance. (gobbos aren't chaos warriors, that sort of thing.) Usually this just involves the horde armies adding a little more to the board. often each player has a "core" of what they want to bring, then we just adjust to taste. The games are still pretty unbalanced, mostly because we are still feeling out how strong certain units are. (clanrats with spears is a good example, they do a TON of damage due to small bases and 2" reach, way more than you would expect from previous editions.)
Next we use a lot of terrain, almost to the amount you would use for 40k. (25% of the board covered, just fill a quarter of the board full of terrain and then spread it out.)
Lastly we either use the scenarios from the books, or 40k missions. I personally find the 40k missions the most fun to play in AoS with. you just count infantry as scoring units, mostrous creatures as tanks, etc.
comps are fine in theory, but as there are a ton it's hard to find an opponent that uses a comp you're familiar with. Plus the players that play still in my shop like the freedom of no comp, for good or for ill!
We do unit to unit, char to char, moster to monster, etc. and then have a quick discussion about who gets a little more for power balance. (gobbos aren't chaos warriors, that sort of thing.) Usually this just involves the horde armies adding a little more to the board. often each player has a "core" of what they want to bring, then we just adjust to taste. The games are still pretty unbalanced, mostly because we are still feeling out how strong certain units are. (clanrats with spears is a good example, they do a TON of damage due to small bases and 2" reach, way more than you would expect from previous editions.)
Next we use a lot of terrain, almost to the amount you would use for 40k. (25% of the board covered, just fill a quarter of the board full of terrain and then spread it out.)
Lastly we either use the scenarios from the books, or 40k missions. I personally find the 40k missions the most fun to play in AoS with. you just count infantry as scoring units, mostrous creatures as tanks, etc.
comps are fine in theory, but as there are a ton it's hard to find an opponent that uses a comp you're familiar with. Plus the players that play still in my shop like the freedom of no comp, for good or for ill!
That's a good idea on the 40K scenarios!
But echoing a lot here already said - you want to be playing a scenario. Absolutely. I find that removes a LOT of issues with balance, and focuses your mind quite well.
Plenty of terrain. The basic AoS terrain rules as a bare minimum, but you'll probably want to add on a few more pieces once you've finished.
One option that I haven't tried yet, and not sure how well this works - look at everything your opponent has brought with them before deploying - you each get to veto one warscroll from the opponent's collection, but it can't be the same thing you picked last time you played them.
So that could be anything from a Wizard or Priest (which can provide big bonuses in some scenarios), through a Nagash-type model (for obvious reasons!), or that warmachine you never quite seem to be able to do anything about.
They then get to use any and all of the remaining models they have (if they so wish, and bearing in mind any scenario rules).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/06 20:58:58
I would think that starting by limiting warscrolls would be the best option. Adding a new model to the game doesn't do very much, but adding an entirely new set of rules increases complexity exponentially, slows down the game, and results in more mistakes. So a single warscroll unit with 20 figures is easier to keep track of than two warscroll units with 20 figures, and WAY easier than four warscrolls with 20 figures. So you'd want to find the right level of complexity for your game - I'm guessing 5-10 warscrolls for each player, maybe 1 battalion each, 2-3 for terrain would probably be the sweet spot, regardless of the number of models or wounds. I'd probably use that as the basis for whatever balancing system I used.
With all the AoS games ive played ive come to the conclusion that the published book scenarios are by far some of the most balanced ways to play this game as long as you use wound count to base the army sizes.
I know that its been determined that wound count is very unreliable for determining balance but seriously,pick a scenario and set a wound target and you will see what I mean.
Now of course im speaking of the GW scenarios from the source books not player made ones from comp systems.
11527pts Total (7400pts painted)
4980pts Total (4980pts painted)
3730 Total (210pts painted) 
