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.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

I can see where you are coming from with that theory, but I can assure you that even as someone who loves tourneys and competitive play I'll look at fluff and the models themselves long before rules

Ah - but I was not targeting you

Should point out, I love tournaments too. I am quite good at them. But I also enjoy AoS.

I don't really see this as a binary thing where you have to do one thing or the other. I like AoS. You like 40k. Can't we just leave it at that?

I would have been happy to leave it at that, except 1) I have nothing better to do than hang out on Dakka right now, and 2) you have insulted me sir by implying I like yet another inferior game

Herzlos wrote:
without having to do any work beyond reading the rules / quick start.

I would be willing to say that AoS does not really do that. I would not be willing to say it is a problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:

I would have been happy to leave it at that, except 1) I have nothing better to do than hang out on Dakka right now, and 2) you have insulted me sir by implying I like yet another inferior game

1. Yeah, I should so be working right now...

2. That did cross my mind when I typed it, wondered if it would be an issue

Actually, if two pals buy the starter box, assemble the figures, and have a game, it will be reasonably fair because the selection of units presented is fairly balanced.

Problems may arise when people start to include other units in their armies, but by that time people probably have started to get a handle on the relative combat power of units judged by their stats.

If the putative pals want to play fair games, it won't be too hard for them to do so.

MongooseMatt wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
without having to do any work beyond reading the rules / quick start.

I would be willing to say that AoS does not really do that. I would not be willing to say it is a problem.

I'd say it was a problem, or enough of an obstacle to prevent me playing AoS (but it's all good, I'm all about Frostgrave for now).

Back to work for me too (maybe).

MongooseMatt wrote:

1. Yeah, I should so be working right now...

2. That did cross my mind when I typed it, wondered if it would be an issue

In that case, well done.

I think the thing that still gets me about AoS though is that so many other games cater to both competitive and casual players quite well. AoS, in my opinion, doesn't really add much for the casual/narrative side that you couldn't already do in other more 'structured' games if you had a like minded opponent. Scenarios existed in other games, points could be set aside if you wanted to play the last stand or anything like that which is inherently unbalanced.

As far as I can see all AoS has really done is not cater to one group for no good reason and thus cull the playerbase down to a much smaller group so that anyone you happen to play with wants the same exact thing out of the game as you because all the others left.

Is that a totally unfair assessment?

 jonolikespie wrote:

I think the thing that still gets me about AoS though is that so many other games cater to both competitive and casual players quite well. AoS, in my opinion, doesn't really add much for the casual/narrative side that you couldn't already do in other more 'structured' games if you had a like minded opponent. Scenarios existed in other games, points could be set aside if you wanted to play the last stand or anything like that which is inherently unbalanced.

As far as I can see all AoS has really done is not cater to one group for no good reason and thus cull the playerbase down to a much smaller group so that anyone you happen to play with wants the same exact thing out of the game as you because all the others left.

Is that a totally unfair assessment?

A little, but it is going to end up with us going round in circles again

My first thought is that if you (or anyone) have taken a good look at AoS and decided that, for whatever reason, it is not for you, then that is cool. My only issue is when someone has decided that they do not like the game and then wants to make sure the whole world feels their pain. I don't do that for their games, I thank them not to do it to the ones I play (this is not aimed at you, but I think you will know what I am talking about...).

Slightly more in depth answer: No, AoS does not add anything for narrative gaming that was not already there. But by removing the competitive angle, it certainly encouraged it, (few other options). For me, that is a plus point.

I can understand someone not liking that approach, but they also have a million other games out there so I am a little mystified about people who actively want to run AoS down. It is like blowing in the wind and does not really do anything other than cause bad feeling. Ad that is not why I game!

In my case it was morbid curiosity, so apologies if you feel like I've been trying to run down or ruin your enjoyment of the game. I just don't get the appeal, but then I don't understand why anyone would watch soccer, either.

MongooseMatt wrote:
I can understand someone not liking that approach, but they also have a million other games out there so I am a little mystified about people who actively want to run AoS down. It is like blowing in the wind and does not really do anything other than cause bad feeling. Ad that is not why I game!

They can be very competitive about the games they like...

MongooseMatt wrote:
(...) but it is going to end up with us going round in circles again

This sums up most of the discussions as of late, really.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

This sums up most of the discussions as of late, really.

"of late"? Mr. Stormcrow, meet the internet. Internet, meet Mr. Stormcrow. -- I thought introductions were necessary because it seemed like you two were strangers

MongooseMatt, I think it's really obvious why there are folks who want to run AoS down (not saying that about the folks here, mind) as opposed to just ignoring it like some other game that's not for them (say, Malifaux or Infinity).

It's because to create it, GW completely re-engineered their second largest IP (literally blowing it up) and made a very different game out of it, aimed at a different market. I think it's a pretty easy conclusion to come to that that might not go over so well and create some headwinds for them in established gaming communities

That said, I see signs of hope at GW - Bloodbowl might be coming back, for goodness sake! It's a shame they decided to spurn their fantasy world and game to create AoS, but at the same time, there are great options for folks who want to keep gaming that way (Mantic is embracing them with open arms, for instance, and there's also things like 9th Age, and Frostgrave for more skirmish style). So for myself, I'm happy that people can enjoy AoS but I still think it's going to be tough sledding to get much player adoption - as let's face it, without your existing market being enthusiastic, you need to court a new one, and the price point and lack of marketing make that tough still.

Looking back I believe the original topic was that the Fyreslayers models are incredibly expensive. So to that point: they are, they will continue to be probably. The hobby in general is an expensive one, we all know that, and in that GW stuff is in that top slot of being expensive. Those of us who buy the product can and deem it justifiable to make the transaction, even if it sucks. No point in thrashing that poor dead Brettonian horse.

Just a quick thought on that. I hope the FLGSs can move the Magmadroths, priced at $110 US. I was planning on using my vast armies of 8th ed. and slowly convert to round bases, which look much better IMO, but then Fyreslayers came out at the same time as AoS games are picking up locally and I am slowly buying models as I can. Fortunately FLGSs can usually offer discounts and sometimes more when it's a pre-order or to support a local club. But I do wonder about the big-ticket items and how FLGSs might have trouble moving those. For example, the boxes or 5 or 10 Fyreslayers are easier to buy when it's multiple models and fortunately my gaming communities always subscribe to the "support your FLGS and buy there" especially if we play there at all. However, a trend I can understandably see is the big-ticket items get bought from an online retailer who drops 20-30% off. So stores that can move the units or characters but that centerpiece model, knight, superheavy, Archaon, whatever...sits there. Not to go on a price thread as I find that quite unproductive but what I want to say here is although I'm a dwarf collector and overall happy with these new models once I have them in hand...the jump from the centerpiece/monster model jumped from $85 US to $110 and that's too much. I'll have to get that one eventually from a retailer with big discounts but I hope the stores can move theirs.

 RiTides wrote:
MongooseMatt, I think it's really obvious why there are folks who want to run AoS down (not saying that about the folks here, mind) as opposed to just ignoring it like some other game that's not for them (say, Malifaux or Infinity).

It's because to create it, GW completely re-engineered their second largest IP (literally blowing it up) and made a very different game out of it, aimed at a different market. I think it's a pretty easy conclusion to come to that that might not go over so well and create some headwinds for them in established gaming communities

That said, I see signs of hope at GW - Bloodbowl might be coming back, for goodness sake! It's a shame they decided to spurn their fantasy world and game to create AoS, but at the same time, there are great options for folks who want to keep gaming that way (Mantic is embracing them with open arms, for instance, and there's also things like 9th Age, and Frostgrave for more skirmish style). So for myself, I'm happy that people can enjoy AoS but I still think it's going to be tough sledding to get much player adoption - as let's face it, without your existing market being enthusiastic, you need to court a new one, and the price point and lack of marketing make that tough still.

Blood Bowl is coming back, it's confirmed for 2017. From the toy fair. Maybe no one made a thread about it?

Herzlos wrote:
No, you don't need balance, but knowing about balance makes it an awful lot easier to handle scenarios, without having to use some iterative approach to come up with an empirical system to handle balance (i.e. I can eventually figure out that that doodah is worth about 1.5 of those whatsits, but why can't GW just tell me?)

But you don’t need an empirical system for this type of gaming. because the value of those doodahs and whatsits will change depending on ‘how’ you construct your game. And since this is a game that is meant to be entirely in your hands, for GW to ‘just tell you’ is missing the point by a mile.

As you say, knowing about balance makes it a lot easier to handle scenarios, but I’ll make the point that the ‘knowing’ comes about with experience. It gets easier, in other words. Herzlos didn’t come into this world as a fully formed competitive wargamer who instinctively ‘got’ all the tricks of the trade. No, you learned. And you improved. This is no different. Although it's not so much a 'new game', it's a 'new way of playing' for a lot of people. Expect to make mistakes and take baby steps. This is not necessarily bad. Put some effort into it, and sooner than you realise, it will start to become more natural, and you wont need gw to tell you anything. Once you get familiar with the mechanics, and see things in action, you will generally get a ‘feel’ for what things are capable of doing, and from there you can generate suitable and fair match ups.

Herzlos wrote:
If you want a scenario that's way unbalanced, it still helps to have an idea. "You're outnumbered by about 5x, so your objective is suitably set" is a lot easier to do than "You're outnumbered by a lot, so".

Nomenclature, and nothing more. You can usually tell whats a good match up or not with a bit of practice. Being outnumbered is being outnumbered after all.

Herzlos wrote:
The enjoyment in lego is in building it. It's a construction kit. AoS mini's are game tokens.

Is it? What was I saying about broad strokes earlier? I mean this is coming as a shock to me, but it turns out now that as a kid, for all those years I was apparently having fun the wrong way. When I was a kid, my enjoyment with lego was playing with the toys, the ‘building it’ was something I put myself through to get to the ‘now I can play with it’ stage.

And how are AOS minis not like construction kits? They’re tapping into exactly the same creative energy. I mean, they need to be assembled, painted and so on… saying they’re just game tokens is deliberately being misleading. It might be where you see most of their value, but that’s just you, and other like minded folks. Plenty others don’t play, or play so rarely that the concept of them being ‘game tokens’ is academic – for plenty people, their value is as things to paint. And that’s enough. And that’s perfectly fine.

You have two sets of toys here. Both require assembly, and both can be played with. Why is one all about the assembly as you claim, and the other all about the playing? Seems to me that both are equal parts of both.

Herzlos wrote:
It's more like lego giving you a picture and a box of bits but no instructions. Or giving you half of the instructions and a voucher for the pick-n-mix.

Sounds like a licence for creativity right there. having a box of bits but no instructions, or having half the instructions and a voucher for bits – that sounds pretty awesome to me to be perfectly honest. Certainly not a bad thing at all if you ask me.

Herzlos wrote:
That's entirely their perogative, but the customers don't need to like it, and the abject failure of AoS using every possible metric indicates that the the customers don't like it.

The customer doesn’t need to like it at all, but the customer also doesn’t need to be saying mistruths about what the onus on developers ‘should be’ just to match their own pre-determined conclusions, and ignoring the fact that the world is bigger than those pre-determined conclusions.

Its not the game you want it to be. OK, fine. Holding it to the standards and perceived merits of a game it doesn’t even pretend to be isn’t. you’re blaming the apple for not being an orange, and holding all to all the standards of that orange. Go get another orange. J

As to ‘abject failure’ -We’ll have to wait and see on that. I think AOS has its adherents.

Herzlos wrote:
They also haven't really made their vision clear, which is part of the issue.

Seems pretty clear to me. Its just a different ‘vision’ to one that youre after.

Herzlos wrote:
My characters in other games have personalities and back stories, but they are still tokens. My point is that whilst you can enjoy building and painting them, without the structure of the game they are pretty meaningless (beyond looking cool). Their entire point is to be used in a game. The entire point of lego is to build it.

Are they meaningless? I mean, looking cool is enough, surely, if that’s what you’re into? I paint models sometimes for the sole purpose of painting models, and I have no game rules in mind at all (hasslefree minis fyi). Talking about ‘the point’ of them in such broad strokes is being dishonest. Because ‘the point’ will be different for everyone.

As for lego, as mentioned, most of my enjoyment came form playing with them. I lost so many afternoons as a kid to imaginary world populated by legomen! I had a lego town set up in my room. using such broad strokes as sweeping certainties in defining ‘the entire point’ of stuff as some kind of universal truth does you no favours here.

jonolikespie wrote:
Where does GW advertise AoS as a game that requires players to balance it between themselves? I see where they expect it to happen, and I see the rules telling me to put whatever models I want on the board, but that's about it.]

GW don’t advertise. You see where they expect it to happen, you see them say ‘put whatever on the board’ and say ‘that’s about it’ but really, that’s all there is to it. its not rocket surgery or something infinitely complex.

jonolikespie wrote:
I mean from a game design point of view, not two players meeting over a table. Rules exist to tell players what they can and can not do. A significant part of that should be to keep the game fair and fun for both parties]

Indeed, and ‘sort it out amongst yourselves’ isn’t necessarily a bad concept. It doesn’t stop you from making things ‘fair’, or ‘fun’. Thry don't need to hold your hand all the way through. You should be able to figure out some things work p yourselves.

jonolikespie wrote:
How does that differ from any other tabletop game on the market?]

Nice red herring. It doesn’t, and saying it was different never came up in the conversation.

jonolikespie wrote:
I think the thing that still gets me about AoS though is that so many other games cater to both competitive and casual players quite well. AoS, in my opinion, doesn't really add much for the casual/narrative side that you couldn't already do in other more 'structured' games if you had a like minded opponent. Scenarios existed in other games, points could be set aside if you wanted to play the last stand or anything like that which is inherently unbalanced.]

You could do it, but not many did. Which is the point. As has been said, if you have a ‘standard’ way of playing, or a mode that is seen as ‘standard’, then people will generally not deviate from this way. So while you are correct in saying that you can do this with other games (and we do!), its not that common (the like minded opponent bit can be tricky), and I think it’s a shame that this aspect is neglected the way it is. For people than genuinely enjoyed creative diy gaming, this was a huge barrier and often left them out in the cold and forced,to play game modes they didn't really care for.

jonolikespie wrote:
As far as I can see all AoS has really done is not cater to one group for no good reason and thus cull the playerbase down to a much smaller group so that anyone you happen to play with wants the same exact thing out of the game as you because all the others left.
Is that a totally unfair assessment? ]

I think its both true, and also unfair. Catering to a smaller, more focused niche, that now finds itself on the same wavelength is arguably a good move. Its better than trying to (and failing to) cater to the wide spectrum of ‘everyone’ –that way is destined to fail. You remove A lot of the toxicity from the environment this way, and make things a smoother, more comfortable ‘fit’. Privateer press broke through for precicely this reason – they became the ‘competitive game’ and a lot of competitively minded folks flocked to their games. GW is doing the same thing, but focusing on a different niche. Let them.

 VeteranNoob wrote:
Looking back I believe the original topic was that the Fyreslayers models are incredibly expensive.

I hope the FLGSs can move the Magmadroths, priced at $110 US.

I tend to be pretty immune to caring much about the new round of AO$ pricing, since I'm not much interested in the new armies and play other games, but the 'Droths were the first time I remember being actually bummed about pricing me out. I had this wild hair to make like 3-6 of the things because a mob of big lizards and nekkid hairy dudes sounds great, right? Not when they cost $260-530 after discount ...

So I put some more stuff into my Puppets Wars cart instead

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:
Looking back I believe the original topic was that the Fyreslayers models are incredibly expensive.

I hope the FLGSs can move the Magmadroths, priced at $110 US.

I tend to be pretty immune to caring much about the new round of AO$ pricing, since I'm not much interested in the new armies and play other games, but the 'Droths were the first time I remember being actually bummed about pricing me out. I had this wild hair to make like 3-6 of the things because a mob of big lizards and nekkid hairy dudes sounds great, right? Not when they cost $260-530 after discount ...

So I put some more stuff into my Puppets Wars cart instead

- Salvage

Lizards and naked dwarfs of course sounds great how could you go wrong?
im actually worried once I start painting Fyreslayers as fire elemental like that boss pick of Grimnir with fire hair, that the droths will look even better Options and I'll need to get at least two. One dark red and one essentially charred black.

Maybe timing will be such as last year and tax return will Come in right as I'm planning on attending an event and end up blowing it all on a new army.

Herzlos wrote:

MongooseMatt wrote:

This is an excellent point you raise, and it is one that I have seen as a common thread in my group among those who have not taken to AoS.

The miniatures in AoS are not game tokens. This is kinda the point of the game - it is about seeing them as more than just tokens that get pushed around, more than just proxies for pieces of paper and stand up card cutouts.

My characters in other games have personalities and back stories, but they are still tokens. My point is that whilst you can enjoy building and painting them, without the structure of the game they are pretty meaningless (beyond looking cool). Their entire point is to be used in a game. The entire point of lego is to build it.

the entire point of miniatures is to build and paint them, and THEN play with them if you are so inclined...
without the structure of the game, miniatures are 3D representations of the art and fluff...
the whole point is about exercising your creativity in a way that goes beyond the building of a Lego kit...

if you only see minis as tokens, it is entirely reasonable to think that GW minis are too expensive...
if you see minis as 3D representations of characters, and put a lot of passion into building and painting them, then it can easily feel like fair value for the money...

for 30 years, the actual crunch of the game has been pretty meaningless to me, and a lot of other painters...
yet, i have enjoyed living in these worlds in my head, and having a physical representation of these characters, as well as exercising my creativity and getting the satisfaction of improving my painting and modeling skills...
that is far from meaningless to me, and makes it well worth the price that i pay for the kits...

cheers
jah

MongooseMatt wrote:

I can understand someone not liking that approach, but they also have a million other games out there so I am a little mystified about people who actively want to run AoS down. It is like blowing in the wind and does not really do anything other than cause bad feeling. Ad that is not why I game!

Its cool to tear things down. Look at how angry people get reviewing movies. When I see a movie I look for the things i like in it. Everyone i know looks for all the mistakes and then looks smug when they point them out.

 jah-joshua wrote:

the entire point of miniatures is to build and paint them, and THEN play with them if you are so inclined...

Then why are pre-built/pre-painted mini's and painting services so popular? Some people view the hobby side as value add, some view it as a distraction.

without the structure of the game, miniatures are 3D representations of the art and fluff...

I can kind of agree with this; people do scale modelling of historics without any game associated with it, but with GW? Where the fluff is now purely representative of the game? The fluff, game, and miniatures are all very closely interlinked.

the whole point is about exercising your creativity in a way that goes beyond the building of a Lego kit...

I'm not so sure there either; lego kits give you almost infinite possibilities (assuming you have the correct pieces). You get a lot of freedom with miniature conversions, but I don't think you get quite the same scope as you would from Lego. Lego even has moving parts and computerization.

GW write fluff and rules to support the sales of model kits. Knight Titans and AdMech are clear proof. Never represented within the game in 25 years and rolled out when the company needed to do a big push of new models to try and turn around their falling sales.

Neither codex is a proper army, it is an excuse for Imperial players to buy some cool new models to use as Allies. They are very expensive, too. There is an AdMech kit that is £22 and builds a single infantry character.

But what the hell? If people like them and are prepared to pay the price...

Deadnight wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
No, you don't need balance, but knowing about balance makes it an awful lot easier to handle scenarios, without having to use some iterative approach to come up with an empirical system to handle balance (i.e. I can eventually figure out that that doodah is worth about 1.5 of those whatsits, but why can't GW just tell me?)

But you don’t need an empirical system for this type of gaming. because the value of those doodahs and whatsits will change depending on ‘how’ you construct your game. And since this is a game that is meant to be entirely in your hands, for GW to ‘just tell you’ is missing the point by a mile.

As you say, knowing about balance makes it a lot easier to handle scenarios, but I’ll make the point that the ‘knowing’ comes about with experience.

That's what empirical determination is; getting values from something by measuring it. You can only achieve some semblance of balance by trial and error. You have to spend a lot of time working (and potentially not enjoying) to get to the baseline that most games start with. Especially when the results are largely fixed (2 flobbits is almost always equivalent to 4 thingies, for instance).

It gets easier, in other words. Herzlos didn’t come into this world as a fully formed competitive wargamer who instinctively ‘got’ all the tricks of the trade. No, you learned. And you improved. This is no different. Although it's not so much a 'new game', it's a 'new way of playing' for a lot of people. Expect to make mistakes and take baby steps. This is not necessarily bad. Put some effort into it, and sooner than you realise, it will start to become more natural, and you wont need gw to tell you anything. Once you get familiar with the mechanics, and see things in action, you will generally get a ‘feel’ for what things are capable of doing, and from there you can generate suitable and fair match ups.

But why should I have to start from nothing, and take baby steps, when instead I could use a mature ruleset and hit the ground running?
I don't want to put effort in to re-invent a wheel. If I'm putting effort into a game above and beyond what the author does, I want to spend my limited time enhancing the experience rather than just trying to keep up. For example; 3 hours work in AoS might get me to a playable game. 3 hours work in Frostgrave might give me a pretty cool fully functioning expansion that lets me add in Dragons, or moving terrain, or whatever.

Is it? What was I saying about broad strokes earlier? I mean this is coming as a shock to me, but it turns out now that as a kid, for all those years I was apparently having fun the wrong way. When I was a kid, my enjoyment with lego was playing with the toys, the ‘building it’ was something I put myself through to get to the ‘now I can play with it’ stage.

And how are AOS minis not like construction kits? They’re tapping into exactly the same creative energy. I mean, they need to be assembled, painted and so on… saying they’re just game tokens is deliberately being misleading. It might be where you see most of their value, but that’s just you, and other like minded folks. Plenty others don’t play, or play so rarely that the concept of them being ‘game tokens’ is academic – for plenty people, their value is as things to paint. And that’s enough. And that’s perfectly fine.

You have two sets of toys here. Both require assembly, and both can be played with. Why is one all about the assembly as you claim, and the other all about the playing? Seems to me that both are equal parts of both.

Fair enough, the stroke was too broad. I too enjoyed playing with my built lego, just as I enjoy painting miniatures.

Herzlos wrote:
It's more like lego giving you a picture and a box of bits but no instructions. Or giving you half of the instructions and a voucher for the pick-n-mix.

Sounds like a licence for creativity right there. having a box of bits but no instructions, or having half the instructions and a voucher for bits – that sounds pretty awesome to me to be perfectly honest. Certainly not a bad thing at all if you ask me.

I don't agree; you can be exactly as creative with Lego just by not opening the instruction book. You don't need the license to be creative, it's implicit and already encouraged (that's what master builders are). You gain exactly nothing by taking the instructions out, other than enforced freedom, and some wonky constructions if you can't figure it out.

Herzlos wrote:
That's entirely their perogative, but the customers don't need to like it, and the abject failure of AoS using every possible metric indicates that the the customers don't like it.

The customer doesn’t need to like it at all, but the customer also doesn’t need to be saying mistruths about what the onus on developers ‘should be’ just to match their own pre-determined conclusions, and ignoring the fact that the world is bigger than those pre-determined conclusions.

Its not the game you want it to be. OK, fine. Holding it to the standards and perceived merits of a game it doesn’t even pretend to be isn’t. you’re blaming the apple for not being an orange, and holding all to all the standards of that orange. Go get another orange. J

As to ‘abject failure’ -We’ll have to wait and see on that. I think AOS has its adherents.

It's a direct replacement for a well respected game, it's only natural that it's going to be compared to it's predecessor. It's definitely not the game I want it to be (though it could be with a bit of effort, all they need to do is fill in the blanks and tidy up some of the rules). I'm also pretty sure that outside of a few pockets of success, AoS really isn't doing well; all of the evidence points that way.

Herzlos wrote:
They also haven't really made their vision clear, which is part of the issue.

Seems pretty clear to me. Its just a different ‘vision’ to one that youre after.

I've not seen anything from GW indicating what the vision is, other than a few reps indicating that people are "playing it wrong". You've got an interpretation of what the vision is, but there's never been any sort of statement, and that's caused a lot of problems with the fanbase that would never have happened if GW had essentially said "WHFB is no more, and we're introducing a new way of doing things that focuses more on narrative and co-operative gaming than the old obsession with points" and tried to justify it. Instead all we got was WHFB disappearing and empty statements about how aweome AoS is.

jonolikespie wrote:
As far as I can see all AoS has really done is not cater to one group for no good reason and thus cull the playerbase down to a much smaller group so that anyone you happen to play with wants the same exact thing out of the game as you because all the others left.
Is that a totally unfair assessment? ]

I think its both true, and also unfair. Catering to a smaller, more focused niche, that now finds itself on the same wavelength is arguably a good move. Its better than trying to (and failing to) cater to the wide spectrum of ‘everyone’ –that way is destined to fail. You remove A lot of the toxicity from the environment this way, and make things a smoother, more comfortable ‘fit’. Privateer press broke through for precicely this reason – they became the ‘competitive game’ and a lot of competitively minded folks flocked to their games. GW is doing the same thing, but focusing on a different niche. Let them.

Herzlos wrote:

Then why are pre-built/pre-painted mini's and painting services so popular?

Notice that GW do neither - the likes of X-Wing target a very different market (albeit with some crossover).

Herzlos wrote:

But why should I have to start from nothing, and take baby steps, when instead I could use a mature ruleset and hit the ground running?

You don't have to - this is what we are trying to say... This is (very likely) not your sort of game. Which is fine, plenty else out there. We just happen to like it though...

Herzlos wrote:
For example; 3 hours work in AoS might get me to a playable game.

Closer to three minutes. Come on, let us all be honest.

This kind of comment makes me think you are not here to listen or be convinced - you have already made up your mind about AoS and just want to argue against it. But why spend time and energy on a game you don't like when there are so many out there that you do?

Herzlos wrote:
AoS really isn't doing well; all of the evidence points that way.

People have a tendency to see what they want to see. However, I can give you some evidence based on actual figures - I have a little sideline in GW retail, and AoS has exploded Fantasy sales. Drips and drabs before, regular turnover now. And, here's the thing - those sales are increasing in pace, not slowing down. We are seeing more people (re)turning to AoS, and we are seeing them spending more when they do.

MongooseMatt wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
For example; 3 hours work in AoS might get me to a playable game.

Closer to three minutes. Come on, let us all be honest.

I'm yet to be convinced. I guess it depends on what you count as a playable game. Forces out of the box is probably 3 minutes, but to pit my Dwarfs against my gaming buddies Brets?

This kind of comment makes me think you are not here to listen or be convinced - you have already made up your mind about AoS and just want to argue against it. But why spend time and energy on a game you don't like when there are so many out there that you do?

I'm happy to be convinced, I may yet even pop into a GW for a demo, but I haven't seen anything convincing yet. But it's entirely possible I just can't understand it.

Herzlos wrote:
AoS really isn't doing well; all of the evidence points that way.

People have a tendency to see what they want to see. However, I can give you some evidence based on actual figures - I have a little sideline in GW retail, and AoS has exploded Fantasy sales. Drips and drabs before, regular turnover now. And, here's the thing - those sales are increasing in pace, not slowing down. We are seeing more people (re)turning to AoS, and we are seeing them spending more when they do.

That's interesting, because it's pretty much the opposite I've heard from any other indy store. I'm certainly open to being proven wrong, and it's good if AoS is starting to pick up now that the WHFB storm has finished. Is your sideline GW official or through an independent? Do you know if these sales are for use in AoS? I'd have assumed people are still trying to finish out WHFB armies whilst they still can, but that that'd have stopped months ago.

Can you elaborate on what's selling well? Genuinely curious, and open to both sides of the story. It's just been that up until your note there all I've seen that points to AoS being successful is the occasional comment saying it's gaining players in their local stores, some of which are even buying armies. Comparing that with various store reports, rumours from management, AGM and financial reports, it's still looking pretty one-sided.

Herzlos wrote:

I'm yet to be convinced. I guess it depends on what you count as a playable game. Forces out of the box is probably 3 minutes, but to pit my Dwarfs against my gaming buddies Brets?

I'm happy to be convinced, I may yet even pop into a GW for a demo, but I haven't seen anything convincing yet. But it's entirely possible I just can't understand it.

Hmm...

Have you seen any of the battle reports I have posted? I can walk you through things, even using your Dwarfs and Brets as examples - but I would want to see equal effort on your side

Incidentally, the GW demo will likely show you the core rules, but not how to actually play... if you see what I mean.

Herzlos wrote:
Can you elaborate on what's selling well?

The new releases always do well (the Fyreslayers blew through), and both Khorne and Stormcasts seem to be evergreens.

There are some oddities that are interesting. Space Marine Tactical Squads always do well, so we loaded up on Liberators - and took a long time to sell through on them, though Judicatiors, Paladins, etc, do very well. We took on lots of Liberators because they are the 'core' troop for Stormcasts. But, of course, you get two units in the starter set, and there is no Troops requirement forcing you to get more...

The other oddity - books. This may be a case of people getting them locally on day of release (because they cannot wait to read and plan their model purchases) but I cannot back that up. We sell proportionally less AoS books than 40k, though I would not read too much into that. Our Fyreslayer books disappeared within hours, the last copy of Quest for Ghal Maraz is still sitting on the shelf.

The Dreadhold stock sold slowly, but it did sell. Which is probably obvious. That said, the Dreadhold Battletome is still in stock too.

However, compared to Fantasy sales pre-AoS (the occasional unit box set selling), it is chalk and cheese. AoS probably accounts for 30-40% of our sales, depending on what is released any given week.

Herzlos wrote:

MongooseMatt wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
For example; 3 hours work in AoS might get me to a playable game.

Closer to three minutes. Come on, let us all be honest.

I'm yet to be convinced. I guess it depends on what you count as a playable game. Forces out of the box is probably 3 minutes, but to pit my Dwarfs against my gaming buddies Brets?

Put down what you think looks right. If the game is utterly one sided, look at why.
Did his warmachines wreak havoc? Then in future games you might want to try pegasus Knights or peasant horsemen as a counter. Or simply add extra units to account for the initial attrition. Or discuss reducing the number of warmachines he takes.

I will concede that there is no way to balance by eye out of the box. But once you have a few games under your belt, you know what the relative strengths and weaknesses of unit X are and can do it on the fly. It really isn't that hard.
But as Matt's pointed out, it's evident that AoS isn't the game for you if you can't see that or it doesn't work for you.

Matt - thanks for the info. That's pretty good if new stuff is continuing to sell, my assumption was that it'd mostly be old stuff. So it's slowly starting to improve?

I don't have much time to dedicate to going through a proper example with you now (new baby, renovation work) and I feel like I should do some homework first. So once I do that, I'll drop you a PM with some ideas.

RoperPG wrote:

I will concede that there is no way to balance by eye out of the box. But once you have a few games under your belt, you know what the relative strengths and weaknesses of unit X are and can do it on the fly. It really isn't that hard.

That's largely my point. Unless you're using pre-set units for a scenario, you're going to have to have a few trial runs to establish some idea of what works. That's potentially a couple of games of stomping/getting stomped by your opponent until you get a feel for how it works. Those few games could be enough to put anyone off wanting to keep playing.

It's very hard to judge the popularity of AoS as a game (not just sales, which is an important distinction since many players are likely to have WHFB armies already collected). On dakka, it's very unpopular. On Facebook, AoS pages are are extremely active, with people posting new Projects and purchases at a blistering pace. On Youtube, AoS battle reports are very popular (they usually have about half the views of 40k battle reports and around double that of Warmachine battle reports). None of this is obviously evidence of how well the game is doing, but it is clear to me that the AoS Community is growing fast and more people are joining in all the time. There are countless stories through these channels of old, lapsed gamers returning with renewed vigor for AoS. As an AoS fan it's very encouraging and the community is very positive, becoming more close-knit and encouraging due to the amount of negativity the game gets online.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Actually, if two pals buy the starter box, assemble the figures, and have a game, it will be reasonably fair because the selection of units presented is fairly balanced.

Problems may arise when people start to include other units in their armies, but by that time people probably have started to get a handle on the relative combat power of units judged by their stats.

If the putative pals want to play fair games, it won't be too hard for them to do so.

Great if all you ever do is play against your pal. Many people have limited gaming time and would far rather spend it playing the game rather than having a lengthy discourse about how to even set-up the game. The fact is that GW supplied no balancing mechanic for AoS which would aid two disparate people who hold the same goal (to win a competitive match) in enjoying the product that they produce. Dithering over even how many models and what type to place on the field to even begin the game is a joykill from the start and makes the game asinine in my mind. Sure their are several community produced, balancing systems out their but then you have agree with your opponent on one; what if he likes A and you like B? You could also decide that maybe your playstyles aren't compatible but you just wasted 10 minutes working that out.

A well defined rule set goes far to mitigate this type of unpleasant experience. If you know how to create an army beforehand, the discussion just moved to scenarios which is a great deal more fun than playing blind man's bluff with miniatures.

I can respect Mat's playstyle but I hope that he knows how in the minority he is. If I'm going to build all of that backstory, I'll run a d&d campaign with a bunch of friends for more fun and intrinsic structural supports to do so but that's just me I guess.

 Mymearan wrote:
It's very hard to judge the popularity of AoS as a game (not just sales, which is an important distinction since many players are likely to have WHFB armies already collected). On dakka, it's very unpopular. On Facebook, AoS pages are are extremely active, with people posting new Projects and purchases at a blistering pace. On Youtube, AoS battle reports are very popular (they usually have about half the views of 40k battle reports and around double that of Warmachine battle reports). None of this is obviously evidence of how well the game is doing, but it is clear to me that the AoS Community is growing fast and more people are joining in all the time. There are countless stories through these channels of old, lapsed gamers returning with renewed vigor for AoS. As an AoS fan it's very encouraging and the community is very positive, becoming more close-knit and encouraging due to the amount of negativity the game gets online.

Agree with your last sentence very much. The best thing about the immense backlash the game and its fans received at the start is how much of a positive, encouraging community it created on the flip side, which has almost defined itself to be the opposite of all the negativity, a place where your hobby is encouraged however you like to do it. It's grown a lot on social media as you say. I've been following the AoS player map and Tales of Sigmar, two recent community efforts http://talesofsigmar.blogspot.co.uk.

coldgaming wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
It's very hard to judge the popularity of AoS as a game (not just sales, which is an important distinction since many players are likely to have WHFB armies already collected). On dakka, it's very unpopular. On Facebook, AoS pages are are extremely active, with people posting new Projects and purchases at a blistering pace. On Youtube, AoS battle reports are very popular (they usually have about half the views of 40k battle reports and around double that of Warmachine battle reports). None of this is obviously evidence of how well the game is doing, but it is clear to me that the AoS Community is growing fast and more people are joining in all the time. There are countless stories through these channels of old, lapsed gamers returning with renewed vigor for AoS. As an AoS fan it's very encouraging and the community is very positive, becoming more close-knit and encouraging due to the amount of negativity the game gets online.

Agree with your last sentence very much. The best thing about the immense backlash the game and its fans received at the start is how much of a positive, encouraging community it created on the flip side, which has almost defined itself to be the opposite of all the negativity, a place where your hobby is encouraged however you like to do it. It's grown a lot on social media as you say. I've been following the AoS player map and Tales of Sigmar, two recent community efforts http://talesofsigmar.blogspot.co.uk.

This might get me in trouble
I'm skipping the back-and-forth so hopefully I didn't miss a key message Been gaming for *cough cough* years and always been aware of wargame forums but decided to give it a go and see if I like it or what good comes of it (and a lot has). I'm hoping my diplomatic ways combined with hope that this isn't misinterpreted over the internetz, but I agree with what you've both said. The Facebook groups, for example, despite some odd bit of drama on rules is so reassuring (so much that I can't even read 95% of posts because the volume is just so immense). Maybe because Warseer is down still into day 3 I have the stupidity to post this: IMO, I personally do not believe these larger wargame forums to be an accurate representation of a gaming community worldwide. Not at all. Some one made a joke my first week on Warseer that we only hear the negativity from the guys who spend their time online complaining or whining about games (AoS for example when many had not even played it yet!) and the players who enjoy the game are busy atually playing it, enjoying their hobby and not having time to bit$% [<-can I say that word?] online.

It's nice to see objective posts on these forums, I've seen more on Dakka, where the poster clarifies a discourse or mood on this forum specifically. Some have polls where say, 100 people from that forum who mostly feel the same way, vote why AoS is "failing or gaining ground" or whatever re: sales which we all know we never will have so it's all speculation anyway, so why get so worked up about it? OK, wrapping up--It's awesome to see options for enjoying a game and connecting fellow hobby fans to enjoy and be happy, you know, like what a hobby is supposed to do for you. But, despite the impressive scope and user numbers of Dakka or Warseer or BoLS, even if one thread had 100-300 unique posters talking why AoS is "good" or "failure" or "gaining ground" or whatever, I would never take data or ideas from forums as present them as a global (or even regional) truth. Certainly I don't believe my eyes when I see this, but despite my own opinions I still have no interest in arguing with people (this one is my ultimate favorite ) telling them what they did or did not see, hear, or experience.

Some great encouragement and discussion on all of these forums and I'm overall quite pleased with Dakka when moving beyond news & rumors threads. Keep up the great work!