AoS rules 'quality'

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**Kilkrazy**

If you don't like shooting into/out of melee, you can ignore the rule. It will make missile units weaker, but since there isn't a clear balance mechanism, this probably doesn't matter much. If you wanted to compensate, try improving the To Hit and perhaps the To Wound rolls of missile units by 1.

**HiveFleetPlastic**

There are some ambiguous points that should have been caught. In particular, how to execute the pile-in move isn't properly explained and how you do it changes how the game plays a lot. The mystic shield stacking question, summoning rules and that one about the multiple weapons also come to mind, but the pile-in one is the most glaring.

Also, I don't think the sudden death rule is good. It might make more sense if it was something like: if you want to play with uneven sides, the disadvantaged player should pick a sudden death rule.

I think the ruleset has some obvious weaknesses. The amount of picking through dice is truly incredible. Look, okay, rolling a bucket of dice can be fun. The problem is counting the dice out and picking out the hits and then rerolling the ones gets tedious. Three rolls per attack is excessive, especially for a game that seems to be trying to be streamlined in its other aspects.

Another thing that is weird is people have noted the game seems centred around a narrative style of play, but the deployment rules don't actually reflect that. Rather than saying you should work with your opponent to create an interesting battle, they kinda just say you each whack models on the table until your deployment zone is full or you feel like stopping. That doesn't seem like the way to a good gameplay experience?

I really like that they tried something so drastically different, though.

**Bottle**

jonolikespie wrote:
(*Before anyone jumps on me saying that they like the game so clearly there is a niche for it, just ask yourself if you discuss what a balanced fight would be, or if you just place a unit, let your opponent place a unit, etc, as per the exact rules as written and then play with sudden death even if the smaller army has the advantage or it looks like a perfectly balanced game that would be unbalanced by giving one side sudden death.)

I guess your idea is that even the players of AoS forego deployment RAW and house rule it, making it seem unplayable RAW, however the deployment method above is often altered in the Battleplans. For example, The Ritual asks players to each pick an army before deployment and then choose who will be the attacker/defender, as larger armies by a third more models will default to the attacker.

That kinda leaves me asking what the AoS rules are actually good for?

For me, the strengths of AoS are the vast amounts of units that can be brought to the game (the GW AoS miniatures range is simply massive), almost making it like a D&D Monster Manual - and the possibilities that brings.

Second is the 'platoon' size of the games and the loose skirmish groupings of units.

These two things combined make the game very versatile in my opinion. From mass battles with dragons and massive warmachines down to fights over crampt terrain.

**puree**

*Before anyone jumps on me saying that they like the game so clearly there is a niche for it, just ask yourself if you discuss what a balanced fight would be, or if you just place a unit, let your opponent place a unit, etc, as per the exact rules as written and then play with sudden death even if the smaller army has the advantage or it looks like a perfectly balanced game that would be unbalanced by giving one side sudden death.

AoS is a scenario based game where every scenario has its own deployment rules and victory conditions. This isn't a new concept to wargaming. The one you mention isn't one I'd be bothered playing as I'm not a fan of simple charge and kill games. Its part of why I drifted away from fantasy to 40k for a while many years ago, as 40k better supported the skirmish style game with very different objectives. Block battle games are generally not so good outside the big kill all battle, with some slight variations (defend, ambush etc).

But yes so far in the few games I've played we've discussed what would feel about right balance wise. For myself I don't care whether it is perfectly balanced, only that it is 'good enough' in light of the victory conditions. That is usually quite doable with a quick talk. By the end you may have decided that you got it a bit wrong, but not usually to the point that it was a one sided slaughter/instant win.

I've played enough wargames over the years where victory for one side or the other is known to be harder for one side, and I like playing the disadvantaged side, trying to buck the odds. They also make for a good balancing mechanism, as outside the 'competitive' circuit it is probably unlikely you will have 2 equally good players, so for a well balanced game you will want the better player fighting somewhat uphill.

**Kilkrazy**

Unbalanced games have a long tradition in historical wargaming, when playing historical scenarios, meaning replaying actual historical battles. The point of a historical battle was often that one side thought it was stronger, and the weaker side couldn't escape. Designers writing historical scenarios often use biased victory conditions to make the stronger side's task harder, and thus achieve a theoretical 50/50 winning percentage.

Of course there is also a long tradition in historicals of balanced competition games using points and lists. The purpose of this type of rules originally was to run fair tournaments of one-off face to face battles. This doesn't invalidate the use of points, lists and balance for non-competition games, since if you want to organise unbalanced games it helps to know the theoretical value of the forces you decide to make available to players.

When GW released AoS without a balance mechanism, it took only five minutes for people who wanted one to start writing their own. Given the lack of success by GW to balance their own rules (40K) perhaps it's better to let the players do it.

Ironically, given the emphasis on "narrative" play, which seems basically to mean non-competitive, non-tournament play, and the lack of a balance mechanism in AoS, GW are organising tournaments for AoS. So they get to have their cake and eat it.

**Deadnight**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Unbalanced games have a long tradition in historical wargaming, when playing historical scenarios, meaning replaying actual historical battles.

I'll take issue with this kil. Historical gaming can be quite a blank canvas to work from (there are a surprising amount of gaps in our records) and unbalanced games in historicals have always been a thing, and a rather fun thing at that, but that doesn't mean they're replaying actual historical battles or historical scenarios. For example, there doesn't need to be a precise battle to represent a gsme where my Normans or Romans having an uphill battle against your Anglo Saxons or celts. With respect, and I know you probably didn't intend it as such but it always grates on my nerves when people say how historicals only ever come down to reenacting battles.

Kilkrazy wrote:

When GW released AoS without a balance mechanism, it took only five minutes for people who wanted one to start writing their own. Given the lack of success by GW to balance their own rules (40K) perhaps it's better to let the players do it.

It can work but it does take time, effort and a bit of experience to get it right. We do it, and I would recommend it as a valid approach. That said, having seen ymdc, I'm not sure if I'd necessarily trust the majority of players to balance their own rules.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ironically, given the emphasis on "narrative" play, which seems basically to mean non-competitive, non-tournament play, and the lack of a balance mechanism in AoS, GW are organising tournaments for AoS. So they get to have their cake and eat it.

I don't think they're so much tournaments as event days. I think though that there is some decent value from this approach.

**Davor**

jonolikespie wrote:Trying to head a little more back to the topic of the rules themselves, I'd just like to throw in my personal anecdote of having never seen any gamers (or collectors for that matter) asking for anything GW has done with AoS.

Yes Jervis promoted the idea of no points but no actual customers I ever met asked for that, any that wanted it seemed to be doing it themselves anyway.

A slimmed down, simpler ruleset was certainly asked for, but I don't feel like AoS delivered on that. It made the core rules smaller sure, but it still looks bloated to me with the need to remember a different special rule for every warscroll.

People hated magic terrain in 8th ed WHFB and 7th ed 40k, why does AoS have even more of it?

No one, and I mean no one, wanted space marines in their Fantasy.

End Times seemed well revived when it started and Nagash (and Sigmar in a sense) returned for the final big showdown with Chaos in a new campaign that was advancing the story... but as soon as the last one came out people locally just.. stopped. Fantasy was dead, no one knew what was coming, so people just set it aside.

Yes it does seem like GW is giving the big FU to it's customers. Sadly GW is giving the big FU to the wrong people. If GW did what they were suppose to do (give customers what they want so they can spend money) instead of GW doing what they want to do (which made people not want to give their money) GW wouldn't have to throw out the baby with the bath water and start over again. Sadly though GW is doing what they want to do instead of giving people what they want. Maybe just maybe GW is finally turning around and giving people what they want now. Time will tell if that is the case or not.

But again, back to the rules, I feel like someone told the studio they have to condense the rules to 4 pages and the studio just had to run with that. Rules like shooting into and out of combat feel like they were simply cut for formatting's sake. KoW rules are clear and simple enough that I can sit down and read them easily in one sitting. They take up the first 40 pages of the rulebook yes, ten times as many pages as AoS, but they contain ALL the special rules you'll ever encounter. They contain ALL the rules for terrain. They contain rules for timed games in competitive events, they don't have the variety of AoS scenarios, but they have 6 solid ones that provide enough of a difference that people aren't playing battleline by default.

Looking at both of them I would say AoS has been simplified on the surface, but scratch the surface and it is needlessly complex. KoW on the other hand doesn't look as simplified, but is exactly as simple as it seems.

I'm also going to have to compare the two in terms of narrative gameplay since people claim that is the strength of AoS. From everything I've heard the battlplans are good scenario games, since I've got no interest in paying anything to read them I'll assume that's ture but point out KoW have put out an amazing campaign book that covers map based competitive campaigns, narrative campaigns and how to link one game to the next, it gives an example narrative campaign that includes a round of one of their skirmish games, with KoW rules for one of the named bad guys from the skirmish game fluff to include him in the next KoW battle. It even includes basics such as how to get a group together and organize a campaign. Given that I find it hard to believe AoS is better in the narrative gaming department, mostly that just comes down to the players being imaginative and both games seem to offer good inspiration there, albeit in different forms.

That kinda leaves me asking what the AoS rules are actually good for?

If I want a mass battle game I have KoW, if I want skirmish there are a dozen other skirmish games on the market. If I want narrative gaming in mass battle KoW and the campaign book serve me better than AoS as it's a real mass battle game. If I want narrative based skirmish.. honestly Mordheim seems better than AoS as I can watch my men gain experience and level up. Like 40k, AoS seems forced into this niche of skirmish rules but trying to sell the game with 100+ models because GW wants to sell models.

I've actually asked this on this forum and got the response that most people seemed to play with less than 50 models, but GW themselves only ever said that 100 models a side is a good evenings gaming so from that I assume they play with 100 models a side at Nottingham, and since I've not seen any battle reports from GW themselves nor any armies being shown off that are that small I am under the impression GW do expect the game to be played larger than that. (Although thinking about it the battleplans may give a better idea of how many models GW are expecting people to use, if people want to contradict my theory by throwing out battleplans using 20 models a side, or prove it by showing ones with 100+ models aside, please do.)
Actually they also state in the rules: " Thee more units you decide to use, the longer the game will last and the more exciting it will be! " Sounds like an endorsement of mass battle armies to me.

That may have turned into an incoherent ramble, but the tl;dr is that AoS seems like a game built for a very specific, almost non existent* niche for no other reason than the GW studio seem to like it that way.

(*Before anyone jumps on me saying that they like the game so clearly there is a niche for it, just ask yourself if you discuss what a balanced fight would be, or if you just place a unit, let your opponent place a unit, etc, as per the exact rules as written and then play with sudden death even if the smaller army has the advantage or it looks like a perfectly balanced game that would be unbalanced by giving one side sudden death.)

That being said, with KoW with the better rules/scenarios, are their models selling? Are people playing KoW with Mantic (that is the company correct?) miniatures? I don't know how well those minis are selling but from what I am gathering and I could very well be wrong here is that people are playing KoW with GW miniatures. So to me, having better rules/system/points does not sell miniatures.

So maybe arguing about poor rules or bad quality of AoS is a moot point since a better rule game is not selling their miniatures. Again I could be wrong.

But you bring up great points as usual my friend.

**Kilkrazy**

To be sure, you can design scenarios that use historical rules but depict unknown or imaginary battles. One way to do this is to run a known historical campaign and allow the players to deviate from the known course of events, so that they will arrive at different battlefields. Another way is to take a known historical battle and transpose it to a different era. Of course you can always just make something up from whole cloth.

**coldgaming**

jonolikespie wrote:
snip

I don't think endless theorizing about whether the game should exist or not is going to get us anywhere. If you're genuinely curious and get the opportunity to try it, give it a shot. If you are turned off by the game from everything you've seen, forget about it and move on to things you do like and focus your energy there. We could all spend the rest of our lives debating the merits and justification to exist of things we've never tried, but it's really just an exercise in typing.

**jonolikespie**

Davor wrote:
That being said, with KoW with the better rules/scenarios, are their models selling? Are people playing KoW with Mantic (that is the company correct?) miniatures? I don't know how well those minis are selling but from what I am gathering and I could very well be wrong here is that people are playing KoW with GW miniatures. So to me, having better rules/system/points does not sell miniatures.

So maybe arguing about poor rules or bad quality of AoS is a moot point since a better rule game is not selling their miniatures. Again I could be wrong.

But you bring up great points as usual my friend.

Mantic (that is the company) allows other company's miniatures in their official events, they do not make a generic human army as they simply say there are a ton of historic out there to use.

I think this is a fundamental difference between between GW and Mantic and one that I think led directly to AoS. GW make rules to sell models, Mantic make rules to create an enjoyable game.

I can't speak to Mantic's miniature sales at all, they may barely be surviving on the back of the kickstarters they run, but both Deadzone and Dreadball seemed to have been very popular using their own miniatures. Ultimately though I think as long as they don't go under they don't care so much if their models sell or not, as long as the community are enjoying their games.

**DaemonColin**

Bottle wrote:
For me the bad aspects are:

- no points, after playing with and without comp systems I think that I prefer to play with points. AoS could easily incorporate points, with the scenarios fixing uneven point ratios for each side if needed - they could add points into the app and adjust them on a monthly basis.

- shooting, both shooting into/out of combat and also being able to shoot anything with even the slightest line of sight. It's not fun to have your heroes cannon sniped when they are surrounded by troops.

- buffs, I like them, but when you have to keep track of nearby terrain, formation bonuses, magical and command bonuses, and any others, it can get difficult to keep track of.

The good aspects are:

- Freedom in list building. I love being able to mix and match factions or play anything from monster mash to hero hammer to troops spam.

- Army Size. I love armies being 50-60 models and feeling "complete"

- Free rules. A great idea. Please do it for 40k too

I agree. GW needs to implement something to stop people comping the game and messing up key mechanics like summoning and stuff just to try to make the game 'fair'. Being a Vampire Counts player I have felt the impact of these 'fair' comp packs. Yet I think that free rules would encourage more new people to play, especially younger people like myself who don't have tons of money to spend on rules and such like.
This would change AoS to be a new unique game, unlike WHFB, but be a mix of the current AoS and 8th ed. This could also mean that people who used to play 8th ed and raged after the release of sigmar, if they haven't already sold or burnt their models!

**thekingofkings**

this is one of the more glaring issues with AoS from what I have experienced and read,. in order for this game to work or be worth a spit, you have to "ignore, modify, comp, etc,.." the hell out of it. that is the hallmark of a bad game, it is not a strength. we are all free playtesters for gw's lazy attempt at a money grab, there is no reason to support this mentality from gw, they are most certainly capable of far more than they have given with AoS. GW and WotC are 2 companies I simply will no longer give the benefit of the doubt to, they do not deserve it. they are making minimalist crap at premuim price and should be called out for it. its no surprise that neither of them will allow "comments" or discussion threads. I would shed no tears (well a few for 40k and lotr/hobbit) if they get whats coming and become TSR /FASA/WhiteWolf.

AoS needs a "points" type system, the game is an unmanageble mess. Jervis Johnson is incompetent. he is not making a game for him and his friends, he is supposed to be making one for a major games company noone asked for this mess. If he still insists, then GW needs to make said system anyhow and make it "official and optional"

**Malisteen**

I'd definitely echo the sentiment that the lack of an official point or pool system, pile in being poorly described, free shooting into and out of combat, free targeting of small heroes near similar sized units, and the default scenario (especially sudden death), are all problem areas that I would want to see fixed or removed.

My wish list for cleaning up the game (which can double as a list of what I find problematic about the existing rules) is:

- stretch unit coherency distance to 2" (1" is a bit awkward)
- bases are part of the model (let individual events and venues decide if they want to be picky about base size)
- add point or pool costs to war scrolls (even if they're an optional rule that only some scenarios use)
- add unit type keywords (infantry, cavalry, monstrous infantry, beasts, etc) to war scrolls
- remove the scenario & sudden death rules from the core document, instead having a separate document of data plans the way unit and terrain scrolls are in separate documents, with each data plan suggesting it's own handicap rule if players judge the sides to be uneven.
- use the extra room in the core rules document to provide a clearer description of pile in rules & the concept of reserves
- add penalties for shooting into or out of combat (-1 to attack an engaged target, engaged units cannot make shooting attacks at all unless otherwise stated). Same penalties applied to spellcasting, again unless otherwise stated.
- and a rule that infantry, cavalry, monstrous infantry, and monstrous cavalry heroes cannot be independently targeted by shooting attacks while within 3" of a friendly, non-hero unit with the same unit type keyword.
- if you don't have room for all of that just from removing the scenario & sudden death rules, then remove the terrain rules as well, and just add generic hill, forest, etc, terrain scrolls to the terrain document.
- if you still don't have room, than just accept a 6 page rules document. That's still pretty impressively brief.

those are the minorish/easyish changes. There's also a bigger change I'd like to see:

- completely revise turn order. At the start of each game turn, roll initiative. In the hero phase, players take turns nominating units to cast spells/use hero phase abilities, with the initiative winner selecting first. Then in the movement phase, players take turns moving units one at a time, again with initiative player moving first. Same with shooting phase, charging phase, same with nominating units to attack in the combat phase.

This makes the game flow a bit more smoothly, and keeps both players engaged throughout, instead of having to wait around doing very little while the opponent conducts their turn.

This also lowers the power of melee relative to shooting and magic (since you no longer fight twice for every time you shoot or cast spells), but those were already weakened by the penalties for shooting or casting in melee, so should balance out.

unlike the other suggested changes, though, many individual unit rules would have to be re-written pretty extensively, so...

Anyway, do all that, or at least the easy stuff, tweak a couple war scrolls here and there, and Age of Sigmar would very likely be my favorite minis game, instead of just one that I like more than I dislike.

**jonolikespie**

Unit cohesion is one of the rules I just hate. In 40k too. It's one of the things that keeps the game stuck between skirmish and mass battle in that limbo for me.

I'd rather have no cohesion and just play a skirmish game or put them on a movement tray and play mass battle.

**streetsamurai**

Honestly, AOS rules are either boring (roll 3+ or 4+ to hit and to wound), lazy (army composition) or downright absurd (the "funny" rules). There's nothing innovative in this ruleset, and I honestly don't undertand how GW allowed such a thing to be released. Pesonnally, the lone saving grace I can see in them, is that if you have kids, they are simple enough to be played with them.

**someone2040**

So here are my likes and dislikes.

Likes
Army building freedom - Even though many will still stick to a particular faction, or even a particular Grand Alliance, the ability to just pick up whatever you want and put it on the field makes it easier for people to get into, but also for some potentially more interesting armies as well. Think for too long 'allies' have been out of the game.

Scalability - While I won't debate whether or not it scales up very well, Warhammer for the longest time has had an issue scaling down. Age of Sigmar scales down really well, which makes it easier to get people into the game and playing earlier rather than later.

Monster Rules - Scaling down the monster as it succumbs to damage is really cool and immersive in bringing down a large beast.

On the Fence
Points - I think that GW should've come up with a points system similar to Pool Comp. I can see why they might not want to. One of my friends wanted it, and then after playing a game or two with it, was unsatisfied in a way because he was thinking about cutting one of his characters because it wasn't performing for its cost.
At the end of the day, GW doesn't provide this but it has led the way for plenty of people to try their own. Some packs have risen above the rest, and as long as they continue to support new stuff coming out it shouldn't be a problem and is hardly a huge thing in the scheme of things. Basically, we have options - if we want points we can play with them, if we don't we won't.

Shooting into combat - I get why this is in here. Without options to 'flee' charges, there's no way to bait in units and then shoot at them. Especially with the range of shooting weapons being quite small as well coupled with 360 los. It doesn't feel very immersive though. And for a game that is supposed to be about storytelling and immersion, it sticks out.

Dislikes
$$ Cost - Why make a game that is much easier to get into, but then charge your customers even more for new models. Even reboxing the old stuff for 'less' you're still having to buy more, so while it's cheaper per model it's harder to buy in. 50AUD for single characters is absurd. That's the 2nd largest dollar note (and largest most common note) in use here for a single model.

Cover - Cover is not handled well in the rules at all and makes it lose immersion. If you're inside a forest, you get cover. If you're on the other side of a forest, you don't. Same thing goes for picking out lone characters basically surrounded by others just because your shooter is a little higher up to see.

Summoning - I think I would've been fine if summoning was basically stuff like lesser daemons, zombies, skeletons, etc and had hard limits on what could be summoned. But free for all summoning of smallest to larger things, and having no real limitation on it can make games spiral out of control. Part of this I think stems from the dispel range as well, since in the first turn or two, your opponent can basically summon with free reign.
I think the other issue is that Summoning happens in the Hero phase which allows charging later on, while in previous editions it happened after so you could basically only use them as roadblocks.

Battle Round roll-off - I think this swings too many games depending on who wins the roll off and allowing potential double turns. It's not the hugest thing in my book (and I think ties should be won by the person who didn't win last time), but it can lead to some very frustrating situations.

**MongooseMatt**

Big Plus for me: Since the release of AoS, I have not been party to a single rules debate/argument/discussion while playing it. Not one. Everything just... works.

Compare that to just about every other game I have ever played in, well, ever, and I am finding it good to just sit down and play the game rather than play the rules.

**Malisteen**

That has not been my own experience, Mongoose. I've been embroiled with a number of hasslesome table debates, in particular over summoning and how exactly pile in moves work.

**RoperPG**

I don't get the issue with pile-in moves?

**Kilkrazy**

I don't either, but only from reading the rules, not from playing and arguiing with people.

The one thing that seems like it could cause problems is that you have to move towards the nearest enemy model, which might not be part of the unit you are attacking. I can see that people might not like that, but there are some ways easily to resolve it.

GW are generally rather slack at writing rules, but at least AoS is a much shorter rulebook than 40K and therefore offers less space to be slack within.

Basically, AoS works fine as long as you aren't expecting a tournament level quality of rules, and the truth is that GW have never written tournament quality rules for any of their games.

**RoperPG**

Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't either, but only from reading the rules, not from playing and arguiing with people.

The one thing that seems like it could cause problems is that you have to move towards the nearest enemy model, which might not be part of the unit you are attacking. I can see that people might not like that, but there are some ways easily to resolve it.

GW are generally rather slack at writing rules, but at least AoS is a much shorter rulebook than 40K and therefore offers less space to be slack within.

Basically, AoS works fine as long as you aren't expecting a tournament level quality of rules, and the truth is that GW have never written tournament quality rules for any of their games.

That seems to me to be the intent though - I've played games where models within units have been split because they are piling in on two fronts, and you get to a point where some models can't pile-in without breaking coherency.

**coldgaming**

I think the debate with piling in is whether models can "orbit" enemy models to make room for more of their friends to get in contact. So if you are already in base contact, can you spin around to the other side of the enemy's base, while still being in contact, to allow your back ranks to also pile into base contact? Or are you stuck where you are once you establish base contact?

I prefer the stricter sense, which makes movement, formation and piling in more strategic.

**Bottle**

Yep, the issues are if you can "orbit" a base to make room for others, and if the pile-ins have to be in a direct line or not.

The other place the rules break down is measuring model to model for larger or flying creatures. For example trying to hit Gyrocopters from the ground or trying to hit the araknarok spider when in the centre front of its base (due to the shape of the model, you are usually not in range from that position).

**Kilkrazy**

Got it.

Well, based on reading the rules, I would say you can 'orbit' a figure to enable more of your figures to get into melee. It says piling is is to allow you to get more figures into range.

I prefere measuring from the base rather than the model but I also prefer my idea about ranks rather than ranges for melee contact. Perhaps if models like Gyrocopters and Dragons are too far out of reach to melee, that is God's way of telling people to shoot at them with missiles instead.

I think these are the kind of quibbles that come up if you approach the rules with a hardcore tournament mindset, and they simply aren't tournament grade rules so it's naive to expect them to make perfect sense in that way.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

RoperPG wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't either, but only from reading the rules, not from playing and arguiing with people.

The one thing that seems like it could cause problems is that you have to move towards the nearest enemy model, which might not be part of the unit you are attacking. I can see that people might not like that, but there are some ways easily to resolve it.

...

That seems to me to be the intent though - I've played games where models within units have been split because they are piling in on two fronts, and you get to a point where some models can't pile-in without breaking coherency.

It seems to me that that is how tactics works AoS.

As I've said before, an important part of the game is "MMMbMfMMiM" (Measuring Model Movement by Millimetres for Maximum Men in Melee). Players have to move each figure to the position it needs to be in to get its attacks and avoid being sucked off by a different unit. The other factor of course is to move figures into the best position to get DRMs from terrain and other special rules.

I agree that from some point of view this is rather geometrical and tedious, but that is that way that tactics is presented in the game. I don't ike it myself, and that's part of why I don't play, but I don't think it's a mistake by the designer so much as a design choice. (A feature not a bug, perhaps.)

If you take it out of the game, what else is left to give the player any input of skill into results?

**RoperPG**

Agreed, I think?

As for orbiting in base contact, my take is the wording " may move up to 3" toward'.
So our group we play that base contact 'locks' position, as it's not possible to move any more 'toward' than already being in base contact, so you aren't eligible to move at all.

Edit. With the exception that if you are playing absolute vanilla, orbiting the enemy model may allow you to decrease the distance between the two models, even if the bases are already touching.

2nd edit - and if you are playing so that you can overlap bases, can I have the number of your medical insurer?

**Kanluwen**

jonolikespie wrote:

People hated magic terrain in 8th ed WHFB and 7th ed 40k, why does AoS have even more of it?

Just so we're clear: the terrain rules are entirely optional. You can use them with their associated Battlescrolls or you can use them as just "cover" if you wanted to.

End Times seemed well revived when it started and Nagash (and Sigmar in a sense) returned for the final big showdown with Chaos in a new campaign that was advancing the story... but as soon as the last one came out people locally just.. stopped. Fantasy was dead, no one knew what was coming, so people just set it aside.

People stopped buying anything that wasn't associated with End Times locally, but they kept playing right up until AoS.

I will say that I am not too upset by the players we lost locally. Most of them were tools who 'migrated' over to Warmachine/Hordes--and then migrated back to 40k after they realized their "tactical skills"(read: netlisting and running powerful armies) in WHFB most definitely did not translate to WMH...and then just got out of the local hobby scene period.

But again, back to the rules, I feel like someone told the studio they have to condense the rules to 4 pages and the studio just had to run with that. Rules like shooting into and out of combat feel like they were simply cut for formatting's sake. KoW rules are clear and simple enough that I can sit down and read them easily in one sitting. They take up the first 40 pages of the rulebook yes, ten times as many pages as AoS, but they contain ALL the special rules you'll ever encounter. They contain ALL the rules for terrain. They contain rules for timed games in competitive events, they don't have the variety of AoS scenarios, but they have 6 solid ones that provide enough of a difference that people aren't playing battleline by default.

I kinda/sorta agree with this.

The "basic" rules are pretty simple; but I personally like the special rules being where they are easy to find for each unit--on the unit's Battlescroll. Terrain is something that is just there for the most part, it gives you a boost to your save rolls if you opt to not use the specific entry.

I'm also going to have to compare the two in terms of narrative gameplay since people claim that is the strength of AoS. From everything I've heard the battlplans are good scenario games, since I've got no interest in paying anything to read them I'll assume that's true but point out KoW have put out an amazing campaign book that covers map based competitive campaigns, narrative campaigns and how to link one game to the next, it gives an example narrative campaign that includes a round of one of their skirmish games, with KoW rules for one of the named bad guys from the skirmish game fluff to include him in the next KoW battle. It even includes basics such as how to get a group together and organize a campaign. Given that I find it hard to believe AoS is better in the narrative gaming department, mostly that just comes down to the players being imaginative and both games seem to offer good inspiration there, albeit in different forms.

The Battleplans are intended to be played in a specific order for the most part in the non-army specific books and are easy to translate from one army to the next since they do not actually give a specific army but instead roles are assigned based upon certain criteria(dice roll or number of models). I'd argue that goes a bit better for narrative/scenario games than people think.

If I want a mass battle game I have KoW, if I want skirmish there are a dozen other skirmish games on the market. If I want narrative gaming in mass battle KoW and the campaign book serve me better than AoS as it's a real mass battle game. If I want narrative based skirmish.. honestly Mordheim seems better than AoS as I can watch my men gain experience and level up. Like 40k, AoS seems forced into this niche of skirmish rules but trying to sell the game with 100+ models because GW wants to sell models.

I've actually asked this on this forum and got the response that most people seemed to play with less than 50 models, but GW themselves only ever said that 100 models a side is a good evenings gaming so from that I assume they play with 100 models a side at Nottingham, and since I've not seen any battle reports from GW themselves nor any armies being shown off that are that small I am under the impression GW do expect the game to be played larger than that. (Although thinking about it the battleplans may give a better idea of how many models GW are expecting people to use, if people want to contradict my theory by throwing out battleplans using 20 models a side, or prove it by showing ones with 100+ models aside, please do.)
Actually they also state in the rules: " Thee more units you decide to use, the longer the game will last and the more exciting it will be! " Sounds like an endorsement of mass battle armies to me.

They actually never say how many models you should be using in the Battleplans that are in the campaign books. There are, as I mentioned, criteria for who is going to be Attacker or Defender based upon how many models you have.

(*Before anyone jumps on me saying that they like the game so clearly there is a niche for it, just ask yourself if you discuss what a balanced fight would be, or if you just place a unit, let your opponent place a unit, etc, as per the exact rules as written and then play with sudden death even if the smaller army has the advantage or it looks like a perfectly balanced game that would be unbalanced by giving one side sudden death.)

Most of the scenario games actually do not have Sudden Death in play just for that reason. The only Scenario I can think of off the top of my head that uses the Sudden Death rules is called "The Trap" from the first AoS book.

To use the example of "The Trap"? The player with more models is the Defender and if the Defender has double the number of models as the Attacker, then Sudden Death rules are in effect.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:
If you don't like shooting into/out of melee, you can ignore the rule. It will make missile units weaker, but since there isn't a clear balance mechanism, this probably doesn't matter much. If you wanted to compensate, try improving the To Hit and perhaps the To Wound rolls of missile units by 1.

Being a Wood Elf player who felt completely shafted by the Waywatchers in 8th, I love them in AoS. Just love them there.

**Ashitaka**

The thing about Summoning is that it only really breaks down when you apply other comp to the game.

Taking the rules as they are written the only limit to what you can use in a game is:
A) what models you own and
B) what you can fit in your deployment zone

The tack they took with summoning is that it's a slight advantage to place models during the game, rather than at the beginning in your deployment zone. (But if your table is as full as I'm imagining here you'll have trouble deploying a summoned unit and being 9" away from an enemy).

It's only when limits are established on the size or composition of an army that the 'unlimited' summoning becomes an issue.

(there is still the issue of re-using models which have been killed to summon a 'new' unit with the same models, but I don't really think that's a big deal).

Also if you go with the strict RAW interpretation of the summoning rules, as soon as your opponent sets down a summoned unit on the table you get the victory points for that unit. ("must be counted among the casualties an army suffers")

**Kilkrazy**

RoperPG wrote:
Agreed, I think?
As for orbiting in base contact, my take is the wording " may move up to 3" toward'.
So our group we play that base contact 'locks' position, as it's not possible to move any more 'toward' than already being in base contact, so you aren't eligible to move at all.

Edit. With the exception that if you are playing absolute vanilla, orbiting the enemy model may allow you to decrease the distance between the two models, even if the bases are already touching.

2nd edit - and if you are playing so that you can overlap bases, can I have the number of your medical insurer?

I can see the point that since the game in theory depends on millimetre accurate placement of models, the issue of orbiting is potentially crucial. Still, it's not like the electron shell probability cloud type of unit movement, and it works equally for both sides, so I don't it's unfair to let people orbit. The purpose of piling in is to allow the player to get more figures into contact. Why follow an interpretation of a rule that reduces that?

**MongooseMatt**

Bottle wrote:
Yep, the issues are if you can "orbit" a base to make room for others, and if the pile-ins have to be in a direct line or not.

If you assume there is no 'fat' on the rules, take them as written without trying to interpret. Orbiting a base is not moving towards a model, however you look at it...

Bottle wrote:
The other place the rules break down is measuring model to model for larger or flying creatures. For example trying to hit Gyrocopters from the ground or trying to hit the araknarok spider when in the centre front of its base (due to the shape of the model, you are usually not in range from that position).

What makes you think that is not intentional?

**Kilkrazy**

Exactly, that seems a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Being unable to hit a Gyrocopter from the ground is God's way of telling you to shoot at it with missiles. Also, if you can't hit the copter, presumably it can't hit you.