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Are we considering all the current WHFB models being used in AoS to be part of AoS here, or are we only looking at the models actually released since AoS?

Because AoS released with only the new knorne models, the sigmarines, and now months later some dwarves... that is doomed to failure.

When you think about it, AoS would not have been released in 1983, or rather it is not the game that GW wanted to publish at that time.

GW wrote WHFB because they wanted a game to sell more Citadel stuff, so they made it a mass battle kind of game that needed a lot of figures.

Ignoring the legacy armies, which don't exist in this scenario, AoS is a game of pretty small numbers of figures. There are only 18 Sigmarines in the basic game. Expansion units are usually five or six infantry, or three cavalry or flyers, or a single hero or monster.

The recommended number is 100 models, that's far less than you used in wfb but it costs you way more.

£100 for 21 dwarves means your looking at half a grand for 100 bad plastic slayers.

AoS is pay to win in its purest form he with the biggest budget wins.

Now with friends you can impose limits but with pugs all bets are off.

You don't have to play with the number of figures suggested by GW. Judging by the survey on the point most people play with fewer.

hobojebus wrote:
The recommended number is 100 models, that's far less than you used in wfb but it costs you way more.

£100 for 21 dwarves means your looking at half a grand for 100 bad plastic slayers.

AoS is pay to win in its purest form he with the biggest budget wins.

Now with friends you can impose limits but with pugs all bets are off.

Tl:dr
Wrong.
Subjective.
Wrong & wrong dependent on local meta.

The rules simply state a 100 model game will normally last an evening.

Why would you want 5 of the same character, 10 elite units and 5 big 'core' units?
The Start Collecting boxes also kinda undermine your point. The reboxings thus far have also generally decreased the cost per model, if at the expense of having to buy more in a box.

As for PUGs, that's your local scene. Mine is fine.

Forgive my ignorance, I am but a humble Australian who will end up paying through the nose no matter what, could you give an example of a 100 model AoS army (using only models released since AoS hit, not WHFB models nor repackages) that isn't going to break the bank?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, I am but a humble Australian who will end up paying through the nose no matter what, could you give an example of a 100 model AoS army (using only models released since AoS hit, not WHFB models nor repackages) that isn't going to break the bank?

I could sort you out

I'm aware, and I have not forgotten about those two khorne guys I wanted to get, but I'm asking this as a thought exercise. Can you price up a 100 model army using only new models at a decent RETAIL price?

I'm not sure why one hundred miniatures is seen as the standard number anyway, it seems to me that they were suggesting that this is the absolute maximum you'd want per side unless you were putting aside a whole day or more for the game. Interpretation and opinions eh?

Dai wrote:
I'm not sure why one hundred miniatures is seen as the standard number anyway, it seems to me that they were suggesting that this is the absolute maximum you'd want per side unless you were putting aside a whole day or more for the game. Interpretation and opinions eh?

Indeed no number is mentioned apart from that vague idea that a 100 model game will last an evening. One could only deduce that such could be the standard game size due to the game length that is allocated to said model count... but nothing is official.

If one wants to pick on anything it's the fact that the rules seem to give the idea that bigger games = bigger fun!

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'm aware, and I have not forgotten about those two khorne guys I wanted to get, but I'm asking this as a thought exercise. Can you price up a 100 model army using only new models at a decent RETAIL price?

£280 would get you the AoS starter box, the bloodbound expansion set, another box of Blood reavers and a box of Blood Warriors.
That's 102(mental arithmetic notwithstanding) minis including core, elites, cavalry, characters and a monster.

Or 5 boxes of Bloodreavers for £175, but that's be a bit dry.

Bloodreavers are $100 for 20 in Australia, so for us even an army of just them (they seem to be the best cost to model ratio) is $500... That's certainly a bank buster for me considering what it is as an army...

If I were to want an actual khorne army it would look more like:
20 reavers ($100)
10 bloodwarriors ($100)
1 slaughterpriest ($50)
1 deathbringer ($50)
aaaaaand... now I think I need to dig into older kits to finish.

6 skullcrushers ($170)
1 Lord on juggernaught ($85)
1 Valkia ($40)
10 bloodcrushers ($50)

Jeeze, I'm at 50 models and I'm out of stuff to do without just doubling the numbers of everything to make up numbers... Alright let's finish this gak.

10 knights ($100)
10 bestigors ($70)
10 gors ($40)
1 Chimera - we need a monster in a good list don't we? ($70)
5 chosen ($70)
5 chosen command )$70)


That comes out at... $1,065 and a lot of those turned into cheaper WHFB models simply because I was looking for things I'd want without repeats (though I did put finecast in there even though I wouldn't ever actually by that crap these days)...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RoperPG wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'm aware, and I have not forgotten about those two khorne guys I wanted to get, but I'm asking this as a thought exercise. Can you price up a 100 model army using only new models at a decent RETAIL price?

£280 would get you the AoS starter box, the bloodbound expansion set, another box of Blood reavers and a box of Blood Warriors.
That's 102(mental arithmetic notwithstanding) minis including core, elites, cavalry, characters and a monster.

Or 5 boxes of Bloodreavers for £175, but that's be a bit dry.

That isn't bad, still works out pretty expensive on the AuD side of things, and leaves you with a ton of reavers which I tried to avoid on my price up.

You have my sympathy - I just cannot fathom the AuD pricing. Other companies aren't that expensive, are they?

Not nearly. I bought my colossal for Warmachine for about $200 Australian locally, it is $135 american on their official site, which a currencty converter tells me is $185 AuD. So a small mark up.

A limited edition lizardmen battletome is $140 USD, but $240 AuS.

I know someone priced up a 100 model list for sigmarines it came to $1100 USD.

It's no wonder the store managers can't meet their targets who can sell that to parents?

hobojebus wrote:
I know someone priced up a 100 model list for sigmarines it came to $1100 USD.

It's no wonder the store managers can't meet their targets who can sell that to parents?

Because 100 Stormcast would be utter overkill for anything like a standard game.
(This is the bit where you point out that as there's no points, why wouldn't you take 100...)

There's no points, why wouldn't you take 100?


Actually I think that is a really interesting question to ask. If GW think of the game as a mass battle game and the players think of it as a skirmish does that mean that GW's sales targets were grossly inflated beyond anything they could possibly manage given that players have been considering 1 box a complete unit rather than the 4 GW wanted to sell?

My mates play skaven and goblins I play vampire counts we all like big armies made of chaff so taking loads of models is nothing new to us really.

 jonolikespie wrote:
There's no points, why wouldn't you take 100?


Actually I think that is a really interesting question to ask. If GW think of the game as a mass battle game and the players think of it as a skirmish does that mean that GW's sales targets were grossly inflated beyond anything they could possibly manage given that players have been considering 1 box a complete unit rather than the 4 GW wanted to sell?

Remember, GW say they are aiming themselves at collectors, not players (no sarcasm here). Collectors will want to get the whole Stormcast... Chapter(? Or whatever is the equivalent of a chapter) and not just one box of each unit. I remember someone posting a few weeks back the total number of sigmarines to get a full chapter going and it was a load of money.

A full Warrior Chamber - let alone a Stormhost, and going.on minimum unit sizes you're looking around £1000.
That said, I've got a fair bit planned for my Stormcast so I have a full 'toolbox' for most game sizes, and my total purchase list doesn't hit 100 models.

A collector will buy one or two models he likes, gamers buy armies.

No collector will buy three boxes of models to make a unit they'll buy one and be done.

GW sell wound counters but think they are selling small art.

They don't even make the best plastic wound counters anymore.

It's tough to speak for other people. I know tons of collectors outside of just gaming who collect a billion of the same kind of thing, because that's what they like. I know relatively fewer who just buy one or two things they like in a niche they like.

There's no wrong way to interpret your hobby, but the fact you consider them plastic wound counters might contribute to your view of the situation.

 jonolikespie wrote:
There's no points, why wouldn't you take 100?


Actually I think that is a really interesting question to ask. If GW think of the game as a mass battle game and the players think of it as a skirmish does that mean that GW's sales targets were grossly inflated beyond anything they could possibly manage given that players have been considering 1 box a complete unit rather than the 4 GW wanted to sell?

Broadly speaking the tactical interest of a wargame is related to the number of effective manoeuvre units, rather than the number of figures per se. Six to 12 units are usually needed for an interesting game. (OGRE is an exception.)

In AoS a manoeuvre unit could be a single monster or hero, or three of the flying Sigmarines, or six of the standard Sigmarines (Procurators, Anilinctors, etc.) Therefore you should work out the cost for six assorted units as your minimum spend. the starter box gives you five (?) units of Sigmarines, so you only need one more box for a minimum game.

If you and a pal buy two starter sets, and swap the figures over, you get a decent size army for £75, though lacking variety and missile weapons.

hobojebus wrote:
A collector will buy one or two models he likes, gamers buy armies.

No collector will buy three boxes of models to make a unit they'll buy one and be done.

GW sell wound counters but think they are selling small art.

They don't even make the best plastic wound counters anymore.

That's the thing - GW seems to be marketing for "GW collectors". Those collectors that will buy anything and will want to have gigantic armies at home - a Full Chapter, a full Stormhost, etc. Much like the ones coldgaming mentioned.

I think a lot of GW stuff is aimed at youngsters and/or people with no previous wargaming experience.

Model collectors who don't play may be another market segment for them.

Sadly, if these strategies work for GW, then experienced players who don't want to collect large, expensive armies, may simply have to resign themselves to taking up some other games.

If AoS had been marketed as a big Mordheim-ish game in the post end-times (lots of scenario play, freer movement and army composition, add a system for experience / character development) it would have been at least reasonably successful.

Had the sigmarines been launched as an 8th edition armybook, it would have been massively successful (as much as I loathe the things, some people genuinelly love the concept of a badass force of good mirroring WoC and of course marines).

There's the issue of pricing on top of that of course.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
People would probably say that it's an awful, poorly written version of 40k with magic instead of bolters. Some people may buy it but I don't think it would be doing as well as it is right now.

Nah, It's definitely a much more streamlined ruleset than the horrible mess that is 40k's awful, poorly written rules and codices.

40K like WHFB has decades of cruft written to satisfy player demands for more units, more types of units, more special rules, and so on. At least, it's there because GW think players are more eager for more stuff packed into a couple of core games than for different games.

I suspect that AoS will come to the same status in time. Logically this is unavoidable if GW are to make the amount of money from AoS that they need to.

Players never demanded to use more stuff GW lowered unit points costs and encouraged bigger games so we'd have to buy more.

We never asked for OP flyers and no AA units for two years.

It's a method to sell new kits or old kits that didn't sell well to begin with.

GW does not do customer surveys they don't communicate with us on any level they don't know or care what we want they've said as much in their financial reports.

hobojebus wrote:
Players never demanded to use more stuff GW lowered unit points costs and encouraged bigger games so we'd have to buy more.

We never asked for OP flyers and no AA units for two years.

It's a method to sell new kits or old kits that didn't sell well to begin with.

GW does not do customer surveys they don't communicate with us on any level they don't know or care what we want they've said as much in their financial reports.

And what players did demand (e.g a tighter, more balanced rule set) was blatantly ignored.