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It seems like you are asking only one question, right?

Also do you guys really not know who Matthew Sprange is? Besides being a game designer and the co-founder (and owner?) of Mongoose Publishing, he has done some free lance writing for GW over the years. And from his own keyboard, posted on this very forum where anyone who looks can find it:

MongooseMatt wrote:
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.

The idea that this guy is trying to trick anyone into liking AoS is equally laughable and miserable.

 Manchu wrote:
It seems like you are asking only one question, right?

Also do you guys really not know who Matthew Sprange is? Besides being a game designer and the co-founder (and owner?) of Mongoose Publishing, he has done some free lance writing for GW over the years. And from his own keyboard, posted on this very forum where anyone who looks can find it:

MongooseMatt wrote:
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.

The idea that this guy is trying to trick anyone into liking AoS is equally laughable and miserable.

I agree. However, many of the more recent posts and AoS prose do make it look like he has some kind of pecuniary interest in it's success.

Why is so hard to conceive that some of us just like AoS? Why do people need to flood the forum with conspiracy theories and ridiculous accusations, I mean the amount of posts regarding these silly things and boring spammed to exhaustion jokes is just too much on these topics.

Its not even contradictory arguments most of the cases ( bar some exceptions) just childish jokes...AHAH we get the jokes very funny... repeat it 100 times in every AoS thread and your just a troll.

RoperPG wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
And that'll give either side a good game?

No. If both players have deployed that as their armies, then they will have a terrible game but at least sudden death will ensure it's over by turn 4 at the latest.
That's not a problem with the rules, that's a problem with two people playing a game who obviously have very different approaches to it.
'Good' games have always been down to the players playing that game, regardless of the system.
'Bad' games will occur in any system, no matter how finely balanced the force construction is or well crafted the rules are.

Even assuming that the two players in the example had never met before,and the only discussion was agreeing to play the 4-page rules vanilla with no extras, how were they expecting to have a good game?
Was that all they had/brought with them? Who deployed first? Did neither of them say anything?

Back to the topic, I do love how some individuals complain that AoS is unplayable because it has no intrinsic comp, but when a post like this comes up suggesting ideas for mix'n'match armies the stock response is always "well you could do that in system X!".
It's adorable. You either need comp to play a game, or you don't. You can't hack on a game for not using it then claim you don't have to use it in other games either.

So it's a rule that ensures that bad games end earlier? That's even worse lol

It doesn't matter whether the two players came into proper gentleman agreement after a fruitful discussion or turned out to be competitive cavemen incapable of sharing the experience of battle GW style. The rule itself is awful, doesn't help balance (in fact spoils it), doesn't help narrative, doesn't help gentelmanly agreed and carefuly discussed game. It would be times better if they just wrote "if you feel that one side is significantly weaker, you can give it sudden death victory condition" as what is in the 4 pages doesn't make sense unless written drunk in a pub as a prank or 2 minutes before the deadline hangovered, sleep deprived and under strong influence of Baudelaire's works.

Whether AoS is good without comp or not and whether you can play other games like you play AoS are two different discussions. I say when big part of your customer base plays pick up games in shops, tournaments or just likes writing lists then releasing a game without points is pretty fething terrible. On the other hand, if you want to play an uncomped scenario with your friends then other systems are just as good for that as AoS, actualy much better imo as other systems have much more tactical depth to them. In the context of replacing wfb, AoS is abysmal and like a spit in the face and in general, as a standalone game it's nothing special - just a simple and shallow little game with heroic heroes fighting over Clichea.

Sorry for dragging the offtop further, haven't had a chance to answer and it started with my question, won't post more on that.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
when big part of your customer base plays pick up games in shops, tournaments or just likes writing lists

Any evidence to back up this purported market research?

Yeah, tournaments, whfb tables at shops, army lists threads on multiple forums and few editions over the years Using point system as balance mechanism.

Those are all self-selecting venues, which ties into Navarro's question about why certain posters here cannot accept that some people actually like AoS. But I never questioned whether anyone at all likes competitive gaming, pick up gaming, and points-based list building. I am well aware that those people exist. My question gets to your claim that such people make up a big part of GW's customer base. And even if we just assume they do, we can in the same way assume that an even bigger portion just want to by models and there is a lot more money to be made selling models that never get assembled or played with than there is in selling air-tight tournament rules (something GW has never done). It really comes down to whether you start from the idea that the people running GW are morons. And if that's where you start, I'd propose you examine why. I guess most of us have some bad feelings about GW. They don't make exactly what I want. The prices are absurdly high. &etc. But none of this adds up to GW being so completely bonkers as to kill a super profitable line in favor of something no rational person could ever like. WHFB was probably not the former and AoS is certainly not the latter.

Well, what is big as in how many would be significant enough so that crapping all over them stinks enough?

Of course I don't know for sure, we don't have numbers. I say it's a good guess but feel free to add "assuming that" or sth to that sentence, sadly AoS will still be a terrible replacement for many other reasons.

Albo what if it's a little part, does it change much?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Albo what if it's a little part, does it change much?

Sure, if pick up gamers are not buying stuff why design products for them? As a rule set, WHFB encourages you to buy an army. It's a big investment. It usually needs to be purchased over time, leading to any number of points that the customer could lose interest and move on. Maybe you never even get started because you only like a few of the kits for a certain faction. AoS can be played with fewer miniatures. And there are fewer constraints regarding which miniatures you can buy to play. And it works really nicely for people who have large and ever-expanding collections.

Then keep whfb 8th on mail order, sell square bases and let people play it in shops.

Release an AoS supplement with point system.

Something, if AoS was handled differently, it could be little less terrible. If it was released alongside whfb, it would actualy be quite funny as GW take on He Man.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Why is so hard to conceive that some of us just like AoS? Why do people need to flood the forum with conspiracy theories and ridiculous accusations, I mean the amount of posts regarding these silly things and boring spammed to exhaustion jokes is just too much on these topics.

Its not even contradictory arguments most of the cases ( bar some exceptions) just childish jokes...AHAH we get the jokes very funny... repeat it 100 times in every AoS thread and your just a troll.

Its not that its hard to conceive that anyone likes AoS. Its that I do not appreciate when a company sends people to advert their product on a message board. Its even worse when they try to manipulate forum readers for said company. Im not saying he is or isnt. Manchu seems to think so and I am leaning to him being a GW plant but that makes no difference to other posters who can and will come to a opinion of their own. Its not a conspiracy when GW has already put a few plants on Dakka when AoS launched. If the product is good enough then you dont need to employ such antics.

Full Disclosure. I was into AoS at the start. But the complete lack of balance has killed pick up play in my area of Los Angeles California. Its a big city and not a single shop ive been to is playing it. Even the GW shops are pretty much 40k only at this point. So im neither a hater or a fanboy.

Considering the online and customer interaction skills we've seen from GW, they're really one of the last companies I would suspect of "planting" people on forums to steer public opinion. I think that's some conspiracy theorizing.

Maybe some people just love AoS, and I think a lot of them are trying to counter the emotional wave of negativity that hit on its launch. If you follow the social media community for the game, which has grown a lot in the last few months, genuine AoS "proselytizers" are all over the place. There is something to the game that is attracting people.

This reminds me though, I remember one of the funniest things I've read in the last few months was a post on Warseer from someone who literally said it was his mission in life to discourage people from playing AoS at every opportunity.

Edit: This goes to a post I made awhile ago. I don't consider these games like religion or politics. I'm not here to debate where the hobby I like sucks or not, or if I'm logically wrong for liking it. If I ever post in another gaming subforum, it wouldn't be to argue why that game sucks, or accuse people of being plants for liking it. I would post in there if I found something I liked about it. I'm here and on all mediums where my hobby is to enjoy it. People bring up the "but it's a discussion forum" in response to that, and that's fine, but I think the people who live to be negative in every thread turn a lot of people off forums and to more friendly venues. I think that is part of why the AoS Facebook pages have about 500:1 the activity as this AoS forum.

Herzlos wrote:
Because there's no framework to identifying that 20 demigryphs isn't equal to 31 skellies, nor any framework to handle balance beyond model count. AoS does nothing to help users find a good matchup, beyond leaving them in the wild to just figure it out.

I've seen the occasional OP unit in a pointed game, but I've never run into a totally unbalanced game unless one of the players has brought an army that's too specialised (like tank hunters when facing an infantry company, or putting all of their points into King Tigers and bunker busters).

So basically you want a game that holds your hand from start to end. AoS is more like a strategy video game. Nobody tells you what is strong and what isn't. You look at the stats and you figure it out. Worst case, you experience it and you adapt. If you figured out 20 Demigryphs are stronger than 30 Skeletons, why wouldn't everybody else? The Skeleton player will go home, look at the stats of the Demigryphs, and bring some Archai in the next game. And that's worst case scenario, if the two players don't even communicate. Cause if they do, one of them can play a fun army around a skeleton theme and the other one agrees to bring a minimum amount of Knights to have a heroic last stand situation. You guys forget it's a game to have fun with.

At this point I'm not even sure how you guys play games at all. I keep reading "my group of friends stopped playing because of imbalance". Really? How much friends were you in the first place? In my group of friends, we have 7 armies for AoS now. We all play everything and try themed comps. We eyeball the balance because we all know the stats of everything (it's all available for free...), and we just have fun. Now and then we try completely broken lists and we all laugh around it (3 slanns and 3 heros saurus deployed with 15 in back up for summoning wins so far).

When we got back to the hobby, close to nobody was playing AoS in our local GW. We brought our armies many times throughout the months and showed people how to play. Many recurrent customers have started armies of their own and some of them with very creative themes. The game is far from perfect, and we often add our own set of rules to it, but seriously, if you reach a point where you cannot bear the sight of it anymore, you're probably playing with the wrong people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodios wrote:
I have never been a power gamer (i run an all goblin themed list) but its important for me that a game have drawn up boundaries that we can all agree are fair aka a points value.

This is a perfect example of what I'm saying in the post above. If you show up with a full goblin themed army at a table with either me or my friends, we're going to talk about it and field an equally fun army and hopefully balanced one. Probably a full Tomb King Chariot list led by Settra, which is weak as hell but glorious to play. Or maybe only Treelords, to have an epic game of David vs Goliath.

Last time I played in my local GW, there was a kid with 50 wounds of Stormcasts who was to play against me, but I only had my super broken Seraphons with me. I decided to give him a realmgate from which every unit he loses can respawn through on a 4+. He still lost, but that was a fun last stand game with a lot of tension during the respawning rolls.

Find the right players to play with you.

Table wrote:

Its not that its hard to conceive that anyone likes AoS. Its that I do not appreciate when a company sends people to advert their product on a message board. Its even worse when they try to manipulate forum readers for said company. Im not saying he is or isnt. Manchu seems to think so and I am leaning to him being a GW plant but that makes no difference to other posters who can and will come to a opinion of their own. Its not a conspiracy when GW has already put a few plants on Dakka when AoS launched. If the product is good enough then you dont need to employ such antics.

That's some serious paranoia there. Assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow getting paid for it, or is endeavoring to manipulate you like some sort of mind slave reeks of insecurity. I've been accused of working for GW before, but I always assumed it was a metaphor for my unbridled enthusiasm and blissful, willful ignorance - I didn't think anyone was actually worried that I was a plant.

I don't think Matt is a plant, but even if he was, so what? Dude contributes greatly to this community. I mean, what's the end game here? That GW convinces someone to like something? Those bastards! It's not like they are undermining public acceptance of global warming or introducing misinformation to cover up wrongdoing - the worst thing you could accuse them of is that they want you to be their customer. Hardly a sin worthy of mistrusting every AoS-positive post and assuming sinister intent...

Except it isnt paranoia. At least one plant was put on dakka at AoS launch and was called out for it and stopped posting. How can anyone disagree with me? I havent made a point yet other to ask Manchu a question. Perhaps you are in confusion as to what I posted. But thanks for the baseless insult. The problem with corporate plants is it is underhanded at best and insulting at worst. If a product is good enough it doesnt need this type of advert. This happens ALL the time on video game forums. Very few companies are above this, and why should they be? It works (to a extent).

Another disclosure, I find both the fanboy and the hater to be hopeless. I find myself firmly in the middle of the AoS drama.I just dont like Shills.

Table wrote:
Except it isnt paranoia. At least one plant was put on dakka at AoS launch and was called out for it and stopped posting. How can anyone disagree with me? I havent made a point yet other to ask Manchu a question. Perhaps you are in confusion as to what I posted. But thanks for the baseless insult. The problem with corporate plants is it is underhanded at best and insulting at worst. If a product is good enough it doesnt need this type of advert. This happens ALL the time on video game forums. Very few companies are above this, and why should they be? It works (to a extent).

Another disclosure, I find both the fanboy and the hater to be hopeless. I find myself firmly in the middle of the AoS drama.I just dont like Shills.

Riiiiight. So a guy who runs his own games publishing company is a GW plant.
I cannot remember the name of the guy but there is a prolific Dakka / Warseer poster who is a community rep for mantic - don't recall anyone telling him to go away.
Matt's blog, by the way, started in Feb 2010. And isn't GW exclusive.
Even in tin-foil hat land, Matt's posts are a great read.
Full disclosure, I was a part timer at GW nearly 15 years ago. I can show you my P45 to prove I left.
Now, can we stop attacking the poster, get back on topic (as requested by KK), and go back to discussing Matt's ideas?
Oh, and true GW shill would be in trouble for mentioning eBay or products GW don't make.

Table wrote:
Except it isnt paranoia. At least one plant was put on dakka at AoS launch and was called out for it and stopped posting. How can anyone disagree with me? I havent made a point yet other to ask Manchu a question. Perhaps you are in confusion as to what I posted. But thanks for the baseless insult. The problem with corporate plants is it is underhanded at best and insulting at worst. If a product is good enough it doesnt need this type of advert. This happens ALL the time on video game forums. Very few companies are above this, and why should they be? It works (to a extent).

Another disclosure, I find both the fanboy and the hater to be hopeless. I find myself firmly in the middle of the AoS drama.I just dont like Shills.

I'll bite. Links to previous "plants" being called out and them admitting so, please :-)

Im far to lazy to dig through my post history, but if you want to be my guest. Its funny that people are so shocked that these kind of things happen. Its pretty common by now and (sadly) a standard. As I said, happens in game forums all the time. I dont know if Matt is a shill, im leaning in that direction thanks to Manchus post. Im not attacking him, just questioning the motives for this thread, and it seems im not alone. But go ahead and make comments about paranoia and tin foil hats, if that is going to make you feel warm inside. Perhaps Matt himself would like to comment, perhaps hes not a shill and above it. I really dont know. I can say this thread is pretty useless at this point.

Table wrote:
Im far to lazy to dig through my post history, but if you want to be my guest.

It is your responsibility to back up your claims. What you've described does happen in markets but this thread is not an example of it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Has anyone played multiplayer games of AoS yet?

The format of it is certainly open to it, and the latest campaign book has a four player Battleplan in it.

RoperPG wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Player A has 5 Stormcast Eternals (they bought a box because it was shiny) and player B has 20 Night Goblins (they bought a box because they look cool). Are they balanced from the off? Does A or B need to make any allowances? Should player A get a balancing victory condition because he's outnumbered 4 to 1?

Yes, the Stormcast Player is at a numerical disadvantage so by the rules would get an SD condition. If A or B were in a position to make any allowances it wouldn't just be 5 Stormcast up against 20 Nightgoblins, would it?

I don't know, why wouldn't it?

In terms of 'balance', game is roughly in the Nightgoblin's favour depending on make up of unit and movement factors.

How do you come to that conclusion? Is it based on the stats, or just a gut feeling after playing with similar units? What can I do (beyond getting some proxy bases and a notepad out) to come to the same conclusion?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haechi wrote:


So basically you want a game that holds your hand from start to end.

Not at all. I just don't want a game that dumps me in the woods with no map and not even a sign saying "the fun is that way". I cut my teeth on 80's/90's written games that made WHFB seem streamline with all the tables (because the school would only buy our club historic games and not 40K 2nd Ed). Some people would prefer hand-holding, and if I were to play 40K with my friends I'd be the one doing all the handholding. If I'm putting that much work in, I'll just port some other game to the Oldhammer world.

AoS is more like a strategy video game. Nobody tells you what is strong and what isn't. You look at the stats and you figure it out. Worst case, you experience it and you adapt.

That's fine, but you're not playing against AI, and adapting can be slow and expensive. In order to get a feel for balance at least one of you needs to suffer through some horrible games first, and it starts getting good if they don't quit.

If you figured out 20 Demigryphs are stronger than 30 Skeletons, why wouldn't everybody else?

Exactly; it's not as if it depends on the players. That's why I'd have appreciated someone at GW putting together something that means I don't need to do all this legwork myself.

The Skeleton player will go home, look at the stats of the Demigryphs, and bring some Archai in the next game.

Assuming he's not already been put off (we're talking about new players here - old players will have figured it out), and can afford to get and get some Archai for the next game; he might instead decide to just go out and buy X-Wing or Munchkin instead.

And that's worst case scenario, if the two players don't even communicate. Cause if they do, one of them can play a fun army around a skeleton theme and the other one agrees to bring a minimum amount of Knights to have a heroic last stand situation. You guys forget it's a game to have fun with.

But that communication relies on at least one of them already having the experience to do so; if neither of you know enough about the game (because you've just returned from the GW store with your first boxes and glued your wee plastic dudes together), you've got nothing to negotiate with.

At this point I'm not even sure how you guys play games at all. I keep reading "my group of friends stopped playing because of imbalance". Really? How much friends were you in the first place? In my group of friends, we have 7 armies for AoS now. We all play everything and try themed comps. We eyeball the balance because we all know the stats of everything (it's all available for free...), and we just have fun. Now and then we try completely broken lists and we all laugh around it (3 slanns and 3 heros saurus deployed with 15 in back up for summoning wins so far).

They never said they don't still do stuff as friends, they just don't play Warhammer anymore. Others have gaming-friends where they only meet up to play games, or play at clubs.

Me personally, I play games with 2 of my super-casual buddies every Friday, normally for about an hour before we watch a movie. One was quite into WHFB but was losing interest before AoS dropped, then sold off his significant Bret army (at a huge loss) and has no interest in AoS. The other used to collect and paint GW stuff but was horrified at the price. We normally just play board games or X-Wing (which is where I think AoS's real competition is - if you just want to roll dice and have beer - why would you chose AoS over Munchkin or Risk?).

I'm also a member of 3 different gaming groups (and socialise with maybe 4 of the members outside of gaming), most do pre-arranged games (1 is mostly Frostgrave/Malifaux, 1 is mostly Bolt Action/Dust, 1 is mostly Flames Of War/Malifaux/Board Games). In that sphere, there's virtually no interest in AoS (beyond some initial WTF and some derision), so I can see the same applying elsewhere.

Find the right players to play with you.

I have. None of them play AoS

 ShaneTB wrote:

Table wrote:
Im far to lazy to dig through my post history, but if you want to be my guest.

It is your responsibility to back up your claims. What you've described does happen in markets but this thread is not an example of it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Has anyone played multiplayer games of AoS yet?


The format of it is certainly open to it, and the latest campaign book has a four player Battleplan in it.

We've played the 3- player scenario from the Seraphon book a couple of times. We've now come to the conclusion that - despite the scenario being 2v1 - all 3 armies must be roughly equal for the 2-player side to stand a chance.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Why is so hard to conceive that some of us just like AoS? Why do people need to flood the forum with conspiracy theories and ridiculous accusations, I mean the amount of posts regarding these silly things and boring spammed to exhaustion jokes is just too much on these topics.

Its not even contradictory arguments most of the cases ( bar some exceptions) just childish jokes...AHAH we get the jokes very funny... repeat it 100 times in every AoS thread and your just a troll.

The group of people on Dakka that makes it their mission to gak on what other people like, is certainly doing their best to push people that enjoy X game to other sites like Facebook groups or dedicated blogs.
I know I want to spend my free hobby time enjoying it with others who like the same, not waste time reading how much some other people dislike what I enjoy.

I wonder how prevalent this type of behaviour is in the Infinity, Malifaux or other parts of forum compared to the GW related games.

Fair enough.

Herzlos wrote:

Spoiler:

RoperPG wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Player A has 5 Stormcast Eternals (they bought a box because it was shiny) and player B has 20 Night Goblins (they bought a box because they look cool). Are they balanced from the off? Does A or B need to make any allowances? Should player A get a balancing victory condition because he's outnumbered 4 to 1?

Yes, the Stormcast Player is at a numerical disadvantage so by the rules would get an SD condition. If A or B were in a position to make any allowances it wouldn't just be 5 Stormcast up against 20 Nightgoblins, would it?

I don't know, why wouldn't it?

In terms of 'balance', game is roughly in the Nightgoblin's favour depending on make up of unit and movement factors.

How do you come to that conclusion? Is it based on the stats, or just a gut feeling after playing with similar units? What can I do (beyond getting some proxy bases and a notepad out) to come to the same conclusion?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haechi wrote:


So basically you want a game that holds your hand from start to end.

Not at all. I just don't want a game that dumps me in the woods with no map and not even a sign saying "the fun is that way". I cut my teeth on 80's/90's written games that made WHFB seem streamline with all the tables (because the school would only buy our club historic games and not 40K 2nd Ed). Some people would prefer hand-holding, and if I were to play 40K with my friends I'd be the one doing all the handholding. If I'm putting that much work in, I'll just port some other game to the Oldhammer world.

AoS is more like a strategy video game. Nobody tells you what is strong and what isn't. You look at the stats and you figure it out. Worst case, you experience it and you adapt.

That's fine, but you're not playing against AI, and adapting can be slow and expensive. In order to get a feel for balance at least one of you needs to suffer through some horrible games first, and it starts getting good if they don't quit.

If you figured out 20 Demigryphs are stronger than 30 Skeletons, why wouldn't everybody else?

Exactly; it's not as if it depends on the players. That's why I'd have appreciated someone at GW putting together something that means I don't need to do all this legwork myself.

The Skeleton player will go home, look at the stats of the Demigryphs, and bring some Archai in the next game.

Assuming he's not already been put off (we're talking about new players here - old players will have figured it out), and can afford to get and get some Archai for the next game; he might instead decide to just go out and buy X-Wing or Munchkin instead.

And that's worst case scenario, if the two players don't even communicate. Cause if they do, one of them can play a fun army around a skeleton theme and the other one agrees to bring a minimum amount of Knights to have a heroic last stand situation. You guys forget it's a game to have fun with.

But that communication relies on at least one of them already having the experience to do so; if neither of you know enough about the game (because you've just returned from the GW store with your first boxes and glued your wee plastic dudes together), you've got nothing to negotiate with.

At this point I'm not even sure how you guys play games at all. I keep reading "my group of friends stopped playing because of imbalance". Really? How much friends were you in the first place? In my group of friends, we have 7 armies for AoS now. We all play everything and try themed comps. We eyeball the balance because we all know the stats of everything (it's all available for free...), and we just have fun. Now and then we try completely broken lists and we all laugh around it (3 slanns and 3 heros saurus deployed with 15 in back up for summoning wins so far).

They never said they don't still do stuff as friends, they just don't play Warhammer anymore. Others have gaming-friends where they only meet up to play games, or play at clubs.

Me personally, I play games with 2 of my super-casual buddies every Friday, normally for about an hour before we watch a movie. One was quite into WHFB but was losing interest before AoS dropped, then sold off his significant Bret army (at a huge loss) and has no interest in AoS. The other used to collect and paint GW stuff but was horrified at the price. We normally just play board games or X-Wing (which is where I think AoS's real competition is - if you just want to roll dice and have beer - why would you chose AoS over Munchkin or Risk?).

I'm also a member of 3 different gaming groups (and socialise with maybe 4 of the members outside of gaming), most do pre-arranged games (1 is mostly Frostgrave/Malifaux, 1 is mostly Bolt Action/Dust, 1 is mostly Flames Of War/Malifaux/Board Games). In that sphere, there's virtually no interest in AoS (beyond some initial WTF and some derision), so I can see the same applying elsewhere.

Find the right players to play with you.

I have. None of them play AoS

Now you're being disingenuous. If all either players had was 1 unit, how would they be able to make allowances?

In terms of deciding the gobbos have the better deal, given the size of the unit and the weapon options it would vary for them, but in essence it would come down to play testing to see.
A unit of night goblins with a number of netters and spears who get to attack first will make a royal mess of the Stormcast.
If the Stormcast get to attack first, they will be relying heavily on attrition and.lucky rolls to get through the gobbos before they lose.

If I take a tank hunting force vs. a tank heavy force, how am I to know that it's a bad matchup until I've actually tried it out? Even though what ever balancing mechanic that system has says it's balanced?

The purpose of a tank hunting force is to hunt tanks. If it isn't powerful against a tank force there is a basic problem in the rules. It shouldn't be a fair match.

RoperPG wrote:

Now you're being disingenuous. If all either players had was 1 unit, how would they be able to make allowances?

I don't think I am, but we're maybe getting confused by terminology. Presumably you can still make allowances by reducing the number of SCE or Gobbos fielded (if you knew how).

In terms of deciding the gobbos have the better deal, given the size of the unit and the weapon options it would vary for them, but in essence it would come down to play testing to see.

That's what I thought, and where we diverge. I believe GW should be doing the playtesting.

A unit of night goblins with a number of netters and spears who get to attack first will make a royal mess of the Stormcast.
If the Stormcast get to attack first, they will be relying heavily on attrition and.lucky rolls to get through the gobbos before they lose.

Fair enough, so it's just down to familiarity with how stats work out during a game?

If I take a tank hunting force vs. a tank heavy force, how am I to know that it's a bad matchup until I've actually tried it out? Even though what ever balancing mechanic that system has says it's balanced?

If you take a tailored list you're always going to do better against whatever you've tailored for. I'd always expect 1000pts of tank hunters to stomp 1000pts of tanks, but for that same 1000pt tank hunter list to get stomped by a 1000pt list of infantry, guns or air support. At least you still have some starting point. 1000pts of tank hunters will stomp 1000pts of tanks less than a 1500pt list of tank hunters, for instance.

But we're not generally dealing with optimized lists outside of scenarios, so I'd expect a well rounded 1000pt army of anything, to be in the same ball park as a 1000pt army of anything else. Playing Flames Of War in a couple of campaigns, I see that to be largely true.

The same can't be said of, say, wounds or model counts. 100 models of anything is pretty unlikely to be in the same ball park as 100 models of anything else, unless the models themselves are pretty similar (for instance, 100 figures a side in a War Of The Roses game would be pretty balanced because both forces are essentially the same, but 100 cataphracti wouldn't be the same as 100 horse archers).

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The purpose of a tank hunting force is to hunt tanks. If it isn't powerful against a tank force there is a basic problem in the rules. It shouldn't be a fair match.

Sorry, wasn't clear - how am I to know it's a bad match up for my opponent?
Who's 'fault' is it? Mine, theirs, or the game's?
For example on paper, Stormcast Decimators are amazing against units.
But in practice, Retributors - despite being equally costed in every comp system I've looked at - are a better 'overall' choice unless your opponent has taken a lot of 'horde' type units.

Yes, points or whatever give you a framework. But you still have to play the game to figure out what works and what doesn't, and this is true of *any* system. It's just that AoS doesn't give you the initial framework.
If points were the be all and end all of balance, there would be no need for discussion of pros and cons of army list X if it's the same points as army list Y.

RoperPG wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The purpose of a tank hunting force is to hunt tanks. If it isn't powerful against a tank force there is a basic problem in the rules. It shouldn't be a fair match.

Sorry, wasn't clear - how am I to know it's a bad match up for my opponent?

Because it's a tailored list heavily focused on destroying specifically your enemies units, that your enemy doesn't have a counter to. It's possible to land in that situation inadvertantly, however. For instance, in Bolt Action (and modern warfare in general) flamethrowers are utterly devastating against infantry, but without playing you might not realise how devastating it is (vehicle mounted flamethrowers are the only thing I've seen comp'd out of Bolt Action). Even without any experience of the rules, a read-through will give you some idea that it'll be good against infantry though, so it's fairly obvious that a 1000pt flamethrower-heavy list will fare pretty well against a 1000pt infantry-heavy list.

Yes, points or whatever give you a framework. But you still have to play the game to figure out what works and what doesn't, and this is true of *any* system. It's just that AoS doesn't give you the initial framework.
If points were the be all and end all of balance, there would be no need for discussion of pros and cons of army list X if it's the same points as army list Y.

Of course, points are never going to be perfect; they can't reflect things like terrain advantages, turn order, dice rolling, poor decisions, but they at least get you into the same ball park as the opposing side.

Like I said, 1000pt of tank hunters is going to be fairer against 1000pts of tanks than a 1500pt tank hunter list would be. Points at least give you the starting point to tailor form. With no understanding of the rules, yet grasping that tank hunters are designed to smash tanks, you stand a pretty good chance on a first attempt fielding something like 900pts of tank hunters against 1000pts of tanks. There's absolutely no way you can get as close as that on a first attempt with AoS out of the box, except by blind luck. No?

Herzlos wrote:
No?

No.
You are including an assessment of experience even when you say you aren't.
You're also stating that from reading a unit's rules, you can see on paper what a it's strengths/weaknesses are.
Yet you also say that with AoS that same process can't be done.

I am not disputing that the lack of a framework requires more play to gauge efficacy than with, but your assertion that it's essential to even start is demonstrably false.

RoperPG wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
No?

No.
You are including an assessment of experience even when you say you aren't.
You're also stating that from reading a unit's rules, you can see on paper what a it's strengths/weaknesses are.

I'm pretty sure I'm saying the opposite. From reading the units rules you can get some incomplete idea of it's strengths. The only experience I've got is general understanding of the rock-paper-scissors nature of warfare. Field guns / Tank Hunters > Tanks > Infantry > Field Guns / Tank Hunters. I'm aware that the same is played out in Flames Of War, but that's it.

Yet you also say that with AoS that same process can't be done.

No, I'm saying the same process can be done, but with AoS you're an awful lot further back at a starting point; the rules don't help you land in the same ballpark.

I am not disputing that the lack of a framework requires more play to gauge efficacy than with, but your assertion that it's essential to even start is demonstrably false.

I'm not saying it's essential. I'm saying it makes it an awful lot easier, and the difference might be the difference between a player sticking it out or getting bored and moving on. My super-casual gaming buddies would never waste time on it.

I think the disconnect is that there are 2 camps of people; those invested in GW/Fantasy who feel the effort is justified, and those that just want a game to play that don't feel the effort is justified. I can certainly understand that.

I'm very much in the 'just want to play a game without too much effort (because the baby wakes up every 3 hours needing fed)' camp. As are, I suspect, most of the new recruits GW is hoping to attract.