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 thekingofkings wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
So 40k is the main tourney game? Not WFB?

...
...

Not any more, you don't. £££

I have seen nothing to indicate encouraging casual play by not having points, this is a huge myth of AoS that you can just "bring whatever" you cant,. you have to bring the warscrolls and whats on them. and GW runs 40k tourneys at their stores, so yeah that does make it a tourney game, or they wouldnt do that.

Sure, that's true if you're playing pick-up games, but among a group of pals there's no reason not to invent new units by combining aspects from different war scrolls to reflect the awesome new non-GW models you've built.

For instance, if I invented a new Human army based on Mediaeval Burma, I would take the Stegadon war scroll as the starting point for a Burmese war elephant, remove the Engine of the Gods and the special rules,, and add more missile shots based on archers from the Brettonian war scrolls..

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Could easily see GW doing a AoS to 40K.

Honestly, AoS is the result of GW "40kifying" WHFB. The big break was eliminating the points mechanic. I believe GW's design goal for both games has been allowing customers to collect a playable force across the faction ranges. Consider that having factions at all is a balancing mechanic, when you allow cross-faction army building you are either making balance more difficult to design or turning it over to the players' sense of fairness and fun. The latter is true of AoS. I doubt concern about balance is holding GW back from doing the same with 40k. But what might hold them back from making factions entirely permeable is concern about the IP.

AoS is clearly not designed for tournaments. Neither is 40k.

 thekingofkings wrote:
...this is a huge myth of AoS that you can just "bring whatever" you cant,. you have to bring the warscrolls and whats on them.

You're appear to be taking "bring whatever" as an absolute, when it's normally stated as a relative, i.e. in comparison to WFB.

If that's not the case, can you give an example of something you can't bring to an AoS game, because I'm not sure i understand your point?

RoperPG wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
...this is a huge myth of AoS that you can just "bring whatever" you cant,. you have to bring the warscrolls and whats on them.

You're appear to be taking "bring whatever" as an absolute, when it's normally stated as a relative, i.e. in comparison to WFB.

If that's not the case, can you give an example of something you can't bring to an AoS game, because I'm not sure i understand your point?

I think he's saying you can't bring 3 skeletons since the warscroll starts at 5 or 10.
However that is pretty irrelevant since bringing below the minimum number doesn't really mean much. Now if warscrolls listed a max size that might be more relevant but otherwise bringing whatever does in fact seem to be GW's entire design goal.

And it's a bad one in my opinion. I get that they want to give you the chance to buy any of their products, I recall having the 'pyramid of hobby' explained to me more than once. White Dwarf is on the top, you can sell that to anyone, including non hobbyists. Next is glue and paints, you can sell those to anyone in the hobby regardless of what systems they play. Then comes things like core rules. You can sell the 40k core rules to any 40k player, the LotR rules to any LotR player, etc. Actual models for actual units were the very bottom of the pyramid, only being sell able to the narrowest field of 'people who play x system and y army'.

GW seem to have started with 6th ed 40k and it's allies rules to try and remove that bottom level of the pyramid, so that they can sell any 40k kit to any 40k player. AoS is the logical progression of that.

Now this part is purely my own opinion based on my experience as a faction hopper in many games, but Infinity is a very well balanced game that is very strict about what you can bring compared to AoS. It is easy for me to pick up a model I can't play with my faction though because it's 1) cheap and 2) a beautiful model. Then, once I've bought 2 or 3 blisters (or hell just *a* box) from a faction I can buy one more box (cheaper than almost all GW boxes are these days and like half the price of any AoS releases*) and bam, that's me having bought into that army and thus I will expand it. This has happened multiple times and a similar thing happens with KoW.

GW are trying to get me to buy more models by allowing my army to bring as many allies as I want from any other faction, other companies are doing it by offering game rules that make me want to buy multiple armies to play and (much*) better value for money on their actual models.


(*Yay Australian prices)

 jonolikespie wrote:

RoperPG wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
...this is a huge myth of AoS that you can just "bring whatever" you cant,. you have to bring the warscrolls and whats on them.

You're appear to be taking "bring whatever" as an absolute, when it's normally stated as a relative, i.e. in comparison to WFB.

If that's not the case, can you give an example of something you can't bring to an AoS game, because I'm not sure i understand your point?

I think he's saying you can't bring 3 skeletons since the warscroll starts at 5 or 10.
However that is pretty irrelevant since bringing below the minimum number doesn't really mean much. Now if warscrolls listed a max size that might be more relevant but otherwise bringing whatever does in fact seem to be GW's entire design goal.

That's what I thought he might mean, except you *can* bring less than the minimum unit size?
For myself, I've found that units seem to have an individual sweet spot in terms of size, especially if the board is terrain heavy.

 jonolikespie wrote:

GW seem to have started with 6th ed 40k and it's allies rules to try and remove that bottom level of the pyramid, so that they can sell any 40k kit to any 40k player. AoS is the logical progression of that.

And to me this is something I firstly love about AoS (maybe the best thing about AoS actually), and something GW have been successful with. I don't know anyone who plays just a single AoS "faction" unless it is there first. Most seem to have multiple armies on the go, and this forum is no exception :-)

 Bottle wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

GW seem to have started with 6th ed 40k and it's allies rules to try and remove that bottom level of the pyramid, so that they can sell any 40k kit to any 40k player. AoS is the logical progression of that.

And to me this is something I firstly love about AoS (maybe the best thing about AoS actually), and something GW have been successful with. I don't know anyone who plays just a single AoS "faction" unless it is there first. Most seem to have multiple armies on the go, and this forum is no exception :-)

True dat! All our players back home have at least two, one for new release and one legacy. Our leader-guy now has 11 armies I'll go back home to pick up and start rebasing my duardin metal and Seraphon

It's only really in 40K/WHFB in the last decade that it became normal to only have a single army.

I've got more than 1 army for everything else (except X-Wing, but it didn't make sense to collect both when there were only 2 and my gaming buddy had the other one).

Variety is good though, but again, that is not something that is in any way special about AoS.

It depends on the game and your depth of involvement.

Ancients includes about 300 different armies, while ACW only has two. A lot of ancients players own several different armies.

If you play naval of any era, you are a small minority, so you need to build at least two opposing fleets to be sure of being able to set up games. (Hence for WW2 naval I have British, German, Italian, US and Japanese fleets.)

Herzlos wrote:
It's only really in 40K/WHFB in the last decade that it became normal to only have a single army.

I've got more than 1 army for everything else (except X-Wing, but it didn't make sense to collect both when there were only 2 and my gaming buddy had the other one).

Variety is good though, but again, that is not something that is in any way special about AoS.

Don't think I ever said it was unique to AoS. Do we need to start adding disclaimer tags again when we make positive comments about AoS?

In direct comparison with WHFB 8th it is much much easier to collect multiple small armies, however. And that is something I am finding very enjoyable.

That is part of the fun of skirmish games. It's much easier to make a great setup with terrain and several different forces, or collect forces for a number of different games..

 Bottle wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
It's only really in 40K/WHFB in the last decade that it became normal to only have a single army.

I've got more than 1 army for everything else (except X-Wing, but it didn't make sense to collect both when there were only 2 and my gaming buddy had the other one).

Variety is good though, but again, that is not something that is in any way special about AoS.

Don't think I ever said it was unique to AoS. Do we need to start adding disclaimer tags again when we make positive comments about AoS?

In direct comparison with WHFB 8th it is much much easier to collect multiple small armies, however. And that is something I am finding very enjoyable.

in direct comparison its pretty much the same. 2 core and a leader for small fights. as for disclaimer, when typing there is no real way to tell if someone is being rude, funny, etc.. so wouldnt worry too much about that. There are folks who's posts make me think "yeah what an a-hole" and am sure folks think the same of me, though likely meeting any of them in person would probably get along great.

I wouldn't say 2 core and a hero/Lord is "pretty much the same", I have 2 high elf heroes in my army. Impossible in 8th. I have 3 dwarf units (no heroes) - again impossible in 8th. There's a big difference between adding 1 unit and 3, especially when you are further restricted by those 3 being 2 core and a hero/Lord.

I've seen the sentiment all over the place and it's mine too that the structure of AoS has really inspired the hobbyist inside of me. I'm constantly thinking of new war bands, combinations, etc. I don't feel forced to paint more of a unit if I don't want to or buy any models I don't like or build my army up to any certain size.

Back in the day, if I collected Skaven but liked a Beastmen unit, I'd think, well maybe when I've bought and painted another 1,000 points of Skaven I'll be able to buy that Beastmen unit and it won't be a waste of money...and then I'll need to buy 1900 more points of that army to not make it a waste of money as well.

 Bottle wrote:
I wouldn't say 2 core and a hero/Lord is "pretty much the same", I have 2 high elf heroes in my army. Impossible in 8th. I have 3 dwarf units (no heroes) - again impossible in 8th. There's a big difference between adding 1 unit and 3, especially when you are further restricted by those 3 being 2 core and a hero/Lord.

from what I took from what you said, yes that is a legit small army for 8th, it is perfectly possible to build multiple small armies for each faction. your 2 high elf heroes are legal in 8th, but again its a battle game so it does require troops. All of my AoS armies were in fact nothing more than 8th armies used for AoS.

Sorry, I was posting on an iPhone before and wasn't able to elaborate fully. This is my Empire army in context. In 8th I couldn't add two High Elf heroes to it without adding two core units too. Not only that but in vanilla 8th, those core units would have to have been 3x the points worth of the heroes combined (25% max for heroes/lords).

These were all restrictions that very much discouraged adding a random couple of models from another faction into an existing army. To swing it back round to what Jono was talking about, this is GW removing the "bottom of the pyramid", as he put it.

And I think GW have been very successful with that implementation in AoS. [Disclaimer] not saying that AoS is unique in that regard, but in comparison with WHFB 8th it is a lot different. You can see it here on the forums and in your local game shops with all the quirky and cool themes and combinations people are now coming up with.

The whole time I played 8th I never game across a single player's force which consisted of multiple factions.

 Bottle wrote:
Sorry, I was posting on an iPhone before and wasn't able to elaborate fully. This is my Empire army in context. In 8th I couldn't add two High Elf heroes to it without adding two core units too. Not only that but in vanilla 8th, those core units would have to have been 3x the points worth of the heroes combined (25% max for heroes/lords).

These were all restrictions that very much discouraged adding a random couple of models from another faction into an existing army. To swing it back round to what Jono was talking about, this is GW removing the "bottom of the pyramid", as he put it.

And I think GW have been very successful with that implementation in AoS. [Disclaimer] not saying that AoS is unique in that regard, but in comparison with WHFB 8th it is a lot different. You can see it here on the forums and in your local game shops with all the quirky and cool themes and combinations people are now coming up with.

The whole time I played 8th I never game across a single player's force which consisted of multiple factions.

I-Phone?! some peoples kids!! but ok, yeah I see where you are coming from there.

Personally, I hate the fact that you can make armies out of whatever you want now.

If I looked across the table at some mish mash army made up of skaven, tomb kings and high elves I think i would just forfeit the game.

It blows my mind that people don't want restrictions for force organization. Armies should look like armies with tonnes of troops and some nice large centrepieces thrown in for flavour. Not just bring "whatever".

Chalk this up to yet another thing I absolutely hate about AOS.

Having some kind of alliance system is one thing, but even that should have restrictions.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Personally, I hate the fact that you can make armies out of whatever you want now.

If I looked across the table at some mish mash army made up of skaven, tomb kings and high elves I think i would just forfeit the game.

It blows my mind that people don't want restrictions for force organization. Armies should look like armies with tonnes of troops and some nice large centrepieces thrown in for flavour. Not just bring "whatever".

Chalk this up to yet another thing I absolutely hate about AOS.

Having some kind of alliance system is one thing, but even that should have restrictions.

Something like they had in the "Generals Compendium" ?

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Personally, I hate the fact that you can make armies out of whatever you want now.

If I looked across the table at some mish mash army made up of skaven, tomb kings and high elves I think i would just forfeit the game.

But that is not the point - the freeing up of restrictions allows you to make characterful armies with a free range of choice. It is _not_ supposed to be used to create a mish-mash...

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Personally, I hate the fact that you can make armies out of whatever you want now.

If I looked across the table at some mish mash army made up of skaven, tomb kings and high elves I think i would just forfeit the game.

But that is not the point - the freeing up of restrictions allows you to make characterful armies with a free range of choice. It is _not_ supposed to be used to create a mish-mash...

Then use the rules to allow for fluffy, characterful armies instead of throwing the rules out the window. I remember the 5th ed 40k Imperial Guard codex as a good example of this. Within the rules there was the options to make legal armies of conscripted masses, smaller numbers of veterans, mechanized infantry all in transports, tank regiments, even airborn regiments. It gave you so many options for different, fluffy, armies but it came at a time when 40k had a lot more restrictions than it does now.

*Edit*
Oh, I think 5th was the one that added Commisar lords as HQs. I think before it you did once have the option for Guant as a special character, I'm not sure when they removed him but between commisar lords and vets with camo cloaks you could recreate the Tanith well with the 5th ed book.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Personally, I hate the fact that you can make armies out of whatever you want now.

If I looked across the table at some mish mash army made up of skaven, tomb kings and high elves I think i would just forfeit the game.

But that is not the point - the freeing up of restrictions allows you to make characterful armies with a free range of choice. It is _not_ supposed to be used to create a mish-mash...

Don't destroy my dream!

I've just written up two great scenarios.

In one, a Grand Alliance of the High Elves, Orks and Dwarves lays siege to the Fyre Slayers' stronghold of Fort Nnoxx, in order to recover the stores of Ur-gold needed to restabilise the Realms' economy.

The other is a bandit scenario. A motley crew of Seraphon, Vampires and Treekin ambush an Ogre convoy for supplies. Unknown to the bandits, the Ogres' cargo is mostly live halflings intended for the pot. Unknown to the Ogres, the halflings are in fact an elite special forces combat team with the mission to let themselves be taken to the Ogres' hidden camp, and attack it from the inside.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Personally, I hate the fact that you can make armies out of whatever you want now.

If I looked across the table at some mish mash army made up of skaven, tomb kings and high elves I think i would just forfeit the game.

But that is not the point - the freeing up of restrictions allows you to make characterful armies with a free range of choice. It is _not_ supposed to be used to create a mish-mash...

I'd say it is, if that's what people want to play. I am sure there are local metas that look like an explosion in Harryhausen's workshop where Cygors line up alongside mutaliths and arachnorok spiders against Bastiladons and Terrorgheists and Dragons, and if it fits on a 40mm base it never gets used.
Similarly there will be metas where that freedom is expressed on the desire to collect an army platoon to an exacting standard where squads are regimented etc.

So what?
The rules encourage you to take same faction forces as most of the synergy is keyword based.
If you're judging balance by eye, then it doesn't matter what they take.
If the selection of their army offends some sensibility you have toward 'the done thing', then talk to them after, or get over yourself, or agree you want different things from your games.
What AoS has done is officially validated gaming with *any* collection style. Use what you want, but most importantly from GW's point of view, *buy* what you want.

I think a big fight between all the big monsters might be rather good fun.

Or maybe monsters on one side and hordes of pleb troops on the other. Something like this: The Seraphons are beaming down several Stegadons with their Skink crews and support units, but a transporter malfunction leads to the Steggies going combat mad and failing to recognise their crews.

The monster player can move the Steggies and use their natural attacks, but can't use the shooting attacks by the crews.

The crews must try to shoot enemy Stegadons because if they hit their own it will turn on them.

MongooseMatt wrote:


But that is not the point - the freeing up of restrictions allows you to make characterful armies with a free range of choice. It is _not_ supposed to be used to create a mish-mash...

Regardless of whether it is the point or not, the reality of 'freeing up of restrictions' , all so frequently has precisely the opposite effect in terms of making jarring, miss mash armies that often have no basis in the fluff.

Games with 'Structure' (as opposed to no restrictions) can often be just as capable of making characterful armies and providing legitimate choice.

While its possible to have a mish mash of armies, since July I have never seen one of those one time yet. As such, I don't think its as big a deal as people like to make it out to be.

I think its more that people are so used to a standard default way of playing that prevented that that they are opposed to the idea that despite the likliness of it happening being very small they are still against it.

There were alliances in the WHFB 8th edition rulebook that a lot of people didn't even know about, and when you tried to use them for an event or a game it was always shot down as not being "official" but rather "optional".

Thats why things like the Generals Compendium, which are awesome by the way and I wish they'd do another one, don't really go very far. I know where I am when the GC came out I couldn't really use it because no one wanted to deviate from the core rulebook at all.

We did the borderlands campaign from the GC but that was about it, and trying to write campaign events using the grand alliance rules in the WHFB 8th rulebook met with the same type of resistance that liberals and conservatives reserve for each other.

40K of course combines points, army lists (i.e. the codexes) and allies and Unbound, so you can do nearly anything you want officially. That's part of the reason it has been declining in popularity. The game actually stops working properly when you can use allies to cover for the designed limitations of your own codex.

This would not be a problem in AoS, because apart from the lack of points, there is less difference between armies than in 40K.

Deadnight wrote:


Regardless of whether it is the point or not, the reality of 'freeing up of restrictions' , all so frequently has precisely the opposite effect in terms of making jarring, miss mash armies that often have no basis in the fluff.

Games with 'Structure' (as opposed to no restrictions) can often be just as capable of making characterful armies and providing legitimate choice.

In my store there's only one guy who's mixing everything. Only the strongest units from Order GA, with an ugly paint scheme too. Nobody likes playing against him. Thankfully the store is full of people who made fun themed armies with a real identity to it.

Kilkrazy wrote:The other is a bandit scenario. A motley crew of Seraphon, Vampires and Treekin ambush an Ogre convoy for supplies. Unknown to the bandits, the Ogres' cargo is mostly live halflings intended for the pot. Unknown to the Ogres, the halflings are in fact an elite special forces combat team with the mission to let themselves be taken to the Ogres' hidden camp, and attack it from the inside.

Exalt!

RoperPG wrote:The rules encourage you to take same faction forces as most of the synergy is keyword based.
If you're judging balance by eye, then it doesn't matter what they take.

I hate ally systems in WHFB and W40K, any I've experienced have simply allowed players to fill imbalances built into their main army with Obviously Good Things from an allied force. It has been rare that I've played against an army using an allying mechanic to do something fluffy or interesting or whatever - though I've done it myself (added proper Ogres to my 7E Skaven) and seen other Counts As and Modeling First players do it, we are absolutely the odd gamers out. I think it was 6E or 7E that was notorious for people using the Dogs of War list to sub a cannon or two into literally ever tournament list that allowed it - I have distinct and painful memories of coming up against a VC list lead by a zombie dragon and sporting two allied great cannons. With fluffy skeleton crew!

That said, when AOS first dropped and it was clear you could take whatever you wanted, it seemed like the heavy synergy around keywords would curtail that somewhat. Though it occurs to me now, that the only way that that works is if there's a larger limit placed on the game - SDK, pool, wounds, models. Which in most cases is a thing, even for ya'll RAWers in the audience.

Which is to say that I don't really care how many factions you pull from for you army, that's your call on diluting your synergy options. I am much more interested in convincing you to use a balancing mechanic (SDK or SCGT please) when you play me. And thematically I prefer you stick to a single Grand Alliance - it's a bit disappointing when I see your Stormcast deploy a Necrosphinx or Stonehorn, "because the model looks cool." Cool story bro However even then, if you've paid for your Obviously Good Thing using using some kind of overall value system, then whatever. I like cool toys too.

Bottle wrote:You can see it here on the forums and in your local game shops with all the quirky and cool themes and combinations people are now coming up with.

Ehhhhhh I don't think I've seen these yet, online or especially in person. Last I played locally we had a handful of Stormcast, a couple Dwarfs, a couple Vampire Counts, a couple Daemons of Khorne (me included), and a Stormcast dude branching into Sylvaneth. And these weren't square-based WHFB refugees (though some of the stunties and deadites may have been recently rebased), so not just holdovers.

- Salvage

One of the reason I'm really, really holding out for a Stormcast model with the Wizard keyword (or at least the ability to unbind like a Wizard) is on a few occasions I've needed to wheel out a couple of battle wizards. I've only ever taken Celestial to try and maintain the theme... but I still felt dirty.