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That's the wisest course. The fans already did the best job on it.

I would tell anyone to avoid buying anything AoS ever other then a nice mini you want to display. It is a shotty half arse system thrown together to get your money.

With the game plan as do what you like we do not believe in rules we are like really costly gi joes where you can stand there screaming pew pew. With the head line we got really fun rules like grow a beard to bigger guns, it is like super duper cools......

It is getting to the point when I walk in the doors I get embarassed, I see a bunch of teens maybe preteens screaming waggghhhhh and moving around giant want to be 90s action figures.

With the pitch of the staff being you want to play fantasy now you can just buy these two books for scenarios to play. Or even better buy this 200$ cartoon mighty max dragon and try to agree with the kids it is fair to use.

If AoS lasts a year or two that woukd be amazing.

OgreChubbs wrote:

It is getting to the point when I walk in the doors I get embarassed, I see a bunch of teens maybe preteens screaming waggghhhhh and moving around giant want to be 90s action figures.

I know, it's horrible seeing kids having fun wrong in a serious hobby for serious grown-ups.
If I wasn't busy playing a game I'd probably definitely show them how to not affect my experience by enjoying their own.

Someone clue me in on this.

Exactly what the hell were they thinking by not giving this a points system? Look, I know 40k isn't perfectly balanced, but at least the points system is -something-.

What's stopping some wealthy kid from plopping down a bunch of OP models (Like dragons or something) in front of some guy with a basic box?

How do you even BEGIN to figure out of you're evenly matched or not?

How many squabbles at the table have broken out, resulting in no game?

How many "Predatory Gamers" (you know the type) are betting on someone being unfamiliar with their units and downplaying his strength, just to win?

How do you even have a tournament with this?

I don't see why tournaments don't just go with fixed army lists, rather than the constructed format that's typical for 40k.

What's stopping some wealthy kid from plopping down a bunch of OP models (Like dragons or something) in front of some guy with a basic box?

How do you even BEGIN to figure out of you're evenly matched or not?

How do you even have a tournament with this?

A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.

B) playing some games to start of with is a good idea.

C)Points does not equal only way of doing tournaments? Other games do tourney style play without points, why can't you?

puree wrote:

A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.

Points- while not perfect- are a point of reference. At least with a point system, you can tell what's OP for the price point. Usually, two people agree on a point number.

puree wrote:
B) playing some games to start of with is a good idea.

Hard to play one without the models, hard to justify purchasing the models if the game is as broken as it seems to be.

puree wrote:
C)Points does not equal only way of doing tournaments? Other games do tourney style play without points, why can't you?

Because, I'm not playing those other games. I'm a 40k player, and I play 40k rules. I simply don't understand how a game as imbalanced as AoS appears to be has absolutely zero means to attempt to balance out the armies.

RoperPG wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

It is getting to the point when I walk in the doors I get embarassed, I see a bunch of teens maybe preteens screaming waggghhhhh and moving around giant want to be 90s action figures.

I know, it's horrible seeing kids having fun wrong in a serious hobby for serious grown-ups.
If I wasn't busy playing a game I'd probably definitely show them how to not affect my experience by enjoying their own.

Indeed, especially when alot of those super serious grown-ups were yelling WAAAGH! back in 8th. (I was shouting "For the Lady!" myself of course)

@Brother Armiger,

It's quite simple. Either you play to have fun and put down models that seem fair for both parties (such as back in 8th when the High elf player didn't spam metal magic against the Bretonnian) or you use wounds or comps for a more competitive experience.

The comps are far superior to whatever official thing would have been put in place. Much like how alot of total war mods are leagues above the official game.

Brother Armiger wrote:Someone clue me in on this.
Exactly what the hell were they thinking by not giving this a points system? Look, I know 40k isn't perfectly balanced, but at least the points system is -something-.

Indeed, 40ks point system is broken and pointless. It might as well not be there for all the value it provides in giving a reference.

Brother Armiger wrote:
What's stopping some wealthy kid from plopping down a bunch of OP models (Like dragons or something) in front of some guy with a basic box?

'I'm not playing that'.

To be fair, slapping down a big bunch of op models is a thing as is noobstalking, regardless of the use of points or not. Especially in 40k.

Pre-game negotiation is a thing, and is a thing in every game. You know, discuss with your opponent the type of game you want to play, and essentially 'play with like minded fellows'. It's the best way to get the most mileage out of your wargaming, regardless of system. Aos just happens to make this the main thrust of organising games and making sure you get a good game out of it.

Brother Armiger wrote:
How do you even BEGIN to figure out of you're evenly matched or not?

You play a few games and see if it works. It's called 'playtesting' and is no different to any other game. Believe it or not, Some folks actually enjoy this kind ofgame-building If it doesn't work, alter it. Believe it or not, but from Los who play historicals have been playing this way for decades. It's not necessarily difficult, and gets easier with a bit of experience and practice. Playing with like minded folks also helps immensely. It's also a thing to bear in mind that for some people, just playing the games is the point, and they're not necessarily over-worried about having that perfect match up, and are happy to essentially see a story play out on the game board (and I am one of them), rather than see it as some kind of duel between you and your opponent-both have their time and place.

Then there is the observation that not being evenly matched may be the point of the scenario. The few against the many, or some kind of doomed heroic last stand where the aim is to hold out as long as possible. 'Winning' is academic, since all your guys are dead.

Brother Armiger wrote:
How many squabbles at the table have broken out, resulting in no game?

If they're 40k gamers probably plenty. And that's more a slating of 40k gamers than Aos.
Probably some, to be fair. But this is true in any game. If anything, I'd argue it's a gamer thing - we can be a toxic, selfish and anti-can't operative a lot of the time.

From what I've read from those who play the game, very few squabbles seem to break out, Aos drove away (in drove) all those who prefer more competitive minded games and generally, those that are left seem to be happy to stay there and seem to approach it with the right attitude that is needed to make it work. It's not the kind of game where you turn up with a 'blind' list against another 'blind' list and have at it. This is a game based on a pre-game chat and previous organisation and co-operative game building.

Another point - is 'no game' necessarily a bad thing? I mean, if you are arguing and can't agree on what you want to put down against each other, maybe you're just not compatible in terms of what you want and a game between those folks would just not be worth it.

Brother Armiger wrote:
How many "Predatory Gamers" (you know the type) are betting on someone being unfamiliar with their units and downplaying his strength, just to win?

They don't get far in Aos,surprisingly. The game is build on a co-operative approach to the game and is very much built around social contract. Predatory gamers either have to adapt, evolve if thry want to stay playing, or else 'I'm not playing against that' stops them.

Warscrolls are free. All you gotta do is ask for them and read them. And to be fair, predatory gamers and noob stalkers exist in every gaming community - I know one here in my cities warmachine group for example, and to say he is shunned and not welcome is an understatement.

Brother Armiger wrote:
How do you even have a tournament with this?

Believe it or not, but sometimes tournaments aren't the point. Aos isn't a tournament game. Gw run 'gaming events' instead and I can imagine 'all day gaming' events being quite a bit of fun.

Brother Armiger wrote:

puree wrote:

A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.

Points- while not perfect- are a point of reference. At least with a point system, you can tell what's OP for the price point. Usually, two people agree on a point number.

Points are useful for defining game size, but a poorly implemented points system is open to all sorts of abuse. 40k is a perfect example. Being able to tell what's op is irrelevant when you're facing ten of them. Doesn't help you.
Aos just says 'find the balance yourself'.

Brother Armiger wrote:

puree wrote:
B) playing some games to start of with is a good idea.

Hard to play one without the models, hard to justify purchasing the models if the game is as broken as it seems to be.
[

It's only as broken as you make it though. Aos is a sandbox. 'Broken' is kind of irrelevant in a game whose whole design space is defined by 'player driven cooperative diy approaches and is essentially free form in its nature. I mean, you need a metric of 'unit value' against which you can measure things in order to declare whether something is broken or not. Points are a perfect example, in the sense that you can easily tell whether something is broken or not. But in a game that essentially has no 'value' metric with which to compare, no game size or defined structure that gives form, so how can you declare something as 'broken'?

Brother Armiger wrote:

puree wrote:
C)Points does not equal only way of doing tournaments? Other games do tourney style play without points, why can't you?

Because, I'm not playing those other games. I'm a 40k player, and I play 40k rules. I simply don't understand how a game as imbalanced as AoS appears to be has absolutely zero means to attempt to balance out the armies.

Aos puts the balance in the players hands. That there is the balancing mechanism - a co-operative approach. If you don't get it, maybe Aos isn't a game for you. But believe it or not, this 'pointless' and more co-operative approach is the baseline for a lot of more traditional wargames up until probably the eighties and nineties. And it's an approach that a lot of the designers at gw seem to have grown up with.

As you say, you are a '40k player'. Essentially, that there is the root of your problem here. Simply put, you have only been exposed to one way of playing wargames and right now (with a single game at that), and it seems like you can't fathom any otherway of playing games. There is more to wargaming than just 40k, and 40k rules and there are more styles of wargaming than just point-based pick-up-game and tournament based wargames. Bear in mind, regarding the competitive approach you seem to be used to, It's not a bad way, or a wrong way at,all, it's just a different (and somewhat incompatible) approach with the day/creative approach. FYI, I played 40k, and consider infinity and warmachine to be my main games, so I am all in when it comes to competitive games and tournaments. I just appreciate other approaches as well. Neither style is 'better' and both come with limitations, consequences and requirements. Aos can work, but it requires a different way of thinking and a different perspective from what you are used to.

Someone clue me in on this.
Sure, no problem. I'm gonna offer an alternative view to those above, since me and the people I play with tend to have a rather competitive approach to the game.

Exactly what the hell were they thinking by not giving this a points system? Look, I know 40k isn't perfectly balanced, but at least the points system is -something-.
Who knows? Maybe they though it was a headache to maintain a points system, since they time and time again proved incapable of doing it properly, and since everyone was mad at them all the time.

What's stopping some wealthy kid from plopping down a bunch of OP models (Like dragons or something) in front of some guy with a basic box?
Depends on how you play. There are a number of fan-made comp systems that are far better and more balanced than anything GW ever made. If you are interested, I suggest checking out SCGT, Clashcomp or PPC - they are all good points systems with different approaches to the game. What's stopping an donkey-cave with lots of money? Well obviously, if you're using a points system, that system will stop players from putting down droves of overpowered stuff, since they tend to cost a lot of points. If you're not playing with a comp system, then the fact that people tend to dislike and avoid playing with donkey-caves solves the problem quite nicely.

How do you even BEGIN to figure out of you're evenly matched or not?
Use a comp system. You can see my recommendations above. They are all updated regularly, which cannot be said of GWs official points systems in either WHFB or in 40k.

How many squabbles at the table have broken out, resulting in no game?
I haven't seen this happen a single time.

How many "Predatory Gamers" (you know the type) are betting on someone being unfamiliar with their units and downplaying his strength, just to win?
Haven't seen this either. Ironically, I think this was a bigger problem in previous editions, since these predatory gamers always had the excuse that what they were doing was perfectly fine according to the rules, and if it was broken, it was because the rules were broken, but they were never at fault. Now that excuse is gone, since comp systems are better generally better balanced if you play with them, and due to the social stigma of being seen as an donkey-cave and excluded if you don't play with the comp systems.

How do you even have a tournament with this?
Using a comp system of choice.

RoperPG wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

It is getting to the point when I walk in the doors I get embarassed, I see a bunch of teens maybe preteens screaming waggghhhhh and moving around giant want to be 90s action figures.

I know, it's horrible seeing kids having fun wrong in a serious hobby for serious grown-ups.
If I wasn't busy playing a game I'd probably definitely show them how to not affect my experience by enjoying their own.

No it has alot more to do with it being creepy and weird for a full grown man to hang out with teens and preteens. It would be like a full grown man showing up for a pokemon game and then complaining about how the kids smelt or played the game... which if your on these boards long enough you see alot. There is always someone saying omg there was this kid who stunk and was a rule nazi ect ect.

It is just not fun to hang around with kids who are not mine.

Deadnight wrote:


As you say, you are a '40k player'. Essentially, that there is the root of your problem here. Simply put, you have only been exposed to one way of playing wargames and right now (with a single game at that), and it seems like you can't fathom any otherway of playing games. There is more to wargaming than just 40k, and 40k rules and there are more styles of wargaming than just point-based pick-up-game and tournament based wargames. Bear in mind, regarding the competitive approach you seem to be used to, It's not a bad way, or a wrong way at,all, it's just a different (and somewhat incompatible) approach with the day/creative approach. FYI, I played 40k, and consider infinity and warmachine to be my main games, so I am all in when it comes to competitive games and tournaments. I just appreciate other approaches as well. Neither style is 'better' and both come with limitations, consequences and requirements. Aos can work, but it requires a different way of thinking and a different perspective from what you are used to.

Ah. That makes a bit more sense.

But don't get me wrong- I am capable of seeing it other ways. There's one of the miniature games that was around back in the day- the disparity between troop types wasn't as big as 40k, but you were limited in how much of a certain troop type you could take and had to have certain things on the battlefield (I don't remember which one it was, I only had like 3 models and the store stopped selling them- every game I played was with loaners). If you told me, "Yeah, these guys don't perform much differently than the other ones" then I could see that.

Truth be told, I'm hearing overwhelmingly negative things about it. Maybe it's just the people I stay in touch with, but what they've all said is that it is the type of game to encourage the absolute worst aspects of WH40k to play it- in other words, the 'Noobstalkers': 30-somethings that try and convince a 12-year-old kid that his three big dragons or whatever is 'evenly matched' against this kid's boxed set.

And I didn't know war scrolls were free, either. That sort of puts my mind at ease about 'You'll know it's fair if you buy all the army books' thing I was thinking.

puree wrote:
A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.

GW points might be dumb and allow that, but that's GW's problem, not a flaw in the points system.

puree wrote:
B) playing some games to start of with is a good idea.

So you have no idea what you're doing until you've played a bunch of games. Seems like there are better ways to go about that...

puree wrote:
C)Points does not equal only way of doing tournaments? Other games do tourney style play without points, why can't you?

Out of curiosity, which? X wing, Infinity, WarmaHordes, KoW... The major tourney games I'm aware of all go in for points.

 jonolikespie wrote:

puree wrote:
A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.

GW points might be dumb and allow that, but that's GW's problem, not a flaw in the points system.

puree wrote:
B) playing some games to start of with is a good idea.

So you have no idea what you're doing until you've played a bunch of games. Seems like there are better ways to go about that...

puree wrote:
C)Points does not equal only way of doing tournaments? Other games do tourney style play without points, why can't you?

Out of curiosity, which? X wing, Infinity, WarmaHordes, KoW... The major tourney games I'm aware of all go in for points.

GW doing points does nothing to stop A. If you haven't had the pre game agreement then he will still turn up because he was wanting a different type of game to you. I though part of the pro-point argument was that you can still play the game however you want, so why would you expect everyone to suddenly not want to play differently with you without some sort of pregame agreement?

If you haven't seen non-point competitive/tourney war games then maybe you should branch out a bit. Try SL/ASL (Scenario based) or Lasalle (fixed list based). If you want to restrict to 'major' games then that is your restriction, though SL/ASL was a pretty major game in its hey day.

As to B, the game does not pretend to be a tourney game which is a valid decision even if you don't like it, so why should you expect to have any idea how tourney balanced stuff is without playing? How do you think the fan based comp systems are worked on and kept up to date. It is quite simply the most obvious answer - play it and work it out. Or of course actually use one of those comp systems which are probably better than anything GW would have done, and the hard work has been done for you, how could that be so hard?

Never heard of either of those games, are they actually popular?

OgreChubbs wrote:

It is just not fun to hang around with kids who are not mine.

So your issue with AoS is that it's causing kids to turn up at your store/where you play?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Never heard of either of those games, are they actually popular?

Stay clear of Squad Leader / Advanced squad leader unless you have a fetish for acronym packed rules .

Brother Armiger wrote:
Ah. That makes a bit more sense.

Im glad I was able to help.

Brother Armiger wrote:
But don't get me wrong- I am capable of seeing it other ways. There's one of the miniature games that was around back in the day- the disparity between troop types wasn't as big as 40k, but you were limited in how much of a certain troop type you could take and had to have certain things on the battlefield (I don't remember which one it was, I only had like 3 models and the store stopped selling them- every game I played was with loaners). If you told me, "Yeah, these guys don't perform much differently than the other ones" then I could see that.

Thing is, even though it doesn't have unit restrictions and that, AOS is kind of like those other games you mention as well in the sense that everything can perform and the disparity between things isn't necessarily huge. Unlike 40k, where your ability to wound/kill something is based on that things toughness, in AOS, your ability to wound/kill something is based on your own stats (everyone has their own ‘I wound on an X’ value essentially). I personally am not a fan of it in some ways-its kinda gamey, but it means that a model will essentially wound anything on, say, a 3+, whether that’s a zombie or a dragon. It’s a soft counter, and whilst more than a little bit gamey as well as counter intuitive, it does mean most things can be dealt with.

Brother Armiger wrote:
Truth be told, I'm hearing overwhelmingly negative things about it. Maybe it's just the people I stay in touch with, but what they've all said is that it is the type of game to encourage the absolute worst aspects of WH40k to play it- in other words, the 'Noobstalkers': 30-somethings that try and convince a 12-year-old kid that his three big dragons or whatever is 'evenly matched' against this kid's boxed set.

More than anything else, AOS is the type of game where it ends up being whatever you make of it. Essentially it is entirely in the hands if the people that play it. GW do understand that everyone wants something different in their games, and probably the best way of doing that is putting the game and ho its played entirely in the hands of the players. Mould it as you see fit. If you want balance, there are fan comps, and there is always ‘eyeballing’ it. If you approach it with the deliberate intent of abusing it, breaking it and, as you say, ‘embracing the worst aspects of 40k to play it’ so on, well, you will probably achieve your goals and crush the hopes and dreams of some kid, but really, what does it say about the type of person that you are? It makes you into the worst thing about the hobby. Being honest, it makes you the kind of person I don’t want to play against. I mean,You seem to be a decent fair minded chap. Do you really want to be 'that guy'. AOS requires a bit of emotional maturity and a co-operative attitude. And to be fair, this is not a bad thing to bring to the table, regardless of whatever game you play. Ironically, I could quote some of warmachines (an unforgiving, unrepentant competitive minded game) manifesto 'page 5' as being hugely relevant to Aos, and all games in that some of its tenets of 'don't be a douche', page 5 is never an excuse to belittle your opponent', 'don't whine' and 'show respect for your opponent, we're all here for a common love of games' are attitudes that should be enshrined.

I’ve heard a lot of negative things about it, and to be fair, there are plenty things to be negative about. Personally, I think the models are silly, the lore is over the top, and I dislike the game mechanics as uninspired and boring – it’s the same essential GW DNA they’ve been peddling for 30 years. Games, and game mechanics have evolved a lot in that time and I think AOS could have been run on a far better engine than what it has. But the lack of points, and the co-operative approach? Well, im all on board for that (I do it with other games though), and to be fair, a lot of the negativity towards those stem from people who either have not been exposed to that style of gaming, and are at best, unfamiliar with it, and at worst, hostile towards anything that they perceive as ‘different’.

Brother Armiger wrote:
And I didn't know war scrolls were free, either. That sort of puts my mind at ease about 'You'll know it's fair if you buy all the army books' thing I was thinking.

The rulebook (all 4 pages of it) is free to download as well. So your initial investment is basically 0. If you don’t like it, that’s fair enough and you can then move on. But for what its worth, the best way of getting the most out of it is to not view it as a duel with your opponent. Take a step back as a participant and a step forward as a spectator instead. View it in terms of constructing a ‘story’, or an interesting scenario, and playing it through, with the intent being the ‘story playing out’ rather than ‘winning the game’. The approach is fine, it just takes a different perspective from the one you are used to.

jonolikespie wrote:

puree wrote:
A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.
GW points might be dumb and allow that, but that's GW's problem, not a flaw in the points system.

It is a flaw in the points system if it is poorly made and poorly implemented. It isn’t some kind of sacred cow. Being brutally honest, even in more robust point-based systems, you can come up against hard match ups. Regardless, the end result is still the other guy turning up with a list that outmatches yours and which you have no answers to, regardless of it using points or not. At least with the co-operative approach, you aim for an even match up, you just don't use a defined 'metric' to define game size or composition - essentially, to quote my boss, you 'play what's in front of you'.

jonolikespie wrote:
puree wrote:
B) playing some games to start of with is a good idea.
So you have no idea what you're doing until you've played a bunch of games. Seems like there are better ways to go about that...

You know, this ‘you have no idea what you’re doing’ isn’t necessarily true. Speaking from experience, It is perfectly possible to read a units stats and abilities and ‘eyeball’ its effectiveness. That there is a pretty decent starting point.

Beyond that’s, whats this better way? Because it seems to me that playing out a few games and dare I say it, having some fun with your mates while youre doing it is a perfectly valid and enjoyable way to spend an evening. Its all in the approach. This mightn't be fun for you, but let's not be so condescending and snide as to suggest the way you prefer is somehow 'having fun the right way' and that other folks are 'having fun wrong'. Some people enjoy that creative and DIY approach. I know I do. In any case, how is ‘playing some games to start off with’ any different to our games of warmachine when we are trying a new caster and various list combinations? List-fu only takes you so far, and ultimately, you have to put it on the table and get in some games and play it against various other different match ups to see if its got game. And sometimes, it will not come together.

jonolikespie wrote:
puree wrote:
C)Points does not equal only way of doing tournaments? Other games do tourney style play without points, why can't you?
Out of curiosity, which? X wing, Infinity, WarmaHordes, KoW... The major tourney games I'm aware of all go in for points.

So?

X-wing, Infinity, Warmahordes and KoW only represent one school of thought here. There are other wargames out there, and various historical formats (past and present) either rely on specific formations or specific lists. Purée mentions asl and squad leader - they were huge back in the 80s and are still played amongst the historicals. The fact that you are ‘aware of’ a bunch of games of specific style and can name a bunch of games doesn’t mean anything more than this is all you have been exposed to. That style is not necessarily bad, but there is more than just them out there.

Deadnight wrote:

jonolikespie wrote:A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.
GW points might be dumb and allow that, but that's GW's problem, not a flaw in the points system.

It is a flaw in the points system if it is poorly made and poorly implemented. It isn’t some kind of sacred cow. Being brutally honest, even in more robust point-based systems, you can come up against hard match ups. Regardless, the end result is still the other guy turning up with a list that outmatches yours and which you have no answers to, regardless of it using points or not. At least with the co-operative approach, you aim for an even match up, you just don't use a defined 'metric' to define game size or composition - essentially, to quote my boss, you 'play what's in front of you'.

You say that as if imbalanced units are going to happen no matter what in a points system. If your argument is that a point system can be broken by poor implementation, so can literally anything ever.

There is obviously such a thing as hard matchups when you bring an anti infantry list and your opponent brings a list built heavily out of vehicles, but that doesn't make a game unbalanced, that is players choices to bring lists slanted in one direction or another.

No, in a robust point system the other guy does not show up with a list that outmatches you regardless of what you do. If you don't bring answers to what he has then that is almost certainly your fault.

 jonolikespie wrote:

No, in a robust point system the other guy does not show up with a list that outmatches you regardless of what you do. If you don't bring answers to what he has then that is almost certainly your fault.

How does a 'robust' points system prevent that, unless you have a composition mechanics that forces people to field identikit forces?

If not, prior knowledge of what your opponent brings is still needed?
And if you don't have something that can deal with what he's brought, tough luck?

In my opinion, X points should equal X points period. This whole hard counter nonsense in army building is why you see people bringing all of Unit Type: Rock hoping that they will be facing an army composed of all Unit Type: Scissors and praying they don't face an army composed all of Unit Type: Paper.

An army list that contains paper, rock, and scissors will typically get rolled by an ary of all Paper, Rock, or Scissors (at the least they will be at a steep disadvantage) which encourages these hard builds, and is IMO a cancer and makes point systems worthless.

Because if X points is really X + 2000 points against one type but X - 2000 points against another, I'd rather stick with no points to be honest.

Squad Leader actually had points (and it was far more balanced than WarHammer ever was), but the scenarios with the provided troops were so good that we never bothered to use the points.

RoperPG wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

No, in a robust point system the other guy does not show up with a list that outmatches you regardless of what you do. If you don't bring answers to what he has then that is almost certainly your fault.

How does a 'robust' points system prevent that, unless you have a composition mechanics that forces people to field identikit forces?

If not, prior knowledge of what your opponent brings is still needed?
And if you don't have something that can deal with what he's brought, tough luck?

I honestly don't even know how to answer this because I've honestly not encountered serious imbalance problems outside of GW (at least in tabletop wargames).

If I bring a Warmachine army to a game and get my ass kicked, it will be because my opponent outplayed me, or because the list I brought was poorly constructed. It won't be because my opponent simply brought the OP units and I couldn't do anything to stop him* (at least not since the Haley nerf ).

Unless I go to an Infinity tourney where the scenarios require models with the 'specialist' rule to score objectives (which is something people will know as part of the tourney pack), then I can bring an army and play my opponent and if I get trashed by them it is because he outplayed me.*



*Or luck, we can never forget about bad luck.

Related tangent, just had a moment of realisation. A criticism of AoS has been the simplicity/lack of interaction between attacker / attackee in (constant to hit / to wound) but this primarily means that anything can be wounded by anything. So the concept of OP is diminished, because nothing is invulnerable to something else.
But yeah, the phrase that triggered that; "poorly constructed".
Effectively, "you bought the wrong stuff, buy more".
The more I hear in defense of points / comp - no matter the system - the more I wonder why I didn't spot how much of a false floor / crutch it is years ago.

 jonolikespie wrote:

You say that as if imbalanced units are going to happen no matter what in a points system. If your argument is that a point system can be broken by poor implementation, so can literally anything ever.

Well duh. And points are not this sacred infallible cow that you love viewing them as. Imbalanced units will happen - even pp let some howlers through the gate and it took them years to address them.

And I said it can happen. Im getting quite tired of you deliberately misquoting me. You say it yourself elsewhere – perfect balance is impossible, you can only aim for ‘close enough’. Even in the better balanced wargames out there like warmachine, x points of unit a isn’t necessarily equal to x points of unit b. eiryss or thrullg? Rutger Shaw or Kovnik Joe? Men o War versus skinwalkers or skorne cataphracts? the point about points systems being fallible and open to abuse if implemented poorly is in reference to your claim that its somehow GW’s fault and has nothing to do with ‘the points system’ because as was pointed out, even in well-balanced points based games, you can come up against situations where you don’t have a leg to stand on. The points system is a useful tool, but really only goes so far.

Remember as well, we were originally discussing this in the context of Aos where:

puree wrote:

What's stopping some wealthy kid from plopping down a bunch of OP models (Like dragons or something) in front of some guy with a basic box?

A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.

And your response:

 jonolikespie wrote:

puree wrote:
A) How does points stop that? You turn up with your 100 pt army and he turns up with his bunch of OP models? Or were you assuming that there would be some pre game discussion going on to both agree to use points, your point system, and that it would be 100 points.

GW points might be dumb and allow that, but that's GW's problem, not a flaw in the points system.

So, does use of points (even in a robust system) stop someone putting down a power build against a noob with a starter? You seem to suggest this is entirely to do with gw's poor use of points, but sadly, it is just as possible in games like warmachine.

 jonolikespie wrote:

There is obviously such a thing as hard matchups when you bring an anti infantry list and your opponent brings a list built heavily out of vehicles, but that doesn't make a game unbalanced, that is players choices to bring lists slanted in one direction or another.

It has the potential to unbalance the game, or rather, specific games.

I wasn’t talking about games being ‘imbalanced’. To bring this back to the original point that was raised, I was pointing out that even in ‘balanced’ games based on the use of points, there will be situations occurring where, to use what was originally said ‘some wealthy kid plops down a bunch of OP models (Like dragons or something) in front of some guy with a basic box?’ Use of points (or lack of use of points) won’t necessarily stop this despite your claim that it was only GWs use of points that allows that. I know, (and loathe, I might add) certain warmachine players in my city who will board-tailor, terrain-tailor, list tailor, and noobstalk, along with any manner of underhanded moves and on top of that, will go all out and throw everything they can at said noob to crush them and claim the ‘win’ (you know, rather than holding off a little bit and letting them be involved in the game) . Its despicable, and as good a points-based game as WMH is (and it is definitely one of the best ones), it is not immune to this kind of carry on. The existence of certain hard counters in the game can compound this, and if you’re not careful, you can get a very toxic mix. ‘Use of points’ is not some mythical beast that stops you being outmatched and hard countered.

 jonolikespie wrote:

No, in a robust point system the other guy does not show up with a list that outmatches you regardless of what you do. If you don't bring answers to what he has then that is almost certainly your fault.

And if you can't just bring answers?

First its GWs fault, now it’s the players fault? Heaven forbid that you come to the realisation that there are sometimes limits to what games and game mechanisms can achieve and deal with. It’s not the sacred cow you’d like it to be Jono.

And you contradict yourself here- you can’t claim that in robust points-based system that the other guy doesn’t turn up with a list that outmatches you regardless of what you do, whilst simultaneously saying ‘but when it happens it’s your fault’. The latter acknowledges what I’ve been saying-that hard counters do happen. It is a fact that even in robust systems like warmachine, there are hard counters that utterly shut you down and outmatch you, regardless of what you do. It’s got nothing to do with it being your or even his ‘fault’ – that’s just poorly intentioned transference that doesn't resolve the issue, as it just tries to lay ‘blame’ and is an attempt on your part to weasel out of acknowledging that even in robust points-based systems, those hard counters exist, and that folks will drop a ‘big heavy list’ against a noob with a starter set and crush him (despite your initial claim, again, that this was entirely to do with GWs poor use of points). Again, I did this (accidentally I might add!) by putting a karchev jack heavy build against a guy who had the skorne starter. To call it a slaughter would be an insult. I genuinely felt bad. I didn't do it again.

 jonolikespie wrote:

If I bring a Warmachine army to a game and get my ass kicked, it will be because my opponent outplayed me, or because the list I brought was poorly constructed. It won't be because my opponent simply brought the OP units and I couldn't do anything to stop him* (at least not since the Haley nerf http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/a/39ea8e0dbfb45dcc6b802cd0e198dba3.gif).

Or because his list hard countered yours.since mad dogs is one of my favourite lists, I'll give some examples. Bethayne v mad dogs of war. Mad dogs has her. Gunline v mad dogs. Mad hammer versus mad dogs gives me fits. Purification caster v p morvahna. Infantry against Caine or Feora. There are plenty lists and plenty casters in the game that get shut down very easily against specific lists, casters or even end up having a hugely difficult time against entire factions. 'Op' isn't necessarily a thing, but 'shut me down completely' sadly is. To be honest, 'poorly constructed' fails to cover this unless you are talking about tailoring.

'Warmachine' out of the box is a broken game. It's 'Steamroller' does a lot to mitigate it's issues and it's steamroller that does the lions share of the work towards making WMH a playable game . Beyond that, and despite steamroller, it's well known that the game is extremely vulnerable to skews and hard-counters at lower points levels. Even with steamroller, it requires playing at or above certain points limits, multiple list formats, sidebars, multiple/various win conditions, and even then, things can fall through the cracks with things being exposed through 'list-chicken' and so on.

RoperPG wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

No, in a robust point system the other guy does not show up with a list that outmatches you regardless of what you do. If you don't bring answers to what he has then that is almost certainly your fault.

How does a 'robust' points system prevent that, unless you have a composition mechanics that forces people to field identikit forces?

If not, prior knowledge of what your opponent brings is still needed?
And if you don't have something that can deal with what he's brought, tough luck?

There are unfair match-ups in Historicals. In Ancients, impetuous knight armies have difficulty with Mongols, for instance, and were contemporaries. OTOH Mongols tend to die to English longbow armies, though they weren't contemporaries.

In a tournament situation, of course, you have to deal with a variety of opponents, so if you select an army that has a hard counter, you must hope all your matches won't be against that kind of army.

Of course this is irrelevant to fantasy armies, which can be designed to be fair, if it is considered a suitable thing to do.

RoperPG wrote:
The more I hear in defense of points / comp - no matter the system - the more I wonder why I didn't spot how much of a false floor / crutch it is years ago.

Personally I don't see it as that cut-and-dry; I absolutely hated AoS until I found a good points system and now it's my favorite game. I can see why people get frustrated/annoyed/bored and don't like the game, because without a good comp it is really hard to judge how one army will be balanced against another without playing that matchup at least once, if not several times, which is effectively saying 'you can have good games after you have played several crappy ones' and that is the sort of thing which irritates people. On top of that, the vast majority of comps have shoddy balance anyway which kills the point; the game is already being comped so why can't it be comped well? Leading to further anger. At the end of the day, people are willing to put up with a decent amount of imbalance if it comes from an official source because it gives everyone a common reference point. Once things are being comped by the community, people are going to have higher expectations, and I think the broad failure of many AoS comps to meet that causes a lot of anger and dismissal from people honestly trying to give the game a chance.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
The more I hear in defense of points / comp - no matter the system - the more I wonder why I didn't spot how much of a false floor / crutch it is years ago.

Personally I don't see it as that cut-and-dry; I absolutely hated AoS until I found a good points system and now it's my favorite game. I can see why people get frustrated/annoyed/bored and don't like the game, because without a good comp it is really hard to judge how one army will be balanced against another without playing that matchup at least once, if not several times, which is effectively saying 'you can have good games after you have played several crappy ones' and that is the sort of thing which irritates people. On top of that, the vast majority of comps have shoddy balance anyway which kills the point; the game is already being comped so why can't it be comped well? Leading to further anger. At the end of the day, people are willing to put up with a decent amount of imbalance if it comes from an official source because it gives everyone a common reference point. Once things are being comped by the community, people are going to have higher expectations, and I think the broad failure of many AoS comps to meet that causes a lot of anger and dismissal from people honestly trying to give the game a chance.

I don't use comp, but then I appear to game amongst a group of very like-minded individuals so it hasn't been an issue yet.

However, I do follow some of the comp systems and quite frankly (although some took it as a urination/mouth interface) I was really happy when GW announced on the FB page that there are a) no plans to comp AoS and b) if you did want comp, then using the unofficial systems is fine. This is brilliant news.
Because it means playing without comp is the default out-of-the-box option, and the more I do it, the more I enjoy it.
Whatever GW's reason for dropping points / 'approving' unofficial comps - which depending on the poster will be anything from genius visionaries through to a happy accident resulting from financially-sanctioned laziness - is immaterial. It's the best result for the players themselves.
Even the most ardent fanboy can't argue that GW got it's comp/pointing right all the time, and there are plenty of examples in non-GW systems where official points have caused problems.
By allowing the community to decide what the balance is, independently of GW, those that want a decent, adaptive codified balance mechanism can have one.
That's kept up to date, and in the better cases, runs on feedback too.

The problem with deriding community comps is that I can go harvest a list of pretty much every major comp out there now and find a list of people deriding it as bad and having no balance, as well as a list of people saying its great and has great balance and is why they play the game.

Meaning the community that uses comps should support each other instead of trying to slam each other. That certainly doesn't help the cause anyway.

I'm honestly not really into points as per setting a set number of points for people to play at (like 40K has become). But, I would like a good gauge of how one army matches up to another. Like if I were to field my Stormcast, what would my opponent need to get a decent match of force so that it will be a pretty fair game. I guess wounds would be one way, but an agreed way across the board would be nice.

SG