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 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

But that's the thing - GW have indeed codified their value - each model is worth exactly *one* model. Period. End of. That's it. Without any comp, army restriction or whatever balancing tool you have no other way to compare them except by doing it on a 1 to 1 basis, and it's impossible not to see the power creep.

If you're talking about RAW game rules, then even they state that you can deploy whatever you want, which also means you can not deploy whatever you want. You decide.
If you're talking about figuring out relative power... how about actually playing with them? Taking a guess?

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
Look at the AoS events that Matt goes to. What are the restrictions? Model numbers. Also, remember the reviled dwarf army he fought against a couple of months ago in an official Warhammer World AoS event?

Model numbers, with discussion with your opponent/s.
Or for the next and previous events, model numbers with total wounds taken into account.
Which I take as an admission from GW that just leaving it up to players is not a universally good idea.
(The Dwarf army was a guy being a tool - his deployment implied they were a single unit, not individual characters, and he broke the tournament rules anyway by breaking the model count limit in the first place. So to my reading, he was a cheat because there was subterfuge involved, meaning he knew what he was doing.)

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
As for the Stormvermin, Greatswords and Hammerers bit, I was tempted to mention them but decided not to because they are an issue related to the innate lack of balance in the base AoS release itself - it's not a power creep because neither of those three are part of content that was released after AoS was pushed out - it's just gakky balancing.

Which proves what I've been trying to say. GW have an awful track record at balancing. Most discussion involving 9th age or any of the comp systems for AoS usually contain at least one person stating that players do a better job of balancing than GW. So GW've obviously decided to go with that, and leave it up to the players.
Depending on your point of view, that's either an incredibly stupid, or incredibly brave move to make.
For the UK market, I think incredibly brave. Gaming clubs/stores have pretty good penetration so are fairly insular, so you'll likely be playing the same group of people week-in, week-out so it's not difficult for a consensus to form pretty quickly on what 'balance'is.
For the US market, I think stupid. From what I can infer, penetration outside of cities is pretty low and they have a wide catchment area, meaning a high turnover of players meaning PUGs become really problematic without a shared protocol.

Well, I would argue that in AoS there is a cost to a unit even if you don't use community created comps. Vanilla AoS seems to be roughly balanced by unit footprint (In this case meaning wounds vs physical space occupied) or, as some say, "eyeballing it". Varanguard have a very similar unit footprint to Chaos Knights and thus are similar in relative value. But Varanguard have special rules that makes them much more powerful. I would argue that, to use Roper's example, that Greatswords are a side grade to State Troops since they are about as durable with some increase of power but with less unit resiliency. Plus, State Troops have some buffs that makes them better in larger numbers. Varanguard are just +1 Chaos Knights.

Put another way, 15 wounds of Varanguard>15 wounds of Chaos Knights.

Since I'm crap with Multi Quoting, I'll answer the points one at a time with some lines in between:

Regarding the first point - one doesn't need to play them to understand that in a system as linear as AoS the Varanguard are vastly Superior to the Chaos Knights. I am actually quite baffled that you're even bringing that up, while at the same time trying to ignore the fact that you may want to try to disprove my point by sneakily pointing that I never played with them. Look at their stats and then tell me that the Varanguard aren't better.

And sure, you can choose - not - to deploy the Varanguard, but that still doesn't mean they aren't part of the power creep. That's the whole point: I can choose not to deploy my Ravenwing Knights, but that doesn't change the fact that they are better than the standard Ravenwing unit.
___________________

Regarding the Dwarf dude, the problem is that, RAW, neither Model Numbers nor Wounds provide an acceptable balancing, but we've already come to that point a while ago.
___________________

As for the hammerers points, the thing here is that one cannot excuse or deny a power creep just because the base game is immensely flawed in its balance. It may even intensify the creep, not diminish or abolish it.

I'd elaborate further, but I need to go home.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

I'd elaborate further, but I need to go home.

Awwwww!!!! (If it's any consolation, I can't figure out MQ either - I just copy and paste the spoiler tags to break up the post!)
My intent wasn't to suggest that you'd never played with them or that meant you were wrong. I framed it as an answer to the statement that without comp the only balancing mechanism is 1v1. I see where you're coming from, but I disagree.
(I'm also impressed sometimes that people who speak english as a primary language can understand my thinking, so kudos on making it this far!)
Just to be as clear as I can on the points;
I do not think playing with points / comp is 'wrong' or 'bad'.
The removal of points/comp in the transition from WFB to AoS was not a visionary move. It was GW attempting to clear up their own mess.
That said, going back to the (by now) exhausted Varanguard and Chaos Knight.
I mentioned points were 'bang for buck' - the only balance achievable is 'bang for bang' - yours for your opponent's.
Simply by looking at their stats, there is a clear winner. One Varanguard is 'better' in whatever way you want to quantify it than one Chaos Knight. You don't need to play 1v1 to figure that out.
It is mathematically possible for a Chaos Knight to kill a Varanguard in a single turn, but everything suggests it'll go the Varanguard's way.
That is the same of any system - 40k, WMH, X-Wing - you are going to have units that are just plain better.
The difficulty is grading that so in cases where the power is more even 1v1 you have some way of knowing, and it's here that the arguments start as to whether x is broken or y is useless. Again, to be clear, this is not the fault of the players.
Take the Dracothian guard. My gut - just from looking at the stats - says that the xbow guys and lance guys are 'better' than a varanguard, depending on how they're used / matched up. I think the Varanguard look better vs. the hammer and axe guys. But depending on what happens, it could conceivably go either way.
So in the group I play in, we'd look at starting at a 1v1 equivalency and judge how that affected things over a few games. It could be Concussors just seem to chew up Varanguard for fun. Stats aren't everything.
Now let's say I don't have a Dracothian guard, but I do have Liberators. How do you eyeball that?!
I mean, they have 2 wounds, and they have that special rule vs. 5w models, but then if the VG charges they pretty much won't get a save, maybe I could stick on a Celestant to improve them, would 5 be enough? Is 10 too many?
I'm only going to find out if I play. Maybe I'm great with Liberators. Maybe I suck with them. Maybe I'm okay but my opponent is a virtuoso with varanguard.

That's the principle problem or success with AoS for me, depending on your point of view.
I don't want to use the words competitive or balance in summary because they attract the wolves like crazy.
But I think it comes back to the magic-eye picture analogy; either you can see how no-comp gaming can work, or you can't, and either way is fine. Everyone has their proclivities when it comes to gaming.
Even if you can see how it could work, that doesn't mean it's simple. If you can't, then no amount of discussion is going to convince you otherwise.

I'm enjoying it, and I think I can eyeball reasonably well (accepting I still haven't got over unconscious bias in my own favour!), but I genuinely cannot explain to you how I do it.
I just watch what my opponent's doing, look at terrain, and I can just 'feel' what seems about right. AoS is my first experience of comp-less gaming and I like it.

But to be very, very clear - I don't believe GW ditched points in some amazing visionary move.
I genuinely believe they binned them because they decided that points/comp were costing too much to maintain, they weren't getting it 'right' anyway, and they perceived that getting it 'wrong' was driving sales of some products down.

This is why all my 'what would you have done different' is restricted to just amendments to some of the mechanics of AoS rather than maintaining WFB - if you look at AoS through the prism of it being designed as a method to reduce costs and push mini sales, it all follows a logic - even if it's not one you agree with.
Like when you're watching Castle or CSI or Criminal Minds or whatever - the dime-store nutter is a complete headcase, but you can understand *why* he dressed up his chainsaw in the prom dress even if you would never do it...


(Oh, and regardless of points/balance etc., Dwarf guy was still a cheat. )

Yes, the Dwarf dude was a cheat. I was just using him as an example of exactly what can happen when a tight ruleset isn't used for a game, even one that is clearly encourages to be an extremely laid back, friendly experience. BUT!!! we'd be going around in circles regarding the rules, and that has been done to death like a billion times already.

I believe that the main difference here is how we look at the game. I can tell you that I have started looking at AoS as a completely uncontrolled (balance-wise) free-for-all killfest that is targeted at players that don't share my specific liking, but even then I still can't help but see the power creep in the releases.

Maybe It's just the years of competitive gaming in me shadowing my view of things, but I couldn't just help but roll my eyes at the Varanguard when they came out and now at the Dracoth Riders... and the Star Dragon. The releases just keep getting bigger and stronger... and pricier - regardless of how you intend to play them, be it comp or no-comp.

I am not challenging anyone's enjoyment of the game at all as I don't want this to go into the usually trench post warfare of pro and anti AoS argumentation - some people like it, some people don't. That's why I chose to focus only on the power creep.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Not introduced Sigmarines.

The idea of a post End Times skirmish game happening in the ruins of the Old World has a lot of potential, but it needs to be tied to the setting we knew and loved. We should be playing in the ruins of Nul instead of a doodle on a map we've never seen before, and we should be playing the remnants of the Empire who are trying to eek out a living there, rather than people thousands of years later who have no real connection to the Empire.

I agree absolutely 100%. The sigmarines are just awful. An apocalyptic world with pirate bands and gangs of empire loyalists scraping it out across deserted ruins would have been superb. The sigmarines just don't fit in anyway I can imagine. The whole realms and overly convoluted world they created is just too much.

I'm not really concerned with taking away points. I'm not a fan of balance in a war game anyway so that so that I was cool with. It's the fluff I have issue with.

Honestly? I would have taken the approach of the game, and not destroyed the Old World but maybe shook it up a bit, splintering factions to allow for intra-faction conflict e.g. The Empire and Bretonnia merge together, but there's still rival lords vying for control a la Normans vs. Saxons. Elf nations are nominally a united front, but there are squabbles and the like that can come to blows, same for basically everything else. A logical way to have the same faction fight each other in a game without hand-waving it away, basically. There's so many real-world analogies of the same region/culture battling each other that it would make perfect sense. Different clans with grudges, different city-states or kings wanting a rival's land or wealth, etc.

Keep the style of the rules that allow for/encourage smaller scale, fully narrative driven campaigns and games, but also have an optional points system and way to do larger scale games a la old WHFB (with LotR style movement trays like they used to have).

That way, you have the best of both. You have a way to add a level of balance to the game so it can be played in pick-up game or tournament styles, but the "core" of the game still encourages coming up with your own scenarios and campaigns and theming a force around it without having a points system to constrain your choice (although likely not as silly as "Place whatever you have until you're done"). You could have even kept the "Sigmarines" as some kind of elite paladin-esque order in the Empire/Bretonnia kingdom that has their own goals and desires, so for instance some of the more ruthless ones could basically be mercenaries, some might have allegiances to other lords, some might just want to do their own thing (a concept I think 40k should also do with Space Marines) so they can exist too (albeit likely not as silly as they currently are, although personally I find them to look pretty cool)

 thekingofkings wrote:
So, while I have often ranted against AoS for one thing or another and so have many others, so here is the question.....what would you have done different? Even if you like AoS what would yuo have done different? not a bash thread, but a "this is how I would have made it better" thread.

The main thing was the release - giving away all those warscrolls online for dead armies was a bad idea. GW should have just axed them from day 1, and really focused on AoS being a different game from WHFB. Too many people were confused (or feigned confusion) during the first month.

As it stands, Age of Sigmar has done everything amazingly. Fantastic models, easy rules, and the best benefit of all - it killed a terrible game system. And the new community of AoS players are, overall, much nicer and more enjoyable to play with than the older WHFB players. When the overall community is not concerned about WAAC powergaming a broken system, and is just playing the cool scenarios introduced in the overwhelming number of rapidly released fantastic campaign books, most of the tension is gone and every game tends to be very enjoyable, versus old Warhammer-headache-inducing 4 hour games.


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 Knockagh wrote:
I agree absolutely 100%. The sigmarines are just awful. An apocalyptic world with pirate bands and gangs of empire loyalists scraping it out across deserted ruins would have been superb. The sigmarines just don't fit in anyway I can imagine. The whole realms and overly convoluted world they created is just too much.

They fit in perfectly with the fluff, which has been advancing since the game's release, through a series of novels and supplements. If you have no knowledge of them, then I'm sure warriors in full plate armor in a fantasy setting could be conceived as "awful", despite it being a relatively common trope.

The game is called Warhammer, though. I don't think GW could have fooled everyone into thinking it was a completely separate game by not publishing the legacy army scrolls.

If they wanted to make it clearly a separate game, they should have made it nothing whatsoever to do with WHFB, and carried on publishing WHFB, so it would be obviously it was a completely new game.

This would have been a lot more expensive in business terms, though, as they would have needed to make a lot more new figures and books available straight away. The legacy war scrools meant that 100,000 current WHFB players could start playing AoS from day 1 if they wanted to.

I think they should have introduced Stormcast as being "much" darker, rather than paragons of good. Still good guys, but much more inhuman-seeming to a normal citizen.

I thought the same about the stormcasts.

I just painted mine dark, with cold colors (black, blue, turquoise). This gives them a dark feel, and they look like they are surreal fighters/gladiators on the tabletop instead of shiny good guys. I play them as a cold, stalwart army, that arrives from lightning, kills stuff, and coldly leaves.

The main thing was the release - giving away all those warscrolls online for dead armies was a bad idea. GW should have just axed them from day 1, and really focused on AoS being a different game from WHFB. Too many people were confused (or feigned confusion) during the first month.

As it stands, Age of Sigmar has done everything amazingly. Fantastic models, easy rules, and the best benefit of all - it killed a terrible game system. And the new community of AoS players are, overall, much nicer and more enjoyable to play with than the older WHFB players. When the overall community is not concerned about WAAC powergaming a broken system, and is just playing the cool scenarios introduced in the overwhelming number of rapidly released fantastic campaign books, most of the tension is gone and every game tends to be very enjoyable, versus old Warhammer-headache-inducing 4 hour games.

I concur with the first part, but I do not have a similar experience on the second, they IMO replaced a bad system with another atrocious system (both are fun, but neither qualify as "well written or good" the new community I have found generally are much bigger d-bags than the old hateful neckbeards. otherwise AoS really didnt offer anything "new" its the same old just rehashed. but back on the first part, I would have definately made it a clean break, no connection whatsoever to the old world.

 judgedoug wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
So, while I have often ranted against AoS for one thing or another and so have many others, so here is the question.....what would you have done different? Even if you like AoS what would yuo have done different? not a bash thread, but a "this is how I would have made it better" thread.

The main thing was the release - giving away all those warscrolls online for dead armies was a bad idea. GW should have just axed them from day 1, and really focused on AoS being a different game from WHFB. Too many people were confused (or feigned confusion) during the first month.

As it stands, Age of Sigmar has done everything amazingly. Fantastic models, easy rules, and the best benefit of all - it killed a terrible game system. And the new community of AoS players are, overall, much nicer and more enjoyable to play with than the older WHFB players. When the overall community is not concerned about WAAC powergaming a broken system, and is just playing the cool scenarios introduced in the overwhelming number of rapidly released fantastic campaign books, most of the tension is gone and every game tends to be very enjoyable, versus old Warhammer-headache-inducing 4 hour games.

Wow, how charming. Such empathy!

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I think they should have introduced Stormcast as being "much" darker, rather than paragons of good. Still good guys, but much more inhuman-seeming to a normal citizen.

I'm thinking/hoping they eventually branch out and there are darker chambers. I like the idea of them being quite fascist and heartlessly authoritarian. The ones who die and become reforged more lose their humanity and become killing and maintaining-order machines. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss in the end. I think it would be fitting gameplay-wise to justify why humans would fight them in the fluff as well.

Some cool, interesting posts here.

I think the direction the lore took was silly: destroying the world is destroying the "fluff" that got so many of us into this game, this universe. That was a mistake. I'm waiting for the "it was all a dream" deus ex machina, so we can go back to the world of warhammer which is so excellent.

It's a pity they didn't instead decide to restart other smaller-model-count games that still use their excellent models. Introducing a player to warhammer through Mordheim is a great start. Buying a game with a few dozen figures and trying out the table top skirmish rules that, if I liked it, could easily be expanded into WHFB just makes sense. Introducing a player to Warhammer Quest (or whatever "next generation" iteration it would have) using similar mechanics to WHFB but only needing a few models as a dungeon crawler just makes sense. Expansion packs could be built around single sprues of other monsters. A sprue of beastmen for a beastmen adventure/dungeon. A sprue of skeletons with maybe the plastic necromancer thrown in for an undead expansion.

All those opportunities seemed like easy money, just crazy to pass up!

It would be very interesting if the Sigmarines became more like Space Marines.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It would be very interesting if the Sigmarines became more like Space Marines.

I could see it happening, if they get some more ranged units with guns (hell even the bows, given how powerful the are) it'd be hard to not draw more comparisons. Or an initiate unit of some kind, fulfilling a role similar to scouts (not that you can't do that now allying in regular humans but you know what I mean)

 Knockagh wrote:
I agree absolutely 100%. The sigmarines are just awful. An apocalyptic world with pirate bands and gangs of empire loyalists scraping it out across deserted ruins would have been superb. The sigmarines just don't fit in anyway I can imagine. The whole realms and overly convoluted world they created is just too much.

They fit in perfectly with the fluff, which has been advancing since the game's release, through a series of novels and supplements. If you have no knowledge of them, then I'm sure warriors in full plate armor in a fantasy setting could be conceived as "awful", despite it being a relatively common trope.

I bought and read the first 3 novels and still couldn't warm to them in fact I disliked them more with each passing page! I'm far far from a GW hater I'm a pretty big fan of nearly everything they do, to a stupid extent at times. I just hate those boys in gold! Maybe I'm just to old at nearly 40 to be arsed with the whole new world thing, leave it to the young 'uns! It's just not what I want from a fantasy world too far away from Conan and Crom!

I quite like the image in my head of the Old World still existing, with the Chaos Wastes expanding (and maybe random incursions showing up in the middle of kingdoms) but with Stormcast units coming down like Asguardians to fight on the front lines. Maybe the Chaos forces find some way to "teleport" forces deep into kingdoms, so noone's quite sure where they will strike next (an alternative to having a war on all fronts without resorting to the Wastes taking over the whole world)

But the Stormcast are so heartless in their mission of the destruction of Chaos for Sigmar that even people of the Empire who are acting like fanatics to gain their attention have a bit of doubt that these giant armored beings see them as anything more than resources or objectives to be protected.

What would I have done differently?

1) Legacy War scrolls for all units and special characters from the last 30 years, even units where models are no longer being sold. Gotrek, etc. I'm perfectly ok with GW deciding not to make any more of a particular figure, but they shouldn't drop rules for a character or unit just because they don't want to sell it anymore.

2) More play testing/focus groups before releasing the updated rules. A little more clarity in the rules.

3) More spell casting and magic items, although this can be a future supplement.

auticus wrote:
Making AOS a side game would have been useless. People hate change as it is. Making AOS a side game would have resulted in it largely being ignored. .

The success of Necromunda, Mordheim, Epic and Blood Bowl when they were being actively supported suggests that this is not necessarily the case.


Using AoS as a separate, entry-level game would have helped to reduce the buy-in sticker shock for new gamers. Keeping the existing WHFB armies would have meant that people could buy small starter sets to get started with AoS, and then later expand their collection into an army scaled force for use in WHFB.



So for my money, I would have fixed WHFB and kept it, while launching AoS as an introductory game.

The AoS setting would have been immediately after the cataclysmic event that destroyed the Old World (or perhaps just part of it, to keep the two games' backgrounds running concurrently, so that existing armies would remain usable in both games.

I have no problem with the Sigmarites in the setting, and having them as some sort of newly arrived force in the Old World, with nobody being quite sure of their intentions or motivations would have fit right in, IMO.

Ruleswise, I would have kept the systems more similar, but simplified and streamlined for AoS.

 insaniak wrote:

So for my money, I would have fixed WHFB and kept it, while launching AoS as an introductory game.

If keeping WFB in any way was an option as far as GW were concerned, AoS would never have happened.
It's not just a radically different set of rules, it's a complete overhaul of how GW do business.
Keeping WFB in anything like a recognisable format would have rendered the back-of-house changes impossible or pointless.

Maybe it would have been better that way.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Maybe it would have been better that way.

Quite possibly. But people love to talk sales figures, and GW were the only ones in possession of the full facts in WFB's case.
I don't believe they took the decision to axe WFB lightly.

RoperPG wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

So for my money, I would have fixed WHFB and kept it, while launching AoS as an introductory game.

If keeping WFB in any way was an option as far as GW were concerned, AoS would never have happened.
It's not just a radically different set of rules, it's a complete overhaul of how GW do business.
Keeping WFB in anything like a recognisable format would have rendered the back-of-house changes impossible or pointless.

WFB should have been kept but the rules should have seen a considerable rehaul. The Rules, not the Setting. There were major changes that would have brought back players that had quit with 8th edition and they would only stand to gain and to expand, unlike the present situation in which AoS started from a negative number. But this argument has been done to death.

And it's not really a complete overhaul of how GW do business - it's actually the continuation of it. For the last decade GW has steadily sold less models for higher prices. AoS is just the next step down that road, where you dish out 60£ for three cavalry models and 100£ for Archaon.

Yes, but think about what AoS has done. Anybody can buy any box and it's a game ready unit that they can field with whatever they already have.
Without being tied to book-and-mini release schedule - as we've already seen so far - they can release whatever they want whenever they want.
I'd be extremely surprised if this option of ongoing smaller 'impulse' purchases rather than bigger purchases that peak around army releases wasn't a conscious decision on GW's part.

RoperPG wrote:
Yes, but think about what AoS has done. Anybody can buy any box and it's a game ready unit that they can field with whatever they already have.
Without being tied to book-and-mini release schedule - as we've already seen so far - they can release whatever they want whenever they want.
I'd be extremely surprised if this option of ongoing smaller 'impulse' purchases rather than bigger purchases that peak around army releases wasn't a conscious decision on GW's part.

I agree with what you're saying. I'm only pointing out that these implements are exactly the thing that will facilitate the sales ideology of "less/same amount of models for more dough", and that it really isn't a rehaul of how they do business - it's just a nice excuse to implement it further.
Because now a HE player won't have to bother with those pesky Spearmen or Archers (16 infantry models for 20£) and go directly for the yummy Phoenix Guard, Sisters of Avelorn (10 infantry models for 25/30£) or just go straight to the Phoenixes/Dragons (a single model 30£+) and bypass the whole silly infantry thing - because he can! And mind you, this is done without even touching the units released after AoS came out.

RoperPG wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Maybe it would have been better that way.

Quite possibly. But people love to talk sales figures, and GW were the only ones in possession of the full facts in WFB's case.
I don't believe they took the decision to axe WFB lightly.

Which still doesn't make the handling of AoS release any better. They surely got the limping sales part right, but the causes and very especially the fix was very wrong.

Just about every source of information seems to point at varying degrees of non-success.... which at least they are trying to revert now at least giving the impression of caring for rules and organised play support.

I do enjoy AoS, but I'm not defending GWs actions or saying it was the only option - but I can see the logic behind the decisions they have taken, if not the logic behind the ones they didn't. (9th Edition WFB proper, for example)

I think GW made a very logical accountancy based decision that if they could convert people from buying large armies of cheap figures to small armies of expensive figures, their profit margin per kit sold would increase. Fewer SKUs = lower production and inventory costs.

In support of this, I offer the fact that many of the Signmarine units are variations on the same basic model, with different weapons, different heads, and so on. The Fyre Slayers look to be the same concept. This reduces design and CADCAM costs. Also, it's clear that rank and file Sigmarines and Fyre Slayers are adventurously priced.