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 Crazyterran wrote:

AOS seems like a terrible tournament game, but an amazing narrative game, from everything I've seen and heard other people talk about.

How is AoS better for narrative play than WHFB was? What stopped all those narrative players from destroying the old world themselves in their own campaign? One could bring back Sigmar 11 times including one in 70s Chicago raising an army with golden afros to destroy chaos in the public transportation. If anything, AoS seems much worse than WHFB for narrative play because fluff for me is much more shallow and harder to relate to/ suspend disbelief at.

It's the same crowd that wants the 40k story to progress because "it's stagnant". Progress it yourself ffs, for all the creativity the narrative guys claim to posess, they seem to need GW stamp a lot.

My criticism of GW is well known on these boards, but from one perspective, I can say they'll never be able to reach the heights of the 1990s again, because

A) Technology and the world has moved on

B) There is a ton of competitors out there to keep them honest.

So, if you are a GW fan who likes their stuff, you have a lot of advantages in your favour, and the biggest one is being able to walk away and buy top quality stuff from a rival. Remind them of that at every opportunity and you'll see GW change for the better.

 Bottle wrote:
But it's not a radical modification to the game. SCGT is pretty much vanilla AoS (in terms of game mechanics) just with some limits on what gets deployed.

In fact the core rules state players can bring as many models as they want - and here both want to bring within the agreed limit defined by the SCGT point values.

Apart from the point values - the only other changes SCGT makes are some house rule additions like 'base-to-base' measuring and buffs of the same name not stacking.

As for events without points, Warhammer World is doing a very good job of that.

We'll just have to agree to disagree then, I guess. Personally I don't see how anyone could seriously argue that determining a points value for everything in the game, setting a points limit so people know when to stop putting models on the table, and coming up with other limits on what you get to deploy, isn't a radical change from how the game is intended to be played.

Setting a points value for everything is no small task, either. Unless you do it the GW way I guess and just pull numbers out of your ass, long forgetting what your formula was or if you even had one to begin with.

As for 40k not working "out of the box" either...well, no, obviously it doesn't. I stopped playing primarily because it's such a fething mess. I wasn't trying to argue that 40k was better, though.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
How is AoS better for narrative play than WHFB was?.

Because you can imagine ANYTHING now and have it fit into the world, no more having to work within the confines of any silly 'official fluff' like before. Don't ya know that the less established setting material there is the better for creating stories. That's why no one ever developed any settings and worlds to go along with D&D, right?

I'm going to make millions on my own IP called "Void".

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I'm going to make millions on my own IP called "Void".

It better not be a giant black empty space because I've been working on the exact same thing!

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
But it's not a radical modification to the game. SCGT is pretty much vanilla AoS (in terms of game mechanics) just with some limits on what gets deployed.

In fact the core rules state players can bring as many models as they want - and here both want to bring within the agreed limit defined by the SCGT point values.

Apart from the point values - the only other changes SCGT makes are some house rule additions like 'base-to-base' measuring and buffs of the same name not stacking.

As for events without points, Warhammer World is doing a very good job of that.

We'll just have to agree to disagree then, I guess. Personally I don't see how anyone could seriously argue that determining a points value for everything in the game, setting a points limit so people know when to stop putting models on the table, and coming up with other limits on what you get to deploy, isn't a radical change from how the game is intended to be played.

Setting a points value for everything is no small task, either. Unless you do it the GW way I guess and just pull numbers out of your ass, long forgetting what your formula was or if you even had one to begin with.

As for 40k not working "out of the box" either...well, no, obviously it doesn't. I stopped playing primarily because it's such a fething mess. I wasn't trying to argue that 40k was better, though.

Doing the bolded part for AoS actualy takes more work than writing its ruleset.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I'm going to make millions on my own IP called "Void".

It better not be a giant black empty space because I've been working on the exact same thing!

Cease and desist sent, even the taipans won't save your sorry ass now.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Doing the bolded part for AoS actualy takes more work than writing its ruleset.

Indeed, which is why I personally find it boggling that it's being presented as if it isn't a big deal or major change to the game. That's a pretty big job, and requires a lot of testing to get it right, too. Probably years of testing. You can't just assign a random number to everything with no thought or meaning behind it, say "Yeah, that feels right" and then call it balanced.

Age of sigmar sucks, fantasy was so much better. Excusing the fact no one played it. Where were all the fantasy fans when it was dying on its ass, no one buying, playing etc. You didn't care then but the minute it was replaced by the thankfully great AoS you lot were up whining til you were green. Fantasy is dead thank god.

Now lets hope 40k gets fixed next cos lord it needs a total redo

 Sidstyler wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Doing the bolded part for AoS actualy takes more work than writing its ruleset.

Indeed, which is why I personally find it boggling that it's being presented as if it isn't a big deal or major change to the game. That's a pretty big job, and requires a lot of testing to get it right, too. Probably years of testing. You can't just assign a random number to everything with no thought or meaning behind it, say "Yeah, that feels right" and then call it balanced.

You're missing the point. If you saw two games side by side, one where the forces had been chosen under SCGT and one of Vanillia AoS which just so happened to have the exact same forces - there would be hardly any differences to the two games. This is what I mean about it not being a major change to the game mechanics. Critics said that AoS lacked any tactical play - SCGT has shown it can be played very tactically and competitively.

And a balanced system needing years of play testing? Says who? AoS isn't even a year old and acclaimed comps have been made for it, multiple times in fact. It was no doubt a big task, but it has been shown that in the hands of the community it can be done quickly and effectively. I think the balancing being placed in the hands of the community is going to be very healthy for the game - especially now that GW is looking to actively support the community too.

 Motograter wrote:
Where were all the fantasy fans when it was dying on its ass, no one buying, playing etc.

Probably waiting for it to be fixed. Or waiting for releases like End Times which sold like crazy, unlike AoS crap.

I for example was playing and buying btw.

Fantasy is dead thank god.

That's a sentiment I always find interesting, why is it good, why do you care if you never liked it anyway. Why didn't you find yourself a simple skirmish high fantasy game and leave whfb to people who liked it. But no, you need GW to provide you a game you like and whfb dead for some reason.

I'll admit in concept I like AOS. I like the models (don't hate) and like how it's flexible enough to allow for coming up with your own stuff. That's a good thing. The problem is that's the ONLY thing you can do, which means to me GW dropped the ball again by refusing to acknowledge or design a balanced system that can do both casual/narrative and competitive games without one being "the" way and one being ignored except for third parties. They just don't get the idea that a balanced set of rules helps everybody.

 Bottle wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Doing the bolded part for AoS actualy takes more work than writing its ruleset.

Indeed, which is why I personally find it boggling that it's being presented as if it isn't a big deal or major change to the game. That's a pretty big job, and requires a lot of testing to get it right, too. Probably years of testing. You can't just assign a random number to everything with no thought or meaning behind it, say "Yeah, that feels right" and then call it balanced.

You're missing the point. If you saw two games side by side, one where the forces had been chosen under SCGT and one of Vanillia AoS which just so happened to have the exact same forces - there would be hardly any differences to the two games. This is what I mean about it not being a major change to the game mechanics. Critics said that AoS lacked any tactical play - SCGT has shown it can be played very tactically and competitively.

What tactics in particular were used?

 Sidstyler wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Doing the bolded part for AoS actualy takes more work than writing its ruleset.

Indeed, which is why I personally find it boggling that it's being presented as if it isn't a big deal or major change to the game. That's a pretty big job, and requires a lot of testing to get it right, too. Probably years of testing. You can't just assign a random number to everything with no thought or meaning behind it, say "Yeah, that feels right" and then call it balanced.

Points are not a change to the game, nor is any other mechanism by which you choose what army/model to play with. The game encourages you to get together and agree on what will make an interesting game. It is you who decides that, not the game. You can go by model limit, wound limit, home brew point system, retail value, place your entire collection or whatever. None of those are changing the game, they are all merely ways you might agree with someone what you will bring to the game. The game starts after that. As Bottle said once you are actually playing it makes no difference, the mechanics of the game itself are the same.

It may be that you want to see list building etc as some part of the game, which is fine, but it isn't the game itself. That is a meta game aspect for those that want to play like that. Even warhammer of old made it clear that you didn't have to use points, you could play with whatever you agreed to play with, or just whatever you had etc.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Doing the bolded part for AoS actualy takes more work than writing its ruleset.

Indeed, which is why I personally find it boggling that it's being presented as if it isn't a big deal or major change to the game. That's a pretty big job, and requires a lot of testing to get it right, too. Probably years of testing. You can't just assign a random number to everything with no thought or meaning behind it, say "Yeah, that feels right" and then call it balanced.

You're missing the point. If you saw two games side by side, one where the forces had been chosen under SCGT and one of Vanillia AoS which just so happened to have the exact same forces - there would be hardly any differences to the two games. This is what I mean about it not being a major change to the game mechanics. Critics said that AoS lacked any tactical play - SCGT has shown it can be played very tactically and competitively.

What tactics in particular were used?

I wasn't there - so I'm relaying the opinions of players who very much enjoyed the tactical challenges of the games at the event. From watching all the coverage and listening to various podcasts on the event, the tactics used were many you would see in another war game such as manoeuvring, flanking, staggering attacks and creating zones of control - AoS also allows strategies based on synergies of keywords and AoE buffs, and employing those strategies and countering the enemy's brings in another set of tactics to play.

 Crazyterran wrote:


I think the simpler/cheaper/lower model count nature of AOS appeals to people over painting hundreds of models just to have a reasonably sized fantasy army.

Except GW brought this onto themselves. In its glorious years, many of the WFB units were 5/10/16/20 models in size only.

Had GW not gone down the horde route of having loads of units of 40+, this model count would be no different. Greed however meant they forced WFB players into increasing unit size massively. Short term profit maybe, but now they had to cease sales of the game because of the long term effect it had.

 Crazyterran wrote:
AOS seems like a terrible tournament game, but an amazing narrative game, from everything I've seen and heard other people talk about.

Any game is an amazing narrative game if you are with the right people. The rules are irrelevant to how narrative it is. People quoting that AoS is amazingly narrative just comes across as there's no other redeeming features to brag about.

 Crazyterran wrote:

Besides, I don't think GW really cares if you use their models for KOW or AOS, since they are still selling you their models, or, for the salty veterans who were not going to buy anything anyways... So what if they play KOW? Not going to effect GW, since they were not going to buy models anyways.

You would think GW would like the extra sales this could bring in. Yet they put so much iconography, runes and skulls onto their models to force them out of a use in other games.
It's their loss of extra sales.

 Bottle wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Doing the bolded part for AoS actualy takes more work than writing its ruleset.

Indeed, which is why I personally find it boggling that it's being presented as if it isn't a big deal or major change to the game. That's a pretty big job, and requires a lot of testing to get it right, too. Probably years of testing. You can't just assign a random number to everything with no thought or meaning behind it, say "Yeah, that feels right" and then call it balanced.

You're missing the point. If you saw two games side by side, one where the forces had been chosen under SCGT and one of Vanillia AoS which just so happened to have the exact same forces - there would be hardly any differences to the two games. This is what I mean about it not being a major change to the game mechanics. Critics said that AoS lacked any tactical play - SCGT has shown it can be played very tactically and competitively.

What tactics in particular were used?

I wasn't there - so I'm relaying the opinions of players who very much enjoyed the tactical challenges of the games at the event. From watching all the coverage and listening to various podcasts on the event, the tactics used were many you would see in another war game such as manoeuvring, flanking, staggering attacks and creating zones of control - AoS also allows strategies based on synergies of keywords and AoE buffs, and employing those strategies and countering the enemy's brings in another set of tactics to play.

Well without manouvering there is no wargame at all I guess. Flanking maybe happened but very situational, seldom makes sense to use it and plan for it. Rest is basic, it's not that AoS lacks any tactical play, hardly possible when you have tactics for a 100m run. It's just that it's least tactical of all major games and minor as well probably heh.

Obviously the amount of units and unit types warrants strategies and execution takes some skill, the skill ceiling is not really high though and it will become evident for the tournament crowd as well sooner or later.

What was so tactical about WFB? I can't think of anything that made it a deep tactical game, it was about as shallow/deep tactically as AOS.

puree wrote:
What was so tactical about WFB? I can't think of anything that made it a deep tactical game, it was about as shallow/deep tactically as AOS.

8th ed was pretty shallow, but earlier editions had more of an emphasis on maneuvering and flanking.
Instead of throwing an AoE spell of death or crushing the enemy with a hoard.

puree wrote:
What was so tactical about WFB? I can't think of anything that made it a deep tactical game, it was about as shallow/deep tactically as AOS.

Maneuvering a unit into hitting your enemy in the flank required skill and provided significant reward.

In WHFB you could tie ranged units up with cheap fast melee unit.

In WHFB one of my favourite tactics was using chaff to tie up my enemies best units and control who would fight and where, if I played it right two units of 5 wolves could take a unit of 40 chaos warriors out of the game.

I could modify the equipment and powers on my vampire lord to suit different roles instead of having a totally generic profile with the option for a horse.

Yes and it gets kinda hard to flank units in AoS when units have no front, sides, or rear. There is hunting for a short edge but that will change on turn to turn basis so no point as well. You could ofc flank battle lines but that's just wasting time because you want to be in a fight asap. Etc.

Yeah, using fast cav to occupy ranged units and chaff to redirect charges or block enemy movement were a thing as well.
You could use those tactics in 8th.

Flanking wasn't that effective in 8 though, due to the steadfast rule that strongly benefited hoards. I'm pretty sure flanking doesn't remove steadfast anyway.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, using fast cav to occupy ranged units and chaff to redirect charges where a thing as well.
You could use those tactics in 8th as well.

Flanking wasn't that effective in 8 though, due to the steadfast rule that strongly benefited hoards. I'm pretty sure flanking doesn't remove steadfast anyway.

IIRC you needed more ranks than them, which was kinda rare. If nothing else flanking meant you got full attacks on your opponent, who got minimal attacks back at you. It provided *A* bonus, as it should given the style of warfare. AoS doesn't even have unit facings so you can't stab someone in the back.

I played earlier editions rather than 8th. There was nothing about it that made it some deep tactical wargame. Maneuver is pretty much mandatory in any wargame as noted above, and flanking is not the epitome of deep tactics, especially in WFB. It was the most shallow tactic in many ways, the rules pretty much highlighted in big neon signs why you should flank making it pretty much the definition of shallowness.

Maybe a matter of perspective and definitions - but IMHO deep tactical games are the ones where non obvious play that you have to think about trumps some combat resolution bonus. Such tactics are different in every situation and with affects that may not even be clear cut and need explaining the other guy afterwards why you did what you did and why you think it worked.

[edit]crikey ninjad half a dozen times whilst typing:

Maneuvering a unit into hitting your enemy in the flank required skill and provided significant reward.

Sure, the act of maneuvering to achieve some bonus is tactics. But that is a generic statement and applies to any wargame. When I talk about flanking above I don't see the act of flanking making the game deep. The fact that it is blindingly obvious that you want to flank due to the massive bonuses makes the act of flanking shallower tactically IMO. Now if you were maneuvering deceptively to look as though you were flanking but had no intention of doing so that would be much more interesting.

Nuwisha wrote:
How has it been shown that it holds up at a competitive level? Sure, if you add points... but the game itself has removed points. That sounds like it holds up at a competitive level if it is not AoS.

Using that same logic, 40K doesn't hold up at a competitive level either because of the FAQs and flat out rules changes tournaments make to the game.

puree wrote:
I played earlier editions rather than 8th. There was nothing about it that made it some deep tactical wargame. Maneuver is pretty much mandatory in any wargame as noted above, and flanking is not the epitome of deep tactics, especially in WFB. It was the most shallow tactic in many ways, the rules pretty much highlighted in big neon signs why you should flank making it pretty much the definition of shallowness.

I... what?
If flanking is considered 'shallow' then without it isn't AoS essentially an empty pool tactically?

And why the hell is seeing that something is obviously a good tactical move a bad thing? Yes, it is obvious that flanking is good, the point is you have to pull it off.

 Ghaz wrote:

Nuwisha wrote:
How has it been shown that it holds up at a competitive level? Sure, if you add points... but the game itself has removed points. That sounds like it holds up at a competitive level if it is not AoS.

Using that same logic, 40K doesn't hold up at a competitive level either because of the FAQs and flat out rules changes tournaments make to the game.

I think a great many people would agree with that. :-p

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

Nuwisha wrote:
How has it been shown that it holds up at a competitive level? Sure, if you add points... but the game itself has removed points. That sounds like it holds up at a competitive level if it is not AoS.

Using that same logic, 40K doesn't hold up at a competitive level either because of the FAQs and flat out rules changes tournaments make to the game.

I think a great many people would agree with that. :-p

Aye

 Ghaz wrote:

Nuwisha wrote:
How has it been shown that it holds up at a competitive level? Sure, if you add points... but the game itself has removed points. That sounds like it holds up at a competitive level if it is not AoS.

Using that same logic, 40K doesn't hold up at a competitive level either because of the FAQs and flat out rules changes tournaments make to the game.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

 jonolikespie wrote:

puree wrote:
I played earlier editions rather than 8th. There was nothing about it that made it some deep tactical wargame. Maneuver is pretty much mandatory in any wargame as noted above, and flanking is not the epitome of deep tactics, especially in WFB. It was the most shallow tactic in many ways, the rules pretty much highlighted in big neon signs why you should flank making it pretty much the definition of shallowness.

I... what?
If flanking is considered 'shallow' then without it isn't AoS essentially an empty pool tactically?

And why the hell is seeing that something is obviously a good tactical move a bad thing? Yes, it is obvious that flanking is good, the point is you have to pull it off.

I never said it was a bad thing.

Your statement comes down to maneuver to achieve something. That is the relevant fact. That the 'something' is flanking is irrelevant, and due to the obvious nature highlighted by the game 'shallow'.

The more a game revolves around a couple of clear cut things like flanking IMO makes a game shallower tactically. That is not to say the game is bad or whatever. But I fail to see how WFB is made out to be somehow better tactically than AoS due to the presence of such clear and obvious huge bonuses to combat resolution.