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Auticus, do you play AoS? Genuinely curious.

Regularly.

 auticus wrote:
Regularly.

Why? Seems like you have a lot of fault with the rules. This isn't meant as a jab, I used to ask some of the 40k players the same thing

Because I have roughly $15,000 invested in gw's fantasy universe, not counting twenty years of painting and hobbying sitting in my hobby room.

Coupled with there is no fantasy game on the market today that I'd just start over with and equally no game on the market that has any players to play with other than Kings of War, which all of my area players that play that are pretty much all solid tourney-only players and I don't enjoy that playstyle anymore.

As such, I adapt the rules that I hate into rules that don't bother me as much and there are enough people in my area that also either won't play AOS raw or like my changes enough to play narratively that I can go that route and enjoy my investment.

A list capable of dealing 45 mortal wounds a turn will annihilate me.

I haven't fully built up 2000 points yet, but I can tell you right now, I won't be able to overcome that. If I get double-turned by someone dealing even 30 mortal wounds a turn, I'm toast. I didn't even know it was possible to get that many. I'm looking at my list and i can reliably deal like 10-15 mortal wounds a turn assuming full strength, and it's primarily tied to magic.

 Marmatag wrote:
A list capable of dealing 45 mortal wounds a turn will annihilate me.

I haven't fully built up 2000 points yet, but I can tell you right now, I won't be able to overcome that. If I get double-turned by someone dealing even 30 mortal wounds a turn, I'm toast. I didn't even know it was possible to get that many. I'm looking at my list and i can reliably deal like 10-15 mortal wounds a turn assuming full strength, and it's primarily tied to magic.

Is this actually possible and realistically how many lists would you see like this? This just seems like 40k's typical problems to me: overcompetitive players with netlists. My solution was always not to play them and just play with like minded people: strong lists but playing for fun.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
A list capable of dealing 45 mortal wounds a turn will annihilate me.

I haven't fully built up 2000 points yet, but I can tell you right now, I won't be able to overcome that. If I get double-turned by someone dealing even 30 mortal wounds a turn, I'm toast. I didn't even know it was possible to get that many. I'm looking at my list and i can reliably deal like 10-15 mortal wounds a turn assuming full strength, and it's primarily tied to magic.

Is this actually possible and realistically how many lists would you see like this? This just seems like 40k's typical problems to me: overcompetitive players with netlists. My solution was always not to play them and just play with like minded people: strong lists but playing for fun.

Honestly i'm making a point of not really looking for cheese with AoS. It feels like a game that would be super easy to break if you put in a little thought and did some research. This is a new approach for me. I picked the models i like, and built an army from there. I did ask for feedback and some guidance, but made it clear that i'm not seeking competitive play.

If that means i get squashed by a list that double turns me for 90 mortal wounds, so be it. With nothing riding on the outcome, hopefully people will realize it's not fun to curb stomp meh dudes

It was actually possible because the dude that showed up to my event at the GW store showed me his list and showed that it could actually get upwards of 54 mortal wounds if he rolled everything perfect.

He was quite annoyed when I told him to make a new list because that was his tournament list and he didn't like events that changed the rules since that was the list he played all the time.

A list of 45 mortal wounds, 30 mortal wounds, hell 20 mortal wounds a turn against a casual list will nearly always win barring absurd luck.

One reason why people like double turn so much is that in theory a casual list thatt gets double turn against a powerlist will at least feel like they are in the game. Ironically if they get double turned by that they are erased, but they feel they are erased anyway so this gives them a shot to at least stay in the game, so they like it.

Mind you I've been publicly shredded for simply running either forgeworld scenarios (40k I ran all of the FW campaigns and we did Tamurkhan for fantasy) or for running a warhammer world scenario verbatim, because they are not fair and screwed someone over.

So its not just houserules that get you shredded, its running anything that deviates from the core tournament scenarios.

When I run a casual campaign now I have been using my version of command points which give you bonuses and let you summon, etc. You get those for running battleline units, keeping your ranged attacks below a threshold, keeping your mortal wound output below a certain threshold, and not having 2+ rerollable saves.

The end result has, for years, been mostly a good time for casual lists - which is my goal (I leave tournament events for the people that love tournaments). I do my best to minimize house rules these days.

But I do not enjoy playing the same tourney scenarios over and over so will freely use other scenarios or come up with my own that are designed for a more balanced approach to do well, and armies built on extremes do not do well (which incites a lot of the very powerful negative responses, because people buy their armies solely to win events and extreme builds are common knowledge what you should build)

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
A list capable of dealing 45 mortal wounds a turn will annihilate me.

I haven't fully built up 2000 points yet, but I can tell you right now, I won't be able to overcome that. If I get double-turned by someone dealing even 30 mortal wounds a turn, I'm toast. I didn't even know it was possible to get that many. I'm looking at my list and i can reliably deal like 10-15 mortal wounds a turn assuming full strength, and it's primarily tied to magic.

Is this actually possible and realistically how many lists would you see like this? This just seems like 40k's typical problems to me: overcompetitive players with netlists. My solution was always not to play them and just play with like minded people: strong lists but playing for fun.

Not many lists will do quite that many, but 25+ in a turn is plenty devestating and that's far more common. Any tournament Tzeentch list is going to throw out at least that much. But it is totally possible for an army to throw out 45 mortals at turn, my tournament list has an averate output of 30 in just the shooting phase.

 Kanluwen wrote:

This was in the Ironjawz Faction Focus today, and it goes with this:

They're called "Endless Spells" and they said we'll see more "soon..."

For the Orks... why isn't this a giant green foot? I mean, seriously. My Ironjawz Shaman is like the worst in the game, but every once in a while, I make that sweet, sweet cast of 10 and the Foot of Gork comes out to stomp my enemies. About 90% of the time though, my Shaman does nothing but mortal wounds to my own 'Boyz before getting sniped by random enemy model with a shooting attack. The Ironjawz Shaman really is bad.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to AOS 2.0, but I'm not really sure what was so broken about AOS that they needed a new version. Yeah, there are some gross armies out there (50+ mortal wounds? Really? Why?). But all in all, I've found it to be pretty fun. Maybe I'm doing it wrong I guess?

I don't think it's meant to be an "Ork specific spell", to be honest. A lot of the various spells seem like they might be set up to be Realm related.


Giant jaws for the Realm of Beasts, Purple Sun of Xereus for Realm of Death, the weird crushy sphere thing for Realm of Life, etc.

Nah, you’re not doing it wrong. It seems like it’s more a version 1.1 really. Frankly it seems like they could re write the free online rules and introduce it all in the next GHB. It sounds more like the transition from WFB or 40k 6h to 7th editions than any kind of serious changes at the ground level.

still hate mortal wounds!

As a non-AoS player that frequents this forum, I am becoming more and more interested in jumping into this game. However, all this negativity has me turned off, and since I have like 4 friends that are going to jump in if we all do, I feel like I have a lot of pressure to ensure I get this decision right lol

Is it really as hopeless and endlessly miserable as everyone is making it out, or am I only seeing one side here? AoS 2.0 is the best time for us to jump in I feel, and what I've seen looks amazing. The roaming spells sounds wonderfully brilliant, the models are by far the best of GW in any of their games, and the world seems rich with story. There must really, really be a major issue with the rules if you guys don't enjoy this at all...

You're basically just seeing the whining about Double Turns if I'm going to be honest.

When someone builds their list to be super optimized netlisting garbage and they consistently get double turns? It's super frustrating to play against. Luckily, you can counter this by not just playing Matched Play and using the various book missions(army books actually include several missions, themed around the army itself) to really shake things up.

The two big problems that annoy me about AOS:

1) when I'm trying to play casual campaigns and my opponent wants to run tournament level and

2) the non immersive non intuitiveness of some of the rules (primarily the ability to shoot into combats and not ever hurt my own side plus the ability for all ranged weapons to be wielded by legolas and the ability to snipe whatever I want so long as I can see part of the horn on his helmet from 300 feet out)

Issue 1 I deal with by being strict on who I play with because if we aren't the same mindset we aren't going to have fun and Issue 2 I deal with with a couple houserules.

AoS is a fine and fun game, better than 8th 40k IMO just because of how bland the latter has gotten. Almost all of the whining here stems from the cancerous growth that is top level tournament/WAAC play that exists on exploiting and breaking the mechanics of the game (which, unlike what this thread may have you believe, is more the exception than the rule) so as long as you actively avoid that, you'll be fine.

Is AoS THE fantasy wargame? No. Will it ever be (and is it really what the devs intended, or was it just community team dribble)? Most likely not. Is it a needlessly miserable experience that you should avoid at all costs, like this thread is making it out to be? Definitely not.

I think I’ve been too negative, and if that is putting off prospective players from taking up the game then I apologise. Please don’t be put off by that. AoS really is, in my opinion, the best of the two big systems Gw do. It really is. Nice simple rules, a new and growing setting and the sweetest models GW do.

Also, absolutely nothing wrong with Mortal Wounds. They’re a decent mechanic. I think they just went slightly overboard with how many are dished out. Slightly.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I think I’ve been too negative, and if that is putting off prospective players from taking up the game then I apologise. Please don’t be put off by that. AoS really is, in my opinion, the best of the two big systems Gw do. It really is. Nice simple rules, a new and growing setting and the sweetest models GW do.

Unfortunately for some of us looking at getting in with the new edition but who don't already play 40k, that's not really saying much

Lemondish wrote:
As a non-AoS player that frequents this forum, I am becoming more and more interested in jumping into this game. However, all this negativity has me turned off, and since I have like 4 friends that are going to jump in if we all do, I feel like I have a lot of pressure to ensure I get this decision right lol

Is it really as hopeless and endlessly miserable as everyone is making it out, or am I only seeing one side here? AoS 2.0 is the best time for us to jump in I feel, and what I've seen looks amazing. The roaming spells sounds wonderfully brilliant, the models are by far the best of GW in any of their games, and the world seems rich with story. There must really, really be a major issue with the rules if you guys don't enjoy this at all...

Honestly, if it's mainly going to be you and your buddies, then it's a fantastic game to jump into and enjoy. Like others have said, it isn't without its issues (no game is), and the majority of those issues are really exacerbated by WAAC tournament players who, by their very nature, tend to find loopholes and exploit the holy hell out of them. I dumped GW games back at 40k 3rd edition and even though kinda watching a little since then, didn't even want to try AOS when it first dropped either. The release of the Generals Handbook in response to a lot of the community made me give it a go, and honestly it's been some of the more fun gaming I've done in a while. If you're not stuck in with uber competitive tourney players, it is a fun game. But then, I think any game can be made unfun with the addition of a WAACer. More than anything, I think a few of us here complain about the limited scope of some of these fixes and the issues because we like the core of the game, and see how it could be a LOT better with just a few tweaks.

 Tamwulf wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

This was in the Ironjawz Faction Focus today, and it goes with this:

They're called "Endless Spells" and they said we'll see more "soon..."

For the Orks... why isn't this a giant green foot? I mean, seriously. My Ironjawz Shaman is like the worst in the game, but every once in a while, I make that sweet, sweet cast of 10 and the Foot of Gork comes out to stomp my enemies. About 90% of the time though, my Shaman does nothing but mortal wounds to my own 'Boyz before getting sniped by random enemy model with a shooting attack. The Ironjawz Shaman really is bad.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to AOS 2.0, but I'm not really sure what was so broken about AOS that they needed a new version. Yeah, there are some gross armies out there (50+ mortal wounds? Really? Why?). But all in all, I've found it to be pretty fun. Maybe I'm doing it wrong I guess?

Like Kan mentioned I think it's supposed to be realm of beasts based rather than ork based. At any rate, the Ironjawz shaman is more or less fine, it's just that he is often played poorly (trying to foot of gork is literally the worst way to use him). BTW unless there was an FAQ somewhere he deals the mortal wounds to the closest Ork unit, which will always be himself.

Lemondish wrote:As a non-AoS player that frequents this forum, I am becoming more and more interested in jumping into this game. However, all this negativity has me turned off, and since I have like 4 friends that are going to jump in if we all do, I feel like I have a lot of pressure to ensure I get this decision right lol

Is it really as hopeless and endlessly miserable as everyone is making it out, or am I only seeing one side here? AoS 2.0 is the best time for us to jump in I feel, and what I've seen looks amazing. The roaming spells sounds wonderfully brilliant, the models are by far the best of GW in any of their games, and the world seems rich with story. There must really, really be a major issue with the rules if you guys don't enjoy this at all...

How are you and your friends with house rules? What doesn't work, house rule. What you think is fun, add it in. AoS can be an awesome game when you put in house rules. Thing is, trtying to find like minded people to play with. If you guys can't agree then I say either don't start, or start small with the free rules. Then go on from their.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/05/18/18th-may-rules-preview-command-abilities-and-command-pointsgw-homepage-post-2/

Looks like command points are just like in 40k. Tied to batallion spamming.

Definitely not a fan of the gw devs pushing even more into the listbuilding min/max realm. For baby sigmar's sake, there are a lot of tactical ways to give command points such as introducing a mechanism that rewards you for accomplishing objectives and rewards more battleline heavy armies over their min/max counterparts than just saying "ok if you want to max the command points, please min/max your batallions even more like we do in 40k!"

 auticus wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/05/18/18th-may-rules-preview-command-abilities-and-command-pointsgw-homepage-post-2/

Looks like command points are just like in 40k. Tied to batallion spamming.

Definitely not a fan of the gw devs pushing even more into the listbuilding min/max realm. For baby sigmar's sake, there are a lot of tactical ways to give command points such as introducing a mechanism that rewards you for accomplishing objectives and rewards more battleline heavy armies over their min/max counterparts than just saying "ok if you want to max the command points, please min/max your batallions even more like we do in 40k!"

I'm not yet into AoS, but I'm hugely into 40k and that is not at all what I got out of that. Looks more like 7th edition 40k formations instead of the freeform 8th edition detachments. What am I missing here?

I think Battalion spamming isn't as big a problem as goofy detachment wrangling is n 40k (though not real sure, I don't play much 40k), and seems a lot easier to get a lot more CP by doing broken list building in 40k than this feels at first glance. I mean, what's the max battalions you can really get at the usual 2000 points? The main difference seems to be that 40k it's a set pool at start and doesn't refresh, whereas AOS seems to be a refresh every turn and with carry-over. I do like the use of auto-max for runs or charges, though, that certainly feels like a valid reason to hold back a CP or two just in case, and would cut down the "DAMMIT SNAKE EYES" feelings.

You get command points for your batallions, same as in 40k where you get command pointts for farming detachments.

Command Points are spent on powerful in game abilities so you want as many as you can get, thus encouraging farming batallions.

Batallions already give you a bunch of benefits. Now they will give you powerful command point benefits.

Additionally, armies that have access to shed loads of batallions (stormcast) are spoiled for choice.

Armies that don'tt have a lot of batallions, or crappy batallions, are going to be left out to dry.

Armies that have access to CHEAP batallions are going to get to farm all the live long day. Like IG do now in 40k.

This all puts even more weight on the list building phase of the game, making it even more important.

Hm. It may be that you won't get the refresh every turn, looking at the wording they've previewed more closely:

Command points represent the tactical cohesion of your forces – you’ll receive one to add to your pool every turn, and you’ll get an additional point at the beginning of the game per warscroll battalion you’ve used.

So you might only get the battalion bonus once at the start of the game. I really hope that's the case, because yeah, I can see how battalion spam by the WAACers could get really annoying if they'd refresh their command points by 3+ every turn.

My own personal speculation based on 40k and past GW dev design decisions is that this is a farmable asset that stacks from turn to turn. And you will be foolish to not be farming it yourself unless you like one-sided games.

 auticus wrote:
You get command points for your batallions, same as in 40k where you get command pointts for farming detachments.

Command Points are spent on powerful in game abilities so you want as many as you can get, thus encouraging farming batallions.

Batallions already give you a bunch of benefits. Now they will give you powerful command point benefits.

Additionally, armies that have access to shed loads of batallions (stormcast) are spoiled for choice.

Armies that don'tt have a lot of batallions, or crappy batallions, are going to be left out to dry.

Armies that have access to CHEAP batallions are going to get to farm all the live long day. Like IG do now in 40k.

This all puts even more weight on the list building phase of the game, making it even more important.

All valid points, but again my wonder comes down to "what actually happens in practice?" Theory is one thing (cheap battalion spam for lots of CPs), but the theoretical and practical max are different things. I do not disagree in any way, though, that factions with cheap and useful battalions are definitely going to have no reason not to take them, whereas factions with expensive and lackluster battalions will be left out a little. I don't have the wider knowledge of every factions' point costs and battalions, so I don't know what the practical numbers are.

It is a GWism though to have a high emphasis on list building and always has been. Many of us don't like that but there are plenty of folks who do, and that's (unfortunately) the way GW (and, honestly, a lot of other games) are headed.

I learned a few years ago when I did Azyr Comp that the vast majority of people LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE their list building and having it win tthe game before the game starts, so yes I agree.

This is another one of those things that I'll never see eye-to-eye with the majority of players.

There is a reason why I don't like or play warmachine, and it really sticks in my craw that AOS is now what I'd consider a warmachine-lite with a lot of its mechanics and setups.

The what happens in practice is fair enough - but we see it happening right now in 40k for me to draw the conclusion that AOS players will try to emulate that same behavior.