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auticus wrote:
I'm moving away from the houseruling route, simply because I take 1000 kinds of hell in my community for using them. I'm now at the point where.. if I have to houserule something out, I'm better off playing a different game. What triggered me this last time was pushing out the campaign document and an undead player saying "yeah but GW said they designed the game for spam summoning and you're saying I can't now or my opponent gets a sudden death card, so you're suddenly invalidating my army".

Good point, I forgot that your local community is... Kinda toxic in that area.

I don't see why people are panicking so much about LoN summoning. Sure, returning a block of 30 Graveguard seems scary, but so does a single unit of Skeletons deleting Archaon in 1 Turn. When you actually consider all the set-up needed for it it begins to look a lot less scary.

Out of all the summoning mechanics revealed so far I'd say Flesh-Eaters seem the strongest, but they're pretty low on the totem-poll so I'm not that worried.

MalfunctBot wrote:
I don't see why people are panicking so much about LoN summoning. Sure, returning a block of 30 Graveguard seems scary, but so does a single unit of Skeletons deleting Archaon in 1 Turn. When you actually consider all the set-up needed for it it begins to look a lot less scary.

Out of all the summoning mechanics revealed so far I'd say Flesh-Eaters seem the strongest, but they're pretty low on the totem-poll so I'm not that worried.

The single unit of skeletons deleting Archaon takes MASSIVELY more setup than summoning back 1 unit of Graveguard. It's basically the difference between making homemade Timpano and boiling hotdogs.

The problem with summoning isn't so much that summoning itself is going to get out of control(although it can) but that the armies that were already crazy powerful like Tzeentch and Maggotkin are getting free units on top of their already great armies.

People have also talked about being able to 'counter' their opponents summoning like that helps THEM, which is wrong. 'Countering' your opponents summoning is still a net benefit for your opponent, it's just a smaller benefit than they would have gotten otherwise. "Oh, instead of getting an extra 200pt unit I forced a decent chunk of your army out into the middle of nowhere? OH DARN! How will I ever come back from this slightly smaller advantage?"

All said and done though, summoning is going to push good armies up and mediocre armies down and that's about it. It's actually the 'realm rules' that I'm more afraid of.

ERJAK wrote:

MalfunctBot wrote:
I don't see why people are panicking so much about LoN summoning. Sure, returning a block of 30 Graveguard seems scary, but so does a single unit of Skeletons deleting Archaon in 1 Turn. When you actually consider all the set-up needed for it it begins to look a lot less scary.

Out of all the summoning mechanics revealed so far I'd say Flesh-Eaters seem the strongest, but they're pretty low on the totem-poll so I'm not that worried.

The single unit of skeletons deleting Archaon takes MASSIVELY more setup than summoning back 1 unit of Graveguard. It's basically the difference between making homemade Timpano and boiling hotdogs.

The problem with summoning isn't so much that summoning itself is going to get out of control(although it can) but that the armies that were already crazy powerful like Tzeentch and Maggotkin are getting free units on top of their already great armies.

People have also talked about being able to 'counter' their opponents summoning like that helps THEM, which is wrong. 'Countering' your opponents summoning is still a net benefit for your opponent, it's just a smaller benefit than they would have gotten otherwise. "Oh, instead of getting an extra 200pt unit I forced a decent chunk of your army out into the middle of nowhere? OH DARN! How will I ever come back from this slightly smaller advantage?"

All said and done though, summoning is going to push good armies up and mediocre armies down and that's about it. It's actually the 'realm rules' that I'm more afraid of.

You can just agree not to use the Realm rules.
I doubt anyone is okay with "No summoning" rules, though. So how do you replace it if GW can't balance it?

That's why summoning is much more troubling.

I think summoning needs to have the right balance of risk reward;

There are already inherent risks in summoning; either you can't get the summoning spell off or the summoner gets killed meaning part of your army never turns up.

There are also inherant advantages in the reinforcment point system; you don't have to decide summoned units beforehand so can summon the exact unit you need and they don't have to slog up the board.

Making summoned units cost no points removes the risk from the equation, so I'm hoping these command points are valuable enough that summoning isn't a no brainer.

auticus wrote:
I'm moving away from the houseruling route, simply because I take 1000 kinds of hell in my community for using them. I'm now at the point where.. if I have to houserule something out, I'm better off playing a different game. What triggered me this last time was pushing out the campaign document and an undead player saying "yeah but GW said they designed the game for spam summoning and you're saying I can't now or my opponent gets a sudden death card, so you're suddenly invalidating my army".

I'm going to have to side with your player on this one, auticus. You're nerfing his army before seeing the big picture or even trying the rules. I can't shake the feeling that the panic over the new summoning mechanics is going to end up being like the people screaming that 40k 8th Edition would be so MSU-heavy that hordes would be useless.

I never heard that about 40k 8th. When 8th dropped we all said massed quantities of shooting was going to be the place to go, and for a while that certainly was true with conscript spam.

I'm stepping down from the campaign it and watching how it plays out. If in a year it turned out to be no big deal then great. I'll be invested in Conquest until then and if AOS is in a better place then I can just resume then.

The campaign that runs at the shop this year will have no houserules so will be a tournament list wonderland so will be a great test-bed for seeing just how bad the players here can bust it (or not bust it).

The same was said in AOS 1.0 when I started limiting summoning in Azyr Comp... that GW obviously designed the game for spam summoning and it was completely fine and I was over reacting. The same was said in 40k 6th and 7th in my campaigns when we capped summoning. That it was over reacting and the game was designed for it. The same was said in 7th ed whfb, though I was saying that because I was the power gamer back then breaking the game with it.

Now, Warhammer Community wrote me today in response to what I wrote them (same thing I've been saying here) and said that it is a valid concern and that a lot of people have sent them messages saying the same thing and that they'd pass it along to their rules developers.

I saw the MSU argument in multiple threads leading up to 8th. You may or may not be right about the strength of the new summoning mechanics. All I'm saying is you should look at the full ruleset before starting to make houserules. From what I've seen from you, you are usually right about what the rules issues will be, but you really overestimate the impact of those issues. I've still yet to see Maggotkin dominating the tournament scene. It would be nice to see you voice your concerns without immediately jumping to "this one potential issue is going to make this edition unplayable." If you feel the need to play another game, I hope you enjoy it. I'm going to at least play a few games of AoS 2.0 with the full GW rules before I decide what needs to be adjusted.

Preview for shooting and combat is out. Looks like it'll be a minor improvement, but I still expect shooting to be hugely dominant, since shooting into combat will still be done without any penalty.

 Fafnir wrote:
Preview for shooting and combat is out. Looks like it'll be a minor improvement, but I still expect shooting to be hugely dominant, since shooting into combat will still be done without any penalty.

Yeah, I really wish they had put in some kind of penalty for shooting into combat, either some negative or possibility of hitting your own dudes. I am glad they put something in, though, as I never did like the "I have a bunch of guys right in my face but I'm gonna just shoot that one dude on the other side of the board" thing.

 EnTyme wrote:
I saw the MSU argument in multiple threads leading up to 8th. You may or may not be right about the strength of the new summoning mechanics. All I'm saying is you should look at the full ruleset before starting to make houserules. From what I've seen from you, you are usually right about what the rules issues will be, but you really overestimate the impact of those issues. I've still yet to see Maggotkin dominating the tournament scene. It would be nice to see you voice your concerns without immediately jumping to "this one potential issue is going to make this edition unplayable." If you feel the need to play another game, I hope you enjoy it. I'm going to at least play a few games of AoS 2.0 with the full GW rules before I decide what needs to be adjusted.

...but I never said the maggotkin would be dominating the tournament scene. I play them. They are a mid tier army with flashes of OPness if the dice are being kind but nothing I'd ever expect see win a tournament in a power gaming context.

Spamming summoning didn't make the game unplayable in the previous incarnations. A lot of people have giant boners for it. It makes it unplayable "for me" because for me if I'm not having close games or in the game, I feel like I've wasted an afternoon (that goes both ways, if I win by a lot or lose by a lot) and for me if I'm not playing an army that also spams summons then I'm going to be at a huge disadvantage and likely have a very not fun afternoon.

The last few days a good number of people in my community made it known that there will be no houserules. So its either play it RAW or don't play it at all. If I was a betting man I'd bet the house that this is not going to end well RAW.

auticus wrote:

The last few days a good number of people in my community made it known that there will be no houserules. So its either play it RAW or don't play it at all. If I was a betting man I'd bet the house that this is not going to end well RAW.

If I was in your community, I would be saying the same thing. There's no point in making house rules before you even know what the full ruleset looks like. I also think you are over-estimating the number of units you can expect to be able to summon in a typical game. They all have limiting factors that you seem to be disregarding. You're also forgetting that GW is taking an active role in game balance, and we no longer have to wait for a new game edition or even a new GHB for balance changes to occur. In summation, your concerns are valid. Please continue to voice them and send suggestions to the GW community team, but remember that you don't have all the data yet. As someone who is so focused on statistics, I would expect you to understand that you can't hope to balance a ruleset with incomplete information.

FYI, Auticus is told with every update that his concerns are invalid only for them to have turned out entirely valid every time. This could be the time it's different, but...

I was admonished and ive stepped out of the public group and any public events. The no house rules ever extends to even if stuff is broken. They want a solid tournament community not a narrative event community and definitely not restricting min max play.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
FYI, Auticus is told with every update that his concerns are invalid only for them to have turned out entirely valid every time. This could be the time it's different, but...

He's usually right on the subject of the imbalance, but he usually overstates the impact of that imbalance. Also, auticus, if your entire group has decided they don't want you use your house rules, maybe the issue isn't your group.

 EnTyme wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
FYI, Auticus is told with every update that his concerns are invalid only for them to have turned out entirely valid every time. This could be the time it's different, but...

He's usually right on the subject of the imbalance, but he usually overstates the impact of that imbalance. Also, auticus, if your entire group has decided they don't want you use your house rules, maybe the issue isn't your group.

Is he? He only ever comments on the nature of things in a min-max environment, where things have entirely been as bad as predicted. I'm lucky enough to have a community that doesn't pull crap like that in casual play but at tournaments it's cheese or die.

Who said anything about the issue being my group? Thats why I left. Because what I want doesn't fit in at all with what tournament players want. Tournament min/max players don't like house rules. Thats a given. There isn't a reason why I should continue trying to push the narrative flag in a region that wants nothing to do with narratives and only cares about beating peoples' skulls in with optimized lists. My GW store manager wants narrative to be the emphasis, thats why he always asks me to run the narrative events, but those narrative events always get trashed by the powergamers coming in and donkey squatting over everyone with their LVO / Adepticon lists.

There are casuals and narrative players in my region as well, but few want to venture into the public domain because of the min max stuff that goes on in the shop.

As to "overstating" or "understating", that will depend on each individuals threshold and tolerance level.

For the summoning thing, my threshold and tolerance level sits at roughly 25%. If you summon in or get for free more than 25% of your point total in a game, that goes beyond my tolerance level. We already see that flesh eater courts can pull in 900 or so points and legion of nagash can recycle 300 point units so can easily go over that 25% threshold as well for me.

That tolerance level is set at a point where casual and narrative players tend to abandon ship and say "**** this game".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'm lucky enough to have a community that doesn't pull crap like that in casual play but at tournaments it's cheese or die.

hehe thats the problem. We don't get to have casual games in public. They need to be relegated to a basement or garage somewhere. If its a public game it should follow tournament standard rules and be cheese or die.

 Valander wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Preview for shooting and combat is out. Looks like it'll be a minor improvement, but I still expect shooting to be hugely dominant, since shooting into combat will still be done without any penalty.

Yeah, I really wish they had put in some kind of penalty for shooting into combat, either some negative or possibility of hitting your own dudes. I am glad they put something in, though, as I never did like the "I have a bunch of guys right in my face but I'm gonna just shoot that one dude on the other side of the board" thing.

If they were to make a penalty for shooting into combat, they should do the same for magic and mixed combats involving multiple units.

Because (anecdotal evidence here!) I'm just not seeing the sheer shooting dominance that people are talking about here.

I think they need to do it for the immersion factor alone. It makes no sense to be able to pound into a melee combat and only hurt the enemy with your explosive warmachine artillery.

This is something shared (anecdotally) with the large gaming room of 80+ Kings of War players in our region that won't touch AOS at all because of rules such as that making no sense (among a few other things).

Which is a shame because at one time we were all playing one game together and now AOS is this tiny thing holding on via life support while a game like KOW has firm control here.

auticus wrote:
I think they need to do it for the immersion factor alone. It makes no sense to be able to pound into a melee combat and only hurt the enemy with your explosive warmachine artillery.

It makes no sense to be able to throw things like a guy whirling a flipping fiery anvil around without causing collateral damage, yet here we are.

We also don't really have that much "explosive artillery". We have the rockets and a few cannons.

This is something shared (anecdotally) with the large gaming room of 80+ Kings of War players in our region that won't touch AOS at all because of rules such as that making no sense (among a few other things).

Which is a shame because at one time we were all playing one game together and now AOS is this tiny thing holding on via life support while a game like KOW has firm control here.

KoW found a lot of support because it let people use their models they already had. Take that away and it would have been dead. Mantic's model offerings are just bleh, even now.

There's also shops that pushed the rules for it but got caught holding the bag because of it. One of my local shops after AoS dropped started pushing Mantic's stuff hard, badmouthing AoS from the getgo to their customers. They got some people who took it up--but don't ever do anything with it now. So they're having to try to poach AoS players from the local GW. It's amusing to see.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Valander wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Preview for shooting and combat is out. Looks like it'll be a minor improvement, but I still expect shooting to be hugely dominant, since shooting into combat will still be done without any penalty.

Yeah, I really wish they had put in some kind of penalty for shooting into combat, either some negative or possibility of hitting your own dudes. I am glad they put something in, though, as I never did like the "I have a bunch of guys right in my face but I'm gonna just shoot that one dude on the other side of the board" thing.

If they were to make a penalty for shooting into combat, they should do the same for magic and mixed combats involving multiple units.

Because (anecdotal evidence here!) I'm just not seeing the sheer shooting dominance that people are talking about here.

Using NOT anecdotal evidence(tournament results) I can say with some certainty that 'shooting dominance' has been an absolute MYTH since the GHB2017 came out. You have 2 primary shooting armies that see some success(mixed order gunlines and Clowncar) a list that has ancillary shooting attacks(Fyreslayers) and 1 extremely powerful unit(Skyfires) everything else is 'meh' or worse. Aetherstrike may be frustrating to play against, but it doesn't really win games. The best armies in the game are either melee or magic and of those armies only Tzeentch really has good shooting support.

Also, the kharadron preview is the saddest thing. 'This unit that doesn't do much can retreat!...if it somehow survives being a 1 wound 4+ save model within 18" of your opponent. OH, also you can buy models from a REAL army now! Exciting right!? The point drops are nice, but outside of that they were clearly struggling to find something good to say about the army.

We also don't really have that much "explosive artillery". We have the rockets and a few cannons.

But... we have some. We also have bows, guns, and other things shooting into melees doing no damage to our friends.

I can hand waive magic because "magic". I have a harder time doing so with mortars and dragons fire and flame throwers personally.

auticus wrote:

We also don't really have that much "explosive artillery". We have the rockets and a few cannons.

But... we have some. We also have bows, guns, and other things shooting into melees doing no damage to our friends.

I can hand waive magic because "magic". I have a harder time doing so with mortars and dragons fire and flame throwers personally.

And you ignored the point about melee weapons like the Bloodbound guys swinging anvils because...?

I mean you can handwave the bows, guns, and other shooting into melees for the most part since they're on Order units as 'disciplined troops' if you're also going to say that things like a giant soulsucking ball of death is somehow easier to believe as not having friendly fire versus Elves firing bows at people while their friends are in combat, or trained Freeguilders who have the perks to let them attack/shoot when someone else is getting charged or in combat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

Using NOT anecdotal evidence(tournament results) I can say with some certainty that 'shooting dominance' has been an absolute MYTH since the GHB2017 came out. You have 2 primary shooting armies that see some success(mixed order gunlines and Clowncar) a list that has ancillary shooting attacks(Fyreslayers) and 1 extremely powerful unit(Skyfires) everything else is 'meh' or worse. Aetherstrike may be frustrating to play against, but it doesn't really win games. The best armies in the game are either melee or magic and of those armies only Tzeentch really has good shooting support.

I've heard Aetherstrike come up a few times, but what the hell was it listwise? I had a few people accuse me of cheese locally when I started going heavy into Vanguard stuff, claiming Aetherstrike.

Also, the kharadron preview is the saddest thing. 'This unit that doesn't do much can retreat!...if it somehow survives being a 1 wound 4+ save model within 18" of your opponent. OH, also you can buy models from a REAL army now! Exciting right!? The point drops are nice, but outside of that they were clearly struggling to find something good to say about the army.

I didn't read the Kharadron preview that way personally.

I read it as "Hey, you know how most armies with shooting units can't do diddly except Fall Back during the next Movement Phase they get and not do anything because of it? Guess what--you can Fall Back during the Pile In! That means your next Shooting Phase will be just dandy."

And you ignored the point about melee weapons like the Bloodbound guys swinging anvils because...?

I mean you can handwave the bows, guns, and other shooting into melees for the most part since they're on Order units as 'disciplined troops' if you're also going to say that things like a giant soulsucking ball of death is somehow easier to believe as not having friendly fire versus Elves firing bows at people while their friends are in combat, or trained Freeguilders who have the perks to let them attack/shoot when someone else is getting charged or in combat.

I guess because every game i've played in 30 years has melee items like that in it and if there are no templates then you just target your enemy, and every game i've played in 30 years has rules for shooting into combat except for age of sigmar whcih just lets you breathe dragon fire into a melee and only hurt your enemy.

In my mind's eye the khorne guys whirling anvils aren't whirling around like the goblin fanatics (which could also hurt their own friends). They are swinging large flails. Flails are in every middle ages style game I've ever played and never hit their friends either so for me, I don't have a problem, because I dn't see them Texas Tornadoing across the table indiscriminately. I see them using a flail that is composed of a chain and an anvil.

There is no perk in existence that would let a cannonball fire into a melee and only hurt one side.

Sure, when the cannonball is solid shot rather than an explosive.

Oh--and when you're trained to know firing patterns of your support crews.

Also, things like the Wrathmongers and the guy swinging the anvil are described quite literally as whirling around like the goblin fanatics.

 Kanluwen wrote:

auticus wrote:

We also don't really have that much "explosive artillery". We have the rockets and a few cannons.

But... we have some. We also have bows, guns, and other things shooting into melees doing no damage to our friends.

I can hand waive magic because "magic". I have a harder time doing so with mortars and dragons fire and flame throwers personally.

And you ignored the point about melee weapons like the Bloodbound guys swinging anvils because...?

I mean you can handwave the bows, guns, and other shooting into melees for the most part since they're on Order units as 'disciplined troops' if you're also going to say that things like a giant soulsucking ball of death is somehow easier to believe as not having friendly fire versus Elves firing bows at people while their friends are in combat, or trained Freeguilders who have the perks to let them attack/shoot when someone else is getting charged or in combat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

Using NOT anecdotal evidence(tournament results) I can say with some certainty that 'shooting dominance' has been an absolute MYTH since the GHB2017 came out. You have 2 primary shooting armies that see some success(mixed order gunlines and Clowncar) a list that has ancillary shooting attacks(Fyreslayers) and 1 extremely powerful unit(Skyfires) everything else is 'meh' or worse. Aetherstrike may be frustrating to play against, but it doesn't really win games. The best armies in the game are either melee or magic and of those armies only Tzeentch really has good shooting support.

I've heard Aetherstrike come up a few times, but what the hell was it listwise? I had a few people accuse me of cheese locally when I started going heavy into Vanguard stuff, claiming Aetherstrike.

Also, the kharadron preview is the saddest thing. 'This unit that doesn't do much can retreat!...if it somehow survives being a 1 wound 4+ save model within 18" of your opponent. OH, also you can buy models from a REAL army now! Exciting right!? The point drops are nice, but outside of that they were clearly struggling to find something good to say about the army.

I didn't read the Kharadron preview that way personally.

I read it as "Hey, you know how most armies with shooting units can't do diddly except Fall Back during the next Movement Phase they get and not do anything because of it? Guess what--you can Fall Back during the Pile In! That means your next Shooting Phase will be just dandy."

Aetherstrike is a list that has the potential to let a unit of 9-12 Vanguard Raptors with longstrike crossbows shoot between 2 and 5 times in a turn. It was a A- tier list before the GHB that struggled against anything with deepstrike and couldn't really cap objectives, and has difficulty dealing with hordes, but had a brutal amount of firepower. After the GHB it went up 100pts and never had any significant tournament success again.

If its an explosive that would make it even less likely that its only going to hit one side and not the other.

Thats all irrelevant anyway. The rule isn't changing and will continue to be what it is and people will continue to stay out of the game while that rule exists if what they are looking for is a wargame that feels like an actual battle and people primarily interested in a game-game will be fine with it, and never the two will meet.

auticus wrote:

And you ignored the point about melee weapons like the Bloodbound guys swinging anvils because...?

I mean you can handwave the bows, guns, and other shooting into melees for the most part since they're on Order units as 'disciplined troops' if you're also going to say that things like a giant soulsucking ball of death is somehow easier to believe as not having friendly fire versus Elves firing bows at people while their friends are in combat, or trained Freeguilders who have the perks to let them attack/shoot when someone else is getting charged or in combat.

I guess because every game i've played in 30 years has melee items like that in it and if there are no templates then you just target your enemy, and every game i've played in 30 years has rules for shooting into combat except for age of sigmar whcih just lets you breathe dragon fire into a melee and only hurt your enemy.

In my mind's eye the khorne guys whirling anvils aren't whirling around like the goblin fanatics (which could also hurt their own friends). They are swinging large flails. Flails are in every middle ages style game I've ever played and never hit their friends either so for me, I don't have a problem, because I dn't see them Texas Tornadoing across the table indiscriminately. I see them using a flail that is composed of a chain and an anvil.

There is no perk in existence that would let a cannonball fire into a melee and only hurt one side.

Personally, I never have any issue with things not being realistic or not making sense in settings like AoS and 40k. Canonball only hits the enemy? Magic canonball. Wooden arrow pierces steel armor? Magic arrow. Bolter round pierces Titan chassis? Magic bolter. Fish can fly? Well so can dragons, which is equally as fantastical. Generally I just accept that what I know about physics, chemisty, etc only applies to this world, not any fictional one. I can understand having difficulty with that level of disconnecting from reality though.

ERJAK wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Valander wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Preview for shooting and combat is out. Looks like it'll be a minor improvement, but I still expect shooting to be hugely dominant, since shooting into combat will still be done without any penalty.

Yeah, I really wish they had put in some kind of penalty for shooting into combat, either some negative or possibility of hitting your own dudes. I am glad they put something in, though, as I never did like the "I have a bunch of guys right in my face but I'm gonna just shoot that one dude on the other side of the board" thing.

If they were to make a penalty for shooting into combat, they should do the same for magic and mixed combats involving multiple units.

Because (anecdotal evidence here!) I'm just not seeing the sheer shooting dominance that people are talking about here.

Using NOT anecdotal evidence(tournament results) I can say with some certainty that 'shooting dominance' has been an absolute MYTH since the GHB2017 came out. You have 2 primary shooting armies that see some success(mixed order gunlines and Clowncar) a list that has ancillary shooting attacks(Fyreslayers) and 1 extremely powerful unit(Skyfires) everything else is 'meh' or worse. Aetherstrike may be frustrating to play against, but it doesn't really win games. The best armies in the game are either melee or magic and of those armies only Tzeentch really has good shooting support.

Also, the kharadron preview is the saddest thing. 'This unit that doesn't do much can retreat!...if it somehow survives being a 1 wound 4+ save model within 18" of your opponent. OH, also you can buy models from a REAL army now! Exciting right!? The point drops are nice, but outside of that they were clearly struggling to find something good to say about the army.

Wait what? 'No shooting meta, minus the top tier army with a bunch of shooting.' And TBF 'shooting meta' is an oversimplification when it should be 'shooting & direct damage magic meta'; both of those achieve the same thing and are made stronger by the double-turn. Stormcast have an awesome shooting unit (Judicators) as battleline that sees plenty of use (without mentioning Vanguard), Order soup commonly makes use of Glade Guard & Skinks, Seraphon make tons of use of the latter. Kharadron only do well at tournaments because of how much shooting they have; go to alternating turns and they don't do nearly as well.

And to approach things from the other side, pure melee armies do not do well, period.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Sure, when the cannonball is solid shot rather than an explosive.

Oh--and when you're trained to know firing patterns of your support crews.

Also, things like the Wrathmongers and the guy swinging the anvil are described quite literally as whirling around like the goblin fanatics.

Specific units being unrealistic is not analogous to a basic concept of the game being unrealistic. Not that I don't dislike units such as the Skullgrinder...

There is something terribly immersion/narrative/last string of realism breaking (however you want to describe it) about the shooting and terrain rules in AoS. They’re not generally something that can be explained narratively, it’s just how the rules work. A solid shot cannon ball would potentially be even more indiscrimate in whom it kills than an explosive aimed at the periphery of an engagement.

The terrain and shooting rules are not even pretending to represent what’s happening, they’re simply attacks that happen to be made at range or pretty scenery that has little or no effect on the game. Shooting into an ongoing melee with nearly any weapon is dangerous, Even with modern high velocity and accurate firearms. A bow, from an entire unit of soldiers? There is no hand waiving that except again, it’s just how the rules work.

Which is fine, but let’s stop trying to argue that even a significant minority of shooting weapons in this game makes any kind of narrative sense shooting into a melee at full effect.