Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Marmatag wrote:
AoS core rules favor strong shooting and mortal wounds. This core imbalance is made even stronger by the existence of double turn.

I was recently made aware of artillery that can do D6 damage witih -3 rend from like 36" away. How does that not ruin a game that is built on melee? Hang back at max range and wait for the double turn.

I'm glad no one i play with brings gak like this.

I actually run something like this. Your complaint is actually pretty minor. Yeah it's got a 36" range, but it's a single shot, hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 3+. Plus D6 damage so you could roll a 1. It sounds scary, but most of the time it's middling compared to other stuff.

Link for the warscroll I run: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG-Plagueclaw.pdf

A 100 point unit with a 36" potential 6 damage shot. Or it shoots 4 times hitting on a 5+ doing potentially 24 wounds (unlikely).

Its a gamble, but if someone has hot dice it will decimate a unit pretty quickly. A couple of our stormcast players are going to be buying a second one because they see the gamble as worth it.

Edit: ninja'd below but yeah... also used as a high powered sniper rifle. Especially when 2-3 are brought to bear on a character.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
AoS core rules favor strong shooting and mortal wounds. This core imbalance is made even stronger by the existence of double turn.

I was recently made aware of artillery that can do D6 damage witih -3 rend from like 36" away. How does that not ruin a game that is built on melee? Hang back at max range and wait for the double turn.

I'm glad no one i play with brings gak like this.

I actually run something like this. Your complaint is actually pretty minor. Yeah it's got a 36" range, but it's a single shot, hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 3+. Plus D6 damage so you could roll a 1. It sounds scary, but most of the time it's middling compared to other stuff.

Link for the warscroll I run: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG-Plagueclaw.pdf

This is obviously overpowered. It is effectively a Lascannon with POTMS that can target characters. Bring 3. Get a double turn and shoot 6 shots. You'll kill quite a bit.

 Marmatag wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
AoS core rules favor strong shooting and mortal wounds. This core imbalance is made even stronger by the existence of double turn.

I was recently made aware of artillery that can do D6 damage witih -3 rend from like 36" away. How does that not ruin a game that is built on melee? Hang back at max range and wait for the double turn.

I'm glad no one i play with brings gak like this.

I actually run something like this. Your complaint is actually pretty minor. Yeah it's got a 36" range, but it's a single shot, hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 3+. Plus D6 damage so you could roll a 1. It sounds scary, but most of the time it's middling compared to other stuff.

Link for the warscroll I run: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG-Plagueclaw.pdf

This is obviously overpowered. It is effectively a Lascannon with POTMS that can target characters. Bring 3. Get a double turn and shoot 6 shots. You'll kill quite a bit.

Are you serious? It's 180 points. Get in combat or shoot it to death or even better hit it with spells. It's only got 6 Wounds.

Also, here's a list of tournaments. It showed up in 6 of about 50 lists and looks like it's in about 1 of 30 Top 10 Lists. How is that Overpowered?

https://aosshorts.com/useful-resources/age-of-sigmar-tournament-list-archive/


Automatically Appended Next Post:

auticus wrote:
A 100 point unit with a 36" potential 6 damage shot. Or it shoots 4 times hitting on a 5+ doing potentially 24 wounds (unlikely).

Its a gamble, but if someone has hot dice it will decimate a unit pretty quickly. A couple of our stormcast players are going to be buying a second one because they see the gamble as worth it.

Edit: ninja'd below but yeah... also used as a high powered sniper rifle. Especially when 2-3 are brought to bear on a character.

Are talking a different unit here? The Plagueclaw is a 180 point unit.

Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

auticus wrote:
Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

Yeah, that guy at 100 points is bananas.

Its the new sniper rifle of AOS. Plus lord ordinator to make it work even better. Seriously... 2-3 of them in the SC armies here coming soon. Between that and the Ordinator unit...

From a background perspective I think WFB was better. In particular the older lore. Towards the end I can see the point of what people say in terms of their was little to spread out into. But I think that is partially because of the way GW headed towards epic epicness everywhere. Everything had to bigger, better, nastier etc than the previous thing. In WFB became very limited to being around a few high profile characters and in a 'small world' that was limiting. It's not how Warhammer was originally envisaged though which was more along the lines of small battles here and there. It was the Morgan Bernhardt stories, or those like the old campaign packs where there was more time spent in small niches of the world exploring those facets of the world. In those areas WFB had much greater expansion than people realise. These are essentially the key ideas around the old Warhammer Quest, WFRP and so on.

AOS background to me is more like Transformers/Marvel movie which in the next series is now about finding the next hammer or weapon and so on. I get the reason why, but I do find it tedious (and to point out I found a lot of new background in WFB at the end the same). AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth. The older WFB could have much better links in that way (again the later new background I have a similar view to AOS).

As for the game, I prefer ranked battle games. 40k and LOTR meets my skirmish itch. AOS is just a simplified 40k now so there is no real incentive to get into it. Some of the models are decent and pick up occasionally where they fit into a WFB army but otherwise I don't need them and have little interest in them. WFB is more about movement than "being within a certain radius of X and Y". I understand the power gaming aspect. I wish GW would really sort out balance in all games. That's not to say AOS doesn't have some good ideas. The way monsters work I think could have been a good counterpoint to cannons and so forth in WFB 8th.

auticus wrote:
Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

This is also what i was talking about, too.

The other thing is very strong, though, at 180 points. People are bringing them to highly competitive events and landing in the top 50. That means they aren't garbage, right?

In general shooting should be incredibly expensive in a game like this. How fun will AoS be when you just screen and sit back waiting for your double turn?

 Whirlwind wrote:
AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth.

I'm sorry, you had me up until this. Pray tell how WHFB had a better handle on it than AoS, when they had literal realms of hell (Khorne) Disease (Nurgle) Aether (Tzeentch) and Decadence (Slaanesh). Sure, these were all contained in the "Realm of Chaos" but it's no more goofy than anything AoS proposed. Besides, I like the idea of the new realms. It allows for much more interesting armies beyond Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc. WHFB had really cool lore, but 90% of it was Fantasy Tropes based off Tolkien / Dungeons and Dragons. The Chaos Gods and factions were the only real original ideas there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

auticus wrote:
Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

This is also what i was talking about, too.

The other thing is very strong, though, at 180 points. People are bringing them to highly competitive events and landing in the top 50. That means they aren't garbage, right?

In general shooting should be incredibly expensive in a game like this. How fun will AoS be when you just screen and sit back waiting for your double turn?

Ah, my misunderstanding, sorry. Still, I don't know that I agree. It's strong, but due to it's unpredictably, I'd say it's a bit of a gamble unless you have stuff to give it reliable buffs to hit and to wound. There is a formation of 3 that gives it +1 to hit and +1 to wound, but it clocks in at a hefty 600-800 points.

Edit: Sorry, again meant the Plagueclaw.

I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

Just like I play Fantasy to play medieval french knights agaisnt mongol ogres!

I'm not sure about unpredictable.

Spend 300 points, get three of them. Additionally get the lord ordinator that buffs them.

With 36" range and true line of sight guranteeing that you're able to pretty much hit what you want, any buff heroes are going to be sniped in short order.

Even with just one bolt, thats a 3+ to hit that is really D6 hits. Odds are he's getting hit with 2 of the 3 shots for whats likely 7-8 hits.

Short of the big monster heroes, thats going to plink off support heroes nicely and even the big monster heroes are going to have large chunks tore out of them.

The weakness will be against armies that can teleport but smart players will keep a screen nearby since you can still shoot with impunity into combats.

auticus wrote:
I'm not sure about unpredictable.

Spend 300 points, get three of them. Additionally get the lord ordinator that buffs them.

With 36" range and true line of sight guranteeing that you're able to pretty much hit what you want, any buff heroes are going to be sniped in short order.

Even with just one bolt, thats a 3+ to hit that is really D6 hits. Odds are he's getting hit with 2 of the 3 shots for whats likely 7-8 hits.

Short of the big monster heroes, thats going to plink off support heroes nicely and even the big monster heroes are going to have large chunks tore out of them.

The weakness will be against armies that can teleport but smart players will keep a screen nearby since you can still shoot with impunity into combats.

Sorry, again meant the Plagueclaw. No, this thing at 100 points is just crazy. At half range you're hitting on 5's, but that's still got the D6 hits correct? The few possibel downsides I see with the Bolt Thrower are I believe it needs LoS and like you said teleporting/ambush armies, but really for 100 points this thing will easily earn it's money killing even one hero. Now I just wish Look Out Sir was a better rule.

Yeah it always does D6 hits. It does need line of sight, but in AOS thats never really a challenge. Its also only 18" when firing multiple shots but thats why you take 3 of them and then pick off heroes from a distance with one shot each.

The lord ordinator basically will cancel out look out sir and then if there are hit buffs you can give them, will make them highly efficient super snipers.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth.

I'm sorry, you had me up until this. Pray tell how WHFB had a better handle on it than AoS, when they had literal realms of hell (Khorne) Disease (Nurgle) Aether (Tzeentch) and Decadence (Slaanesh). Sure, these were all contained in the "Realm of Chaos" but it's no more goofy than anything AoS proposed. Besides, I like the idea of the new realms. It allows for much more interesting armies beyond Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc. WHFB had really cool lore, but 90% of it was Fantasy Tropes based off Tolkien / Dungeons and Dragons. The Chaos Gods and factions were the only real original ideas there.

To reiterate the latter stages of the WFB lore I wasn't massively keen on and a lot of the situations were forced and contrived too - for example one item that comes to mind is when the Mannfred captured the elven princess, it was a sequence of events that can be thought of along the lines of "and then suddenly, and then suddenly and then suddenly and so forth". In terms of being 'contrived' it's the ability in AoS to have any realm it wants and link them in any way you want hence there is little rationality to the situation. Compared to the WFB world, especially the more intimate older lore, there was sense to the way things were linked. Petty necromancers tried to wake powers in hidden graveyards. The empire was bastions of civilisation pushing back agains the endless encoraching forests and the creatures that lived within. The border princes were the refuge for the mostly shamed human elements of society on the borders between wastelands and the more powerful empire and so forth. It's similar to Game of Thrones in that although fantastical the locations are connected more 'sensibly'. AoS is more like a situation where the White Walkers can turn up in the middle of Dothraki lands "just because" and in those situations the scenario becomes more disjointed, less free flowing etc.

Even D&D and Tolkien effectively ripped off myths in the world. Trolls turning to stone is a myth in Iceland (and hence probably scandanavia) etc. The way AoS is similar to how I see the Transformers movies. Fine (I use that word loosely) as individual films but when you consider them all together it suddently becomes horrendously contrived in that out of the whole universe everything either happened on the home planet or Earth and just forced together. WFB in my view is better because it fits more like the Hobbit/LoTR etc in that things are linked in a more sublte way (but I am in no way suggesting it is equal to Tolkiens works!)

Does that help?

 Whirlwind wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth.

I'm sorry, you had me up until this. Pray tell how WHFB had a better handle on it than AoS, when they had literal realms of hell (Khorne) Disease (Nurgle) Aether (Tzeentch) and Decadence (Slaanesh). Sure, these were all contained in the "Realm of Chaos" but it's no more goofy than anything AoS proposed. Besides, I like the idea of the new realms. It allows for much more interesting armies beyond Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc. WHFB had really cool lore, but 90% of it was Fantasy Tropes based off Tolkien / Dungeons and Dragons. The Chaos Gods and factions were the only real original ideas there.

To reiterate the latter stages of the WFB lore I wasn't massively keen on and a lot of the situations were forced and contrived too - for example one item that comes to mind is when the Mannfred captured the elven princess, it was a sequence of events that can be thought of along the lines of "and then suddenly, and then suddenly and then suddenly and so forth". In terms of being 'contrived' it's the ability in AoS to have any realm it wants and link them in any way you want hence there is little rationality to the situation. Compared to the WFB world, especially the more intimate older lore, there was sense to the way things were linked. Petty necromancers tried to wake powers in hidden graveyards. The empire was bastions of civilisation pushing back agains the endless encoraching forests and the creatures that lived within. The border princes were the refuge for the mostly shamed human elements of society on the borders between wastelands and the more powerful empire and so forth. It's similar to Game of Thrones in that although fantastical the locations are connected more 'sensibly'. AoS is more like a situation where the White Walkers can turn up in the middle of Dothraki lands "just because" and in those situations the scenario becomes more disjointed, less free flowing etc.

Even D&D and Tolkien effectively ripped off myths in the world. Trolls turning to stone is a myth in Iceland (and hence probably scandanavia) etc. The way AoS is similar to how I see the Transformers movies. Fine (I use that word loosely) as individual films but when you consider them all together it suddently becomes horrendously contrived in that out of the whole universe everything either happened on the home planet or Earth and just forced together. WFB in my view is better because it fits more like the Hobbit/LoTR etc in that things are linked in a more sublte way (but I am in no way suggesting it is equal to Tolkiens works!)

Does that help?

That's fair. Again, I don't know that I completely agree, because WHFB was still on the fantastical side, but I suppose they really pushed that to the edge with the End Times / rise of Nagash. Don't get me wrong, I think WHFB had a ton of great lore and was much more intricately connected, but I'd argue that's because A) they were playing in a safe setting and B) WHFB has had 40+ years to craft lore. In essence, I think AoS lore will get to a good point provided A) it's given more to revise / retcon stuff and B) they move further away from the original WHFB setting. I think half of their issues is trying to combine new AoS lore with WHFB stuff. To use your analogy, trying to make a Transformers movie with King Arthur.

Age of Sigmar needs to grit its teeth and finally bring down the hammer on the legacy armies that don't fit the new aethetic. It is clear that the new Age of Sigmar doesn't have a place for classic Orc vs High Elves or Knights in Shining Armor vs Ogres. With every new release, those old model lines look more and more out of place, and many of them have not seen any rules updates to help them keep up with newer factions. Greenskinz have been rotting for years while other Orruck factions get an extra wound and powerful new abilities. Empire is in constant decline, to the point where what is left of their once iconic faction still has pictures on the webstore of their square bases in fantasy formations- a sad call to their former glory. Bretonnia is gone and only lives on in the collections of legacy players.

Age of Sigmar only included the classic armies on release as an olive branch to players to ease the transition, however it is increasingly clear that these armies don't fit the art and theme direction GW has chosen to go. As much as it pains me.

Empire must die to make room for Stormcast.
Greenskinz must die to make room for Iron Jaws
Wood Elves must die to make room for Sylvanath

The Games Workshop era of classic fantasy ranked infantry is over. Its time for GW to cut the cord, let Fantasy finally rest in peace, and let Age of Sigmar grow without carrying around a bunch of dead lines that don't match its art direction.

While I agree that ongoing support of all these fractured lines is not good for the game and will end I'd rather the most iconic of the races receive the Sylvaneth, Daughter of Khaine treatment and be brought into the new setting.

I was never a fan of the old Warhammer world. Seemed too much like a hodge podge of random ideas just plonked down and there's your world setting. When AoS was announced I did like the whole Mortal Realms setting. I got an odd 1970's prog rock album cover vibe coupled with the idea of the various realms from the Thor: the Dark World. The more I played though the more I came to dislike it. I prefer my fantasy more generic and Tolkien-esqe. Saying that though, I am coming back to AoS with the new edition and playing an undead army based on a legions of the barrow downs theme, led by Heinrich Kemmler - the infamous Lichemaster. I'll ignore the setting for the most part and just focus on the game.

 jreilly89 wrote:

That's fair. Again, I don't know that I completely agree, because WHFB was still on the fantastical side, but I suppose they really pushed that to the edge with the End Times / rise of Nagash. Don't get me wrong, I think WHFB had a ton of great lore and was much more intricately connected, but I'd argue that's because A) they were playing in a safe setting and B) WHFB has had 40+ years to craft lore.

No problems, if we all agreed on the same thing then it would be very boring. A lot of the issues people's anger with AoS is not really targeted at those that like to play it but more GW and how they dealt with WFB, which was loved by a lot of people. If they continued to support it and introduce AoS as a skirmish variety game and then saw how things might have turned out different. I agree about the lore and a 'safe setting' but largely that was set in the first 20 years or so. Not much actually changed (until the end anyway) and that from my perspective was probably due to the game/story going from people creating it because they 'loved' the world they were creating to 'factory' manufacture of the setting. I think this is perhaps one of the greatest risks for the AoS setting, that it is being manufactured rather created by people that actually 'love' it. On the other hand WFB was always a better fit for myself as I was brought up on a diet of Fighting Fantasy books, which for the fantasy side of things was all in one world of Allansia (really just a continent).

In essence, I think AoS lore will get to a good point provided A) it's given more to revise / retcon stuff and B) they move further away from the original WHFB setting. I think half of their issues is trying to combine new AoS lore with WHFB stuff. To use your analogy, trying to make a Transformers movie with King Arthur. gressed

There are some good points here (although note my concern over manufactured settings). If there had been no link to WFB it may have been better. However it is going to need some serious retcons to remove those links. It is, after all, called the Age of Sigmar which in itself is a throw back to the old Empire.

As long as you don't mean the new Arthur film directed by Guy Ritchie - that film was dreadful!

There's something I've always found very off about AoS armies and how they look on the tabletop. Ignoring the weirdness of people playing 2k point games in what is essentially a skirmish system, the 2k armies I always see always seem to be very low on unit count. There only will be perhaps 5-6 units (including characters) in total on the board and it just looks really off.

Love the lore, and with the extra depth that malign sorcery is adding especially with the cinematic spells I’m starting to be interested in the game. I would play it with some house rules though, no double turns, add in an initiative roll in combat, that sort of thing. Add in a weapon skill and strength and toughness and I’d be on board almost immediately.

Still love playing fantasy (wood elves for life)

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

But fighting magical Daemons with a naked Dwarf makes sense? And if I remember correctly (haven't read the lore) I believe the Idoneth Deepkin bring the sea with them, similar to what the Beastclaw Raiders do with their Blizzard (not hugely up to date on those two armies lores), so it's totally in the realm of possibility that they're attacking a docking station for the Kharadron Overlords, or vice versa. Heck, the Stormcast are magical lightning teleporting warriors.

And you already can play AoS against 40k, you could for years. Daemons of Chaos existed in both 40k and WHFB systems for years and no one complained.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

We'd be back to the beginning then. Back in "the day" that was exactly what we had. I remember chaos warriors with plasma pistols being a thing.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

Well, as others have pointed out, the sharks, etc... of the sea elves magically float, like the Tzeentch daemons that are like... devilfish.
But at the same time I have seen one narrative battle in a tournament of Kharadron Overlords vs Idoneth Deepkind in a battlefield that was like an archipelago, Idoneth fishes and Kharadron Boats could only go into the water, and the infantry could only go into the little islands connected by bridges. If you were on a bridge, you could attack and be attacked in meele. Flying untis like the baloon-boys of the dwarfs could go wherever they wanted. It was fantastic.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

But fighting magical Daemons with a naked Dwarf makes sense? And if I remember correctly (haven't read the lore) I believe the Idoneth Deepkin bring the sea with them, similar to what the Beastclaw Raiders do with their Blizzard (not hugely up to date on those two armies lores), so it's totally in the realm of possibility that they're attacking a docking station for the Kharadron Overlords, or vice versa. Heck, the Stormcast are magical lightning teleporting warriors.

Yes, those things made sense in WH because the lore had been built up naturally over time and seemed to operate on some form of internal logic (most of the time, anyway). The background felt a lot more organic in the Old World whereas the AoS lore feels very manufactured and disjointed to many people. The Deepkin are a good example of the problem I have with AoS lore in fact. Yes, they explain how they can fight on land, but it's not a particularly satisfactory explanation. It seems to have come out of nowhere and been done purely to allow these models to appear on the tabletop. GW aren't exploring the lore of the world they've created, they're making it up as they go along to sell models. I think that's my main problem with the setting and why I say it doesn't feel organic or natural. It's all so...contrived.

Then you should read the new rulebook, the one that comes with the Souls Wars set. Its SO good. Its the first time I can look at AoS and say "Ok, THIS is a complete fantasy universe"

The best part is the fact that 90% is new lore. The first time in 15 years that I have experienced that in a GW game.

Slipspace wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

But fighting magical Daemons with a naked Dwarf makes sense? And if I remember correctly (haven't read the lore) I believe the Idoneth Deepkin bring the sea with them, similar to what the Beastclaw Raiders do with their Blizzard (not hugely up to date on those two armies lores), so it's totally in the realm of possibility that they're attacking a docking station for the Kharadron Overlords, or vice versa. Heck, the Stormcast are magical lightning teleporting warriors.

Yes, those things made sense in WH because the lore had been built up naturally over time and seemed to operate on some form of internal logic (most of the time, anyway). The background felt a lot more organic in the Old World whereas the AoS lore feels very manufactured and disjointed to many people. The Deepkin are a good example of the problem I have with AoS lore in fact. Yes, they explain how they can fight on land, but it's not a particularly satisfactory explanation. It seems to have come out of nowhere and been done purely to allow these models to appear on the tabletop. GW aren't exploring the lore of the world they've created, they're making it up as they go along to sell models. I think that's my main problem with the setting and why I say it doesn't feel organic or natural. It's all so...contrived.

WFB had this problem too.

 Kroem wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
GW has never been good at balancing games for competitive play, but the design philosophy behind AoS (before the Generals Handbook) seemed to be to not even try.

The no points thing was a really interesting attempt to drag Warhammer away from a power gamer mentality and into a realm where you and your opponent just bring the models necessary to tell a cool story or create an interesting challenge.
I think it was a bit of a shame that GW chickened out and added points back into the game, it would have been interesting to see how that more 'free form' approach developed.

I love the lore of WHF (I still play Warhammer Fantasy Role Play every month!), but they are doing a good job with the AoS lore as well.
The trouble with WHF was that I felt very constrained with the stories I could tell because everything was so defined, whilst AoS gives you so much more freedom.

Actually, it wasn't an attempt to do anything of the sort. Age of Sigmar was originally made with the idea that GW needed a feeder game for their more profitable product of 40k. This backfired as people demanded rules.