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WHFB is dead.

pm713 wrote:

Davor wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Aos is 40k with swords

40k is MTG with models you assemble and paint.

GW have abandoned all trappings of war games in exchange for CCG and Video Game expansion pack design.

If i wanted to play LOL or MTG I would play LOL or MTG not AOS or 40k.

Correction. 40K is Age of Sigmar with guns.

40k came first though.

I am sorry, I don't understand. How so? When the rules for Age of Sigmar came out 40K was in 7th edition and had no semblance what AoS was. AoS gave us the key words. Gave us mortal wounds. When 40K went to 8th edition, movement stats were introduced like AoS. Even the wound chart is like AoS wound chart. That wasn't in 40K before. 40K didn't have key words like AoS does and now 40K has mortal wounds when it didn't have them before.

So not sure how 40K before Age of Sigmar. If you are saying 40K was before Age of Sigmar became a game, then you could be correct BUT since AoS is basically from Warhammer Fantasy Battles (not the rules but the miniatures) I am still correct because Fantasy was before 40K. 40K came what around Fantasy third edition?

This is why I say AoS came before 40K. How do you see it? I just don't understand.

I tried AOS and it was, uh, crap
Simply put I dislike the shallowness of the rules and the way that you either have a big thing or you lose. You have the right power units or you lose. You Skaven dont have Verminlords or those new Skyre Ratogres then you dont win, simple as. If you dont bring the Clan formation then you dont get the LD buffs you desperately need (and that used to be army integral and really need to be) and so you lose as your piss-poor LD (or whatever it is called now) coupled with the stupid battleshock system causes entire units to erode away in a single turn. Of course you can counter this by bringing..... What exactly? That one formation again. Thats it.

You see, for me its not just the shallow rules that I cannot stand (and lets face it, there is no such thing as 'tactics' any more, not like there was) but also the need to bring a very limited selection of units from a select number of armies or you will auto-lose.There is no counter-meta, no outsmarting your opponent, none of that. Hell, even your actions dont really have consequences as you can shoot into and even whilst in combat.

For me the game just feels like a desperate attempt from GW to milk the old world one last time.

There are tactics. Just not traditional wargaming tactics. The tactics come primarily in winning in the listbuilding phase.

auticus wrote:
There are tactics. Just not traditional wargaming tactics. The tactics come primarily in winning in the listbuilding phase.

So, traditional Warhammer tactics?

Once they condense some of the mini-factions down into playable armies... I will seriously consider the game. But until then, I care not.

The Lionranger allegiance has two(?!) model choices... Swifthawk Agents has 3. That is miserable.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Simply put I dislike the shallowness of the rules and the way that you either have a big thing or you lose. You have the right power units or you lose. You Skaven dont have Verminlords or those new Skyre Ratogres then you dont win, simple as. If you dont bring the Clan formation then you dont get the LD buffs you desperately need (and that used to be army integral and really need to be) and so you lose as your piss-poor LD (or whatever it is called now) coupled with the stupid battleshock system causes entire units to erode away in a single turn. Of course you can counter this by bringing..... What exactly? That one formation again. Thats it.

So what game is superior to this?

Davor wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Simply put I dislike the shallowness of the rules and the way that you either have a big thing or you lose. You have the right power units or you lose. You Skaven dont have Verminlords or those new Skyre Ratogres then you dont win, simple as. If you dont bring the Clan formation then you dont get the LD buffs you desperately need (and that used to be army integral and really need to be) and so you lose as your piss-poor LD (or whatever it is called now) coupled with the stupid battleshock system causes entire units to erode away in a single turn. Of course you can counter this by bringing..... What exactly? That one formation again. Thats it.

So what game is superior to this?

I would consider a lot of games "superior" but very damn few of them could be considered anywhere near as "popular/well known" Finding players for those games? good luck. Part of the reason for so much complaint about AoS is it really could and should be much better than it is.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
Once they condense some of the mini-factions down into playable armies... I will seriously consider the game. But until then, I care not.

The Lionranger allegiance has two(?!) model choices... Swifthawk Agents has 3. That is miserable.

Shadowblades have two models, one of which is a duel kit option shared with another faction and one is a finecast unique model. There's Death faction that only has one half of a triple kit as its only model.

I agree GW needs to clean up the little factions - the new Beasts of Chaos is doing just that. What AoS really needs is not just that but for 40K to step back for a year or so and to let AoS dominate the release schedual to catch up. I'm not saying no 40K, just that AoS needs a bit clean up both in terms of what factions there are; in the rules and also in its whole presentation so that new gamers can come to the GW website - see the factions clearly and get into the game not get scared by a billion factions that seem tiny or worthless .

 Overread wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
Once they condense some of the mini-factions down into playable armies... I will seriously consider the game. But until then, I care not.

The Lionranger allegiance has two(?!) model choices... Swifthawk Agents has 3. That is miserable.

Shadowblades have two models, one of which is a duel kit option shared with another faction and one is a finecast unique model. There's Death faction that only has one half of a triple kit as its only model.

I agree GW needs to clean up the little factions - the new Beasts of Chaos is doing just that. What AoS really needs is not just that but for 40K to step back for a year or so and to let AoS dominate the release schedual to catch up. I'm not saying no 40K, just that AoS needs a bit clean up both in terms of what factions there are; in the rules and also in its whole presentation so that new gamers can come to the GW website - see the factions clearly and get into the game not get scared by a billion factions that seem tiny or worthless .

Well... The little factions are honestly worthless. The Battletomes give out great benefits for playing the armies they contain, not playing an army with a Battletome is like playing Index 40k armies vs Codex 40k armies. There is little reason to do it unless you LOVE getting punished on the tabletop for your poor life choices of the models you like in every pick up game you play.

Davor wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Simply put I dislike the shallowness of the rules and the way that you either have a big thing or you lose. You have the right power units or you lose. You Skaven dont have Verminlords or those new Skyre Ratogres then you dont win, simple as. If you dont bring the Clan formation then you dont get the LD buffs you desperately need (and that used to be army integral and really need to be) and so you lose as your piss-poor LD (or whatever it is called now) coupled with the stupid battleshock system causes entire units to erode away in a single turn. Of course you can counter this by bringing..... What exactly? That one formation again. Thats it.

So what game is superior to this?

Thus far, killteam, it's why I'm likely to not play aos much longer despite only jumping in a bit ago. The diminished factions are ridiculously weak right now, I've been running slaves to darkness since I, you know, actually like their models and lore. Last week my leader and an entire set of chaos warriors were reduced to goo by flying dwarves in two turns. They're roughly equivalent in points, and frankly there wasn't enough damage output on my side to have a freaking prayer. Oh and the dwarves move twice as fast. I was out run, by dwaves, shot, charged, and then bodied without a charge.

Defensively they're identical to chaos warriors, offensively they're absurd in comparison.

Honestly in general offense seems to be remarkably under costed right now. Looking at things they seem to have done little more than continue the design philosophy that total wounds are more important than anything else. That said, I made plenty of errors, but there wasn't a prayer of recovering from them when mass offense wipes things off the board, particularly when your faction doesn't have access to it.

Davor wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Davor wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Aos is 40k with swords

40k is MTG with models you assemble and paint.

GW have abandoned all trappings of war games in exchange for CCG and Video Game expansion pack design.

If i wanted to play LOL or MTG I would play LOL or MTG not AOS or 40k.

Correction. 40K is Age of Sigmar with guns.

40k came first though.

I am sorry, I don't understand. How so? When the rules for Age of Sigmar came out 40K was in 7th edition and had no semblance what AoS was. AoS gave us the key words. Gave us mortal wounds. When 40K went to 8th edition, movement stats were introduced like AoS. Even the wound chart is like AoS wound chart. That wasn't in 40K before. 40K didn't have key words like AoS does and now 40K has mortal wounds when it didn't have them before.

So not sure how 40K before Age of Sigmar. If you are saying 40K was before Age of Sigmar became a game, then you could be correct BUT since AoS is basically from Warhammer Fantasy Battles (not the rules but the miniatures) I am still correct because Fantasy was before 40K. 40K came what around Fantasy third edition?

This is why I say AoS came before 40K. How do you see it? I just don't understand.

Well like you said: When AoS came out 40k was in 7th. So 40k was around prior to AoS starting therefore 40k came first.

We seem to disagree strongly about the idea that AoS is a continuation of Fantasy though.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I tried AOS and it was, uh, crap
Simply put I dislike the shallowness of the rules and the way that you either have a big thing or you lose. You have the right power units or you lose. You Skaven dont have Verminlords or those new Skyre Ratogres then you dont win, simple as. If you dont bring the Clan formation then you dont get the LD buffs you desperately need (and that used to be army integral and really need to be) and so you lose as your piss-poor LD (or whatever it is called now) coupled with the stupid battleshock system causes entire units to erode away in a single turn. Of course you can counter this by bringing..... What exactly? That one formation again. Thats it.

You see, for me its not just the shallow rules that I cannot stand (and lets face it, there is no such thing as 'tactics' any more, not like there was) but also the need to bring a very limited selection of units from a select number of armies or you will auto-lose.There is no counter-meta, no outsmarting your opponent, none of that. Hell, even your actions dont really have consequences as you can shoot into and even whilst in combat.

For me the game just feels like a desperate attempt from GW to milk the old world one last time.

This x40000.

The game has been out for over THREE YEARS.

How long will GW prop up this disaster of “game design”?

but also the need to bring a very limited selection of units from a select number of armies or you will auto-lose

This is truth. And also been my biggest complaint about gw games... since forever. Its not limited to AOS. 40k has always been this. WHFB was basically excluding the ravening hordes days of 6th edition like this.

Its a deckbuilding game that rotates its power cards regularly.

That being said... its also making GW money and the big events like Adepticon massively fill out attendance. So disaster of game design or not, its got forward momentum more so than most any other fantasy game that is being played that I can see.

My conclusion on the AOS experiment is that Joe-Gamer doesn't give a **** about outsmarting their opponent or clever game play or anything like that. joe-Gamer cares about playing a game that everyone else is playing, and Joe-Gamer seems to love deckbuilding games where you win in the listbuilding phase. Like it. Hate it. Doesn't matter. Those are the games that seem to have the most traction in the overall tabletop community. Complex games that favor smarter gameplay over deckbuilding are also games you rarely see or have a small turnout at the bigger events.

 Overread wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
Once they condense some of the mini-factions down into playable armies... I will seriously consider the game. But until then, I care not.

The Lionranger allegiance has two(?!) model choices... Swifthawk Agents has 3. That is miserable.

Shadowblades have two models, one of which is a duel kit option shared with another faction and one is a finecast unique model. There's Death faction that only has one half of a triple kit as its only model.

Assassins are plastic now. They literally took the model for "Shadowblade", the Hero Assassin from the old Dark Elf book, and renamed him(like they did with Araloth and the Nomad Prince) and took the faction name from him.

I agree GW needs to clean up the little factions - the new Beasts of Chaos is doing just that. What AoS really needs is not just that but for 40K to step back for a year or so and to let AoS dominate the release schedual to catch up. I'm not saying no 40K, just that AoS needs a bit clean up both in terms of what factions there are; in the rules and also in its whole presentation so that new gamers can come to the GW website - see the factions clearly and get into the game not get scared by a billion factions that seem tiny or worthless .

I don't think we necessarily need to "clean up the little factions", we need to either see them get fleshed out or Order needs to get books for the Seeds of Hope/Firestorm cities.

That's what Beasts of Chaos is effectively doing. They're not "cleaning up" anything, they're bringing effectively four factions that can effectively be grouped together into one grouping.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Assassins are plastic now. They literally took the model for "Shadowblade", the Hero Assassin from the old Dark Elf book, and renamed him(like they did with Araloth and the Nomad Prince) and took the faction name from him.

I wait what - I just went and checked and yeah its in plastic! How long has that been the case? I was sure it was a resin sculpt! I might be going insane!

 Overread wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Assassins are plastic now. They literally took the model for "Shadowblade", the Hero Assassin from the old Dark Elf book, and renamed him(like they did with Araloth and the Nomad Prince) and took the faction name from him.

I wait what - I just went and checked and yeah its in plastic! How long has that been the case? I was sure it was a resin sculpt! I might be going insane!

It's been the case since before The End Times.

There was a second sculpt available for awhile(cloaked, half-mask, knife raised) in Finecast. I've made some cash over the past few years selling off my excess stock of old metal Assassins(I used to fill out my Corsairs with Assassins--I had a good 5-6 of the blighters).

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Assassins are plastic now. They literally took the model for "Shadowblade", the Hero Assassin from the old Dark Elf book, and renamed him(like they did with Araloth and the Nomad Prince) and took the faction name from him.

I wait what - I just went and checked and yeah its in plastic! How long has that been the case? I was sure it was a resin sculpt! I might be going insane!

It's been the case since before The End Times.

There was a second sculpt available for awhile(cloaked, half-mask, knife raised) in Finecast. I've made some cash over the past few years selling off my excess stock of old metal Assassins(I used to fill out my Corsairs with Assassins--I had a good 5-6 of the blighters).

I'll just list myself as going nuts!
Still I picked up a pair of the bloodbowl assassins for mine and still want to convert something to make a Khinerai Assassin (since for Daughters of Khaine I can't think of a better/more fun delivery than to have an assassin pop out of a sky striking unit of Khinerai!)

pm713 wrote:

Spoiler:

Davor wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Davor wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Aos is 40k with swords

40k is MTG with models you assemble and paint.

GW have abandoned all trappings of war games in exchange for CCG and Video Game expansion pack design.

If i wanted to play LOL or MTG I would play LOL or MTG not AOS or 40k.

Correction. 40K is Age of Sigmar with guns.

40k came first though.

I am sorry, I don't understand. How so? When the rules for Age of Sigmar came out 40K was in 7th edition and had no semblance what AoS was. AoS gave us the key words. Gave us mortal wounds. When 40K went to 8th edition, movement stats were introduced like AoS. Even the wound chart is like AoS wound chart. That wasn't in 40K before. 40K didn't have key words like AoS does and now 40K has mortal wounds when it didn't have them before.

So not sure how 40K before Age of Sigmar. If you are saying 40K was before Age of Sigmar became a game, then you could be correct BUT since AoS is basically from Warhammer Fantasy Battles (not the rules but the miniatures) I am still correct because Fantasy was before 40K. 40K came what around Fantasy third edition?

This is why I say AoS came before 40K. How do you see it? I just don't understand.

Well like you said: When AoS came out 40k was in 7th. So 40k was around prior to AoS starting therefore 40k came first.

Davor wrote:

pm713 wrote:We seem to disagree strongly about the idea that AoS is a continuation of Fantasy though.

Fluff wise yes it's a continuation. Game wise totally different game. Not saying you are wrong just showing my point of view. I would like to see your point of view on this. I will make a new thread if you like to discuss further.

Yeah, AoS is definitely more converting 40K in to Fantasy than continuing anything in WHFB. You can see the testing marks all over it now that 40K's 8th Edition came out. Oddly enough, 40K has more connections to WHFB now than AoS does in terms of mechanics. Just by keeping most of the stats from 7th Edition and incorporating them in the different mechanics, they've done that.

WHFB was a huge mess of processes that was great for setting up many of the intricacies of doing rank and file combat at a unit level (albeit ham-stringed by their own ham-handed rules development processes). Then there were times when certain armies couldn't even be fielded without House Rules below 1000 points. A lot of people liked that, and AoS could only get farther away from it by making the processes support a WMH, Malifaux, or Infinity-sized game, rather than providing processes for large forces.

Oddly enough, once they got the point thing back in to play, it started going pretty well in my region. It had been quite dead during most of 8th Edition, to the point that only people who liked the models were buying anything and only those who didn't care much about Sci-Fantasy and Steam Punk really played much of it. When AoS released, it was mocked for its silly extra rules, and people were interested, but were having a hard time nailing the balance of the games. Once the General's Handbook came out, it started picking up steam, especially when Formationhammer was gutting 40K.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

auticus wrote:
There are tactics. Just not traditional wargaming tactics. The tactics come primarily in winning in the listbuilding phase.

So, traditional Warhammer tactics?

For the most part yes barring whfb 6th edition, which placed a greater emphasis on gameplay over listbuilding. Not suprisingly the architect of that edition was Alessio... who was big into games meaning more than listbuilding (and you can see that with Kings of War and other games he's authored).

I wonder what my opinion would be had I never played 6th edition and only was exposed to the game afterward?

Davor wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Simply put I dislike the shallowness of the rules and the way that you either have a big thing or you lose. You have the right power units or you lose. You Skaven dont have Verminlords or those new Skyre Ratogres then you dont win, simple as. If you dont bring the Clan formation then you dont get the LD buffs you desperately need (and that used to be army integral and really need to be) and so you lose as your piss-poor LD (or whatever it is called now) coupled with the stupid battleshock system causes entire units to erode away in a single turn. Of course you can counter this by bringing..... What exactly? That one formation again. Thats it.

So what game is superior to this?

Just about any other game - heck even the free ones I can get online have more depth in a few plainly typed pages than AOS manages with all its fancy decoration. Infinity, Kings of War, Old Warhammer Fantasy, Historicals, Honestly anything. AoS has about as much tactical depth as pushing your toy army mens into the middle of the table and making clangclang noises.
Hell, you can even fire into close combat without any penalties and you can even fire with your missile units if they are locked in combat. In combat and dont want to be? Just quite literally walk out, no penalties, no free strikes, nothing.Your free to go. Even the terrain lacks any actual effect on the table save to occasionally block line of sight if it is big enough - or in other words you could play AoS on a empty table and the only difference would be the table not looking quite as pretty. As someone else said, the only tactical decisions in the entire game are in the list building phase, the game itself is hilariously flat.

For me, Kings of War is much more fun. AoS isn't bad, but the fluff is so silly and over the top (in my opinion), and the figures are all 35-40mm. Can't stand the new sizes.

So I play KoW with mostly old GW WHFB figures

Pretty simple for me- I'm not all that big on old fantasy settings. Sci-Fi is just far more interesting.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Infinity

You need to endure the arrogant attitude and the cult following that makes CB. As long as that situation persists and competitive play is their primary focus, I don't see myself involved with them. Enjoy whatever you do and let others be.

auticus wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

auticus wrote:
There are tactics. Just not traditional wargaming tactics. The tactics come primarily in winning in the listbuilding phase.

So, traditional Warhammer tactics?

For the most part yes barring whfb 6th edition, which placed a greater emphasis on gameplay over listbuilding. Not suprisingly the architect of that edition was Alessio... who was big into games meaning more than listbuilding (and you can see that with Kings of War and other games he's authored).

I wonder what my opinion would be had I never played 6th edition and only was exposed to the game afterward?

Agreed, and I think it is also worth noting how popular 6th edition was and still is. I think people would still flock to a game system with more tactical mechanics and a more balanced lineup, provided it was still relatively simple and intuitive. On average people just do not have the energy these days to dive into more complex systems.

The problem is that the large bulk of the GW players conflate complexity with depth, resulting in a huge pushback against any sort of streamlining.

In fairness GW streamlining often results in rules that are written in such a way as they don't so much streamline as leave out key bits of information.

So instead of taking the complex rules of 40K and making Chess rules you instead take the complex rules of 40K and just leave bits out.

Eg at present its perfectly possible to shoot around walls in AoS unless the wall has a warscroll of its own.

Pancakey wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I tried AOS and it was, uh, crap
Simply put I dislike the shallowness of the rules and the way that you either have a big thing or you lose. You have the right power units or you lose. You Skaven dont have Verminlords or those new Skyre Ratogres then you dont win, simple as. If you dont bring the Clan formation then you dont get the LD buffs you desperately need (and that used to be army integral and really need to be) and so you lose as your piss-poor LD (or whatever it is called now) coupled with the stupid battleshock system causes entire units to erode away in a single turn. Of course you can counter this by bringing..... What exactly? That one formation again. Thats it.

You see, for me its not just the shallow rules that I cannot stand (and lets face it, there is no such thing as 'tactics' any more, not like there was) but also the need to bring a very limited selection of units from a select number of armies or you will auto-lose.There is no counter-meta, no outsmarting your opponent, none of that. Hell, even your actions dont really have consequences as you can shoot into and even whilst in combat.

For me the game just feels like a desperate attempt from GW to milk the old world one last time.

This x40000.

The game has been out for over THREE YEARS.

How long will GW prop up this disaster of “game design”?

You mean the disaster of game design that was basically dragged and dropped into their #1 game system (and probably the most popular tabletop wargame around)? You mean the disaster of game design that has saw sales skyrocket and community growth on a scale that likely has never happened before? THAT game design disaster?

While GW games may not be your cup of tea (and let's be honest, it's not AoS, it's GW designs in general most seem to have issues with), there is no denying that GW and their two core lines are doing better than ever, so they must be doing something right.

Are people buying models for the game, or for other reasons though? It could be that people just like the models, but don't care about the game.