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.

 Overread wrote:
The intention of this thread is not to air grievances or hates of AoS, but rather to be a spot where people can be encouraged to ask questions that give them pause in starting AoS. This might be understanding the lore a bit better; or the way the grand alliances work or which armies are good to take or how to use endless spells etc....


So use it as an opportunity to ask questions and find answers so that you can get into the Age of Sigmar fantasy game

Well, I've just jumped into AoS!

Was reluctant to start as I'd missed the transition from WHFB to AoS, and I'd been a big fan of the former. The new game, lore, system seemed very strange/alien to me. Very different to 40K, which I got into very easily (although I guess I have been reading lots of 40K for years).

Kinda on hold for a moment due to less time with my brother( Kill Team and Ravenloft take up most of our time ), but I've been working on a solo mode, which is a bit like a skirmish version of Ravenloft or Blackstone Fortress. Thankfully I'm a super-fan of Atari's Gauntlet which is a big influence here...and it works really well!

AoS is ****ing cool and I love the game for what it is and how easy it is to get into. If I had more disposable income there is a tonne of AoS stuff I'd be over the moon to get like the Gaming Book, one of the starter sets, and that Stormcast dude riding the awesome Stardrake. Its at this stage I kinda regret bothering with Adeptus Titanicus and wish I had gone in with AoS instead.

AOS has been on hold for me for a while, for a variety of reasons (dabbling in historical gaming, etc.) but I recently began painting the remaining stuff of my Maggotkin army and I'm getting the urge to try it out again. From what I understand a lot of the competitive ex-Warmahordes players have moved on and the game store wants to broaden its terrain (a lot is still WHFB/Kings of War type of stuff) so there's hope that there will be a growing community that wants to try all types of play not just the boring old "2000 point matched play pitched battle we may as well be playing a tournament round" stuff.

We're just between Path To Glory campaigns atm.

With Nov/Dec being rather busy times, people are using the break to plan/aquire/paint whatever they're aiming to use come Jan.

I've boxed my stuff up and put it in storage. Waiting for 3.0 or the new whfb to see what they have done with the rules. Cautiously optimistic about that.

Vanguarding for conquest now and writing a campaign supplement for that as well as breaking my old school chaos out for kings of war.

But Auctus its less than a month until new Slaves Battletome!!

Yes. A little bit too late lol. And I don't want to deal with the triple keeper summoning batteries or any of that stuff anymore.

Can't blame you. If I didn't have a casual/narrative-minded group I sure wouldn't be playing AoS. Competitive play is in a really terrible state in the moment, and the bonereapers have made it worse.

Its a mix of narrative minded people dominated by the handful of guys that only own competitive tournament armies.

I figure if I have to play like that, I 'm going to play a game that is better suited for that style of play and whose rules don't make me want to house rule everything every 5 seconds

Kings of War and Conquest we seem to not be having anywhere near the same issues.

I'm hoping AOS 3.0 reigns in free summoning and addresses some of my issues, or that the whfb reboot is something that I can get into. If not - we are building an alternate community brick at a time. Our conquest group is already the size of the current AOS group.

It must be nice. I don't think I've heard a single person online or at the store in my groups even mention Conquest at all; it may as well not exist. Not sure if the KoW crowd is still around either.

When Conquest was announced I made a big push to get it going here. I run a fairly large and diverse wargaming group that stemmed from a campaign group that began in the 90s. Over the years its grown and we have like 645 people on our facebook now, so the word gets out.

We have a lot of people that love fantasy but do not love AOS. Our first game day we only had 4 people. Getting people to buy in to a non-gw game is very hard. However we've been doing monthly meetups since summer and we have i believe 13 with or preordering armies and another 5 on the fringe waiting for either more models, more factions, or to finally see we're not going anywhere so their investment is somewhat safe. This is a far cry from the 55 or so people I had registered for my last WHFB campaign event in 2015, but is on par with our AOS participation, so that encourages me.

Kings of War is different. I have tried getting that going for YEARS. It is fairly big about an hour south of me so some of the guys will do tournaments there. Conquest is currently our main fantasy game and I have invested in 1000 points of all four factions currently released, and two of those are now fully painted. (for demos)

We also are dropping a campaign supplement (much the same as i have done yearly for whfb and then AOS up until this year where the kingmaker campaign I wrote and linked here is my last AOS campaign) and the PB guys are even interested in looking at it, so the game's activity level has started growing in a very positive way.

To get it going if you are interested, get the very cheap starter box (seriously $80 for what you get is the best deal I think ever) and get it painted and start doing demos. Even petition PB to be a Vanguard for your area if there is not one already and join the discord and facebook groups.

 auticus wrote:
I've boxed my stuff up and put it in storage. Waiting for 3.0 or the new whfb to see what they have done with the rules. Cautiously optimistic about that.

This is why I've opted out of GW games.
You're always waiting for the next version or update to fix the game, but it never does. It always disappoints.

 auticus wrote:
As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.

I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 auticus wrote:
As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.

I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.

F vs A.

Slaves to Darkness is also my army. Was my original WFB army, back when it was called "Chaos Warriors" and you could put daemons in the army and different gods' daemons would bicker with each other. And beastmen were idiots. Before marauders even existed.

I tried to play Slaves to Darkness a couple of times with some older models I have + some of the newer ones, and I have to say they weren't as effective as I'd like. And I've compared their performance to Stormcast Eternals (which honestly were a lot of fun), and I can say they really need some love with the new book.

When it drops, and the new models drop, I'll go back into AoS.

Also, I'd like for the WarCry warbands to be battle line.

I have been playing AoS since its launch in 2015, after playing WHFB since 2010.
I only stopped playing AoS four months ago.

One of the reasons is the release of new Space Marines Codex(WH40K equivalent of Battletome), which drastically improved the performance of what was usually considered to be low tier 40K army. And I was glad to finally have a renovated codex that could more than compete with strong contenders of the meta.

On top of that, I was already having a surfeit of random turn order system in AoS.
No matter how I try to overcome the risk of double turn tactically, the system seemed too random with little reward for tactical play.
All I could do to "prepare" against double turn was to conservatively hold my army back, while opposing army boldly claimed objectives everywhere.

Another reason for not playing AoS would be GW's relatively slow reaction agianst the outliers of the meta.
Granted 40K also suffers the same issue, as can be observed from Iron Hands literally dominating the podium during September to mid-October.
However GW took unusually swift action to nerf some of the key outliers in the Iron Hands supplement and considerably toned down the Iron Hands.
Even latest Salamanders supplement received nerfs on abilities which were considered to be overpowered via FAQ.

On the other hand even after more than six months after the release, I still see Hedonites and the Skaven(and to some extent Flesh Eater Court) dominating the top places while rest of the factions are nibbling at what is basically the leftover of the two powerful factions.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 auticus wrote:
As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.

I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.

Garbage tier vs powergaming goodness. I am told you should just enjoy the game for what it is, and not care about winning and just rolling dice and drinking beer or else play a power faction. You won't have much fun with slaves to darkness right now. The new book may help but their typical release schedule highlights their two teams... one likes power books, the other likes fluffy narrative but only ok books. Since the nagash masters of the universe book is pretty broken on the level of the triple keeper slaanesh list, I would bet you most anything that the new slaves to darkness book will be on par with khorne and the goblins. Which means fun, but you'll get crushed against the power books.

If you are new to GW games, you either love to be competitive, in which case you have to do your homework on what factions (particularly what certain build in that faction) can compete. Otherwise you have to love drinking beer and lol'ing and not caring about the outcome of games and just chuck dice with whatever models you like, and when you get hammered by power builds, just realize you are playing for the fun of playing and socializing. Both of those personalities seem pretty regularly encountered.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

On the other hand even after more than six months after the release, I still see Hedonites and the Skaven(and to some extent Flesh Eater Court) dominating the top places while rest of the factions are nibbling at what is basically the leftover of the two powerful factions.

That has been a feature of pretty much every GW game since the power trifecta of 7th edition fantasy in 2007. Its frustrating.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 auticus wrote:
As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.

I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.

F vs A.

Also, a Battletomed List versus one of the last, if not the last faction that still uses a Grand Alliance book. Could switch out Bonereapers with Seraphon and I’d bet the results would be the same vs. S2D.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sagittarii Orientalis wrote:
On the other hand even after more than six months after the release, I still see Hedonites and the Skaven(and to some extent Flesh Eater Court) dominating the top places while rest of the factions are nibbling at what is basically the leftover of the two powerful factions.

I feel like the issues with HoS and FEC need a bit more than just some simple rewording, like how Iron Hands had their abilities reworded in the errata/FAQ.

The AoS team seems much more conservative with how they fix some of these issues, probably a little too conservative. Still feel your frustration though. I play Fyreslayers and have a HoS army in my play group.

Yeah, you have an army that doesn't have a book yet; there's no way it goes well for you unless your opponent meets you on the same playing field (no army traits, can only use general traits and items out of GHB/Malign Sorcery). Wait until next month; you're getting an army book before Christmas. If the discrepancy between armies is still there, it'll suck. But you have literally the last real army to get a book against something brand new with all the bells and whistles. It's currently a comparison between Waffle House and Texas Roadhouse instead of a comparison between Texas Roadhouse and Longhorn Steakhouse.

-I recognize these are not amazing establishments, but everyone should be able to get my drift.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 auticus wrote:
As a primarily slaves to darkness player, watching new factions get released while slaves to darkness remains F tier is pretty discouraging.

I played my first game of AoS today. I am also a Slaves to Darkness player. Played against Bonereapers in a 500 pt kill everything game. I had the basics of the SC box and my opponent had Guard and Stalkers I think. I got completely tabled and technically didn't kill a single model. I am still too new to the game to know if it was my lack of knowledge of the game, the small point game, bad match up or playing F tier vs. A tier. I do think I would have had a easier chance winning Lost Patrol as the scouts though.

Slaves are not alone, most of the factions that had no battletome or only a first generation one (which were basically just warscrolls in the book and nothing else), do really REALLY badly against any of the armies with a battletome. You can easily find complaints from everyone who is a fan of an army without a battletome complaining that their army under-performs. However the GOOD NEWS is that GW has been updating the game over the last year. In fact since AoS 2.0 launched (in fact a few months before as several armies came out with 2.0 Tomes before the Big Rulebook dropped)they've pretty much added one new Tome (army) per month (sometimes two). The only slowdown was middle of this year when there was a shipping delay and GW just didn't have the stock to release. However best news for you is that on December 14th Slaves to Darkness gets a brand new Battletome released (pre orders on the 7th and the 1st you should see a preview window on the Sunday and then likely several articles in the following two weeks up to the retail release). So hopefully your Slaves will get a very nice boost like the other arimes.

There's a few enigmas like Slaaneshi which are working really rather too well - however many of the new Tomes have been pretty solid releases. Furthermore there's a new update in Janurary which is said to include changes to Slaanesh and some other forces and might help to curb some of the power-play issues with the army.

I would say slaanesh, the masters of the universe undead, skaven, and FEC need adjusted back. Some much more than others. Some with minor tweaks.

Ossiarchs I don't see being adjusted yet, they are too fresh, though in fairness its mostly Petrifax (the +1 save) that people have issues with. I think the rest of the army "issues" is people learning that you don't beat them by charging them fast and trying to beat them all up at once - target prioritizing and maximising early game advantage and location/objective securing to put the Ossiarch player in an early uphill struggle.

FEC mostly it seems to be their summoning and I forget what's broken in Skaven. In general though I'd say that barring Slaanesh AoS isn't in too bad a spot really - certainly many of the competitions are showing quite a wide range of armies.

Ossiarchs are riddled with design issues where elements may not be -unbalanced- but are absolutely -unfun- to play against. Also petrifax elite obviously need to be nerfed, but everyone knows that and has known that since the preview where we were saying "either that blanket +1 to saves has a big downside or that sub-faction is OP."

Do you know the common theme I see when people talk about what is not fun / negative play experience / broken?

Summoning. Summoning. Summoning. Summoning. Its their summoning. They can summon too much. They just summon more in easily. Summoning.

What is summoning? The ability to go over your point limit. What can it also be construed as? Pay to win. If I have the ability to bring 4000 points into a game against your 2000 ... why would I never want to do this? Where is my drawback? What game mechanic makes this a move that isn't something that you should always seek to max out on?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ossiarchs are riddled with design issues where elements may not be -unbalanced- but are absolutely -unfun- to play against. Also petrifax elite obviously need to be nerfed, but everyone knows that and has known that since the preview where we were saying "either that blanket +1 to saves has a big downside or that sub-faction is OP."

I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.

I also agree that Summoning has often been a huge issue. Heck I'm not a fan of how depravity works by the nature of basically making you only want to take leaders and then summon more leaders into a slaanesh force. It cuts out loads of deamonet, chariot and fiend heavy army combinations which I think takes some of the fun out of building a Slaanesh army. I was sad to see the "double depravity bubble" in the White Dwarf issue. I guess their thinking was that encouraging all those units to be taken instead of leaders meant that they wanted a mechanic to boost depravity because you were "sacrificing" so much to take more troops. However in practice it also works even if you don't take loads of troops so suddenly its giving you an insane bonus.

 auticus wrote:
I would bet you most anything that the new slaves to darkness book will be on par with khorne and the goblins. Which means fun, but you'll get crushed against the power books.

Ah, two of my favorite books/forces!

Khorne: Last winter/spring as I returned to AoS, playing full on 2k pt+ games with all the bells & whistles, I had great fun with Khorne - Demons & Mortals.
My W/L ratio (about 50/50) would've likely been higher had I not been changing my list every week, trying out every permutation I could muster out of my existing stuff.

Gloomspite Gitz: My force of choice for our next Path to Glory campaign.
Strongest book? No. But I'm going to have plenty of fun & still chalk up the wins.
And yes, I fully expect to be facing Bonereapers. Nighthaunts, Skaven, Stormcast, Nurgle, & Seraphon as well. And about 3-4 others that're still unknowns.

 auticus wrote:
If you are new to GW games, you either love to be competitive, in which case you have to do your homework on what factions (particularly what certain build in that faction) can compete. Otherwise you have to love drinking beer and lol'ing and not caring about the outcome of games and just chuck dice with whatever models you like, and when you get hammered by power builds, just realize you are playing for the fun of playing and socializing. Both of those personalities seem pretty regularly encountered.

I almost definitely fall into the later category. It's not that I don't care about winning, it's that I know that it's irrelevant beyond the moment. And I don't make my living winning miniature gaming tournaments. So whatever I'm using, for whatever reason, I will always attempt to both win & provide a good game. But W/L/D? The sun keeps rising & my little metal/resin/plastic troops re-spawn for the next game. And over the decades I've learned that, whatever the opinions of others as to what's strongest/weakest etc, I can win my fair share of matches & provide good games using almost anything. So I might as well be doing it with models/lists I like.
I also tend to like a challenge. So when it turns out that Squigs vs Bonereapers is comically lopsided & not in my favor? "Eh". (I'm still likely to win though. Don't tell our new BR player that just yet & spoil the surprise for him.)

I consider myself casually competitive; I play hard to win, try to optimize my list to the best I can do, but I don’t do tournaments or study every army book out there. A good chunk of my enjoyment comes in list building/creating and watching it in action. I almost never run the exact same list twice either. Newest “plan” is a bum-rush 30 man Blood Warrior unit that sprouted wings and rushes 30+ inches in a single turn with charge. My playstyle is honestly “try something they won’t see coming”. Which is the reason I was a bit glum when I saw triple Keeper become a thing...but I don’t like the additional units people have in their HoS armies; mine is 5 characters and 15 Hellstriders in two battalions. Plus one Endless Spell.

 Overread wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ossiarchs are riddled with design issues where elements may not be -unbalanced- but are absolutely -unfun- to play against. Also petrifax elite obviously need to be nerfed, but everyone knows that and has known that since the preview where we were saying "either that blanket +1 to saves has a big downside or that sub-faction is OP."

I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.

I also agree that Summoning has often been a huge issue. Heck I'm not a fan of how depravity works by the nature of basically making you only want to take leaders and then summon more leaders into a slaanesh force. It cuts out loads of deamonet, chariot and fiend heavy army combinations which I think takes some of the fun out of building a Slaanesh army. I was sad to see the "double depravity bubble" in the White Dwarf issue. I guess their thinking was that encouraging all those units to be taken instead of leaders meant that they wanted a mechanic to boost depravity because you were "sacrificing" so much to take more troops. However in practice it also works even if you don't take loads of troops so suddenly its giving you an insane bonus.

A catapult shoots your character from 36" away, rolls some dice, and your character is instantly slain. Your opponent is camping an objective with a unit that has 3+ re-rollable saves and the faction you play has no troops with rend -2. You try to snipe an ossiarch character only to realize the unit 3" behind it intercepts wounds on a 2+. The main caster for your army is stuck at -1 to cast/unbind the whole game because of a terrain feature sitting in the middle of the board. To say these things can just be 'played around' is a slap in the face for many factions who, in fact, can't.

Now they may be balanced on a broader sense due to the point costs involved, but it's the sort of mechanic that frustrates me as a community organizer. I cringe at the thought of a new player encountering such a thing, because they may not have the experience or units to do something about it or even realize that something can be done.

but it's the sort of mechanic that frustrates me as a community organizer.

You speak my language my friend.

 Overread wrote:


I think part of the "un fun" is just learning things a little differently. I think the key is that Ossiarchs will punish anyone who just wants to mindlessly charge forward and fight. It's not a bad thing that there's an army which is going to make people learn some alternative methods of play. Of focusing attacks on specific regions; taking out key units; focusing fire; holding back; using tarpit chockepoint units etc... I don't see that as a negative, just that Ossiarchs are perhaps going to force some to learn better play rather than it being a whole game thing.
.

what about armies that only have a massive charge as their only valid way to play?