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 lare2 wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/03/how-warhammer-age-of-sigmars-new-edition-turns-monsters-and-heroes-up-to-11/

I'm a fan of this new stuff.

I like or love every single one of those rules. I am legitimately impressed, as I have grown not to expect this quality of rules writing from GW. Very nice, very thematic, it shows the strengths of GW narrative writing without any of the normal mechanical potholes.

1 CP for going second is not going to counteract the might of a double, though if the rumor that CP expire at the end of turn is true it is a decent bit better than if we can still stockpile.

Finest hour could be an issue if it affects mounts, but making it 1/game mitigates that somewhat and enhances the cinematic appeal IMO.

Standardized command ability ranges are something I did not know I wanted so badly. And champions can issue commands to their own unit!


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tneva82 wrote:
To be fair we only have seen briefest of brief view of shooting rule. Only thing of note was look out sir. Anything else we don't know.

One big thing is of course obscuring terrain. More of that and lots of issues gets solved. Except for those units that ignore LOS but that's not issue with core rules now is it? That's warscroll specific issue to be solved there. Making core rule that aims at that makes armies without that issue struggle unreasonable hard then as THEIR counter plays gets removed resulting in invincible units that will just smash through everything.

Right now terrain that obscures los does not work if the shooter or the target can fly. As all Nighthaunt can fly it just makes things even worse for them. They are in a uniquely bad spot for characters getting sniped, having it far worse than any other army.


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 Eldarsif wrote:
There are currently at least two books who never saw an update in 2.0. Idoneth and Maggotkin. I do hope they get a book soon.

They did not get new versions, but Nurgle got boosted by getting their sub factions in Wrath of the Everchosen, then again by the warscroll updates in BR Teclis. GW has done a reasonably good job of keeping it relevant. Idoneth warscroll updates in BR Morathi also gave them a boost as well by expanding their selection of viable units. While they are definitely due to new tomes, other armies (NH and SCE come to mind) need them more. As a Nurgle player, I can wait.

 Arbitrator wrote:
Giving extra CP for going Second isn't going to mitigate that immediately having another (literal) shot at blowing away your opponents army is far more powerful.

Seems to be they're just desperate to cling to Double Turn so they don't have to admit it's a bad rule.

Well noobs complain, good players beat it.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Right now terrain that obscures los does not work if the shooter or the target can fly. As all Nighthaunt can fly it just makes things even worse for them. They are in a uniquely bad spot for characters getting sniped, having it far worse than any other army.

Keyword being now. Unless you have　seen rulebook you don't know how it works month later.

Well noobs complain, good players beat it.

"Good players can sort of work with it, therefore it is a good rule!" is such a take. By that logic, no game ever had bad rules, cause good players will always figure a way around it.

Doubleturn sort of works in AoS because close combat alternates who attacks first each time it happens. However with 2.0 having a lot of new armies many didn't have any or many ranged options so close combat was a much bigger part of the core game. As we move on we are seeing more ranged options and ranged is one pure attack from the person who has the turn.


Honestly doubleturn in 2.0 is terrible and I hope they at least make it part of the game in 3.0 instead of the whole "roll a dice at the start of each turn and if you get double you basically win".




Sadly there are many who love the doubleturn - often because its "just different to other games". Others think it promotes different tactical play, when in reality they are just using normal tactical optoins you should learn and use for regular games.


That said GW right now in balance is REALLY addicted to the cinematic "one turn and you do amazing insane stupid wipe the floor with damage" style of balancing. So a doubleturn from their design team fits that.

Yeah, I've yet to see a sane defense of the double turn, just "if you don't like it, git gud" type comments.

Honestly, given how embarrassing the launch of the original edition was under the dying screams of the Kirby era of GW, you'd think they'd want to wipe out the rule that stood out as a horrific idea even in a rule-set that felt like an intern had knocked it out over a lunch break. The general's handbook brought things up to a bare minimum of functionality without houserules, 2nd did a solid job of cleaning up the game's overall act, but somehow the grand-daddy dealbreaker remained enshrined.

Cronch wrote:

Well noobs complain, good players beat it.

"Good players can sort of work with it, therefore it is a good rule!" is such a take. By that logic, no game ever had bad rules, cause good players will always figure a way around it.

It is actually just proof that the person speaking is not a skilled player, actual skilled players know unbeatable double turns are not uncommon because we are experts in setting them up. If I dump 50 MWs on your face without you having a chance to react then either your army has the tools to mitigate that (in which case yes, a skilled player might* be able to come back from it) or it does not. My old tourney list lost plenty of games, but it only ever lost three where it got a round 1-2 double, all of which required not only my opponent to be very skilled but critical errors on my part for them to exploit. And that is just it; winning after getting hit with a 1-2 double is often down to mistakes made by the player who got it, not the victim.

*Assuming they get a subsequent double themselves.


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tneva82 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Right now terrain that obscures los does not work if the shooter or the target can fly. As all Nighthaunt can fly it just makes things even worse for them. They are in a uniquely bad spot for characters getting sniped, having it far worse than any other army.

Keyword being now. Unless you have　seen rulebook you don't know how it works month later.

Correct, I was outlining the problem as it exists now and why the Nighthaunt army needs more than Look Out Sir from the new edition to counter their shooting woes. At no point did I mean to asset that is how things will continue to work so I find your hostility unwarranted.


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 Overread wrote:
Sadly there are many who love the doubleturn

I agree with everything else you said, save this one point. I do not believe that there are that many people who truly *like* the double turn, I think there are many people willing to find entertainment in it because like it or not random initiative is part of the rules. And I don't think that is a sad thing, nor is there anything wrong with people who genuinely do love it. The sad part lies in people feeling the need to justify that with false claims of tactical nuance, doubly so for there being no need to justify it their enjoyment in the first place.

The double turn is one of those things people like because they're used to it. But the fact that you never, ever, ever see for people calling it to be put into 40k should tell you something. And the fact that nobody ever advertises AOS as being the awesome game everyone should play because of the double turn. It's always this thing to be explained away, never an actual selling point.

The double turn equivalent has been part of the Middle-Earth sbg since it's inception and the games ruleset is considered one of the best GW has ever put out. But from what limited info we've seen, it seems like they could be pulling an equivalent of the heroic actions from it and implementing it into 3.0

Middle Earth has heavy alternate activation elements, making talking about a "double turn" a bit silly. It really ends up being a very different thing.

ME does have the best ruleset of any GW game, but it really only works for small matches. It really starts to chug even at the points values people play at competitively; it would be a disaster in an AOS or 40k sized game.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The double turn is one of those things people like because they're used to it. But the fact that you never, ever, ever see for people calling it to be put into 40k should tell you something. And the fact that nobody ever advertises AOS as being the awesome game everyone should play because of the double turn. It's always this thing to be explained away, never an actual selling point.

Yeah, like how you can tell that toughness is a stupid rule because you never see AoS people clamoring for it and you never see people trying to sell the game with it.

See the same with: Invulnerable saves, detachments, the rule of 3, command points as they're implemented in EITHER game, free summoning, requisition point summoning, etc.

It's almost like...AoS and 40k are...different games?! What!?!??!

Hate on the double turn all you want, this is still a really asinine take.

Actually you do regularly see discussions about whether toughness should make a comeback in AOS. But way to defeat your own argument with the very first example, I guess; it certainly makes it easier for everyone else.

"You should play this awesome game called AOS because it has double turns and those are great!" - said nobody, ever.

Also sometimes people won't name a specific rule but a concept - toughness isn't just a rule, it also represents the idea of creating different classes of unit, with some being tougher and harder to kill by others.

Right now in AoS anything can hurt anything else. Yes some units are better than others and some have high save values and thus you might want units with rending to increase the chances of hurting them; but you're only increasing the chance to hurt not the ability to hurt.

Adding something like toughness or other modifers can allow you to have units that can only be hurt by specific other kinds of unit (or weapon profiles if units have more than one weapon). That could mean GW can add/change a bunch of units to be anti-monsters. Suddenly those skaven clanrats can't even hurt the monstrous creature, so the Skaven player has to consider that - either their strategy is to tarpit and sacrifice their clanrats; avoid the creature; or bring some anti-monstrous creature units of their own.

doing such can increase the number of unit types within the army and can help armies with big unit rosters have more niches

Yeah toughness is probably the #1 thing I see people wanting from 40k, followed by invul saves. That those were his first two examples displays the validity of the point he was trying to oppose, ironically.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The double turn is one of those things people like because they're used to it. But the fact that you never, ever, ever see for people calling it to be put into 40k should tell you something. And the fact that nobody ever advertises AOS as being the awesome game everyone should play because of the double turn. It's always this thing to be explained away, never an actual selling point.

It's a weird sort of 'sunk cost fallacy' among the fanboys, who you just know would praise GW as genius' if they removed it.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
The double turn equivalent has been part of the Middle-Earth sbg since it's inception and the games ruleset is considered one of the best GW has ever put out. But from what limited info we've seen, it seems like they could be pulling an equivalent of the heroic actions from it and implementing it into 3.0

As has been said, Middle-Earth using alternating phases, which is very different to Double Turn being part of an I Go, You Go ruleset.

You don't see anybody complaining about the potential of double/triple/quadruple turns in Bolt Action, for example.

 Overread wrote:
Adding something like toughness or other modifers can allow you to have units that can only be hurt by specific other kinds of unit (or weapon profiles if units have more than one weapon).

That's not even slightly true. 40K has Toughness and (to the detriment of the game) everything can still wound everything.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Adding something like toughness or other modifers can allow you to have units that can only be hurt by specific other kinds of unit (or weapon profiles if units have more than one weapon).

That's not even slightly true. 40K has Toughness and (to the detriment of the game) everything can still wound everything.

Currently yes and in the past there were some things that were impossible (or nearly so).

It is a structural element which can then be tuned and there is a balance to be found so that it introduces niches without breaking balance.



Right now AoS has no such structural element like that.

The thing is, 40k has tanks and associated anti-tank weapons which are specifically supposed to be strong vs them but inefficient against other targets. In AoS, broadly speaking, a weapon that is good against large targets would also be usable to kill multiple small ones (and exceptions can be dealt with via 'deals extra damage vs monsters' abilities). AoS could certainly add nuance with a toughness score, but doesn't inherently need it quite like 40k does.

The point of S/T is to create units that simply cannot be reasonably dealt with via spamming lots of little attacks; because a Land Raider is not going to go down to massed bolter fire no matter how many of them you have. That such is the preferred method of dealing with tanks shows the unfortunate reality; while the theory of S/T is great GW does not utilize it in a manner that actually makes the system better for it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Adding something like toughness or other modifers can allow you to have units that can only be hurt by specific other kinds of unit (or weapon profiles if units have more than one weapon).

That's not even slightly true. 40K has Toughness and (to the detriment of the game) everything can still wound everything.

I'll take everything can wound everything over non-weakening T8 Monstrous Creatures immune to the vast majority of the game's attacks.

NinthMusketeer wrote:The thing is, 40k has tanks and associated anti-tank weapons which are specifically supposed to be strong vs them but inefficient against other targets. In AoS, broadly speaking, a weapon that is good against large targets would also be usable to kill multiple small ones (and exceptions can be dealt with via 'deals extra damage vs monsters' abilities). AoS could certainly add nuance with a toughness score, but doesn't inherently need it quite like 40k does.

The point of S/T is to create units that simply cannot be reasonably dealt with via spamming lots of little attacks; because a Land Raider is not going to go down to massed bolter fire no matter how many of them you have. That such is the preferred method of dealing with tanks shows the unfortunate reality; while the theory of S/T is great GW does not utilize it in a manner that actually makes the system better for it.

True to a point; but if GW wanted they could make it more complex. Eg a spear might be great against a gargant or a dragon, but not as effective against close quarters infantry.
That said it does become a bit more of a tricky thing if dealt with by the idea of the weapon; instead it might be viewed more so as training and experience. Ergo a unit of swordsmen might be trained to fight other humanoid sized enemies and, whilst their weapons might work on a dragon hide, they might lack any training or skill in such a fight.
Meanwhile a dragon-slayer might have the same weapon types, but has specific training to overcome bigger foes.

Platuan4th wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Adding something like toughness or other modifers can allow you to have units that can only be hurt by specific other kinds of unit (or weapon profiles if units have more than one weapon).

That's not even slightly true. 40K has Toughness and (to the detriment of the game) everything can still wound everything.

I'll take everything can wound everything over non-weakening T8 Monstrous Creatures immune to the vast majority of the game's attacks.

Aye there's a balancing point. I seem to recall that all the time flying units, when they first came out, were roughly similar. Almost unkillable by anything that wasn't dedicated anti-air and if you spammed air units you could do a lot of damage whilst your opponent was nullified against dealing it back.





OF course there are ways to balance things out. The old Force Organisation chart from 40K was a neat way to limit some unit options to prevent spamming - the game outgrew it (a lot of elites were added to many forces - way more than the force chart allowed); but the concept was sound.

Similarly there is a balance between creating specialist counter niches whilst not creating a situation where unit spam or unit type spam can result in one player being unable to harm the other.



Like many balance discussions around GW rules; there's the theory of how rules can be used and then the practical of how GW might use it and does use it.

 Overread wrote:
Currently yes and in the past there were some things that were impossible (or nearly so).

Ok... and?

 Overread wrote:
It is a structural element which can then be tuned and there is a balance to be found so that it introduces niches without breaking balance.

Right... and?

 Overread wrote:
Right now AoS has no such structural element like that.

Yes. We all know that. Weapons have a To Wound value, meaning that your Grot and my Bloodthirster always get wounded on the same values (barring piled on auras and special rules). It's kinda dumb, as it means your only methods of showing durability are armour saves or pumping up wounds. It's another example of GW creating a rule that doesn't scale well at all.

I mean, can you imagine a version of 40k where Lasguns always wound on 4+'s regardless of what they're firing at, and in order to get around that they have to give individual units even more fething "bespoke" rules to skew the wound rolls. It's far simpler to have a central wounding mechanic that applies to everyone. Why that was ever taken out of Warhammer I do not know.

I believe that, in age of Sigmar, toughness is measured more by Wounds than a Toughness stat. Might not be as granular as 40K having both, but that seems to be how they do it.

It would be nice, however, if the game wasn’t so deadly. The power creep over the last editions has sadly made even basic battle line units way better than they used to be.

I’m still not a fan of GW’s love for deleting entire units in 1 round of shooting/combat in their games; seeing your epic monster you spent hours painting get knocked off the table before you use it is pretty lame, especially if it was just a bunch of clan rats or something.

The lethality of both AOS and 40k are a direct result of the scoring system. When you score based on having bodies on an objective, but your ruleset does not provide any way to remove bodies from an objective other than killing them, massive lethality is required to avoid the game just devolving into an exercise in who can squeeze 1 more grunt onto the objective than the other guy, which isn't entertaining gameplay.

GW has kinda backed itself into a corner here, and the only ways out are (1) coming up with a more dynamic scoring system, or (2) adding back into the game rules that allow you to force models off an objective by some means other than simply killing them. For example...the old morale systems where units actually fled physically on the table, not by being removed as if they were killed.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Currently yes and in the past there were some things that were impossible (or nearly so).

Ok... and?

 Overread wrote:
It is a structural element which can then be tuned and there is a balance to be found so that it introduces niches without breaking balance.

Right... and?

 Overread wrote:
Right now AoS has no such structural element like that.

Yes. We all know that. Weapons have a To Wound value, meaning that your Grot and my Bloodthirster always get wounded on the same values (barring piled on auras and special rules). It's kinda dumb, as it means your only methods of showing durability are armour saves or pumping up wounds. It's another example of GW creating a rule that doesn't scale well at all.

I mean, can you imagine a version of 40k where Lasguns always wound on 4+'s regardless of what they're firing at, and in order to get around that they have to give individual units even more fething "bespoke" rules to skew the wound rolls. It's far simpler to have a central wounding mechanic that applies to everyone. Why that was ever taken out of Warhammer I do not know.

AoS simply gives things that are tougher a higher wounds count or a fnp (fnp not being a pain to play since damage boils over). It is the same end result unless one needs the nuance of units that are extremely difficult to kill with normal weapons without an equivalent increase in durability against high-potency weapons. It works because if you shoot a giant with a hundred arrows yeah, it will die, just as it would to a few ballista shots. A tank, on the other hand, will absolutely die to a few lascannon shots but emerge perfectly fine from a bullets. The latter case is impractical to execute with AoS' fixed wound system as giving the tank extra wounds would also increase its durability against those lascannon shots and that isn't really the point, nor do simple armor saves grant the granularity to manage that without causing collateral issues. So 40k really has a need for S/T values that AoS does not.

Now the natural counter-argument is that nuance could still be used to improve AoS. And you are right it could. But GW is already failing, abundantly, at doing it in 40k so I think there is a strong sentiment among AoS players of 'why bother?'

I'm not entirely sure doing away with toughness was a good change, but it doesn't even make my top 10 of issues with AOS.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The double turn is one of those things people like because they're used to it. But the fact that you never, ever, ever see for people calling it to be put into 40k should tell you something. And the fact that nobody ever advertises AOS as being the awesome game everyone should play because of the double turn. It's always this thing to be explained away, never an actual selling point.

Or by people who have learned to deal with it.

99.99% of problems with double turn are problems with battletomes and not rule itself.

And without it many matchups would be decided before　game starts. Like in 40k look lists, see who goes first, know final result and even points for each +-5.

Many matchups depend on chance of double turn for one side to have a shot. Both aos and40k

Noobs complain, good players laugh and win either way(

What you wrote contradicts itself, which certainly makes refuting it easy.

It can't both be the case that how the double turn shakes out determines who wins in many "many matchups" but that good players "laugh and win either way." These are literally mutually exclusive possibilities.

yukishiro1 wrote:
What you wrote contradicts itself, which certainly makes refuting it easy.

It can't both be the case that how the double turn shakes out determines who wins in many "many matchups" but that good players "laugh and win either way." These are literally mutually exclusive possibilities.

Option - there are not many "good players" playing AOS? I think that, logically, that would allow for both of tneva's scenarios.

Matchups is pretty clearly referring to the lists and/or factions, not the players.

I once got this answer when asking a good player about the double turn:

In a strictly back-and-forth turn structure, it becomes increasingly easy to predict which side is going to win as the game goes on. When the balance of the battle tips to one side, the momentum will generally continue in that direction. This encourages players to build for the alpha strike, dealing a blow in the first turn that the opponent can hopefully never recover from. In extreme cases, the roll for initiative in the first turn of a game of 40K can all but determine the outcome immediately, and you might as well not play the game at all. In AoS, you can't rely on an alpha strike to carry you through to victory, because a timely double turn from your opponent can shift the momentum back in their favour.

Similarly, as the second player, you can't rely on a double turn to recover your position. This discourages you from over-extending - if you play for the double turn and then don't get it, the impact can be just as devastating against you when your enemy gets to retaliate. It's an essential risk/reward mechanic that keeps the game interesting.

it comes down that players cannot play for early turn wins like in 40k because if you have bad luck and/or are the bad player you are not able to make the killing blow and the opponent can still win later on

the problem with 40k here is not that there is no double turn to counter alpha strike but the game is kind of too slow that you don't see full number of turns in tournaments so that the possibility to take advantage from an over-extending opponent is limited

the better comparision would be Kings of War, which is similar sized in number of units with strict alternating turns and double turn there is not needed to prevent that the player who gets the first turn has a much higher chance to win the game
and I never heard the argument that the possibility of double turn is needed in KoW to compensate for Alpha Strike possibilities or to break the monumentum


this comes just down to the usual everything that GW is doing is well designed and makes a lot of sense and is needed to make that game what it is, until it is gone than it is the best thing GW has ever done (we had the same discussions with vehicle facings/armour in 40k)

ERJAK wrote:


Yeah, like how you can tell that toughness is a stupid rule because you never see AoS people clamoring for it and you never see people trying to sell the game with it.

See the same with: Invulnerable saves, detachments, the rule of 3, command points as they're implemented in EITHER game, free summoning, requisition point summoning, etc.

It's almost like...AoS and 40k are...different games?! What!?!??!

Hate on the double turn all you want, this is still a really asinine take.

Man, I would love to see strength and toughness in AoS.