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 kodos wrote:
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)

In practice I don't see it working out that way from watching games tho. Either the player going first commits and gets crushed if his opponent gets a double turn, or he plays cagey, the player going second gets to alpha strike first and set up for a double turn. If he gets it he often does enough crippling damage that a return double is not enough to claw back and if he doesn't get the double he is still fine because he got in the the first good hit, and gets a 2nd chance at a double.

It might have been something that worked in the first edition but the game has changed a lot since then and, like 40k, seems to be running into lethality issues that make getting 2 magic/shooting/charge phases without a reply from your opponent back breaking. As well as more shooting and mobility that means that 'overextending' is much less a thing now.


As for Toughness in AoS. Its a matter of design space. A lot of weapons are samey, there is no real difference between a 3+, 4+ attack and a 4+, 3+ attack. its even easier to figure out what the 'best' weapon is because there is a variable less to consider (your targets Toughness), its just less readily apparent because there are not a lot of weapon options within units.

 kodos wrote:
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)

The thing is the double turn doesn't actually stop alpha strikes happening. In a game where mid-table objectives are often a core part of the gameplay and where you have perhaps only 4-5 functional turns in most games, you can't spend too many turns sitting back in case your opponent gets a double turn. If you sit back and don't advance into the game board, then you're giving your opponent early game advantage in potentially securing more objectives. You are sacrificing board control on the chance that a single dice roll will let your opponent act twice in a row.
So pretty much every army has to press their advantage when it is their turn.


Because the doubleturn is totally disconnected from the actual game state you can't really plan for it. You can't plan to get it nor to not get it; similarly you can't plan the same for your opponent. Furthermore planning to get it and planning not to get it are almost mutually exclusive strategies. In the end you have to pick only one and because the chance of the double turn happening is completely random, its a huge gamble.


Most "ahh but it might let the underdog win" or "it might change the predictable game result" etc... are honestly quite poor justifications for the mechanic. Yes it might do those things, or it might take a balanced game and tip it in favour of one person ; or it might let the person who is winning win so much the underdog hasn't even got a chance. It is a huge thing and its just a single dice roll each turn with limited practical strategy connected to it. Heck one of the strategies I hear people rolling out to "deal" with it is to learn to screen your powerful units with chaff and weaker infantry - that's not a doubleturn strategy, that's just a good solid normal strategy for the game in the first place.




Which I think does highlight that AoS might well have a lot of new wargamers and also highlights how poor the wargaming community is with teaching and sharing knowledge of game strategy. IT's avast gaping black hole within the hobby. We can get huge amounts of articles on dice theory and painting and building, but when it comes to actually playing the game its a wasteland.

 Overread wrote:

Which I think does highlight that AoS might well have a lot of new wargamers and also highlights how poor the wargaming community is with teaching and sharing knowledge of game strategy. IT's avast gaping black hole within the hobby. We can get huge amounts of articles on dice theory and painting and building, but when it comes to actually playing the game its a wasteland.

this
so yes, it comes down to good and bad players can handle it or not, but not in the way that a good player can recover from a double turn, but that a bad player cannot use a double turn to his full advantage

and this is also a strategy I have seen by good players, if the see/know that the opponent has less expierence they give him the chance for the first double turn because they know that it won't be use in a way to win the game
and those players also don't share their actual gameplay but come up with "learn to position and use your units" instead of going into details on how to use it or share their deployment against different opponents

AoS gives possibilities for strategy and tactical gameplay, but not in a way most people think of a mass-skirmish game
if most players would are on the same "good" level, double strike is an issue

Fiends of Slaanesh were a good test of anti-monster not so good vs infantry type of unit. That would be a good way of replicating S+T, but it must be a failure or something because there dosn't seem to be many units like that. Some few are getting the "Your number of attacks is equal to the number of enemy models within range". If these two rules were more extended into the system it would be a solid S+T system.

The first new Slaanesh tome had the core issue that with the way depravity worked there just wasn't any reason to take troops beyond your battleline requirements. The rest of your points were best spent on leaders and especially multiwound leaders because they were the only things that would generate loads of depravity to summon more models to the table.

Fiends were slightly too expensive (I felt) but when they didn't have battleline and when they couldn't generate depravity there just was no reason to take a unit of fiends over another leader.



It was an issue that plagued the book and its thankfully a bit better now with the new version.

Regarding S/T etc. I would not want it back. First of all, all it does is add one extra step to combat resolution, and second of all, it gives GW more space to muck up. AoS one saving grace as a game is how easy it is to learn and how little design space there is in the core rules for GW to muck it up. Adding more elements increases the chance for GW Balance to appear exponentially.

Eh if we factor GW mucking up as a risk we might as well go back to the AoS launch rules - ergo none of them ;P

Cronch wrote:
Regarding S/T etc. I would not want it back. First of all, all it does is add one extra step to combat resolution, and second of all, it gives GW more space to muck up. AoS one saving grace as a game is how easy it is to learn and how little design space there is in the core rules for GW to muck it up. Adding more elements increases the chance for GW Balance to appear exponentially.

Its not an extra step, your already rolling that dice. Comparing the stats barely takes any time

How Age of Sigmar’s Dominion Boxed Set Draws on 40 Years of Warhammer History on Warhammer Community. The most important part is the very last sentence of the article:

Check back tomorrow to find out when you’ll be able to pre-order the Dominion boxed set!

 Ghaz wrote:
How Age of Sigmar’s Dominion Boxed Set Draws on 40 Years of Warhammer History on Warhammer Community. The most important part is the very last sentence of the article:

Check back tomorrow to find out when you’ll be able to pre-order the Dominion boxed set!

I bet its going to be £150.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
How Age of Sigmar’s Dominion Boxed Set Draws on 40 Years of Warhammer History on Warhammer Community. The most important part is the very last sentence of the article:

Check back tomorrow to find out when you’ll be able to pre-order the Dominion boxed set!

I bet its going to be £150.

We most likely won't find that out tomorrow. All we'll find out is when it goes on pre-order.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
How Age of Sigmar’s Dominion Boxed Set Draws on 40 Years of Warhammer History on Warhammer Community. The most important part is the very last sentence of the article:

Check back tomorrow to find out when you’ll be able to pre-order the Dominion boxed set!

I bet its going to be £150.

I think the Indomitus price is more likely with Dominion at 120 pounds. Similar amount of models even.

Heh, people saying double turn stops alpha strikes--it doesn't. My tourney list back in the day was alpha strike with single-drop deployment so I could choose second. Play every round assuming I will NOT get the double, because if I did I just won and there was no need to plan for it. There was zero element of planning for both outcomes, because only one of those outcomes actually required forward planning. And if I theoretically got into a case where a double would have been disadvantageous? Just don't take it.

And people wonder why shooting & magic are so dominant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
How Age of Sigmar’s Dominion Boxed Set Draws on 40 Years of Warhammer History on Warhammer Community. The most important part is the very last sentence of the article:

Check back tomorrow to find out when you’ll be able to pre-order the Dominion boxed set!

I bet its going to be £150.

I think the Indomitus price is more likely with Dominion at 120 pounds. Similar amount of models even.

I also expect this, though I won't be surprised if it ends up being higher.

They said 'around' Indomitus pricing, so I'd guess £130-£135.

Age of Sigmar already has armor save and wounds, so two profile values to represent how tough a model is. And both of them can be affected by the weapon/unit attacking them, in the form of rend and damage. So does the game really need a third profile value that does the same thing?

Bleh I hate double turn. If they don't have some serious counter-balance AoS will be a pass again for me. Maybe bidding for first? I dunno. I like everything else so far at least.

Easy counter-balance is no way to do low "drops" for anything taking a WSB.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Easy counter-balance is no way to do low "drops" for anything taking a WSB.

I'm really hoping the new WSB rules and Generic Battalions do away with that BS. Making your entire army a single drop is dumb beyond belief.

Oh man, I forgot Battalions all deployed together.

Yeah, I imagine it'll be somewhere in the £125-150 range. Hopefully on the lighter side. Now I just need to decide if I like the weird, stubby legged proportions enough to try and order one.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Age of Sigmar already has armor save and wounds, so two profile values to represent how tough a model is. And both of them can be affected by the weapon/unit attacking them, in the form of rend and damage. So does the game really need a third profile value that does the same thing?

No, I think two is enough to give you the good spread on the axis of "rigid but brittle" to "punching bag that won't die". I personally just find it odd the way they went about that. Why roll for both hitting and wounding when there isn't anything to compare them to? You don't need double the randomness, one arbitrary roll would give you that (I suppose it does even out spikes a bit, but I would put money on that not being the reason). I'd prefer there be a "dodge" and "toughness" stat to compare to, so elves could be dodgy and ironjaws could tank it. Then you could compare it to the "accuracy" and "power" of the attack to see what you need to hit and wound. There's be no need for saves, which would give some people a lesser sense of involvement (a lot of people feel good saving their models), but would speed things up and give you a better range of defensive stats. Wounds are mostly fine as is.

I think saves are important, they do give the other player some sense of contribution and event during their opponents turn. Even if it is purely reactionary its still gives them something to do besides watch their opponent play their turn and remove models.

Now sure its not as fun as having your own turn, but it is something I think in a game with long turns per person its important to keep both sides engaged.


Which is another downside of the doubleturn, because it means one person has to wait twice as long for their turn to do something besides reactionary roles (and some close combat attacks)

 GaroRobe wrote:
No toe nails on any greenskins

There are no fingernails or toenails on any of the new Kruleboy Orruks.

Its strange to notice that lack of detail, when the rest of the models' designs have so many good elements.

They've focused so much on the call-back features, they left out a basic detail.

The Hobgrots have fingernails and weird toeless claws coming out of their feet.

So it's either a conscious design choice, or a total miss by the sculptor & whoever approves them.

 skrulnik wrote:

 GaroRobe wrote:
No toe nails on any greenskins

There are no fingernails or toenails on any of the new Kruleboy Orruks.

Its strange to notice that lack of detail, when the rest of the models' designs have so many good elements.

They've focused so much on the call-back features, they left out a basic detail.

The Hobgrots have fingernails and weird toeless claws coming out of their feet.

So it's either a conscious design choice, or a total miss by the sculptor & whoever approves them.

They're called Cruel Boys. Clearly, they have long exhausted their supply of toenails by pulling them out of each other in bouts of sadism.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 skrulnik wrote:

 GaroRobe wrote:
No toe nails on any greenskins

There are no fingernails or toenails on any of the new Kruleboy Orruks.

Its strange to notice that lack of detail, when the rest of the models' designs have so many good elements.

They've focused so much on the call-back features, they left out a basic detail.

The Hobgrots have fingernails and weird toeless claws coming out of their feet.

So it's either a conscious design choice, or a total miss by the sculptor & whoever approves them.

They're called Cruel Boys. Clearly, they have long exhausted their supply of toenails by pulling them out of each other in bouts of sadism.

Toenails iz da teef of AOS Greenskins , an Dis lot of boyz iz brok

Separate hit and wound rolls are important because they counteract randomness. Rolling really well on the hit roll AND the wound roll is exponentially less likely than just one, the opponent getting a crappy save roll to boot even more so. It helps laws of average curb down random dice rolls so that things aren't totally random all the time. Ties into why MWs on 6s to hit are such an issue while on 6s to wound are not--the former skips both of those other rolls while the latter only one. People don't like it when they lose a key unit to one good roll, just like they don't enjoy losing the game to one good initiative roll. Non TFGs don't like being on the winning side of that either. Hit/wound/save falls into the butter zone of being enough rolls to keep randomness in check while also not bogging down gameplay.

Well after receiving the Slaanesh Twins today,
I must say their profile makes far more sense.
Box opened, they are tinier and far smaller than
expected on the pictures.

Nothing on part with the KoS as far as
size is concerned.
As a consequence, a lot of very fragile,
small parts in the kit.

A good example of how one can be mislead
by judging from a few preview pictures...

Wonder what time today dominion preorder date is revealed. Today was no twitch stream scheduled? So warcom article at some point expected

Pre-orders are usually announced on a Sunday, around 6pm U.K. time. I concede I may have missed an announcement that the, erm, announcement, is coming today.

In other news, I just built my Kragnos. What a really lovely kit! Nothing too fiddly, and I’d argue designed for sub-assemblies of the tactical rock, Kragnos and the shield.

Now to find a painting guide and copy it

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Pre-orders are usually announced on a Sunday, around 6pm U.K. time. I concede I may have missed an announcement that the, erm, announcement, is coming today.

In other news, I just built my Kragnos. What a really lovely kit! Nothing too fiddly, and I’d argue designed for sub-assemblies of the tactical rock, Kragnos and the shield.

Now to find a painting guide and copy it

You did

Check back tomorrow to find out when you’ll be able to pre-order the Dominion boxed set!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/04/how-age-of-sigmars-dominion-boxed-set-draws-on-40-years-of-warhammer-history/

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Pre-orders are usually announced on a Sunday, around 6pm U.K. time. I concede I may have missed an announcement that the, erm, announcement, is coming today.

From a little further up this page:

 Ghaz wrote:
How Age of Sigmar’s Dominion Boxed Set Draws on 40 Years of Warhammer History on Warhammer Community. The most important part is the very last sentence of the article:

Check back tomorrow to find out when you’ll be able to pre-order the Dominion boxed set!

I agree that 6pm BST/1pm EDT sounds like the likely time for this announcement.