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On Saturday I was able to meet up with a good friend for our first joint game of AoS 3rd edition. The armies involved in the faceoff were Ossiarch Bonereapers (The ones that explode) and Orruk Warclans (Big Wagh) @ 1500Pts The "double turn" mechanic literally had no impact on our game, we rolled it each round, but it never changed the order of play for us.

Setup time didn't really change from 2nd to 3rd edition, though I like how straight forward the new missions are and I like the smaller board size. We still had plenty of room to move around without getting too stuck in. Terrain seems to be even less interesting in this edition than it was in second. I couldn't find the table that you roll on to decide which terrain pieces were "mystical" or "difficult" etc. My opponent and I are big fans of that from 2E so I was sad to see it absent from the 3E book.

Overall the game was fun, though I found the Tankyness of the Bonereapers to be beyond absurd....however that seems to be the only thing that they can do. That battletome is in a really weird spot right now. The Big Wagh part of the new Orruk battletome is a lot more fun than the old one from the second edition book, but it really requires very specific units within list building and you really, really have to make good use of the special heroic action that you gain as part of the list in order to capitalize on all the bonuses. Sometimes getting Wagh points is difficult. Overall it seems like the IronJawz were nerfed, as were the Savage Orruks. The new Kruelboyz seem to be fairly well balanced, the Hobgrots are beyond useless. They should have access to venom-encrusted weapons (especially since some of the models literally have blades with venom dripping off them on the model...) as I feel that would make them a lot more of a threat. The Breaka-Boss on Troggoth is a freaking monster of a hero, and with no degrading profile + not having the monster trait it can put out a metric ton of dmg. The Gutrippaz are also suffering from just not really doing anything of use, their main ability is worthless against an army like Bonereapers and their attacks aren't all that impressive.

But, what my friend and I noticed is the hefty amount of rules. We both felt physically and mentally exhausted after three hours of play and barely making it to the bottom of round three it was just way, way, way too much to keep track of. We even left some rules out intentionally like the grand stratagems and we both didn't bother taking artefacts as they would just be forgotten anyways. We were still missing our rules with me making the mistake of forgetting all the Ironjawz "mighty destroyers" rules and my friend forgetting that he had the ability to regen some of his models due to their special rules.

Overall though I like the game. And I cannot wait to get our next game in this coming weekend.

It seems like there are just way, way too many rules to keep track of. Has this been anyone else's findings?

Page 38 free rules has terrain table. Alas they got rid of one of the two tables. I still like using both and indeed prefer to have mix of both in same game.

Ironjaws are actually doing pretty damn well atm...

As for hobgrots...People keep forgetting value of simple cheap bodies and look only for killing power...but ask yourself: Do you want to lose 180 pts(10 gutrippas) or 80 pts(10 hobgrots) in sure dead mission? Unit you put in front of enemy to stop their charge into your key unit. That unit will just DIE flat out period. 10 gutrippas, 10 hobgrots. Irrelevant. The unit is dead. Deader than dead. It's dead before it realized it's dead. Hobgrots give you that unit for 80 pts. 5 ardboyz could do similar for 95 pts BUT it covers less space.

Hobgrots aren't threat because they aren't there. They are there to sit on objectives. They are there to die in face of enemy. Gutrippas do same job at same effect but over twice the price. They wouldn't be threat either. They are dead before attacing.

Grand strategies can be ignored pretty safely btw. It tends to be both get, neither get or it doesn't actually matter. I have had so far just one game where it might have mattered(had I not taken lol one). All also take one of the 1-2 ones everybody takes on that army(prized sorcery lumineth/tzeentch/archaon, prized monstery all monster armies, hold the line for rest).

It seems like there are just way, way too many rules to keep track of. Has this been anyone else's findings?

Funny enough it is still being touted that AOS is vastly superior to Warhammer because its rules are so much simpler and there aren't as many rules to keep track of.

Not particularly when it comes to rules. I've found it a lot cleaner generally, especially compared to WHF's layers upon layers.

 auticus wrote:

It seems like there are just way, way too many rules to keep track of. Has this been anyone else's findings?

Funny enough it is still being touted that AOS is vastly superior to Warhammer because its rules are so much simpler and there aren't as many rules to keep track of.

Both things can be true.

I played a 2k point Kruleboyz game against Ogors recently. 10 Hobgrots did more than their points worth by soaking up incoming shooting attacks, instead of them being aimed at my heroes or other important pieces, because they were merely existing in a space that caused problems for my foe.

85-90? pts of hobgrots nearly ruined the life of a 450pt behemoth hero, just by standing in it's way. That's worth something.

I still find AoS to be pretty light on rules compared to... well, the very low bar that is 40k.

I find grand strategies do matter, in about 1/5 of my games they make the difference when the final tally comes. Other armies prefer other strategies. As Skaven, I like taking the one to kill all enemy heroes. Works out well for me, but, my meta doesn't have gross unkillable heroes everywhere.

Anyways. OP, your assesment on Kruleboyz is just about right though you're missing some non-damaging uses of gutrippaz and hobgrots. And you're correct that Bonesplittaz are in the gutter right now. Ironjawz however, are up there near the top of all the armies. They're very strong right now.

I've made an alternate set of missions using the framework of the Open War setup if youre interested. My friends and I have been using it because we really dislike the tournament-style choose your adventure objectives with lots of accounting that both AOS 3 and 40k 9th have gone with in their matched play games.

 Togusa wrote:
It seems like there are just way, way too many rules to keep track of. Has this been anyone else's findings?

3rd has added quite a bit, but by and large I think all of those additions have been welcome, unit coherency silliness aside.

Perfectly normal for a first game to feel overwhelming, imo. It will get easier in time, as the rules become second nature.

One of the great things about AoS is the semi-modularity of the rules. Like you mentioned, you omitted/skipped some rules for the sake of simplicity and that's perfectly fine. I think "realm specific" rules were skipped by a good portion of the community for the life of 2nd edition, for instance. I will say that I raised my eyebrow at you and your pal skipping artefacts. That's usually one of the first things I plan for when building an army, lol.

Have fun in your next games!

 Thadin wrote:
I played a 2k point Kruleboyz game against Ogors recently. 10 Hobgrots did more than their points worth by soaking up incoming shooting attacks, instead of them being aimed at my heroes or other important pieces, because they were merely existing in a space that caused problems for my foe.

85-90? pts of hobgrots nearly ruined the life of a 450pt behemoth hero, just by standing in it's way. That's worth something.

I still find AoS to be pretty light on rules compared to... well, the very low bar that is 40k.

I find grand strategies do matter, in about 1/5 of my games they make the difference when the final tally comes. Other armies prefer other strategies. As Skaven, I like taking the one to kill all enemy heroes. Works out well for me, but, my meta doesn't have gross unkillable heroes everywhere.

Anyways. OP, your assessment on Kruleboyz is just about right though you're missing some non-damaging uses of gutrippaz and hobgrots. And you're correct that Bonesplittaz are in the gutter right now. Ironjawz however, are up there near the top of all the armies. They're very strong right now.

I'm not saying my Jawz are bad, just that I noticed some rather strange damage and hit nerfs/buffs and that it is now mandatory to bring a warchanter due to just how good that model is in general. The changes to dmg and attacks for Brute weapons were a bit odd, but they seemed to preform fine in the game. I do kind of like the battalions with their neat extra rule. The Bonesplittaz changes were rather pecilure, but I doubt it will make much difference outside of the competition-grade games. I'm looking forward to getting some Savage Orruks in a few weeks to add to the Wagh!

I'm sure hobgrots can screen, but I don't really find those "here is something annoying in your way" units to be all that fun. I want to see the big beasts of the game rampage and kill, fight eachother, not sit there for two turns because my Mawcrusher couldn't finish off a 20 man unit of turtles. I'd rather see them be able to do interesting things, than simply be a wall my opponent needs to crush to get to the real game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 nels1031 wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
It seems like there are just way, way too many rules to keep track of. Has this been anyone else's findings?

3rd has added quite a bit, but by and large I think all of those additions have been welcome, unit coherency silliness aside.

Perfectly normal for a first game to feel overwhelming, imo. It will get easier in time, as the rules become second nature.

One of the great things about AoS is the semi-modularity of the rules. Like you mentioned, you omitted/skipped some rules for the sake of simplicity and that's perfectly fine. I think "realm specific" rules were skipped by a good portion of the community for the life of 2nd edition, for instance. I will say that I raised my eyebrow at you and your pal skipping artefacts. That's usually one of the first things I plan for when building an army, lol.

Have fun in your next games!

In my experience playing both 40K and this, Artifacts just always seem to be forgotten by both players until a couple of turns goes by. It's like warlord traits from 40K, another thing I used to take all the time and never remember I have because it's not written anywhere on the character sheet. Heck, we even completely forgot a whole turn of heroic actions this game because we were busy answering a weird rules question that came up and turned away from the page at the end of the round. This is the kind of stuff I mean when I talk about "too many rules" in the game that gob it up and make it difficult sometimes.

I'm looking forward to Saturday, I've been working on my Stormcast Eternals and I've got some new units I really want to try out so I'm hoping that will yield a different result!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 the_scotsman wrote:
I've made an alternate set of missions using the framework of the Open War setup if youre interested. My friends and I have been using it because we really dislike the tournament-style choose your adventure objectives with lots of accounting that both AOS 3 and 40k 9th have gone with in their matched play games.

How does it work?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Page 38 free rules has terrain table. Alas they got rid of one of the two tables. I still like using both and indeed prefer to have mix of both in same game.

Thanks! I'll take a look there. I really liked how terrain worked in 2E and we printed up some neat tokens to tag the terrain with in order to help us remember that a given piece had a rule associated with it!

 Togusa wrote:

I'm not saying my Jawz are bad, just that I noticed some rather strange damage and hit nerfs/buffs and that it is now mandatory to bring a warchanter due to just how good that model is in general. The changes to dmg and attacks for Brute weapons were a bit odd, but they seemed to preform fine in the game. I do kind of like the battalions with their neat extra rule. The Bonesplittaz changes were rather pecilure, but I doubt it will make much difference outside of the competition-grade games. I'm looking forward to getting some Savage Orruks in a few weeks to add to the Wagh!

IJ been living and dying by warchanter before as well. IJ's were bringing 3+ regularly in 2nd ed as well. The dam buff is just so good.

I'm sure hobgrots can screen, but I don't really find those "here is something annoying in your way" units to be all that fun. I want to see the big beasts of the game rampage and kill, fight eachother, not sit there for two turns because my Mawcrusher couldn't finish off a 20 man unit of turtles. I'd rather see them be able to do interesting things, than simply be a wall my opponent needs to crush to get to the real game.

Well without screens your big beasts will get alphaed first. How fun that is?

 Togusa wrote:

In my experience playing both 40K and this, Artifacts just always seem to be forgotten by both players until a couple of turns goes by. It's like warlord traits from 40K, another thing I used to take all the time and never remember I have because it's not written anywhere on the character sheet. Heck, we even completely forgot a whole turn of heroic actions this game because we were busy answering a weird rules question that came up and turned away from the page at the end of the round. This is the kind of stuff I mean when I talk about "too many rules" in the game that gob it up and make it difficult sometimes.

I'm looking forward to Saturday, I've been working on my Stormcast Eternals and I've got some new units I really want to try out so I'm hoping that will yield a different result!

You should check out : https://aosreminders.com/

As the name suggests, its a reminder sheet that you can customize with your list. Its a great tool and something I use all the time. Even just simply reading it a few times can help with remembering everything that you need to do in a particular phase.

 Togusa wrote:

How does it work?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PHLjShafIm2BMB5s48zGo3ZVyBqbCg88J5mauL4yXqM/edit?usp=sharing

I just tried to design missions that allow for a variety of experiences with the same model collections, which reflect the conditions of how battles on the ~2000pts scale would typically be about in a fantasy setting. They generally get more unusual the farther along you go with stuff like Dawn Raid where you have blind deployment of both armies and objectives and Desperate Breakout which deliberately sets up one army at a disadvantage of being surrounded, but requires the other to purposefully debuff their hit and wound rolls in order to 'take prisoners' to score victory points.

Field of Glory and Vital Artifact are two solid missions that I think are both balanced, and narratively satisfying (both provide in-game, immediate reasons why the objectives are actually important to the two armies, as opposed to the typical "dozens of soldiers happily die over a Special Rock")

mission 3 sets up a simple attacker-defender scenario, mission 4 sets up a scenario with more chaotic deployment and where players might be avoiding combat to achieve objectives, and mission 5 and 6 throw a bit of a twist in.

I wouldnt use it as a random 'roll a d6' type mission selection, rather pick one that seems like it would be fun to try with your armies.

Togusa, I have to vehemently disagree with the point that screening units are boring. For some armies, they're very necessary, and I'm going to use Ironjawz vs Kruleboyz as an example.

Hobgrots will form a roadbump for a Mawcrusha, holding it back for a turn or so.

As a Kruleboyz player, stopping you from reaching my monsters and shooting units first, that is my only way to win the game.

I cannot outrange you, the Mawkrusha moves up to 36" on turn one with mount traits/command abilities and all the etcs. Anything I have in Kruleboyz that is on the receiving end of a Mawkrusha is getting vaporized, no matter what it is. I need that speed bump to play the game against a unit that can pop off for one turn and pump out 53+ Damage in one combat phase against a 4+ Save Model. (Damage number is based off a Mawkrusha with Warchanta buff, Destroyer Warlord trait, higher-damage melee weapon on the boss, My Finest Hour Hero action and All Out Attack. All very common buffs amongst the 3 IJ players in my meta)

Charging and wiping 10 Hobgrots is boring for you, for one turn. And you still have the rest of your army to play with, and I might not kill the Mawkrusha on the attacks back on my turn.

Getting charged by a Mawkrusha turn 1 in to my important Units that buff, do damage, and win me the game, makes me bored for an hour or so it takes for the rest of my list to get mopped up. And it immediately loses me the game.

In a game where alpha strike is a basic tactic, screening units are a requirement, and playing the game of bubble wrap and hammering on bubble wrap is mandatory.

 auticus wrote:
In a game where alpha strike is a basic tactic, screening units are a requirement, and playing the game of bubble wrap and hammering on bubble wrap is mandatory.

Maybe for tournament play, but not for my group.

 Togusa wrote:

 auticus wrote:
In a game where alpha strike is a basic tactic, screening units are a requirement, and playing the game of bubble wrap and hammering on bubble wrap is mandatory.

Maybe for tournament play, but not for my group.

lol it will be if you're bringing a maw krusha every game. Either that or they'll get sick of AoS because you roll them up in a blanket every game by gutting their force on turn 1.

Also I can't believe you didn't think a warchanter was mandatory in 2.0, they literally made IJ tick.

The dam buff(main reason to bring one) didn't even get a change

 Ventus wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 auticus wrote:
In a game where alpha strike is a basic tactic, screening units are a requirement, and playing the game of bubble wrap and hammering on bubble wrap is mandatory.

Maybe for tournament play, but not for my group.

lol it will be if you're bringing a maw krusha every game. Either that or they'll get sick of AoS because you roll them up in a blanket every game by gutting their force on turn 1.

Also I can't believe you didn't think a warchanter was mandatory in 2.0, they literally made IJ tick.

I dunno, I don't play games with the midset of "I must win" rather I'm playing to see entertaining things happen. For one thing, I play in a very tightknit group. We play for fun, usually caring more about spending time together rather than winning the game. We often bring lists in odd points values, or just use Power Level/Open Play and rarely worry about our mistakes. We also tend to use units from our collection, rather than making sure we have the tournament/competitive "standard" three min/maxed perfect point choice squads. I have a Maw-Krusha, and I think I've maybe played with it twice? Three times possibly. It's fun, but I don't bring it every game. Sometimes I just load up with a Megaboss on foot and zoom my way to fun! Still out for 3.0 because I haven't played a lot of games, but 2.0 was a lot of fun for us, many, many Saturday afternoons and midweek games were had.

That certainly makes a big difference in your experience.

For some armies it can be called minmaxing, or playing hardcore to win, or whatever excuse can be given to explain away why their army is so damn strong.

For IJ, the thought process for achieving the strongest way to play is to play in a fluffy 'casual' way. Take big stompy punch dragon. Make it stronger with warchanta. Realize you can fling it across the table turn one to charge and get stuck in with a command ability. Then you do that because thats what Ironjawz would want to do.

It's all well and good to say "we don't do that here", and if its fun for your gang, it's fun for your gang.

It's just different from the general experience of other groups that don't elect to ignore chunks of the ruleset, which can make discussions like this skewed.

So hey, maybe us saying IJ are super strong right now might help out in the end, to know what sorts of things you ought to avoid when playing them, situational to the foe across the table.

Today was awesome. Games two and three of 3.0 were incredibly fun.

Played my Stormcast Eternals

List: Knights Excelsior "Hammer Time" 1500 Points.

Yndrasta, The Celestial Spear
-General

Lord-Imperatant
-Mirrorshield

Knight Vex BoA
-Drakescale Armor

3X Annihilators

3X Annihilators w/Grandhammers (MVP of both matches!)

5X Vindictors
5X Vindictors
3X Praetors

Manged to pull off three charges turn one, a 7 in DS on the Grandhammers (Thanks Imperatant!) and a massive 11 inch charge with Yndrastra, slaying my opponents Gothizzar Harvester in one bone-crushing swoop (with a little help from the Annihilators impact ability spilling over)! God her spear throw is deadly.

It's funny because I never saw myself enjoying the SCE playstyle, but I thoroughly enjoyed both games. Had a nice swing with the double turn mechanic too, it was pretty swingy and fun, but didn't seem to impact the game too much.

Also, props to Yndy for straight up returning slain models to the battlefield. Using the Vex ability in conjunction I fully restored my unit of Grandhammers so that they could smash again.

That's nice to hear. Fun is the most important thing to get out of any game.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
That's nice to hear. Fun is the most important thing to get out of any game.

Absolutely. Between the first game I played and these two I had a week to sit and read through all the rules in both the BRB and the Codex. Adding to that the "reminders" site that one of the other thread commenters shared it really helped me with rules this past weekend. For the SCE, the rules weren't so bad. Interactions were fun between various units, but I didn't feel at all like I needed a clipboard to make sure every interaction was correct. As I said in my other post, I'm actually quite surprised that I enjoyed the SCE stuff as much as I did. I bought dominion and I liked the looks of the models, but I primarily got that box for the Orks. Having the SCE stuff be not only good looking, but fun to play was a really nice surprise for me and I'm looking forward to expanding the collection. I picked up at my LGS yesterday one of the chariots, which looks like it's going to be a really fun unit to bring. Going with the spear build as I don't really see a point to the bow, the unit clearly as it's rules are written want's to charge things and the spear is just much better output over the bow in that scenario.

Next game my friend and I will play is going to be 2K and I've got a 1200 point game coming up this week against a local I've just met who runs Khadrons, so that should be interesting.

Question to you all, is the 2021 GHB worth it for the missions?

I got to play a pair of games this weekend and I think I really experienced sort of the depth of imbalance that exists, and I'll admit it was a bit frustrating. Cracked open the Gloomspite Gits for the first time (which is actually a 40k gretchin army, but many of my gretchins are the far more hilarious old school and new Snotling models, I ADORE the snotling blood bowl set its just so funny to me taking their little hands off an making them hold various objects as weapons..) and I tried two games, one with an infantry-focused list, and then I wanted to see how my doofy squig knights would fare against my buddy's super-serious chaos knights.

The first list I tried, where I took basically all grots, a loonboss, one unit of fanatics and a gobbopalooza for buffs, felt like absolutely useless crap. it was JUST INCREDIBLE how many times my various rules did not work due to interacting with the god damn stat cap.

can't get cover, because I also have shields, save capped at 5. Shot with a ranged weapon? Oh, I have an ability that - no, wait, that ability literally does nothing, fething stat cap. Got a plus one to hit, that's great, that...means I cant use all out attack, stat cap. Oh, i've got netters, so you're -1 to hit...which means the spell i cast you earlier this turn didnt freaking do anything, thanks again stat cap.

Intensely frustrating. Also, I'm pretty certain the loonboss' super-special-ultra-unique command ability is just straight up worse than all out offense, lol. Looking at the various buff units I could have chosen, the one buff from Sneaky Snufflers seems more impactful than literally the whole gobbopalooza put together.

The second list though? Felt absolutely amazing. Loonboss on mangler squigs, 2 units of boingrots, a troggoth, a herd of squigs and a unit of shootas, these guys just wrecked shop!

I'm glad I have at least some units that seem good to play in my gobbo list, but man oh man does light infantry just STINK.

 the_scotsman wrote:
I got to play a pair of games this weekend and I think I really experienced sort of the depth of imbalance that exists, and I'll admit it was a bit frustrating. Cracked open the Gloomspite Gits for the first time (which is actually a 40k gretchin army, but many of my gretchins are the far more hilarious old school and new Snotling models, I ADORE the snotling blood bowl set its just so funny to me taking their little hands off an making them hold various objects as weapons..) and I tried two games, one with an infantry-focused list, and then I wanted to see how my doofy squig knights would fare against my buddy's super-serious chaos knights.

The first list I tried, where I took basically all grots, a loonboss, one unit of fanatics and a gobbopalooza for buffs, felt like absolutely useless crap. it was JUST INCREDIBLE how many times my various rules did not work due to interacting with the god damn stat cap.

can't get cover, because I also have shields, save capped at 5. Shot with a ranged weapon? Oh, I have an ability that - no, wait, that ability literally does nothing, fething stat cap. Got a plus one to hit, that's great, that...means I cant use all out attack, stat cap. Oh, i've got netters, so you're -1 to hit...which means the spell i cast you earlier this turn didnt freaking do anything, thanks again stat cap.

Intensely frustrating. Also, I'm pretty certain the loonboss' super-special-ultra-unique command ability is just straight up worse than all out offense, lol. Looking at the various buff units I could have chosen, the one buff from Sneaky Snufflers seems more impactful than literally the whole gobbopalooza put together.

The second list though? Felt absolutely amazing. Loonboss on mangler squigs, 2 units of boingrots, a troggoth, a herd of squigs and a unit of shootas, these guys just wrecked shop!

I'm glad I have at least some units that seem good to play in my gobbo list, but man oh man does light infantry just STINK.

Yep, that Battletome has been pretty bad even in 2E. Hopefully they're first up in the new year for a new book and those new rumored spider riders.

Gitz might be the worst faction in the game at the moment. Certainly a contender.

I dont think that's really representative of the general game balance though. Just one sad outlier...

Here's a question: if you have a group where a good chunk of the players bring the nasty meta tournament lists, where does the general game balance overall sit?

Kinda of an irrelevant question isn't it? If your group is looking to break face in the hardest way possible, then they're actively looking to break lists.

You can do that with any list building or deck building game.

The most competitive armies I face in my group are Ironjawz, Sons of Behemat and Khorne Bloodthirster Spam, sometimes with Archaeon. And I play against them the most.

I've had to step up my own game and lists to match theirs, going so far as to research Skaven builds (Never really took Warpseers, plaguepriests and archwarlocks together before) and builds for Kruleboyz, outside of what I WANTED to play, to keep up. We can get some solid back n forth games, barring a timely Double Turn spelling the death knell for someone else. I can go about 40/60 win/lose rate against the nastier armies I play against repeatedly.

Not great, not bad. My kruleboyz are actually doing better than my Skaven, surprisingly. Gobsprakk's unleash hell can do numbers against Me Smash Face monsters.

If I run up against lists like Nighthaunt, certain Stormcast lists, Khorne Mortals, and I'm running my Gobsprakk list, it tends to be a stomp out. Because the lists aren't as strong as others I built it to face.

I don't believe it's a pointless question. It's a question of, in metas where people are trying to break lists, how is the balance against other broken lists? It's worth seeing how broken lists compare to other broken lists, and contrast it with "average" lists playing against average lists, and looking where the biggest balance discrepancies lie.

If you want to know how the most optimised lists do against each other, just look at tournament data surely?

As the list building tends to casual, the flatter it gets imo. Or rather, the more the skill of the player at the game becomes relevant.

I've won games with my all Troggoth Gitz. On paper they're terrible, but if you're playing against someone making poor enough tactical choices pretty much any list can win on objectives if you're making better tactical choices.