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.

we've gotten a lot of rules for 4th edition and certainly enough to have an idea of how rules are being designed and implemented. it's still going to be a bit more until any of us can play it, but based on this preview, how are people feeling?

personally, I have nothing but excitement for this. the edition looks streamlined in all the right ways, while not being overly simplified like 10th edition. can't wait for indexes to drop so we can have an idea of how armies will be

Yep, me too!
"Cautiously optimistic" perhaps?

I think the stat changes and points for our various armies will be the main thing we are looking for!
(Especially as compared to other armies)

Positive, but still not holding my breath yet.
Not sure I like how they handle the equipment yet, but it may change when can play it.
I do want a game that feels tactical rich, even if it’s basic. So the rules are looking better towards that I feel.

Still some issues that I feel going to keep players out here. How it affects the wider game I not sure yet outside my own little meta.

Thankfully I didn’t hit the button on that new beastmen army, but we have a player there that’s not so happy.

No feelings at all for now
the games stand or fall with the faction rules, so until the first non-corebox army books are out it is hard to tell anyway in what direction this is going

Feeling good. None of the rules so far have been objectionable and a chunk seem to have been lifted from middle earth (which is only a good thing). Loss of beastmen is irritating, but it's nothing that can be controlled.

No Dracolines. No Tauralon. 0/5 worst edition.

As someone who's not played AOS before, and is starting to feel a little disillusioned with 40K: intrigued...

Not feeling it so far, with not much to celebrate apart from snazzy new Stormcast models that come at the expense of quite a few of my current ones. Getting rid of the best model in the whole Stormcast range - Astreia Solbright - has really put me off 4th edition before its even started.

Another thing is that they're saying that Spearhead will be a fun experience for both beginners and veterans, but not really as veterans of the game will expect at least some options for list building between games. When I look at the mustering rules for 40K's boarding patrol I see the solution for small games, and dungeon battles would be a riot for AOS. If this was the big feature of 4th edition, I'd see the point in it.

Once again, GW needs to have another look at issue 458 of White Dwarf. Adding both dungeon battles and party-quests to AOS would have made 4th edition special.

As it is, its merely Age of Sigmar: Sheriff of Nottingham Edition.

Has their been anything on changes to subfactions? As a Jaws of Mork lover am I in trouble?

 Ahtman wrote:
Has their been anything on changes to subfactions? As a Jaws of Mork lover am I in trouble?

We haven't seen any of the new subfactions yet, but we know they're still a thing (albeit less tied to a group in lore and more just a thematic playstyle). Each index will be dropping with four of them, IIRC, and they'll still have their own set of enhancements as well as a battle trait of some sort. As to whether Jaws of Mork sticks around in some form, lord only knows.

Played my first game, Gitz vs OBR at 1500 pts

Very smooth core rules, personally I don't like the layout with all the colored boxes, but once you assimilate it it's very straightforward and plays quite fast despite having reactions. At the same time, even the get-you-by warscrolls have retained enough flavour to be fun, unlike 40k on day 1.

Now, our game felt balanced, but as I look through warscrolls I think both internal and external balance are... not there. There are scrolls in Gitz I would never bother to take and there are entire factions that look like trash through and through (Nurgle!) Add to this the very constrained list building and I expect to see everyone converging on the same handful of builds.

Could they have done like they did in 40K with a codex team A and codex team B with AoS?

I'm very excited. The rules have done a very good job of finding the balance between quick easy play and thematic flavor (40k cannot really say the same).

Played a 2,000 point game with my Blades of Khorne against Soulblight Gravelords. There are plenty of changes that mean a player coming from 3rd Edition really has to sit down and read the rules (go figure, but there it is). Abilities are much more codified now. Manifestations are very different.

List building is definitely reworked. It is much tougher to just put together units that you like unless they all happen to be key-worded correctly.

Gameplay was good, although it was slow-going. I recommend starting with lower points for the first few games.

This season means that you have to pick your General's Regiment carefully to avoid giving away easy Battle Tactics. It is too bad that Battle Tactics didn't go away...

We will be having a 1K intro tourney in my community next month. There seems to be renewed interest in AOS around here.

Played Spearhead, Kharadron (me) vs Ossiarch Bonereapers last night.

While the structure of Spearhead seems interesting, the experience was somewhat soured by how overwhelmingly outstatted *and* outnumbered I felt.
I had first turn, so peppered at range, and did 2 damage to 2 different units (Kavalos, with 3W, and the bone golem thing, with 10W, so didn't kill any models). "Alright, new edition, and it's Spearhead, everything is less lethal now, generally, and OBR are tough. So this is probably rocking", I said to myself.

Then the OBR got a turn, and 5 Kavalos got a 10" move to get exactly 3 inches away (probably didn't need the full move due to board sizes) and then charged me. Just a casual 15 2 damage attacks with rend. Deleted my unit (didn't even roll the further 10 attacks from the mount hooves). The bone golem charged my frigate, and did 10 damage to it.

Then my opponent got the double turn. Sure, he'd used up all his battle tactics cards, but at that point he was near tabling me anyways, so why not?

Really made my 10", 4+/4+ no rend 1 damage attacks feel piddly. And at 10" there was no hope of like, getting a few turns of fire before they closed in. And I didn't even have any kind of defensive shooting like Unleash Hell or anything! Felt really helpless from turn 1.

Oh, and his wizard kept casting (on a 6+) a spell to give my frigate -1 to hit, so 5+ on it's 8 melee attacks... because it was locked in from turn 1...) and there was nothing I could do about that as there's no concept of unbinding in Spearhead...

What really cinched it all was the fact that I had 10 arkanauts split between 2 squads of 5.

He had a whopping 20 Mortek Guard in 2 units of 10! And the arkanauts don't even get the Reinforcements keyword.

What exactly is happening there? Seemed wildly out of whack. I'm sure there are things I could have recognized and changed my play around on turn 1 to avoid some of the issues but un-opposable, easy-to-cast spells, "delete a unit" number of decent quality attacks, and loads of wounds with 4+/6+++ is not something I felt equipped to have a satisfying game against.

I have a counterpoint

Just finished my first game of Spearhead, and I am completely sold on it.

Sylvaneth vs. Maggotkin. The Nurgle boys have the numbers (Plaguebearers a pain, plus the force gets reinforcements halfway through), and I thought that would tip it as the Sylvaneth were nicely keeping pace and had a nice (but not huge) lead on points up to round three. Figured everything would end as soon as the Maggotkin got their extra Blightlord and Plaguebearers.

Did not really work out that way

The Sylvaneth have a lot of shenanigans they can pull, plus both sides were really laying it on thick with Battle Tactics and mobility to scoop objectives from each other.

In the end the Maggotkin did claim victory, but it was 21 points to 20 - a nail-biting finish. Which is what we are looking for. Fundamentally a very simple game, but there is a whole ton of things going on.

I would suggest having another bash at it, and trying some new things.

First off, it is perfectly okay to get your forces hammered, so long as you can still get the points at the end of each of your turns. Just holding onto an objective or two is just fine if you can use the Battle Tactics to swing things back in your favour.

Two, screening is important Next time round, you will know to keep your Frigate further back with units that can support/block it.

Something I discovered to my own detriment, don't throw your General away, even if he is a bit weak. Even the push-overs can get your troops doing useful things.

Mobility is key in Spearhead. Retreating can be worthwhile, and if you have any special move-based abilities... use them.

Finally, and this one is important, keep in mind the difference between abilities used in Your Turn and Any Turn. Turns out, you can do a lot to stuff your opponent over (or buff your own lads) in your opponent's turn.

Again, fully recommending Spearhead, I think it will become my go-to when I am not buried in the narrative stuff. Full doubleplus marks on this one, it is a superbly well-designed game. We will be playing again later tonight.

Now I have to figure out which Spearhead force I need to do next...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rihgu wrote:
Oh, and his wizard kept casting (on a 6+) a spell to give my frigate -1 to hit, so 5+ on it's 8 melee attacks... because it was locked in from turn 1...) and there was nothing I could do about that as there's no concept of unbinding in Spearhead...

Felt a bit sorry for your Frigate, so I looked it up.

First up, it does not just get those melee attacks - the Carbines have the Shoot in Combat ability which would still be hitting on a 4+, and with Rend 1 and Damage 2, they will start making an impact.

Also, the Regiment Ability for Disengage is made for the Frigate, and would bring the Skyhook into play - that really is your wunder-weapon. Rend 2 and D6 Damage are very powerful in Spearhead.

Just some ideas from a quick read through

MongooseMatt wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rihgu wrote:
Oh, and his wizard kept casting (on a 6+) a spell to give my frigate -1 to hit, so 5+ on it's 8 melee attacks... because it was locked in from turn 1...) and there was nothing I could do about that as there's no concept of unbinding in Spearhead...

Felt a bit sorry for your Frigate, so I looked it up.

First up, it does not just get those melee attacks - the Carbines have the Shoot in Combat ability which would still be hitting on a 4+, and with Rend 1 and Damage 2, they will start making an impact.

Also, the Regiment Ability for Disengage is made for the Frigate, and would bring the Skyhook into play - that really is your wunder-weapon. Rend 2 and D6 Damage are very powerful in Spearhead.

Just some ideas from a quick read through

I did not have a shooting phase with which to shoot my carbines in combat (where they would still be hitting on 5s because the Ossiarch spell does not discriminate between melee and ranged attacks, it just subtracts 1 from all hit rolls for the unit it targets) nor did I have a movement phase in which to use my Disengage Regiment Ability that I picked. The shots with the skyhook it did get off, because why not put bad luck into it alongside everything else.

First off, it is perfectly okay to get your forces hammered, so long as you can still get the points at the end of each of your turns. Just holding onto an objective or two is just fine if you can use the Battle Tactics to swing things back in your favour.

Score points with which units, the ones that just got obliterated because they're 1W 4+ save models in groups of 5 each?

Two, screening is important Next time round, you will know to keep your Frigate further back with units that can support/block it.

Screen with what, the 1W 4+ save models in groups of 5 each that I need to score points with? And how far back do I need to keep them? I barely moved out of my deployment zone, and in fact I did not move out of my deployment zone with anything but the Frigate and the Skypike arkanauts, to score points.

Finally, and this one is important, keep in mind the difference between abilities used in Your Turn and Any Turn. Turns out, you can do a lot to stuff your opponent over (or buff your own lads) in your opponent's turn.

Kharadron's abilities are all Your Turn except a D6 heal on the general and Timed Charges on the Skywardens, which would have been swell if they didn't instantly succumb to 15 3+/4+ rend -1 2D attacks with their 3 2W 4+ save bodies.

Mobility is key in Spearhead. Retreating can be worthwhile, and if you have any special move-based abilities... use them.

This is the roughest thing for me, because my Frigate did actually survive through 2 combat phases and got to Disengage (with 3 wounds left, incredibly). But when I did disengage... there was literally only 1 valid location for it to move to between the terrain and the other models on the board. And that valid spot? Right in charge distance for 10 mortek guard AND the bone golem. And the Kavalos, but they were tied up, at the time, with the admiral, having already smashed aside their second unit of the game with as little effort as you'd image it would take to kill through 5 single wound models with a 4+ save.

Look, I'm not saying Spearhead is bad, but I think I am saying it's not "superbly well-designed" when such insane disparities show up. 10 Arkanaut company vs 20 Mortek Guard alone feels insane. 5 Kavalos vs 3 Skywardens feels insane. Both at the same time??? Really!? Add in that my opponent had interesting options to do during the game (healing his dead models which already started by outnumbering me, bringing in the second unit from a board edge later in the game, spending Ossiarch points, casting spells) and I did not, because the board size didn't allow for my mobility, nor range to be meaningful and those are the only 2 things Kharadron's spearhead has going for it. Incredibly feels bad for a game mode I was EXTREMELY positive towards going into the game. I've been replaying the game in my head all day and I'm just not seeing options. Note that the maximum I could deploy my frigate away from the enemy army is 20" (I had picked, smartly, diagonal deploys. Had they been straight deploys, it would be 13"), and the carbines (the main source of damage for the boat) have 12" range, and that in order to score points you have to get on objectives which are (mostly) closer to your opponent than 20". My best bet seems like it would've been to take the Assault Boat regiment ability and blindly throw my Admiral across the board into combat turn 1, which doesn't quite fit the fantasy of Kharadron I've built up from reading lore and novels about them.

I think the Kharadrons are a poorly designed Spearhead that don't play into the game mode in a meaningful way and are full of terrible options (yea let me just pick the re-roll charge ability with my shooting spearhead, or the ability to regen fallen arkanauts on a 4+... as if a squad of 5 1W 4+ save dudes will ever have taken damage that didn't also destroy them utterly...).


I've been looking at the Cities of Sigmar Spearhead. They look to have actual options going on for them, and get to do cool and interesting things. Hey! Their shooting unit gets to shoot in the opponent's phase! That's really cool and useful when you're dealing with a hand towel for a board. They can consecrate objectives for ward saves! They can give eachother orders! They can reveal battle tactics cards to get multiple use of commands! There's a lot of interesting stuff happening in this little Spearhead.

Too bad Kharadron's design seems to have stopped at "well, they get to make shooting attacks. That's interesting, right?"

How do the Nurgle peeps look?
I’ve got a lot of Daemons for 40k, so I might dabble in Sigmar since I wouldn’t need new models.

 JNAProductions wrote:
How do the Nurgle peeps look?
I’ve got a lot of Daemons for 40k, so I might dabble in Sigmar since I wouldn’t need new models.

granted, i haven't gotten a chance to play a game, but i find the nurgle rules this edition pretty dire. maybe i'll be proven wrong (i sure hope i do), nurgle is not hot

granted, however, i prefer the mortals side of the army, so maybe demons are handling things a little better

Question about getting back into AoS with this edition. What is needed? I subscribe to W+ and it looks like the full rules are there. Are there parts that are missing? Are the cards required?

For spearhead it looks like you need the cards, map, and terrain bits to play. Is the book required? Again, it looks like the app has complete rules.

I have recollections or prior editions having just basic “free” rules that were not enough to play anything outside of learn to play scenarios. You needed the full book. Although I might be remembering KT or other games.

I’m not interested in either of the armies in the Skaventide box, so am looking to grab the required bits on the secondary market. Money saved on rules can be used to modernize miniature collections.

Currently full rules are out in the app/pdf documents on Warhammer Community. You'd need the cards for Spearhead, but besides that you're good to go.

 Nevelon wrote:
Question about getting back into AoS with this edition. What is needed? I subscribe to W+ and it looks like the full rules are there. Are there parts that are missing? Are the cards required?

For spearhead it looks like you need the cards, map, and terrain bits to play. Is the book required? Again, it looks like the app has complete rules.

I have recollections or prior editions having just basic “free” rules that were not enough to play anything outside of learn to play scenarios. You needed the full book. Although I might be remembering KT or other games.

I’m not interested in either of the armies in the Skaventide box, so am looking to grab the required bits on the secondary market. Money saved on rules can be used to modernize miniature collections.

Spearhead cards needed(they are secret so open dice roll less useful).

For regular aos EVERYTHING is freely available. Battletomes will cost but even ghb freely available much to my surprise

My current worry is the list building part, the cost of heroes is absolutely massive with each essentially forcing an extra drop, I'm guessing any faction that can get away with only 2 will do that and the rest (mostly those that need more casters) will max out at 3, and we'll have a meta of 2 drop and 3 drop factions predetermining who goes first in every matchup, and with little variance in hero selection within a faction, and of course absolutely no units ever that can't be keyworded into the 2-3 chosen heroes' regiments because giving up a command point is insane. The system also massively incentivizes taking the most expensive heroes and units to fill out the points in as few slots as possible and with a lot of core faction abilities also having moved directly onto the warscrolls of 500 point faction leaders (Ushoran, greater daemons, etc...) I feel like forcing those models into every list was an intentional design goal.

(Yes I know there are also slotless minor heroes, I've not seen any worth their points so far, they might be down the road after points updates... the point stands regarding regiment-leading heroes)

Or if you can't fit into 2 you go screw it, go for what need, deploy couple random units, see where enemy deploys before deploying rest.

One can plan so that either works. And with less lethality and doubles less common going 1st is less of issue(actually starting to prefer going 1st so i need to plan for if forced to go 2nd)

2 drops probably ideal for most(archaon goes with 1 often) but don't see that much differing to old 1drop meta. Except now to get choice you have to sacrifice more. And larger drop can get more info by dropping regiment 1 by 1 rather than all. Putting 2 unlts into reserve while 2 drop drops entire army gives you full info.

Btw interesting note. Reserves have no max limit even in ghb. And no need to put units on ground.

Hm, yes, I suppose once you make peace with never finishing deployment first, you unlock all sorts of list flexibility.

Regarding reserves, aren't most capped in some way or another in each specific ability? SCE are still "half of units," other are limited to unit types and/or where they can arrive and/or can have their arrival beacon destroyed, etc...

Many are, but Gutrot Spume + 14 Pusgoyles is 1930 points and can be fully null deployed.

Not that I think you *would*...

Hmm good point some have. But skaven for example have no restriction. So it's up to ability. Generic must have half units deployed rule gone. (another change. You don't have to pick battle tactic. Can save for later if can't score anything)

I often had more drops anyway in 3e prefering 2nd artefact over 1drop so i'm used to to hell with it attitude

Skaven have the practical limitation of only arriving next to Gnawholes, which with bad timing could not even be on the table, or entirely blocked.

Gutrot is restricted to his own regiment, limiting unit types, but yea, I guess can be the whole army, points wise. Terrible idea strategically, tho, with the tiny arrival zone.

So I think most have "soft" strategic limitations built in that just make overuse a bad idea. Meanwhile SCE, who can always arrive anytime, anywhere, no downside, keep the 50% reserve cap.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Played my first game, Gitz vs OBR at 1500 pts

Very smooth core rules, personally I don't like the layout with all the colored boxes, but once you assimilate it it's very straightforward and plays quite fast despite having reactions. At the same time, even the get-you-by warscrolls have retained enough flavour to be fun, unlike 40k on day 1.

Now, our game felt balanced, but as I look through warscrolls I think both internal and external balance are... not there. There are scrolls in Gitz I would never bother to take and there are entire factions that look like trash through and through (Nurgle!) Add to this the very constrained list building and I expect to see everyone converging on the same handful of builds.

What are you running with Gitz? I have a Squig army myself, but I'm really feeling like all the Gitz love is in Troggs this time around.

I got to kill a moon… so I’m quite pleased with it so far.