Age of Sigmar

The amount of money and work required to build Fantasy armies is incongruous with the hyper-casual gameplay required to swallow AOS.

AOS is The Walking Dead of games: it can't decide what it wants to be, so it sucks at everything.

I guess I think there's something fundamentally wrong when the game that not only thinks that 2 Bloodthirsters vs 3 Goblins makes for a perfectly fine game, but also thinks that said game would be so biased towards the goblins winning that the Bloodthirsters need an additional advantage.


Also, having tried AoS, I'd like to add that piling in 50 VC skeletons is about as fun as flossing with barbed wire. I think it's a further mark of a bad game when seeing my models dying provokes glee on my part - as it means I'm spared from moving the bloody things.

thesaltedwound wrote:

No worries about basing apart from the worrying following sentence in WD:
"Bases play NO PART in Age of Sigmar" which I can't understand at all.

So wait, if bases play no part, and you measure from the model itself.....

So if you put you model on a base FAR too large, you can easily make it so that they can never be charged?!

Squidmaster wrote:

So if you put you model on a base FAR too large, you can easily make it so that they can never be charged?!

Or attacked in melee, yes.

I believe this is a particular problem with the High Elf Phoenix models - as their flying bases make them too high for a lot of models to reach.

Jimsolo wrote:

[...] The Walking Dead [...] sucks at everything.

Wait... What?

Marrath wrote:

Jimsolo wrote:

[...] The Walking Dead [...] sucks at everything.

Wait... What?

Personally, I wouldn't say the Walking Dead sucks at everything, but I'd certainly argue that it doesn't excel at anything either.

It has some decent characters, but also several terrible ones (like the bloke in season 3, who seems to be on an ongoing quest to outdo Hitler ). And, whilst I like several of the secondary characters ('liked' in several cases), the main character rubs me the wrong way - to the point where I now find myself wanting to smack him in the chops with a canoe-paddle. Though, if that somehow happened,  I imagine his Plot Armour would save him. Again.

Then there's stuff like the explanation for the zombies (sorry - "walkers") making no sense. And the recurring 'stealth zombies' - you know, the ones which aren't announcing their presence by moaning, for no other reason than 'the plot demands it'. Finally, it's rather hard to sympathise with people when they make blisteringly idiotic decisions.


Back on topic... nope, I've got nothing.

From Natfka (below).  I will also say that a demo game was available at our tournie this past weekend, and people seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

Natfka wrote:

An official representitive was at Forgeworld [Open Day] answering questions directly, and not shying away from the hard ones. Need to know about the future of points in AoS? Here are the answers.


thanks to a reader for sending this in.

Shared via Luca Pinsuti
"GW had a guy camped out at the Forge World open day whos entire job was to answer questions and talk to people about Age of Sigmar. His entire job is to go to shows and talk to people about the new game. For the first time I think ever they're taking Age of Sigmar to Gencon, Comic Con, all the major wargames conventions in Europe etc. They're throwing a considerable amount of money at putting this in front of new audiences who have never played fantasy before. He was also brutally honest and didn't dodge any questions and answered everything he could. I'll start with the negative stuff first.

This is it. There categorically will not be a '9th' edition of fantasy. Age of Sigmar is the only thing fantasy related GW will do for the considerable future.

He acknowledges that the 'funny' rules are rather silly and don't make for a great intro to the system for new people. His response was that the armies in the box set don't have the silly rules. They're there as kind of a celebration and final send off of the old warhammer armies, and he said you might notice the new armies don't have the stupid noises or imaginary friends. This is deliberate, its designed that you'll only generally play the old stuff with your mates since it's a bit embarassing to play in a public place.

The new races will look different to the old ones. Ooruks will not look the same as the orcs we currently have. As such, when they get round to releasing Ooruks, the old models will cease production. He did say that you can still use your old models as ooruks, but you won't be able to buy normal orc boys again.
There will never be points values.

On to the slightly positive stuff then.
They are going to fully support all modes of play, and will be releasing rules to balance armies against each other. There will be narrative campaigns where your forces are picked for you for specific missions, and there will be a system for tournament players to balance lists that isn't based on model count. He did not know the specifics of this, but said it is definitely coming.
The rules will always be free. He said that they are very very aware that fantasy had a massive buy in for someone to get started, as such the game was designed with the ability to play it with one box of models. There will be army books, but every rule in them will be available, for free, online. The books will just have extra background info and scenarios.

GW really are trying harder than they ever have before to make this work. If you're at one of the shows go and talk to them. They want to talk to you about this, but especially they want your feedback on it. As he said, this is totally uncharted territory for them and they are totally open to rules revisions as they go.

I forgot probably the best/worst bit. I asked him if he knew that it was possible to win the game first turn with the screaming bell/fateweaver thing. 'Thats deliberate' he said. 'You can do whatever you want in this game, but if you do stuff like that you probably wont have many people to play against."

Gobsmakked wrote:

GW really are trying harder than they ever have before to make this work. If you're at one of the shows go and talk to them. They want to talk to you about this, but especially they want your feedback on it. As he said, this is totally uncharted territory for them and they are totally open to rules revisions as they go.

I forgot probably the best/worst bit. I asked him if he knew that it was possible to win the game first turn with the screaming bell/fateweaver thing. 'Thats deliberate' he said. 'You can do whatever you want in this game, but if you do stuff like that you probably wont have many people to play against."[/i]

[/quote]

That does actually sound quite nice. Like they're thinking people will use common sense to pick lists that other people will want to play against, that have a strong narrative reason for being. I like the sound of rules being free, as long as they get fleshed out a bit more. Well, a lot more. But let's hope they stick with this idea rather than jumping around between several others like they have been!

thesaltedwound wrote:

No worries about basing apart from the worrying following sentence in WD:
"Bases play NO PART in Age of Sigmar" which I can't understand at all. How to measure range?

I think you're all looking at it from an existing gamer's point of view. This is to make introductory games in-store take ten minutes and bring the new players in. I imagine that they don't care about me and you, who have to choose what to spend our money on, they care about many many kids with access to their parents' money, in a world where wargaming is like the least cool thing you can possibly do.

I'm going to assume that most players on this forum are adults, with jobs, with some amount of free cash to splash on games but not infinite amounts. Players who have played a long time, have a whole bunch of models already, are savvy about how to get new models cheaply and only really add to their collections when nice new models are released or when starting a new project (using their savvy to get things cheaper). You play the game because you enjoy it and have history with it. Games Workshop DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOU! You're not their demographic at all. They know you bitch and moan and whine about vagaries like imbalance and broken systems. They don't care.

GW's business model is simple. They want to sell nice looking models to kids that nag their parents to by them these WAY overpriced miniatures. They don't care if the kids build the models, or paint them (though they'll sell their parents 1 £100 paint set to pain them with) or even play with them. They just want them out the door with the money in their till. And the best way to do that is with a game that can be played in 10 minute (what 10 year old has time to play a game that might take an our when they have a play station waiting for them?), is really really simple for them to grasp and is pretty funny to a child. You get a bonus if you're younger than your opponent? Well that's just swell because you're 10! And the guy you're playing against in the shop is in his 20's. And it's really funny to try and make the GW staff dance so you get extra Slaanesh goodness!

The rules are a joke and GW knows it. They don't care. They just wanna push the nice models onto kids in the shop with easy demo games. They don't care about Joe Longbeard who's been collecting dwarves for 20 years and can field 10,000 pts in old money. He's not buying any models any time soon. But he's a massive pain in the ass because he constantly complains about 8th balance. If GW can dump the old guard Fantasy players who spend very little money they can concentrate on pushing shiny new things onto kids who have no concept of the value of the products their parents are buying them.

40k is different because that game has been an arms race for years, with escalation forcing players to buy more and more models (reduced pts cost of units, free or cheaper transports, super heavies and fliers being a thing etc etc). Joe Longbeard with his Space Wolves is always buying new models to add to his 10k Space Wolf force because he needs those fliers and the dread variants and the lovely wolf cavalry. He still spends money with GW (more so than the kids probably) so GW sort of cares about him. But only in so far as to release unbalanced rules that require more models to play (formations using units you probably wouldn't have fielded otherwise, free crap) and then sit back as people have to buy into that. Fantasy never had the same market share of the gaming world and there was little escalation because the game had already reached its critical mass in size. One day 40k might hit this glass ceiling too and on that day the game will probably get the Sigmar treatment too.

TL:DR: GW isn't interested in rules - they sell models. And they don't sell them to you the seasoned gamer, they sell them to kids who spend their parents money. And because wargaming isn't cool their financial model requires them to be ruthless in executing that aim.

Can't argue with any of that.

Natfka wrote:

He acknowledges that the 'funny' rules are rather silly and don't make for a great intro to the system for new people. His response was that the armies in the box set don't have the silly rules. They're there as kind of a celebration and final send off of the old warhammer armies, and he said you might notice the new armies don't have the stupid noises or imaginary friends. This is deliberate, its designed that you'll only generally play the old stuff with your mates since it's a bit embarassing to play in a public place.

It's pretty bad that they choose to release rules specifically designed to shame players from using their old models in public whilst the newer models are free of that BS. Good marketing is making people want to buy and use your products. Show them how cool it is. Bad marketing is telling your customers they're morons and they should cough up more money to stay in the "in" crowd.

Natfka wrote:

On to the slightly positive stuff then.
They are going to fully support all modes of play, and will be releasing rules to balance armies against each other. There will be narrative campaigns where your forces are picked for you for specific missions, and there will be a system for tournament players to balance lists that isn't based on model count. He did not know the specifics of this, but said it is definitely coming.
The rules will always be free. He said that they are very very aware that fantasy had a massive buy in for someone to get started, as such the game was designed with the ability to play it with one box of models. There will be army books, but every rule in them will be available, for free, online. The books will just have extra background info and scenarios.

The game will be balanced according to specific scenario's, designed to be played once or twice, with specific models (that you must have or can't play the scenario with) and that will feature in issues of White Dwarf that you must buy and field when playing that scenario. This is to wargaming what endless DLC is to video gaming. Except that video games are easily accessible with little effort whilst wargaming takes a lot of effort and work to be involved in. I'm reminded of a comment I read a while ago about AoS that talked of models being released in limited edition fashion. The marriage of time-limited miniatures and scenario specific balancing points to GW attempting to just milk and milk it's player base until they can't take it any longer. Sure you can use all your models in games with no restrictions, but that's already proven to be a joke.

Natfka wrote:

GW really are trying harder than they ever have before to make this work. If you're at one of the shows go and talk to them. They want to talk to you about this, but especially they want your feedback on it. As he said, this is totally uncharted territory for them and they are totally open to rules revisions as they go.

This is BS. GW has gone out of it's way for over a decade to alienate it's player base, to not listen to them, to ignore them, to hound them down and to scare them into hiding in corners of the internet where they fear to comment on the game for fear of reprisal. GW has stamped it's policy of not wanting to interact with its player base and customers for a very long time. They don't support internet public forums, they abandoned the tournament scene and they refuse to listen to any criticism about their products. Where was the playtest of AoS? They were probably (rightfully so) scarred of the reaction their players would have. So they forced this unfinished rule set on the community and ran off before they could get pelted with rotten fruit. They're trying to bury the old game under the rug, pretend it didn't exist. When they ask for feedback GW only wants to hear positives. It refuses to acknowledge the negatives.

All GW really ever needed to do to make a crap ton of money was listen to their players and customers and give them what they wanted. No good crying about wanting to hear their thoughts now. GW abandoned it's flock a long time ago thinking they knew best. Most people I know either quit the hobby because of their antics or just took what they wanted form the game and interacted as little as possible with them. The sheer amount of 2nd hand Ebay models you can buy is testament to how bad a company they've been. So many people get everything they need 2nd hand from ebay. That's a crap ton of sales lost because GW driven it's customers out of the game and they cashed in on their own stock. If GW had listened 15 years ago that wouldn't have happened. And prices wouldn't be so ludicrously high now. High prices forced by low sales means that 2nd hand models maintain a high value. In fact GW models are a great investment for people. And when you get tired of putting up with GW you can cash it all in for a decent sum. That's what's killing GW's business. It's a vicious circle they created for themselves.

If they really want the players on their side they should open up some official forums where people can vent and offer critic. Let the players who intend to play the game fill out the rules for you. Let the players balance the damned thing and then reward them by releasing a free model or two to show their gratitude. That would be smart business practice. It might men people would play their joke of a game too!

I hate to break up the "GW hates us party" and get the thread back on track, but how are people liking the system that are playing games? I have a only a few games in using my Ogres, but I've come to the following conclusions:

1. This isn't WHFB. At first we found shooting to be stoopidly powerful. Veteran players immediately cried "See, they want us to just play 40K!" Then we tried actually using the terrain table to set up boards. DIFFERENT GAME. It made for balanced games that kept HE bolt throwers from wiping units off the board.

2. These aren't the units that you used in WHFB because it's not WHFB. I panicked a little the first time that I charged Ogres into a unit of Swordmasters because I remembered what a blender unit they were in every edition prior to this one. The order that we chose to attack with units in combat had a bigger influence on the game than Epic Unit_____ did. It's a new game with new tactical challenges. Yes- I said "tactical" in a game that uses four pages of rules. Easy to pick up, but a challenge to master.

3. It's not that hard to balance your games. We've used a rough wound count to balance out our games and haven't run into many lopsided games. You can point to a million and one different ways that X unit isn't 100% as good as Y unit on paper and in examples of play, but once you play the game a bit and see that your order of operations has a HUGE impact on play it becomes a great equalizer if you play a smart game.

4. It's actually pretty fun. I sat 8th out because the game had become so formulaic and predictable. This edition has me breaking out my old armies while looking forward to actually painting up a new one once we see what happens to Dark Elves.

I get that veteran players are pretty butthurt, but I think all of the online "GW hates us" ranting is getting old. Feel like you're in an abusive relationship with a gaming company? Don't give them your money and don't give them the time of day. (IE: stop complaining about them) Done.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

I hate to break up the "GW hates us party" and get the thread back on track, but how are people liking the system that are playing games? I have a only a few games in using my Ogres, but I've come to the following conclusions:

1. This isn't WHFB. At first we found shooting to be stoopidly powerful. Veteran players immediately cried "See, they want us to just play 40K!" Then we tried actually using the terrain table to set up boards. DIFFERENT GAME. It made for balanced games that kept HE bolt throwers from wiping units off the board.

2. These aren't the units that you used in WHFB because it's not WHFB. I panicked a little the first time that I charged Ogres into a unit of Swordmasters because I remembered what a blender unit they were in every edition prior to this one. The order that we chose to attack with units in combat had a bigger influence on the game than Epic Unit_____ did. It's a new game with new tactical challenges. Yes- I said "tactical" in a game that uses four pages of rules. Easy to pick up, but a challenge to master.

3. It's not that hard to balance your games. We've used a rough wound count to balance out our games and haven't run into many lopsided games. You can point to a million and one different ways that X unit isn't 100% as good as Y unit on paper and in examples of play, but once you play the game a bit and see that your order of operations has a HUGE impact on play it becomes a great equalizer if you play a smart game.

4. It's actually pretty fun. I sat 8th out because the game had become so formulaic and predictable. This edition has me breaking out my old armies while looking forward to actually painting up a new one once we see what happens to Dark Elves.

I get that veteran players are pretty butthurt, but I think all of the online "GW hates us" ranting is getting old. Feel like you're in an abusive relationship with a gaming company? Don't give them your money and don't give them the time of day. (IE: stop complaining about them) Done.

Amen

A lot of people at my club are showing interest in this, and they have not cared about wfb for ages .

Let's leave the negativity at the door, and if you can't, maybe it is time you look to another game and company to satisfy your gaming needs. I truly understand the feelings expressed about GW and how you guys feel about the death of wfb, but really the negativity is very unpleasant. Be smart and put you money where your mouth is and buy into another gaming system, maybe one with a more supportive company behind it. A lot of people are excited by age of sigmar. Let's let them be

Evil Space Elves wrote:

I hate to break up the "GW hates us party" and get the thread back on track, but how are people liking the system that are playing games?

I'm enjoying it a lot! It's the kind of game that you can enjoy whether you win or lose, because you feel that you've played. Frankly, it's been a welcome antidote to the growing frustration of playing Dark Eldar against the newer codices.

On the other hand, the 'line up and kill' battle is starting to get old. I think AoS lends itself to stories and scenarios. I want to try a few games where we set up like that and don't even care who wins or loses, but just see what happens. I don't mind playing a game where I'm hopelessly outmatched, an ambush, a last stand, or something like that. I used to play the battle of Watling Street with my brother... over and over and over. Boudicca never wins, because of course she doesn't, but that wasn't the point!

Evil Space Elves wrote:

I get that veteran players are pretty butthurt, but I think all of the online "GW hates us" ranting is getting old.

At the risk of provoking the haters, it will blow over. Give it a year at most.

They also hated 8th edition when it came out. Gamers generally hate change. You have your army complete, you've fine-tuned your list to near perfection, and you're at the top of the game, and then suddenly they change the rules on you and your army doesn't cut it any more, you're no better than a newbie, you have to learn strategies all over again, and you might even have to buy and paint new models -- horrors! Of course they rant and rave.

And that's just when they tweak the old rules. This time they have scrapped them altogether and started again from scratch. You might think, 'About time, too! Warhammer was over 30 years old! Even the original designer wanted to change it.' But when you think of yourself as a 'competitive' player and you like being the 'champ', it must be aggravating to be told that none of that counts any more.

The funny thing is that points values and competitions didn't even exist in miniatures games until Games Workshop introduced them, and it was never supposed to be the main way to play. Over time, it took over. Now they're walking it back and returning to 'the way it used to be'. For anyone who didn't play these games in the 70s and 80s, it's probably going to take some getting used to, but new players will find it as natural as we did back then!

Well stated Barking Agatha.

Barking Agatha wrote:

The funny thing is that points values and competitions didn't even exist in miniatures games until Games Workshop introduced them, and it was never supposed to be the main way to play. Over time, it took over. Now they're walking it back and returning to 'the way it used to be'. For anyone who didn't play these games in the 70s and 80s, it's probably going to take some getting used to, but new players will find it as natural as we did back then!

Just to be that guy: It isn't really about the loss of the point values for me, it is that they took the lore, and several elements that made FB different then 40k and threw them out the window. When I wanted to play 40k I played 40k, when I wanted to play FB with it's infantry blocks I played that game. I know, I'm sure you and others reading this are thinking that I'm a fool who is stuck on the past and need to get with the 21st century; I've been told as much by several people already but you know what, there are somethings that I enjoy that are considered outdated. I prefer the feel of a real book in my hand over a digital book, I enjoy talking to people face to face instead of having conversations over twitter and texts, and I prefer my Warhammer FB armies to fight in infantry blocks. Warhammer Fantasy Battle is dead and Age of Sigmar has done nothing to interest me in it.

Anyway, I begrudge no one who is enjoying Age of Sigmar and likes these kinds of rules. My armies are slated to be auctioned or traded, and the only product I'm going to continue to support from games workshop table top will be Warhammer 40k (Hopefully Battlefleet Gothic and Warhammer TW will be great video games when they are released), if they do the same thing to 40k such as destroying the universe I'll just have to cut my ties with GW for good.

/rant of an old man set in his ways.

I saw the book today.

Specifically I saw one particular image spread over two pages depicting a massive golden palace, and above it several planets and moons.
Didn;t look TOO much like a 40k inspired piece.....

Squidmaster wrote:

I saw the book today.

Specifically I saw one particular image spread over two pages depicting a massive golden palace, and above it several planets and moons.
Didn;t look TOO much like a 40k inspired piece.....

I was at Warhammer World today for the first time since it reopened, and I saw that artwork on the wall. It does look like they're hinting even more heavily that the 40K universe follows on from it.

Also, whilst I was there I saw miniatures from the current fantasy range on round bases, specifically Lizardmen. I presume this means that some armies will get models repackaged with a round base and one less sprue in the box for ten pounds more than they used to cost.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

When I wanted to play 40k I played 40k, when I wanted to play FB with it's infantry blocks I played that game.

My thinking exactly. I don't want to play a game that plays like a dumbed down version of a game I already play. Also, as much as I enjoy 40K, I do actually find it frustrating that if I want to field a large army of footsloggers, like my Orks, I have to accept that this means much of my time will be taken up with moving them all one by one before I can even do anything with them. With WFB, I can just stick them on a tray and push them forwards all in one go, one after the other. This has the added bonus of making me feel a bit like one of those war room generals in films who push boats across sea charts with those long stick things, and who doesn't like that? I know I can still do that if I want to, but for how much longer?

I will not write the game off completely. It might still have the complexity I want from it. But currently, I don't like the fact that one player can have two turns in a row of pummeling you. They could have quite easily changed up the turns in a different way, perhaps by both sides taking it in turns to move, then taking it in turns to shoot and so on, but instead they did it this way to prove that it's really not about winning. If I want to play a game just for the sake of playing it rather than to win I'll play Minecraft or The Sims. It's perfectly possible to enjoy a game that you lose, obviously, I have. But to lose because your opponent has two turns in a row of blasting you whilst you just sit there and take it, with no actual narrative justification? Sounds like lots of fun... I don't like the fact that grunts hit pros just as easily as they hit other grunts, because why would you ever take the bad stuff? I don't like prices of the new miniatures, the characters in particular are just extortionately priced. Twenty pounds? For one single pose plastic model that's smaller than a Terminator and comes with no weapon options? No thanks.

Mr Believer wrote:

My thinking exactly. I don't want to play a game that plays like a dumbed down version of a game I already play.

It doesn't. I've been playing it a lot, and that's a slander. You can see reports of some of my games here:

http://www.druchii.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=170&t=77005
http://www.druchii.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=170&t=77001
http://www.druchii.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=170&t=76970
http://www.druchii.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=165&t=76979

CurstAlchemist wrote:

Just to be that guy: It isn't really about the loss of the point values for me, it is that they took the lore, and several elements that made FB different then 40k and threw them out the window.

It's okay, no one says that you *have* to like it  I'll tell you 'wot I think' tho:

First of all, what lore? Warhammer was never more than battles in a generic D&D setting, pre-dating even Forgotten Realms. Chaos and the inevitability of it's victory were shamelessly cribbed from Michael Moorcock's Eternal Warrior novels, especially Elric, partly because they're British and it was the 80s, and partly because they had at the time a line of Elric miniatures that they wanted to tie in.

The only two original contributions by GW were the Skaven, thanks to John Blanche and his interest in the iconography of the Plague, and making the Empire a Rennaisance rather than a Mediaeval society, and that was only because the Perrys wanted to build Landsknechts.

Everything else was just generic D&D, filtered through 2000 AD because, again, British and 80s, and many of their artists and writers were also 2000 AD artists and writers. Even so, they haven't gotten rid of their 'lore', they've just evolved it. Characters from the old world have ascended unto godhood (and some of them have changed their names for legal reasons. 'Malekith? No, no, that's a Disney trademark! My name is Malerion, and always has been, haha...erm.')

A few writers have done okay with the background, but the best one (I'm thinking of Kim Newman writing as 'Jack Yeovil' and his Genevieve novels) did it by ignoring most of it and making up his own! Then on a lower scale you have Gotrek and Felix, and... what else, really?

I don't want to put down anyone for enjoying the Lore of old Warhammer, but if you look at it with a cold eye, even as lowbrow literature, it never had its Drizzt, or Elminster, or whatever, and even those guys move on and change.

As for infantry blocks: Age of Sigmar steals a lot from Rick Priestley's 'Hail Caesar!', which in turn is based largely on Warmaster Ancients. The point of that is to try to reproduce the flow of an ancient battle, rather than parade maneouvres. Those battles were fought much like this:



As you can see, they form up into blocks, but they don't move as blocks -- that would be silly, in the middle of a battle! In the case of Hail Caesar, they wanted a battle that they could play before it was 2 a.m. and they had to go home. Also, something that looks good on the table. Formations and battle order are still important, but you don't get situations where you can't charge because the corner of your block formation clips the edge of another regiment. That wouldn't happen in real life!

Which is not to say that you can't prefer the traditional block game, but let's not pretend that it is a better representation of an actual battle It's a battle, not a parade. If the guys on the far right couldn't charge in a straight line, they would just go around!

Obviously this is only my opinion and it's bound to be biased, because I like the rules for Age of Sigmar and I'm enjoying them tremendously.

EDIT: One more thing, just to make this mega-long!

I like to paint and collect armies of little guys. When I got into Warhammer and 40K, that's what I understood the hobby to be: You paint and collect models because you like them, and for no other reason, and then there's a game that you can play with them instead of just leaving them as decorations on a shelf. In other words, it's the painting and collecting that drives the game, not the other way around.

Then it gets complicated. It turns out that some models just don't cut it in the game. You like Wyches and Hellions? Sure, you can play with them, but it won't be much fun. You're better off with lots of Kabalites and Venoms. You need more Scourges. Leave the Voidraven on the shelf, it's too many points!

Ally with Craftworld Eldar. You need a Farseer, and at least nine jetbikes, so that you can bring a Wraithknight, and... hey, hang on! How did I end up painting and collecting Craftworld Eldar? They never appealed to me!

I seem to have lost sight of why I was doing this in the first place!

I'm probably the worst kind of customer for GW, because it takes me hours to complete each and every model, and I won't play with unfinished models, because I just don't see the point. It seems to defeat the porpoise, and I like the porpoise! Then again, the designers (as opposed to sales management) probably agree with me.

This (so far) is what I like the most about Age of Sigmar: Collect the models you like and play with them, never mind what is most 'efficient' or 'competitive'. Isn't that what it was all about?

So that's 'wot I think'.

I have to say, let none ever dare to dispute that Tzeentch is the most powerful of all the gods. So much anguish, so much gnashing of teeth and hateful lines of text written all because of change! We so desire for change, we so wish things were -better-, and then the change comes and things instead are different, with no clear way of seeing are they better or worse.

I've played a few games of Age of Sigmar. I really liked it. I can finally use my Warriors of Chaos from the batallion just the way they are, without thinking "Hmm, well this barely cuts it even for 1k game and the real WFB starts at 2,4k... so I need to buy this, and that, and paint it and oh nevermind Warriors, back into the box of Chaos you go". It's just far easier to get into the game when you can say to a customer that he can just pick up any unit box he wants and jump right into a battle. In our store we've recently started playing Kill Team and it has greatly boosted sales because just getting into a game doesn't require a mortgage.

All the units feel like they are accomplishing something. I stopped a Dragon Ogres rampage through my forces by a pack of humble Chaos Warriors, I feel that my Tzeench Sorcerer is achieving something every time he successfully summons a Spawn far more than when he was simply sometimes killing a unit, and sometimes giving it regeneration. Even the dogs can do something more than just be a little roadblock that stops a big infantry box from turning. Hell, the lack of requirement to put the units in a box actually makes for a much more fluid looking battles, and I can still squish them together or spread them out depending on what I want to achieve. Blocking a pass to my Lord or Sorcerer with ten Warriors? Easily done!

I am also okay with the background moving forward. In fact, I commend GW for risking this way, changing an established setting, fully knowing that there is going to be an immense blowback. It seems we have ingrained the term "Angel of Death" with the Space Marines that when a faction of quite literal angels of death is introduced, we can't help but think Space Marines.

Change is the only universal constant. It is better to understand this than to work oneself up over it. I've seen so much negativity online it's unreal. No matter what, remember that we're just playing with a bunch of toy soldiers. Sure, we play tournaments, we get really competitive, we think about rules and rules interpretations, we find loopholes and fancy tricks in the rules wording, but at the end of the day, it's still just toy soldiers. I think the new, more light-hearted ruleset in a way is working to separate those who understand and remember that fact and those who take a hobby far too seriously.

Barking Agatha wrote:

As for infantry blocks: Age of Sigmar steals a lot from Rick Priestley's 'Hail Caesar!', which in turn is based largely on Warmaster Ancients. The point of that is to try to reproduce the flow of an ancient battle, rather than parade maneouvres.

You are pulling me out of context, no where did I say that infantry blocks were a true represenation of historical battles. There is not a single wargame, computer or table top that portrays historical or modern wars accurately. They are for entertainment. The blocks were part of the distinguishing features that seperated it from 40k for me and I liked the difference in play it created do to the way the game functioned. Wargames are about making me think strategically and tactically but in no way do they prepare me (or anyone else) to command a squad or army in a real conflict. Anyone who thinks this is deluding themselves as the way things function in reality is very different.

Once again, when I wanted to play Warhammer 40k I do such, there are plenty of melee units and factions out there to give me the more "medieval fantasy" feel if I wanted to play that way as well as armies with more of a focus on fire arms and mechinized armies (I know a couple people that play Khorne Daemon Kin and use no space marines). As such, I see no reason to invest in another system when the money I've already spent on 40k is already spent for a similar kind of feel. They removed the flavor (even if it was copied and generic) that I liked about it and threw it out the window. This is obviously where those players like you and those like me are different. I am not a very good painter, painting is only a side part of the hobby for me. I started out as an RPG player with my friends back in the early 90s and got into miniature war gaming through that, so the story has always been a part of it for me (the existing stories as well as the ones I'm creating). I am older now, I don't have the childish investment into the lore of Age of Sigmar I had developed years earlier with Warhammer Fantasy Battle (through the books, RPGs, and Tabletop) and would rather just ignore it. I have many other hobbies, there are several fire-arms I would like to add to my collection, I still need to finish my Harlequin and Corsair forces that I've been adding to ally with my Kabal, I could do with getting back into my martial arts that I have been slacking off on, and my computer could use with an update. These are all better uses for the money in my mind then buying the new sigmarines. Actually I'm not a fan of the new Sigmarite army, I never was a fan of the Space Marine design actually.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

You are pulling me out of context...

Sorry, I didn't mean to! I was only making a point.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

I started out as an RPG player with my friends back in the early 90s

Early 90s, huh? Newb.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

...there are several fire-arms I would like to add to my collection... I could do with getting back into my martial arts...

I agree with everything you say! Please don't shoot or hit me!

No problem Barking Agatha. Like I said, I have no grudge against those players who are enjoying the game, I think it is great that you have found it to your liking actually. I just wish that they had maintained Fantasy Battle and had made Age of Sigmar another venture. I'm willing to give GW the benefit of the doubt and believe that money didn't allow for this approach and that Fantasy Battle was a sinking ship that they couldn't keep a float, resulting in their choice to destroy it and move on.

The problem GW had with Fantasy was that it was a sinking ship being kept afloat by profits from 40k. From a business perspective it had to go or at least it had to change. Because GW couldn't copyright/trademark many of the Fantasy armies in their minds they had to obliterate it. But the reasoning of why they made the change and the practice of how they did it are just blatantly offensive to a large number of players. The majority of players (potential or actual) who don't really care is probably quite high and likely in the majority, but these players probably aren't interested in a game unless it's popular and they know they can get a game out of a system. They're as likely to play Warmachine or 40k a play AoS. But there are probably more players who've been made angry by the changes than those who think the new game is better. This is pretty sad.

When you take a game that works ok and has a devoted fan base and you tip it up spilling the pieces all over the floor those players are gonna be pissed. But they'll quickly calm down if the alternative is solid. But AoS isn't solid. Some aspects of the rules are positively streamlined but with that comes almost zero customization. You can't really pick and choose equipment or magic for your units, you get what your'e given. Often your two choices of weapons result in almost identical statistical outcomes. Sure it brings back the idea of models looking how you want them too rather than how they need to be to be competitive but the fact is that choice means complexity and choice means players are invested in their choices and their lists. You can take pride in building a solid an effective army list. There's none of that in AoS. Unfortunately for GW this is a strong factor in many players enjoyment of their games. Even Necromunda (and probably Mordheim but I never played that) had this element in place. so it's not out of place in a skirmish game.

You're picking your force now based on what you have and what you enjoy fielding/painting. This is great, I love this because I often want to field thematic forces in games that aren't compliant with the rules. But you can simply houserule/gentlemans agreement those sorts of things regardless oft he rules. But AoS forces you to do this just to even play it. Players have to agree on limiting themselves otherwise they can place units infinitely (or until there's no space left on the table) or just keep dropping Nagash model after Nagash model until they have 12 or more on the table. This is dumb. The game system requires players to come to their own agreement on what limits to impose. You could have done this with Fantasy (or any other game for that matter) without throwing out the rules and creating a set that forces you do this lest it become unplayable.

The old Fantasy problem of having to field massive armies isn't necessarily gone from AoS. With players able to drop whatever they want there's nothing to stop a player dropping their entire collection on the table. Yes your opponent can declare a unit to kill for victory but you can just stick that unit in the far corner of your deployment protected by multiple walls of units that make it all but impossible to get through for a small army. The guy who drops 30 units on the table has a massive advantage over the guy who only has 6. And the guy with all those units probably has some nasty stuff in there too because his collection is huge. Again without players self-limiting/gentlemans agreementing their games AoS becomes a contest of collection size. And the old Fantasy players will win that one.

To counter the above and to encourage players to switch to the new factions GW introduced stupid rules that shame and embarrass players for using them in public. They're meant to be used in private friendly games in your basement GW says but even there it's a joke at the expense of loyal players to your old franchise. It's also offensive to portions of your player base. How does the female player base react to rules based upon the size of your facial hair? GW have dropped the ball there, there's grounds to argue that their ruleset is sexist. Same with the rule about being younger than your opponent - discriminating on the grounds of age. Sure you don't have to play the game and it's not actual hardline discrimination but there's enough there to be distasteful and bring it up as a conversation piece. So their rules designed to shame players into abandoning their old collections are so ill-conceived as to be needlessly offensive to portions of your playerbase. Again you can houserule these out (and I'm sure most players will do that) but then again you're houseruling the crap out of a a system that requires it just to play. And you'll get Those guys who insist on the rules as written being adhered to yet they'll want to negotiate their own rules on unit limitations. Rules as written means you can place units infinitely so what do you want? RAW or a gentleman's game?

Add to this the (yet again) price hike of the new range and you can see what GW wants. They're telling the old Fantasy players to STFU and buy new models that they haven't done in years. New shiny overpriced models that don't come with dumbass "rules" so they don't feel like they're playing a game for 5 year olds. But those players are heavily invested in their armies and don't want to give them up for new shiny fantasy marines. GW knows this. They don't care if the the Fantasy players convert or not. Many won't and they'll continue to play 8th ed or they'll move to KoW. GW knows this so they're just dumping the oldguard Fantasy players. Economically it makes sense but a wargames company lives and dies by it's community and they just shattered their community. I'm sure AoS will do well (Gw thinks it will and they know better than me about how to run a model/games company) but it'll take years to build a playerbase and release a full inventory of models. If they fail to build that community (and there's a risk given the number of alternative games out there) then they'll have killed a franchise that was potentially recoverable in favour of a gamble on something they had better control over.

GW's marketing of AoS at the teenager demographic and it's considerable buy in cost (lets face it, you can't play the game with a couple units) will be put to the test. Older gamers with more cash are generally more savy about alternate games so unless the game becomes robust and builds up a large playerbase the older gamer probably won't touch it. Whether GW can convince kids to part from their playstations remains to be seen. The problem is if this fails it could drag 40k down with it because GW is gonna be investing a LOT into this game to make it work.

Go ahead and play it if you want. I might be tempted to put together some of the tomb Kings I have if there's a good chance of a game, but I have no interest in investing in the game properly or in the new overpriced models. I'd be just as tempted to play 8th ed though, or KoW with the same models.