Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Jvh792 »

I happen to know for a fact that they aren't done releasing AoS things. However, I'm about 99% sure they won't be rules augments. They will be narrative supplements. Hopefully they will give us a bit of direction when organizing armies to play against each other. Pretty good authority that I'm saying this too
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Barking Agatha »

Daeron wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzNBJN8UTEE
A pretty good rant. Best listened to while reading something else, or painting because of the length :D
Some bad language though. Tremendous was one of the great battle report makers in 8th edition. Quite a fun guy. Sifting out the bad words, he does make a lot of points and makes even me gloomy about the game :P


It seemed incredibly silly to me.

First, seven whole minutes of his Warhammer rules book lit on fire, as if being melodramatic were an argument. 20 seconds might have been clever and funny, but 7 minutes is a tantrum.

Then, an Appeal to Authority: 'My friends all hated it.' Well that settles it then.

Then he goes into detail and shows us his first and only game, in which he marched up to a line of guns and got Agincourted. That makes it a bad strategy game, apparently, because things like Agincourt would never happen in real life. Cannons and rifles kill troops that they shoot at? Horrors! His Tomb King general can't wipe out a regiment by himself, nor can he survive being shot at by cannons immediately after? That's unrealistic! Everyone knows that mediaeval generals killed entire regiments by themselves, and ate cannonballs. How can there be tactics if cannons kill my superhero character, he scoffs? That's not the Herohammer he knows!

And then there's the appeal to repetition. 'It's just shiz!' he repeats every so often, not having bothered to argue why it is so. As if repeating it a dozen times were the same as arguing a point.

The feeling that I get is that the argument he can't quite bring himself to make openly is this: 'I'm great, that is a given. Therefore, if this game were any good, I would be good at it, but I sucked, therefore it's bad.' It's no wonder that he'd rather be vague. He may have a wealth of experience with min-maxed lists, but he seems to be a complete neophyte when it comes to historical games representing actual battles where *real* tactics (i.e., no superheroes taking on regiments by themselves) matter. He's sore because he was a Warhamer big shot and now he's an Age of Sigmar newb!

It isn't a bad game just because you're bad at it tho :)
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Lord hajjij »

Lord Tremendous rarely wins his games for the record :)

It's a new game, and people will dislike at least some of the changes. Its natural. A lot of people hate the changes and there's honestly a good reason for it. For me, I've been more of a "gaming club" guy and this game is rejuvenating interest in my club, so I'm all for it.

Just remember, the OVERLY optimistic person who can find NO FAULT in the game really is the same at the core to the pessimist and complainer - just the opposite. Both sides really can't just plug their ears and go la la la la when someone brings up a solid point either way.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by cultofkhaine »

That book really did not want to burn in a hurry! Pour the kero on I say and watch it go up quicker :D
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Red... »

Just remember, the OVERLY optimistic person who can find NO FAULT in the game really is the same at the core to the pessimist and complainer - just the opposite. Both sides really can't just plug their ears and go la la la la when someone brings up a solid point either way.

Excellent point. Often these kind of major changes create cheerleaders and doomsayers out en masse - and your characterization of them is spot on! I have to confess to being a bit of doomsayer on this occasion...

Coincidentally, I have a collector's edition of the 8th edition rule book, so mine would probably take at least 10 minutes to go up fully in smoke!
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Barking Agatha »

Lord hajjij wrote:Just remember, the OVERLY optimistic person who can find NO FAULT in the game really is the same at the core to the pessimist and complainer - just the opposite. Both sides really can't just plug their ears and go la la la la when someone brings up a solid point either way.


Fair enough, and if someone brings up a reasonable point I'll try to see their side of it. LT makes none. That business about how even powerful elite units don't automatically win against weaker, non-elite units because numbers do make a difference, well to me that's a point in its *favour*! Five chaos knights should *not* be able to slaughter 50 empire soldiers every time, no matter how badass they are. A dragon *should* go down if enough goblins swarm it. Heroes should *not* survive a cannon to the face. Hence why strategy and tactics become more important than the relative badassery of your troops. What he thinks is tactics... isn't.

For example, in that game, he could have led his march with skirmishers (not 'troops with the skirmish special rule', because those aren't in the game any more. I mean units of troops to which you, as a general, give the battlefield role of skirmishers. It happens to be a real thing!). Small units of skeleton archers are perfect for this role, and they can be raised again and again with magic. Let your main army advance behind your skirmishers as they shoot at the cannon crews. They will die, but their purpose is to screen your main army, and the enemy can't really ignore them, or else they'll lose their artillery. This lets you get up there with an actual block of infantry to charge their Irondrakes and Quarrelers, instead of the Tomb King trying to take them on all by himself. If they retreat, advance and charge again... they can't shoot you if they're retreating.

It's by no means guaranteed, but at least it's a strategy. But no, it's much easier to march mindlessly toward the cannons, get shot up, and complain that the game is stupid and you can't have tactics and your casket of souls didn't do anything, isn't it? Let's just assume that this game requires no thought and then prove it by playing it and not thinking!
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Calisson »

Moderator's note
In all fairness, this thread is dedicated to those who are terribly disappointed with AoS.
If you are bothered with unwanted interventions from the optimistic/overzealous defenders of AoS, let the moderation team know, we can sort out the posts.
Anyway, thanks everyone for the maturity and calm of the discussion.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by T.D. »

This one is even more negative/more bad language than Lord Tremendous' Tremendous rant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYoNhQevx08

What is awesome about it, is that it reveals there is a Warhammer mod for Mount and Blade...

[+] SPOILER
which I just have to get :D


Silver Helms and Phoenix Guard's get much deserved crossbows to the face :twisted:
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Eldarwonderland »

If all fails, Kings of War looks a reasonable alternative, especially with their intention to port all WHFB armies to their system.
A system written by the community and ex GW staff.

In the meantime I will be growing a moustache, sorry Mrs Wonderland, practising to growl "War" menacingly and talk to imaginary horses while not blinking at my opponent.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by toots »

why the HELL are the prats at GW not uploading something to youtube or their website showing the designers playing it, how it plays, and what the designers are actually thinking as they're playing it?? people on warseer are desperately trying to figure out ways for it not to be garbage, rather than it being obviously a good game
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Omnichron »

toots wrote:why the HELL are the prats at GW not uploading something to youtube or their website showing the designers playing it, how it plays, and what the designers are actually thinking as they're playing it??


I got the answer for that. Clearly they haven't tried it for themselves and got no clue what they are doing.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by The Mattler »

Tournament organizers are going to be pissed off because it's a bit tricky to regulate, but what everyone seems to be forgetting about Age of Sigmar is that the lack of points cost is part of a feature, not a bug. The whole point is that you and your opponent counterbuild your lists together, and that is amazing. It's a bidding war in which you try to field as flexible a force as you can that can reliably accomplish a Sudden Death objective, then figure out the breakpoint at which you can afford to pass on deployment to get first turn. If both players come to the table with a diverse collection, there's a huge amount of depth to the deployment interactions. The real limit is the table size, which is what the tournament organizers should be focussing on. So far the only thing that makes me leery is the roll-offs to determine player turn order each round.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Red... »

That sounds delightful, but to me it seems far more likely that player A turns up with 30 models and player B turns up with 250 models. First turn and sudden death objectives become irrelevant: let the pointless crushing commence. But even if we assume that players try to balance their own game, Age of Sigmar's approach is made silly by the difficulty of knowing how much a given model is worth. GW appears to have decided that they - the game designers who have their main line of work designing and selling their games all day long - can't do it because its too hard, but they can expect their consumers (most of whom have jobs or schoolwork for most of their days) will somehow be able to do so. So, even if we assume that players build their armies together, players are still going to struggle to work out how many goblins are the equivalent of one bloodthirster, etc.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by The Mattler »

The pointless crushing you're describing won't happen for reasons of space, time, and sanity. Nobody's going to deploy 250 models against 30 because then the process of actually playing the game becomes absurd. The imaginary WAAC players would be bored out of their skulls grinding out that kind of a game, and if it's just the instant gratification of victory they wanted, there are much cheaper ways to get it than pushing around so many expensive toys.

Red... wrote:So, even if we assume that players build their armies together, players are still going to struggle to work out how many goblins are the equivalent of one bloodthirster, etc.

That's not an assumption, that's how the game works; the main feature is that deployment and list building are the same thing. Just as 8th edition had a cerebral movement phase, Age of Sigmar has cerebral deployment.

As for the balancing question, most of what I'm seeing online is a lot of people complaining about the supposed lack of tactical depth in one breath, then complaining about having to think for themselves in the next breath. It's not like GW was that great at even internal balance in Army Books and Codices before Age of Sigmar, and now the players get to decide for themselves. Players are panicking over losing the illusion of fairness formerly enforced by fiat from GW. Now, the players who do well at Age of Sigmar will be the ones who can correctly determine a unit's value on a specific battlefield in a specific combination of units as that information appears dynamically. You build your collection like you used to build 'all comers' army lists, then tailor it to what you see (and predict) of your opponent's deployment. It's not just a matter of picking all the 'best' units anymore.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Amboadine »

So I am not saying you are completely incorrect in all your comments, however;

The pointless crushing you're describing won't happen for reasons of space, time, and sanity. Nobody's going to deploy 250 models against 30 because then the process of actually playing the game becomes absurd.


I sincerely believe you are very wrong on this point, especially players who are used to huge horde armies and have a big collection. Nothing is preventing them using their entire army against you. If you are going to outnumber someone, then in fact the more you outnumber them the better in many cases.

The imaginary WAAC players would be bored out of their skulls grinding out that kind of a game, and if it's just the instant gratification of victory they wanted, there are much cheaper ways to get it than pushing around so many expensive toys.


Again I think you under estimate the lengths some WAAC players go to, especially those with deep pockets.

You build your collection like you used to build 'all comers' army lists, then tailor it to what you see (and predict) of your opponent's deployment. It's not just a matter of picking all the 'best' units anymore.


So basically this counteracts the whole point of this being a way of reducing the cost of entry into the hobby. You basically need a bigger collection and choice of units to influence and react to your opponents deployment. At least with a points system you had an end point goal to say I am done with this army, I want to try something else.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by The Mattler »

Amboadine wrote:I sincerely believe you are very wrong on this point, especially players who are used to huge horde armies and have a big collection. Nothing is preventing them using their entire army against you. If you are going to outnumber someone, then in fact the more you outnumber them the better in many cases.

Horde armies that are currently on square bases and moved with movement trays. Making them all move individually, plus the massive hassle of rebasing everything, will probably quell the urge to throw down hundreds of Goblins, Zombies, Skaven Slaves, etc., long enough for folks to figure out that there are more sensible and engaging ways to achieve victory.

Amboadine wrote:Again I think you under estimate the lengths some WAAC players go to, especially those with deep pockets.

The key word here is "some". Actual WAAC players (not to be confused with players who like winning and try to win every game!) are a tiny minority of the community, albeit a conspicuous and unpleasant one. If only a subset of that tiny minority feels like just emptying a suitcase of models onto every table they come across, not only will they be easy to spot, but they'll also play very few games. To be clear, I'm not one of those "good luck finding games, jerk!" kind of people, since that's just an excuse to offload responsibility for one's failures onto others. Rather, if the aforementioned WAAC player with a ton of models wants to actually win those games by playing them to the end, that's going to take a lot more time due to all the movement. My advice would be to take one for the team from these people every now and then, and make them play the game right to the end; I bet they'll realize that they're wasting their own time and switch strategies. Meanwhile, you get to challenge yourself to try stealing Sudden Death victories against large opposing forces.

Amboadine wrote:So basically this counteracts the whole point of this being a way of reducing the cost of entry into the hobby. You basically need a bigger collection and choice of units to influence and react to your opponents deployment. At least with a points system you had an end point goal to say I am done with this army, I want to try something else.

Remember that GW sells models, not rules; let's face it, the rules have been free for a long time, but some people (myself included) just like the physical books. The good news is that, instead of spamming the 'next broken unit', you get to spend the same amount of money on a variety of units. The entry cost is still lower than WHFB, since most of the minimum unit sizes are small (sometimes even single models for rank-and-file troops!), but to get the full experience you have to approximate a 'one of everything' approach. On the plus side, now you actually have to try out most, if not all, of the units in the army to appreciate what it can do, and those choices have opportunity costs strictly in tactical terms instead of having the extra layer of a (probably illogical) points cost on top....and the opportunity cost is heavily dependent on context. That's cool.

The points costs were never serious caps on army collections anyway. In WHFB, if I collect 2000pts of Dark Elves and GW tinkers with points costs, my arbitrary cap no longer references the same number of models. Generally, points costs went down, so new editions resulted in increased sales for those who wanted to stick to their 'end goal' per army. Then again, maybe I'm unusual in getting excited about having a representative collection of an army's model range from a practical standpoint in addition to the aesthetic one. *shrug*
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Omnichron »

GW has never been good at balance, but AoS is even worse.

The thing is... most players who were into WHFB enjoyed the game because it was tactically challenging from small to huge battles and with the communities making the tournament restrictions, it was a joy to play. Rank and file units who had their limitiations and synergized well with other units/magic/heroes.

AoS is too far from the tree for my sake, and it seems like a lot of the WHFB veterans are in the same boat. Most of those I play with are joining the Warmahordes side of Fantasy now, and I will most likely end up there as well. If we are getting into a new system, why not get into one that is kinda balanced and at least well known... as well as having rules made for tournaments.

I guess we will see within the year whether AoS was a success or failure for GW, but imo they f***ed their old playerbase with these rules. If I wanted to play something simpler, I would play something else. Now that they have simplified everything I would, again, rather play something else.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by T.D. »

Death, Holy Death goes out like a true Dark Elf!

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Omnichron wrote:but imo they f***ed their old playerbase with these rules. If I wanted to play something simpler, I would play something else. Now that they have simplified everything I would, again, rather play something else.


+1!
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by cultofkhaine »

Did you see the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plUPJ0inN4c#t=626

Crikey he really did not take it that well at all.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Arquinsiel »

I haven't posted here in years, because... well, Warhammer went shiz a long time ago. But this brought me back from sheer lol. Autowin army:

10: N = 1.
20: 1 X Screaming Bell + N X Kairos Fateweaver.
30: Turn one, roll a 13. Game over.
40: BUT WAIT! I take the same army, and add another Fateweaver to stop you! N = N + 1
50: GOTO 20

Lolololol this isn't even a game.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Amboadine »

Arquinsiel wrote:I haven't posted here in years, because... well, Warhammer went shiz a long time ago. But this brought me back from sheer lol. Autowin army:

10: N = 1.
20: 1 X Screaming Bell + N X Kairos Fateweaver.
30: Turn one, roll a 13. Game over.
40: BUT WAIT! I take the same army, and add another Fateweaver to stop you! N = N + 1
50: GOTO 20

Lolololol this isn't even a game.


Welcome back. That is definitely funny :)
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Red... »

The Mattler wrote:Remember that GW sells models, not rules; let's face it, the rules have been free for a long time

Huh? GW sold rules last time I checked... even their ebook rules cost money. Sure, you can easily downloaded pirated pdfs, but you can apply that same logic to movies and music too, and they definitely remain "purchase or you're stealing" merchandise.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Arquinsiel »

Oh man, just found another one on The Escapist. Take a single unit of tomb kings swarm whatever, hide it under the table for six turns. Win. So bad.
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Rork »

Arquinsiel wrote:Oh man, just found another one on The Escapist. Take a single unit of tomb kings swarm whatever, hide it under the table for six turns. Win. So bad.


Oh, Arq, you always find the best ways to break things ;).
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Re: Un-Welcome to the Age of Sigmar

Post by Arquinsiel »

What I like most about these methods is I don't have to waste time setting up models to "play" this blatant joke claiming to be a game.
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