Calling all AoS skirmish lovers - AoS28: Warband skirmish rules (beta)

[GuitaRasmus]

5 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

I wanted to start Age of Sigmar, but can't afford an army, how much does an avarge Skirmish army cost and which factions have a good balance between being cheap and powerful. It doesn't has to be some tournament winning uber army, as I expect those to cost a lot no matter what system is used, but something in the range of 100-150$ . also is the rule book obligatory, because if it is then it cuts in to the amount of money I can spend on models.

Look wise I like the overlords models the best, but I do not know if they can be played without their big ships. 

It's very difficult to say how much it costs to make a skirmish warband, since it depends very much on which models you want - for example, a warband of a couple of Kharadrons, some stormcast eternals, a few wood elves and a hero might cost 200 dollars, since they can't be bought in boxes of less than 5 or 10. However, ebay is definitely an option, and so is considering buying one of the get started boxes, that represent a great value, or perhaps a splitting a starter set with a friend. As for the Kharadrons, I don't really know, but I think they'll be viable - I'm building a warband of them myself, so I'm betting on it.  That being said, don't get caught up in what is viable or not - you'll have great fun, even if your warband is a little "underpowered". 

2 hours ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Skirmish is my main game at the moment, so I do have some thoughts:

Good things:

• It's simple to pick up and play, and IMO any similar system should be the same way. The great thing about Skirmish and Hinterlands is that they don't try to rewrite the AoS core rules. They do more with less.
• The games are fast paced. Anything that slows down the pace of the game should be rejected IMO.

 

Less good things (always easier to think of these!):

• There should be points for everything.
• Certain things (shooting, magic, mortal wounds) are way overpowered in Skirmish - I think Hinterlands dealt with this well but I think there's scope for other possible solutions too.
• No RPG style progression in Skirmish. Again, Hinterlands had more of this and it was a lot of fun. Personally, I'd like to see something closer to Hinterlands being the baseline for progression with 'expansion packs' that introduce even deeper RPG elements for those who want them.
• Warbands from armies that rely on summoning or replacing slain models are basically screwed in Skirmish. The Hinterlands solution was okay (and better than nothing) but I feel there must be a more elegant solution than forcing the player to include a necromancer. That just doesn't make sense for Flesh-eater Courts, for example.

 

Honestly, I have trouble identifying any ways in which Skirmish is superior to Hinterlands, aside from the fact that it's 'officially supported' and therefore easier to persuade people to play it. Just keep iterating on / adding to Hinterlands! 

 

EDIT: Also, if you haven't already done so you should take a look at The Hobbit SBG, and if you have the patience also take a look at it's earlier editions going back to The Lord of the Rings SBG which had a little more detail than it does currently - lots of great little skirmish rules in there that feel really natural and satisfying. Many people feel that it's the best rules system GW ever made.

Great input, thanks! I'm leaning very heavily towards Hinterlands for many things, and some are directly copied - it's very good from the get-go. I'm changing a few things, including an optional way the turn sequence works, very much like LoTR - first both players have their hero phase, then the movement phase, etc, and roll for initiative for each phase - I thinking it'll get the players activated more, and be more exciting than waiting an entire turn. Good point about shooting, magic and mortal wounds - they're nerfed in the same way as Hinterlands - shooting has gotten a few more nerfs, actually. 

The system will definitely have campaign rules - again, I think, very much like Hinterlands. 

[Mr. White]

On 12/6/2017 at 2:40 PM, GuitaRasmus said:

 I've also found Hinterlands and AoS28, but Hinterlands is pretty much retired

What does this mean? I don't follow.

I didn't think Hinterlands needed anything else. Isn't it a ruleset on how to use any models for warband composition, the warbands growth, and you can use any battleplan (or even Open War cards). I guess I don't know what is expected to keep it 'alive' besides people playing it at home.

[GuitaRasmus]

1 minute ago, Mr. White said:

What does this mean? I don't follow.

I didn't think Hinterlands needed anything else. Isn't it a ruleset on how to use any models for warband composition, the warbands growth, and you can use any battleplan (or even Open War cards). I guess I don't know what is expected to keep it 'alive' besides people playing it at home.

There is nothing wrong with Hinterlands as such - retired just means that Bottle isn't working on it anymore, hence there won't be any further evolvement of the rules, no new scenarios, etc. I thought that was a shame, and I've really wanted to tweak some things for Hinterlands for some time, so with Bottles blessing, I'm working on evolving the system, tweaking it, and perhaps with Bruticus' help, bringing it out to more people - we're working on a AoS28 homepage, so we can hopefully bring in some more people. 

 

[blueshirtman]

1 hour ago, GuitaRasmus said:

Quote

It's very difficult to say how much it costs to make a skirmish warband, since it depends very much on which models you want - for example, a warband of a couple of Kharadrons, some stormcast eternals, a few wood elves and a hero might cost 200 dollars, since they can't be bought in boxes of less than 5 or 10. However, ebay is definitely an option, and so is considering buying one of the get started boxes, that represent a great value, or perhaps a splitting a starter set with a friend.

I don't have friends, only moved to the city here and my therapists told me I have to interact with others, warhammer costs too much and I don't want to play MtG.  I think it won't matter though, asked around today and it looks like no one plays skirmish around here, or at least I haven't found anyone who plays it at the store. I'll try again on the weekend, maybe there will be more people at the store. Knowing my luck by the time I decide what to play my parents are going to make me spend my christmas money on books for school or some course.

 

[GuitaRasmus]

Well, it's not reqlly the purpose of this thread, but perhaps look into X-wing or Shadespire? I get the impression that both games have a pretty low buy-in, and are very popular. Best of luck finding someone to game with. 

[ProteanLion]

11 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

I wanted to start Age of Sigmar, but can't afford an army, how much does an avarge Skirmish army cost and which factions have a good balance between being cheap and powerful. It doesn't has to be some tournament winning uber army, as I expect those to cost a lot no matter what system is used, but something in the range of 100-150$ . also is the rule book obligatory, because if it is then it cuts in to the amount of money I can spend on models.

Look wise I like the overlords models the best, but I do not know if they can be played without their big ships. 

Most start collecting boxes would get you going for skirmish and 10 bucks for the skirmish rules, the rest are free online and in the app for your warscrolls. That being said the overlords don't have a start collecting box so would be a little pricier to get started with and you couldn't use their awesome ships for skirmish.

[blueshirtman]

I don't have a device to run any apps on. That is why the rule book cost is a big problem for me, when add to already very high price of starter set.

The lack of ships for overlords wouldn't actually be a problem, they may look cool, but a single one just costs too much. I asked about the

shadowspire cost, and it looks as if it has a simiular cost to skirmish 100 pounds would be around 150$ after tax and money conversion. And my store adds postal costs to order under 200$ .

I could swear, I have seen people play some sort of Age of Sigmar with like 10 models of the non monster kind. I just can't remember how the rule set was called. I can still remember that one of the dudes playing told me he build his whole army with half a box of troopers. I know they had some sort of multi game event they played over many weeks, but when they started it, I was just leaving so never got to play with them.

[ProteanLion]

1 hour ago, blueshirtman said:

I don't have a device to run any apps on. That is why the rule book cost is a big problem for me, when add to already very high price of starter set.

The lack of ships for overlords wouldn't actually be a problem, they may look cool, but a single one just costs too much. I asked about the

shadowspire cost, and it looks as if it has a simiular cost to skirmish 100 pounds would be around 150$ after tax and money conversion. And my store adds postal costs to order under 200$ .

I could swear, I have seen people play some sort of Age of Sigmar with like 10 models of the non monster kind. I just can't remember how the rule set was called. I can still remember that one of the dudes playing told me he build his whole army with half a box of troopers. I know they had some sort of multi game event they played over many weeks, but when they started it, I was just leaving so never got to play with them.

You can also access the unit rules free from the Games Workshop website by pdf. Plus most boxes contain a printed copy of the unit warscrolls in the instructions. There are several options to get in cheaply. Happy to chat further through direct message so we don't clutter up the post.

[GuitaRasmus]

Hi guys! I've gotten a bit further on the rules, and I really could use your feedback and any comments, critique or ideas you might have. Also, very exciting - I've been talking to Bruticus/Jake of Ex Profundis (the home of AoS28) fame, and we've gone into a bit of collaboration - more on that later. Cool stuff is happening on the AoS28 front. On the same note, the name has been changed to "AoS28: Warband" or simply put "Warband". So has the adress, which can now be found at http://aos28warband.blogspot.com

Disclaimers;

• It obviously needs to be proofread - english is my second language, so there's that. 
• It's missing the campaign parts - we're working on that. 
• The parts in cyan are rules we might cut out of the final version - we need to test them some more. 

I'm really hoping to get some feedback.  

[chord]

On ‎1‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 7:45 PM, blueshirtman said:

I don't have a device to run any apps on. That is why the rule book cost is a big problem for me, when add to already very high price of starter set.

The lack of ships for overlords wouldn't actually be a problem, they may look cool, but a single one just costs too much. I asked about the

shadowspire cost, and it looks as if it has a simiular cost to skirmish 100 pounds would be around 150$ after tax and money conversion. And my store adds postal costs to order under 200$ .

I could swear, I have seen people play some sort of Age of Sigmar with like 10 models of the non monster kind. I just can't remember how the rule set was called. I can still remember that one of the dudes playing told me he build his whole army with half a box of troopers. I know they had some sort of multi game event they played over many weeks, but when they started it, I was just leaving so never got to play with them.

If you want to play skirmish at a low cost, Stormcast or Khorne would be your best bet as plenty of starter set models are around on the second hand market (ebay, etc).  If not look for the warbands boxes which are about $65 (US Dollars),  It's a limited selection I think but they give you a full warband (Stormcast, Ironjawz,Khorne, Flesh Eaters).

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/searchResults?qty=com.gamesworkshop.endeca.EndecaUserContext%40c1ab8c3&sorting=&view=&Ntt=skirmish

If people in the area play AOS, they *could* play skirmish, since they have the models.   Hopefully they are open to it.

[GuitaRasmus]

I appreciate the intent, but I'd really like to keep discussions of economic considerations of skirmish gaming out of this thread - and keep the discussion on track, with the development of the ruleset. Thanks! 

[someone2040]

Hmm... Given that I'll probably never get around to releasing my own Skirmish stuff properly fleshed out. Here's what I've been working on in terms of Life and Death and Experience in Skirmish. Make of it what you will, feel free to use. 

Skirmish Experience by Someone2040

It's mostly based off Mordheim with my own spin on a few things (I quite like the Taunt skill). It's lacking the actual experience mechanism though of when you actually roll for upgrades, but could likely just be taken from Mordheim itself.

That being said, you'd probably need to tweak it.

 

As for the ruleset. I'm gonna call it out in a way and say, I don't really think it's a Skirmish expansion. It's basically Hinterlands, which was it's own thing anyway. Warband creation being changed fundamentally invalidates half of the few pages that make up the Skirmish rules anyway (That's not including the pages of renown costings).

Dunno, maybe it'll become more fundamental once you add in experience and other stuff, but at the moment it feels like changing warband creation and command abilities are changed just to be like Hinterlands. There's no real justification behind why it's changed, so it will make it harder to get buy in.

[GuitaRasmus]

6 hours ago, someone2040 said:

Hmm... Given that I'll probably never get around to releasing my own Skirmish stuff properly fleshed out. Here's what I've been working on in terms of Life and Death and Experience in Skirmish. Make of it what you will, feel free to use. 

Skirmish Experience by Someone2040

It's mostly based off Mordheim with my own spin on a few things (I quite like the Taunt skill). It's lacking the actual experience mechanism though of when you actually roll for upgrades, but could likely just be taken from Mordheim itself.

That being said, you'd probably need to tweak it.

 

As for the ruleset. I'm gonna call it out in a way and say, I don't really think it's a Skirmish expansion. It's basically Hinterlands, which was it's own thing anyway. Warband creation being changed fundamentally invalidates half of the few pages that make up the Skirmish rules anyway (That's not including the pages of renown costings).

Dunno, maybe it'll become more fundamental once you add in experience and other stuff, but at the moment it feels like changing warband creation and command abilities are changed just to be like Hinterlands. There's no real justification behind why it's changed, so it will make it harder to get buy in.

Hi, and first of all thanks for the input, and the link to your own project - I'll definitely look through it for inspiration.

As for the feedback; (please note that I differentiate between Skirmish (official rules) and skirmish (as in general skirmish gaming)

1) I've never intended it as a AoS: Skirmish expansion. Like I said in my first post, I find the Skirmish rules kind of two dimensional, and half-baked. To me, it's like GW realises that there is a player base in some niche, and releases something that somehow resembles the fanmade product, but really isn't quite there. I really enjoyed Heralds of Ruin: Kill Team, and GW's Shadow Wars is but a pale look-alike. I have no intention on building on the official Skirmish rules. Part of the confusion may be because GW chose to call it Skirmish - to me, skirmish gaming is a type of gaming, not a certain game. To me, the whole Battleshock thing of Skirmish just isn't thought through - lots of character models in AoS have a pretty low Bravery - e.g. Skaven and Grots; it almost never matters in reg. AoS since only a few abilities makes single models take Bravery tests, but in Skirmish it matters a great deal if your leader has bravery 5 or 6 - and I don't feel that fact is calculated into the points cost of the models. 

2) And yes, I've never hidden the fact that large parts of it is taken directly from Hinterlands (with Bottles blessing too) - because it IS/WAS a great system, but I wanted some tweaks to it, like the extra stuff about falling, being thrown, taking some more edge off shooting, alternating phases, duck and cover and Fate Points, etc. The warband creation is like it is, because I want people to have the freedom of using whatever miniatures they love or create themselves, without being bound to "Plastic miniatures points costs only!". Also, I wanted to avoid too much herohammer, therefore command traits, artifacts, etc, are not used. Only command abilities. There is absolutely nothing wrong wrong with Hinterlands; in fact it is an awesome system. I could also have made a set of add-on rules to Hinterlands, but Hinterlands are not supported anymore, and is hard to find as a download these days. I just wanted to make a cool system for me and my friends to play that expanded the game a bit, added some flavourful extra rules, and I might as well make it available to the public too. I purposedly didn't call it Hinterlands v. 2.0 or something like that, because that is Bottles project, and his philosophy has been to change as little as needed. I like having a bit of extra flavour to the rules - for example throwing; to me, skirmish gaming is about telling a great story, and I absolutely want the rules to reflect that, giving a few extra options.  I have absolutely no ulterior motive for doing this, and have given Bottle full credit for his work every time I've written about it. 

I hope that's justification enough? 

Edit: I absolutely would love it to be "community made" - as in, taking in suggestions and changes made by the community. There's already a few changes and add-ons brought by members of the AoS28 facebook group, and I could very well imagine that I could use some of your stuff as well. I want any feedback, and I just want it to be a great ruleset. 

[someone2040]

4 minutes ago, GuitaRasmus said:

Hi, and first of all thanks for the input, and the link to your own project - I'll definitely look through it for inspiration.

As for the feedback; (please note that I differentiate between Skirmish (official rules) and skirmish (as in general skirmish gaming)

1) I've never intended it as a AoS: Skirmish expansion. Like I said in my first post, I find the Skirmish rules kind of two dimensional, and half-baked. To me, it's like GW realises that there is a player base in some niche, and releases something that somehow resembles the fanmade product, but really isn't quite there. I really enjoyed Heralds of Ruin: Kill Team, and GW's Shadow Wars is but a pale look-alike. I have no intention on building on the official Skirmish rules. Part of the confusion may be because GW chose to call it Skirmish - to me, skirmish gaming is a type of gaming, not a certain game. To me, the whole Battleshock thing of Skirmish just isn't thought through - lots of character models in AoS have a pretty low Bravery - e.g. Skaven and Grots; it almost never matters in reg. AoS since only a few abilities makes single models take Bravery tests, but in Skirmish it matters a great deal if your leader has bravery 5 or 6 - and I don't feel that fact is calculated into the points cost of the models. 

2) And yes, I've never hidden the fact that large parts of it is taken directly from Hinterlands (with Bottles blessing too) - because it IS/WAS a great system, but I wanted some tweaks to it, like the extra stuff about falling, being thrown, taking some more edge off shooting, alternating phases, duck and cover and Fate Points, etc. The warband creation is like it is, because I want people to have the freedom of using whatever miniatures they love or create themselves, without being bound to "Plastic miniatures points costs only!". Also, I wanted to avoid too much herohammer, therefore command traits, artifacts, etc, are not used. Only command abilities. There is absolutely nothing wrong wrong with Hinterlands; in fact it is an awesome system. I could also have made a set of add-on rules to Hinterlands, but Hinterlands are not supported anymore, and is hard to find as a download these days. I just wanted to make a cool system for me and my friends to play that expanded the game a bit, added some flavourful extra rules, and I might as well make it available to the public too. I purposedly didn't call it Hinterlands v. 2.0 or something like that, because that is Bottles project, and his philosophy has been to change as little as needed. I like having a bit of extra flavour to the rules - for example throwing; to me, skirmish gaming is about telling a great story, and I absolutely want the rules to reflect that, giving a few extra options.  I have absolutely no ulterior motive for doing this, and have given Bottle full credit for his work every time I've written about it. 

I hope that's justification enough? 

I think you've taken it the wrong way. I don't think there's any need to get defensive about it, I didn't mean it as a slight that it's just Hinterlands+, just showing that it's not AoS Skirmish.

My apologies. I got it wrong, as I thought in the document it said it is an amendment to AoS : Skirmish and not an Amendment to AoS.

If that's your cause, then I think sure, go down that path. I don't think you'll get a lot of buy in though, but perhaps that doesn't particularly matter if you're creating the rules for your friends and whoever else is interested.

[GuitaRasmus]

1 minute ago, someone2040 said:

I think you've taken it the wrong way. I don't think there's any need to get defensive about it, I didn't mean it as a slight that it's just Hinterlands+, just showing that it's not AoS Skirmish.

My apologies. I got it wrong, as I thought in the document it said it is an amendment to AoS : Skirmish and not an Amendment to AoS.

If that's your cause, then I think sure, go down that path. I don't think you'll get a lot of buy in though, but perhaps that doesn't particularly matter if you're creating the rules for your friends and whoever else is interested.

I'm sorry if I came off as defensive - that wasn't the idea. I'm just trying to explain why I'm doing this and why I'm doing it this way. 

TBH, I just don't think Skirmish is good enough to expand on - it's too flat, shooting, magic, mortal wounds, artifacts etc. are way too overpowered, etc. I'm totally cool with this being a niche project. Skirmish gaming in AoS already is, and even moreso with the AoS28 concept. I just wanted to make a cool standalone expansion for AoS, since I love the AoS setting, rules and skirmish gaming. 

[GuitaRasmus]

@someone2040: I just wanted to say thanks a lot for the document - there's lots of really cool stuff there, and I've incorporated most of the skills there already. I've also given you credit in the liner notes, but shoot me a PM if you want your real name credited as well. Very cool stuff, I might tweak them some more, but I really like them, and most were fine as is. 

The site has been updated with the latest version, 2.2, with added injury tables, progression tables and skill tables. http://aos28warband.blogspot.com/

[pseudonyme]

I read it and not played it but I have 2 suggestions:

• make the injuries table a 2d6 roll table, because I think the critical injury or the miraculous recovery should be « rare » or at least less common than minor injury.
• in the shooting phase, when shooting in a melee combat, I would not make it random: successfull hits should be on the enemy models and failed hits on friendly models. Maybe with a -1 to hit to spice it up.

Anyway, I think I will use your expansion to try to play a campaign with my wife. Good job.

[GuitaRasmus]

***Updated 6/1 2018: After more playtesting, we found it neccessary to further nerf the mortal wounds - especially sorcerers and the like, are terrifying assassins against heroes, with most of the heroes only having 2 or 3 wounds. It seems against the narrative to have mighty heroes slain in turn 1 or 2 by a magic bolt, and it also takes the edge of heroes with magical “one-shot weapons”. Also the crippled and parry mechanics have been removed, since they only seemed to slow down the game. We found the Fate Points mechanic and Alternating Phases mechanics very promising though - please try it out. :) ***

The newest version can be found on the website or here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TSyBvFvQJ_f1Aw6g2rtudVi_psQiwe2B/view?usp=sharing

[someone2040]

On 1/6/2018 at 9:22 PM, pseudonyme said:

I read it and not played it but I have 2 suggestions:

• make the injuries table a 2d6 roll table, because I think the critical injury or the miraculous recovery should be « rare » or at least less common than minor injury.

Yeah I agree with this.

But mainly because it bogs down the game. This is because primarily your warband will be made up of regular warriors, who for the most part will be very samey because you can't configure equipment. And in game you're going to need to keep track of which ones have what injuries.

I think injuries though are characterful, but should be kept for the more important characters in your warband. Of course, the likes of Mordheim had you start off with more heroes. Which is why I originally did the same as Mordheim, split the table into regular Warrior and Hero injury tables (Where the Hero is a more complex table).

 

I guess the other thing is that Mordheim promoted starting off with more heroes. This was a by product of exploration promoting having heroes, but it also meant those heroes evolved in a more interesting manner.

One thing I have been considering for a long time is trying to figure out how much stat upgrades are actually worth. Mainly so I could make a hero-builder, but it also could allow you to price upgrading a model to a hero. I find that there's a lack of mid-range heroes in AoS (3-4 wound heroes) which ultimately means you've got 'bandaid' fixes like halving hero wounds/cost in warband creation. 

This could be as simple a system as it costs +X points to upgrade a model to a hero when purchasing it, that model gains the HERO keyword, an extra wound and can immediately roll on the Improvement Chart.

Just figuring out how much that should be is not so easy.

[GuitaRasmus]

Updated again with separate warrior and Hero injury tables, plus experience charts.

[flemingmma]

Huzzah!

[garra]

Trying to download the new version, but it is saying i don’t have access, and permission is needed.

[GuitaRasmus]

From the website? That’s strange. I’ll look into it tomorrow. 

[GuitaRasmus]

@garra: I can't seem to replicate the problem from any platforms or computers - are you downloading it from the website? 

[GuitaRasmus]

My apologies - I think I've found out what the error was - it should be fixed now?