Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[smucreo]

Well this reminds me of when the new Death book was released to be honest  everyone was freaking out (me included) when the warscroll leaks happened while forgetting we still had the book to come. Then the book finally came and while Death hasn't been super top tier or anything I can honestly tell most changes where for the best and I'm overall happy, and I think most Death players are too.

The point is: wait before you start flaming the forums because we STILL don't know most of what's to come so what's the point? Yes some rumoured changes may be bad with how the game is played now but we don't know how the gameplay will go in the next edition and we don't even know if the rumoured changes you are having a fuss about are going to come. 

EDIT: By the way, I'm super happy about the look out sir changes. You haven't known true pain until you face a Freeguild Gunline spam list and you are playing an army without range that depends on their heroes.

[Ben]

Morning all. 

I’ve removed a few posts and also issued a ban this morning. 

We are here to chat about Warhammer and have fun. There are plenty of places on 4Chan and Reddit to argue and complain if that’s what you are looking for. 

[Killax]

1 hour ago, Spiny Norman said:

How can they balance these games, anyways? People are not playing chess , nor a thing more complex than chess. And even chess would be unbalanced, if you didn't switch from white to black every other game.

Mostly warhammer gamers are pretentious and dull. You can judge by the way they start their rule exegesis....from all the fancy interpretation methods - f.e. used by jurisprudence to determine the substance of an unclear paragraph (telelogical, systematical, hystorical) - warhammer players just know the most inane one: The wording. And they feel pretty smug about it.

They usally create a healthy competitive balance by adding costs to units. As before Core rules and even Warscroll designs don't have anything to do with competitive balance. Games Workshop seems to purposefully choose to not do it this way and it serves them. It allows for more creative designs and less copy pasting abilities from other armies to create a bland balance. Warhammer 40K is the perfect example of where balance now can be found with this edition but heck there are SO MANY copy pasted abilities/stratagems and stats that in itself it isn't very creative or armies don't all have a distinct feel to them. 

Key thing for me is that competitive balance isn't even that much of a requirement for this game or any miniature game for that matter. We see this also in Age of Sigmar. Not every unit is costed the same way as it might have to be to have all Allegiances matter for something. However due to the Allegiance numbers I don't think most players should be bothered by this anyway.

Maby some Warhammer gamers are pretentious, I agree much less on dull. But I don't think you can really expect it to be any different these days. Since social media and highlighted the importance of it everybody seems to have an opinion and thinks it influences something. More over, this game is a game of pretend anyway. We all imagne our armies doing influential things, so logically we will react to changes with importance. All the while it's a hobby. 
Why I dissagree on the part of gamers being dull comes from the wonderful conversions and lore ideas I've seen so far on these forums. The end days of WFB became a little bit more dull. Warmachine and Hordes by comparison is way more dull as painting your army isn't even a requirement for several events. So active 'dull' wargamers in my opinion don't really excist. 


 

[HorticulusTGA]

@Turgol and @Chikout made very good points above ; TGA is not Warseer (brr), so let's keep things civil here, please. Thanks to the admin and mod team for their effort. 

---

Regarding the dread surrounding the core rules changes, remember the Time of Tribulations is only in the fluff  

What we know so far is heralding good, smart and overall quite small changes :

- Can't shoot out of combat. 

- Tie for double turn means this round' first player can choose the double turn or not.

- Look out sir is -1 to hit against non monster heroes at 3" of a 3+ models unit.

- Summoning without matched play points will be possible, but under conditions we do not know.

- CP only means Heroes have 3+  abilities to choose from, and that you can choose each turn who is going to use it. You can even stockpile CP, that's only more flexibility. Also, remember the sources for CP will be i. one each turn, 2. only one for the 1-2 battalions you'll get in matched play, 3. new mechanisms like spells or battleplan.

TLDR wait and see for the whole picture, rejoice for the new options, new magic, upgraded allegiance abilities and point adjustment we'll get in GHB2018, and save your money for the expensive summer ahead  Peace. 

[Killax]

9 minutes ago, Aginor said:

But the other side is important too:
If you cannot easily snipe heroes but lack the power to destroy the hordes of minions they throw at you that is just as bad of course.

As someone who has tested this rule in his own way last year, just for the sake of considering what could be done in the Shooting phase to make it more 'tactical' I will also say there is another important side:

If you gain a protection ability while standing 3" near a unit, you will stand 3" near a unit, which means that Heroes do not often have a free pass to be wherever and be functional 'uncatchable' from melee combat. To me this is also why I like this "rule of 3" so much.

The advantage obtained here isn't that massive. It just means that more effort is needed to remove Heroes. However Heroes also obtained a neat 'boost' so a new metagame will logically contain more of them which leads to armies on average containing less units or smaller sized units. This in turn keeps shooting still sufficiently inpactful. Or at least that is my thake on it. 

A logical next step in GH2018 will also be that some Heroes will be more expensive, Shooting untis will be less expensive and I also expect the whole 'one-drop-rule' being removed from Battalions altogether so that things become less predictable for this game. Which in turn rewards tactical choice. 

The base of the Core rules will likely remain simple, but the importance seems to be placed on model placement. I like this a lot because it means there is a learning curve to the game that is actually quite high. Where in the current edition that learning curve did grow but still isn't that high. This reflects itself in the predictability of armies forming top 4's at large events... 

8 minutes ago, smucreo said:

Well this reminds me of when the new Death book was released to be honest  everyone was freaking out (me included) when the warscroll leaks happened while forgetting we still had the book to come. Then the book finally came and while Death hasn't been super top tier or anything I can honestly tell most changes where for the best and I'm overall happy, and I think most Death players are too.

The point is: wait before you start flaming the forums because we STILL don't know most of what's to come so what's the point? Yes some rumoured changes may be bad with how the game is played now but we don't know how the gameplay will go in the next edition and we don't even know if the rumoured changes you are having a fuss about are going to come. 

EDIT: By the way, I'm super happy about the look out sir changes. You haven't known true pain until you face a Freeguild Gunline spam list and you are playing an army without range that depends on their heroes.

Happy to see you remember and reflect that! But yeah this is also why I'm sad that the AoS community partially reacts this stressed out. As someone who played WFB too and loved it I expected the AoS community to be more open to this and understand why a new edition is currently a very smart move. The prime reason why I think it's so important to have this new edition is that things became very hard to find in one place, things in the core rules became very different with written before and this all lead to a high barrier for new players to enter the game.

Cheers!

[stato]

10 minutes ago, Killax said:

The advantage obtained here isn't that massive. It just means that more effort is needed to remove Heroes. However Heroes also obtained a neat 'boost' so a new metagame will logically contain more of them which leads to armies on average containing less units or smaller sized units. This in turn keeps shooting still sufficiently inpactful. Or at least that is my thake on it. 

I think this is very much a possibility.  More buffing heros means less units, so shoot at those units instead and the army becomes ineffective. The only reason we shoot at heros is because they are the weak link, they have reduced the weakness but actually moved it elsewhere.  There will still be strong builds obviously, but there will always be a weakness in the armour somewhere, and dont forget this is still (currently anyway) an objective game so death-star lists that im sure will appear might not be the most winning list.

[syph0n]

If I read correctly through the thread, this rule doesn't apply to Heroes on monsters? I'd be interested to see how many armies take heroes on monsters as the most viable General or hero choice, who obviously do not benefit from the rule anyway. I know for my army, that my main hero rides a dragon. 

 

[Paul Buckler]

Dont think it will influence too much tbh, its a nice little bonus but not game changing

[Kamose]

15 hours ago, bsharitt said:

It's Seraphon that I can't really think of  thematic way they would get non-open ended summoning. Maybe some kind of "star points" that gather slowly each turn, but their wizards get some kind of "commune with the heavens" ability that raises the number of the "star points"(sounds kind of Mario-ish) that can then summon units. I can't recall, is that all the summonable factions?

My money's on Fusion points.  Since the Slann are all about stars you begin the game with a certain number of Hydrogen points.  Depending on the mass your Slann model (break out the metal Slanns!) it will fuse an amount of Hydrogen into Helium points these points that can be used for summoning.  However if you bring the Eternal Starhost and your Saurus Guard attack with their halberds the "...strike with the force of a supernova," text comes into play.  This uses up all of your Helium points, converting them into heavier elements and also kills all models in all games on Earth (as well as destroying the entire Earth and the rest of the solar system).

[Burf]

1 hour ago, Ben said:

Morning all. 

I’ve removed a few posts and also issued a ban this morning. 

We are here to chat about Warhammer and have fun. There are plenty of places on 4Chan and Reddit to argue and complain if that’s what you are looking for. 

Fair, on all fronts.

To get back to the discussion at hand so far, my breakdown for the changes is:

Shoot out of combat: Too soon to tell.

Command points: Great.

Changes to warscrolls: Good for the game, annoying for the player.

Persistent spells: love the idea, excited for the implementation.

Look out sir: Good change overall, has disproportionate effect on specific warscrolls, risks compounding on itself (Morathi -3 to hit), shields units it shouldn't (Eidolon, Hurricanum)

Free points from summoning: Terrible, I don't care how it's going to be implemented it's going to do more harm than good.

 

[MightyMetro]

8 hours ago, Brightstar said:

I still dont see why (warscrolls) just didnt get the axe?

 

5 hours ago, Killax said:

Like before GH2018 will contain the costs of units and Battalions so I honestly don't think that many Warscrolls will or should change. In a way it would be a bit like GH2017. I actually expect Battalion Warscrolls to change before Unit Warscrolls for example.

Although opposing arguments, i can understand you both.  Im somewhere in the middle.

As ive stated before, I believe that battalions  can be a great way to introduce new depths to gameplay.  Players  can be rewarded for dealing with specific synergies, whether they are positve or negative.  Others could encourage more fluffy play, only offering the incentive of an additional command point.

As an example, Emissaries of the Eldritch Council ability for the elves in Spire of Dawn  allows keyword sharing. This positive encourages diversity in smaller factions.

Others could deal with negative synergies.  For example,  the competitive nature of multiple Slaanesh generals, as seen in the Invaders Host allegiance ability could be handled by a batallion rather than an allegience ability.  Another example, could encourage Skaven players to integrate the negative synergies of Pestilen units in exchange for alternative positive synergies.

Based on this, id like to see a significant cull and overhaul of battalions in the next ghb.  We  already have alliegence abilities for competitive advantage in matched play.  New cheap  battalions could allow us to enjoy different play styles, without producing the latest Murderhost.

i look forward to seeing what comes next!

[Kamose]

1 hour ago, Killax said:

People usually don't like change and why it applies so much for a hobby like AoS comes from the fact that the miniatures/armies allready cost additional time to create so changes will always lead to more time being invested into the hobby.

I never really quite get that attitude when its applied to people's hobbies.  In a real life situation where change can mean extra time and money, possibly even pain or death (i.e. my life changed because I lost my job and now I'm a starving, homeless vagrant), I understand being wary of change.  In real life, its perfectly sensible to treat change with caution.  None of us would be here if our ancestors were reckless neophiles.

But this is a game and its how we all choose to spend our time. None of us have to do this but more importantly none of these changes are preventing anyone from playing.  All it means is that we can now play with our little army men in ways we couldn't before and watch them do things they couldn't do before.  It should be fun and exciting to figure out new synergies and watch units you never cared for suddenly find their place in the sun.  Some units you like now may not perform as well, especially if you insist on using them like you always did.  But if they just aren't working well anymore, try to use them in a different way.  Have them do something you'd never try before!  They might surprise you!  

For example, when the new edition of 40k dropped and my Imperial Guard got a new codex, my Catachans suddenly found out that they were strength 4.  Most people barely noticed that a subset of Guardsmen were now a little stronger because in a shooting army that's "worthless" and "irrelevant" and " a waste of time, why couldn't they give us something useful."  While it hasn't turned my Catachans into close combat monsters, it does mean that close combat is now a legitimate strategy for them.  It leads to some amazing last ditch struggles to hold back the chaos marines and desperate melees against the orks.  Its very satisfying to watch a horde of Rambos punch a chaos lord to death or my Commander with his powerfist rip a demon prince's head off.  It doesn't happen often but its amazing when it does and that one change in my codex made it possible.

These are not onerous changes we all have to suffer through.  They are just new ways to play with our toys!  Just remember to have fun with it! 

[Ollie Grimwood]

@Kamose very interesting point. I’d like to add that these games do in fact need change to prolong their life span. If everything was the same as it was 30 years ago when I started I don’t doubt that I’d have got pretty bored. 

AoS is probably the fastest evolving wargame from GW since 40K Rogue Trader and I don’t see this as something that’s likely to change anytime soon. Tabs doesn’t mean anyone should like all the individual changes but we should all be expecting them. 

[CaptainNippon]

The changes to summoning got me exctited and worried at the same time. I'd really love to see more distinguishing factors between diffrerent armies, so Slaanesh generating their own summoning resource in a unique way seems a great addition.  If this a hint of things to come for other factions, I'm all for it. 

On the other hand, this might end in a balancing desaster, with some factions generating their resource way too efficiently / in abundance. In case of Slaanesh it looks like a reasonable tradeoff. You must deal wounds but cannot kill the model, so you'll still have to deal with whatever hero/monster you just hit in the opponent's turn.

[Tasman]

I'm just going to go on record by saying that I'm all for the proposed changes. In this hobby, at least, change is good. Keeps the actual games played from becoming stagnant and repetitious. WFB became boring at the end of it all, and was close to collapsing under the weight of the rules..... can't begin to number the times so-called 'friendly' games deteriorated into rules arguments. {Monopoly, anyone?).

That being said, change just for changes sake can be detrimental. I'm cautiously optimistic as to how these will be accepted by the AoS community et al.

Personally, I think there's room for more changes, perhaps in yet to be released future GHBs?

Anything that will help to keep the game easy to learn and play, while giving the experienced players a chance to retool their playing styles is cool to me.

So far, so good.

[Num]

I'm pretty hyped by everything! I love theory crafting so all these new rules and points changes will certainly bring grist to the mill.

Also I love how certain recent warscrolls were written with AoS 2nd in mind, which is why we couldn't make sense of them.

We have debated Skritch Spiteclaw command abilities for weeks, not understanding how it worked:

"You can use this command ability in the combat phase before fighting with a Verminus unit within 13" of Skritch Spiteclaw. Add 1 to the  Attacks characteristic of that unit’s melee weapons that phase."

Did it apply to every unit? Could it be used in the enemy combat phase? Which phase could it be used exactly?

With what we know on the new command abilities, everything makes sense now, as it works like the newly revealed ones! I suppose it can be used on any unit, during any combat phase, as long as we spend the command points.

Its clever from GW, but it also created some confusion between the model release and now... I was afraid to play Skritch because of the unclear rules.

 

 

 

[smucreo]

To remind players of something: in the case of Death, for example, summoning only works from tombs and from Summonable units. The recovery mechanics we have right now that require points and wouldn't in the future if the rumour were true only work on those same units and they have to have died first, plus you can always block the site and if you don't at least you know where they are coming from. These are a lot of restrictions.

In Nurgle's case, what you can summon is clearly defined in the book and it takes a really long time to get enough contagion points to even summon anything decent, plus again depends on your tree positioning. Once again, even without requiring points the restrictions are there. 

There's no reason they won't keep going the same direction, introducing new flavourful restrictions while eliminating the necessity to have reinforcement points. As previously stated warscrolls are subject to change with the new edition, so who knows how exactly they are going to handle it? All I know is that considering they've been moving in this direction for a while now I believe this is something they have given some degree of thought regarding to game balance.

[DanielFM]

I think a cool summoning mechanism for Tzeentch would be spending Destiny dice for each summon. They already have mechanisms in their rules to replenish them. A 1 or a 6? A strong unit. A 2,3,4,5? Weaker units.

Should it be in addition or instead of summoning casting rolls? Don't know yet, but it sounds quite organic.

[Tasman]

34 minutes ago, DanielFM said:

I think a cool summoning mechanism for Tzeentch would be spending Destiny dice for each summon. They already have mechanisms in their rules to replenish them. A 1 or a 6? A strong unit. A 2,3,4,5? Weaker units.

Should it be in addition or instead of summoning casting rolls? Don't know yet, but it sounds quite organic.

Personally, I think I'm leaning towards having all summoned units needing to be brought in via casting..... it adds the dis-spell opportunity back in. No more automatic skeletons popping up.....

[Redmanphill]

If Legions of Nagash, Nurgle and Slaanesh are anything to go by then summoning will be free but limited. I like this and welcome our new Undead Overlord.

[Jamopower]

1 hour ago, smucreo said:

To remind players of something: in the case of Death, for example, summoning only works from tombs and from Summonable units. The recovery mechanics we have right now that require points and wouldn't in the future if the rumour were true only work on those same units and they have to have died first, plus you can always block the site and if you don't at least you know where they are coming from. These are a lot of restrictions.

In Nurgle's case, what you can summon is clearly defined in the book and it takes a really long time to get enough contagion points to even summon anything decent, plus again depends on your tree positioning. Once again, even without requiring points the restrictions are there. 

There's no reason they won't keep going the same direction, introducing new flavourful restrictions while eliminating the necessity to have reinforcement points. As previously stated warscrolls are subject to change with the new edition, so who knows how exactly they are going to handle it? All I know is that considering they've been moving in this direction for a while now I believe this is something they have given some degree of thought regarding to game balance.

I believe the conern comes from the past experience. There has bren variety of mechanisms for free summoning and most of them have ranged from powerful to broken. I don't think they will all be, but it's fairly plausible that there will be something that is not fully thought out which can be broken. Bit like the Stormcast formation which allowed to set up the models straight to combat with the staunch defender bonus. I believe that wasn't the original idea when the batallion was created. 

[Aeryenn]

If somebody asked me what is the single most desired change so far presented I would vote for is fixing summoning. Paying reinforcement points for summoning is just a misunderstanding. I'd rather summoning was totally removed then it stayed the way it is. Now it's a caricature of what it should be. Making systems like that presented for Slaanesh is the key. It can be really tough to create a unique and balanced systems for other races with such capabilities but I think it's worth it even if it is meant to be rebalanced across a couple of general handbooks. This mechanic is just cool and fun. A great addition for further development of the game.

[Redmanphill]

It’s hard to know of this is worth it or not...

[smucreo]

It being 50 points could mean that if you build your army and you have like 1970 points out of 2000 you may want to tighten up your list to be at 1950, but at best I think I'd would be situational, not something you expressely think of when list building.

Having said this, I'm sure lists trying to take advantage of this by using the points to combo a couple of command abilities together will spring up.

[TheWilddog]

50 points per command point seems fair.  Gives people an option , plus lets you build toward specific combos if that is your wish.  Plus it helps fill out weird pointed lists. Overall seems good.