Realm of Battle Rules: What are your experiences?

[wayniac]

I personally think they are cool.  But I also think the "right" way to play AOS (or Warhammer in general) is in a more laid back, fun way rather than cutthroat competitive "must be 100% balanced".  Sadly I see most people think the way a lot of posts go in this thread; they focus too much on the "what ifs" of unbalanced rules than actually realizing they make the game more interesting and fun.  I barely see anyone even use the scenery table for the same reason so you end up with a board that has a lot of terrain that has zero purpose other than looking pretty.

[Kamose]

That's been my experience too. There's a lot worry about "what if" and  lots of assumptions that the worst case always happens. The fear seems to follow that, "This one rule is broken therefore all of them must be awful. Even if they don't  ALL suck, I will always have to play with the bad ones".

It's not an unusual or unexpected reaction to something believed to be unpleasant, but it's unfortunate in the context of a sandbox-style game and ruleset like AoS.

[MightyMetro]

On 7/16/2018 at 3:14 PM, Mephisto said:

Same. I've ragged on realm traits / spells a bit already but I'd like to leave some positivity too. Realms are indeed thematic and on the rule of cool side of things. At the LGS, I play with adults so we just pick and agree on stuff. If a tournament pre-planned some big realm scape event like a sweet planar conquest campaign, I'd be cool with having that information upfront and enjoy myself even as a competitive player.

This  

My understanding is that good Tournament Operators provide a concise pack related to the limited rule set implemented at an event.  Whether a realm is predefined or undefined, its the TOs prerogative. So far so good.

Beyond a tournament with said pack, speak to our fellow players.  Even if you are practicing for an event, it’s totally acceptable to say “You know what? 6” range for my KO is gonna suck. Can we reroll or pick something else.”  Why would anyone want to spend time playing with someone who refuses?

Imho match play, outside a tournament, shouldnt involve abdicating all responsibility to random dice rolls. Speak to your opponent. 

[Mephisto]

58 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

Wait a minute, this is not what we are doing?

Well, I refuse to stop making army noises!

Well, I thought I was funny...

Look, just because I constantly quote Army of Darkness when I move my skeletons around and make space ship noises with my lips when I fly my Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, doesn't mean there can't be rules for that.

[Richelieu]

39 minutes ago, Kamose said:

That's been my experience too. There's a lot worry about "what if" and  lots of assumptions that the worst case always happens. The fear seems to follow that, "This one rule is broken therefore all of them must be awful. Even if they don't  ALL suck, I will always have to play with the bad ones".

It's not an unusual or unexpected reaction to something believed to be unpleasant, but it's unfortunate in the context of a sandbox-style game and ruleset like AoS.

After reading many of the complaints I went through all the realm rules specifically looking for ones that would dramatically favor one type of army over another and I found hardly any. 

As others have mentioned, if I happen to be playing against a KO or mixed order gunline I might say: "hey, you know what, let's remove the 6" and 12" range restrictions and just roll a d4 for the rest.  That OK with you?" Or "I play SC so this Chamon rule about ignoring rend might skew a bit heavily in my favor, want to just roll a d4 and if we get a 4 then coin flip for 4 or 5?" 

This game requires such a massive amount of communication between players that I can't imagine not communicating about all the rules with them.  

And in a tournament setting, designing it so that one round favors melee, one round favors magic, one round favors shooting, and a couple of neutral rounds should balance fairly evenly while rewarding players who have prepared contingency plans.

Lastly, the vast majority of tournaments use terrain rules, and a random piece of arcane terrain (or v1 damned) can influence a battle as much or more than 90% of the realm features, should we do away with those too?

 

[Mephisto]

3 minutes ago, MightyMetro said:

Imho match play, outside a tournament, shouldnt involve abdicating all responsibility to random dice rolls. Speak to your opponent. 

I think this is an excellent point. Unlike many other games, AOS requires you to be social and speak with your opponent. There are many reasons I love AOS but that camaraderie and shared passion I feel with this community is why I gravitate toward it over other things. I think I might be a "Beer and Pretzels Guy" disguised as a competitive player... like I want to win and I think good, elegant rules are important. But I also want to tell you about my sweet combo I'd use to win or how cool I think your army looks and buy you a beer. I'm so conflicted... Basically,  communication is how I hammer the gap between fun and competition. This game encourages you to do so and is enriched by it.

Use Realm Traits/Spells (except Banishment) if you want. Talk to your opponent. You'll only have more fun.

[Chris Tomlin]

Morning all,

I have recently released my pack for BLACKOUT, a 100 player AoS2 Tournament being run on 4-5th August and guess what....we're using Realm rules!!

Here is the excerpt from the pack that covers how they will be used;

Quote

The new edition has been designed with the Realm of Battle rules very much considered as part of the game, even in Matched Play. Whilst these are undoubtably one of the things that people seem most divided or unsure upon, I feel it is important we give them a shot, as intended, in a large Tournament setting.

To make things a little easier and reduce on reading for the players, as well as keeping it fair so everyone plays the same rules, I will list the 5 Realms we will play in over the course of the event and the Realmscape Features that will be in effect. I will announce before each round which of the 5 will be used along with the Battleplan (see below). Each will be played once.

I will list two page numbers for each Realm, the first is for the Core Book, where you can find Magic, Commands and Realmscape features (remember I am listing a specific one for everyone to use, no rolling). The second is for Malign Sorcery, where you will be able to find the Spells of the Realms that you can use. Rules for how the spells work with your army are found on pg72 of Malign Sorcery. Please try to take the time before the event to familiarise yourself with these rules.

• Shyish, The Realm of Death (Core Book pg254, Malign Sorcery pg76) – Realmscape Feature: Eternal War
• Aqshy, The Realm of Fire (Core Book pg255, Malign Sorcery pg75) – Realmscape Feature: Burning Skies
• Chamon, The Realm of Metal (Core Book pg256, Malign Sorcery pg74) – Realmscape Feature: Rust Plague
• Ghyran, The Realm of Life (Core Book pg258, Malign Sorcery pg72) – Realmscape Feature: Lifesprings
• Ulgu, The Realm of Shadow (Core Book pg260, Malign Sorcery pg77) – Realmscape Feature: Shrouded Lands

As you will see, I haven't gone full bore with it and have managed their inclusion. I was very tempted to do the whole event in one realm and pick a different Realmscape for each round (would've been Aqshy, with the event taking place at Firestorm games!), but I do feel it is important we give these a run out.

The feedback to this from attendants has been overwhelmingly positive so far, with just the same two people from one group seemingly wanting to feel negative towards it across TGA and social media.

If anyone is interested in the full pack - http://traffic.libsyn.com/theblacksun/BLACKOUT_2018.pdf

Have fun!

Chris

[MrZakalwe]

My experiences have not been positive with them although wiping half the enemy army on turn 1 as my archers developed an extra point of rend was amusing. 

I've also won a game with an incredibly lucky  combination of Banishment and the Hysh realm teleport trait. 

Ultimately I'm happy the others at my FLGS agreed we should stop using them. 

[Richelieu]

4 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Morning all,

I have recently released my pack for BLACKOUT, a 100 player AoS2 Tournament being run on 4-5th August and guess what....we're using Realm rules!!

Here is the excerpt from the pack that covers how they will be used;

As you will see, I haven't gone full bore with it and have managed their inclusion. I was very tempted to do the whole event in one realm and pick a different Realmscape for each round (would've been Aqshy, with the event taking place at Firestorm games!), but I do feel it is important we give these a run out.

The feedback to this from attendants has been overwhelmingly positive so far, with just the same two people from one group seemingly wanting to feel negative towards it across TGA and social media.

If anyone is interested in the full pack - http://traffic.libsyn.com/theblacksun/BLACKOUT_2018.pdf

Have fun!

Chris

Are you playing that wizards can cast all the spells from a realm or do they have to select one?  The only major problem i can see with access to all would potentially be Nagash, but I don't have any experience with or against him using realm rules to back it up.

[Chris Tomlin]

2 hours ago, Richelieu said:

Are you playing that wizards can cast all the spells from a realm or do they have to select one? 

We'll be playing the rules bro! Let's see how it goes

[ianob]

At best, they skew the game towards magical armies and add a lot of extra rules bloat that the game doesn't need. There's a lot to know and do in a game of AoS, it's very fun and engaging, extra command abilties and spells and terrain/battlefield stuff that change game by game are too much,

At worst, they're imbalanced (Chamon "no rend" Realmscape, Hysh Banishment spell, Realm of Shadow unlimited range spellportal), and some of them are squarely in narrative play territory (everyone bring an extra 2 dragons to every game for your Ghur games).

I don't think for a minute that these are designed for competitive matched play, and if they were intended that way I think they missed the mark - they'll only work somewhat for matched play, with heavy comp. Some UK TOs  disagree and are choosing to run them, and many people feel that the only good test of rules is playing them, so I'm sure we'll have much wider community feedback soon enough. Hopefully the competitive scene can stabilise on a decision as to how to proceed so that we don't end up in a 40k-like "what rules are we playing for THIS event" situation every time we travel

[Davros]

I have played 2 games of aos 2 and both times used realm rules. One on hysh and one on chamon.

They where fun and added extra tactical flexability. Even banishment was cast and the world didn't end.

The biggest pain was how the rules are split into so many different spots. Slows down the game but makes decisions have more impact.

Love most of the extra rules and at my LGS we will be using them in tournies. Yes there are a couple that are over the top on paper, just talk with your opponent and ask for a re-roll in casual chances are the big swingy realm features will be avoided in tournaments anyway.

The only thing i think should change is how endless spells get buffed depending on realm, but again just ask the opponent.

[NemoVonUtopia]

I just played a game in hysh with my beastmen vs idoneth and we got the realmscape rule that units in cover got -1 to be hit which was the worst result for me because he had a laviadon so most of his army was in cover the entire game. Even with that disadvantage I lost mostly from a bad mistake on my part and the fact that the objectives landed in the middle on his army, we were playing gift from the heavens so I could have used my superior numbers to win through the objectives. The realm spells were great, I could make a unit immune to battleshock, give another -1 to be hit, and if I manage to cast banishment I could have moved the laviadon to remove the cover bubble. So even though the rules favored my opponent, I think I still had a fighting chance or as much of a chance beastmen have.

I would probably reroll the realmscape rule if it severely hurt my opponent, but the chances of getting one result seems low enough that I will try them out no matter what. The 6" range limit would be crippling for my chaos dwarf army but my opponents sometimes get frustrated about how much damage I can do before they get close that I would accept it and see what I can do. That way I can always blame the realm that I lost :P.

 

[ianob]

I played two  games today with Nagash using @Chris Tomlin‘s cut down realm rules for blackout.

Game one vs Stormcast (what will be the new standard Stormcast cleansing Phalanx list) on the old version of Starstrike in Chamon

Killed 1000+ of my opponent’s army in round 1, the -1 save debuff in Chamon is crippling for Stormcast and Transmutation of Lead is another good nuke vs Evocators. 

Thoughts on the realm: two extra high powered spells on Nagash was a pretty big deal. The -1 save debuff is big contextually vs the right army. Not being able to put my units in cover (especially heroes) for fear of losing 1 permanent save was interesting.

 Do I feel the realm added to the game? It was significantly better for my army than his, which felt like I was being gifted free stuff to make the game easier, so didn’t feel positive. On the other hand, that’s certainly matchup dependant and it wasn’t *that* bad.  Overall felt like a negative impact on having a fair and good game simply because it favoured me, but wasn’t too bad, maybe just a -3/10

 

Second game vs Maggotkin in Ulgu on Knife to the Heart.

Very interesting this one as the new Knife is easier to win AND we both had a bunch of teleportation options from the spell and the command ability so could jump eachother’s objectives. The negative of that was that it encourage castling behaviour for both of us since being double turned could mean you just lost outright.

Spellportal with unlimited range is.... horrific. Hand of Dust could go anywhere. I could nuke any target I wanted despite 60 plaguebearers of screen. Again it didn’t feel verycuncfir my opponent here due to this.

Do I feel the realm added to the game? The teleportation was certainly different, I think in this case it probably added to the game. Neither of us were playing deep strike armies so it opened the game up for a win (albeit it would have been a low KP win, not good if you’re trying to win a tournament). It would have certainly opened up the game for armies like Ironjawz who lack movement. The spellportal unlimited range though, just exacerbates all of the problems with the portal so that detracted from the enjoyment a lot. Being nice I’d rate this realm addition neutrally - it detracted as much from the game as it added, unfortunately, though in fairness that is mostly an issue with spellportal not Ulgu.

[Richelieu]

2 hours ago, ianob said:

though in fairness that is mostly an issue with spellportal not Ulgu.

This has been my experience with most things in AoS 2.  Spell portal has felt really bad for the game.  It feels like rules now have to be evaluated against whether they will break the game via portal.   

[Richelieu]

3 hours ago, ianob said:

Killed 1000+ of my opponent’s army in round 1, the -1 save debuff in Chamon is crippling for Stormcast and Transmutation of Lead is another good nuke vs Evocators. 

I'm not really sure how the -1 save debuff is crippling to stormcast.  Even if there is a unit in cover it's just a 1/6 chance they'll get it.  

And transmutation of lead is OK, but I'm not really sure either of those things are the deciding factors in you killing 1k of your opponent's models on turn 1.  

As a stormcast player, I would consider those two effects slight disadvantages.

[ScottR]

I'm more than a little torn on these rules being used.  I ran an event and many players forgot them or occasionally remembered them.  A few used them in their games and tried to keep them in mind.  As a first run they seemed to not slow the game too much?  

Right now I see them as an added hurdle to play time.  If they are included in a pack, I can see picking an effect for the round (to avoid things like a 6" range).  in a three round game if you use all the spells that is 21 spells people will need to learn?  In a GT that would go as high as 42 spells (some needing to know 49 in a few situations.)  

One realm for an event was an interesting variation introduced by Chris Tomlin.   Then each round is a different effect.  That would cut down on the things to know, but may encourage TO's to avoid some of the realms, Banishment used every game or the need for two extra monsters.

I do love the idea and the rules for the Realms.  The are very cool, but I question them being used in a competitive play.  Unless everyone is using them at most events the learning curve will slow the game down, in a situation where you have a limited time.   Some of the effects will push army writing to exclude/enhance choices at events.   Lastly, the full use of the realm spells strengthen armies with a lot of casters.  I'd love to know what will happen at events and the levels these rules will be use to.

[ianob]

8 hours ago, Richelieu said:

This has been my experience with most things in AoS 2.  Spell portal has felt really bad for the game.  It feels like rules now have to be evaluated against whether they will break the game via portal.   

My take on it is this:

When AoS first released, almost nothing could shoot or magic the enemy deployment zone on T1 bar artillery. That was good. It felt good.

Sylvaneth came out, and suddenly ranged attacks were hitting the back of the enemy board edge T1. Also battalions came out that created melee alpha strike. This trend continued.

The Balewind turned up, and then spells got the ability to do this too. 

Now we have 2018 battleplans where you're often 18" from the enemy to start with, too.

The problem (in my eyes) is that all of these things are only ever degenerate to a greater or lesser extent, depending on how you feel about competitive play. But in reality, everything can now reach the enemy DZ, and has been able to for a long time. The game's way beyond the point of "I'm safe on T1". There's really no reason why spells shouldn't be able to affect the enemy on T1 in the same way as everything else can - and in fact, whilst hero phase timing and random turn rolls continue to be a thing, debuffs are super crappy because in many circumstances T1/T2 they happen far too late to affect the game.

So personally, I don't see any general issues with spellportal at all. It opens up to magic-based armies what other armies could already do. 

There are *specific* issues with spellportal if you allow endless spells to be cast through it which I still dont believe is intended to be legal (and if it is legal, should be changed) as that's not only too powerful but also puts them so far across the table that the downside of predatory endless spells (hitting your own stuff) is mostly moot; also Hand of Dust with it can be a little bit silly; and finally Spellportal+Ulgu is broken.

Went off topic a bit here, but I think the generic intent of spell portal increasing spell ranges is fine, just some specific things that are a bit too much with it. That said, Sequitors rerolling everything, 200 point Wizard units that can hold objectives and barely ever lose them, going second in BPoV... there are a pile of things that are feelbad/not very balanced at the moment, spellportal is just a more obvious target for the ire

[blueshirtman]

From a BCR players point of view the realm rules, hard to like. The extra spells and rules do not come in to effect, unless we take ally casters, and those are hardly the best in the world. The "bad" specific stuff like banishment or getting hit by spells from the other side of the table, is at best just as bad as for other armies, and at worse makes one not want to play the army at all.  There is also a time problem am not sure other players get to expiriance, the rules are in multiple books on non back to back pages sometimes. IGUG has its ups and downs, but waiting for 5 min till your opponents checks how his spell interactions work between a caster, 2 dudes buffing him, the realm , the scenario rules and the rules itself is boring. It is boring even if you have spell casters yourself, and while I imagine the checking of rules will go down with time, as people play more and more games, but it will still a problem for new players, and generate those unfun games where a vet plays vs someone who started a month ago.

[Malakithe]

No experience myself just yet but im noticing everyone relying on the Lens of Reflection. Going to make for some boring lore when everyones army and faction is from the same realm...I have a feeling GW is going to 'fix' that 

[Carnith]

Ive played a few games, and while I've benefitted, my opponent hated more the realm spells. With my ironjawz on realm of shadows, i teleported a brute squad, then ironfist moved for a closer charge. It felt dirty, but it was something that I was allowed to do. That opponent basically never wants to play with realm spells again. Despite he had more spell casters and had more access to the realm spells if he wanted. I personally like the variety the spells bring, but I get it, it can be frustrating that a spell on a certain realm can change how an army plays and have its weakness shored up. Just to give you an idea, that spell going off, gave me a 5 inch charge to a large group of bullgors, I waagh'd for more attacks, and promptly sliced down 6 bullgors without any trouble.

[Guest]

Played a team up game (2 against 2) in Ghyran last night, using the rule that means no-one except flyers can run. Plus we had 2 sets of Soulsnare Shackles quartering movement around the central objective! And lots of movement-blocking terrain. My god, what a slog! It was basically impossible to react to anything and once a unit was in a particular area they were pretty much doomed to stay nearby for the rest of the game. On reflection, I think it all came down to who deployed the most models closest to the objective before the first battle round even began.

The Chaos team (Slaanesh and Tzeentch) won against Order (Sacrosanct Chamber and Anvilgard).

Hilarious game though, especially with the Shackles quartering movement and knocking out mortal wounds left and right!

[Karol]

I can't really judge if the realm rules are good or bad. I know my army lacks the cheap battalions, and wizards to use the rules for full effects. The rules seem ok, but am not sure who about was GW thinking when they wrote it. It seems like it was for veteran players or people with multiple armies owned.

For example my opponent rolled last event that we play the game in Gurr. I have no monster models,as in I don't own any, he has like 4-5 to pick from so on top of summoning and magic, he got a "free" monster. There also seems to be a lot of book keeping required to play, I already need the GH and battletome and the rule book to play, if I have to buy another book to get better artefacts, I would have to buy and carry around another book. it takes up a lot of space too, 3-4 books, unit data cards for 6-8 units and heros and my deployment zone starts having not enough space to place models.

All in all I don't think they are a bad thing, for people that have the models, armies, terrain  and books to fully use them. Great even maybe. For everyone else, and this is my gut opinion, they seem to be rather unbalanced and a lot of hassle for very little return.

[svnvaldez]

On 7/22/2018 at 2:06 PM, Karol said:

It seems like it was for veteran players or people with multiple armies owned.

I completely agree with this. I think if your a veteran player who has read all the rules and faqs multiple times you will adapt and the realm rules will be fun even in tournament play.

However they are a huge barrier of entry for new players which I think will be very bad for long run growth.

[sal4m4nd3r]

While I'm SURE they play tested these rules thoroughly (as evident by the multiple FAQs which now require FAQs on even the most basic rules) at best the are imbalanced and shouldnt be used in any tournament setting. At worst they are a "you win, lets re-rack and start again" scenario where the game is skewed against one player directly. How does that make for a fun and balanced game? Thats what matched play is supposed to be..even and balanced match of skill with a BIT of luck (i.e dice). These rules interact in such ridiculous ways that it is laughable that tournaments are using them in the packs. They are certainly "fun" in a one of us is going to be tabled in a hour sort of way. Thats what narrative and open play are for.

 

Matched play (and ESPECIALLY tournaments) should be only about the skill of the players and the rolls of the dice in game, not I won BECAUSE we played in this realm.