Malign Portents

[NinjaDetective]

13 minutes ago, AthlorianStoners said:

Dunno if this has been brought up before, however I just noticed that Slaanesh was described as being trapped "between Ulgu and Hysh". This is ALSO where Shadespire takes place. Could Slaanesh be trapped in Shadespire? 

I thought shadespire was in the realm of death

[BURF1]

9 hours ago, chord said:

#fakenews!  People like to say this but there is no proof.  

just lots and lots of evidence lol.

[chord]

7 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

just lots and lots of evidence lol.

just conjecture.  

[BURF1]

40 minutes ago, chord said:

just conjecture.  

You're right that there's no conclusive evidence of AoS doing so poorly it nearly toppled the company and forced them to totally rethink decades of terrible consumer relations, but there're way more 'portents' , to steal a phrase, suggesting that AoS was slowly bombing than there is that it was successful until the GHB came out. The GHB being one of those things.

[AthlorianStoners]

57 minutes ago, NinjaDetective said:

I thought shadespire was in the realm of death

As did I, but if you go the Shadespire website and head to the tab under "Setting", you get the following passage: 

"Yet to simply destroy the city and drag its inhabitants to the Underworlds seemed to Nagash an insufficient punishment. Instead, the Great Necromancer wove a ritual that drew upon the mysterious powers of the city’s shadeglass constructions, siphoning away the light and glory of Shadespire and creating a twisted reflection of its former splendour. Shadespire was trapped halfway between Ulgu – Realm of Shadows – and Hysh – Realm of Light. Bound within this dark reflection, refracted between these two diametrically opposed realms, the souls of the fallen could never escape the Mirrored City and make the journey to the Underworlds. None within its walls would be granted the release of death. Nagash would forever deny them that gift."

[Menkeroth]

8 hours ago, BURF1 said:

suggesting that AoS was slowly bombing than there is that it was successful until the GHB came out.

Which it was. Starter set was selling like hot cakes (or eggs, as George Carlin would put it), SCE - too, Khornates - too. And so on. GHB was not something special or crucial.

8 hours ago, xking said:

Physically shadespire is in the realm of death,

That's true, it's shown on the map of Shyish underworlds.

[Envyus]

1 hour ago, Menkeroth said:

Which it was. Starter set was selling like hot cakes (or eggs, as George Carlin would put it), SCE - too, Khornates - too. And so on. GHB was not something special or crucial.

That's true, it's shown on the map of Shyish underworlds.

GHB was something  cruical. Because I also heard many reports that the starter set was not getting rid of it's stock. 

[Xasz]

When did we pass through the gate into the realm of off-topic.

Could we remain in Shyish?

[Kaleb Daark]

OFF TOPIC!!!

If Kevin Rowntree had been CEO when AoS launched instead of Kirby I believe we would have all embraced it with open arms as we did with the 40k reworking, and like the 40k, would have been a runaway success.

It was received poorly because of several factors,  but for players it was that 8th ed wfb  was killed off in end times and the old world blown up.   In itself not the be all and end all.

However there was a gap of months with no news, and rumours rife about a four page rule book and no more this or that.

The tournament community were up in arms when AoS landed, as were the imported ccg crowd.  For these communities structure was all important.  There was none apart from friendly agreements and not being douchebags.  It's safe to say that Wayne from heelan hammer got what AoS was about from the beginning, as did I as a roleplayer, however I had some ****** intro games and rage quit like the rest (wrongly).

GHB gave the aforementioned communities structure.   But also it's timing was under Rowntree's watch and in truth GW was changing  for the better.  Until then, we all seethed with resentment over what had gone on before.

GW also used the medium of compendiums to (hopefully) keep the players it had.  The re-wrote the old army books into new warscrolls but were never meant to be a permanent thing.  They were there to humour the promise that your old army wasn't defunct you could still play with your old miniatures in the new game.  This is why we have warscrolls for free fro day one - because lets face it, it was always going to have to dangle a carrot for you to not walk away.  The biggest damage that Kirby allwed to happen, was that in that silence, people looked elsewhere, and those who were blind to all but GW suddenly realised that there were other very good systems out there.

AoS is still young, what, 3 years old?   WHFB had 30 years of lore and characters to draw from.  In 30 years time AoS will have just as many uniques characters and stories too.

It's a very simplified view. and ultimately there are many threads in this forum alone going into great detail and debate on the matter.  What's important is that we're here now. AoS is here now, and Realmage wars before it, and Malign portents is doing what we were sreaming for in fantasy battle, storyline and campaign progression to explain and justify new models and twists.  Not as was with retcons and rewrites of fluff and lore to suit that edition's army book. "oh demigryphs... yea they've always existed".

 

ON TOPIC

28 minutes ago, Xasz said:

When did we pass through the gate into the realm of off-topic.

Could we remain in Shyish?

SLAANESH trapped in the soul of shadespire is a tantalising thought and maybe the daughters of Khaine release will delve into the kinky fella and the Tyrion and Teclis roadshow's dungeon's whereabouts a bit more. 

It might be why More-thigh has decided to gird her loins and make a move now rather than during the previous ages.

 

[Infeston]

What the GHB did was drag back old Warhammer Fantasy players. But I and a lot of other people I know were already playing before the GHB and the GHB was still a nice addition. I know a lot of people who were there even before the GHB2016, so I cannot agree that AoS is only popular because of this book. In fact I was one of the first followers of the AoS Facebook page and I think what really did a difference into attracting new players was GWs growing presence in social media and their presentation on different platforms and not the GHB2016.

I know many people which were attracted by the initial approach of AoS, which was more casual play-oriented. So I think we should stop assuming what was the reason for AoS popularity. But I would say that GWs media presence had a big impact in attracting new players. More than anything else.

[Kaleb Daark]

34 minutes ago, Infeston said:

What the GHB did was drag back old Warhammer Fantasy players. But I and a lot of other people I know were already playing before the GHB and the GHB was still a nice addition. I know a lot of people who were there even before the GHB2016, so I cannot agree that AoS is only popular because of this book. In fact I was one of the first followers of the AoS Facebook page and I think what really did a difference into attracting new players was GWs growing presence in social media and their presentation on different platforms and not the GHB2016.

I know many people which were attracted by the initial approach of AoS, which was more casual play-oriented. So I think we should stop assuming what was the reason for AoS popularity. But I would say that GWs media presence had a big impact in attracting new players. More than anything else.

it was more for the benefit of the tournament crowd, but yes, i agree with you  really.

 

Anyway... about the Malign Portents...

[bsharitt]

3 hours ago, Menkeroth said:

Which it was. Starter set was selling like hot cakes (or eggs, as George Carlin would put it), SCE - too, Khornates - too. And so on. GHB was not something special or crucial.

That's true, it's shown on the map of Shyish underworlds.

Uh, the AoS starter set was available for baragain basement prices on Amazon(i.e. $70 or less) pretty often until the GHB came out. I almost picked it up for $58 once, and now I wish I had, of course it would have been silly to play it then unless I could teach my cat to play as there were no other players. Or I guess now I'm learning there were players in some sort of hidden silent majority of AoS players that I just couldn't find. Engineering a huge influx of players into Kings of War and then The 9th Age and then cratering those communities when the GHB came out was a clever ruse to hide the existence of that secret society. And patiently waiting until after the GHB came out to get AoS into the icv2 top five sales after the GHB came out shows true dedication.

[Menkeroth]

4 hours ago, Envyus said:

GHB was something  cruical. Because I also heard many reports that the starter set was not getting rid of it's stock. 

It was not. Luckily.

3 hours ago, Infeston said:

I know many people which were attracted by the initial approach of AoS, which was more casual play-oriented. So I think we should stop assuming what was the reason for AoS popularity. But I would say that GWs media presence had a big impact in attracting new players. More than anything else.

Exactly. Also, tournament scene in CIS and particularly Russia is bigger than anyone could imagine, and still all the starter sets and SCE boxes even now were and are selling faster than anything else. And not only - KO and Ironjawz too, and coming of AoS allowed dealers to sell the remaining WHFB boxes which they had in hundreds at least waiting for the buyer for years. This is the reality. GHB brought back some old and tournament players (who partially were present in AoS without it either) and this is hardly a good thing. That's all.

2 hours ago, Kaleb Daark said:

Anyway... about the Malign Portents...

They are indeed promising, I hope they will be quite long in the process. 

[Envyus]

7 hours ago, Menkeroth said:

It was not. Luckily.

Exactly. Also, tournament scene in CIS and particularly Russia is bigger than anyone could imagine, and still all the starter sets and SCE boxes even now were and are selling faster than anything else. And not only - KO and Ironjawz too, and coming of AoS allowed dealers to sell the remaining WHFB boxes which they had in hundreds at least waiting for the buyer for years. This is the reality. GHB brought back some old and tournament players (who partially were present in AoS without it either) and this is hardly a good thing. That's all.

I am thinking you are not nearly as up to date as you would think. And you are underselling how important the GHB was. 

I have seen many reports were it, it was not doing well at all. It sold stuff yes, but not nearly as much as they wanted the GHB coming along attracted lots of old players. (Which is less about tournaments and more about balance. ) Who in turn attacted new players as it was doing well. 

Also you know Kharadron Overlords came after the GHB. And the starter sets are only doing good now after having to be sold on discount in many places. 

[Burf]

11 hours ago, Menkeroth said:

It was not. Luckily.

Exactly. Also, tournament scene in CIS and particularly Russia is bigger than anyone could imagine, and still all the starter sets and SCE boxes even now were and are selling faster than anything else. And not only - KO and Ironjawz too, and coming of AoS allowed dealers to sell the remaining WHFB boxes which they had in hundreds at least waiting for the buyer for years. This is the reality. GHB brought back some old and tournament players (who partially were present in AoS without it either) and this is hardly a good thing. That's all.

They are indeed promising, I hope they will be quite long in the process. 

It's really hard to parse out what you're trying to say here. But what I will say is that the GHB did bring back tournament players but it also is the only reason it really got NEW players too, after the initial rush.

AoS had the worst onboarding of any game imaginable preGHB. Sure the idea of 'you buy a box of this, I'll buy a box of that and then we can play' sounds nice...right up until I buy a box of Orruck Brutes and you buy a box of high elf spearmen. New players would come in, play 3 to 4 hilariously broken David vs Goliath games and leave.

People with previous hobby experience and gumption could make the game work, usually by developing point systems (see miniwargaming's amazing 'This game...doesn't work' intro piece on this. The people who really played AoS were WHFB players who saw the potential in the ruleset and made their own tournament comps or Painter/Modelers who were always going to stick around for the models but could now have a beer and pretzels game they could play (after some trial and error)

As for sales, GW was losing share every year and AoS didn't change that at all. WHFB was rumored to generate less revenue total than just the space marine tactical marine box and AoS didn't do much to change that.  While the initial sales of the starter set were strong this was due in large part to the fact that stockists were expected to keep 20+ on hand at all times and push them as hard as they could. It wasn't uncommon to find the entire box available on ebay at 50% or even 75% discount. 

Anecdotally, just look at this site. Thousands and thousands of pages worth of competitive discussion, a few hundred pages of hobby, a few hundred pages of narrative.

 

And to the guy that said the GHB wasn't special or crucial; Bullocks. There's a reason that (and GW themselves has stated this many times)  the GHB was the single best selling rules supplement EVER. Across any system. It was so good, even 40k has one now. I wouldn't be surprised to see a HH GHB soon.

[Killax]

While it's common to see long topics always drift towards the subject of Generals Handbook again I do think that we've seen enough of that discussion and yeah it has nothing to do with Malign Portents. My opinion on GH is simple, it gave points, which made Matched play players happy, which improves how fast you can set up a game versus a stranger. Some people don't have a real reason to go for that, most do. AoS is still not ideally designed for ultra competitive play so enjoy more as just that  

--

Malign Portents
With the clock discussion aside I think it's a really nice start and book. The implementation of the point system is cool. It's also random at times, which is good as it means you do not have to snowball into a winning position ******. It's a dice game and it pays great hommage to that.
The decks supplied (only two cards know) to me look really nice also. What I hope is that the impact of these cards isn't too massive (like Stratagems with 40k, usually) but lead to a narrative boost for the gameplay.

What I am somewhat dissapointed about so far is the first four Heralds as I do like them but gladly would have seen a bit of a different approach. Maby their command abilities are useable for MP games, maby they work very different as regular Heroes but to me that isn't too clear now. I hope to be able to see some reflections on that this week as more and more reviews come in.
Overall I think MP is a great boost to AoS and I am very happy they promoted it the way they did so far. It is hyping things up. While it might not always live up to the hype the key part is that new interest is continued to be generated in AoS. All the while 40K is going through the Codeci like maniacs. So what now becomes one of the most interesting things to see (at least for me) is that Age of Sigmar seems to be on the forefront of GW's 'top quality' new designs, new rules, new Warscrolls while Warhammer 40.000 seems to remain on the 'game quality' where everybody is getting their boosts in form of updated Codeci to create the ultimate competitive game experience*.  *Having all armies be able to function on a same level due to additional abilities and Stratagems.

Due to the costs involved I've decided to eventually pick up MP and the cards. The reason why I didn't preorder or need them right now is simply because as above the Herald for Chaos at least doesn't spark my interest. For Order I think he potential the model adds is amazing, for Destruction I could easily excuse a Wizard if he's cheap enough and for Death I think there is some great potential also because he synergizes well with Nighthaunt (enough for up to 1K games).
At the same time the additional subgame MP adds to games of AoS is really cool. So anyone who is a Death fan should certainly pick MP products up, dice and all.

[Lanoss]

What point values are the Harbingers btw? Anybody know yet?

[Infeston]

4 hours ago, Burf said:

As for sales, GW was losing share every year and AoS didn't change that at all. WHFB was rumored to generate less revenue total than just the space marine tactical marine box and AoS didn't do much to change that.  While the initial sales of the starter set were strong this was due in large part to the fact that stockists were expected to keep 20+ on hand at all times and push them as hard as they could. It wasn't uncommon to find the entire box available on ebay at 50% or even 75% discount. 

Anecdotally, just look at this site. Thousands and thousands of pages worth of competitive discussion, a few hundred pages of hobby, a few hundred pages of narrative.

The loss of sales doesn't say anything. Or can you prove that the sales went up after the GHB2016 came out? These are all just assumptions. And often the only people saying that GHB2016 rescued AoS are Matched Play gamers who returned because of the GHB2016. I think you people often only speak for yourselves and assume that the reason because you got back in the hobby was what everyone got back. This could be true, but doesn't have to be necessarily. 

Also the thousands of pages about discussion doesn't have to mean anything. If you look at other sites there is a different matched play discussions ratio. Also in every other game points and balancing are always the hottest topics, because these discussions often have the most impact on the game. But this doesn't have to mean that GHB2016 rescued AoS.

I still think that the GHB2016 and the points (I have to add that GHB2016 not only added points, but also different stuff for open and narrative players) didn't have that much of an impact on the AoS scene. It was nice for the tournament crowd, but in the end I would say most AoS people don't go to tournaments. Most of the people in any game system don't go to tournaments. Especially with AoS which is a hobby with a lot of miniatures which always have to be transported somewhere. Not everyone has the energy and the effort to transport a whole set of miniatures to a tournament, especially if it is not in his country or in an area near them. So there is a very big part of the AoS community who are scattered across the globe, which you won't even see on tournaments. For example, in my whole country there aren't any significant tournaments.

 

3 hours ago, Killax said:

While it's common to see long topics always drift towards the subject of Generals Handbook again I do think that we've seen enough of that discussion and yeah it has nothing to do with Malign Portents. My opinion on GH is simple, it gave points, which made Matched play players happy, which improves how fast you can set up a game versus a stranger. Some people don't have a real reason to go for that, most do. AoS is still not ideally designed for ultra competitive play so enjoy more as just that  

I would agree with this statement. The GHB2016 did make matched players happy. On the other hand there was also a lot of stuff for narrative and open play-players. Also there were allegiance abilities for every allegiance. So it is hard to figure out if people only bought the GHB2016 because of the points and matched play.

I may also add that player-made points systems existed before the GHB2016 (which were in some part better than the actual point systems at the moment).

 

1 hour ago, Lanoss said:

What point values are the Harbingers btw? Anybody know yet?

Now back to Malign Portents. I have only seen the Renown costs, which were 16 Renown for the goblin and 20 Renown for the lord-ordinator. This would normally mean 80 points for the goblin and 100 for the lord ordinator. But I can only assume. 

I would also be happy if someone can verify those numbers.

[Trayanee]

On 4. 2. 2018 at 3:36 AM, BURF1 said:

just lots and lots of evidence lol.

This. I can imagine there are some places where people are different, but around here AoS with points is considered the most casual mini game. AoS without points was laughed at and is only slowly recovering from that stigma.

[Kaleb Daark]

irrespective...  

about the malign portents...

[Infeston]

28 minutes ago, Trayanee said:

This. I can imagine there are some places where people are different, but around here AoS with points is considered the most casual mini game. AoS without points was laughed at and is only slowly recovering from that stigma.

I wouldn't count people who laughed at AoS as the people GW should cater to. 

Also the evidence which was given to "prove" that GHB2016 changed everything is really thin in my opinion. I won't deny that the release had an effect, but I wouldn't consider the impact that huge.

I work in a scientific area, where research results have to be solid and valid to be "proven" as true. And I wouldn't count the evidence as proof. I won't assume that the thesis you claimed is wrong, but on the other site there is also no reason to assume it is true either. In fact there are many factors which also contradict your statement. The only way to really find out would be by GW releasing their sales numbers considering AoS. And even then we can only assume the impact, because there were many other factors influencing Aos' popularity.

In my eyes it is also not proven that AoS has really increased the sales for GW. As I know we don't have any numbers on that. Or do we?

 

@Kaleb Daark Sorry. Excuse me that I had to react to the statements. But some statements can't be left standing.

I am still interested in the point costs for the Harbringers. Does anyone know more about their cost?

[Killax]

15 minutes ago, Kaleb Daark said:

irrespective...  

about the malign portents...

Certainly! I think that the CP like system is interesting. While we do not have tons of confirmed actual information a nice shot from the preorder book does give us a great shot of one of the six Scenario's and I think all scenario's are linked to the videos we have seen in the past. The Scenario in question:

The scenario itself looks neat to me and does what the narrative tells, we have the Marauders being flanked but we have them starting. All works out decently well and due to the space between armies the Shooting phase doesn't have to go unawnsered for a long ammount of time. 

The victory descision is quite typical for narrative gaming so I'm allright with that. What I also think is very important to see here is that MP doesn't seem to be designed for tournament play as I feel the scenario should basically be played by both players at least once acting as the Marauder and Ambusher.
- Hated Foes gives the ambusher another reason to go heavier on melee attacks.
- Marauders will basically stick around as long as possible in terms of Bravery tests as it gets higher and higher and basically at the end can be ignored for units who allready have a high Morale to begin with.

The Blood Moon gives a nice 'standard normal distribution' for the Propecy Points which I think might be ever so slightly different for each Scenario. Again the added bonuses can lead to another sub-game within the game of AoS which is cool.

In general, despite the Death themed campaign we're entering I don't think Death in particular will have any specific advantages but I do think that we can expect the Heralds to be ever so slightly more functional and disfunctional within certain scenario's. For example in this case the Nighthaunt Herald will really like this one because it's rather melee centered and the Ambush bonus on top of what you see on many of the Nighthaunt rules is also really good for that army. Same applies to pretty much all armies who have an additional trigger on 6+ to hit rolls.

Based on this prospect I at least expect one scenario to be more favourful for the Shooting phase, so that the Order Herald can shine there. One that likely wants one army to move across the field, favouring the Warqueen and likely one that will indeed be a boost for the Magic phase basically. But that's just a wild guess offcourse  

• So far I like the ideas MP come with, but to give a small hint to the GH conversation, I don't think MP will be as impactful as GH2016 was
• I like that while Death is in the center attention of the narrative the MP campaign doesn't in particular favour them. I didn't play at End Times but I did hear that something was off for Chaos releases and scenario's then, favouring them
• I really like the point system leading to bonusses in game. As discussed elsewhere I am hopeful that Battalions will eventually not be part of the game anymore and instead their abilities being incorporated in a point-like system displayed here, this way the options to build armies to your liking increases (40k Stratagem principle)

 

[Drofnum]

6 hours ago, Killax said:

The victory descision is quite typical for narrative gaming so I'm allright with that. What I also think is very important to see here is that MP doesn't seem to be designed for tournament play as I feel the scenario should basically be played by both players at least once acting as the Marauder and Ambusher.
- Hated Foes gives the ambusher another reason to go heavier on melee attacks.
- Marauders will basically stick around as long as possible in terms of Bravery tests as it gets higher and higher and basically at the end can be ignored for units who allready have a high Morale to begin with.

It does say this is a Narrative Battleplan, there are specific Matched Play battleplans as well in the book from what i have read.  They may be better for Tournament play, but even if they arent adopted by tournaments it will be nice to have some more balanced plans around other than just the 6 GHB ones.

 

I am interested to see how they incorporate the prophecy points into Matched play though.  Really excited for my book to come this week.

[Gaz Taylor]

++ MOD HAT ON ++

Just a very simple warning.

Can we keep this topic on track about Malign Portents please? If you feel the need to discuss anything outside of this, such as the Generals Handbook and its effect on the community, can you please start a new topic (and if you do start such a thread, please remember the forum rules). 

A bit of wandering off topic is okay but I think we've had enough of this now, so lets carry back on topic like the last few posts have been

Cheers

[Ollie Grimwood]

With the books getting released this Saturday what do people think will be happening on the 17th