Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[lolwut]

26 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

Was anything said what will happen to armies that do not have magic or command abilities? Because as much as it is nice to see the game progress, and new tactics being added to the game. I am sllightly worried that my BCR are getting stealth nerfed again. Specially if the game itself moves more in to a more objective taking type of table top.

For what it's worth, my understanding - and it may be wrong - is that armies that were generally hosed by not having command abilities will be getting them. Like, Orruks for example, should be getting command abilities. This is what I heard, I don't  know how true it is. 

Objective based games are great, though, if they're done right - progressive scoring, where even if you're tabled, you can still win by the points you've accrued. It adds a layer of ongoing tactics and depth other than just to annihilate your opponent. It also gives a very solid answer to the question: "why are we fighting in the first place?" As much as Stormcast Eternals might hate Khorne Bloodbound, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to engage them on a pile of rocks with no strategic value, or something to defend. 

I'm hoping that they focus on more complex missions that are also story driven. Missions really make or break a game - at least in my opinion. If GW could spend some time here working on some really good ones, that would be huge for the game. 

On another note, i'm surprised to see people liking the double turn. Maybe it's a topic for a different thread, but i'd be curious to see why it would be detrimental to apply the alternating activation methodology and design to every phase in the game. Then going first is really a minor bonus, and not always beneficial. For instance, moving first might tip your hand as to where you're going, giving your opponent a chance to move in reaction to counter your gambit. Whereas it's still helpful, when you get to shoot first, or command ability first. 

[TheOtherJosh]

38 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

Was anything said what will happen to armies that do not have magic or command abilities?

Khorne has also been identified as not having magic and that “a solution is coming”.

From a side perspective the BCR have wizards available to them as Allies. (The Firebelly is a WIZARD as an example.)

[Aelfric]

4 hours ago, LLV said:

Exactly - those newer books take AoS 2 into account. So right now the Nurgle army can get a Gnarlmaw for 'free' but if they get enough points for say 10 plaguebearers they have to have paid for them up front. From what I am told that's no longer the case. You get the units for 'free'.  Same with Khorne, same with undead. Not sure on the older stuff and not sure exacly how it works - i was just told " no longer pay points for summoning - you'll use command points instead"

Added  - look at the legion of sacrement ability regarding retuning a full unit to play that was desstroyed on a 4+ if you've killed enemy unit. That never made any sense and I dont think anyone has bothered to try use it as requires the stars to align THEN you roll a 4+ and if you paid points to do that you likely lose those points. New system that rule would make more sense - at least to me.

In that case, the Phoenix will rise again!

[blueshirtman]

Quote

Objective based games are great, though, if they're done right - progressive scoring, where even if you're tabled, you can still win by the points you've accrued. It adds a layer of ongoing tactics and depth other than just to annihilate your opponent. It also gives a very solid answer to the question: "why are we fighting in the first place?" As much as Stormcast Eternals might hate Khorne Bloodbound, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to engage them on a pile of rocks with no strategic value, or something to defend. 

I agree that objectives are nice for the game, but if the game starts to focus on them, factions that do not have cheap chaff or super resilient units suffer. I can't take or hold objectives with a BCR army.
 

Quote

Khorne has also been identified as not having magic and that “a solution is coming”.

 

But was it said what kind of a soultion it is? If it is of the just run a 1000pts or orcs and your BCR as ally, it would kind of a suck. All solutions that require running and buying other army units suck. Plus we don't know if firebellies are going to stay in the game. Maybe GW decides to khemri them or something.

[Deathtone_shade]

That would be cool to have a rules like the shooting for offensive spell like "cannot target a unit that is in close combat..."

[TheOtherJosh]

52 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

But was it said what kind of a soultion it is? [...] All solutions that require running and buying other army units suck. Plus we don't know if firebellies are going to stay in the game. 

What the solution will be has not been announced.

Adding some form of Allies isn’t an optimal solution. But sometimes adding in allies is a valid solution. The only army that I know of that has all the solutions without needing to go outside of their Pitched Battle Profile List will be/is Stormcast.

Because Sigmar can’t stop pushing the button.  

(For what it is worth, Gutbuster Butchers are also WIZARDS. Even Khorne could take a Slaves to Darkness Sorcerer Lord as an Ally. And those are seen in the novels.)

[heywoah_twitch]

20 minutes ago, Deathtone_shade said:

That would be cool to have a rules like the shooting for offensive spell like "cannot target a unit that is in close combat..."

Yeah it would be cool for every ranged unit in the game to be unplayable

[TheOtherJosh]

26 minutes ago, heywoah_twitch said:

49 minutes ago, Deathtone_shade said:

That would be cool to have a rules like the shooting for offensive spell like "cannot target a unit that is in close combat..."

Yeah it would be cool for every ranged unit in the game to be unplayable

 There have been wargames where you have a chance to shoot your own units by shooting into combat when there was a “fumble” of some kind. (Something like the roll of 1 is always a failure.)

Or, shooting through another enemy unit gives a cover save to the unit being shot.

But those might not work well inside the current rules due to how “true line of sight” works in game.

[mhsellwood]

44 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

What the solution will be has not been announced.

Adding some form of Allies isn’t an optimal solution. But sometimes adding in allies is a valid solution. The only army that I know of that has all the solutions without needing to go outside of their Pitched Battle Profile List will be/is Stormcast.

Because Sigmar can’t stop pushing the button.  

(For what it is worth, Gutbuster Butchers are also WIZARDS. Even Khorne could take a Slaves to Darkness Sorcerer Lord as an Ally. And those are seen in the novels.)

Just to reiterate the allies point, in Spear of Shadows there is a temporary alliance between a Khorne Deathbringer and a Tzeentch sorceror and his allies. If you want a wizard as an ally but you want to maintain a theme, why not come up with a little bit of narrative background to fit them into your army?

[Deathtone_shade]

33 minutes ago, heywoah_twitch said:

Yeah it would be cool for every ranged unit in the game to be unplayable

I was playing a full order

mix shooty army, I promise you that I would not

cry. 

[Mandano]

2 hours ago, lolwut said:

i'm surprised to see people liking the double turn.

Watching bat reps, at my local shop, or tournaments, when I hear people yelling and laughing and see them with their arms up  it's 8/10 times because of the double turn roll. It's exciting. I may be different than alot of other forum posters in this but I love the double turn because of that excitement. AoS isn't a sim  granted,  but realistically one side in a battle can gain advantage seemingly on a roll of the dice oftentimes. I go You go doesn't feel as thematic or immersive to me.  

[Richelieu]

25 minutes ago, Mandano said:

Watching bat reps, at my local shop, or tournaments, when I hear people yelling and laughing and see them with their arms up  it's 8/10 times because of the double turn roll. It's exciting. I may be different than alot of other forum posters in this but I love the double turn because of that excitement. AoS isn't a sim  granted,  but realistically one side in a battle can gain advantage seemingly on a roll of the dice oftentimes. I go You go doesn't feel as thematic or immersive to me.  

You're not in the minority.  Polls and threads on the forum show that around 75% of people have positive feelings about the double turn.  I am one of those people.  I agree whole heartedly that it is exciting.

[broche]

2 hours ago, lolwut said:

On another note, i'm surprised to see people liking the double turn. Maybe it's a topic for a different thread, but i'd be curious to see why it would be detrimental to apply the alternating activation methodology and design to every phase in the game. Then going first is really a minor bonus, and not always beneficial. For instance, moving first might tip your hand as to where you're going, giving your opponent a chance to move in reaction to counter your gambit. Whereas it's still helpful, when you get to shoot first, or command ability first. 

Going first is actually quite a big bonus for some army / scenario, so double turn mitigate that. I've come to like it.

[Requete]

2 hours ago, lolwut said:

On another note, i'm surprised to see people liking the double turn. Maybe it's a topic for a different thread, but i'd be curious to see why it would be detrimental to apply the alternating activation methodology and design to every phase in the game. Then going first is really a minor bonus, and not always beneficial. For instance, moving first might tip your hand as to where you're going, giving your opponent a chance to move in reaction to counter your gambit. Whereas it's still helpful, when you get to shoot first, or command ability first. 

Speaking as an experienced wargamer but someone who has not had a lot of experience with AoS, I like the double turn because it makes the game seem more like a battle. My stock example is from Napoleon at Borodino in 1812, when Prince Eugene's corps came to a halt within range of a huge concentration of Russian artillery while the commander tried to figure out whether the Cossacks attacking his rear were an indication that the whole French army was being flanked, or if it was just a bunch of doofuses stealing his luggage (it was the latter). Meanwhile, proud veteran soldiers and heavy cavalry in glittering breastplates were standing at attention in the middle of one of the largest battles in history while rows of men were getting deleted by cannon fire. Gamers tend not to like that but it's the way it worked out.

My point is, that's the way war is (there are thousands of such examples), but gamers usually like their war to be an orderly and predictable affair. From what I can tell it is anything but... it seems almost as if the outcomes of many famous battles are too ludicrous (Suomussalmi...) to even be allowed for in many sets of game rules. So if the rules are a bit crazy, swingy and open-ended, that passes the "smell test" for me as far as something that works as a wargame.

Just one man's opinion, etc.

[Richelieu]

47 minutes ago, Requete said:

Speaking as an experienced wargamer but someone who has not had a lot of experience with AoS, I like the double turn because it makes the game seem more like a battle. My stock example is from Napoleon at Borodino in 1812, when Prince Eugene's corps came to a halt within range of a huge concentration of Russian artillery while the commander tried to figure out whether the Cossacks attacking his rear were an indication that the whole French army was being flanked, or if it was just a bunch of doofuses stealing his luggage (it was the latter). Meanwhile, proud veteran soldiers and heavy cavalry in glittering breastplates were standing at attention in the middle of one of the largest battles in history while rows of men were getting deleted by cannon fire. Gamers tend not to like that but it's the way it worked out.

My point is, that's the way war is (there are thousands of such examples), but gamers usually like their war to be an orderly and predictable affair. From what I can tell it is anything but... it seems almost as if the outcomes of many famous battles are too ludicrous (Suomussalmi...) to even be allowed for in many sets of game rules. So if the rules are a bit crazy, swingy and open-ended, that passes the "smell test" for me as far as something that works as a wargame.

Just one man's opinion, etc.

Great example.  I think the thing people fail to account for is that you can plan for that chaos.  Whether I go first or second, making the calculation of reward vs risk of getting double turned is one of my favorite parts of the game.

[lolwut]

3 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

I agree that objectives are nice for the game, but if the game starts to focus on them, factions that do not have cheap chaff or super resilient units suffer. I can't take or hold objectives with a BCR army.

The ITC missions have secondaries that you get to pick, so you can adjust your strategy for what your opponent brings. And ultimately not all armies are going to be viable in every single game mode if played truly mono-faction.

[AverageBoss]

I also wish the game would go to full alternating activation. I go, you go is terrible imo (with or without the double turn).

[TheOtherJosh]

17 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

people fail to account for is that you can plan for that chaos

Spoken like a true Disciple.

Everything is Just. As. Planned. 

[Richelieu]

Just now, TheOtherJosh said:

Spoken like a true Disciple.

Everything is Just. As. Planned. 

?

[BURF1]

10 hours ago, LLV said:

exactly - they've internally balanced summoning for most the new armies. I dont know this but I would guess there is something that does similar in the army updates and then summoning makes more sense than just reinforcements

There's no f***ing way they do summoning correctly. Get ready folks, for at least a year after AoS2 comes out, if you don't have an army that can summon it's gonna be time to try some other games for a bit.

[ParachuteHopper]

7 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

There's no f***ing way they do summoning correctly. Get ready folks, for at least a year after AoS2 comes out, if you don't have an army that can summon it's gonna be time to try some other games for a bit.

Ah yes, the old "we've heard something that isn't confirmed and I don't like it one bit so we all better get ready stop playing the game entirely" reaction. 

I think I'll wait for the actual rule book to come out, myself. 

 

[Brightstar]

4 hours ago, broche said:

Going first is actually quite a big bonus for some army / scenario, so double turn mitigate that. I've come to like it.

Absolutely it does. There are also times double turns have given players a chance to stay in the game rather than lose a game outright. I have even won games without ever winning an initiative roll.  

Then there are tons and tons of games that nobody ever talks about where a double turn didn't matter at all. 

So I love them amd hope they stay.

Its just a die roll like any other die roll that make or break a game.

[Brightstar]

2 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

I also wish the game would go to full alternating activation. I go, you go is terrible imo (with or without the double turn).

Couldn't agree more. Except i would want something like necromunda where you would have the option to activate multiple units at a time. 

I also think if shooting was integrated into the combat phase it would iron out some of the problems with shooting. So you would have to choose to fight with all melee weapons or shoot with all weapons. Then move some natural ranged attacks - breath weapon, banshee wail, etc - to melee and the game becomes far more streamlined in terms of concept to gameplay translation. 

 

[heywoah_twitch]

I don't like double turns because it takes way too long to play the game again. One turn in AoS takes too long as it is, much less two in a row where the poor opponent mostly just rolls saves while you get to play the game for 45min.

A single dice roll determining whether or not you can charge is a big deal, but a single dice roll determining whether your whole army can use all their abilities and move and charge and shoot and cast and score points, etc is too much for one roll imo. 

All water under the bridge though, since we've heard it's staying in.

[Enoby]

I heard that summoned units aren't going to cost command points or reinforcement points, but rather something called 'Spell Points'. These are obtained by casting spells successfully. 

Not sure if it's true or not, but I heard this from a guy who went to Warhammer Fest and was apparently told/found out this.