Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[Jamopower]

Even with broader factions, I'm sure that quite big amount of "re-theming" would be needed as I don't think the factions are thought so much with the balancing mechanisms in mind. Dwarfs haven't used magic since 4th edition and don't have cavalry etc. The problem is not so much those though, but there are plenty of factions (like the chaos factions  or Seraphon) that can do a lot of things and many of them well. Thus if the factions were to be done equal, the army  selection should be revised with things such as mages or shooting for Khorne, removal of Tzeentch close combat units, etc. (just on example level) to make them really equal and I'm sure the community as a whole wouldn't want it.

[Infeston]

16 minutes ago, Bloodmaster said:

Comparing Tzeentch to BCR is a bit like comparing apples to underripe tomatos and their place in a fruit salad. Yes both are fruits but that's it. Tzeentch is a fully developed Battletome, expanded with new minis. BCR is a quick write-up of existing units to get the most out of already published models, similar to FEC.

Jeah. Maybe this is the problem. That GW made us think that we are and will be full-supported faction now and in the future. And maybe that we might also get new models. For many of us the BCR battletome was somewhat an appreciation and a confirmation that we have an official place in the lore now. So we all also felt that we might also play a big role in the future.

But I think the comes from the slow realisation that we might be only a second-class faction, which might end up like Tomb Kings in the future. No one likes to play a faction which is not really supported or where the developers don't put enough time and effort into. I think many of us are just disappointed, because we really love this faction, the beasts and the overall theme. And we want to see more of it. We want interesting Everwinter rules and not the ones we have at the moment, we want new creatures and beasts, we want new updated yheti or Sabretusk models. Or maybe a mounted Mournfang hero (or maybe a new creature). GW has designed so many new and cool creatures.

The newest Stormcast mounts for example seem like they would fit Destruction a lot better than Stormcast. 

[AaronWilson]

I really like the small change to piling in, allowing models to essentially orbit a model will allow for larger units to get more attacks, makes a lot of sense. 

[Ollie Grimwood]

@Infeston I don’t know. Orcs were considered for a long time as one of GWs most recognisable fantasy products.  I think the few outings from the Realmgate Wars stuff show Ironjawz to be a bit deeper than WFB Orcs ever were narratively speaking but we’ve not really seen it developed further, though David Guymer did make some interesting comments about Orruk merchants on Twitter. As I mentioned earlier I’m hopeful for the Moonclan to see some love this year based on the Harbingers 

[Jamopower]

2 minutes ago, Infeston said:

Jeah. Maybe this is the problem. That GW made us think that we are and will be full-supported faction now and in the future. And maybe that we might also get new models. For many of us the BCR battletome was somewhat an appreciation and a confirmation that we have an official place in the lore now. So we all also felt that we might also play a big role in the future.

But I think the comes from the slow realisation that we might be only a second-class faction, which might end up like Tomb Kings in the future. No one likes to play a faction which is not really supported or where the developers don't put enough time and effort into. I think many of us are just disappointed, because we really love this faction, the beasts and the overall theme. And we want to see more of it. We want interesting Everwinter rules and not the ones we have at the moment, we want new creatures and beasts, we want new updated yheti or Sabretusk models. Or maybe a mounted Mournfang hero (or maybe a new creature). GW has designed so many new and cool creatures.

The newest Stormcast mounts for example seem like they would fit Destruction a lot better than Stormcast. 

The concept in AoS seem to be that it allows for development of factions such as BCR, or Idoneth deepkin, or Kharadron Overlords. I wouldn't say any of them as second class factions, but wouldn't also excpect to have any new models outside some characters or WH Underworld releases any time soon. That's why there are the grand alliances, you can collect variety of forces under same alliance and field them together, but don't expect that it's the most optimal in terms of gameplay.

[Infeston]

4 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Even with broader factions, I'm sure that quite big amount of "re-theming" would be needed as I don't think the factions are thought so much with the balancing mechanisms in mind. Dwarfs haven't used magic since 4th edition and don't have cavalry etc. The problem is not so much those though, but there are plenty of factions (like the chaos factions  or Seraphon) that can do a lot of things and many of them well. Thus if the factions were to be done equal, the army  selection should be revised with things such as mages or shooting for Khorne, removal of Tzeentch close combat units, etc. (just on example level) to make them really equal and I'm sure the community as a whole wouldn't want it.

I have to say that I wouldn't want my army to do everything well and own each mechanic. I want my army to have something unique they can do and I want my army to not suck. That is all. Also the abilities should fit the theme of the army.

In my opinion it wouldn't make sense for Beastclaw Raiders to teleport all over the battlefield. In my eyes it also wouldn't make sense for them to use a lot of magic. 

But I think it would make sense for an army like BCR to have some abilities that might "slow down" enemies or make them attack last in the combat face. Maybe also allegiance abilities that reduce the shooting range of some units, because of a very strong ice storm.  Maybe also freeze mechanics. I think this would work very well with BCR. On the one hand abilities which make BCR more mobile an on the other hand abilities which slow the enemy down. This would be a perfect incarnation of the Everwinter and would fit thematically and rules-wise.

There are a lot of others ways to make an army viable again without giving them everything all the other factions have.

[Jamopower]

Just now, Infeston said:

I have to say that I wouldn't want my army to do everything well and own each mechanic. I want my army to have something unique they can do and I want my army to not suck. That is all. Also the abilities should fit the theme of the army.

In my opinion it wouldn't make sense for Beastclaw Raiders to teleport all over the battlefield. In my eyes it also wouldn't make sense for them to use a lot of magic. 

But I think it would make sense for an army like BCR to have some abilities that might "slow down" enemies or make them attack last in the combat face. Maybe also allegiance abilities that reduce the shooting range of some units, because of a very strong ice storm.  Maybe also freeze mechanics. I think this would work very well with BCR. On the one hand abilities which make BCR more mobile an on the other hand abilities which slow the enemy down. This would be a perfect incarnation of the Everwinter and would fit thematically and rules-wise.

There are a lot of others ways to make an army viable again without giving them everything all the other factions have.

Yes, but it only goes to some distance. You will never get everything on the same line with that method. Especially with 30 factions and constant cycle of changing basic rules. That's the downside of having variety, some stuff will always be better than others and it's not available for everyone.

[Infeston]

16 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

@Infeston I don’t know. Orcs were considered for a long time as one of GWs most recognisable fantasy products.  I think the few outings from the Realmgate Wars stuff show Ironjawz to be a bit deeper than WFB Orcs ever were narratively speaking but we’ve not really seen it developed further, though David Guymer did make some interesting comments about Orruk merchants on Twitter. As I mentioned earlier I’m hopeful for the Moonclan to see some love this year based on the Harbingers 

Jeah. You know I am not even rooting for BCR anymore, because I have given up on GW releasing something for us. This is why I am also rooting for Moonclan at the moment. And because I am such a big fan of the different monsters of the realms, I am also hoping for a lot of different kinds of squigs.

I think there would be three ways to disappoint me with the new Moonclan release (ranging from highest to lowest disappointment):

1. No Moonclan release at all

2. Moonclan, but only with Grots and no squigs

3. Moonclan with squigs, but the squigs are low-effort and only looking the actual versions of the squigs and not like AOS-ified version of them (With fungus all over their body or other sorts of mutations for example). I want them to show all their creativity they did on previous releases.

 

If in the end, the Moonclan rumors turn out to be false and GW comes with a "BCR surprise release" with new models and a new battletome I will directly run to the next tattoo store, and do a "I love Games Workshop" - tattoo. This would be a total overkill for me. I would propably faint if they would release new models for BCR. I would propably react like Duncan in the new video about the Knights. But this will propably never happen. ? 

[TheOtherJosh]

1 hour ago, blueshirtman said:

Ok, then why does tzeench or SC deal with stuff without taking ally.

In the case of Tzeentch you’re looking at an Allegiance ability that triggers off of a keyword that can be applied to (or comes with) Slaves to Darkness, Daemons of Chaos, multiple Forgeworld models, and Disciples of Tzeentch (which now covers both Daemons of Tzeentch and the Arcanite Cults.) So, nearly 4 ‘factions’ worth of units ...

Basically, in short, the Chaos god factions (Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Nurgle) don’t require Allies to get a huge breadth of units to select from. And through those available units have the tools to answer basically any in-game tactical question.

As an example, Tzeentch has ~17 leader options, 3 basic battleline options, ~10 other units ... and that doesn’t take into account that I don’t have most Slaves to Darkness units included in that count. Khorne, Slaanesh, and  Nurgle are in a similar state. 

And this breadth of choices has existed since GHB 2016. Allies didn’t really bring much to the table for the core Chaos factions.

SCE, on the other hand have Sigmar ... who when he needs an option he doesn’t have ... pushes a big button and creates a new Stormcast Chamber. Their primary challenge before this upcoming release was lack of Artillery and Wizards. Annnnnnd .... that’s been fixed. Not enough Cavalry? Extremis Chambers ... and Farstriders.

Death (under Nagash) now is in that same situation where only the Chaos god armies were previously, basically almost everything Death can be included in a Legions of Nagash Army under a ‘Grand Host Of Nagash’ force.... that may change with the Nighthaunt release... but they have nearly an entire Grand Alliances worth of units available in a single Allegiance.

More unit options means less need to look to allies to answer tactical questions.

[Captain Marius]

2 hours ago, Infeston said:

Why do I very often have the feeling that GW only orients on "feedback" from people who play against us instead from the Destruction players themselves? Everytime a rule for Destruction gets changed or balanced it is often more because of an outcry from other players finding our units or models unfair. Whereas other factions get more changes based on feedback  coming from the players who play the faction. Tzeenth is unfair for a very long time now, but no rules for them got changed. But because of the outcry about the Stonehorn it got nerfed pretty quickly compared to other "unfair" units.

I think there is a certain bias at GW for certain factions, because the designers like them more or because only a few people like and play Destruction at GW. It very often seems to me that we are just the NPC faction. You can also recognize this in the storys written about the Mortal Realms. 

Most of the stories are written from the perspective of someone facing Destruction, but not from the Destruction perspective. And I think you can see this in other areas as well.  

Fair play if you feel like this, but i think this reads like a series of sweeping generalisations that could do with a bit of clarity to strengthen your arguments.

Stonehorn had an unclear rule on its warscroll clarified in an FAQ. This was not due to 'players' reporting it to be too powerful, but because Stone Skeleton was unclear (and illogical).

Completely separately, the Stonehorn's points were raised in GHB17 (alongside the Thundertusk, all battalions, and Tzeentch Skyfires) as it was perceived they were undercosted. I concur this went too far the other way, and now this is being amended, this time with a points reduction, after less than one year.

Yeah playing Beastclaws has made for tough, challenging games in the last year, but if i wanted easy wins id field a top tier netlist army! I think GW are going out of their way to review all factions on a regular basis and are doing a pretty good job of it.

Id also like to mention i realllly dont understand this tribalist segmentation of players, particularly into "Destruction players" and "Death players" (however appropriate it may be if you play orruks, grots or ogors!!) We're all AoS players - fair enough if you want to hitch your wagon to just one faction or alliance, but there seem to be a lot of posts where people come across as personally slighted because GW are not catering to their self-imposed limitations.

The whole point of AoS to me was to make the whole range more accessible to any player. I think this approach has worked great, and has allowed GW the greatest creative freedom theyve ever had - im seriously not over the awesomeness of actually having ranges of sky dwarfs and fish elves!!

[Infeston]

28 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

Fair play if you feel like this, but i think this reads like a series of sweeping generalisations that could do with a bit of clarity to strengthen your arguments.

Stonehorn had an unclear rule on its warscroll clarified in an FAQ. This was not due to 'players' reporting it to be too powerful, but because Stone Skeleton was unclear (and illogical).

Sorry. I didn't mean to generalize things. This wasn't my intention. I just wanted to state how it feels to Destruction players.

But I disagree with your statement that it was a clarification, because in a previous FAQ the already cleared up how thr ability was meant to work. And it was totally different. It was that you halve the damage after all the damage is resolved. They already explained this rule and cleared things up. So they previously showed that the intention of the rule was indeed that it should work like it has worked before the nerf.

They only changed the rule after the people complaint that it was too OP. So I have to disagree that GW just wanted to clear things up, because they already stated in a FAQ how the rule was originally supposed to work. And after all the complaints they changed it to the way the other people wanted the rule to work.

I have searched the internet for the old FAQs where they clarified that the rule is supposed to work the other way, but I cannot find it anymore. Does anyone where to find old FAQs or maybe someone can cite the old FAQ?

I think many players assumed it is supposed to work this way because of the old Warhammer Fantasy rules. But in AoS they cleared up that the intention was the ability to work different.

[TheOtherJosh]

15 hours ago, DanielFM said:

Trying to disguise allies as your own Faction usually won't work.

The potential reason to “disguise them as your own faction” may be in the realm of painting all of an allied army in the same color scheme to imply that they come from the same city.

The Hammerhal, Anvilguard, Tempest Eye color schemes from the Season of War: Firestorm campaign comes to mind.

Or perhaps you have a Moonclan Grot Army, and want to include a giant.

So you model the giant with a huge hood, and a massive nose and paint it in the same colors as your Moonclan. Maybe you even paint the skin tones Grot-like? Maybe the giant was adopted ... or was originally a Grot that got hit by one of those freaky mutation spells in combination with a really bad mushroom. Maybe you paint the skin tones as “painted on green” like the giant is trying to “fit in” with the rest of the Moonclan?

While we often make armies for that one point in time that we are playing the battle, in the realms of imagination there was a reason why these forces ended up combined together... and they have a backstory and history. 

As an example, we were playing a Path to Glory campaign where I was running a Tzeentch force with an Ogroid Thaumaturge. Multiple battles in, I roll up a “Herald of Tzeentch”follower ... who apparently backstabs the Ogroid ... and manipulated a situation upon which the Ogroid is transformed into a Chaos Spawn... and the Herald takes over the warband... it was both priceless and amusing to no end. (And I made the Chaos Spawn up with the bull/beastman head and hooves. It was awesome!)

Creating a thematically similar Army, even without the same keyword can often make sense. A group of Kharadron could be hired or have hired a wandering loremaster. Or they are part of a major cities defense or scout forces and being sent out to investigate... and the Battle you will be fighting is due to them being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

And if you think about the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit ... a group of Duardin, a stunty halfling or two and an Aelf wizard... a Nomad Prince and a Lord all ended up in a group to solve the problems of the world. Teaming up to solve problems is a rather normal thing to do.

You just need a back-story.  

 

[RuneBrush]

appears like the shop keeper out of Mr Benn 

new edition talk please guys

disappears

 

[Lemondish]

6 hours ago, DanielFM said:

My opinion: armies shouldn't have weaknesses, but different (yet equivalent) ways of solving the same problem. Asymmetric equality.

I understand. I disagree, but I understand. I find trade offs are compelling. I mean, to be honest, allies are a different way to resolve the weakness we're talking about here. But I think everything has been said about this, thanks for the chat!

[GeneralZero]

People are just messing up with different things that are not necessary compatibles. You want competitive? Aim for the competitive army. You want fun? Take whatever you like and enjoy! 

For competitive approach, for me, I think it is dumb to take an army and (if not already competitive by any luck) then pray it'll be competitive or GW will make it so. It is like a car! You like the Fiat 500 but you wait Fiat to make it like a Ferrari. Just no!!!

On the other Hand, I think that AoS 2 will make a lot armies more fun and probably more competitive via new tools: magic, summoning, points reductions etc...

[TheOtherJosh]

From an Allies and armies not having all solutions “within their core army boundaries perspective” GW is actually opening the door to encouraging narratively thematic Allies with the broadening and inclusion of the new Realm specific Artefacts and spell lores. And new traits that give hero customization a better place.

Its not perfect, but it’s movement in a positive direction.

[Gecktron]

3 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

@Infeston I don’t know. Orcs were considered for a long time as one of GWs most recognisable fantasy products.  I think the few outings from the Realmgate Wars stuff show Ironjawz to be a bit deeper than WFB Orcs ever were narratively speaking but we’ve not really seen it developed further, though David Guymer did make some interesting comments about Orruk merchants on Twitter. As I mentioned earlier I’m hopeful for the Moonclan to see some love this year based on the Harbingers 

Slightly off topic, but have you read the short story: The Sea taketh by said David Guymer? They have a Ogor Crimelord operating from a Order City and a company of Orruk mercenaries protecting a Kharadron sky-port.

[Ollie Grimwood]

1 minute ago, Gecktron said:

Slightly off topic, but have you read the short story: The Sea taketh by said David Guymer? They have a Ogor Crimelord operating from a Order City and a company of Orruk mercenaries protecting a Kharadron sky-port.

No I haven’t but I will very shortly ??

[PJetski]

The changes to pile-in are really subtle but have a significant impact on the game. Not being able to lock down units in melee will change the decision making when choosing the order you pick units to attack, and it makes units with longer pile-in ranges a lot stronger at running around screens. Flying melee units are going to be a whole lot stronger now.

Not being able to hold back on attacks is also a big deal. Units that benefit from being attacked like the Stardrake with multiple Warding Lanterns are going to be functionally immortal, charging into chaff units with their +4 to saves to heal any damage they take.

I'm glad they are making a suggested base size chart! I have always wanted one for AOS but never thought they would bother wasting their time on something like that.

[NemoVonUtopia]

I was wondering, what if a model is in base to base with 2 other models? Would it be able to choose which one to stay close to and slide around or would it have to stay in base to base with both? 

[GeneralZero]

spear will be stronger than swords. The skelis with spears will be able to pile in for 3 ranks around the enemy

[AaronWilson]

20 minutes ago, PJetski said:

The changes to pile-in are really subtle but have a significant impact on the game. Not being able to lock down units in melee will change the decision making when choosing the order you pick units to attack, and it makes units with longer pile-in ranges a lot stronger at running around screens. Flying melee units are going to be a whole lot stronger now.

Not being able to hold back on attacks is also a big deal. Units that benefit from being attacked like the Stardrake with multiple Warding Lanterns are going to be functionally immortal, charging into chaff units with their +4 to saves to heal any damage they take.

I'm glad they are making a suggested base size chart! I have always wanted one for AOS but never thought they would bother wasting their time on something like that.

You can still lock people in combat. If you're base to base you can pile in but you can only stay at the same distance, so locking people in combat is still a thing. 

[AaronWilson]

5 minutes ago, NemoVonUtopia said:

I was wondering, what if a model is in base to base with 2 other models? Would it be able to choose which one to stay close to and slide around or would it have to stay in base to base with both? 

RaW it has to stay where it is as it has to stay as close as it was to both models. 

[bsharitt]

41 minutes ago, Gecktron said:

Slightly off topic, but have you read the short story: The Sea taketh by said David Guymer? They have a Ogor Crimelord operating from a Order City and a company of Orruk mercenaries protecting a Kharadron sky-port.

I would love to see some kind of mercenary rules for races that make sense(mostly destruction and dwarfs). They can be added as allies to any force, but have some kind of downside, like animosity checks before they can activate during a turn or some creative way of paying for a contract in points. The more you pay, the easier the checks to see if they activate, maybe tie it to their bravery too. The better paid they are, the more likely they are to stick around.

[Aeon]

33 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Not being able to hold back on attacks is also a big deal. Units that benefit from being attacked like the Stardrake with multiple Warding Lanterns are going to be functionally immortal, charging into chaff units with their +4 to saves to heal any damage they take.

Many people have missed the fact that a new Stormcasts book is coming with Vanguard Wing being removed.

Id expect Staunch Defender to be reworked/removed and Warding Lanterns to not stack so that won’t be an issue at least for Stormcast.