Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[Captain Marius]

Lush models, bit silly to limit them to Hammers of Sigmar though...

[GeneralZero]

1 minute ago, Captain Marius said:

Lush models, bit silly to limit them to Hammers of Sigmar though

How people'd buy new minis without it?

[Orsino]

1 hour ago, Bloodmaster said:

If a shiny army has no book to support it, both with rules and background, one should be a bit sceptical if it is truly that shiny and a good choice. Furthermore there should be someone around to warn you, either an experienced player or a salesman - the later will most of the time push you to an army with better support or a starter box (with supported armies) either due to being a good person or simply because both options make him more money than a broken faction without a book.

How should a new player know to buy an army that has a battletome? Why would they be sceptical? GW doesn't advertise that some factions are broken, they insist that every faction is great.  A new player is likely to make the reasonable assumption that any faction for sale is functional within the game.

There's no guarantee a salesman will warn them even if they are buying their army in a GW store which many do not.

Turning round to new players and saying "Ha, you've wasted your money, you should have somehow known you were buying one of the many broken factions" isn't a great way to welcome people into the hobby.

[kuroyume]

Dissapointed in the Warscrolls for the two characters. I was expecting something on the same tier as what Nighthaunt got. Instead, Aventis costs 120 points more than the Mortarch of Grief and is arguably weaker.

The sculpts are pretty awesome though.

[amysrevenge]

Boy, this thread is sure starting to make me look like an idiot, rather than a guy who likes to paint models and have fun playing games down at the club (I play many of the "broken factions").

[BillyOcean]

3 hours ago, GeneralZero said:

This is not rules relative but there will be a challenge on the 06/30 "We’ve also set Peachy and Duncan a very special challenge – can our two expert painters get a complete Soul Wars set tabletop ready in a day? "

 

So guys, what do you think?  For me, with my parkinson talented painter skills, it is feasible only if I wanted a picasso like army

Are they painting a whole set each, or a set between them? If its a set between them I think they'll easily do it, as they can take an army each and really get into the flow. 

If its a box each, it will be trickier as I imagine switching modes between the two armies will be the tricky part. But I still think they'll get it done, because presumably they are doing some practice in the lead-up, getting their schemes down, and will just choose a level of detail that can be achieved in that time. It'll be interesting to compare the differences and similarities between their approaches. 

[Chikout]

26 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

Lush models, bit silly to limit them to Hammers of Sigmar though...

The leaked points have generic options for a Lord arcanum on dracoline and tauralon. I imagine they will use alternate builds from the same kit, like Volturnos.

[Captain Marius]

5 minutes ago, Chikout said:

The leaked points have generic options for a Lord arcanum on dracoline and tauralon. I imagine they will use alternate builds from the same kit, like Volturnos.

Ah phew, ok in that case nice move GW, always nice to have a bit of background fleshed out!

[Erdemo86]

21 minutes ago, kuroyume said:

Dissapointed in the Warscrolls for the two characters. I was expecting something on the same tier as what Nighthaunt got. Instead, Aventis costs 120 points more than the Mortarch of Grief and is arguably weaker.

The sculpts are pretty awesome though.

Me too. Aventis looks interesting but to much points for his effects. His effect + hit and + would are very nice. For 280 points he would be ok. But ok, lesser money to spend.

Also i think he looks like lord arkanum so we will most likely get a multi build kit.

[Clan's Cynic]

24 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

Boy, this thread is sure starting to make me look like an idiot, rather than a guy who likes to paint models and have fun playing games down at the club (I play many of the "broken factions").

No, but the condescending, unhelpful posts of "snarf, snarf, why do you guys care about balance? Just play what you want XD" sure gets tiring when it's repeated ad nausea every discussion about  list building and viability. 

[RuneBrush]

Guys, just pointing out that we don't have the new Battletome in our hands yet, so it's plausible that there's some bits in there that explain why the units cost what they do.  Named characters do tend to command a premium too (Vandus and Khul being good examples).

Let's also keep this on topic rather than taking snipes at each other.

[amysrevenge]

11 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

No, but the condescending, unhelpful posts of "snarf, snarf, why do you guys care about balance? XD" sure gets tiring when it's repeated ad nausea every discussion about points and list building.

There are a couple of pretty extreme worldviews on display here, when reality is much more nuanced.  "If you aren't optimized you're wasting your time and money" is one way to approach things, but not the only way to approach things.  "Just paint the little men and push them around with your mates - who cares about balance it's just a fun time" is another way to approach things, and is also not the only way to approach things. 

Normal people like some amount of optimized power and some amount of loosey-goosey fun and games.  Someone buying a pile of Spiderfang Grots hasn't wasted their money, even though Seraphon might have a better ratio of (dollars spent):(wins in tournament) in AoS2.  Someone who eschews anything without a battletome isn't playing wrong, even if almost nothing without a battletome is ever going to win a big event or even win consistently against battletome armies in casual games.  Making claims either way as if the other wasn't real or valid is silly, and should be called out as silly.

"You've wasted your money" - silly.  "In your place, I'd consider myself to have wasted my money" - not silly.

[RuneBrush]

52 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

Lush models, bit silly to limit them to Hammers of Sigmar though...

It's GW enforcing the background (ironically one thing a lot of the community have been crying out for).  They've done it in 40k too and actually did it a bit with the Legions of Nagash battletome - want to take Nagash? then you need to do GA: Death or Grand Host as your allegiance.  It's thematic and if you're running a named character then that's one of the "costs".

I can actually see the new Stormcast battletome being done in a very similar way to what they've done in the latest Imperial Knight Codex.  In that you can pick one of 4 pre-defined Households.  This grants you a specific in-game bonus and opens up access to certain strategies during the game, if you don't want one of those pre-defined Households you can simply pick one of the 4 in-game bonuses, but you won't be able to use those strategies.

I could see the new battletome allowing you to pick from a handful of Stormhosts, each one granting a specific in-game effect (as well as the keyword).  They'll potentially have access to their own traits and artefacts (sharing some common ones) and it'll open up a few odd bits like the abilities on named characters.  If you've made your own Stormhost then you can just pick a benefit that suits them the best.

Could be completely off-track on this though - it's just random thoughts off the top of my head

[Orsino]

8 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

There are a couple of pretty extreme worldviews on display here, when reality is much more nuanced.  "If you aren't optimized you're wasting your time and money" is one way to approach things, but not the only way to approach things.  "Just paint the little men and push them around with your mates - who cares about balance it's just a fun time" is another way to approach things, and is also not the only way to approach things. 

Normal people like some amount of optimized power and some amount of loosey-goosey fun and games.  Someone buying a pile of Spiderfang Grots hasn't wasted their money, even though Seraphon might have a better ratio of (dollars spent):(wins in tournament) in AoS2.  Someone who eschews anything without a battletome isn't playing wrong, even if almost nothing without a battletome is ever going to win a big event or even win consistently against battletome armies in casual games.  Making claims either way as if the other wasn't real or valid is silly, and should be called out as silly.

"You've wasted your money" - silly.  "In your place, I'd consider myself to have wasted my money" - not silly.

I agree with most of this but there's a big difference between making an informed choice to play a decidedly suboptimal faction and being caught out because you assumed that all factions were supported and roughly competing on the same playing field.

The first case is one of personal preference but in the second case people are likely to feel stung.

[amysrevenge]

Possibly - but for a new player starting out?  A typical new player - not someone with mates in tournaments and a natural inclination for games and strategy?  I think this is taking the mindset of an experienced gamer, and imposing it on a new gamer.  "In their place I would be stung", not "They would be stung".

[Freejack02]

6 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

Possibly - but for a new player starting out?  A typical new player - not someone with mates in tournaments and a natural inclination for games and strategy?

To be fair, who are you to define what a "typical new player" is?

[AverageBoss]

1 minute ago, Freejack02 said:

To be fair, who are you to define what a "typical new player" is?

Yep. A new player could be someone who is completely new to wargamming, and just looking to try something new.

Or it could simply be someone who is new to GW games. They might come over from DZC, Malifaux, Infinity, Warmachine, or any number of other systems. Games where every faction is equally supported and receive nearly simultaneous new releases, and expect similar practices from GW.

And there is a whole spectrum between.

[amysrevenge]

7 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

To be fair, who are you to define what a "typical new player" is?

A good guesser?  An observer in the store(s) I have hung out at over the decades?  People who are really good from the start are vanishingly rare.  People who are ushered in to the "scene" from day one with advice from experienced buddies before spending $1 are uncommon - especially when many of those experienced buddies are people like me who won't steer folks away from things they like just because they aren't the most powerful.  People who ease their way in, and stumble on the way, and have something objectively "good" as an eventual second army are common.  People who never even make it in to the scene have to be even more common, as Organized Play numbers surely aren't sufficient to maintain GW on their own.

[AlphaKennyThing]

1 hour ago, amysrevenge said:

Boy, this thread is sure starting to make me look like an idiot, rather than a guy who likes to paint models and have fun playing games down at the club (I play many of the "broken factions").

And long may you continue to do so! I play a 'broken faction' alongside my apparently 'shiny battletome' factions and I have great fun with each.

Clearly the pair of us are fools of the highest order! It very quickly became apparent as the game developed that my poor old Marauder Horsemen were very uncompetitive. I can't say I was that fussed, as in the games I was playing I was still having a good 1:1 win/loss ratio, I just didn't take it to tournaments.

I'd argue that if you're starting AoS to be hugely competitive you'd do a bit of research before investing in a 2,000 army. It is only in Matched Play that these factions aren't as competitive, and that is one of three ways to play the game.

[AlphaKennyThing]

13 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

People who are ushered in to the "scene" from day one with advice from experienced buddies before spending $1 are uncommon - especially when many of those experienced buddies are people like me who won't steer folks away from things they like just because they aren't the most powerful.  People who ease their way in, and stumble on the way, and have something objectively "good" as an eventual second army are common. 

This. Absolutely. I've introduced 6 or 7 people to AoS in the last 6 months, and I always give them a run down on the different ways you can play the game and what armies are 'competitive' if that's the way they choose to play. Interestingly, nearly all of them went with 'broken' factions initially despite me making it clear they'd not be winning any tournaments with them should they eventually decide to enter them. 

Chosen factions were 2 x Wanderers, 1 Wanderer/Sylvaneth, 1 Aelf Soup (heavy on Darkling Covens), 1 Legions of Nagash (without skelly hordes), 1 Stormcast and 1 Slaves to Darkness. People love them some Wood Elves it seems! 

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Jamopower said:

I have a feeling that pretty big part of GW sales is for models that don't see any sort of gaming at all. Everyone knows people that have massive stashes of unbuilt/half built kits at their closets. In fact pretty many of us are those people, at least I am.

True.

I have an Archaon, Lord of Change, and 10 imperial knights that are still in box. I bought them "cuz they might be cool to paint someday."

And that's just the trip of the ice berg. The overwhelming majority of what I but is just because it's cool.

[Sleboda]

4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

it'll depend on how they tackle the time as 24-hours solid painting could kill a normal person.  

Back in the day at the Glenn Burnie GW Battle Bunker, we used to have 24 hour painting challenges. Dozens of people would show up with models (assembled and printed was allowed, but no paint - though some folks bought their kits at the event) to paint a 1000 point army in 24 hours. Great camaraderie! Most people failed, but at least 6 to 10 brand new, freshly painted armies got done each time.

It was incredibly fun.

[Sleboda]

41 minutes ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

I play a 'broken faction' alongside my apparently 'shiny battletome' factions and I have great fun with each.

Clearly the pair of us are fools of the highest order

Make it a threesome.

My main armies are Tomb Kings, Skaven, and Free People. Not a book to be had among them.

[Aginor]

Man, now I pity the SCE players. The mounts of those two heroes are hideous!

I want their version of Arcane Bolt though. That spell got worse for everyone except them. For them it got better.

I know, obviously they suck so much that they need that to be balanced.

[Deadkitten]

1 hour ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

 

I'd argue that if you're starting AoS to be hugely competitive you'd do a bit of research before investing in a 2,000 army.

Doh!