Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[LLV]

For all those interested in talking about or hearing more on AoS 2 I'd suggest tuning into The Honest Wargamer live show tonight at 7pm BST (30mins). 

https://www.twitch.tv/thehonestwargamer

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[Elmir]

8 minutes ago, LLV said:

This all the second hand info that I know of so far - coming from various sources.

-Roll for first turn

-starsoul mace (etc) dont auto hit

-no reinforcement points used for summoning

-command points to use command abilities and buy artifacts help with double turns and summon units

 

 

I find the summoning statements a bit odd... Especially since quite a few armies (like Legions of Nagash, Nurgle, etc) already have other rules in place for it... Or are you talking about generic rules for armies like Seraphon and Daemon units?

 

[LLV]

3 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

 

Hm, this wasn't part of the core rules or is stuff of the Generals Handbook 2018 also part of the information.

Not sure what you mean? Right now we pay for points for summoning units. Going forward we apparently wont have to.

[LLV]

3 minutes ago, Elmir said:

I find the summoning statements a bit odd... Especially since quite a few armies (like Legions of Nagash, Nurgle, etc) already have other rules in place for it... Or are you talking about generic rules for armies like Seraphon and Daemon units?

 

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.

[Ollie Grimwood]

Being able to get a free Bloodthirster may go some way to mitigating Khorne not being able to use the expanded magic rules 

[PJetski]

4 minutes 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"

This pleases my Slann

[Xasz]

1 minute ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

Being able to get a free Bloodthirster may go some way to mitigating Khorne not being able to use the expanded magic rules 

If you have 8 Blood Tithe stored, the game is most likely  already over.

[Skabnoze]

2 hours ago, EMMachine said:

 

The main problem with 40k Terrain is that it has the same rules like AoS, but while AoS has mostly Rend - or 1 (rarely -2) high rend is far more frequent

Hm, this wasn't part of the core rules or is stuff of the Generals Handbook 2018 also part of the information.

I find the problem to be less about how much Rend there is (40k still has most weapons in the game with no rend value) and more at how easy it is to apply the rend you do have each turn due to most attacks being ranged.  There is a fair bit of rend throughout Age of Sigmar, but most times you have to punch someone in the face to use it.  40k you can inflict rend damage just about every turn with your ranged weapons.

Also, this issue works even without rend values.  The ranges in 40k are pretty large compared to the board in most cases, and it is now easier to shoot many weapons than it was in the past.  For example, you can move and fire heavy weapons now.  So the result is that most units can attack every turn - which is not the case for most armies in Age of Sigmar.

The current 40k rules very much feel to me like someone read the Rogue Trader or 2nd Edition rule sets and cribbed some ideas from them - but they did not actually play a substantial amount of games with those rules to see why certain mechanics actually worked.  In the 1st and 2nd editions of 40k the ranged weapons were horrifically deadly and even Space Marines were blasted to pieces when they got caught out of cover.  A Bolter had a -1 rend value and specialty weapons just went up from there (a Lascannon was -6).  But there were other mechanics in those editions that balanced this out.  First, the game prioritized weapons easily killing people and even power armor not making you very safe - but it also made it difficult to hit people in the first place.  Simple cover granted -1 to hit and hard cover granted -2.  Weapons had profiles that made them either more or less accurate depending on the range.  Things that moved at certain speeds gained negatives to be hit due to speed, etc.  Nobody ran around outside of cover with bullets bouncing off of their face in those editions like some weird Napoleonics in space.  Also another huge piece of the puzzle was that the rules required you to fire at the closest unit or vehicle.  You could not freely pick targets without a special rule.  So that swarm of grots or gaunts would protect the units behind them and you actually had to blast through screening units.  Terminators could spearhead Space Marine attacks because they were so stupidly tough to kill (even outside of cover).

The current version of 40k has none of these things.  It has the lethality of ranged weapons that the older systems used to have, but they neglected to write the rest of the rules such as cover or targeting to balance out the lethal weapons.

[LLV]

Just now, Xasz said:

If you have 8 Blood Tithe stored, the game is most likely  already over.

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

[EMMachine]

30 minutes ago, LLV said:

Not sure what you mean? Right now we pay for points for summoning units. Going forward we apparently wont have to.

What I mean is, that reinforcement points is part of matched play, so part of the Generals Handbook.

AoS 2.0 is certainly a change of groundrules, so also affecting open play (where reinforcement points never existed).

AoS 2.0 and Generals Handbook will be 2 different books like the 40k Rulebook and Chapter Approved, won't they?

[lolwut]

Hi,

Just getting started here... both on this forum and in AoS. 

I've been playing 40k for some time, competitively, with multiple armies. I see a lot of people commenting on the pros and cons and relating it back to 40k, so i figured i'd share my 2c. 

Shooting into combat, or shooting out of combat, make a game less tactical from my view. With how easy it is to gain line of sight, and very little in the way of terrain bonuses or penalties for an obscured target, it stands to reason this causes problems. I hope in the new edition that they take a page from 40k here and eliminate or alter how this works. For instance, I would be fine with people shooting into combat, if every miss was a hit against your own units, and you took a -1 to hit, as an example, so there's still tactical flexibility but some trade off in risk versus reward. It would also make the game more tactical if you could not shoot out of combat, or paid a penalty such as all hits in the following round against your unit are automatic. Otherwise it just makes things feel gamey, at least to me. 

And, in regards to charges and the sequencing of combat, i do like the alternating style of activation, it is a fundamentally different game so i'm fine with a different ruleset for combat. It does feel odd, but it makes the game less swingy, and slower units aren't automatically hosed. So, with this being, at its core, an entirely different game from 40k, an entirely different approach to melee combat makes perfect sense. Going with an initiative based system would *not* make sense, because that takes choices away from the players. 

In regards to wound tables,  strength versus toughness checks, and invulnerable saves - while these do make sense, a game based on a D6 dice already has very low granularity, and it plays much faster if there are simple to-hit and to-wound numbers represented on the character sheet. Toughness in 40k is one of the primary stats that drives durability, short of an invulnerable save, because it reduces your chances to be wounded in the first place. Custodes are the ultimate durable unit, bikes that can leave combat freely, have a high invulnerable save (3++), and high toughness, so most weapons wound them on rolls of 5. This is the opposite of the design you want in AoS. Invulnerable saves, and high toughness, just make the game frustrating at times. Throwing 5 shots from anti-tank weaponry, capable of felling a Titan, don't make a dent in a Custodes Bike Captain. It's not cinematic at all, and I would hate to see something like this in AoS. In essence if things are balanced they're not necessary. 

Damage overflow is great, by the way, a D6 weapon cleaving through 5 small guys makes sense, and also creates some solid balance. In 40k you have a dreadnought, capable of punching a titan to death, held in check for an entire game by a squad of conscripted 13 year olds with flashlights, because he can't punch his way out, or open fire into their faces with his machine guns. It's not cinematic, it's not immersive, and it leads to real balance problems. Meanwhile, in Sigmar, this guy would be killing something like 12 of these guys per battle round, before battleshock (morale), and free himself quickly. 

One thing AoS does very wrong, at least in my opinion, is the double turn. The idea of turns in AoS feels almost unnecessary anyway, considering every phase could be alternating activation of units. But, until that day comes, having a double turn can be a back breaker. And, the odds of seeing a double turn in even a 3 turn game is actually fairly high (75%).  With the hero phase being as powerful as it is, and shooting being strong, there's no reason for this. Going first is a benefit. But, as we saw in 40k with ITC, this can be solved with missions that feature progressive scoring. Despite first turn giving a "kill your opponent" advantage, in ITC going second actually had a higher winrate for some time after the mission updates, due to the nature of objective holding and end-of-game-turn scoring. Objective based games with a slight emphasis on killing leads to a more engaging style of play, anyway. 

As someone who likes casting spells and stabbing things, this looks to be a good edition. I'm very excited to see what they do with magic. The current version of Sigmar feels as though spellcasting has missed the mark just a bit. I'd like to see it have grander effects and really take center stage. 

[broche]

18 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

What I mean is, that reinforcement points is part of matched play, so part of the Generals Handbook.

AoS 2.0 is certainly a change of groundrules, so also affecting open play (where reinforcement points never existed).

AoS 2.0 and Generals Handbook will be 2 different books like the 40k Rulebook and Chapter Approved, won't they?

I think you sum the most important change (and a bad one imho).

AoS 2nd edition will include the new rules (also dowloadable), allegiance ability and the different magic as well as lore, narrative, map (yay!)

GHB2018 will include matched play specific rules (and points).

What it mean is that to play matched you'll need those two book (and likely your faction specific book)

From a making money perspective, that great. Not so sure for bringing new player to the game...

 

[Skabnoze]

I heard it was just the Allegiance abilities for the main Grand Alliances - not the smaller ones which I would assume would still be in the Battletomes & possibly the GHB.  I would assume that the same would probably be the case for magic also.  So, generic spell lores (like WFB used to have) in the main book and then army specific spell lores in their own Battletome.

[Nullius]

51 minutes ago, lolwut said:

custodes  are the ultimate durable unit, bikes that can leave combat freely, have a high invulnerable save (3++), and high toughness, so most weapons wound them on rolls of 5. This is the opposite of the design you want in AoS. Invulnerable saves, and high toughness, just make the game frustrating at times. Throwing 5 shots from anti-tank weaponry, capable of felling a Titan, don't make a dent in a Custodes Bike Captain. It's not cinematic at all, and I would hate to see something like this in AoS. In essence if things are balanced they're not necessary. 

Damage overflow is great, by the way, a D6 weapon cleaving through 5 small guys makes sense, and also creates some solid balance. In 40k you have a dreadnought, capable of punching a titan to death, held in check for an entire game by a squad of conscripted 13 year olds with flashlights, because he can't punch his way out, or open fire into their faces with his machine guns. It's not cinematic, it's not immersive, and it leads to real balance problems. Meanwhile, in Sigmar, this guy would be killing something like 12 of these guys per battle round, before battleshock (morale), and free himself quickly. 

One thing AoS does very wrong, at least in my opinion, is the double turn. The idea of turns in AoS feels almost unnecessary anyway, considering every phase could be alternating activation of units. But, until that day comes, having a double turn can be a back breaker. And, the odds of seeing a double turn in even a 3 turn game is actually fairly high (75%).  With the hero phase being as powerful as it is, and shooting being strong, there's no reason for this. Going first is a benefit. But, as we saw in 40k with ITC, this can be solved with missions that feature progressive scoring. Despite first turn giving a "kill your opponent" advantage, in ITC going second actually had a higher winrate for some time after the mission updates, due to the nature of objective holding and end-of-game-turn scoring. Objective based games with a slight emphasis on killing leads to a more engaging style of play, anyway. 

As someone who likes casting spells and stabbing things, this looks to be a good edition. I'm very excited to see what they do with magic. The current version of Sigmar feels as though spellcasting has missed the mark just a bit. I'd like to see it have grander effects and really take center stage. 

I agree with each of your points whole heartedly. Watching an anti-titan weapon impact an ogryn with a slab shield or a marine with a thundershield  and do nothing is very frustrating and silly. And watching a giant monster kill three guardsmen per turn is also frustrating and silly. For me one of the big initial draws of AOS, even before points, was that monsters felt, well...monstrous. With some jamming rolling they would obliterate ordinary infantry. 40k somehow completely lacks this sense of drama. And although certain units in AOS have something like an invuln save (and it is exceedingly frustrating to fight these units, btw. I played agains fyrlayers a few days ago and Nagash charged into them, managing to kill only two lousy dwarves. Not at all dramatic nor fun), these type of invuln saves are still blessedly rare.

in the long run the best way to fix 40k and AOS is to go to a scheme of alternating activations. I continue to be kind of bewildered at their reticence to implement such an easy fix to so many of the balancing issues in both games. Until then at least the double turn prevents AOS from being the sort of utterly deterministic list-building game that 40k is.

[Nullius]

54 minutes ago, lolwut said:

s someone who likes casting spells and stabbing things, this looks to be a good edition. I'm very excited to see what they do with magic. The current version of Sigmar feels as though spellcasting has missed the mark just a bit. I'd like to see it have grander effects and really take center stage. 

^^^this I would much rather, if only for the sake of theme, be facing powerful magic than overwhelming shooting armies in a game with pretenses of fantasmagoric medieval fantasy. Magic feels cool and exciting. Getting shelled with mortars and cannons in a fantasy game is dull. Afterall, historically mortars and cannons -by dint of pure, lethal, efficiency effectively ended precisely the kind of combat AOS is trying to evoke.

[chord]

39 minutes ago, Nullius said:

I continue to be kind of bewildered at their reticence to implement such an easy fix to so many of the balancing issues in both games. Until then at least the double turn prevents AOS from being the sort of utterly deterministic list-building game that 40k is.

Many of us enjoy the double turn, so you shouldn't be bewildered. 

[themortalgod]

6 hours ago, PJetski said:

I think the number of artifacts should be based on the size of the game. 1 artifact at 1000, 2 at 1500, 3 at 2000, and so on.

I think artifacts should have pts costs and just be done with it. Making each artifact cost the exact same (an artifact slot) means that there is no room for more powerful and less powerful artifacts. Instead its just a game of figuring out the most powerful artifact possible for your build. 

I'd love a situation where I could choose a weaker artifact to save on points. Plus it would help fill out armies to reach the max pts level. It doesn't have to be complex, maybe, artifacts are 10pts, 20pts, 30pts, or 40pts. 

[TheOtherJosh]

2 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

On 5/13/2018 at 10:55 AM, stratigo said:

As a kharadron player, the previews are doing nothing for my excitement for the game. Tightening the rules at the cost of making my army virtually unplayable might be nice for many players, but leaves me quite cold after multi hundred dollar investments into the army.

Who says that they wont errata stuff that is overly negatively impacted by new rules?  Or simply prioritize replacing some new Battletomes?

I have heard similar concerns from other Kharadron players.

I believe that this is due to the weakness of Kharadron in melee combat and their heavy focus on Shooting in terms of supporting their other units.

They have No alternates for Battleline choices (only one option). This would potentially be easiest to fix. Making battleline-If for endrinriggers, Thunderers or skywardens depending on who was made General would work nicely to open up options.

Only two units have Command abilities, one of which happens to be a named character.

They have definite challenges based on their current Warscroll and Pitched Battle profile.

[AverageBoss]

I hope they go the 40K route of giving named characters pre-set traits if chosen as general.

[Skabnoze]

59 minutes ago, Nullius said:

I agree with each of your points whole heartedly. Watching an anti-titan weapon impact an ogryn with a slab shield or a marine with a thundershield  and do nothing is very frustrating and silly. And watching a giant monster kill three guardsmen per turn is also frustrating and silly. For me one of the big initial draws of AOS, even before points, was that monsters felt, well...monstrous. With some jamming rolling they would obliterate ordinary infantry. 40k somehow completely lacks this sense of drama.

I agree 100%.

Ignoring specific nit picks on rules, or some of the upper tier army builds that skew certain aspects of the core rules, Age of Sigmar does a very good job across most of the armies & units of the game in representing spectacle and thematics while still being playable.  In Age of Sigmar you can generally deal with big gigantic monsters with most lists as they are not generally immune to everything you have due to the way the game works.  But on the flip side, big monsters tend to be rather effective unless they are heavily injured and they feel like big killy monsters in most cases.  40k just does not pull that off as well in my opinion. 

[kuroyume]

3 hours ago, LLV said:

-no reinforcement points used for summoning

How are they going to limit it then? Playing Path to Glory I've learnt that unlimited summoning is absolutely broken. 

[AverageBoss]

24 minutes ago, kuroyume said:

How are they going to limit it then? Playing Path to Glory I've learnt that unlimited summoning is absolutely broken. 

Death, Nurgle, and Khorne already have some pretty big limitations in ply with their rules rewrites. Tzeentch, Slannesh, Seraphon, and oddball stuff like the beastmen shaman still need to be addressed though.

[Xasz]

8 minutes ago, AverageBoss said:

Death, Nurgle, and Khorne already have some pretty big limitations in ply with their rules rewrites. Tzeentch, Slannesh, Seraphon, and oddball stuff like the beastmen shaman still need to be addressed though.

He's probably talking about the few Warscrolls that still can be summoned by every Wizard.

Which will most likely stop being a thing with the GHB2018 and/or new rules.

[Towenaar]

I think the new command points will be used for summoning.

[blueshirtman]

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.