Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[LLV]

Artifacts will be bought with command points.

 

[Sheriff]

12 minutes ago, LLV said:

Artifacts will be bought with command points.

 

so they are a currency you spend before the battle, not during it? 

[PJetski]

2 minutes ago, Sheriff said:

so they are a currency you spend before the battle, not during it? 

It can be both, like in 40k

[LLV]

Yes both in game and pre game currency

[Aeryenn]

9 minutes ago, LLV said:

Yes both in game and pre game currency

Do you have more details? What is bought with command points other than artifacts? Do they differ in price or is it 1 point 1 artifact? How many artifacts can we buy in a 2000p game? Does this mean that battalions will lower in points as they no longer provide extra artifacts? What about one drops? 

[Sheriff]

12 minutes ago, LLV said:

Yes both in game and pre game currency

Please just tell us everything you know LLV ?

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, CJPT said:

So the Idoneth icons thing has just been FAQ'd. I agree that it's fair for players to go with rules as written, but I feel like GW are setting a pretty firm precedent of FAQing instances where you can get an advantage by loading up on command characters or special weapons. Which isn't to say that people shouldn't try to take advantage of it while they can, but I feel like the average lifespan of these ambiguities is getting shorter and shorter, and so it's not really worth spending time/money on them.

Good! The process is working. Now we know what the designers want the rule to be for the Deepkin and no longer have to guess.  Glad to see it!

I don't see these as ambiguities, though. They are the rules ... until they aren't. ?

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, Kramer said:

For me the fact that the rules allow one thing (multiple icon bearers) but the set I buy from the same company doesn't allow me to do so, is a surprising lack of compatibility in my eyes. So I stand with my previous statement  

Fair enough.

You never do any conversions, then? ?

[Bloodmaster]

1 hour ago, Infeston said:

I can sadly  confirm what you both said.  I am also a german AoS player. Most of the german hobby stores struggle with AoS. I am only able to play AoS with a private group of friends.

But there are no such things as really big events and tournaments like in the UK. But I also think that the whole AoS scene does not really focus on germany and is more focussed on UK. I don't really know if there are any known "german" tournament players or hobbyists which are featured very often.

There are some stores which adapt faster than others, but most of the time they are only in the big cities, like Cologne or Berlin. 

 

You don't normally see AoS being played that often in small or independent stores outside of the big cities. Most people play Warhammer 40k.

But Im trying to establish a small group to play regulary with. Maybe I can also convince more players into the hobby. But at the moment I sadly don't have enough resources to manage such a big project.

The German WHFB Tournament scene was to larger parts quite toxic. If you weren't playing the most brutal meta, you were loser, and if you did, you were an as- well I won't curse - because you were better than your opponent. To be fair not al players were like this, but power play was in general pretty common, at least in the different regions I played back in the day. With the lack of points at the start of AoS many WHFB players were shocked and scared away, simply because they couldn't have a "fair" balancing system to abuse and much stranger even more unfair strategies were exploited to the max. 
Another important factor is that a vocal minority of remaining WHFB players at the time of the change were hardcore neckbearded virgins*, that cried like babies when their beloved toy was taken "away". although they were the minority, they managed to poisened the atmosphere, both ins FLGS and , especially, online, voicing how bad AoS is and that everyone who likes it should be burned at a stake.  And if you visit some German forums the hate is still pretty much alive, shouting down every one who has a different opinion.

This of cause doesn't mean that there weren't good guys in the hobby and by no means that AoS was rejected by the German community as a whole, but it really hurt the player base. Might be intersting to see who it changes with the new edition.

 

 

*= used as a cliche not as an offence

[Kramer]

3 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Fair enough.

You never do any conversions, then? ?

Haha caught red handed! ? 

[Christopher Rowe]

The format/design of the new Warscrolls seems to have been revealed in the Nighthaunts article that just went live at the community site. I like it!

[EMMachine]

@Bloodmaster

I can agree to that. Because of this mentality I stopped playing in tournaments (after I was the last one in my group playing tournaments) and starting to hate competitive play because of it's partly toxic nature. The others I played 8. Edition warhammer with, still have the same oppinion about AoS, like it was when it came out (I was the only one getting over it and seeing the positives).

There are still those examples with a crew shooting a cannon at a Bloodthirster on the other side of the map while fighting in close combat (that shouldn't be possible anymore after 2.0).

I have seen some of the flaming threads in other german community boards.

Actually I had a steam conversation yesterday with a former player of our club (telling the points from his perspective).

• starting with if i'm celebrating that AoS 2.0 is coming,
• GW will redo all books new (after making a new race month before)
• GW is ****** with the hobbist
• more background for one cashcow Faction (stormcast)
• my own writing of background and factions has no value.
• it's still a tabletopgame not a roleplaying game (playing games to craft background isn't valid).
• balancing is more important / anybody can write stories.

I think you can imagine that I was a little ****** about it, because most of the time it ends up in GW-Bashing and trying to open my eyes to find better games (and I already played non-GW games like Dystopian Wars and Flames of War). I don't know if this is as bad in other countries but this is actually one of the bad examples of our german side.

I really hope 2.0 will fix some problems. But I have to wait until new rules are released.

[Percivael]

I wonder if this magnificent little lot is the Stormcast contingent of the new starter set? If so I hope they are in units that function optimally in matched play i.e. not like the 3 Retributors or 5 Liberators without grandhammers/blades in the original AoS starter set.

 

[Skabnoze]

On 5/13/2018 at 2:24 AM, Spiny Norman said:

AoS 2nd Ed. will most certainly approximate the 40K rules, because it's the much more mature game. Period, notbhing to discuss.

Warhammer Fantasy has always had much better army construction core rules than 40k since it swapped from percentage-points in 2nd ed to the Force Org chart in 3rd edition.  The Force Org chart is a game design plague that 40k designers have been trying to make work in a non-problematic way for 5 editions now (and it seems they are intent on just making it worse).

I greatly prefer Age of Sigmar's army construction rules and the simple yet elegant restrictions they have put in place.  That is one section of the game that I really hope Age of Sigmar maintains.  None of the balance issues in Age of Sigmar stem from the army-construction rules.  They all stem from either portions of the core rules benefiting some armies more than others & many armies not having the same tools (battletome, allegiance abilities, spell lores, etc).

[Skabnoze]

On 5/13/2018 at 8:55 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?

They just spent a year pumping out 40k codexes at a pretty break-neck pace.  They will probably be able to take a breather from issuing new Codexes after the next few come out and the range is complete.  Hopefully that means that they can take some of that bandwidth and pump out some Age of Sigmar battletomes as the game really could use it.

[Attackmack]

Oh my, the Nighhaunt pictures in the new update looks so good! Like an army of swirling spirits roaming the fields taking the enemies apart!

I gotta admit that im usually a skeleton kind of guy, but this looks amazing!

[Skabnoze]

22 hours ago, Brightstar said:

Why people, IMO, seem to love the new 40k over AOS (no double turn, chargers strike first, strength vs toughness comparison, no wound wrapping, etc) - it gives players more control over the game's math by making statistics more impervious to player choices, tactical decisions, randomness, and other variables  during game-play than the AOS system. 

As a game, in terms of design, 40k actually suffers in a number of areas.  AP's are far too high compared to rends so it still has to rely on a sub rule (invulnerable saves) even though the game doesn't really need them.  The damage system doesn't need to be as excessive.  Wounds not wrapping to the unit doesn't add depth, just complicates an otherwise streamlined rule design in AOS.   And chargers striking first is 100% less tactical, flexible, and sophisticated in terms of design compared to  the I go u go system in AOS.  It is a throwback to GW's antiquated systems that AOS was designed to abandon in the first place.

When I play 40k I feel like I am playing the beta test for the AOS ruleset, not the other way around.          

A rulebook's page count =/= sophistication.  Chess can fit on one page.  It is still, to this day, considered the most sophisticated and complex rule set on the planet.  

 The only parts of AOS  that needs to be reworked is measuring from the base and shooting.  In terms of shooting, instead of starting with the core rules,they should start by giving every faction in the game access to some form of shooting attacks.  That would go a long way to fixing this problem.

As  for the double turn, all it really needs is the LOTR - in case of a tie, whoever didn't have it last turn gets it this turn - mechanic.   The complaint that the game is determined by a roll of a die, is what GW games are all about.  If its not a priority roll, its another single die roll that determines who wins the game.  The complaint here, again, is about statistical math.  Players do not have access to a statistic that influences the dice roll so this dice roll is bad because they can't "math to win it."  

Everything else, like command points,  expanded hero phase, expanded magic rules, would only improve an otherwise fantastic set of rules.  I hope GW spent their time working on those aspects and largely left the core rules alone. 

 

I agree with you for the most part, although I find that the double turn does not really work well in practice due to the amount of shooting and ranged mortal wounds abilities they have littered into some armies.  The double turn works fine when most everything attacks via close combat as the system is currently designed so that by use of clever positioning you can counter-attack a charging opponent during their turn.

I don't think we need the return of charge priority, but that said I do think there should be more of a benefit to charging than just getting to attack the enemy.  For example, a simple +1 to hit rolls for charging units as a core rule (or something like this) would make charging more useful and thematic.

But one thing I really dislike in Age of Sigmar is getting to simply giving the first turn to the person who deploys first.  Fantasy has used a rule for first-finished deployments for a long time, and I have never felt it was a good part of the game.  I especially dislike how it is handled in Age of Sigmar.  It is unfortunate to have to punish people for the army they selected or push people to weird formations simply so that they don't get smashed by certain armies that are very good at utilizing this rule for devastating alpha-strikes.  It also hurts a number of thematic armies like Skaven or Goblin hordes. 

[Skabnoze]

11 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Nah I wouldn’t say that the 40k system  feels like the. Beta rules for aos or in the other way. They both are different system which are fun to play. 

Just 40k seems to be more pleasant to play since your Hero’s  with less then 10wounds can’t be targeted as long as they are not the nearest models, then in aos. It sometimes is very frustrating when your characters just die in the first turn, just because you don’t have any kind of protection for them, like rules the deepkins have or any scenery which would block line of side. But if it comes to the system which is more fun to play, it would be (at least from my view) Aos.

Honestly, my group has found that 40k is not as fun as we thought it would be when 8th edition dropped.   What I have found is that most games are effectively over by the end of turn 2 or early in turn 3.  Also movement and manuevering is often fairly pointless.  Things are either super fast, or they are all simply dead before they can do much to get anywhere.  The game is simply so lethal that it is more of an exercise in rolling giant buckets of dice and watching everything die than it was in 3rd-7th editions.  Also the terrain rules in the game are fairly worthless - unless you are playing with big shoe-boxes to completely block Line of Sight.

[Skreech Verminking]

1 minute ago, Skabnoze said:

Honestly, my group has found that 40k is not as fun as we thought it would be when 8th edition dropped.   What I have found is that most games are effectively over by the end of turn 2 or early in turn 3.  Also movement and manuevering is often fairly pointless.  Things are either super fast, or they are all simply dead before they can do much to get anywhere.  The game is simply so lethal that it is more of an exercise in rolling giant buckets of dice and watching everything die than it was in 3rd-7th editions.  Also the terrain rules in the game are fairly worthless - unless you are playing with big shoe-boxes to completely block Line of Sight.

Yeah the terrain rule in 40k are definitely a big problem.

it makes literally no more sense to use any thanks to the rules Gw made for them 

[Skabnoze]

9 hours ago, pseudonyme said:

Concerning the shooting I to close combat, I would like a risk that the missed shots wound your own army (like the Zombicide Black plague or AoS28 warband shooting rues).

I would prefer shooting into close combat simply removed - outside of a few armies with special rules to allow it (like Skaven),  The game system already allows you to retreat without too much issue - unlike past editions where you had a good chance for a unit to be completely destroyed if it retreated from combat.

I think there is more tactical decision making when you have to decide how much you need to shoot an enemy unit that is locked in combat.  Is shooting that unit the highest priority?  If so you then you should be willing to sacrifice the turn of a unit to retreat it out of combat with the target so that you can shoot (and maybe then possibly charge something else into it).  As it stands now you get to have your cake and eat it too - which I don't think is very tactically compelling.

And if a shooting unit needs to have some sort of Legolas or John Wick style of shooting while in combat then you can simply create a melee weapon profile on their unit to represent their shooting at close quarters ability.  Most archers and ranged units tend to be heavily neutralized when engaged up close and the game should facilitate that in my opinion.

[Nullius]

Throwing my two cents into the ring. As a death player (and I’m sure most destruction and many Chaos players will concur), fighting an army with a lot of shooting when you have none is not a tactical challenge, It is an exercise in frustration. With no way to mitigate shooting whatsoever, most melee vs shooting battles last as long as the shooting player’s first double turn. I would like to see gunline armies forced to use activations in the fight phase to fire their weapons. Or range penalties for shooting, or a couple of spells that can mitigate shooting. Barring that, they will have to introduce shooting units or long-range shooting-style spell-effects. Even with each faction having some of their own shooting, the shooting phase should still have alternating activations. That way you could effectively counter shooting with shooting.

[Ar-Pharazôn]

I think AoS should adopt some of the ranged mechanics from 40K, where many weapons cannot be fired when a unit is in melee(how are Kurnoth with Bows firing when being swarmed by Bloodletters?). There should be exceptions, similar to the Pistol in 40K which can be fired during combat.  

They have mentioned that shooting will change, and I think that's good. Melee centric armies should be able to weather raining arrows or blasts of magic, and come out able to smash face. 

[LLV]

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

 

 

[Skabnoze]

6 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

I think it's really easy to forget that the people writing the rules are a group of people who like us, love the hobby and don't purposely go out to make somebodies army "unplayable"*.  Just because something has happened now, doesn't mean that it won't be rectified - just we could be looking 8+ months down the road.

While I understand this sentiment, at the same time I also believe that "professionals" should be held to account for the products they create.  As a software engineer I don't get to use the argument that "I am just a person like the users of my services" when things break down or the computer interprets my code literally rather than via my intention when I wrote it.  Instead, I have to take responsibility, fix the issue, and then do a better job in the future to not make those mistakes.  The customers/users are often justifiably upset in these instances.

I like Games Workshop games and have played them since the late 80s, but they have always had issues with treating their "rules products" as professional products.  If they want to charge money for these rules, and they now sell a LOT of various rules products, then I believe that we should hold them accountable as professionals.

[EMMachine]

 

15 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Yeah the terrain rule in 40k are definitely a big problem.

it makes literally no more sense to use any thanks to the rules Gw made for them 

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

4 minutes ago, LLV said:

-no reinforcement points used for summoning

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