What are your thoughts on Realms and Artefacts now ?

[Keith]

What are your thoughts on Realms and Artefacts now ?

I don’t like them at , the base game has enough variety , the realms and spells just seem "eff" up games.

Realm spells , does Nagash really need more spells to cast ?

I like endless spells if they adjust the points on some of the lesser seen ones.

But in tournament games , how many ethereal Zombie Dragons do I have to kill??

Just how many doppelganger cloaks are there ?

90% of the realm artefacts are never seen , there must be a warehouse full of realm artefacts gathering dust.

[123lac]

Giving people a global pool of artifacts seems good considering there are factions that don't have battle tomes. I assume Malign Sorcery gives them some good stuff that they wouldn't otherwise have available.

 

Dunno about the realm of battle stuff though. Do people use that at tournaments?

[Superninja]

I have enjoyed the extra possibilities.  The game is over the top anyway, whats 20% more?

 

[Baron Klatz]

2 hours ago, 123lac said:

Dunno about the realm of battle stuff though. Do people use that at tournaments?

From what i've seen it's usually a mixed affair. Some do and some don't. It's a turn off to competitive crowds that want everything on a equal level but for players who like the spiced up odds they just shrug it off as a dice game anyway that can see even perfect plans shatter on a couple bad rolls.

I'm a Narrative player so I adore them because of all the scenario immersion and conversion opportunity they give as you actually feel you're fighting in a magic landscape instead of a regular field with a couple magic hills here and there.

Still, I understand the dislikes by the crowd who want gaming over fluff so fair to them that their groups don't use it.

To those who do, two thumbs up for being awesome generals of the mortal realms!

[Charles]

I really enjoy all the new rules, GW have delivered a really diverse sandbox for us to play in.

 

The only tweak I would make to the rules is with the realm artefacts, I would not allow players to select a realm artefact but rather declare they are from a realm and roll for their artefact at the beginning of each game. That would mean all artefacts would see play and diversify our games further.

[Lucur]

I like the realmrules for the casual games, in tournaments they have too much of an uneven impact depending on lists (eg: 6" range in ulgu for a shooty army is autolose).

Considering artifacts and spells, as was said before, i see not a lot of harm done. Factions without battletome gain a bit of equal footing and everyone has access to the same stuff.

[AdamR]

I like 'em all. 

Although fighting ethereal Nagash in Shyish is tough!

[El Syf]

I quite like the realm spells, Aqshy and Shyish do seem head and shoulders above the others in that regard. From experience most people seem to hate playing against a VLoZD with the ethereal amulet, me and my regular opponent have an agreement that neither of us use it in our games now.

[AdamR]

49 minutes ago, El Syf said:

I quite like the realm spells, Aqshy and Shyish do seem head and shoulders above the others in that regard. From experience most people seem to hate playing against a VLoZD with the ethereal amulet, me and my regular opponent have an agreement that neither of us use it in our games now.

I dunno, it's no worse than playing against a 0+ save anointed phoenix!

[chord]

Realm spells are fine.  The artifacts not so much.  Really dislike the whole "my army is from"  approach.  Feels like the game has tipped WAY too much into list building.

[chord]

5 hours ago, Charles said:

The only tweak I would make to the rules is with the realm artefacts, I would not allow players to select a realm artefact but rather declare they are from a realm and roll for their artefact at the beginning of each game. That would mean all artefacts would see play and diversify our games further.

WOW!!  Great idea!!  I would much rather have this.

[amysrevenge]

I think I would prefer a slightly different mechanic, where rather than being an add-on for everyone, the realm was a replacement for Allegiance Abilities (with Realmscape rules replaced with a set of Command Traits).  Like, you build your Daughters of Khaine army, but can then choose either to use the DoK Allegiance abilities or one of the Shyish or Hysh or Aqshy suites of abilities.  That way every army is selecting from just one set of spells, and just one set of artefacts - there aren't some that are cherry-picking from two at once.

[amysrevenge]

Thinking about it more, possibly not even a complete replacement.  Maybe you could pick the DoK Allegiance Ability and artefacts, and Shyish spells and Command Traits.  Mix and match, at the category level, not the individual choice level. 

But I'm not sold for sure on which way would be better.

[SwampHeart]

I think the realm artifacts are a fantastic addition to the game - they add more choices as well as giving armies without a tome the chance to pick from some more interesting items. I also really like well curated realmscape features - I think there are certain ones (i.e. the entirety of Ghur) that don't belong in tournaments and need to be re-worked but as whole they're a solid addition to the game (specifically in tournaments). 

Overall I'm a big fan of all of the realms (curation included) and wish their use would become more universal in tournaments. 

[nuttyknatty]

I'm a fan.

Yes, there are some OP items that rise to the top, and a lot of the Realm Rules skew the game, but overall they provide a huge resource that adds plenty of good stuff to games.

[PJetski]

I like all the Realms. 

Beasts is not well suited to matched play, but it's a blast for open/narrative play.

I think the Ulgu realmscapes should be adjusted because it hurts armies like KO too much - it should be something like "the maximum range of spells and abilities is limited to 6" for the first round" or "...limited to 6" on the first turn, increasing by 6 at the start of each round (12" on the second round, 18" on the third, and so on)" or "all missile weapon attacks have -1 hit if the target is more than 12" away". 

I like the artifacts. They help close the power gap between armies with and without allegiance, and they offer a lot of interesting army building options. 

[Fulkes]

Honestly I rather like it. I mean the battles are being fought somewhere and having rules to represent that is nice. They probably could restrict the realm spell access a bit, but it's a good mechanic (though I feel like you should draw your extra spells from the realm you hail from more than the one your in with a bonus for when you happen to fight in the same realm as you're from or something)  but the base premise is pretty good even if I have different ideas about execution.

[Mayple]

I'm a big fan of all the artifacts and the realms. Not Ghur though. Hope they remove the beast additions from that in the future, since it is no fun for either me nor my opponent that whoever goes first in that realm gets to use an extra beast to tear the enemy apart 😛

That aside, I'm all for the crazy madness the realms, artifacts, and realm spells provide. It makes the game a lot more interesting and unexpected, in the best of ways.

[Aeryenn]

I ask myself if the rule saying named characters may not equip artifacts is right. It causes people in so many builds to take MLoK instead of Khorgos Khul, Akhelian King instead of Volturnos, Megaboss instead of Gordrakk. It's like to opposite of awesomeness. 

[rokapoke]

8 minutes ago, Aryann said:

I ask myself if the rule saying named characters may not equip artifacts is right. It causes people in so many builds to take MLoK instead of Khorgos Khul, Akhelian King instead of Volturnos, Megaboss instead of Gordrakk. It's like to opposite of awesomeness. 

And yet it doesn't prevent builds based on Nagash... it's all in the relative strength between the named character version of a model and the generic version. For the super-characters, it's working as intended.

[Retro]

1 hour ago, rokapoke said:

And yet it doesn't prevent builds based on Nagash... it's all in the relative strength between the named character version of a model and the generic version. For the super-characters, it's working as intended.

I feel like the command trait part is worse.

The part I don't like is the un-fluffy approach of making a unnamed hero the general so you can use a command trait while nagash/volturnos/khorgus or whoever sits in the corner wondering why they aren't leading their army

[Archkyrie11]

10 hours ago, AdamR said:

I like 'em all. 

Although fighting ethereal Nagash in Shyish is tough!

Nagash can't take an artifact...

i think you've been bamboozled

[Fulkes]

1 hour ago, Retro said:

I feel like the command trait part is worse.

The part I don't like is the un-fluffy approach of making a unnamed hero the general so you can use a command trait while nagash/volturnos/khorgus or whoever sits in the corner wondering why they aren't leading their army

The only way Nagash isn't the general is if your running Grand Alliance: Death. Honestly more characters should have rules that that where you take them only in specific rulesets and when you do they have to be the General.

36 minutes ago, Archkyrie11 said:

Nagash can't take an artifact...

i think you've been bamboozled

If Neferata is in the army he has access to her spell though and can ignore rend every turn and fly (basically becoming ethereal):

Quote

DARK MIST

At her arcane command, tendrils of dark mist coil around Neferata’s minions, turning their corporeal forms as insubstantial as smoke. Dark Mist has a casting value of 6. If successfully cast, pick a unit within 18". Until your next hero phase, that unit can fly and ignores the Rend of any weapons that target  it.

At full power Nagash casts that at something like a 3+.

[SwampHeart]

1 hour ago, Archkyrie11 said:

Nagash can't take an artifact...

i think you've been bamboozled

There's a realm spell in Shyish that makes you ethereal. 

[Payce]

I was supremely negative to the idea of realms at the launch of 2.0, both the artifacts, the spells, the game realms, the army realms - the whole package. It seemed like an unnecessary extra layer of padding that adds little dimension to the game, but creates further "must-have"-scenarios which makes the game more convoluted, but not more diverse.

Take the realm spells; they're random from game to game. Unless you know in advance which realm you'll be playing, you have no way of knowing. For tournaments, will realm spells even be used? It's just a random factor that good players have to learn "in case" but can never rely on. It's like finding a tenner on the street - nice when it happens, but don't budget around it.

The artifacts went exactly like predicted - a bajillion Dopperganger Cloaks, with some Gildanbanes to counter it for armies without huge monsters to capitalise on it. Refractor Lens was ruthlessly FAQ'd to death and Aetherquartz is too random to be reliable. Apart from those? Everything is more or less uninteresting.

I'll concede defeat on one point; I do like the endless spells. I was supremely negative to Malign Sorcery in general (as I think magic in this game is growing too close to 8th WHFB currently), and it's certainly not balanced as most spells never see use and some are mandatory for a lot of armies, but overall, I like the idea of them. The tactical flexibility allowed by quite a few of them is a good addition and I'll eat crow on this.