Meeting Engagements

[pseudonyme]

4 hours ago, soak314 said:

BATTLE REPORT!

Gitz vs Idoneth Deepkin

My  list:
Spearhead: 20x Shootas w/ 5x Loonsmashas, Madcap Shaman w/ Vindictive Glare + Moonface Mommet
Main Body: 12x Squig Herd, 12x Squig Herd, Loonboss On Giant Cave Squig w/ Fight Another Day, Fungoid w/ Squig Lure
Rearguard: 5x Boingrotz
Spells: Pendulum

Battleplan: Central Objective (these are learning games with various people, so I'm running the basic battleplan for all of em.)

His List
Spearhead: 3x Tanky Eels, Tidecaster w/ the d3 Mortal Wounds spell, 10x Thralls
Main Body: Volturnos w/ uh stuff, 3x Tanky Eels, 10x Thralls
Rearguard: Allopex

Hoo boy. Okay, so spoilers I lose this game on my first decision: I take first turn. I run up excitedly and get exactly 4 grots on the point, not releasing my fanatics because of ??reasons??. My madcap tails em, keepin close. His turn comes around. 

The eels are suddenly dead center on the point, the thralls moving up right behind em, giving him 5 bodies on the point. The tidecaster lops 3 wounds off my grots. He takes 5 points for turn 1.

Turn 2! Moon comes out, yay, and my squigs are positioned to take advantage of it. Half of them run up on the right, half on the left, trying for an encirclement on the point. The boss supports the right wing, the fungoid joins the madcap.

The shootas loose on his approaching thralls, nailing exactly one. My madcap and fungoid do 2 mortals total to the eels.

I deploy the fanatics! .... only to realize he's used the high movement on the eels to deny me deploying them on the point, in front of my shootas. , forcing me to put them out to the side where they *cannot charge* because of this tiny chokepoint he's generated with his shipwrecks. I also *don't* charge the shootas in, possibly because I was very high on the tramadol + voltaren cocktail I took in the morning for my herniated disc. (I have no idea why i didn't charge the shootas in). I deploy my boingrotz out on the right wing.

His turn, turn 2 starts and his army springs into action.

The eels on the point *s w e r v e* clean off it, shooting off to the side and into my left wing of squigs. The empty point is then filled with the 10 thralls, who both contest it and charge into my shootas. Volturnos and the second batch of eels charge my right flank of squigs. They've stopped my attempt at encirclement. 10 more thralls come in right behind the first batch. I'm thankful they're not reavers, and he's kicking himself because they're not reavers (this already utter loss would be an even more embarassing defeat if they were reavers). That's way more than 10 bodies on the point for me to chew through.

The first big melee exchange happens, I wipe out half of the thralls with a lone fanatic who cheekily piles in through a gap, but he lops off more wounds than I could keep up with on every front. The eels stand firm on both wings, putting big dents in my squigs. 5 points to him, we're at 0-10.

Turn 3 happens and boy oh boy do you idoneth fans know what that means. He gets first turn, takes it with aplomb,  and attacks first with *everything*, wiping out most of my grots, forcing a nasty battleshock test on both my squig wings that takes them down to exactly no squigs left.

Also he does a ritual which takes away my boingrotz' ability to fly and I'm just stood there like the john travolta gif.

My turn turn 3 rolls around and I flail like a greenhorn sumo wrestler in the middle of a vicious takedown, sending my boingrots into the eels, a tabletop reenactment of driving five bouncy motorbikes full speed into a brick wall. 5 more points to him, 0 -15.

Turn 4, he completes the counter-encirclement, murders every last one of my units, and reaches a final score of 0-20.

Without your first error, do you think you could have won ?

[soak314]

11 minutes ago, pseudonyme said:

Without your first error, do you think you could have won ?

With the loonsmashas on the point out on turn 1, heck yeah I think I would have. I made soooo many dumb decisions in that fight, and from turn 1 just let him have full control of the map.

Idoneth have insane coverage and threat range, and with a good mix of thralls and reavers and possibly allopexes all of their units will be contributing *something* to the fight right out the gate, regardless of deployment order.

[Eevika]

So how have people done with low model count armies? I have my first ME game today and im playing troggoths with only 8 models in my entire army. Would be fun to hear some experiences and tactics to playing with very low model count

[Dead Scribe]

You won't be able to hold objectives very well and that will cost you often.

[WhiskeyjackZA]

22 hours ago, SwampHeart said:

So you thought it was great fun to play with an actually unkillable model? Morathi can deploy in the first deployment and transform - there is no other first deployment that stands a chance against her. And she is capable of clearing deployments on her own. I'm going to be very honest here, I highly doubt you actually played Morathi - if you had there is 0 chance you'd think ME was balanced. The only way you may have played her is if your opponent was brain dead enough to not send her in the first wave (which is entirely legal and one of the best possible strategies to use in ME). 

I also played HoS in ME this weekend and overwhelmed my opponent with summoning - at 1,000 points, especially with staggered deployment I was able to generate DP so quickly and summon in new heroes to generate more DP that the game was basically over once I'd summoned twice. ME is incredibly unbalanced if your goal is to game it - it an be a lot of fun but its by no means a good vessel for competitive play. 

I am interested in how you overwhelmed your opponent in summoning with HoS? I have just started with the army and have played one meeting engagement against DoK. (SH: HQ, 5 Lifetakers, 5 Blood Sisters; MB: 20 WE, HQ, Medusa; RG: 5 Blood Sisters and 5 Lifetakers). My admittedly very experimental list (Masque and ES) was going for speed. (SH: 5 Seekers, Masque; MB: KoS, 10 Hellstriders; RG: 5 Seekers, Mesmerizing Mirror). I lead by 1 point end 3rd round but he managed to 1 shot my KoS with 20 WE - I failed to LoD with a 1 - that turn. Turn 4 was possible to hold on, but needed some luck.

Any way, I have been theory crafting a good HoS list and I don't think summoning is going to be such a big factor given that you also need to hold objectives and going hero heavy doesn't help in that regard.  I mean, I am pretty sure I will replace the Masque and Mirror, but most other hero options are going to give me 1 more hero. Of course I can cut down on seekers but they are kinda good for speed and holding objectives (okay - I just like playing them). How did your "summoning overwhelm" list look like?

I have played a couple of games with my DoK, I haven't bothered with Morathi (not my style - maybe for tourney), but I also think regardless DoK are good in this format just with 20 WE and a HQ in the main contingent, nevermind if you follow that up again in your rearguard. I can see your issues with Morathi, but I am also curious if it is really that bad, given different scenarios where she might come in late and/or if she is effectively screened. I played games with both my HoS and NH where the speed / early objective grabbing was almost enough to hang on if it wasn't for some bad luck / mistakes. What was the rest of the Morathi list?

I am not so negative about this format and actually very excited for it...but we probably need more games and a bit of a meta to judge just how much of an improvement it is on 1000pt standard games.  Until then we need to hear all the experiences and there is always the local group / meta factor that might also play a role in how viable the format is in the area. 

 

[soak314]

5 hours ago, Eevika said:

So how have people done with low model count armies? I have my first ME game today and im playing troggoths with only 8 models in my entire army. Would be fun to hear some experiences and tactics to playing with very low model count

You'll have an easier time getting murderpoints, but sitting on objectives is still what wins you the games.

The central objective battleplan will probably be easiest for you: one objective lets you utilize your fat base footprints. Get a trogboss and his crew up on that point and you'll be denying a considerable amount of real estate.

Trogs have a decent move stat on em but I wouldn't call em flanking-capable, so you'll have a really rough time denying ground. Be wary of summoning armies or reserves who can drop onto your flanks much easier.

If the list you're facing has no way to call in something behind your line of trogs, consider tagging your point, leaving it, and attempting to establish the main clash as deep into their territory as you can. Less distance to cover for any cap attempts.

Try to engage with units in efficient unit vs unit engagements, spreading your own units out for maximum efficiency. Trogs pack a hell of a punch, and two stacks of 3 focusing down one 10x stack of 1 wound battleline may be a waste of their damage potential.

And finally, maybe consider some squigs? a 6 stack is 12 wounds thick, and only costs 70! They make awesome goalkeepers.

 

[Eevika]

1 minute ago, soak314 said:

You'll have an easier time getting murderpoints, but sitting on objectives is still what wins you the games.

The central objective battleplan will probably be easiest for you: one objective lets you utilize your fat base footprints. Get a trogboss and his crew up on that point and you'll be denying a considerable amount of real estate.

Trogs have a decent move stat on em but I wouldn't call em flanking-capable, so you'll have a really rough time denying ground. Be wary of summoning armies or reserves who can drop onto your flanks much easier.

If the list you're facing has no way to call in something behind your line of trogs, consider tagging your point, leaving it, and attempting to establish the main clash as deep into their territory as you can. Less distance to cover for any cap attempts.

Try to engage with units in efficient unit vs unit engagements, spreading your own units out for maximum efficiency. Trogs pack a hell of a punch, and two stacks of 3 focusing down one 10x stack of 1 wound battleline may be a waste of their damage potential.

And finally, maybe consider some squigs? a 6 stack is 12 wounds thick, and only costs 70! They make awesome goalkeepers.

 

Thanks for all the tips! My opponent is playing dispossessed so summoning or their speed is not something im worried about. I cant really take squigs as Im at work and have my army with me

Troggboss 

Troggoth Hag

3x Fellwater 

3x Fellwater 

Thats my list lets see what happens.

[soak314]

3 minutes ago, Eevika said:

Thanks for all the tips! My opponent is playing dispossessed so summoning or their speed is not something im worried about. I cant really take squigs as Im at work and have my army with me

Troggboss 

Troggoth Hag

3x Fellwater 

3x Fellwater 

Thats my list lets see what happens.

Sounds like an interesting matchup! You'll definitely outpace him onto points, consider dropping your free CPs from loonskin onto command runs for some nifty 12 inch moves.

Also get rid of any runebearers with vomit where possible, they can make the dorfs real punchy.

Oh and if he has the fyreslayer hero shoot him dead. He'll do well against your trogs in particular.

[tripchimeras]

15 hours ago, Inquisitorsz said:

This is a good point. 
AoS (and recent 40k editions) have clearly trended towards the "use anything and everything you own" game/sales models. 
They want you to be able to use all your toys and thus to buy more.  

That being said, large armies and expensive heroes/monsters are a huge time and money commitment which makes it very difficult for people to start (or continue) participating. 
I think it's one of the main reasons WFB died. You needed hundreds of painted models and 3-4+ hours per game. 

The market and industry has clearly shifted towards smaller skirmish level games, simply because they are far more accessible. The more accessible your product, the easier it is to get customers.  

Some people still like the big long battles. That's fine. You can still play an 8000pt game if you want to. And they've just give you Apoc (though the last time they did Apoc it was a flop).  But those people are few and are unlikely to keep paying GW's bills. They need expansion, they need young blood. 
Smaller games, faster games, cheaper to get into games are naturally the answer.  
Small 1000pt armies also give people more opportunity to branch out and try different factions. A single start collecting box probably gets you almost halfway to a meeting engagement army.  

One of my biggest issues with AoS is that low model count or more elite armies tend to be generally less competitive than hordes, mainly due to objective control, volume of attacks, and volume of spare wounds.  
I really wanna make a 22 model 2000pt Troggoth army.... but I know it just won't do well and will be extremely expensive to buy.  

I'm not a huge fan of 1000pts because I feel like a lot of the cool stuff is very expensive and you don't get much of an army. But on the other hand, I do like skirmish level games. I was initially disinterested in Meeting Engagements but having read some of the stuff in this thread I'm keen to give it a try.   
 

Good points, and I agree that the massive number of models required in warhammer fantasy was a big reason behind its undoing, and AoS has gone a good ways towards undoing that requirement, even at 2k (the games are still smaller at 2k then they were in WHFB, even now with higher horde focus).  I think an even bigger factor though, was the overly complicated ruleset, which as much as I loved it was often needlessly complicated without providing a ton of strategic upside.  There were so many edge cases, and so many more ticky tacky things that were really difficult to understand unless you were truly invested in the competitive scene.   The character displacement shenanigans within units alone were something so needlessly complex and abuse-able that half the strategy in top tier games went into the way in which you made way with your characters at the beginning of a combat phase, and whether your opponent could suss out exactly how it would happen before making a normally good charge that became inadvisable upon make way.  Anyways, point is I think the complexity of the rules in contrast with AoS had as much if not more to do with its failings then the model counts.  I think AoS initially took both of these lessons to a way too far extreme, I think large scale battles far too important to the die-hard GW fanbase for them to not put significant development focus on.

Large pitched battles are the single biggest thing that differentiates GW games from every other wargame out there imo.  I know they are what attracted me to the hobby, and I think it is that way for many. Even if you end up preferring smaller battles or more casual battles, it is the unique feature for GW games that sets them apart.  I think it would be a mistake if it stopped being a big focus of their development time (see rollout of AOS for why).  I think it is smart that they have made AoS a far more casually and low model count appropriate game then WHFB ever was.  And the companies efforts to diversify into skirmish and improve 1k games are great moves, but I also hope they realize the attraction of the big 2k battles as a marketing tool and distinguishing feature of their game.  I am looking forward to warcry, but the skirmish game market is extraordinarily saturated with multiple games superior in ruleset to anything GW has to offer, it would be a mistake to make that the companies primary focus.  I think having that 2k "goal" game out their as the competitive gold standard, and visible fixture in the community is more important to their business model, then is probably represented in the proportion of players who primarily play it.  But this all could just be my personal bias speaking.  Enjoy Meeting Engagement alot, its just never going to be a primary play-mode for me, the balance just isn't there and I want bigger armies then it offers.  This is a tangent to what we have been discussing with meeting engagement, so I apologize, but the big reason I was concerned when they announced Meeting Engagements, and after playing it why I continue to harp on its lack of competitive balance, is that I worry GW will start to turn away from big scale battles and 2k competitive play, and I think it would be a huge mistake.  I've only ever rage quit GW once in the 20 years I have been playing their games, and it was after 8 specifically because infant AoS had no competitive support, and focused almost exclusively on smaller scale play.  They learned their lesson quickly, I just really hope they haven't forgotten it again.

[Inquisitorsz]

7 hours ago, tripchimeras said:

Large pitched battles are the single biggest thing that differentiates GW games from every other wargame out there imo.  I know they are what attracted me to the hobby, and I think it is that way for many.

 I am looking forward to warcry, but the skirmish game market is extraordinarily saturated with multiple games superior in ruleset to anything GW has to offer, it would be a mistake to make that the companies primary focus.  I think having that 2k "goal" game out their as the competitive gold standard, and visible fixture in the community is more important to their business model, then is probably represented in the proportion of players who primarily play it.  

I'd be interested to hear which skirmish games you think are better. 
The big problem is community size and support. Over here in Australia, we're a little bit limited in what the locals play. I know some people love Infinity and Warmachine for example, but I also know that there's maybe 5-10 people who play that regularly in my whole city (a major state capital). 
So even if it's the world's best game, it doesn't really mean much if no one around me plays it. 
I used to play a lot of Imperial Assault competitively. FFG killed support, and the small community died. 
Legion is great, and slowly getting bigger and better, but it's still tiny by comparison and players are scattered around the country in a few small concentrated pockets. I'm lucky enough to have a good local group but as with most small communities it's ever in danger of dropping off and disappearing. 
There's so many things now that compete for our time and money, that it's difficult to participate in more than 2 or 3 game systems. 
At least with GW products there seems to be a good overlap of player, but even in saying that, the local Underworlds community is tiny. Which is a shame because it's an excellent and quick game.  

The problem with larger 2k games is that from an event/tournament point of view, it's a massive time commitment. 
The games simply take too long and you MUST have 2 day events to play anything more than 3 rounds, and you MUST play more than 3 rounds if you have over 16 or so players. You're obviously already locked into a weekend as there's barely enough time in an evening to play a single game let alone 3. 

That's where the skirmish games shine. Not because they are better but because they are quicker. I know I can fit in 3 rounds of X-wing or Imperial Assault or Underworlds in an evening. It's much easier to have regular game nights and events when you're not always asking for a full day (or 2) commitment. 

GW knows this. They know that they compete with games that are cheaper to get into and more accessible to play. 
Obviously there's the whole hobby/painting/collecting aspect. It's not all about the game. But a company the size of GW can't survive on their awesome miniatures alone. 
That's why we have stuff like Underworlds, Blood Bowl, Kill Team, Warcry, Skirmish rules, Path to Glory etc.... 

I like the aesthetics of large armies and big battles as much as the next guy. I had 3 huge WFB armies. 
But I'm not 16 anymore and don't have anywhere near as much spare time (even if my disposable income has gone up dramatically). Same reason I can't pour 20 hours per week into games like World of Warcraft anymore lol. 

Despite the "extraordinary saturation" of skirmish games, the industry/market has been trending that way since WFB was on it's last legs. GW seems to just be responding to what the customers want. Not that we'll know for sure without their detailed sales data. 

[Dead Scribe]

I know that for most of the people I play with, tournament gamers all, the quicker the game is, the more they like it.  The faster they can get a game concluded the better.  If an AOS or 40k game could be played in an hour, that would be 100% perfect.  That should be their primary goal IMO.

[tripchimeras]

11 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

I know that for most of the people I play with, tournament gamers all, the quicker the game is, the more they like it.  The faster they can get a game concluded the better.  If an AOS or 40k game could be played in an hour, that would be 100% perfect.  That should be their primary goal IMO.

I think if this were really true they would just be playing KoW.  This is over simplification.  It would be great if tourney games didn't take 2 and a half hours per round, but you sacrifice much on the shorter game length.  I think the sacrifices seem fine right up until they happen.  Everyone would love AoS as is to take an hour, but I don't think they would like what AoS would need to become for that to happen.  I don't know many tourney players who actually want to play smaller games in their AoS tourneys, I don't know many tourney players who actually want all interactivity removed from opponents turn, I don't know many tourney players who want unit rules to become flavorless and most abilities removed.  These are the types of changes that would be required.  You look at every game that plays fast and none of them do the things people love GW games for.  If most of the people who played GW games actually wanted all of those things they would have switched to another system long ago.  I constantly hear people complain about game length, but I've never heard anyone advocate for the things that would actually do that except maybe for smaller game size, which I think is antithetical to what makes GW distinct.    In the US after WHFB died there was a huge void and a bunch of the top TO's and players had massive debates on what to do.  This was an opportunity to switch to KoW, and you know what I saw?  The vast majority after very little time found themselves turning on it, and most did not stick with it for any amount of time.  And this wasn't because there weren't games, almost everyone was giving it a try after WHFB, it just wasn't as fun.  It was nice that it took about an hour, hour and a half to play, but it wasn't worth the sacrifice.  There's a reason 9th age exists as a game, internationally so many tourney players didn't want to give up their massed battle 2-3 hour fantasy game, that they retrofitted 8th to avoid copyright infringement and continue forward.  Everyone wants faster games, but at the end of the day, in my experience no one wants to actually pay the cost, that isn't already a primarily skirmish or kow player.

 

EDIT: This obviously is not necessarily true of the community at large and those who play casually.  I am merely talking about the competitive scene as my experience within the WHFB 8th edition competitive circuit and what I have seen from AoS so far in the US and what it tells me about what keeps people playing GW games competitively.

Edited July 3, 2019 by tripchimeras

[Dead Scribe]

But thats just it.  I think that a good chunk if not most of the AOS playerbase ARE primarily skirmish players that want low model count fast games.

[tripchimeras]

40 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

But thats just it.  I think that a good chunk if not most of the AOS playerbase ARE primarily skirmish players that want low model count fast games.

I agree with you, I think that's maybe where we are crossing our wires.  There is a reason AoS was designed the way it was initially, for this very reason.  There is a reason they released no points, had no way to play competitively, and specifically stated they would no longer cater to competitive play in any way shape or form.  I think WHFB, had a pretty high percentage of competitive minded players by the end (Still a huge minority I am sure, but quite high in comparison) and GW realized that the plummeting sales of their most competitive game just did not justify their focus on it (not that they really were focusing on it, but whatever). 

But if you look at the hardships of that rollout, the near complete loss of their competitive player base in those first months, and their (for them) extremely quick turn around in rectifying that situation, tells me that clearly the competitive community was more important to them then they thought post WHFB.  I agree to you the majority of AOS is small scale games, I would bet that the majority of 40k is also smaller scale games, then are at their tourneys as well. 

So why did GW relent in AoS and publish competitive focused rules, primarily catering to a GW traditionally sized competitive game?  Because however small of a percentage of GW's population Tourney players may be, they also represent a significant part of the most active and die hard supporters of the game.  Tourney players recruit new players to play, watching a massive battle with huge monsters, or tanks, or whatever play out on a gaming table is often what gets people into the hobby.  Many of those people end up never really playing at those levels, but the thrill of seeing that huge battle that first time is what plants the seed.  A large percentage of the podcasts, even the hobby ones, are done by people who go to and enjoy traditional pointed tournaments, even the ones who don't take them seriously.  They are gathering places, and people form friendships at them that build the hobby further.  When they occur at a store, they are free advertising for the hobby.  Tourney players, however small their sales footprint is obviously have an outsize footprint on the hobby as a whole, otherwise GW would not have ended up catering to them all over again. 

Even now 4-5 years later, from what I have seen there are fewer forums, podcasts, youtube channels etc dedicated to AoS then there were for WHFB at its point of steep decline, this could just be a function of the old ones all being replaced and I just don't know where the new ones are, but google searching 'AoS forum' or 'AoS podcast' or whatever gives me half the dirth of results then I used to get when looking for a new one to follow for WHFB.  That hurts a hobby.  The big 2-3 hour competitive game exists as an aspirational goal, something to capture the imagination of a new player, even if they quickly learn it is not how they want to play the game, they are invested now.  It also caters to the most hardcore demographic of players, one that is not important to sales, but is important to the health of the hobby.  I think all of this matters.  So long as most tournament players want to play 2k, I think GW would be making a mistake to change the focus of matched play significantly, because I think even when pts are used, most people are not playing competitively, they are playing small narrative/ open play (at least in spirit) games. 

 

EDIT: also the lack of forums could just be because they have all been replaced by discord chats, and I am just too old/lazy to find them.  But that is a me problem haha.

Edited July 3, 2019 by tripchimeras

[Overread]

One big reason you see fewer forums is because of Facebook pure and simple. Even forums I'm on that were BIG back around 10-15 years ago are now dwindling down to a loyal core of users and getting far fewer newer members in the front door. Basically a lot of people now use their phones and Facebook for much of their internet activity. Forums are fantastic for a PC and for indepth chat, but they are not as "social media" suitable as Facebook; they don't fit as well onto phones or tablets (typing is a pain on them). So I can see why there aren't as many AoS forums getting started even if the community is actually larger than the Old World was at its demise .

 

Also @tripchimeras I think you're overplaying the "competitive" angle somewhat. Tournament players are a small portion, however a large portion of users want a semi-competitive "balanced" game to play with. When GW took away the points and took away the serious rules for the game in one go the player who wants to open a box and play the game couldn't really do that so easily. It also destroyed casual pick-up games because there was little to no common ground unless you used the Old World points for those armies which had them at the time. Otherwise you might want a game with 10 dragons because they are awesome models but your opponent might have brought only spearmen and cavalry with them because they were after a fantasy battle. Without points you have to extend the pre-game phase as you debate what is "fair" to put on the table so that you get an enjoyable game. Winning isn't everything but if one player puts down 3 dragons adn the other 40 spearmen chances are one side is going to win by a landslide and the other isn't.

Also considering that the rules at that stage were very jovial I think it set a tone gamers didn't like by GW. It set a tone and attitude which said that GW didn't really care about "the game" (remember this is after they just threw out 30 years of Lore and several armies and shattered others into a myriad of useless subarmis). GW at that time was sending the message that they only cared about the models, not about the game. That rattles gamers because they might spend 3 or 4 years building up armies to play in the game even if they are totally casual players. That kind of jovial and short-sighted approach just added fuel to the fire at the time. 

 

In the end its not the competitive end that is important its the ability to go to the club and get a game and have common ground to play with; its the ability to have a set of rules that works out of the box (mostly) and, again, a common ground. Gamers who loved AoS at launch are often those who like making up their own rules; who wanted to play those made up rules with others. At that time AoS was a ripe fruit for them because the official source was gone. However they are, by and large, a minority and they often only influenced local scenes; which drastically cuts down on the ability to have games between groups or organise events etc...

 

 

 

That said in the end AoS was a mess at launch mostly by the product of GW's attitude at the time of not surveying their market enough and a management team that was trying to dictate to the market. This was on top of pretty poor marketing choices. Making a BIG deal of End Times and buidling up a lot of Old World hype and interest only to sweep it all out by actually ending the world, tearing up the rules, tearing up the lore and armies etc...

[tripchimeras]

2 minutes ago, Overread said:

Also @tripchimeras I think you're overplaying the "competitive" angle somewhat. Tournament players are a small portion, however a large portion of users want a semi-competitive "balanced" game to play with. When GW took away the points and took away the serious rules for the game in one go the player who wants to open a box and play the game couldn't really do that so easily. It also destroyed casual pick-up games because there was little to no common ground unless you used the Old World points for those armies which had them at the time. Otherwise you might want a game with 10 dragons because they are awesome models but your opponent might have brought only spearmen and cavalry with them because they were after a fantasy battle. Without points you have to extend the pre-game phase as you debate what is "fair" to put on the table so that you get an enjoyable game. Winning isn't everything but if one player puts down 3 dragons adn the other 40 spearmen chances are one side is going to win by a landslide and the other isn't.

You're right, I just am grumbly I guess because GW is the last bastion of the massed battle game, there is just no where else to go, meanwhile I have 5000 skirmish games to choose from, most of which have tighter rules then GW could dream of.  Meeting Engagement's are fun, but they weren't what I signed up for 20 years ago, and they aren't why I dived back in a year ago.  I guess I just gotta hope that I am not quite in as big of a minority as it seems I am, and GW doesn't destroy the moderate balance of 2k to cater to 1k.  It seems strange that they would leave the one market they own a complete monopoly in behind, so hopefully they wont.

[Overread]

I don't think GW will kill the 2K balance. What I think you are seeing is that AoS isn't mature like 40K is. 40K is very mature and has its full legacy and has maintained its playerbase over a long period of time. It's got people iwth 30K of models in one army so it can easily support big modes like Apoc. 

 

Right now AoS is smaller, its built off the back of Old World, but that market had shrunk considerably and many of them have grown older and moved on anyway even if they'd brought Old World fully back. So AoS is getting a lot of fresh new blood, which means the market at large has smaller armies. GW is also focusing on that growth which means a bit more focus on smaller engagements. One big issue Old World had was that you sort of needed 2K points worth of models for a good game, with 1K sort of working well for some and 500 really not working at all well for the scale of the game. So a lot of people burned out just building the army. GW has recognised this and are also pushing smaller games to get people over that "its the expensive hobby" hump. Considering that they've still got armies with no unified rules (Battletomes) it makes perfect sense to steadily keep growing the market and focusing on things like Skirmish and 1K games etc...

 

Give it a few years and I'm sure we'll see the points values steadily reduce or the "2K" rise to 3K for general games. Heck compare things like Slaanesh demons between 40K and AoS and you can easily see that the AoS points are, almost all, higher. One or two more editions of AoS and I'll wager we'll see collections grow, demand increase and the variety of models we can put on the table go up. We might even see "AoS Grand Battles" or something for Apoc styled wars.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Overread

[tripchimeras]

5 minutes ago, Overread said:

I don't think GW will kill the 2K balance. What I think you are seeing is that AoS isn't mature like 40K is. 40K is very mature and has its full legacy and has maintained its playerbase over a long period of time. It's got people iwth 30K of models in one army so it can easily support big modes like Apoc.

Nice perspective, makes sense.  I do see the value of Meeting Engagements, I just don't like that they advertised it as a tourney game.  But everything you said here makes sense to me, I'm happy how things stand now, and I think you make a lot of good points.  Sometimes its hard not to get reactionary with GW, trusting them is a very painful activity lol.

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, tripchimeras said:

It seems strange that they would leave the one market they own a complete monopoly in behind, so hopefully they wont.

I don't think they will, especially with Apocalypse being re-released for 40k. Their goal should be to have a variety of methods to choose to play, which seems to be what's happening even if balance still needs hammering out. This is most evident in the fact that Underworlds and Warcry models are/will be usable in AOS.

Edited July 3, 2019 by CommissarRotke
typo

[Overread]

Just now, CommissarRotke said:

I don't think they will, especially with Apocalypse being re-released for 40k. Their goal should be to have a variety of methods to choose to play, which seems to be what's happening even if balance still needs hammering out. This is most evident in the fact that Underworlds and Warcry modes are/will be usable in AOS.

Personally I think Underworld its is own thing and the models being used in AoS is more of a customer service nod than anything else. This is evident by the fact that the warbands are not all that powerful and dont' really feature in competitive game armies. They are there with rules for the "fun" games. 

 

Warcry we don't yet know really what it is. That said from what we've seen the kits are more modular (not fully but a bit more so than the fixed Shadspire models) and I personally think its acting as a big delivery system for a bunch of Slaves to Darkness/Chaos Mortal followers for the game. There are also several models, like furies, appearing in the set which are already part of the core demonic army. So I'd expect those models to more strongly tie over into the main game; likely appearing as flavourful faction models. So you might use 1 team within Warcry but in AoS you might bring 20 of them as an infantry force. Then again pure Chaos Warriors are already pretty elite and rely on Maurauders for weight of numbers. 

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

Personally I think Underworld its is own thing and the models being used in AoS is more of a customer service nod than anything else. This is evident by the fact that the warbands are not all that powerful and dont' really feature in competitive game armies. They are there with rules for the "fun" games.  

Even so, I think the fact that we can use them is evidence that they are willing to allow 'crossplay' between the non-wargame and wargame models, and then splitting the wargame itself into 3 types--two of which allow for a very varied way to play.

[soak314]

BATTLE REPORT: Change of Pace Edition

Nothing fancy today, just a quick blurb on how effective this format is at showing people how AoS works.

Had a teaching game, new person using KO, myself using Skaven Pestilens. No Realm Rules, no terrain or scenery rules, no gnawholes (illegal in the format).

They were very new so there was a lot of absolutely not okay deployment choices such as shunting a unit of skywardens in a boat and having them do exactly nothing up until turn 3, but that's fine. The big shiny toy, from the KO player perspective, was the big brass boat and all its guns.

I took 2x20 plague rats and some censer bearers for the dorfs to try and gun down, along with two plague claws in the rearguard to spook em into moving into action before they arrived. Also the requisite priest on furnace and on foot.

Having a minimum amount of units in the spearhead really sets the scene for a good tutorial round, and the incoming waves work like layers of gradual complexity for them to work with as the game gets messier and messier.

They ended up hugging their backline and not sitting on the point, which of course lost em the game, but with 35 rats gunned down by the end, they were quite pleased with themselves.

The game took 1 hour 15 mins, which is really impressive for a teaching game with 45 rats involved. I've found what pushes it closer to the two hour mark is when both players know what they're doing. There's a ton of indecision and pauses for critical thought in those games, where this one was just me moving models forward to get shot at.

I haven't had enough of a look at KO, both in general and through this particular match, to gauge how much better they'd do in Engagements, but I think their mobility, threat range, and toughness will make em a solid pick for the format.

Can't say quite the same for dedicated pestilens, who are a very one trick pony at 1k. A verminlord could shake things up, and plague monks in stacks of 10 can still roll an obscene amount of dice with buffs on a charge, but there's very little unpredictability to them.

[eekamouse]

Seems like the Meeting Engagement mode has some bugs in Azyr.... or I don't understand the rules for building a list. It won't let me add any "Other Units" or "Artillery" in the Main Force. Warscroll Builder does though.

[EMMachine]

1 hour ago, eekamouse said:

Seems like the Meeting Engagement mode has some bugs in Azyr.... or I don't understand the rules for building a list. It won't let me add any "Other Units" or "Artillery" in the Main Force. Warscroll Builder does though.

In case of Artillery, Azyr is actually correct, because it can only be used in the rearguard. Other units should be an error because it has 0+ units in the rules.

Edit:

Warscroll builder doesn't allow Artillery in the Mainbody as well. It is automaticly set in the rear guard and can't be set into mainbody

Edited July 10, 2019 by EMMachine

[soak314]

6 hours ago, eekamouse said:

Seems like the Meeting Engagement mode has some bugs in Azyr.... or I don't understand the rules for building a list. It won't let me add any "Other Units" or "Artillery" in the Main Force. Warscroll Builder does though.

My one's working fine for Other units (4 of the 5 gobbapalooza!). Try deleting the list and starting again? Most of my old ones were acting really weird post-update.