Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?

[amysrevenge]

I think there's a certain type of player who needs a veneer of "officialness" over an event or else it doesn't count.  I don't know how prevalent that is, but it's certainly a real observable thing.  Like, to this player it's a waste of time to play some sorts of games, but worthwhile to play other sorts of games, depending on how "official" they seem.  So for this player, exactly where "official" extends to is very important, because they don't want to waste their time playing someone's house-ruled garage games.

And that's not even a wrong way to look at it - it's only wrong when they (I'm not one of them, so it's "they" to me) tell me I'm doing something wrong, or when I tell them they're doing something wrong.

[gjnoronh]

On 7/26/2019 at 1:53 PM, Ravinsild said:

I don't know man, I come from Blood Bowl and it just seems like a given. The entire game IS skill based. It's risk management simulator with some fun and wacky antics and skins thrown on top. The kick off can result in half of your team being stunned which can mess up what you thought you were going to do. Blizzard can make passing harder for teams who loves to pass (and those who don't :P), the kick-off random events table, weather table, and everything in between (injuries, special balls and more) are all core parts of the game. That's what makes it so much fun. Also that NUFFLE completely screws you every chance he gets. 

Some teams are objectively weak, and some are objectively strong, some start strong and peter out, and some start slow and end up extremely good. Some teams are good all of the time. That's just the feel and balance of Blood Bowl. 

I'm not sure why the Age of Sigmar crowd is so opposed to this kind of thing. Blood Bowl is LITERALLY how you play the game, not what team you brought. AoS with weather tables (realm rules) and all of that could be fun and how you play the game (not what army you brought) too...but people seem like that's the worst idea ever? 

I'm quite a Blood Bowl fan myself and I think it's an excellent  skill based tournament game (IMO better then AoS)  despite a high degree of randomness inherent in the rules.  Risk management, understanding of probability and assessment of the tactical situation are core skills that are really built into the core system allowing tournament games to  separate the good players from the average.  

But I'm not sure what you mean in your post.

There are bad and good team builds in Blood Bowl  (orcs with all linemen vs a standard 4 BOBs, 4 Blitzers) but the basic  list design part of Blood Bowl is largely 'solved' there are really very clear 'heres what you take.'     If you mean why aren't people in AoS happy if an army is 'broken' it's because of  the high investment (time, monetary, emotional) involved in building a full army only to find out it's not good (or so good your friends won't play you regularly) after that investment.   

What differs from tournament to tournament in Blood Bowl is intentionally the skill packages, team value and random quirks of home brew weather tables, scoring bonuses etc.  List building to those unique tournament specific requirements  is actually what I think adds a lot of long term interest to tournament play for BB and separates  smart coaches from less smart.  For the AoS fans that would be equivalent to sometimes having tournaments at 1,750 pts, sometimes 2250 points, sometimes 2000 points sometimes you use realm rules, sometimes you don't, sometimes you can use Realm artifacts sometimes you can't.     

Edited July 29, 2019 by gjnoronh

[Ravinsild]

9 minutes ago, gjnoronh said:

But I'm not sure what you mean in your post.

What I mean is that there a good teams, like Orks, Humans, Dark Elves, and really bad team like Halflings and Ogres and Goblins, and then some team start slow like Chaos Pact and some start very strong like Dwarves. At different TV levels they get better or worse or stay consistent. Amazons start strong but are average overall.

Nobody is upset, everyone knows Ogres suck and halflings are terribad. Some people play Halflings on purpose for the lolz and because they're cute and goofy and it's just silly. 

However everyone accepts that the whole game is random. Random Kick-Off events, random Weather, things like that. The crowd can throw rocks, or storm the field, or the other coach gets an extra re-roll, or you lose a re-roll, etc.... Blizzard is literally -1 to passing (i believe), and catching, which hurts high elves and other teams who enjoy passing, and then there's rain which makes picking up the ball harder because it's slippery, I think muddy makes go for its harder (you can fail more frequently than just on a 1). It's all random. It's how you deal with this stuff using your chosen team (good, bad, or average, high TV, low TV or in the middle) that makes you a good coach and everyone agrees its fun and that's what matters.

I guess the point of my post is why don't Age of Sigmar players think like this? Or what's the difference between Blood Bowl and Age of Sigmar? If you have a bad army but you play them on purpose, you made that choice (Ironjawz have been sitting in the bottom of tournament winnings for a long time, with a rare win here and there near the top of the heap, but I like big loud crazy orks that look cool, I'm playing the halflings of Age of Sigmar.) I would accept weather and stuff (realm rules and all the scenery rules etc...) as making it harder, easier, or whatever as that's just how it goes just like Blood Bowl. Maybe there's tons of deadly and sinister terrain, maybe it's the realm where I can't run. That's okay (to me). I'm just here to try and get objectives and score points how ever I am able and pilot my army as best as possible (i'm still bad at this game lol). 

Why are so many against this kind of game? Why are tournaments these sterile "everything is even stevens" surgery/hospital environments where there's no risk or chance or anything? 

Hell some players of Blood Bowl literally don't try to score with the football, they just try and fight and get injuries haha. They don't even "go after the objective" and just try and score "kill points." 

Edited July 26, 2019 by Ravinsild

[gjnoronh]

Got it.

I'm not sure there is a big group (at least in this thread) arguing in favor of composition rules to up the efficacy of low tier armies.  AoS players are pretty much taking the game as it is in terms of army balance (possibly complaining about it.)   However  those complaints I suspect are largely about the  the investment issue  I raised in a 2K AoS army vs a 12 man BB squad.   

I think there is a  subset that want AoS to be a highly defined standardized game where list building and skill trump randomness.   There is a subset that are happy with AoS rules as written and a subset that want it with max randomness.

One way to think of it in the BB analogy imagine showing up to a tournament and being told after checking in all players are -3 move for one of the  games of the event or instead a 1/7 chance each game that, that single game is -3 move.  That nerfs some teams more then others.  Some teams would pretty much give  up on scoring at that time.   Some coaches would be fine with it, but some even in BB might be unhappy about it.    That's kind of like showing up and finding out shooting is heavily nerfed due to Realm rules in AoS.   The core rules use it but a lot of players don't use the core rules.  

BB coaches are pretty accustomed to a moderate degree of variation in rules sets. But take something really wierd (all players strength 4+ are now -30K gold in cost! No players with Block are allowed!)    and I think coaches would complain.   Just think about the angst some podcasters and coaches have about Piling on changes in BB2016 or roster additions in BB2016 like halfling catchers.  

Edited July 26, 2019 by gjnoronh

[svnvaldez]

9 minutes ago, gjnoronh said:

I think there is a  subset that want AoS to be a highly defined standardized game where list building and skill trump randomness.   There is a subset that are happy with AoS rules as written and a subset that want it with max randomness.

This is a nice summary 

[gjnoronh]

You could argue there is even a subset that want list building/experience  to trump at the table tactical acumen.  The more defined the game conditions are "a priori" the less you need to think on your feet at the table top.   

I think many of the suggestions from GW (i.e. battleplans and realms announced at the start of the round) over the last year really push the meter towards rewarding players who 'think on their feet' vs those who parse the rules set pre game and find the best army list to win under highly defined conditions.       Personally I love that tweak by GW  to the standard way scenarios have been handled for decades in Warhammer.  

[TimM85]

Rampaging Beasts- it's a cool rule but not practical in a tournament scenario because you you would need x amount of monsters all at the same points cost,

For tournaments full realm rules should be used it balances games for weaker armies and armies without a spell lore yes limited shooting for one game for a skaven shoot list may be a disadvantage but a good player can overcome this whereas every armies that doesn't have a spell lore is at a permanent disadvantage my main army is Khorne and still make sure we play it all, rolling randomly or preselecting before the day keeps the game fair and its all about immersing yourself in the game, if your playing in a tournament you should be committed to learning the rules and embracing all formats.

Scenery rules- I think they're great but after running some tournaments and with some larger ones coming up I will definitely be pre rolling and pre setting the terrain all with appropriate tags with a brief rules as a reminder (in our last one i provided scenery tags and also war scroll cards for the pieces of terrain , it allows players more time to go over each others armies and less and more time to play- rushing because your under time pressure because you've spent 15mins going over terrain with a newer tournament player is no fun, you want everyone to get the most from their game and a good experience.

That said I did recently play in a tournament with experienced players and we all managed to fit it in in about 3-5mins. But if you had a newer player it may take to much time. 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2019 by TimM85

[svnvaldez]

44 minutes ago, gjnoronh said:

Personally I love that tweak by GW  to the standard way scenarios have been handled for decades in Warhammer.  

And they have removed some of the more problematic elements as well. By saying things like realm, realmscape, battleplan, and terrain layout are setup by the TO rather than rolled for they allow a TO to select non crazy things if that the event they want (everyone I talk who hates realms seems to forget 1 is no effect... have the TO pick that for big events. A TO would be silly to pick 8inch range or Ghur).

Also there are now 2 pgs 70-71 that can be used as a standard GW AOS matched play game. We can all play a very standard yet varied game (with realms and terrain, etc) no matter where we play.

I like the new layout as well.

[svnvaldez]

4 minutes ago, TimM85 said:

Rampaging Beasts- it's a cool rule but not practical in a tournament scenario because you you would need x amount of monsters all at the same points cost,

It’s completely not practical. Thus a serious TO should never pick it. Not picking it fits in the standard way to run a tournament on pg 70-71 of GH19

[soak314]

Cheers for all the thoughts, so far folks!

I quite like @Ravinsild's comparisons to bloodbowl, in particular:
 

6 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

I guess the point of my post is why don't Age of Sigmar players think like this? Or what's the difference between Blood Bowl and Age of Sigmar? If you have a bad army but you play them on purpose, you made that choice (Ironjawz have been sitting in the bottom of tournament winnings for a long time, with a rare win here and there near the top of the heap, but I like big loud crazy orks that look cool, I'm playing the halflings of Age of Sigmar.) I would accept weather and stuff (realm rules and all the scenery rules etc...) as making it harder, easier, or whatever as that's just how it goes just like Blood Bowl. Maybe there's tons of deadly and sinister terrain, maybe it's the realm where I can't run. That's okay (to me). I'm just here to try and get objectives and score points how ever I am able and pilot my army as best as possible (i'm still bad at this game lol). 

Why are so many against this kind of game? Why are tournaments these sterile "everything is even stevens" surgery/hospital environments where there's no risk or chance or anything?  

and I'd just like to highlight @gjnoronh's fantastic points,:

5 hours ago, gjnoronh said:

 

I think there is a  subset that want AoS to be a highly defined standardized game where list building and skill trump randomness.   There is a subset that are happy with AoS rules as written and a subset that want it with max randomness. 

 

and

4 hours ago, gjnoronh said:

You could argue there is even a subset that want list building/experience  to trump at the table tactical acumen.  The more defined the game conditions are "a priori" the less you need to think on your feet at the table top.   

I think many of the suggestions from GW (i.e. battleplans and realms announced at the start of the round) over the last year really push the meter towards rewarding players who 'think on their feet' vs those who parse the rules set pre game and find the best army list to win under highly defined conditions.       Personally I love that tweak by GW  to the standard way scenarios have been handled for decades in Warhammer.   

I'm very much for the "think on your feet" approach, because I feel that AoS is *not* a highly defined, highly standardized ruleset, and houseruling scenario setup so there's more defined, standardized conditions coming into a game does little to change that.

I also agree that Bloodbowl's the better skill based tournament game. And seeing elements of BB in the recent matched play guidelines, I think the design team does too. Consider Meeting Engagements: it's an official matched play format that guarantees some very funky mixed up deployments and matchups, obviously another case of the design team pushing for "think on your feet".  


 

[Wraith01]

I like the fact AoS is fun to play in any configuration. 

Depending on who I'm playing against the amount of rules tends to change. When I'm introducing the game to someone I tend to play with the original 4 page rules and either Start Collecting sets or just a few units; no extra abilities, spells or anything. If it's a casual game with someone that isn't very good we go to AoS 2.0 probably with everything from Battletomes if they have it. When it's against an experienced player we tend to use all the rules. But honestly in my local store no one cares for the terrain placement rules, we simply ignore those for a cool looking table. Which is funny cause we are looking forward to playing Warcry with the random terrain cards...

Edited July 27, 2019 by Wraith01

[RuneBrush]

+++ MOD HAT +++

Let's keep this thread on topic about terrain please all.