Choosing a Realm to fight in

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

One area my local group is not entirely in agreement on is how to handle the choice of Realm to fight in during matched play games. We frequently don't bother using Realmscape rules, but we're not sure what the official stance is (or the closest community consensus is if there isn't an official ruling). I've heard tournaments have it as part of the round-by-round pairings or something like that, but how do people generally handle it when doing matched play outside of tournaments?

[Clan's Cynic]

Which Realm does the terrain in front of us best represent? Bam.

Failing that, just roll for it. 

If they're used at all.

[Superninja]

My buddies and I roll for the realm right after we roll for the battleplan.

[nuttyknatty]

There’s only one way to decide what realm you’re fightin’ in:

and that’s with the Selecta-Realm!
 

 

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

@The Nameless One

 

No Eightpoints?😁

[Kramer]

9 minutes ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

@The Nameless One

 

No Eightpoints?😁

Its a pocket realm, so I assume it’s when the arrow points in 8 directions at once. 

[LuminethMage]

1 hour ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

@The Nameless One

 

No Eightpoints?😁

They could use Azyr for the time being I guess. Or the lines in between the realms. 

[Dead Scribe]

I've heard tournaments have it as part of the round-by-round pairings or something like that, but how do people generally handle it when doing matched play outside of tournaments?

3 out of 4 tournaments I go to don't use those rules at all.  The other times we have to use them typically its just one realm and everyone knows in advance what it will be so it doesn't ****** over list building.  

Matched play outside of tournaments is basically practice for tournaments so we use the same rules as tournaments do for our games outside of tournaments to keep everything standard and get proper practice in.

[Ahriman]

This is what my group uses, though we've switched nowhere of note to the Eightpoints now.

[Landohammer]

Here is my logic:

If its a pickup game, simply don't use a realm. Some of the realms can destroy an army list if you can't prepare for them. And there is no way to build a list that succeeds in all realms. For example, Fire can make shooting and magic armies insanely powerful, while Shadow can make shooting and magic armies unable to do anything. If you really want to use a realm, but want to be fair, then just default to Life (Ghyran). It is probably one of the most tame realms and unlikely to impact the game in a major way.

If its a tournament practice game, use the realms provided by the tournament.  Ideally they will provide the specific realm rule, but if they only provide the realm itself then then you should prepare for ANY of that particular realms rules. IE, if its Shadow don't bring a ranged army.

I love the concept of realms but IMHO they were not properly balanced for matched play. So you have to be very careful when implementing them. 

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

Thanks for the input, everyone! I think I'm gonna keep playing games without the Realm rules for the most part. I was mostly interested if that would be an aberration if I ended up moving to a new gaming community, and it sounds like it will not be. Really appreciate it!

[Dead Scribe]

There was a poll in one of the facebook groups I follow for AOS a few months ago and it came out to be like 85% of the respondants did not use or did not want to use realm rules, so I dont think thats abberant at all.

[TheCovenLord]

Honestly with the volume of special rules and interactions I have to deal with personally in my army. I rarely want or remember to use realm rules even if we do roll for them. Even terrain rules frequently get forgotten. Not because of any crazy complexity just sheer volume of interactions in AoS. Especially when you get down to the nitty gritty of buff duration, placement, measuring. 

 

Our group could easily do without but several tournament players insist on utilizing them on occasion as some of the tournaments they play in apparently make use of certain of them. 

[Acid_Nine]

19 minutes ago, TheCovenLord said:

Honestly with the volume of special rules and interactions I have to deal with personally in my army. I rarely want or remember to use realm rules even if we do roll for them. Even terrain rules frequently get forgotten. Not because of any crazy complexity just sheer volume of interactions in AoS. Especially when you get down to the nitty gritty of buff duration, placement, measuring. 

 

Our group could easily do without but several tournament players insist on utilizing them on occasion as some of the tournaments they play in apparently make use of certain of them. 

remembering the realm rules when they don't completely mess with the game is my own problem too. Sure, remembering the realm of fire rule where moves and charges over 6" is easy to remember because it screws my deepkin army over hard, but remembering that we need to roll and see if a sylvaneth wildwood pops up randomly is a lot harder to remember than other rules, even if it has a large effect on terrain placement.