What would you like for AoS 3

[Nos]

3 hours ago, Vasshpit said:

@SeanMaguire1991

Ive heard many times that LotR has a pretty phenomenal rule set. Has anyone ever tried to apply it to AoS as an experiment?

I'd be very interested to hear how it worked out. 

It really does. Or at least the old set did around the 2000's  but I dont think much has changed.

Another thing I would like to see is just playing with Warscrolls.  Same list limitations but no faction rules, no terrain etc. Just build armies with warscrolls. I think it would be fun, quick and characterful and allow the actual units to dictate the game rather than trying to exploit formulae and proccing.

 

[acr0ssth3p0nd]

6 hours ago, Vasshpit said:

@SeanMaguire1991

Ive heard many times that LotR has a pretty phenomenal rule set. Has anyone ever tried to apply it to AoS as an experiment?

I'd be very interested to hear how it worked out. 

I'm working on something for that. I still need to playtest the current version that has a standard Hero-Movement/Charging-Shooting-Fighting-Morale flow like the MESBG, though I'm thinking of switching a few things up to keep the current ratio of shooting-to-melee. Something like:

Priority Phase: Roll off for the round. Winner has priority.

Hero Phase: Person with priority does their stuff, then person without priority does their stuff

Priority Movement: Person with priority does their movement, including charges.

Priority Fighting: Standard fight phase. Unit activation starts with the player who has priority.

Shooting: Players alternate activating units to shoot, starting with the player who has priority.

Reactive Movement: Person without priority does their movement, including charges.

Reactive Fighting: Standard fight phase. Unit activation starts with the player who does not have priority.

Morale Phase: As normal.

 

[Sception]

13 hours ago, SeanMaguire1991 said:

I think AoS would benefit from a system like LotR SBG, where there is priority rolls but no double turns as such. Its one player does all their movement then the opponent does theirs and continues as such for the rest of the phases. Also you can interrupt this with heroic actions.

That could also work well.  Though the combat phase working differently from every other phase would be... inelegant.

 

12 hours ago, Mcthew said:

However as units get wiped off the table it does mean that subsequent turns could get very boring for the player left with one unit of battleline and a single hero.

That's already the case in the current system, though, so no loss there imo.

And in an alternating system you could have ways around that.  For instance, in Star Wars: Armada, an outnumbered player gets a certain number of skip tokens they can use during the turn to skip their activation, which lessens the strategic advantage of having more total activations and also gives the outnumbered player a few extra spikes of tactical decision making.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Sception

[Sception]

Maybe:

1. Determine Priority, a dice off with the player who didn't have priority last turn winning ties.  On the first turn the player who finished deploying first chooses who has priority, but battalions are deployed one unit at a time, not all at once, so no more 'one drops'.
2. Start of Turn Effects - Priority Player goes first
3. Hero Phase - priority player first
4. Magic Phase (spellcasting is involved enough to handle separately from command abilities & such) - Priority Player goes first
5. Shooting Phase - Priority Player goes first
6. Movement Phase - Priority Player goes First
7. Charge Phase - Priority Player goes first
8. Combat Phase - Alternating Activations with Priority Player going first
9. Battleshock - Priority Player Goes First
10. End of Turn effects - Priority Player Goes First

Shooting before movement allows small units and heroes to actually use terrain to block LoS, effectively reduces range across the board, and makes shooting more about control over open firing lanes rather than hunting and killing whatever you like.  in addition to the inherent nerf in putting shooting before the movement phase, ranged attacks also cannot target enemy units within 3" of friendly units, and cannot be made at all if the unit using the ranged attack are within 3" of an enemy unit themselves.  Ranged attacks directed at an enemy hero that is neither a hero nor an artillery unit and has less than 9 wounds suffer a -1 penalty to hit, or a -2 penalty to hit if the hero is within 3" of another, enemy unit with at least 5 models in it.  Obviously individual unit special rules can overwrite this.  Breath , gaze, and scream attacks will have special rules allowing them to be used while within 3" of an enemy unit, sniper units will have special rules allowing them to ignore the penalty for targeting heroes, skirmishing ranged units might have a rules that lets them move in the shooring phase before firing instead of or in addition to moving in that turn's movement phase, etc.  Some ranged attacks will have a 'reload' special rule.  If a unit fires a weapon with the 'reload' property then they cannot activate in that turn's movement and charge phases.

These relative nerfs are counterbalanced by the fact that there's now effectively only half as many combat phases per game, and between the nerfs to shooting and combat the overall balance to the game should hopefully shift a bit back from hyper offense and towards builds more balanced between offense and defense.

[Marcvs]

35 minutes ago, Sception said:

1. Determine Priority, a dice off with the player who didn't have priority last turn winning ties.  On the first turn the player who finished deploying first chooses who has priority, but battalions are deployed one unit at a time, not all at once, so no more 'one drops'.
2. Start of Turn Effects - Priority Player goes first
3. Hero Phase - priority player first
4. Magic Phase (spellcasting is involved enough to handle separately from command abilities & such) - Priority Player goes first
5. Shooting Phase - Priority Player goes first
6. Movement Phase - Priority Player goes First
7. Charge Phase - Priority Player goes first
8. Combat Phase - Alternating Activations with Priority Player going first
9. Battleshock - Priority Player Goes First
10. End of Turn effects - Priority Player Goes First

One thing to keep in mind, based on my experience with alternating activation (so, purely anecdotal and personal, no knowledge of game design) in ASOIAF is that this makes cheap throwaway units sitting on the back of the board EXTREMELY useful, as having more activations than the enemy allows you to see their movements and react to them, as well as force them to charge first (if they want to) and get counter-charged in exchange afterwards. Sure, you give away the choice of priority in the first turn, but with alternating activation the impact of that is arguably lower. From the shooting meta to the aetherwings meta!

Edited April 2, 2021 by Marcvs

[Sception]

23 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

One thing to keep in mind, based on my experience with alternating activation (so, purely anecdotal and personal, no knowledge of game design) in ASOIAF is that this makes cheap throwaway units sitting on the back of the board EXTREMELY useful, as having more activations than the enemy allows you to see their movements and react to them, as well as force them to charge first (if they want to) and get counter-charged in exchange afterwards. Sure, you give away the choice of priority in the first turn, but with alternating activation the impact of that is arguably lower. From the shooting meta to the aetherwings meta!

I wasn't as clear as I should have been, but my sample suggested turn order only has alternating activations on an individual unit level in the combat phase, the way it currently is.  In other phases the priority player does all their stuff first.  Ie, the priority player shoots with all of their units, then the other player shoots with all of theirs.  Then the priority player moves all of their units, then the other player moves all of theirs, etc.

This can still result in a fair bit of standing around, say when dealing with a player making precision movements with a hoardy army, but nowhere near as bad as it currently is.

you could do alternating individual unit activations in the other phases, and introduce an Armada-esque skip system to mitigate the advantage of just having more units, but keeping track of which units have or have not activated in every phase could get to be a bit of a hassle.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Sception

[Beliman]

20 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

One thing to keep in mind, based on my experience with alternating activation (so, purely anecdotal and personal, no knowledge of game design) in ASOIAF is that this makes cheap throwaway units sitting on the back of the board EXTREMELY useful, as having more activations than the enemy allows you to see their movements and react to them, as well as force them to charge first (if they want to) and get counter-charged in exchange afterwards. Sure, you give away the choice of priority in the first turn, but with alternating activation the impact of that is arguably lower. From the shooting meta to the aetherwings meta!

Malifaux 2Edition had the same problem. In 3rd edition, they went with "Pass Tokens" mechanic:

1. At the begining of the round, the player that has less units recieve X "Pass Tokens" as the diference in units between both players.
2. Instead of activating a unit, you can discard a "Pass Token".
3. At the end of the round, you add +1 to your initial roll for initiative of the next round for every Pass Token that was not discard.
4. Discard all Pass Tokens and return to Point 1.

A lot of tactical options to play around with just that mechanic.

[leadfoot352]

Firstly, a revamp to the protection characters have against being targeted by shooting attacks. It's an easy fix: "Look out sir!: Missile weapon attacks targeting models with the hero keyword, and that lack the monster keyword, automatically miss if the hero is within 3 inches of a unit with 5 or more models." The reason I have it function like this is that it still allows players to use abilities that don't use the attack sequence or that happen in the shooting phase but are not shooting attacks to still target heroes. This raises the power of those effects, and lends them a unique niche.

Secondly, a revamp to all scenarios. This change is also very simple. Scoring always happens at the end of the battle round. Double turn remains, and still is a very important part of the game. But if you take it, you need to consider where you're going to be not just at the end of your turn, but also at the end of your opponent's turn. This makes the double more about trying to blunt your opponent, and to zone their movement, rather than simply trying to table them.

Thirdly, a revamp to terrain. Keep it simple, a handful of abilities, printed on the warscroll for the terrain. Make a small number of warscrolls for "unusual terrain" and put them online, akin to what is in the current hard cover rulebook. Most terrain blocks LoS. Drastically reduce the power of true line of sight, while keeping it in place. Basically anything other than an obstacle should block LoS. The rewrite needs simply be added to the attack sequence. "Determine Range and Line of Sight to the target: Measure the weapons range between the attacking model and the target model, then determine if the model can see the target, by taking an eye level view of the model. If the shortest possible line between the attacking model and the target model is within range, you may attack. If this line passes over any scenery features, the targeted model has the benefit of Cover." Then you add a little fly out box that says "Cover: A model with cover adds +1 to its saving throws, unless it charged this turn." This makes cover much easier to get, and makes playing around terrain much more valuable.

Fourth, a revamp to list building and battlefield roles. As it stands, army writing is very easy, and I'd like to keep that. That said, the game would benefit from adding in a few more limiters on certain unit types. I'd like to see a 0 limit on "Unique" models at 2000 points, and then a 0-2 at 2500. This will encourage players to play larger games, which GW always wants, and it will push several of the more abusive models out of the tournament meta. I would also like to see many heroes lose their "leader" battlefield role. Any model that lacks a command ability, or isn't a military commander in their lore should lose the "leader" battlefield role. A player should be required to bring a general who is a general, not who is a support piece. I would also like to see a rotating "restricted" unit type for matched play. This would have a limit of 0-1 or 0-2 in a 2000 point game, and would rotate each year. This doesn't overwrite their other battlefield roles, but it would allow problem units to be restricted every GHB. Suddenly every problem unit that is spammed will be solvable without needing to have their points skyrocket or needing a new warscroll.

Fifth, a revamp to monsters. 40k does large models much more justice by having the brackets on a monster not start until far later in their wounds. This would require an entire rewrite of every monster warscroll, which I know won't happen, but I'd like a new design philosophy going forward of "every new monster printed doesn't bracket until half," along with "no monster loses movement as it brackets."

Sixth, a revamp to Battleshock. Battleshock is largely ignored in AoS. So many models simply ignore it, and other units are simply so small in size it never matters to them. Change Battleshock to not be part of Bravery any longer, but a totally separate mechanic. "Battleshock: At the start of the Battleshock phase, roll a dice for every unit that was allocated wounds which were not negated this turn. Add one to the roll for every 5 wounds allocated and not negated after the initial. If the result is a 6, the unit is suffering from Battleshock. While a unit suffers from Battleshock it has -1 to hit, wound, save, run, charge, casting, unbinding, and dispelling rolls the unit makes until the end of the next Battleshock phase." This is a very simple mechanic, that is worded to more represent a unit suffering steady loses and penalties but keeping fighting. You no longer see your fearless stormcast flee the fight because they're not brave, but instead they're nursing their wounds, and fighting at lower efficiency because they're injured. This also allows Battleshock to apply to heroes. Every ability that currently reduces bravery will instead add X to the roll on the Battleshock test, changed via an errata.

Seventh, a revamp to unit cohesion. With my above proposed idea, Bravery suddenly doesn't have a role. My concept will change Bravery to instead of being based on how likely you are to flee from a fight, it's instead how stoically you will face a tide of foes alone. Change the section on unit coherency to read "At the end of any move, all models in the unit must be within a number of inches of all other models in the unit equal to that unit's Bravery characteristic. Any models that are unable to be placed in this manor are slain, as they flee the battle for safer havens." This change is simple, it forces units to be clumped together, and limited stringing units to screen the entire board, making things more cinematic. A unit will still add bravery for being in a larger unit, meaning that your blocks of goblins will still be able to remain within range of each other, and this bonus will probably be increased to +1 per 5 instead of +1 per 10, but that would require further testing.

Finally, a revamp to objective control. All scenarios should change objective control from "within" to "wholly within," and a "model" no longer controls an objective, but a "unit" does. So a hero or monster by themselves can control an objective, but if a unit wants to, the entire unit must be wholly within range of the objective. Also, rework determining control to be the number of wounds remaining, instead of the number of models. A unit of 10 unwounded chaos warriors would count as 20 wounds for control. 20 goblins would also count as 20. An unwounded Gothizzar harvester would count as 10. Etc.

Those are my thoughts for 3.0. I think any one of these changes would benefit the game, and all of them together would make for a very fun experience.

[stratigo]

On 3/27/2021 at 1:14 AM, Sleboda said:

Not picking on you, Aaron, but this is as good a quote as any to use for my question.

I'd love to know what people think needs to be changed in the terrain rules that would not be solved by people just using better actual terrain. From my games, it's my view that the rules are fine - but we play with stuff of a good size, appropriate for these heroically scaled models.

Even the original 4-pager had sufficient rules* to cover things if you just used nice terrain and applied all the rules.

 

*I'm aware they didn't really call out the rules as a guide for terrain, but what you needed was there.

Do what 40k did, all terrain of a certain size blocks all LoS unless the unit being targeted is arbitrarily large (X number of wounds. Does not allow the larger unit to target back through terrain)

 

On 3/27/2021 at 2:00 AM, Mutton said:

In light (haha) of the new Lumineth, I want to reiterate my desire for a cap on -1 hit/wound debuffs in the game.  Debuff stacking is huge NPE.

 

Yes. Again, like 40k

 

On 3/31/2021 at 7:38 AM, Mcthew said:

I've chimed in with a few things I want for AoS 3.0, but now for what I don't want, because we know GW does read this forum.

I reckon some of you out there have heard about what happened with the recent Kill Team release (re boxed old kit, with reduced contents but prices whacked up by 20% to name just one thing).

Since the new 40k edition there appears to be a steep price rise = less content that might make any AoS 3.0 release a costly affair. I would love there to be an AoS 3.0 Soulwars box*, but I wouldn't be prepared to pay £120 for it, particularly if it had less models than Soulwars. At the moment GW pricing is all over the place so I look at AoS 3.0 with measure of scepticism.

This isn't a post to set hares running, but I'm gonna be pretty cautious about any AoS 3.0 release, and the new Cursed City release will be a bench mark (52 minis and lots of other goodness, but leaked prices show a massive jump).

*Although pretty stoked to see what the Ruination chamber is gonna look like. Grim-darker stormcast anyone?

GW doubled the price of the new vanari blademasters compared to wardens and sentinels. The models are no larger nor more detailed, but are half the model size for the price. 

 

GW is hitting all their games with dramatic price hikes.

 

On 4/1/2021 at 4:07 PM, Vasshpit said:

@SeanMaguire1991

Ive heard many times that LotR has a pretty phenomenal rule set. Has anyone ever tried to apply it to AoS as an experiment?

I'd be very interested to hear how it worked out. 

The issue is that LotR is a model by model game and not a unit by unit game that relies heavily on the ability to manipulate priorities through hero resources. It's take a lot of patching to push that into AoS. LotR as a system doesn't work half as well without the might point and hero focus of the system, which isn't an easy graft.

 

I'd actually adapt apocalypse's rules to AoS (and 40k) with both alternating activations, unit actions (move and shoot. Move and fight. Move and Move. etc, depending on activations) and removing casualties in the end phase of a turn. I did do this quite well for 40k, but the juggernaut that is official rules eventually killed the effort.

 

 

[EMMachine]

20 hours ago, leadfoot352 said:

Firstly, a revamp to the protection characters have against being targeted by shooting attacks. It's an easy fix: "Look out sir!: Missile weapon attacks targeting models with the hero keyword, and that lack the monster keyword, automatically miss if the hero is within 3 inches of a unit with 5 or more models." The reason I have it function like this is that it still allows players to use abilities that don't use the attack sequence or that happen in the shooting phase but are not shooting attacks to still target heroes. This raises the power of those effects, and lends them a unique niche.

It is far to easy to create loopholes with those "heroes cant be attacked when unit is nearby rules".

In your writing the unit doesn't even have to be visible, so the hero (blue) standing in the open would be simply immun to damage because a unit (green) is hiding behind a wall + it created conflicts between Attack that automaticly hit (so automaticly hit attacks would still hit because of the ruling that the active player gets preference in ruling).

Edit:

The simplest solution would be that you can't target heroes if you have to draw a line through another unit. That way you would have to screen and not can simply cheat like with the picture above.

Edited April 3, 2021 by EMMachine

[leadfoot352]

1 hour ago, EMMachine said:

In your writing the unit doesn't even have to be visible, so the hero (blue) standing in the open would be simply immun to damage because a unit (green) is hiding behind a wall + it created conflicts between Attack that automaticly hit (so automaticly hit attacks would still hit because of the ruling that the active player gets preference in ruling)

Both of those interactions are entirely intended, and part of why I phrased the rule as I did.

The model being visible but not the unit is to protect players from a situation where in a player is able to move either his own units, endless spells, or possibly even terrain in such a way that your hero is no the only visible model, and then he shoots the hero. I did this because I recall reading about a game of 40k in which a player used a pair of rhino transports to block the los for his models to make the only thing visible a hero through the thing space between them.

 I intend for the power of attacks that either hot automatically or that do not use an attack sequence to be pushed by this change, and to give them a niche in the game as a counter to powerful support heroes. Many of these abilities that don't roll to hit currently require a large unit size to be effective, and I would like to see some of them revamped to be a hero killer, while others are not.

Thank you, however, for your feedback and the opportunity to discuss my theory more. It's there anything else in the post you'd like to discuss?

[Sception]

Another thing d like to see is standardized subfactions, including generic subfactions so army specific subfactions have something to replace.  That way they won't have to pin down your artefact and ca as a cost which leads to boring list construction.

As an example implementation, each army chooses an 'allegiance' and an 'origin'.  both allegiance and origin will include special rules that apply to the army, and may include artefacts, command traits, and spell lores that your army's characters may choose from.  The default allgiances are the four grand alliances - Order, Chaos, Destruction, & Death, & these would be expanded with, at the very least, their own spell lores.  The default origins would be the 8 mortal realms, the same way you choose a home realm now, but they'd be expanded with a minor army special rule, spell lores (which maybe get a bonus to cast if the game is set in the matching realm), a choice of a few artefacts, & command trait, all part of the free core rules.

Specific faction rules would replace the generic grand alliance allegiances, while subfaction rules would replace the generic home realm origins.  Then everything comes with a trade off built in, and you don't need to pin down the few options players get to customize their heroes.  Plus, with spell lores, artefacts, & subfaction rules, generic armies, while still likely at a disadvantage, are at least playing on slightly closer to even ground with battletome armies, which makes it easier to onboard new players and to run narrative games involving factions working together that cannot nirmally be allies, eg the obr and nighthaunt forces in Wrath of the Everchosen.

[Phasteon]

On 4/2/2021 at 9:09 PM, leadfoot352 said:

Firstly, a revamp to the protection characters have against being targeted by shooting attacks. It's an easy fix: "Look out sir!: Missile weapon attacks targeting models with the hero keyword, and that lack the monster keyword, automatically miss if the hero is within 3 inches of a unit with 5 or more models." The reason I have it function like this is that it still allows players to use abilities that don't use the attack sequence or that happen in the shooting phase but are not shooting attacks to still target heroes. This raises the power of those effects, and lends them a unique niche.

Secondly, a revamp to all scenarios. This change is also very simple. Scoring always happens at the end of the battle round. Double turn remains, and still is a very important part of the game. But if you take it, you need to consider where you're going to be not just at the end of your turn, but also at the end of your opponent's turn. This makes the double more about trying to blunt your opponent, and to zone their movement, rather than simply trying to table them.

Thirdly, a revamp to terrain. Keep it simple, a handful of abilities, printed on the warscroll for the terrain. Make a small number of warscrolls for "unusual terrain" and put them online, akin to what is in the current hard cover rulebook. Most terrain blocks LoS. Drastically reduce the power of true line of sight, while keeping it in place. Basically anything other than an obstacle should block LoS. The rewrite needs simply be added to the attack sequence. "Determine Range and Line of Sight to the target: Measure the weapons range between the attacking model and the target model, then determine if the model can see the target, by taking an eye level view of the model. If the shortest possible line between the attacking model and the target model is within range, you may attack. If this line passes over any scenery features, the targeted model has the benefit of Cover." Then you add a little fly out box that says "Cover: A model with cover adds +1 to its saving throws, unless it charged this turn." This makes cover much easier to get, and makes playing around terrain much more valuable.

Fourth, a revamp to list building and battlefield roles. As it stands, army writing is very easy, and I'd like to keep that. That said, the game would benefit from adding in a few more limiters on certain unit types. I'd like to see a 0 limit on "Unique" models at 2000 points, and then a 0-2 at 2500. This will encourage players to play larger games, which GW always wants, and it will push several of the more abusive models out of the tournament meta. I would also like to see many heroes lose their "leader" battlefield role. Any model that lacks a command ability, or isn't a military commander in their lore should lose the "leader" battlefield role. A player should be required to bring a general who is a general, not who is a support piece. I would also like to see a rotating "restricted" unit type for matched play. This would have a limit of 0-1 or 0-2 in a 2000 point game, and would rotate each year. This doesn't overwrite their other battlefield roles, but it would allow problem units to be restricted every GHB. Suddenly every problem unit that is spammed will be solvable without needing to have their points skyrocket or needing a new warscroll.

Fifth, a revamp to monsters. 40k does large models much more justice by having the brackets on a monster not start until far later in their wounds. This would require an entire rewrite of every monster warscroll, which I know won't happen, but I'd like a new design philosophy going forward of "every new monster printed doesn't bracket until half," along with "no monster loses movement as it brackets."

Sixth, a revamp to Battleshock. Battleshock is largely ignored in AoS. So many models simply ignore it, and other units are simply so small in size it never matters to them. Change Battleshock to not be part of Bravery any longer, but a totally separate mechanic. "Battleshock: At the start of the Battleshock phase, roll a dice for every unit that was allocated wounds which were not negated this turn. Add one to the roll for every 5 wounds allocated and not negated after the initial. If the result is a 6, the unit is suffering from Battleshock. While a unit suffers from Battleshock it has -1 to hit, wound, save, run, charge, casting, unbinding, and dispelling rolls the unit makes until the end of the next Battleshock phase." This is a very simple mechanic, that is worded to more represent a unit suffering steady loses and penalties but keeping fighting. You no longer see your fearless stormcast flee the fight because they're not brave, but instead they're nursing their wounds, and fighting at lower efficiency because they're injured. This also allows Battleshock to apply to heroes. Every ability that currently reduces bravery will instead add X to the roll on the Battleshock test, changed via an errata.

Seventh, a revamp to unit cohesion. With my above proposed idea, Bravery suddenly doesn't have a role. My concept will change Bravery to instead of being based on how likely you are to flee from a fight, it's instead how stoically you will face a tide of foes alone. Change the section on unit coherency to read "At the end of any move, all models in the unit must be within a number of inches of all other models in the unit equal to that unit's Bravery characteristic. Any models that are unable to be placed in this manor are slain, as they flee the battle for safer havens." This change is simple, it forces units to be clumped together, and limited stringing units to screen the entire board, making things more cinematic. A unit will still add bravery for being in a larger unit, meaning that your blocks of goblins will still be able to remain within range of each other, and this bonus will probably be increased to +1 per 5 instead of +1 per 10, but that would require further testing.

Finally, a revamp to objective control. All scenarios should change objective control from "within" to "wholly within," and a "model" no longer controls an objective, but a "unit" does. So a hero or monster by themselves can control an objective, but if a unit wants to, the entire unit must be wholly within range of the objective. Also, rework determining control to be the number of wounds remaining, instead of the number of models. A unit of 10 unwounded chaos warriors would count as 20 wounds for control. 20 goblins would also count as 20. An unwounded Gothizzar harvester would count as 10. Etc.

Those are my thoughts for 3.0. I think any one of these changes would benefit the game, and all of them together would make for a very fun experience.

edit: nvm i misread it

I dont know about that though, I like the rules as they are - they just need to fix battleshock immunity across the board and basically LRL sentinels MW hero sniping - in other cases look out sir works out. 

Scoring is also pretty much fine for the most part. 

Infantry should maybe go up in points to make cavalry/ monsters more relevant but i dont think we need a complete rules overhaul. 

Except „ignore battleshock“ its fine if a single army like OBR got this as a shtick but grots that are immune because their brave commander tells them? nonono!

Edited April 7, 2021 by Phasteon

[leadfoot352]

2 minutes ago, Phasteon said:

So if I have 10 Mortek Guards (bravery 10) and you kill 1 my unit is gone? 

Sounds fun! 

Edit: actually they would be instantly gone - your rule basically says „the braver your unit, the more likely its gone

I'm very confused as to how you came to this conclusion. My battle shock system doesn't use bravery and doesn't remove models.

My cohesion system allows units with more bravery to be further spread out from each other, and if they are unable to be placed within that space they are lost, but this happens at the end of any given movent. This means that for you to lose models you would need to be further spread out than 10 inches, and then move, and then still be further spread. 

Please elaborate on how you came to your conclusion, because it's literally not how the rule interacts.

[Phasteon]

1 minute ago, leadfoot352 said:

I'm very confused as to how you came to this conclusion. My battle shock system doesn't use bravery and doesn't remove models.

My cohesion system allows units with more bravery to be further spread out from each other, and if they are unable to be placed within that space they are lost, but this happens at the end of any given movent. This means that for you to lose models you would need to be further spread out than 10 inches, and then move, and then still be further spread. 

Please elaborate on how you came to your conclusion, because it's literally not how the rule interacts.

i already clarified. 

strange ruling though that does not sound very fun (or even remotely impactful) to me. 

[leadfoot352]

1 minute ago, Phasteon said:

i already clarified. 

strange ruling though that does not sound very fun (or even remotely impactful) to me. 

I see the updated post now. Thank you for the feedback. It's there anything you specifically don't like, rather than them just not being impactful? What about the change do you specifically not like? I am working on a homebrew mod for aos that includes a lot of this stuff, and so I'd love concrete feedback!

[Phasteon]

4 minutes ago, leadfoot352 said:

I see the updated post now. Thank you for the feedback. It's there anything you specifically don't like, rather than them just not being impactful? What about the change do you specifically not like? I am working on a homebrew mod for aos that includes a lot of this stuff, and so I'd love concrete feedback!

Sure, 

It sounds like a lot of „keeping track of“ rather than just removing models.

If I kill 20 grots i want the other 20 to run not just cower in fear or sth. 

Infantry is the best unit type at the moment because they have the most wounds/ bodycount / attacks / buffs impact them the most too - their main drawback - battleshock- can be offset by spending 1 CP or often just being within range X of sth. 

This needs to change. 

Your battleshock would still not remove those 60 grots from my objective but make them fight worse (huzzaa!!) 

Also the spread out rule seems like a good idea at first glance but only really relevant on larger units of 30+ models and I dont know how practical those rules were on them. 

Its not that I dislike your idea in general, I just dont think it tackles one of the main balance issues the game has enough. 

We dont have a „units spread out too much“ problem (which is kinda fixed by that wholly within buff thing) , we have a infantry never runs if played correctly problem. 

 

[leadfoot352]

2 minutes ago, Phasteon said:

 We dont have a „units spread out too much“ problem (which is kinda fixed by that wholly within buff thing) , we have a infantry never runs if played correctly problem. 

 

I would disagree on this point. I think units spreading out to screen units and block lanes is a running problem in AoS, and part of my system here is targeted at limiting the power of the cloud of goblins ability to be on the objective or doing anything at all. Because of their low bravery and high unit count, they would need to be largely base to base, stopping them from zoning an objective. This combined with my proposed changes to objective control means that for those 60 goblins to hold the objective, all of their models must be wholly within 6 of said objective.

 

That said, I value your feedback, and I'll add playtest notes to see how it interacts with really large armies, say 200+ models on the table, and I'll iterate as needed. Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate you friend!

[dmorley21]

Been a while since anyone added to this thread, so maybe the time has passed to think about what we wish for AoS 3.0. 

However, the recent updates for Nighthaunt provide two different ways to take a named character as a general, but to still have a second character also count as the general. 

I think it would be a cool mechanic if it was the norm in armies - you can take a non-named general and a named character that also counts as a general. This fits lore-wise while also allowing you to have command traits on your non-named characters. I've just really enjoyed the idea of the mechanic with Nighthaunt, and wanted to mention it. It could even be one of the rumored new generic battalions. 

[Kadeton]

6 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

I think it would be a cool mechanic if it was the norm in armies - you can take a non-named general and a named character that also counts as a general. This fits lore-wise while also allowing you to have command traits on your non-named characters.

Definitely agree that this should be how it works by default - if your general is a unique character, you get a Command Trait for one of your other non-unique characters. Just as a straight-up core rule, no special rules required.

Also make it mandatory that Supreme Leader-type characters have to be the general. No more of this nonsense where Nagash is personally attending the battle but just chillin' along for the ride rather than taking command.

[Rollcage]

Removal of Battle line as mandatory unit choices.

Replace with Behemoth(2+) for mandatory unit choices.  Ensure all armies have access to Behemoth choices.  Go over objective rules to ensure behemoths are now the mainstay of armies instead of blobs of infantry.

Removal of textbook spell lores from the game. Replace with Endless spells only, with removal of points costs for endless spells. Remove ability for opponents to move your endless spells, Your choice or random directions instead of enemy directed. 

Theses are a few changes I'd make to the game to make it interesting to play. The fantasy style infantry/archer/cavalry dynamic is dead and will never come back in AoS with skirmish formations. Most suggestions just try to shoe horn 40k ruleset onto AoS, but why compete against your own products. My suggestion is to focus on Age of Sigmars strengths, which is the Gods and Titans aspect with foot soldiers being stuck in between these great powerful beings, it feeds into some of the Greek Mythology vibe, so make behemoths mandatory instead of foot soldiers, Not only is the game easier to play with behemoths it's far more enjoyable in my opinion. The Endless spells are also a unique aspect of AoS that aren't being utilized as heavily as they should be, in a skirmish game the ability for a model spell on the field to affect multiple units is unique and interesting, the Fantasy style Buff/Debuff magic system is atrociously bad and just stacks more power onto large awful infantry blobs with stacked buffs/debuff gameplay. 

 

Anyways none of this will happen, but you did make a thread asking.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

14 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

Been a while since anyone added to this thread, so maybe the time has passed to think about what we wish for AoS 3.0. 

However, the recent updates for Nighthaunt provide two different ways to take a named character as a general, but to still have a second character also count as the general. 

I think it would be a cool mechanic if it was the norm in armies - you can take a non-named general and a named character that also counts as a general. This fits lore-wise while also allowing you to have command traits on your non-named characters. I've just really enjoyed the idea of the mechanic with Nighthaunt, and wanted to mention it. It could even be one of the rumored new generic battalions. 

I agree, it would be nice if having named characters as generals was not an overall downside. This was such a ridiculous situation in Legions of Nagash (hopefully not anymore in Gravelords now), where you would actively try to avoid running a Mortarch in their own legions, because if you did they would have to be the general and you would lose out on the good command traits and artefacts LoN had to offer.

Come to think of it, being the general has few mechanical consquences in most armies. Easily the biggest is getting a command trait, but even those are not all that important to a lot of factions. I think it would be nice if the role of the general was rethought for AoS 3. Now that they are not your only source of command abilities (which is even more true in AoS 3 if the rumours are true, with unit champions now able to use them as well), they really serve very few generic functions.

[NinthMusketeer]

I really hope the limitation on debuff stacking does not come true. A limit of -1 is just lame and leads to all sort of stupid situations like where a unit has run, is shooting through obscuring cover at a unit with it's own penalty ability and... -1! In practice it serves to remove the effect of abilities from the game and make shooting in particular super reliable because deploying a counter is essentially saying that shooter has free reign to stack on as many penalties as they like with no consequence. AoS has the added problem that there are a large number of units with abilities already offering +/- 2 in a single ability. Additionally, stacking penalties is generally difficult to do and requires a large enough investment to be fair. Certainly it is less of a problem than stacking saves or simple MW spam.

A cap of -2 I could get behind as a decent compromise though.

Edited May 5, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[Beliman]

We need to take in consideration that, maybe, AoS 3.0 battletomes are not going to have the same design direction of 2.0 battletomes. I know, we are going to have 3 to 6 months with an small amount of 3.0 battletomes and that will have a big impact on the table, but that's what happens every edition.

Some armies will still be strong (and they will abuse rules that are not made for 3.0) until they are updated, but a lot of the old ones are going to lose their purpose (they will change how they play and just move on with things that just work on 3.0).

I hope to see an improvement for all 3.0 battletomes (at least I love how 40k ones are designed in the new edition, and I'm not talking about power-creep), but let's be honest, the first months are going to be crazy for everybody.

[Bluesummers]

A couple of things so i can return to the game after stop playing when 2nd edition released:

-Dounle turn gone! Double turn is an interesting mechanic that doesn't work with most of the armies or requires strict list builidng. In order for the double turn to work armies must be designed around that rule and have viable unit choices that help defend against it. Thats not the case and it won't ever be so there will be cringe games forever. Also is so anti-player waiting for your opponent to play 2 consecutive turns doing almost nothing. It kills the fun and nobody will miss it, instead many players would come back into the hobby.

-Free summnoning gone! When 2nd released they said that free summoning was implemented as an overall point increase in each army using it. Again this is not the case and ended be such a ridiculous experience. I guess they wanted to sell more models...

-Design armies and miniatures with rules in mind and not the other way around, so all armies are well balanced and have plenty of choices. This info i got from an interview i have watched and if i remember correctly (correct me if i am wrong) they mentioned that first they deisgn the miniatures and then they try writing the rules for them.

-Battalions gone! Poor choice of battalions for most armies intestifies unbalance and adds to the double turn problem. Let players roll for 1st turn maybe with a bonus for the player finishing deploy first. Also battalions lock you on what kind of units you can field. I guess here is another marketing choice with certain battalions forcing you to field a couple of uninteresting weak units that wouldn't sell otherwise...

-Battletomes gone! Welcome to the modern age. Free rules online that can be updated on the fly. Also instead of point adjustments start fixing some useless or problematic warscrolls (you did it we KO and thunderers). Points don't solve useless rules becauses they can be reduced or increased up to a point. Free rules help new (and existing) players see can an army can do before buying. Keep books for lore, narrative and campaigns.