How does everyone feel about the new AoS 3.0 release?

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

This was brought up by Mcthew in the Cursed City thread. As suggested, I am curious about how people feel about Age of Sigmar 3rd Edition.

 

Me, I'm a bit torn. I came into AoS about halfway through 2nd (just before the S2D Battletome).  It was a very rough start for me, but AoS is just edging out 40k now for me even as I am more of a fan of Sci-Fi (or whatever 40k is) than fantasy. In addition, with the pandemic I pretty much loss a year of gaming.  I am just now starting to get games in.  So in many ways, I feel that Age of Sigmar could have waited another year before dropping a new edition on us.  Which would also help on GW getting their stock to better than constantly depleted levels as well.

At the same time, even with limited experience with the game I have seen (more been shown) that rules have some issues. I like the double turn as an idea to keep the game unpredictable.  I also know being the victim of the double turn isn't necessarily an auto-loss either. The game I played had me suffer through a double turn (vs. DoT no less), and I still managed to squeak out a win with my Warriors/Knights heavy S2D.  In fact, all game long I felt as I was getting the short end of the stick when it came to initiative.  However, I also know that not many factions have the depth of unit options Slaves to Darkness to have options to provide resistance to suffering a double turn.  Nor do I like that there is rare a decision point on whether to take or not take the double turn when it is presented.  All of which makes it easy to see why this mechanic is the most polarizing of AoS.

It is things like the double turn, shooting even Lookout, Sir! that could all use some tightening up (though I suspect with GW it will be more of shuffling deck chairs) along with a host of other rules interacts that have been exposed in 2nd edition's life cycle.  There is certainly an argument that these issue could be addressed without a whole new edition. I supose it depends on how much alterations GW feels the game should have.

Ultimately, I am curious and cautiously optimistic on AoS 3rd edition. I don't really think it was necessary this year and probably would have preferred it coming out next year, but that may be my late introduction to the game.

[SunStorm]

Pretty hyped myself.

From a hobby / lore perspective i'm excited to see where they go with potential more a gritty, realistic style that we've seen so far of the newer units. 

As a greenskin i'm super hyped for the new boyz.

 

 

[Vasshpit]

+1 to hyped. 

•Destro playing a bigger role. 

• Rumors of changes suggest a move to more strategic gameplay.

•New destro army/faction/addon. (Still up in the air)

•The move to a more gritty and realistic look (so far)

Just a few reasons. 👍😀

[Baron Klatz]

Definitely hyped. With the rules previewed so far of Double turns + streamlining and more elite focus where-as hordes are reduced AoS3 feels a lot more like AoS1 2.0 along with some exceptionally bulky thunder god Stormcasts and badass angels leading the way again instead of Ghostbusters with crossbows.

It going more high fantastical again after so long is welcomed too. 2.0 was the grim Realm of Death but now we're going back to Ghur like Realmgate Wars with the crazy monster lands that we can now more visually see trying to eat eachother on the map alongside the God-king showing why this is His age by throwing down those insane golden forts into lands that look like they're from the Age of Chaos again.

"the Soul Wars are over, the curse of the Necroquake is broken, and waves of life magic are sweeping across the realms.

The narrative of the new edition sees the forces of Order pushing out across the Mortal Realms to finally reclaim land lost since the Age of Chaos, establishing outpost cities and growing Sigmar’s realm"

If AoS1 and the Realmgate Wars were a crusade by the Stormcast then we're entering the Reconquest by the celestial realm and a new Age of Hope which I'm all for the ride from the living/hungry mountains of Ghur to the void seas of Aqshy and all the gods battling over them!

Edit:Also hyped for devil-tailed Shadowkin and Pachyderm river Lumineth mentioned in the White Dwarf materials. Elephant hats let's go!

Edited May 25, 2021 by Baron Klatz

[Neverchosen]

I think that edition updates are a rather arbitrary thing for many game systems and AOS 2.0 had reached a decent equilibrium. However, it is still such a new game that and there are still some serious problems to be worked out. I read over the new 40k rules on a lengthy train ride and I really liked what I saw and I am excited to see if AOS will get the same degree of improvements. I do think that everything we have heard about 3.0 so far, sounds like an improvement and so I am really looking forward to it. Lorewise I am much more interested in the upcoming setting and Broken Realms has shown a willingness to take greater risks with the narrative than I was expecting for such an event. So yes I am hyped for the release and I am even more excited for the upcoming models. 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Neverchosen

[EccentricCircle]

I'm a bit torn. I've not played AoS in two years now. I was already struggling to get a game before the pandemic, and well... 2020 happened. My gaming group are all obsessed with 40K, and while they are happy to play Warcry now and then, no one wants to put together a large AoS army. I can't say that I blame them really, those things are expensive. I didn't like playing against strangers before the pandemic, since I'm partially sighted, and even though people are usually nice about that, it gets tiresome trying to explain it at the start of any and all pick up games.

So by any reasonable metric, I should be done with AoS right?

I'm unlikely to need to learn 3e, even if I did want to, and as far as new models go, I'm at a point where I pretty much have what I want for the extant armies that I'm interested in. I've got no shortage of stuff to build and paint (don't we all?)

The problem is that I'm kind of getting really invested in the Lore and setting. I've been listening to Black Library audio books a lot. I've really enjoyed reading Broken Realms, I'm keen to pick up the next few RPG books, and genuinely want to know what's next for the mortal realms.

So I simultaneously want to take a break from the hobby (or at least the hype train), and not worry about what GW is doing for a bit. But at the same time I'm keen to see what the future holds for a setting which i've come to really quite like. So will I be content to just stick to the novels, and not want to rush out and get the new army books when they inevitably come? I don't know. I shouldn't really be able to justify getting them just for the meagre lore snippets, but I suspect I might.

I don't need any more models, but if I keep paying attention to the game, then I'm going to be tempted. So I kind of wish they'd just slow down a bit I guess.

So as far as the rules are concerned, it feels far to soon. I'd be happy for them to just stick with 2e for a while. It presently has a wide range of stuff, every faction has a book, and I feel like they have plenty of potential to keep going with campaign books and new/updated factions, rather than having to do a hard reset and start the whole codex cycle anew. I'd be happy for them to just slow down a bit, and update some of the older stuff that everyone really wants updated.
#FirstRealmProblems

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

I'm in wait-and-see mode. I think the biggest issues with the game are not entirely intrinsinc to the rules, but to battletomes. There's definitely stuff that could be better in the core rules (like the ease of sniping heroes once you reach a certain critical mass of shooting attacks/models), but I think the worst offenses are often either things that don't really appear in the core rules (like activation war-style effects), or armies that have too many powerful, NPE-causing effects at once without real downsides (Seraphon come to mind). So an edition change is only going to fix the worst problems in the game inasmuch as it gives a reason to replace problematic battletomes.

That being said, I have been a huge fan of the changes made in 9th edition 40k and the new baseline established for codices there, so I am hopeful--especially if we can expect to see more battletomes like Soulblight's (or at least, like my initial impressions of Soulblight--it's a little early still to make that call for sure). What I want for the game is a little tighter design on what we already have, basically, and I am cautiously optimistic we will get it. Still, too early to say whether I am am happy or not about an edition that isn't even out yet.

[Televiper11]

I’d have liked another year or 2.0 given the pandemic shutdown’s effect on in person play: two of my armies got new Tomes recently (Seraphon & Soulblight) that I haven’t even gotten to try yet. I think in the rush to get every army a tome, they could’ve let the Meta settle and breathe a little before rushing into 3.0 — that said there are fixes needed and I hope 3.0 makes the game better, rather than worse.

[zilberfrid]

Not hopeful. Lumineth would be the first army book that knew about 3.0, and it's full of things I don't like.

Edited May 25, 2021 by zilberfrid

[Neverchosen]

7 hours ago, EccentricCircle said:

I'm a bit torn. I've not played AoS in two years now. I was already struggling to get a game before the pandemic, and well... 2020 happened. My gaming group are all obsessed with 40K, and while they are happy to play Warcry now and then, no one wants to put together a large AoS army. I can't say that I blame them really, those things are expensive. I didn't like playing against strangers before the pandemic, since I'm partially sighted, and even though people are usually nice about that, it gets tiresome trying to explain it at the start of any and all pick up games.

So by any reasonable metric, I should be done with AoS right?

I'm unlikely to need to learn 3e, even if I did want to, and as far as new models go, I'm at a point where I pretty much have what I want for the extant armies that I'm interested in. I've got no shortage of stuff to build and paint (don't we all?)

The problem is that I'm kind of getting really invested in the Lore and setting. I've been listening to Black Library audio books a lot. I've really enjoyed reading Broken Realms, I'm keen to pick up the next few RPG books, and genuinely want to know what's next for the mortal realms.

So I simultaneously want to take a break from the hobby (or at least the hype train), and not worry about what GW is doing for a bit. But at the same time I'm keen to see what the future holds for a setting which i've come to really quite like. So will I be content to just stick to the novels, and not want to rush out and get the new army books when they inevitably come? I don't know. I shouldn't really be able to justify getting them just for the meagre lore snippets, but I suspect I might.

I don't need any more models, but if I keep paying attention to the game, then I'm going to be tempted. So I kind of wish they'd just slow down a bit I guess.

So as far as the rules are concerned, it feels far to soon. I'd be happy for them to just stick with 2e for a while. It presently has a wide range of stuff, every faction has a book, and I feel like they have plenty of potential to keep going with campaign books and new/updated factions, rather than having to do a hard reset and start the whole codex cycle anew. I'd be happy for them to just slow down a bit, and update some of the older stuff that everyone really wants updated.
#FirstRealmProblems

This suggestion may not mean much but I got a friend into AOS simply by getting him to collect an army that he could play in both AOS and 40K (Thousand sons/Disciples of Tzeentch). He was not hesitant to play AOS but simply did not have the funds for starting a new army... but after playing a few games he converted to AOS fully. He was able to get his friends on board and now we have a small little community that plays AOS and we have a tentative little get together arranged when we all have our vaccines. We are thinking of doing a massive 2v2 of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness and Disciples of Tzeentch) vs Death (Soulblight and Ossiarchs). But I enjoy seeing your posts so I am likely being selfish in my suggestion. 🙂

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

This suggestion may not mean much but I got a friend into AOS simply by getting him to collect an army that he could play in both AOS and 40K (Thousand sons/Disciples of Tzeentch). He was not hesitant to play AOS but simply did not have the funds for starting a new army... but after playing a few games he converted to AOS fully. He was able to get his friends on board and now we have a small little community that plays AOS and we have a tentative little get together arranged when we all have our vaccines. We are thinking of doing a massive 2v2 of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness and Disciples of Tzeentch) vs Death (Soulblight and Ossiarchs). But I enjoy seeing your posts so I am likely being selfish in my suggestion. 🙂

Collect Kharadron for the most expensive Imperial Guard Kill Team imaginable*

* Except for DKoK, of course, maybe.

EDIT: Nope, DKoK is cheaper

Edited May 25, 2021 by zilberfrid

[Praecautus]

A bit mixed to be honest. I am abit ambivalent about AoS right now as I haven’t had a game since Feb/Mar and really struggled to paint up AoS stuff during lockdown. I’ve looked at the GHB 2020 a handful of times. It’s possible a new edition will rekindle some interest 

[nuttyknatty]

Very excited.

A new edition for me is always a great time. New things to try, new things to learn, and maybe this is the version of the game I might be good at!!

And I’ve been playing since WFB 4th Ed.😍😍

The big question though is: How many pages will the rules be? 1.0 was 4, 2.0 was 16, 3.0…………?

[AaronWilson]

Overall very excited for the new release, new battle plans, changes to batallion, changes to command point resource structure all means loads of new things to try. 

New edition generally brings that sort of fever pitch with it, where everyones local chat is exploding with AoS chat etc, it's a good time. 

[Enoby]

I'm a bit cautious around it, to be honest. On one hand, a new edition is exciting and has the chance to improve more blurry areas of the game, e.g. scenery rules. On the other hand, I don't know how much I 'trust' the AoS rules team. I think the 3rd edition rules could be great, but I think 2nd made some really nice changes and then began to crack under the weight of unbalanced battletomes. The AoS 2.5 books (DoK, HoS, SBGL, LRLs 2) have been of very varying quality and strength which makes me worry that this trend will continue into AoS 3 - I think the quality of the core rules (so long as they work) matters less than the quality of battletomes, and I don't think there's been evidence that this will change from AoS 2.

I hope I'm wrong and the 2.5 battletomes were just teething issues, and all future books are written to a similar quality (balance is much harder to achieve, but equal creativity should be in all imo). 

My other fear is we'll see an "activation war" style issue again, where the designers will get hooked on a mechanic and ramp it up until you either have that mechanic or you struggle to interact. 

Finally, while I do like suggested changes such as charge reactions, the lack of any shooting/ranged changes from the official small discussion on AoS 3 or the leaks, makes me worry we'll see no changes to range and, with charge reactions, the game will tilt more in that direction. Of course, none of this is confirmed, I guess I just don't feel very confident in the rules team at the moment. 

So I'm hoping for the best in AoS 3, and I'm especially excited for command point changes, but at the same time I'm not hopeful for it.

[KingBrodd]

I'm hyped as hell for the narrative fallout of Broken Realms and for Destruction to be finally given the spotlight.

[Kirjava13]

I feel like, with all armies seen to (some twice!), AoS could have used a period of meta-settling. We've had, what, three years of pretty much constant Battletome releases, and that's good, but we finally get everyone seen to and now we have to start the game of musical chairs all over again because financials dictated that it's time for a new game... I'm pleased everyone got a book, but some of it paled in comparison to others (the varying attention some armies got compared to others was galling- some didn't even get the cursory, "book + hero + terrain + spells" schtick), and now it really should have been time to let things settle down, see where everything landed and then make appropriate adjustments. 

That sense of rushing to the next thing is combining with the increasingly predatory business practices of GW to make me extremely sceptical.

[EccentricCircle]

6 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

This suggestion may not mean much but I got a friend into AOS simply by getting him to collect an army that he could play in both AOS and 40K (Thousand sons/Disciples of Tzeentch). He was not hesitant to play AOS but simply did not have the funds for starting a new army... but after playing a few games he converted to AOS fully. He was able to get his friends on board and now we have a small little community that plays AOS and we have a tentative little get together arranged when we all have our vaccines. We are thinking of doing a massive 2v2 of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness and Disciples of Tzeentch) vs Death (Soulblight and Ossiarchs). But I enjoy seeing your posts so I am likely being selfish in my suggestion. 🙂

Thanks! That's always nice to know. That is a good suggestion for sure. I'm hopeful that a couple of daemon centric chaos space marine armies could eventually turn into AoS ones, but for the most part it still relies on other people buying more models. I've always said that I'm happy to lend people my armies, but there is a definite feeling that if you are going to play the game, you want it to be with your guys! There is also the issue of time. If you only get in a couple of games a month, then you prioritise the games you most want to play. I thus have some folks who just play 40K, some who just play frostgrave etc. I'm the only one who is really in the middle, willing to do either.

My solution is actually that I'm working on my own game, which will be a sort of custom setting/campaign system, compatible with any model range. I might need to do two versions for fantasy and sci-fi, but beyond that it should allow everyone to be on the same page, while playing dramatically different games. It will either be compatible with multiple game systems, or will have its own rules, I'm still experimenting with both approaches.

I'm hopeful that folks will at least have enough fantasy models for a skirmish, even if they don't want a full army.

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, KingBrodd said:

I'm hyped as hell for the narrative fallout of Broken Realms and for Destruction to be finally given the spotlight.

Yet the the true and only chaos faction that shouldn’t be part of the grand allegiance chaos, hasn’t seen a single great aos release.

(where are my skaven gw?)

[RuneBrush]

My own feeling would best be described as "mixed".

On the one hand the pandemic has cut the lifetime of AoS2 effectively in half.  This is one of those curve balls life throws at you, it's nobodies fault and we're largely all in the same situation.  The hobby knock on from this though is that I have a generals handbook that's never seen play and feel like version 3 is going ahead simply because somebody made that decision months ago and the new version is ready to release.

The other side of the coin is that I'm pretty excited about a new version and keeping my fingers crossed that we see changes that will shake things up and level the playing field a little bit.  I'm really looking forward to seeing where the next story arc goes and how the various factions change to tackle the new destruction threat.

[KingBrodd]

28 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Yet the the true and only chaos faction that shouldn’t be part of the grand allegiance chaos, hasn’t seen a single great aos release.

(where are my skaven gw?)

Hopefully the Skaven and Dispossessed have their time to shine this Edition as well. I could very well see them having a Battle Box together.

[Battlefury]

I have hopres, that AoS 3 will fix some issues, as being a power creep approach to use several battalion & unit combinations, wich are concidered more or less broken. The usage of generic battalions for matched play might fix that. And that's really where my interest and hope settles.

On the other hand I do not trust the designers anymore. Looking at the battletomes of my armies ( BoK, BoC, NH ) I really don't think they will improve it.
Also I see the next issue coming, wich will be new battletomes.... . And therefore possibly again very different power levels of the books.

To summarize, I think it is too early to release a new edition. Things should be belanced now and then bring on new rules.

[Chikout]

I'm optimistic. If you cast your mind back to the launch of AoS2, there were several changes that created haves and have nots out of the gate: free summoning, endless spells, horde discounts command point stacking etc. 

The changes we've heard about so far for AoS 3 have been faction agnostic; generic battalions, charge reactions, command point changes. These are all changes that either redress imbalances between factions or effect all factions equally. 

Also the fact that the listlab guy (Smorgan?) seems happy with the new edition is encouraging. As an Honest Warhammer regular you expect him to lean negative if anything. 

If they can do a version of the 40k scenery rules they can nerf many of the most troublesome warscrolls in one go. 

There's always a lot of talk about how imbalanced the game is but I can only count about 10 warscrolls that are genuinely problematic:

Eels, Morathi, sentinels, Teclis, Kroak, marauders, hearthguard beserkers, horrors, flamers, salamanders, bow snakes. 

Changes to battalions and better line of sight blocking scenery would help with 8 of those. 

[RexHavoc]

I'm kind of indifferent to AoS 3rd Ed. We stuck with 1st Ed & skirmish, though I've brought most of the 2nd ed battletomes for the lore and in case we decided we would switch. I honestly think that all the things that made AoS a good fantasy sandbox was pushed aside for the FOMO sales tactics and the return to making profit off the tournament/meta updaters side. 

I never had any intention of playing a GW game past the editions we currently run in my group. I always knew that I'd call it quits on collecting books after 2nd ed (the only books I said I'd be remotely interested in getting would be if there was new grots or chaos dwarves). I'll buy starter sets /start collectings/battle forces from 3rd Ed for sure. I love the new stormcast models and eager to see what the new destruction army looks like (Rumours etc so far its already looking like my cup of tea) but I'll only ever use them for 1st Ed at this point, if they are gobliny goblins then I'll just run them as with the legacy Grot warscrolls.

So 3rd has me excited for new models, but between repeated book & rules updates, the fiasco of chasing them for orders with no apologies (Slow to refund for their mistakes and waiting for me to chase them weeks after an issue), Cursed City drama, awful hype sales tactics, lack of transparency and generally bored with their social media postings being mistaken for community communication I'm not very excited for anything outside of buying models for using in other games/old edition. I personally don't think AoS has enough life left in it to be as emotionally attached to it as other games. Like, I'll continue to play it with my group for as long as we can keep coming up with new campaigns. but I think GW has shot themselves in the foot when it comes to AoS- Announcing the old world, moving away from what made AoS different in the first place, bad battletome releases, community complaints about rules (It sees to been forgotten now but the uproar about the skaven terrain piece when the GHB came out a while back- these sort of outbursts dont shine the game in a good light even if they do get forgotten quickly).

I don't think AoS is as popular as people want to believe it is. Sure, there is a lot of talk- rumour thread, the cursed city thread etc are all buzzing. But the real hobby is painting, gaming etc. And you only have to take a quick gander in the hobby sections to see how little traffic there is. And Facebook groups are the exact same. I honestly don't see the need to have done a 3rd edition yet, I know we've too see the big reveal yet and huge changes might be on the way, but the video they put out so far made it seem like it was some small tweaks and nothing much is changing.

I'm very excited to be so buzzed about the hobby right now (Uni and working from home suck the life out of it and I ended up just buying and not painting for the last 6 months or more) but other than using them as I would any other model/hobby supplier, GW/Warhammer as a complete package deal is no longer a thing for me. I'll keep buying models from them for as long as they a-look great to me and b-are usable in more than one game in case we do find we pack in playing AoS for good.
 

[Feii]

The only bad thing can be scalpers and the dominion box.