Discussing the quality of rules in AoS

[stratigo]

10 hours ago, tripchimeras said:

Look GW are not great rules writers.  Importantly they never have been great rules writers.  This is not some new thing.  AoS1.0 out of the gate was quite literally unplayable in any organized sense.  Warhammer 8th edition had to be so heavily comped on the tourney scene that the competitive game barely even resembled the base game.  Lets not even get started on 40k.  

Yet here we all are complaining about AoS 3.0 on a forum, taking time out of our days to talk about this game that causes us endless frustration. Why?  Because GW games have a draw that goes well past their middling rules.  The lore, the models, the army building, the community and massive player base.  AoS is not a balanced game, but that's part of the fun.  List building is so open and diverse and has plenty of loopholes and OP builds, in one sense that's bad, in  another it lends itself to endless thought and discussions.  What hidden tricks can I find?  Lets us all as a community laugh and cry about the latest idiodic situation GW has gotten themselves in (How can anyone not just sit down and just LAUGH when Kragnos' point cost was revealed?).  

There are plenty of well balanced smartly designed games out there that are and always have been "better" then GW games.  Yet GW is king for a reason.  And at least for me they are good reasons.  The game is way more then its rules and always has been.  The rules just need to be JUST good enough to keep all of the other aspects worth while.  And GW always ends up getting there ****** together just enough to keep the rules playable.  I see no reason this edition will be different.  Especially since we don't even know the full rules yet.  Not to mention all of the faqs and point changes that will effect how every unit interacts with them.  Like don't get me wrong I hate the aparent lack of fixes to the broken shooting meta (if anything it looks like its stronger), but I have no doubt the game will be about as it always has been.  A mess, but a worthwhile mess.

Thats just me though.  There are plenty of other options if balance is really the most important thing to you.  KoW, 9th age, a whole host of skirmish games too long to mention.  All are better balanced games, but none of them have ever grabbed my passion the way GW games do.  At the end of the day all of the little things GW does better then everyone else end up compensating for the 1 huge thing they don't do well (rules).

 

"I play AoS, and thus 40k has to be the worst game EVAR!"

 

Man I wish this sentiment would die. Like come on guys, just stop. Playing a game isn;t politics, you don't have to pick a side and then kick down all the other games.

[Mcthew]

13 hours ago, Televiper11 said:

Warcry is fun skirmish game. So is Frostgrave.

It so is! Yet, therein lies the problem with AoS. The new rules, concentrating on smaller units, god units, monsters, smaller board size etc (if the leaks are all true, which they tend to be), points AoS towards a skirmish game, which we already have in Warcry.

It's all very odd, and disjointed. What are GW trying to achieve here?

Whomever is at the wheel of AoS is not doing a very good job, in my opinion (sorry if that person is reading this, but this will be constructive criticism!). My view from the outside, is this (please feel free to add or disagree!):

- Aside from a few issues, AoS 2.0 was a good rule set. What broke those rules was not the core rules but the faction rules that were (and still are) problematic and slightly broken. AoS 2.0 also improved the lore from being a shambolic rambling through Ages of Myth, Chaos and then Sigmar in 1.0, to something resembling a coherent story and setting.

- So far, from the leaks and some of the questionable lore writing, AoS 3.0 while not universally panned, has been divisive. Broken Realms had its moments, but was disjointed in some areas. Certainly not the worst lore, not the best either, and could've been better. The rules for AoS 3.0 border on the gimmicky, and do not address the faults of AoS 2.0 but makes those faults worse in many cases, while adding more problems and more complexity. While it is early days, AoS 3.0 factions will need massive re-writes and updates and FAQs to make this workable, and if rushed then it will be worse (we know this because GW has a habit of writing badly-rushed rules). However, leaving AoS 2.0 factions as is will make many unplayable under AoS 3.0.

- "But it's just a game!" I hear you cry. Correct, it is. Plastic soldiers and dice. But... It is also a premium game. GW price hikes have made this the most expensive tabletop hobby around. With anything in life, if I'm paying premium prices, I expect premium content. GW has no room to manoeuvre when they are selling core books for £40 and requires an investment of between £400-800 per faction. That is the equivalent of an entertainment system (TV and console) of which you can get longer and more use out of (a general view).

- Hyperbole is great, if it's correct. So far their claim to AoS 3.0 being "the best rules ever" is bordering on the embarrassing. It is an unfounded claim, and would be fine if the rules reveal so far were true. The fact here and other forums are looking at them with dismay means that GW either have the reveal strategy wrong, or they are so oblivious to what good rules are, they are not competent at rules writing or play testing. Either way, it doesn't look good, certainly from a business perspective. But that's ok, because...

- Cursed City has made people panic. The debacle over Cursed City, and the hangover of Indomitus, means that those sitting on the fence will try to get a copy of Dominion even with shonky rules reveals. And that's not good either. This is not a £50 punt on something nice. This is a £125 outlay for an already expensive hobby. (Could be more though, right? We don't have the prices yet). For GW I wonder if they realise how much of a gamble this either intentional/accidentally-incompetent strategy is? Apart from excluding new players who won't risk this amount of money on AoS, if GW get this wrong, the pretty pictures and average lore in the core book won't save AoS. Even the models won't. While they look nice and may appeal to the model-centric hobbyist, how many of those hobbyists buy boxes by the truck load? It is fair to say it is the players who buy the most models because the game demands it, and if the game is broken by ill-advised rules, then it breaks the business model. How many people did GW lose when WFB exited the building? It must have hurt GW, but at least they could entice some back with AoS. What if they now break AoS?

- Why get so annoyed about it? Because I've spent a few thousand pounds over the years on a hobby that has been fun and rewarding. But it's also a culture, and for many a big part of their lives. And I guess it's not anger, but passion. Plenty of other games systems have died and not have had the passion directed to keeping them alive. AoS is different, because there is this (true) community behind it. When you have people who are messing with your stuff in a way that spoils that fun and threatens that community, they should expect push back and criticism.

- Or... This might all be fine after the dust settles. The rules might actually work. The factions might actually play better, even if the Warhammer Community site is showing the contrary (really, they need to get that sorted out - it's hardly a "community" either).

So, there you go. A little negative, but these are things Games Workshop have in their power to remedy. A final note, GW are a business. If we want GW to take notice, we must treat them as a business and show no loyalty if they produce rubbish product. Likewise, GW will be rewarded with higher sales if Dominion and AoS 3.0 is the best set ever as they continually say (although this claim might be redacted on the Warhammer Community site at a later date folks - they have that in their locker too!).

(Just to add - I've returned to the fence of where I am with Dominion. I may still pre-order, but that depends on being able to pre-order this. It might well be out of my hands, as it has been with Cursed City. In some ways, I'm cool with that. If Games Workshop don't wish me to invest in their products, that's up to them. )

[Greybeard86]

9 minutes ago, Mcthew said:

It so is! Yet, therein lies the problem with AoS. The new rules, concentrating on smaller units, god units, monsters, smaller board size etc (if the leaks are all true, which they tend to be), points AoS towards a skirmish game, which we already have in Warcry.

It's all very odd, and disjointed. What are GW trying to achieve here?

My guess? They think skirmish is a more "modern look" and gameplay, so they push for that. At the same time, they want 40k and AoS to be a system for "battles" and not "skirmishes", as defined by the number of miniatures.

So now you end up moving one by one blocks of 20+ miniatures while keeping in mind coherency, minding weapon reach, and combat position shenaningans.

It is just plain awkward. You cannot have skirmish rules for so many models on the table and not become gamey and odd-looking. Some people just embrace it, I wonder how much it comes down to most warhammer players not having experience with other game systems.

[tripchimeras]

12 hours ago, stratigo said:

 

"I play AoS, and thus 40k has to be the worst game EVAR!"

 

Man I wish this sentiment would die. Like come on guys, just stop. Playing a game isn;t politics, you don't have to pick a side and then kick down all the other games.

How was that your takeaway from my comment?  I literally had 1 line devoted to 40k, simply stating that its historically been an even bigger rules mess then fantasy to help illustrate my point that GW rules have always been messy (A. completely subjective B. not a comment at all on it being "the worst game EVAR!" just that the rules have often been a mess, which is not a comment on its overall quality).  I get that there is a lot of ****** talking between 40k and AoS fandoms but come on, I mentioned 40k only as an offhand reference to GW's lack of rulesquality across the board, not as some sort of punching bag to uphold AoS as some game worlds ahead.  Like in my personal opinion the fantasy side of GW has historically had more compelling rules for me, but that was in no way the point of my comment, nor does it mean I think 40k is in any way "the worst".  I just think its rules have HISTORICALLY been a mess (9th edition seems like its probably actually cleaner then AoS right now, and its not the only point in history that has been the case so its by no means always been true, just think overall most editions have been a mess on release).  

I will say that I honestly think its funny that for the same comment I've been accused of suffering from Stockholm syndrome AND toxic negativity.  

Edited June 10, 2021 by tripchimeras

[pnkdth]

10 hours ago, Mcthew said:

It so is! Yet, therein lies the problem with AoS. The new rules, concentrating on smaller units, god units, monsters, smaller board size etc (if the leaks are all true, which they tend to be), points AoS towards a skirmish game, which we already have in Warcry.

It's all very odd, and disjointed. What are GW trying to achieve here?

Removing conga-lines stretching across the board/objectives, making units operate like units not a line-dancing squad and with slightly smaller board put units closer to each other (which makes sense with the changes to coherency since bigger units will be closer together).

With that in mind, 1) smaller table, 2) more accessible, 3) similar model count, 4) more options for monster mash and with that different types of army lists. In other words, it is a stretch and a half to call 3.0 a skirmish game on the scale of Warcry based on these changes.

But if there's one thing that's consistently true when an edition is about to change is wild speculation and hyperbole. The vast majority will settle in, start enjoying the new nuances of a fresh edition, and look back at older editions with a mix of nostalgia and indifference.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a new meta and all that comes with it.

10 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Some people just embrace it, I wonder how much it comes down to most warhammer players not having experience with other game systems.

For me it is about so much more than a game system. It is the history, expanding lore, scale and width of armies and the community as a whole. I'll take a decent game with lots of support over a niche game I only get to pull out every once in awhile.

[RuneBrush]

Lots of strong emotion being shown currently.  One point I'm just going to make is please, please remember this is a game & hobby that we (largely) all do for our own personal enjoyment.  It's not a job that we *have* to do, we do it by choice.

If you're not enjoying it or it's causing your blood pressure to rise every time you think about it, then take a break, step back review and work out if you actually miss it - nobody is going to judge you if you decide that's enough for the time being.  This isn't uncommon - many, many hobbyists take prolonged breaks and come back feeling a lot more positive about things.  It's also not unique to our hobby (some other hobbies have seasonal breaks which allows people to recharge).

It's completely understandable that some of us are going to be disappointed by the snippets and leaks we've seen, because we can immediately see it's going to have an impact on our own collections or they didn't match our own expectations.  We still have just over 3 weeks until we get the new rules in our hands, I've lost count of the number of times I've read on here that X is the worst thing ever and a couple of weeks later it's been forgotten about because it's not actually as bad as it came across in isolation.

I'll also point out that as great as the WarCom articles are, they're written to get us enthused about the new version and to spend our hard earned pennies on new toys and books.  That includes sending out preview copies too!  As ever, the real test is when we can get together with our armies and actually see how the game plays out.