AoS abandoned by my gaming group. Would like to see more QoL improvments for the game!

[zilberfrid]

14 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Is that Space Wolves or Space Pooches?

Anyway, getting back on track, AoS needs to be careful to avoid becoming to complex and too competitive. Isn’t that what killed 8th edition?

Aside from the double turn, do we need both a command point system and heroic actions? 

Regarding the vibe, AoS 1 had a much more relaxed community which was more accessible to the novice. It seemed to become more tournament focused in AoS 2. Have we lost the artistic players?

The final point is that it is the lore that gets a person into one particular game over another. AoS lore has a lot of potential. Lore has always been GW’s strong point, so I think AoS will do well as long as the world is being developed.

I actually prefer the Mortal Realms over the Old World. In fact I was never impressed by the Old World, even back in the 3rd Ed days when I started. I played historical games too, and the Old World looked to me like a unimaginative adaption of 15th/16th century Europe to a fantasy setting. But a lot of people love it! I just find the Mortal Realms concept to be more creative with more possibilities.

But could GW promote the Lore and story a bit more? There isn’t much on Warhammer plus, for example. That is what will get people excited enough to endure the dreaded double turn.

The Mortal Realms as a setting is brilliant. At one point I might want to run a game in it in Soulbound. Compared to the Old World which started out with just Earth and stuffed more fantasy in, its a breath of fresh air. Its not as dour as 40k and has limitless room to make stories in.

The models are also very good.

This is why I suggested miniature agnostic games. Keep yourself in the world and use the models you like, but if the game that is written for it does not suit your gaming group, pick another game that does.

Frostgrave can easily be Mordheim, or a group of leaders that try to loot an old city in Ghur, or Shyish, or whererever. Stargrave works perfectly in 40k or Necromunda. Onepagerules are written to work with it. Reign in Hell could work well in the Varanspire etcetera.

Just like you dont need to run a D&D game on the Sword Coast, you can uncouple other games and settings.

When GW writes a game that does fit your gaming group, you can seamlessly blend back in.

Edited December 2, 2022 by zilberfrid

[NauticalSoup]

7 hours ago, Gailon said:

I know this is on GW game design, but the double turn has far far less impact with melee vs melee lists. 

Sort of a tangent I just wanted to throw out that this isn't necessarily the case. Like a priority roll can easily determine if my maw krushas are stuck eating another screen turn 2 or if they get to hollow out your army and possibly even close out the game.

In a way this means they have the potential to matter more in melee versus melee, since the shooting list goes over the screen and does full damage twice, whereas my melee list can take advantage of a double to do significantly more damage on the second turn than I did on the first. If a game shakes out with no doubles the screens can keep the melee units off the meat of your list for a surprisingly long time.

Edited December 2, 2022 by NauticalSoup

[NinthMusketeer]

I don't like the double because it is an auto-win for me. I don't play to win, winning is an arbitrary goal one pursues as part of gameplay. And I'm here for gameplay. Fun gameplay. If I get a double? My opponent will not be left with the tools to come back from it, even with a double of their own, and if I cannot ensure that being the case then I can choose not to the take the double in the first place (as being second is hugely advantageous anyways between the extra CP and Proving Ground choice).

I have my head cocked as to why the above is off-topic but discussing Horus Heresy armies is not?

On the topic of negativity vs positivity; the topic of the thread makes this entire discussion explicitly focused on things people believe need fixing. Not only because they aren't working well but because they are actively harming quality of life. So we are laser-focused on the most negative aspects of the hobby in this thread and this is on top of the innate human tendency to focus on & discuss downsides more than upsides. It is easy to get caught in blaming people for that, sometimes I have to step back and remember that instinct is why humans are so dam good at solving problems!

I also made the Positivity Thread to counteract that very facet of psychology and prevent both myself & others from falling into a feedback loop of negativity. All are welcome! 🙂

[Bosskelot]

Yeah trying to make people avoid the double turn discussion because it is somehow off-topic but then allowing a load of posts about horus bloody heresy is peak ridiculousness.

9 hours ago, Wraith said:

Anyway, getting back on track, AoS needs to be careful to avoid becoming to complex and too competitive. Isn’t that what killed 8th edition?

Not really. 8th died for multitude of reasons, many of which started in 7th and sort of compounded upon each other over time. GW of that time period was also a very different company to what it is now and there's been a lot of evidence and statements by former employees that 40k was originally planned to have an AOS-style reset itself before the new management that came in during 2015 saw how badly AOS 1.0 did and (wisely) put that idea into the bin.

Although some of the contributing factors to 8th's demise were a lack of regular releases, with many armies languishing with outdated stuff or even without proper updated rules, for years at a time, and also bad releases that added stuff to armies that they either didn't want or need, or were actively bad in the rules system of the game. Tomb Kings are like the ur-example of this; gorgeous new monster sculpts (all pretty bad in the 8th edition ruleset) and yet all of their core infantry were still the ancient (even for that time) outdated plastics that really hadn't aged well. 

I think there's definitely echoes of that in AOS 3 currently, with far too many armies languishing with ancient sculpts or half-finished rosters, meanwhile they get yet another plastic hero on foot to go along with the 12 others in their book. However, to stay history is going to repeat itself is just panicmongering and GW nowadays have a much better handle on how to do releases and support their games properly; it's just a lot of this stuff takes time. It does however sting for AOS when 40k has had a crazy edition where almost every other army has had extensive model refreshes and expansions that have focused on bringing ranges into the 21st century properly, yet Skaven are still having to buy individual poison wind globadiers from 1994 for £12, and Ironjawz haven't actually had any model release since like 2016.

[NinthMusketeer]

5 hours ago, Bosskelot said:

Yeah trying to make people avoid the double turn discussion because it is somehow off-topic but then allowing a load of posts about horus bloody heresy is peak ridiculousness.

Well lets not go full hyperbole on the volunteer; discussions on that topic have led to issues in the past. Multiple times he has needed to step in and cut off discussion on the matter because people were getting too impolite. It is entirely understandable if mods are a bit jumpy on that particular note.

[Koala]

It is also something hardly related to people leaving AoS right NOW as double turn was already there when they joined AoS ( and we assume they enjoyed it). 

 

Which does not dispute that some current developements have negatively influenced the experience of the double turn. 

( EG I am a vocal opponent of killieness especially in ranged combat as this molds the game into an alpha -strike - activation - battle which i DO Not like)

[Wraith]

On 12/3/2022 at 7:46 AM, Bosskelot said:

Not really. 8th died for multitude of reasons, many of which started in 7th and sort of compounded upon each other over time. GW of that time period was also a very different company to what it is now and there's been a lot of evidence and statements by former employees that 40k was originally planned to have an AOS-style reset itself before the new management that came in during 2015 saw how badly AOS 1.0 did and (wisely) put that idea into the bin.

Although some of the contributing factors to 8th's demise were a lack of regular releases, with many armies languishing with outdated stuff or even without proper updated rules, for years at a time, and also bad releases that added stuff to armies that they either didn't want or need, or were actively bad in the rules system of the game. Tomb Kings are like the ur-example of this; gorgeous new monster sculpts (all pretty bad in the 8th edition ruleset) and yet all of their core infantry were still the ancient (even for that time) outdated plastics that really hadn't aged well. 

I think there's definitely echoes of that in AOS 3 currently, with far too many armies languishing with ancient sculpts or half-finished rosters, meanwhile they get yet another plastic hero on foot to go along with the 12 others in their book. However, to stay history is going to repeat itself is just panicmongering and GW nowadays have a much better handle on how to do releases and support their games properly; it's just a lot of this stuff takes time. It does however sting for AOS when 40k has had a crazy edition where almost every other army has had extensive model refreshes and expansions that have focused on bringing ranges into the 21st century properly, yet Skaven are still having to buy individual poison wind globadiers from 1994 for £12, and Ironjawz haven't actually had any model release since like 2016.

I recently watched an interview of Peachy. He explained why WHB was replaced with AoS.

 

 

Some of the reasons he gives for the end of WFB:

- too complex

-shrinking market share

- lack of new player interest

- established players not buying new product

-Old World too limiting on lore development

-IP issues

-figure design limited to square bases

 

He also debunks the argument that "lack of product support was to blame" by pointing that there is no point producing product that isn't going to sell. If the established players want support, then they have to buy product. Or get in new people who will do that. Without a viable market, the industry ceases to exist.

 

I think he is being too polite.

 

Lets be honest. A typical WFB tournament was dominated by fat neck beards, gorging themselves on fast food. Seriously, it looked like an Ogor Mawtribe encampment in there! And the smell! Which other hobby convention had to remind attendees to bring deodorant?

 

A new player would have to get their head around a complex ruleset, buy a large army, and then be confronted with a condescending male hierarchy demanding the new player's obeisance. It was not GW's fault that WFB was canned. It was the neck beards who came to dominate the EFB community who killed it. Thankfully most of them have left Warhammer to pursue their hobby in the 9th Age movement.

 

We need to keep AoS rules fairly simple, to keep army scale down to  what newbies can reasonably collect, keep it family friendly and established players should be friendly toward new players rather than condescending. In short, we need to be careful to avoid letting man babies take over the community as happened in the last two editions of WFB.

 

 

 

[Skreech Verminking]

19 minutes ago, Wraith said:

It was not GW's fault that WFB was canned. It was the neck beards who came to dominate the EFB community who killed it. Thankfully most of them have left Warhammer to pursue their hobby in the 9th Age movement.

 

We need to keep AoS rules fairly simple, to keep army scale down to  what newbies can reasonably collect, keep it family friendly and established players should be friendly toward new players rather than condescending. In short, we need to be careful to avoid letting man babies take over the community as happened in the last two editions of WFB.

 

You know this is kinda funny.

in my Community it was the other way around.

the neckbeards came with aos while the old world was played by well the others, and while yes we do have more men playing this game around my local area we do seem to be getting a slight increase in Womens, well probable more children of all kind that are interested in the game.

Although I did try to get my girlfriend into the hobby, yet we don’t seem to share the same interest for this hobby😂

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

 

A new player would have to get their head around a complex ruleset, buy a large army, and then be confronted with a condescending male hierarchy demanding the new player's obeisance. It was not GW's fault that WFB was canned

I think this is letting GW off the hook too easily, considering they're like, the company which had complete and total control over (at least) two of the three obstalces you mention...

And more in general, if you are a company which operates in a market, blaming whatever failure on "customers should have bought more stuff or they should find new customers for our product" is rather laughable, cause that would save literally every product on every market.

PS: maybe it's just me but I would take my foot a bit off the stereotyping-pedal concerning your descriptiong of the WFB crowd.

[Gitzdee]

6 hours ago, Wraith said:

Lets be honest. A typical WFB tournament was dominated by fat neck beards, gorging themselves on fast food. Seriously, it looked like an Ogor Mawtribe encampment in there! And the smell! Which other hobby convention had to remind attendees to bring deodorant?

I have been to a fair share of nerdy conventions of all kinds over 20 years and sadly this was an issue in almost all of them (and mtg tournaments). I have skipped tournaments because i couldnt stand the smell or heat. This is mostly an issue overlooked by the organizers who dont provide proper air conditioning most of the time though.

But so far i have always seen a diverse community at the GW store.

I loved the complexity of whfb as it made a lot of fun gameplay possible imho. AoS feels flat sometimes compared to whfb. While both are using the same minis i think they are both totally different games.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Gitzdee

[RuneBrush]

On 12/2/2022 at 3:29 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

I have my head cocked as to why the above is off-topic but discussing Horus Heresy armies is not?

On 12/2/2022 at 9:46 PM, Bosskelot said:

Yeah trying to make people avoid the double turn discussion because it is somehow off-topic but then allowing a load of posts about horus bloody heresy is peak ridiculousness.

+++ MOD HAT +++

The double turn has already been discussed numerous times on here and is a very divisive subject, it also nearly always completely derails any thread that it creeps into.  HH was originally mentioned due to it's potential impact on getting new players into AoS or keeping players in AoS.  The pictures on HH were off-topic, but hopefully we're back on track now, if it continues then one of the Mods will step in - we're also human and have real lives so sometimes things go off track when we're not looking.

On 12/2/2022 at 3:29 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

On the topic of negativity vs positivity

As a reminder to all (quoted you because it worked as a great segue way - thanks!) - TGA has a no excessive negativity policy.  Broadly speaking we want to avoid people coming on here and just moaning and complaining about stuff for the sake of it.  This thread in my view is a great example of how well this policy works, we're having a good conversation on things that we dislike and concerns on where AoS currently is as a game.

[Clan's Cynic]

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

Lets be honest. A typical WFB tournament was dominated by fat neck beards, gorging themselves on fast food. Seriously, it looked like an Ogor Mawtribe encampment in there! And the smell! Which other hobby convention had to remind attendees to bring deodorant?

You've clearly never been to an AoS or 40k tournament either then.

Tell us how much lunch money the evil WHFB players beat you up for.

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

He also debunks the argument that "lack of product support was to blame" by pointing that there is no point producing product that isn't going to sell. If the established players want support, then they have to buy product. Or get in new people who will do that. Without a viable market, the industry ceases to exist.

Except 40k's sales were shrinking at the time as well due to mismanagement. It's no secret their profit was falling year by year on all fronts under Kirby's later reign. 

Imagine if the only releases AoS had this year were the Sylvaneth and Nighthaunt waves. No other Battletomes, no other models. Do you think AoS would be doing as well? That's what it was like with WHFB. Hell, this thread is a testament to that with the dramatically slowed down releases impacting on their community.

The End Times stuff sold out pretty much immediately, which was very rare for a GW product back then. There was clearly an appetite for new stuff - a lesson GW seemed to learn with how the rapid releases occurred for 40k and AoS not long after WHFB died - but if your army only sees a model wave every decade or so... people are going to run out of things to buy.

GW only have themselves to blame for WHFB's flagging sales. But with The Old World coming back they seemed to have realised this.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Clan's Cynic

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, Marcvs said:

And more in general, if you are a company which operates in a market, blaming whatever failure on "customers should have bought more stuff or they should find new customers for our product" is rather laughable, cause that would save literally every product on every marke

I wish I could buy more skaven products but they are so old and terrible looking.

how about an update and then let’s talk about buying gw!

Edited December 6, 2022 by Skreech Verminking

[Red Bull]

9 hours ago, Wraith said:

I recently watched an interview of Peachy. He explained why WHB was replaced with AoS.

Some of the reasons he gives for the end of WFB:

- too complex

-shrinking market share

- lack of new player interest

- established players not buying new product

-Old World too limiting on lore development

-IP issues

-figure design limited to square bases

As a former WHFB tournament player (who by the way is skinny, polite, and smells nice... I do usually have a neckbeard though), I can tell you what killed it in my group: increasing prices and a wildly OP magic phase/armies.

That last Chaos warrior book was the death. I forgot the details, but demon princes were absurd. Prices got higher and higher, the Empire Greatswords were called Goldswords for awhile, but they weren't an anomoly, they were the new par. 

We stopped playing before GW killed it. We moved on to KoW and more recently, ASOIAF. I'm the only one left who cares enough to even follow the news from GW

Some of the specific points brought up by Peachy:

"established players not buying new product":

this is kinda tied to prices for me. I have a ton of metal dark elves. But the new dark elf plastics came out in essentially the same poses and same price as the existing Black Guard. Furthermore, I preferred the metal witches and executioners.  Their new kits that were actually improvements (Cold Ones, Dark Riders, and Dragon) probably sold well for them. Essentially, GW made a change without an improvement

"figure design limited to square bases"

I agree with this one and it's probably why the newer plastic Black Guard were still pretty static. But then, what little information we know about The Old World is that they said square bases are back. I really hope they aren't. I hope it's similar to how ASOIAF does it (or even GW's own War of the Ring from back in like 2009). It'd also mean less minis required to fill a unit and it gives each mini some space to breathe

 

[NauticalSoup]

Certainly as much as people like to throw blame around in new and exciting ways, everything I can remember that made me stop playing WHFB was directly a result of a game design or business decision made by GW. It was... not a short list.

The players, in my experience, are largely interchangeable between the two games. Maybe this is unusual but in our local club Sigmar was revived following it's embarrassing launch by a small group of grognards, ex-WHFB players. There was zero interest in it before they started running games and convincing people to try it out. Given 40k never lost its grip here I suspect if they hadn't been part of the prior WHFB community Sigmar may never have gotten a foothold here without them, their buy-in was critical to persuading people that AoS was worth trying out.

[NinthMusketeer]

IMO, GW didn't kill WHFB with End Times; they simply buried the corpse. Years of price increases, lackluster rules, grinding slow gameplay, no community interaction or engagement, and price increases eroded the fan base bit by bit. It was this long process that really killed WHFB; it wasn't people making a knee-****** reaction to one decision or another, it was people finally being fed up after years of abuse and giving up on the company, not the game.

[NinthMusketeer]

1 hour ago, Red Bull said:

As a former WHFB tournament player (who by the way is skinny, polite, and smells nice... I do usually have a neckbeard though), I can tell you what killed it in my group: increasing prices and a wildly OP magic phase/armies.

That last Chaos warrior book was the death. I forgot the details, but demon princes were absurd. Prices got higher and higher, the Empire Greatswords were called Goldswords for awhile, but they weren't an anomoly, they were the new par. 

We stopped playing before GW killed it. We moved on to KoW and more recently, ASOIAF. I'm the only one left who cares enough to even follow the news from GW

Some of the specific points brought up by Peachy:

"established players not buying new product":

this is kinda tied to prices for me. I have a ton of metal dark elves. But the new dark elf plastics came out in essentially the same poses and same price as the existing Black Guard. Furthermore, I preferred the metal witches and executioners.  Their new kits that were actually improvements (Cold Ones, Dark Riders, and Dragon) probably sold well for them. Essentially, GW made a change without an improvement

"figure design limited to square bases"

I agree with this one and it's probably why the newer plastic Black Guard were still pretty static. But then, what little information we know about The Old World is that they said square bases are back. I really hope they aren't. I hope it's similar to how ASOIAF does it (or even GW's own War of the Ring from back in like 2009). It'd also mean less minis required to fill a unit and it gives each mini some space to breathe

 

$60 for 10 Witch Elves wasn't your price point? XD

[novakai]

I mean it could have been there wasn’t much establish players to begin with compounded by the other reasons and problems with the game. It probably never grew compare to 40K which rock to 2000s 

but I always felt IP was the biggest issue and it the reason for the move to Age of Sigmar rather then reboot the old world. It why there were sudden changes in 40K at the same time. You can blame Kirby but Roundtree also kept on the same course and build on Age of Sigmar 

Edited December 6, 2022 by novakai

[NauticalSoup]

9 minutes ago, novakai said:

I mean it could have been there wasn’t much establish players to begin with compounded by the other reasons and problems with the game. It probably never grew compare to 40K which rock to 2000s 

but I always felt IP was the biggest issue and it the reason for the move to Age of Sigmar rather then reboot the old world. It why there were sudden changes in 40K at the same time. You can blame Kirby but Roundtree also kept on the same course and build on Age of Sigmar 

IP is why Age of Sigmar is so wacky but it's not why WHFB died in a fire, or why 40k nearly did around the same time.

[novakai]

6 minutes ago, NauticalSoup said:

IP is why Age of Sigmar is so wacky but it's not why WHFB died in a fire, or why 40k nearly did around the same time.

yes, i am just saying IP is why Age of Sigmar replace WHF instead of where 40K just changed a lot of names

and i think it was the biggest factor in many decisions moving forward in the Roundtree era

[Ekos]

On 12/1/2022 at 11:37 PM, Gailon said:

chalk me up as someone who loves the double turn. It’s been debated in other topics and is a bit off topic here. Personally I blame the double turn hate on three main things. First, playing with too much and too powerful shooting....I definitely think that without it going first would be way way too powerful in the current game. There are already a ton of competitive lists that want to go first. The double turn balances this. 

The double turn personally prevents me from getting back into the game. It was something that I liked during AoS 0.5, but gradually grew to dislike. During the first disciples of Tzeench battle tome there was a way using a formation to absolutely erase army's with shooting on a double turn. It was then that I realized that I hated the rule. The double turn is something that can leave you feeling dirty for doing it and bitter for having it done to you. Which is never good when you should be having fun. It also is just as much a problem as the first turn priority and it isn't necessary to fix a problem with another problem. You'll  have just have one problem or the other.

I would like to keep rolling for initiative but see alternating phases. That resolves both problems.

[NinthMusketeer]

Can get dem juicy alternate-by-phase rules in among the RtR Dropbox... just sayin!

[CommissarRotke]

On 1/13/2023 at 9:13 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

Can get dem juicy alternate-by-phase rules in among the RtR Dropbox... just sayin!

alternating? 😳you're too good to us!

hope the surgery recovery is going well. can we assume the dropbox link in your signature post is current whenever you update?

[NinthMusketeer]

Yup, gunna be done by the end of the month. The alternate-by-phase rules have been in there for years though 😆

[Rollcage]

I stopped playing AoS 3rd edition.

Rules are too complicated and often feel meaningless. 

Fantasy was/is far less complicated then AoS 3rd edition. Fantasy was large core rules that applied to all armies equally with minimal battle tome special rules. AoS 3rd is insane amounts of special rules on every facet of everything, core rules not that big. It's harder to memorise, for your own army or your opponents. 

New battalions suck, I hate making lists and remembering the rules. The new command point system suck, I hate playing and remembering it. Make a fantasy Warhammer army list and a AoS 3rd army list and try to tell me with a straight face that AoS 3rd is easier. You didn't have to pick your temple/tribe/special flavoured race rules up front, you don't have to pick triumphs, realms capes or grand strategy, Then pick which type of game your playing with which special rules attached to which battalions, then pick your spells and priest spells. Then remember what special interactions each warscroll has in the various phases of each turn, because you might forget that special interaction. On top of that you have battle plans with their own special rules and conditions.

Fantasy had "wipe him out before he wipes you out". Don't get me wrong fantasy was not a popular game by the end, but complexity is a lie at this point, AoS is more complicated then 40k and I still play 40k. 

AoS models are awesome, the world and fantasy building up over time is awesome. Pity I cannot enjoy any of the gameplay of it. I've loved every model release for 3rd edition so far. Just do painting and collecting from here on, not building armies when it's no fun for me to do so.

Anyways adding my discontent to the whingers thread