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Design Changes You'd Like to See in AoS


OkayestDM

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Plus if you have USRs GW can easily make a card "cheat sheet" that simply summarises all of them so even if the warscroll doesn't have the rule written out in full, there's a quick reference card you can use instead of having to open the rule book. 

Also GW is getting better at making smaller format rule books - which are more practical for gaming than the big rule book - accessible each edition. Heck the last one I saw was even ring-binder style to even easier to flip through and reference. 

 

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So, not touching on battlepack-specific stuff like Tactics, Grand Strats, etc, there's a few things:

- Champion-based movement and targeting. Every unit gets 1 Champion, which is always the last model slain in a unit. When you move a unit or check targeting or ranges, measure the movement from the unit champion. Move the Champion normally, then just pop every other model in the unit within 3" of the Champion (or within 6" for units of 10+ models). Makes moving a lot easier, especially for hordes. Measuring things like a charge move are still done based on the charging unit's Champion to the closest model in a target unit, so placing the rest of a unit's models matters defensively but you can't get yourself some cheesy charge and range buffs by placing models ahead of the Champion.

This is the kind of rule that technically adds complexity but frees up player mental load in execution. It's taken pretty whole-cloth from Star Wars Legion, and my GF (who doesn't quite have the head for AoS's current complexity) finds that it makes the actual act of moving units and figuring out where models can go much less stressful and more approachable. She's actively made that comparison to me.

- Combine Heroic Actions and Monstrous Rampages. Each of these are cool, but together they don't quite justify their combined complexity. Maybe make them something like "Epic Actions: each phase, each player can pick 1 Hero or a Monster to do an Epic Action."

- Bake Redeploy and Rally into the core rules. These commands add a lot of flexibility, but are easy to forget. Redeploy can lead to "Gotcha!" feels-bad moments, and Rally can end up being entirely useless or way too powerful really quickly. For Redeploy, it could turn the Movement phase into a semi-alternating activations vibe - after your opponent moves a unit, if that unit ends the movement within 9" of one of your units, you can roll a die for one of those units - on a 4+, the unit can move D6 inches. For Rally, it could be a counterpart to a reworks Battleshock Test: Roll 2D6 - if it's under the unit's Bravery, it Rallies, otherwise it Routs. Roll dice equal to the number of models in that unit slain this turn and only this turn; if the unit has Routed, remove 1 additional model for each roll of 1, and if the unit has Rallied, return 1 model for each roll of 6.

These are just ideas, of course, but I'm looking to try them out, see what they do to the game. They're set up that existing mechanics for Rally and Redeploy can work with minimal or no changes, even if they do shift in value.

- Charges happen at the end of the Movement phase. This just seems obvious - Charging is movement, and it should occur in the phase that's for movement. Alternatively, they occur as part of the Combat phase.

Edited by acr0ssth3p0nd
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Bring back challenges(ala Cado’s command ability in his scenario) and magic items for a points value. Also as others have said shooting is bananas as things stand. No shorting into combat would be easiest. 
I also still don’t like how pile in works on the charge although that may just be how the people I play against interpret it.

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On 11/25/2022 at 1:08 AM, magtchu said:

A post further up says he wants unique rules removed/made scarcer. I really hope this doesn't happen. When I was a kid I was too poor to collect warhammer so only had a few units and both dwarf and orc/goblin book. It was how the models all had unique rules and did unique things that got me obsessed with the game.  Would read the books over and over again. Without these rules and units doing unique things it just feels like ''shoots numbers/puts out numbers/takes away numbers''. Flavour is so important imo.

 

Also really enjoying things like different factions having different battle tactics, think it's cool.

Not sure if I was the one calling for it, but maybe I explained myself wrong (btw, I don't have any problem with them): 

Universal Special Rules: The main issue comes when ALL (or 90%) of the unit's abilities come from USR. So, you end with a booklet of special rules that you need to remember and bring to each tounrmanet or game. The nice thing is that when you know all of them, you can understand how other armies play with just looking at their profiles.

Warscroll Abilities: So, USR written in each warscroll. Players don't need to remember that booklet of rules, instead, they just need to know their warscrolls to play. The main issue is when all this rules are completely diferent even if they feel like they are the same or the models are really similar.  Players expect coherency, if the main ability for chariots is doing mortal wounds on a charge, you expect that for 90% of the chariots with maybe minor differences.

Flavour abilities: Completely unique abilities (shared by a few units in the entire game) written in warscrolls. I don't have any problem with them and IMO, they are awesome. But I'm not sure if we need entire warscrolls of 6-8 unique special rules.

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15 hours ago, acr0ssth3p0nd said:

- Champion-based movement and targeting. Every unit gets 1 Champion, which is always the last model slain in a unit. When you move a unit or check targeting or ranges, measure the movement from the unit champion. Move the Champion normally, then just pop every other model in the unit within 3" of the Champion (or within 6" for units of 10+ models). Makes moving a lot easier, especially for hordes. Measuring things like a charge move are still done based on the charging unit's Champion to the closest model in a target unit, so placing the rest of a unit's models matters defensively but you can't get yourself some cheesy charge and range buffs by placing models ahead of the Champion.

this is so interesting and something I have thought a lot (as in: a couple of times under the shower) myself: the movement phase is probably the slowest part of the turn. How do we make it faster? I have considered this option as well (Star Wars legion inspired) but, while I do see how you can avoid the "movement bonus" for the charges, I don't know how to avoid it when it comes to stuff like getting models on an objective (quite important for AoS), or getting more models in range for shooting and so on. So, this is to say: I am curious about your thinking on this if you're willing to share!

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9 hours ago, Marcvs said:

this is so interesting and something I have thought a lot (as in: a couple of times under the shower) myself: the movement phase is probably the slowest part of the turn. How do we make it faster? I have considered this option as well (Star Wars legion inspired) but, while I do see how you can avoid the "movement bonus" for the charges, I don't know how to avoid it when it comes to stuff like getting models on an objective (quite important for AoS), or getting more models in range for shooting and so on. So, this is to say: I am curious about your thinking on this if you're willing to share!

As far as getting more models in range, I propose it's set up as a binary - if the sergeant can target the target unit, everyone in the unit can. Just like charges, it's measured from the unit sergeant At that point, it's simply a matter of which models are in LoS, and that's less important in AoS than in 40K due to less terrain needed on the battlefields.

For objectives, you might also check if the sergeant is on the point, but ultimately I think this is less of an issue, since both sides have access to these movement shenanigans, and you still have to keep everyone in coherency while also being within a certain distance of the sergeant. And at worst, it swings the balance back towards larger units for the role of objective holding, which feels thematically correct.

Edited by acr0ssth3p0nd
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The thing i want most is some sort of a casual matched play mode. I just want to pick up some models and roll some dice. No need for all the reading all the time.

Things i want:
- More hero building options. Give me all the options we used to have in WHFB to customize my Scuttleboss with a bunch of points to make him epic again.
- Some form of list building restrictions, doesnt have to be the same as matched play but not like Open play where anything goes. Somewhere in the middle would be great.
- Random battleplans. Warcry does a great job at this imho (still need to get me a set of the 2.0 cards).

Things i dont want:
- All the bookkeeping involved with battle tactics and grand strategies. Keep these in matched play. 
- Get rid of double turn. No need for this in Casual play.

Things that are not better for the game but i still want because i just cant stand it:
-Remove casualties from the front and not the back. This just breaks any form of immersion. Everyone i explained AoS to struggled with this.

If i put more thoughts into this i could come up with a bunch more stuff but i have to go back to work XD.

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1 hour ago, Gitzdee said:

Things that are not better for the game but i still want because i just cant stand it:
-Remove casualties from the front and not the back. This just breaks any form of immersion. Everyone i explained AoS to struggled with this.

Technically, you can remove casualities as you please, and not just from behind. It's up to the players to allocate wounds to their models.

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52 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Technically, you can remove casualities as you please, and not just from behind. It's up to the players to allocate wounds to their models.

Really, dont know why i have played it this way then XD. Must have seen it a bunch of times on battle reports i guess. 

Edit: The rules kind of force u to take models from the back because u get removed from combat most of the time though.

Edited by Gitzdee
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7 hours ago, Gitzdee said:

Really, dont know why i have played it this way then XD. Must have seen it a bunch of times on battle reports i guess. 

Edit: The rules kind of force u to take models from the back because u get removed from combat most of the time though.

Probably an old habit from the good ol’ times😂.

althoughbdidn’t they have like the explanation that the ranks from behind would have just taken the places of the front row

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As a newish players to both this game and 40k I find they both have some interesting design choices. Funny enough I find 40k an easier game to play, but I think that is just because of the factions I play for both games. Tau don't really need much thought besides railgun goes burr lol

The biggest issue I have with AoS is that it feels like everything uses/needs both ward saves and/or mortal wounds to do anything. The armor/strength system of 40k may be a bit more complex, but I find it a lot more interactive and a lot less annoying. Don't know how many times I just remove my models with no rolling because of like 10 mortal wounds in one attack.

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- Grand Alliance Books

 

Back when Grand Alliances were a thing, you had generic rules for Grand Alliance armies, complete with artifacts and command traits.

Ally rules are fine, but sometimes you just want a proper medley of your favorite models with some basic support.

Balancing this properly would be a challenge, but if this was introduced as an Open Play supplement with some basic guidelines, it could get some mileage.

While we're at it, some mercenary rules wouldn't be amiss either. Hiring out as mercenaries is a fundamental part of Fireslayer lore, and also featured heavily in Ogor fluff as well. Toss some mercenary rules into the Grand Alliance pack and pick out a few factions that are willing to fight alongside anyone for the right price (I can see OBR being willing to send troops to somebody's aid for a prize cache of quality bone material!)

Honestly, providing additional proper support for the two other "styles of play" would be a welcome move, and there's a lot of directions they could go with that, if they made the leap.

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I'd like to see the same thing in both AoS and 40K:

A codified (not the "the game is yours, do what you want" bull) set of casual matched play rules. Remove all the overhead of bloat. Reduce the mental load, need for reminder sheets, and various cards/tokens/oddball rules. 

Just let me put an army list together in 10 minutes and not think "******, what cool combo from 5 sources did I overlook?"

 

Keep the full complexity as an option, but make simple the norm.

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Here's another one, this being rather subjective but hey it's the internet!

Dump the current PtG design philosophy. Making it compatible to Matched shackles it to the design restrictions of Matched and utterly ruins the narrative aspect people actually want. The core system is solid and can work, just not like that. Seriously, who makes a narrative progression system with NO* progression for the leader AT ALL!? What a out ALL earned perks being 1/game abilities? SoB are the only ones with ways around this via quirks.

*Adding a mount to a leader doesn't count because you could just drop the leader from the list and re-add the mounted one since there are no rewards or xp to lose from doing so.

Seriously just contact me and get whatever legal permissions you need from me to use Road to Renown. Or just put a link to it in books or online or something. I make the content for my local community and share it online for free, there's nothing to lose here.

Could quietly adopt my FFA rules as well for that matter. The ones in the Core rulebook suck and no one uses them.

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