Playing with Legends armies: why the hate?

[Gitzdee]

47 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I get the desire. Of course, it would be insane to claim that it is somehow wrong to allow legends warscrolls/armies at a tournament. But I also think it's wrong to accuse tournaments that disallow them to be catering to elitists.

But I think there is a difference between being elitist and just wanting to enjoy the game in a certain way that requires some effort not everyone is willing to put in. Competitive players want to really go for rules mastery. That is only really possible with a shared understanding of the rules from which a stable metagame can grow. And the least contentious sharde set of rules to build on is probably "all and only current publications, rules as written". I don't think playing in this way, or even having tournaments only for people who want to play in this way, is an illegitimate desire.

Of course, if your store or club only has 5 people who play AoS, and only two of them want to play competitive, maybe think again about what kind of event you should run.

I mostly agree with this, just want to say that i think that some players confuse rules mastery with mastering an army u like to play with picking the most overpowered army without mastering the game at all. Dont know if my point comes across but im trying XD.

[NauticalSoup]

The rules are just crazy outdated and written for a game that essentially doesn't exist anymore.

As the game moves forward and rules iterations pile up they get further and further from the game as it exists today. Also the vast majority legends stuff is so horrendously bad it's going to be tough to get a good game out of it if you're playing it against modern books. If you aren't cherry-picking the jankiest imbalanced stuff it's going to put extra strain on the other player to build down to it. Hell the performance gaps between comp and casual lists in the same 3.0 book can be remarkably large.

[readercolin]

I'm going to have to come down on the side of not liking to play versus legends armies.  Why?

When I sit down to play a game, my goal is to have a game that is fun for both sides.  What I find fun is when both players play the game, and their list at least gets close to doing what you designed it to do.  For example, if I bring out a hallowheart list, I want to just cast a ton of spells and see what happens.  If I bring out Durthu, I want to see him go to town and smack something.  Yes, that something might be chaff, and he might just whiff, but that is part of the dice game.  If I know what power level my opponent is aiming for prior to getting together, I can also adjust my list to try to get a closer game.  So rather than bringing out my "Kill your fun and stomp you" list, I might bring out a more fluffy list, or one that uses units that are more underpowered, but I like anyways.

However, when my opponent wants to pull out a Legends army, one of two things happens.  First, even if I tone down my list a bunch, I still curbstomp my opponent because my warscrolls are newer, cost fewer points, and are straight up better at what they do.  An example of this is Freeguild Crossbows vs Glade Guard.  Crossbows have 1 shot each of 4+/3+/-/1, but if they stand still get +1 attacks for 100 points.  Glade guard on the other hand are 1 shot each at 4+/4+/-/1, get +1 to hit if there are 10+ models in the unit, and cost 135.  For the same number of points, I can have 40 crossbows to my opponent's 30 glade guard, and even then it is arguable that the crossbows are still straight up better.

The other thing that happens is that the Legends warscroll has some janky rules that end up blindsiding you randomly out of nowhere.  A few examples of this are the Drakeseer and the Dreadquake Mortar, both of which have an ability to just randomly go off and delete something without any real counterplay available.  However, I only know about these 2 because I took some time to look through the legends warscrolls to try and figure out what is going on with some of the warscrolls and after reviewing about 20 they were the only ones that even remotely stood out to me as "huh" - there may be more, but I can't be sure without spending a lot more time on it then I really want to, which brings me back to janky rules that will blindside you.

Meanwhile, if instead of bringing out a legends army, you just used your army as "Counts As", your units will in general be better.  I have no objections to my opponent running glade guard as shadow warriors, or as Sisters of the Watch.  I have no objections to the old Runelord on Anvil being a "Celestial Hurricanum".  Basically, as long as you aren't using the same model to count as 2 different units (ex. 1 unit of glade guard as shadow warriors and another as sisters of the watch) I am fine with counts as, and most of my local TO's are as well.  This means that it is a lot easier to have closer games, and therefore, more fun games as well.

[Greyshadow]

I am so delighted we have a Legends program. I have some Knights of Order on my painting table right now. I do wish some of the older first edition compendium scrolls got another update though.

Broadly, I think Games Workshop have got it right. It isn’t good for the game to have essential units that new players can’t easily go and buy. In friendly games at home, I think having some rules for out of production units is fantastic.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Greyshadow

[Ravinsild]

17 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Oh yeah, I used to have the Spined Beast, that thing was cool!  The ginormous Spawn was also cool, but never could find a well-priced one.  Wish there was a Chaos faction that had 1) gigantic spawn 2) multiple various abilities to more regularly convert friends and foes into spawn 3) ways to make Spawn battleline and augment their performance.  Thankfully the Mutalith and Spawn are still in the StD tome, so at least I have something like that.  Guess the giant Spawn and Spined Beast could be Mutalith proxies, though they're not tentacly.  

 

If you ally in a Magister from Tzeentch his Warscroll spell turns things into Spawn. Also himself if he rolls doubles. 

[Ravinsild]

17 hours ago, Fairbanks said:

When WFB ended and Age of Sigmar started with the 1.0 rules, there was a small group of people who literally could not take any criticism of the AoS ruleset. None. Total “Your words are violence.” reactions, even to justifiable issues (1.0 Ruleset had a lot of good and a lot of really bad).

Since GW moved Brets, TKs, a lot of High Elves, and a number of metal models to the Legends section, these people are the first to gatekeep the legacy players from playing what they want. Even though with the exception of TKs in an early meta (which was then FAQ’d), most will not be competitive. Even those who have been here from the beginning, because how dare something remind them of the torment they went through at the beginning of the game.

That’s crazy. I started the hobby with AoS and 8th edition 40k so you could 100% say im full new hammer and don’t know anything about the old ways. AoS 1.0 was obviously fun enough and my favorite enough I still play it and not 40k… but it wasn’t THAT fun.. lol

[Lord Krungharr]

On 1/3/2023 at 1:03 PM, readercolin said:

I'm going to have to come down on the side of not liking to play versus legends armies.  Why?

When I sit down to play a game, my goal is to have a game that is fun for both sides.  What I find fun is when both players play the game, and their list at least gets close to doing what you designed it to do.  For example, if I bring out a hallowheart list, I want to just cast a ton of spells and see what happens.  If I bring out Durthu, I want to see him go to town and smack something.  Yes, that something might be chaff, and he might just whiff, but that is part of the dice game.  If I know what power level my opponent is aiming for prior to getting together, I can also adjust my list to try to get a closer game.  So rather than bringing out my "Kill your fun and stomp you" list, I might bring out a more fluffy list, or one that uses units that are more underpowered, but I like anyways.

However, when my opponent wants to pull out a Legends army, one of two things happens.  First, even if I tone down my list a bunch, I still curbstomp my opponent because my warscrolls are newer, cost fewer points, and are straight up better at what they do.  An example of this is Freeguild Crossbows vs Glade Guard.  Crossbows have 1 shot each of 4+/3+/-/1, but if they stand still get +1 attacks for 100 points.  Glade guard on the other hand are 1 shot each at 4+/4+/-/1, get +1 to hit if there are 10+ models in the unit, and cost 135.  For the same number of points, I can have 40 crossbows to my opponent's 30 glade guard, and even then it is arguable that the crossbows are still straight up better.

The other thing that happens is that the Legends warscroll has some janky rules that end up blindsiding you randomly out of nowhere.  A few examples of this are the Drakeseer and the Dreadquake Mortar, both of which have an ability to just randomly go off and delete something without any real counterplay available.  However, I only know about these 2 because I took some time to look through the legends warscrolls to try and figure out what is going on with some of the warscrolls and after reviewing about 20 they were the only ones that even remotely stood out to me as "huh" - there may be more, but I can't be sure without spending a lot more time on it then I really want to, which brings me back to janky rules that will blindside you.

Meanwhile, if instead of bringing out a legends army, you just used your army as "Counts As", your units will in general be better.  I have no objections to my opponent running glade guard as shadow warriors, or as Sisters of the Watch.  I have no objections to the old Runelord on Anvil being a "Celestial Hurricanum".  Basically, as long as you aren't using the same model to count as 2 different units (ex. 1 unit of glade guard as shadow warriors and another as sisters of the watch) I am fine with counts as, and most of my local TO's are as well.  This means that it is a lot easier to have closer games, and therefore, more fun games as well.

These are excellent points.  Didn't consider the potential unfunness of clobbering someone super easily.  I think I've been the clobberer once or twice with my old Sons of Behemat.  

However, I'd face Durthu with magma cannons!  Dreadquake Mortar isn't all that awesome however

 

[NinthMusketeer]

Legends doesn't have hate associated with it in my community. People just tend to want to stick with units that have up to date rules with the current editions design trends. But there's a guy who shows up and plays ye olde Brettonians when he's in town and it's always a hoot!

[Popisdead]

There are always a handful of WAAC players who are a good vocal minority in ruining threads/tournaments/comments regarding this sort of thing.  Happened a lot locally.  One loudmouth basement dwelling incel was so vocal on the local FB group I just stopped going there and limited my hobby talk to asking people in store for games.  

 

I'm sad for you that you are coming across this sort of thing.  I know when small groups of players break off and do more theme or fun style of gaming over WAAC tournament playing they get viewed as outsiders.  Oh the irony in the grand scheme of life.

 

I could care less what people play or do.  It's a game and I have a mortgage and kids so why would I care about a trivial hobby detail such as "oh it's a legends army,.. even though the guy painted the entire army and it's beautiful".

 

[Nuriel]

Hate is such a strong word. 

I'm mostly disappointed. Legends armies doesn't have that level of support (i.e. faction and subfaction abilities) and rules for them were written in former edition(s).