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WH40k changes - What does it mean to AOS?


PJetski

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Recently GW put up some news about changes coming to Warhammer 40,000 and it seems to be borrowing a lot from how AOS is designed.

Two things really stick out to me:

Quote

Army Selection

One of the things that comes up a lot is the idea that people should be rewarded for taking thematic armies. It’s a sentiment we agree with and so we’re looking at introducing Command points. A mechanism to reward players who structure their army like their in-world counterparts, with rerolls and cool army specific rules throughout the game.

Combat Phase

Charging units should fight first. It’s just more thematic. So we’re hoping to work this out as well. It will reward tactically outmaneuvering your opponent. You can dictate the combats rather than being entirely Initiative based. You control who swings first.

It seems like Formations are going to cost points, but they're going to cost a different kind of points ("Command Points") than the regular units. I really like this because it means you don't need to make a choice between X unit and Y formation, but each formation has an opportunity cost and can be balanced with a higher command point cost.

I think these changes could be implemented in AOS and I would love to see it happen.

What do you guys think? Could AOS be improved with "free" battalions and charging units attacking first?

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No! No Free Battalions! Thats actually one of the things AoS do well that its totally broken in 40k.

 

The "commands points" to me sound like the typical points costs for stronger units in tournament play. So, if you bring more "powerful" or maybe "unfluffy" (So, units outside your alliance/faction maybe) units you losse commands points that can be used for bonus ingame? 

For example: If you bring a Celestial Hurricanum in your Stormcast force it costs 3 Command Points that then you can't spend to "buy" bonus to your army.

And I don't think that a order in combat its compatible with the alternative activation sistem of AoS. I'm sure that will be a 40k only thing, they probably will keep Initiative and all those stats.

 

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Transports are already a big change, that's a 40K thing and hasn't ever really existed in Fantasy. I think the upcoming AoS Books are going to be "tests" for 40K, to see how certain rules work in an AoS'd game. I'd bet money that the rules for Duradin Transports are what the play-test 40K rules are. If they go well, mysteriously they'll be the same in 40K. If not...well we won't see the test product for 40K. :P

I think AoS changes make more of a difference for 40K than the other way around, but they will test many, many things on AoS first that they have in mind for 40K. We just don't see how the sausage is made so it's hard to tell what came first, but anything that's a drastic departure was probably in mind for 40K, imho.

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Paying for Battalions seems to work well in Age of Sigmar and I think the easiest route they should take is to use a similar solution.

We do not know what the Command points are yet and they might not necessarily be a separate army list 'currency' available from the start. Their pool might be generated 'automatically' by taking the right choices of units or they may themselves cost 'normal' points and be spent on additional traits and special rules for your force.

And to answer the main question: any changes made to W40k that make it comparable to Age of Sigmar would mean I will consider playing this game again ;-) which I think is a good move for Games Workshop and a threat to my wallet...

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40k always has been, always will be a predominately shooting phase game.

Despite a big increase in efficacy of shooting in AoS, it's still primarily a melee game. With the other considerations of battleshock and the anything-can-hurt-anything mechanics, alternating activation in the combat phase is needed to try and keep things on an even keel.

Chargers strike first as a change in isolation would be fairly disastrous in AoS.

40k, the other mechanics will have to account for that. Off the top of my head, say units that shoot cannot charge. That creates the trade-off of choice, and dare one say it, tactics?

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I would say AoS is a shooting game, at least on the competitive end. It's just that not every army has shooting. Those that do, tend to shoot and the rules are very favored towards it compared to melee. Melee is more balanced but shooting is much more powerful. I wouldn't mind seeing both games bleed into each other a bit with 40K getting some more melee balance/punch but also putting some of its restrictions on shooting into AoS.

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4 hours ago, Gauche said:

I would say AoS is a shooting game, at least on the competitive end. It's just that not every army has shooting. Those that do, tend to shoot and the rules are very favored towards it compared to melee. Melee is more balanced but shooting is much more powerful. I wouldn't mind seeing both games bleed into each other a bit with 40K getting some more melee balance/punch but also putting some of its restrictions on shooting into AoS.

Which restrictions on shooting would you like to see carried over? 

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14 minutes ago, mdkinker said:

Which restrictions on shooting would you like to see carried over? 

I like being able to shoot into Combat like AoS has, I dislike being able to shoot into your own Combat. Shooting and Charging seems fine in AoS because of the ranges. Maybe it's the Roleplayer in me. :] That would reward taking Fast Movement Units or Flying Units, add value to Screens which are typically Battleline, and give Melee Armies a bit of a buff.

I think Cover should be expanded a bit, which isn't a Shooting Rule per say from 40K but the AoS system leaves a bit to be desired. Some stores or setups also make it very hard to get Cover in AoS which is beyond the control of the Player.

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11 minutes ago, Lucio said:

I think that really all that's happening for AoS is that it's being cemented as the "entry level" game, with 40k as the intermediate tier and Horus Heresy as the advanced.

I agree with that and that's probably not a bad thing. Every game doesn't need to be one size fits all.

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26 minutes ago, Lucio said:

I think that really all that's happening for AoS is that it's being cemented as the "entry level" game, with 40k as the intermediate tier and Horus Heresy as the advanced.

But as it is now, Horus Heresy is using the base 40k rules as they are. If that continues they will most likely have somewhat of the same complexity.

And I really do not think  AoS as being more entry level, at least being more simple. Rules bloat does not equal depth or complexity to me, it simply makes the game slow down as you have to look stuff up and harder to balance and have at least a general idea of what all the rules do.

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18 hours ago, Gauche said:

I think Cover should be expanded a bit, which isn't a Shooting Rule per say from 40K but the AoS system leaves a bit to be desired. Some stores or setups also make it very hard to get Cover in AoS which is beyond the control of the Player.

I have always liked the idea that cover should be -1 to Hit rolls for the attacker rather than +1 to Save rolls for the defender.

I think it makes the game flow better because targeting units with attacks is done model to model but doing damage is model to unit. It creates weird scenarios where a single model being out of cover means an entire squad does not get any kind of cover bonus, and it makes it nearly impossible for many units above 10 models to benefit from cover.

Bonuses to saves also has synergy with abilities that let you reroll saves, making cover more valuable for certain factions. I'm not against certain factions favouring cover more than others but the cover system can be done better.

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I have always liked the idea that cover should be -1 to Hit rolls for the attacker rather than +1 to Save rolls for the defender.


This is a great idea! I would totally love this in AoS. Would help reduce the effect of all these shooting armies
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I'm ambivalent as to what bonus it gives, I just think it should be easier to get. AoS favors big Units and many, many models are on sizable bases. Needing every inch of every model in Terrain to get what is kind of a meh benefit in a lot of cases isn't that great. I know AoS is supposed to be rules light but I don't think moving to a half the Unit, rounded up, for Cover would confuse people too much.

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When I looked at getting back into 40k recently, I picked up my two 3rd edition armies (Blood Angels and Chaos Space Marines) and worked out what I'd need to buy before starting:

3 codexes (Inc daemons)

Dark Vengeance/Rulebook

Five supplements (Angels Blade, Traitors Hate, Black Legion, Crimson Slaughter, Khorne Daemonkin)

That's £260 on books before buying a single new model, and without any of the generic supplements like death from the skies or cities of death.  In contrast with Age of Sigmar I was able to pick up a box of Blight kings, fit theme straight in with my old army at no cost and start playing games. The rules bloat more than anything else is what's hurting 40k 

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35 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Wrong. You attack a model, not the unit it belongs to.

Not really?

 

PICKINGTARGETS

First, you must pick the target units for the attacks. In order to attack an enemy unit, an enemy model from that unit must be in range of the attacking weapon.

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