AoS complexity/rules bloat

[Jamopower]

On 4/29/2017 at 8:36 AM, Jamopower said:

Isn't there quite clear power creep when the newer books have a lot more stuff to add to your army more or less free (allegiance abilities, mount abilities, prayers, etc.) compared to to "side factions" with older books or no books at all having nothing like that?

 

It's not the end of world, but I also don't think it can be denied. Also as the original pre ghb scrolls had essentially year worth of public playtestibg behind for their points, it's clear that the newer stuff has got less testing and there seems to be few units that are way too cheap in those armies. It will balance out, but it's also very normal thing to have in this kind of game.

I was yesterday in my first AoS "tournament" of sorts. It was more of a campaign day, with the results of the game not meaning much, but there were two quite good examples of my past thoughts. I played with a mixed order army based on models that I liked/have with little synergy as I had little bit of everything. The pre-game explanations were fun:

The opponent:

"This guy has a command ability that allows these models to teleport to the table edge 7" from you and a trait that gives everyone close by +1 to save and there is this flag and that artefact, oh and the mount can reroll hits as well"

Me:
"This is my general, he has +1 attack, extra -1 to rend and can make one unit immune to battleshock."

Not that there is anything wrong with that, the mixed alliances should be bit weaker with the bonuses than the more limited factions, but it wouldn't have been much different if I had played pure freeguild/dispossessed etc.

 

[Killax]

18 hours ago, Nin Win said:

For me, it's a problem only when it's a problem.  I've seen some podcast discussions go off the rails because of too much focus on things being worth their points and no talk about whether or not the rules are interesting or fun.  And people tend to completely skip over the battle plan sections of reviews of battle tome books.  In person though, I find that a couple of questions or statements tends to make things pretty clear before there's a problem.  

So far it's working for me in terms of finding out quickly who is like minded and who is not.

I've also noticed that even as a new player the massive amount of rules scattered across multiple warscrolls is not really an issue outside of tournament play.  

Very valid points Nin Win, I have to add to that is that for any game, even the Warhammer games' most competative scenes, communication is key. The downside is that not all folks drawn to the game are that socially active and it's sometimes difficult to communicate with them or get a clear opinion from someone. 
Podcasts offer both a solution and a hazard to that, meaning now I see players actually forming an opinion, though the downside of it is that in some cases the opinion is based on "because Podcast such and such said so". While in reality I really want to see players explore their own faction and be a specialist at that  There is tons of depth to be found in almost every faction and the way Podcasts often rush out to be the first reviewer means roughly 80% of what could potentially be good isn't covered at all. We need to agree that everybody should have and own up to an opinion they are capable of making themselves  .
Back to communication again! It's key for everything indeed, like minded players but also helping out new players with the depth they have to work with.

What I have noticed (myself included) is that the 'rules scatter' is an issue. Because I browse from forum to forum I almost on a weekly basis read starter topics like:
- Where can I find my point costs for models (especially when they have seen the last page in say DoT or BoK)?
- How do Battalions work (especially in regards to keywords on Battalions, the keywords on units on those Battalions and how they can interract)?
- I thought rules X was X and not Y?! (example, Chaos Spawn, no longer of all Chaos Marks, same applies to Vortex Beast and Slaughterbrute)
Note that only one of these is actually related to Matched play alone and the others apply to all kinds of play, because players like that depth.

As such my moral remains, if Games Workshop presents Battletomes that incorporate at least 2 of the same Keywords for models that can very much identify with a 'single faction' it does help new players seeing the functional depth first and later expand on the deeper fish  
To give an example again, Blades of Khorne is a wonderful book because it allows you to focus on the really AoS focused models for Khorne. While Slaves to Darkness certainly offers more Mortal models, as a starting player myself I can really see most of the synergies allready.
My wish remains that we see this continue. Duaradin as the last example in my opinion should have also included Fyreslayers. For the simple reason that if you like Duaradin you can read up on all the Age of Sigmar produced Duaradin. 

- 
Lastly and a bit offtopic, I also expect Games Workshop to not cover all sub-factions with a ton of depth. What this allows them for is to make them less interesting overall (less tactical depth is less interesting) to eventually replace them or drop them from production. Some might find that unfortunate but GW's AoS range is so wonderful and dynamic that I hope they'll do it sooner as later. As the static look produced for block-units just isn't half as cool.
A deciline of the model range will also be benificial to reducing rules bloat.

[Dragonlover]

So here's the thing. Against Hypothetical Random Player, damn right I want everything locked down, because I don't know how much of a ****** they will or won't be until I play them. Once I get to know them, however, then things can probably get a little... looser, if they're up for it. I prefer the Matched Play style because it requires less thought and setup, but that's because I run Pokémon club just beforehand and my brain tends to be fried.

Also, I roleplay once a week, which I suspect scratches my narrative urge. 

Dragonlover

[Lavy]

 

2 hours ago, Killax said:

Lastly and a bit offtopic, I also expect Games Workshop to not cover all sub-factions with a ton of depth. What this allows them for is to make them less interesting overall (less tactical depth is less interesting) to eventually replace them or drop them from production. Some might find that unfortunate but GW's AoS range is so wonderful and dynamic that I hope they'll do it sooner as later. As the static look produced for block-units just isn't half as cool.
A deciline of the model range will also be benificial to reducing rules bloat.

I agree with a lot of what you've said here @Killax. I've also thought for some time that a lot of the models that survived the 'first great cull' don't really cut it when compared to the current AoS range. whether it is because they are too static, or are just really showing their age, models like the orruk boar chariot, or clan Eshin gutter/night runners just feel very awkward and out of place next to a sylvaneth or stormcast force on the tabletop. It sort of breaks the immersion of the setting for me if that makes any sense. I would be fine with a second culling of outdated models.

[Jamopower]

Hopefully not, as the old ranges increase the variety. Even if the new models are nice, they are also mostly monopose kits. At some point it starts to get old to see the exactly same ironjawz army in different colour schemes.

[Killax]

2 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Hopefully not, as the old ranges increase the variety. Even if the new models are nice, they are also mostly monopose kits. At some point it starts to get old to see the exactly same ironjawz army in different colour schemes.

Not to upset any player but its more a matter of time.

The way I see it a lot could port over and the start boxes are a great way to retain some of the old.

I can recall how awesome I found the Chaos Warriors when they first showed the sculpt. Now more than 12 years later they look super static. While they arnt even the worst

[Lavy]

I feel I need to weigh-in about the actual topic of the thread here. It seems to me like a lot of gamers here are voicing the same concerns I heard (and encountered) when 8th edition fantasy was still in full swing.

Not all tournament gamers are terrible to play against, and I've met a fair few gamers that prefer the narrative approach that are very banal. I have played with tournament players that are excellent charismatic people who are a joy to lose against; the point is to be a good sportsman, because at the end of the day we are all part of a tight-knit community, this is our golf; our fishing... and sometimes some of us lose sight of why we enjoy the hobby, that's ok, I'll just play with the kind of people that brought the beer and pretzels.

[Menkeroth]

17 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Hopefully not, as the old ranges increase the variety. Even if the new models are nice, they are also mostly monopose kits. At some point it starts to get old to see the exactly same ironjawz army in different colour schemes.

 

This is always so and can't be solved, only remade with newer boxes and other models, especially with hard plastics which are difficult to convert, and it's even worse in historicals as you can't have two different models of "Tiger" tanks or "Corsair" fighter. That's why the only way for now in fantasy (or sci-fi and the like) is to re-release the old boxes with slightly or even strongly remade models. And it will be so in the future as well, so don't worry that much.

14 minutes ago, Killax said:

Not to upset any player but its more a matter of time.

The way I see it a lot could port over and the start boxes are a great way to retain some of the old.

I can recall how awesome I found the Chaos Warriors when they first showed the sculpt. Now more than 12 years later they look super static. While they arnt even the worst

 

Exactly.

[Lavy]

@Auticus, yep I've encountered this, all I can say is that it can become a task to separate casual/narrative/tournament play. It's far easier to just find the type of gamers/people that you enjoy spending time immersing yourself into the AoS universe with. I'm pretty positive that we will never be able to contain one style of play from bleeding into the next, we all just have to find ourselves the best group we can, and make our community the best it can be.

[BunkhouseBuster]

On 5/7/2017 at 7:30 AM, Nin Win said:

...

People are often more concerned with theoretical possible future unfairness than actual negative experiences in a game.  To the point that they'll forego positive experiences or become the source of negative experiences themselves.  The strange thing is that they think a points system will solve the problem for them and protect them from these theoretical possible future instances of unfairness.  And then they use the points system to analyze relative strengths and weaknesses and make a list that tries to get as much power per point as possible.  Thus creating the very thing they are afraid of others doing.

Or they confuse the part that comes before the game (choosing what forces will be present) with the actual game instead of recognizing that list building is actually game design work.  And since their goal is to choose the best units, they fail at their part of game design in an upcoming game.  They end up relying on someone bringing an equally powerful army if they hope to have a non-one sided game.  Though if someone brings a non-optimized army and they wipe them out easily, they'll attribute it to skill rather than a failure in scenario design that they caused out of a desire to protect themselves from the very thing they are creating.

...

It's cool that the general's handbook has got a bunch of people back into the game through matched play, but I think a lot of people would be very well served by concentrating on the first two thirds of the book rather than the section in the back.  Actually taking the time to learn how to set up and enjoy a miniature wargame scenario.  

...

And the response is a deer in headlights.  Or anger at how an imaginary opponent could theoretically summon all the daemons they own.  Or a strange idea that you are supposed to fill up the table with every model you own so the person who spent the most money on miniatures (or is fastest at painting them) will win for sure.
...

I guess I am one of the weirdos that gave Age of Sigmar a chance after the General's Handbook introduced Matched Play points values, and I have stuck around for the Narrative play.  I have mentioned it several times before, but the points are exactly what I was looking for in Age of Sigmar.  I would look at the rules, I tried playing a couple games, and I just kept on wondering what the game would look like if it was picked up by the WAAC tournament players.  They would play with lots and lots of summoning, and they would win every game.  Why do I think this?  Because they can afford to purchase any model they need to "chase the meta" in 40K, and could literally spend thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on models in order to win, where I can barely afford a couple hundred dollars a month on my hobby expenses.  I was not going to waste my time with them, and I moved on.  I kept notice of the releases, but I was holding off on Age of Sigmar.

What the General's Handbook did was introduce exactly what I was wanting: some structure.  Not too much, but something more than the anything-goes game that can quickly become Pay-To-Win.  As such, we now have a local group of about 6 or 7 players that meet and play Age of Sigmar on a regular basis, and most of us are in the same boat: the introduction of points values provided enough of a structure for us to enjoy the game.  And no, none of us are WAAC tournament players.  In fact, we are looking to put together a couple narrative events over the summer, including a local Coalescence event.

So keep in mind that there are some of us Narrative/Open players that use Matched play points as a rough guide for our game size.  Thanks to the modularity of the rules and supplements given to us via the General's Handbook, we can pick and choose to come up with our own version of the game, and enjoy it alongside our home-brewed rules.

[Killax]

The best thing of the Matched play points is that communities can grow upon it, as before the way such things where 'House-ruled' was only known to a much smaller and selective group of people. While some might not like the point system, they can fully choose to not use it, it still helps, especially for new players to calculate roughly what playing this game will cost them.
To me the Narrative or Open side of the game was always around, even in WFB, but we did this will a select group of players we liked and where like-minded. This was roughly 10 years ago and really point costs never where an issue, instead they allowed us to even quicker set up for a game.

I'd also like to note that even here communication is always key. Just because you use Matched play point costs does not mean you need to have the same type of lists that one would use to try and win a tournament with. It's a game build for fun, Games Workshop to date does not support or embrace the most competative side of the hobby. In fact they let that go years ago and all we see is that they have realized that the game actually can grow bigger when you purposefully do not embrace this competative side of the game.

The prime reason as to why I feel AoS is more difficult to play on a casual level as say Magic the Gathering has to do with the costs and transportation involved. Despite the awesome miniatures, for me, strolling around with an army is in fact a bit of a hassle. Because of this you usually pack what you really need, unlike MtG, where players often walk around with their complete collection.
What this leads to for AoS is 'trimming the fat' which unfortunatly means that by comparison AoS will always be that little bit more competative as other card or boardgames. Skirmish games such as Malifaux and Frostgrave as a result also much less competative, again my perception on that is the ammount you have to carry around versus the ammount you can carry around. Shadespire as a format for example would actually work really well in a casual aspect too! It's just a massive difference in actual medium requirement that 'fills the bags'.

Boiling point remains communication however.
- I personally see Open play as step 1 for new players because it requires little to no communication or learning the rules. You can explain Open play in under an hour.
- Narrative play on the opposite can thake hours and is commonly adopted in clubs, through playing with campaigns. Narrative play actually requires a ton of communication as it's very easy to make it a cheesefest, though due to how clubs usually socially interact this often isn't an issue locally. Narrative play can benifit A LOT from the Matched play point system if there are a lot of new players at your club.
- Matched play in reality is just a way to have the depth Narrative play offers but structure it and 'cut time' both for communication and knowing what to bring.

None of the AoS designs actually focus on Competative play, where balanced armies are essential. This is why House-rules can fill in such things for certain tournaments. However it's also very important to realize that ultimately you need to play however you like but also be aware that your opponent is in the same mindset or aware of what kind of play you will aim for that battle. 
- As a mma/kickboxer playing is actually a lot like sparring. You can go 90% and both end up being a bloody wreck (headaches and bruises are not fun) OR you go 70% and practice techniques while not going full power (fun and challenging). If your up against a new player, keep it at 50%, keep it fun and still present some sort of challenge. 

[Nin Win]

2 hours ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

I would look at the rules, I tried playing a couple games, and I just kept on wondering what the game would look like if it was picked up by the WAAC tournament players.  They would play with lots and lots of summoning, and they would win every game. ...  I was not going to waste my time with them, and I moved on.  I kept notice of the releases, but I was holding off on Age of Sigmar.

This is pretty much what I'm talking about.  The fear of what some theoretical opponent might do kept you from even getting into the game.  I bet the same was true for a lot of people.  A lack of structure combined with a fear of what others might do in that lack of structure and the game isn't given a chance.  There was actually a means of protecting yourself available all along.  Talking to people about the kind of game you want and then doing that.

What was it that lead to you conclude that the type of players you wanted to avoid to such a degree were even present in the pre-GHB AoS community?  It was my experience that the win at all cost types were so turned off by how GW launched Age of Sigmar that they basically had been flushed out of the system.  The times I saw the game locally it was people just having some fun with the miniatures they wanted to use, with no tournament minded people in sight.

What I'm not saying though, is that either you or I getting into Age of Sigmar later than we could have is somehow something to regret.  I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of people who relied on the GHB to fix a problem that likely didn't actually exist in reality, but only in their fears.

Quote

As such, we now have a local group of about 6 or 7 players that meet and play Age of Sigmar on a regular basis, and most of us are in the same boat: the introduction of points values provided enough of a structure for us to enjoy the game.  And no, none of us are WAAC tournament players.  In fact, we are looking to put together a couple narrative events over the summer, including a local Coalescence event.

It's awesome that the GHB provided enough structure to get that all going, but I think it's pretty clear that the fears of some win at all cost player crashing your casual games and summoning infinite daemons was unfounded.  You've managed to gather multiple people together and have them be on the same page without any problems.  You may all credit the GHB, but I think it's something you did together and could have easily done even without the GHB (though I'm sure it helped).

Quote

So keep in mind that there are some of us Narrative/Open players that use Matched play points as a rough guide for our game size.  Thanks to the modularity of the rules and supplements given to us via the General's Handbook, we can pick and choose to come up with our own version of the game, and enjoy it alongside our home-brewed rules.

This is awesome and while I don't really have much use for points myself, I totally see the advantage they can bring as a guideline and a form of structure.  It's also cool that you didn't keep operating from that place of "what will the win at all cost player do to ruin my gaming fun?" and seek to continue to use the points system to protect yourself by going for the strongest possible list to protect yourself against someone else going for the strongest possible list.  Probably because you trust your opponents.

[Nin Win]

Matched play army construction definitely provides a frame work for getting into the game.  As well it allows people to start "their army" even before they know if anyone else around them is playing the game.

My own reason for not getting into Age of Sigmar closer to launch was GW.  They were still in their horrible customer communication phase.  Age of Sigmar was launched because WHFB had failed them as a product.  But 40k hadn't.  So I assumed that the switch to Age of Sigmar was the first step into turning their fantasy game into something that looked like 7th edition 40k.  Where you need to buy endless supplements and books and the rules bloat was incredible.  Turns out it was the opposite.  That they were testing a totally new approach and the success of that approach is actually changing 40k rather than the other way around.  No way to know at the time though because GW was still being stupidly silent and shutting down any active communication with their customer base.

[Menkeroth]

2 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

Matched play army construction definitely provides a frame work for getting into the game.

True, and while it indeed is true, what is funny is that most people can't imagine games without points though it's not the first such regulation and all the while one of the worst and silly, it does not work really. There and were tons of different kinds of structure and restrictions and much better as well. But thanks to GW most people don't realize it. 

[Nin Win]

1 hour ago, Menkeroth said:

True, and while it indeed is true, what is funny is that most people can't imagine games without points though it's not the first such regulation and all the while one of the worst and silly, it does not work really. There and were tons of different kinds of structure and restrictions and much better as well. But thanks to GW most people don't realize it. 

I see points systems and army building rules are primarily serving a marketing function.  People have uncertainty and a points based army building system helps them guide their purchases.  I agree they don't really work on the game table, but I think that comes down to people using them to become the very thing they fear from others.  If people are like minded and are just using them as a guide line to army collecting and setting up a game, they're good enough for what the players want.

[Menkeroth]

In this case yes, but again, there are many more other methods to do that, this one is one of the easiest but also ineffective. Which is sort of ironical.

[BunkhouseBuster]

41 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

This is pretty much what I'm talking about.  The fear of what some theoretical opponent might do kept you from even getting into the game.  I bet the same was true for a lot of people.  A lack of structure combined with a fear of what others might do in that lack of structure and the game isn't given a chance.  There was actually a means of protecting yourself available all along.  Talking to people about the kind of game you want and then doing that.

I ended up joining in a 40K narrative campaign the fall after Age of Sigmar was released.  It was loosely based on Kill Teams, and we all got together and had a lot of fun (think a PVE Kill Team where you can pick and choose any model from a squad rather than having a minimum sized squad).  And then some new player joined in, told us we were doing it all wrong, and that we should be playing this other way (some fan-made Kill Team rule set).  In this case, talking with someone else actually killed our group, with only a few of them sticking around after that.  I realize that is the point you are trying to make, but this incident kill my enthusiasm for all wargaming for several months.

49 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

What was it that lead to you conclude that the type of players you wanted to avoid to such a degree were even present in the pre-GHB AoS community?  It was my experience that the win at all cost types were so turned off by how GW launched Age of Sigmar that they basically had been flushed out of the system.  The times I saw the game locally it was people just having some fun with the miniatures they wanted to use, with no tournament minded people in sight.

It was JUST as Age of Sigmar came out when I was concerned, so I had no idea if it would catch on or not.  I only had my experiences with this group of WAAC players and their play style in mind when reading the rules.  There was (and still is) a decent Warhammer Fantasy scene in our area in addition to 40K, Warmahordes, and other wargames.  Between two FLGSs, a very large college campus in town, and centuries of wargaming experience between a couple gaming groups, it turned out that only two guys got into Age of Sigmar at release, and one of them moved away (the other is now in our regular group).  If anything, I fear that now the General's Handbook is out, we will see even more WAAC players hop on to playing Age of Sigmar.  I am extremely grateful to our local group that we are starting out with a very relaxed, Narrative/Open gaming experience in mind for ourselves and new players.

53 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

What I'm not saying though, is that either you or I getting into Age of Sigmar later than we could have is somehow something to regret.  I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of people who relied on the GHB to fix a problem that likely didn't actually exist in reality, but only in their fears.

It's awesome that the GHB provided enough structure to get that all going, but I think it's pretty clear that the fears of some win at all cost player crashing your casual games and summoning infinite daemons was unfounded.  You've managed to gather multiple people together and have them be on the same page without any problems.  You may all credit the GHB, but I think it's something you did together and could have easily done even without the GHB (though I'm sure it helped).

I think for some of our players that the old guard WHFB players would have snubbed us for playing such a loose and aloof game as AoS, especially since WHFB was "killed off" for AoS.  While it doesn't affect me what others think of me or the games I play, I can very easily see a few players not getting into it for that reason there.  Now that the General's Handbook is out, there is a level of "validity" to the game now that it has points costs for the models.  For me, it added in the structure.  For others, it mage AoS a "legitimate" wargame. 

And my "fears" of WAAC players dominating the game are founded on examples and prior experiences with them and other like-minded players.  Yes, it turns out they didn't get into AoS, but at the time, I had no clue what was going to happen.  I live 45 minutes from the closest gaming store in our area, so I want to make sure that I am going to have some modicum of fun when I make such an excursion.  Even if these WAAC players didn't bring the infinite-summoning lists, their attitudes still drain on me, like the times they try telling me how to play "better" with "stronger armies". (No, Mr. WAAC player, I don't want your advice on how to make my Space Marines more competitive!  No, I don't need a list of extra books to field a bunch of Leman Russ tanks as troops!  I just want to move my guys and roll dice and relax...)

Even without directly talking to these WAAC players, I have learned their intentions by suffering through half a dozen tournaments (including some WAAC-hijacked "casual" tournaments).

1 hour ago, Nin Win said:

This is awesome and while I don't really have much use for points myself, I totally see the advantage they can bring as a guideline and a form of structure.  It's also cool that you didn't keep operating from that place of "what will the win at all cost player do to ruin my gaming fun?" and seek to continue to use the points system to protect yourself by going for the strongest possible list to protect yourself against someone else going for the strongest possible list.  Probably because you trust your opponents.

Yes, I do trust my opponents, because we are here with the same goals in mind.  If one of these WAAC players were to show up and start playing AoS, I would be very clear and blunt with them about my goals in playing AoS, and if they didn't like that, I won't play with them.  I don't have the time or money to play with someone who has different gaming goals than I do.

And when we use the Matched Play points values, we pretty much just use them to get within a hundred points of each other or so.  Our armies tend to look more Open or Narrative once we get going (like a mixed Skaven and Bloodbound army, or my pure Ironjawz with Gargant).  Then we decided if we are using Battalions, or the Allegiance abilities.  The modular presentation of the extra layers of rules is one of my absolute favorite aspects of Age of Sigmar.  Sure, some players may think this is "bloating" the game down, but as someone who has played a bunch of 6th and 7th edition 40K I can tell you that Age of Sigmar is just fine right now.  You pretty much just need the Army book and General's Handbook for most games, which is a great relief coming from 40K where one might need 3 Codexes (Codices?), 2 Supplements, a Campaign book, a copy of White Dwarf, and the Rulebook just to make an army.

[Nin Win]

50 minutes ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

I ended up joining in a 40K narrative campaign the fall after Age of Sigmar was released.  It was loosely based on Kill Teams, and we all got together and had a lot of fun (think a PVE Kill Team where you can pick and choose any model from a squad rather than having a minimum sized squad).  And then some new player joined in, told us we were doing it all wrong, and that we should be playing this other way (some fan-made Kill Team rule set).  In this case, talking with someone else actually killed our group, with only a few of them sticking around after that.  I realize that is the point you are trying to make, but this incident kill my enthusiasm for all wargaming for several months.

...

Yes, I do trust my opponents, because we are here with the same goals in mind.  If one of these WAAC players were to show up and start playing AoS, I would be very clear and blunt with them about my goals in playing AoS, and if they didn't like that, I won't play with them.  I don't have the time or money to play with someone who has different gaming goals than I do.

It isn't just the win at all cost types that need to be bluntly told that you already know what you want out of the game.  There really wasn't any reason you couldn't have been just as clear and blunt with the guy who ruined your 40k campaign.  He had his ideas about what a kill team approach should look like and despite having fun doing what you were doing, when he told you that you were doing it wrong, you just believed him?  The whole group of you?  And then when things started being less fun, no one said "hey, how we were doing things before was better.  let's go back to that"?

I really don't think this is an example of talking to people about the kind of game you want ruining things.  It sounds like an example of not speaking up about the kind of game you want, which is kind of the exact opposite.

The launch of AoS was indeed a time of great uncertainty.  I skipped out on it because I saw no reason to think it would turn out good given what GW was doing with 40k at the time.  I should have clued in earlier when all the local people I know I like playing against were having fun with it and all the people I knew not to really bother with it were bad mouthing the game.  That should have been enough of a clue for me, but GW had not yet established where things were going with the game and their behaviour over the previous five or so years had told me that being their customer was a waste of time.

[BunkhouseBuster]

3 hours ago, Nin Win said:

It isn't just the win at all cost types that need to be bluntly told that you already know what you want out of the game.  There really wasn't any reason you couldn't have been just as clear and blunt with the guy who ruined your 40k campaign.  He had his ideas about what a kill team approach should look like and despite having fun doing what you were doing, when he told you that you were doing it wrong, you just believed him?  The whole group of you?  And then when things started being less fun, no one said "hey, how we were doing things before was better.  let's go back to that"?

I really don't think this is an example of talking to people about the kind of game you want ruining things.  It sounds like an example of not speaking up about the kind of game you want, which is kind of the exact opposite.

The launch of AoS was indeed a time of great uncertainty.  I skipped out on it because I saw no reason to think it would turn out good given what GW was doing with 40k at the time.  I should have clued in earlier when all the local people I know I like playing against were having fun with it and all the people I knew not to really bother with it were bad mouthing the game.  That should have been enough of a clue for me, but GW had not yet established where things were going with the game and their behaviour over the previous five or so years had told me that being their customer was a waste of time.

It has only been in the past few months that I am now willing to be bluntly honest about my desired gaming experiences.  In the past, I was so desperate for opportunities that I was wiling to put up with less-than-pleasant experiences just to get any.  But now that I have a wife, new baby, and house to manage, I am being much more straight forward with everyone, including the previously mentioned WAAC players.

The *gentleman* I mentioned that wanted to change our campaign was not only being bossy and controlling, but smelled badly, dressed poorly, and never painted his models. At one point, he had asked me if I had models for sale, which I did, but when I tried to sell them to him he either didn't have the money or had changed his mind.  Once he had been there for a few weeks, our campaign crumbled.  Several of us quit the exact same week that the organizer quit running it due to real life issues.  But several of the others started up their own thing with this new guy.  I have not had an opportunity to tell this *gentleman* what I thought about that time, but it isn't worth the time at this point.  I just don't go to the FLGS when I know he is there.

My examples are there to portray my experiences, and maybe give a voice to others in my boat.  These days, I absolutely will tell someone what kind of game I am looking for, to the point that I am speaking my mind what I think of tournament play in our local wargamers Facebook group (even today!).  I don't want to have to have a campaign book, Codex, rulebook, and a supplement to field my all-vehicle Imperial Guard army, I just want to throw down some treads, and I told them as such!

Age of Sigmar is much better than anyone was expecting, and I hope that 40K is all the better for it.  if 40K takes just ONE thing from Age of Sigmar, I hope it is the options for Open, Narrative, and Matched Play.  My group got Age of Sigmar started and established it as a narrative-first gaming experience, and if anyone wants to join in, more power to them.

[Nin Win]

5 hours ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

Age of Sigmar is much better than anyone was expecting, and I hope that 40K is all the better for it.  if 40K takes just ONE thing from Age of Sigmar, I hope it is the options for Open, Narrative, and Matched Play.  My group got Age of Sigmar started and established it as a narrative-first gaming experience, and if anyone wants to join in, more power to them.

Great post.  

I also totally agree about the three ways to play being one of the strengths of AoS.  They've already talked about it being in the new 40k.  And as well it sounds like Narrative mode is going to be like how you already do things with AoS.  A simplified, guideline use of points to get the results you want when setting up your scenario.  While I probably won't use points myself, I do plan on making sure anyone who wants the guideline knows about it.  The more people doing Open and Narrative, the better.  Points work best when they are a simple guideline and not a means of trying to make the strongest army possible, so you're already on to something that GW is including in the next version of 40k.  It's also possible they'll add something to the 2nd General's Handbook for AoS explaining how general guideline approaches to points work well with setting up narrative games.

[Killax]

Absolutely agree with pretty much everything on this page. To which I boil down the use of any play again to communication. Being open about what you want to do is the most essential thing to have a good time. Be it playing, sparring, having a night out or general Netflix and chill  

In my vision Open play is essential to the game because it allows new players to join and quickly learn the game. With this you can often choose two veteran paths. One of the Narrative (which again costs more time to do) and one of the Matched (which reduces time required but also leads to more powerful lists).
In terms of competative lists, there is also one large advantage to them, which is the time required to play them. Despite being tabled never really is 'fun' if you can do it in under an hour the advantage gained is that you have just played a really quick game and can continue on playing or simply then be aware of the type of play that is common in your local community.

As someone who has organized some tournaments and events in the past I see this trend being a common thing amongst many games. Narrative play to me is just another term for casual and story-based games. It has the undertone you find in DnD. Sometimes a TO even needs to check lists or give random bonusses to offset any power differences (often called House-rules for AoS).
The undertone in Matched play can be much more competation based, which can be fun also. To me it has the undertone you find in chess. There is a game going on but the move sets that are made are made to end the game, not prolong it. 

Playing what you want also boils down to stating what you want. There is no good or bad to Narrative or Matched play only a difference in mind set. Both can be really enjoyable.

---

Drifting back to Rules complexity!
The prime reason as to why I still believe the awnser to reducing rulesbloat comes in bigger Battletomes is because it allows players of all types of play to use one resource as their army-rules.

Stupid as it might sound, what I hope GW will do eventually is apply the same kind of information bundles as you used to see in Phone books.
Living in a country with provinces, we had phone books for provinces, not all phone books for cities or countries.

What I see now is that GW produces Battletomes for provinces (Blades of Khorne), cities (Kharadron Overlords) and sometimes countries (Generals Handbook). What this causes is confusion on where the useful information can be found. Like phonebooks it's uncommon that you actually need to call someone in a totally different place as you live in the country. What is common is that you live in a specific province and call people in different cities located in that provice  

So what do I want?
Ideally to have the two most significant Keywords per unit to become part of a Battletome. To give some examples:

- Blades of Khorne; essential Keywords: Chaos, Khorne <- love how GW handled this
- Disicples of Tzeentch; essential Keywords: Chaos, Tzeentch <- love how GW handled this
- "Duaradin Holds"; essential Keywords: Order, Duaradin <- GW somehow decided to not cover this in a book, which is illogical to me and therefor becomes complex because you do not have all Duaradin under one rulesbook.
- "Stormcast Eternals 2.0"; essential keywords: Order, Stormcast <- GW made two books for Stormcast, I don't know why (again) it makes things complex due to rulesbooks not covering all Stormcast.

My moral is that if you want to make things less complex a lot of that has to do with being informed with relevant rules/theory. The Generals Handbook as is is great but it also covers so many rules that arn't relevant unless you play all factions. 
I don't believe anyone playing AoS actually plays all 200+ factions  
 

[wayniac]

9 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Communication is key... but it often does not work simply because the other party is not interested in complying.  I can communicate with a tournament player all day that I want a casual game with non tournament lists, but that doesn't mean he will do so or not actively try to get his tournament list into the casual narrative campaign with the "git gud" mantra that seems so heavily prevalent in our culture.

Amen to this.  It boggles my mind how many people are just not able to cope with the idea that things aren't balanced or that they aren't going to just bring the best units because they can.  And, I often see it as subtly trying to "instruct" others; for example, you bring a competitive list to a casual game night so you can "show" the casual players what a "real" list looks like.  I'm not sure why people tend to focus so much on winning and so little on playing the game, or worse equate "fun" with "I won the game" and cannot have fun unless they are trying their hardest to win by any means necessary.

It's like.. if you propose an imbalanced scenario, the first thought isn't "sounds like this will be a fun challenge" it's "But why am I at a disadvantage" from many people; they are only concerned with it "not being fair".  What is also most interesting is they only have this approach if they are the one a the disadvantage, never if they're the ones who have the advantage...

[Menkeroth]

People function like this sadly. Fear of what other might do as mentioned plus such attitude express mostly those who are nothing in life and who could not achieve something worthy of remembering, so they try to do this at least with little plastic (or big and metal) soldiers. And bring with them everywhere they go.

[Nin Win]

Thankfully those compensating for insecurities through table top victory are exceedingly rare.

As for rules bloat, I've taken to writing a short hand reference sheet that is broken down by phase.  So it'll say Hero Phase: and then have a note for each ability on each warscroll that mentions or is used during that phase.  And one for the opponent's stuff as well.  That way we also don't forget about anything we need to do before moving on to the next phase/turn/combat activation.

[Killax]

3 hours ago, Auticus said:

I can communicate with a tournament player all day that I want a casual game with non tournament lists, but that doesn't mean he will do so or not actively try to get his tournament list into the casual narrative campaign with the "git gud" mantra that seems so heavily prevalent in our culture.

If there is no mutal interest in the same type of play then simply said, don't play with each other. As above if you can't explain to someone how you'd like to play, cannot find a compremise your not going enjoy spending your time with that person anyway. Which leads to a simple result, spend your time with someone else or somewhere else.

If people want to get Git Gud, let them try to understand, there is a whole level of Gittin' Gud at Narrative play and expand your own community instead of curb stomping them with tournament lists .

The best way to keep new players out is actually by playing tournament lists exclusively. It's unhealthy for any community.