Rules that should not exist

[Celestant651]

There are som rules that just make me mad, rules like when you plant a banner making it so you cant run.

[Guest]

Okay then. Why does that make you mad?

[KevenM]

Gotta say I'm not a big fan of renaming units but not associated battalions and then following up with a FAQ to completely remove any possibility of using said battalions...

[KnightFire]

1 minute ago, Auticus said:

Isn't the point of planting a banner and then giving you the ability to run kind of impossible?  Or are you wanting to plant a banner and then having it just stay there with no one around it?

Maybe he wants to run in circles around the banner?

[wayniac]

2 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Isn't the point of planting a banner and then giving you the ability to run kind of impossible?  Or are you wanting to plant a banner and then having it just stay there with no one around it?

I'm liking the new 40k rules that to me should have been what AOS impleemented.  IE you can only s hoot into your own combat, characters can't be sniped across the field by the entire enemy army.  Things like that.

Yeah, most of my rules gripes with AOS seem to be fixed in 8th ed 40k so I hope beyond hope they backport them soon.

[Gilby]

Whilst I do think that planting a banner means you can't move is a perfectly fine rule... I do wonder how a unit can move, aim and shoot if the bannerguy can't move and then plant the banner or just pick it up, move and then re-plant it? 

[FRoper]

the banner is planted in the ground, then the models stand around and defend the banner, they can still move and see, even shoot the banner would not stop that. the bearer would just pick it up again. he probably just wanted a tea break from lugging the heavy banner around.

[Guest]

Shooting out of combat shouldn't exist. It's lame both from a gameplay perspective and from an aesthetic perspective. Overpowered, unnecessary and unrealistic.

Shooting into combat without penalty also shouldn't exist.

[kozokus]

That could solve a lot of problem...but probably create new ones

 

[Killax]

As repeated elsewhere also, I think one very elegent solution in regards to Missle Attacks remains:
If you have an enemy model within 3" your Missle Attack range goes to range 3". 

A very simple rule that doesn't require any drastic re-costing of ranged units (all) nor does it drastically reduce the effect of ranged attacks. All it really does is make things slightly more logical as a rule. Because in my opinion the units at hand arn't at fault but the lack of this basic rule is. It's also very likely we'll see 40K's variant implemented into AoS. What is key to keep in mind here is that last edition 40K suffered from the same kind of 'Missle attack issues' AoS is also suffering from. It's important to have but like Melee/Spells/Summonning requires some form of restriction aswell. 

On topic:
There is really only one rule that I don't see adding anything as we speak, therefor it might aswell not excist; Battleline not for Matched play Units.

So far I see it as a semi-restriction that doesn't really add up to anything because we see several very powerful Battleline units and non-powerful Battleline units and there isn't any significant difference in cost versus damage output, also when compairing it to non-Battleline units there is often little to no difference. 

The Core Unit mechanic was very faulthy in WFB from the getgo and always restricted army composition more than anything. As before I really do not see the added value of it, even less so when we get a propper rulesset in regards to Missle Attacks. 

[Nevvermore]

Shooting in combat, IMO, should only be allowed against units that are within 3" (ie units you are engaged with). That's basically the only rule that grates me and breaks my suspension of disbelief. Shooting out of combat much more so than shooting into combat, so I'd be happy to just remove that as well.

[Turragor]

I don't buy any 'suspension of disbelief' arguments you guys are selling I'm afraid. Not in the Age of Sigmar setting.

[Chris Tomlin]

I'm seeing an awful lot of hate for shooting into/out of combat recently.

Sure, it felt weird at the beginning coming from WFB, but a couple of years in it just feels like part of the game to me. I agree with @Turragor, those kind of arguments don't work for me either.

I wonder whether these gripes have come about as a result of newer players coming into the game and/or the shooting heavy meta we are currently encountering?

For the record, I am a tournament Ironjawz player. My results would undoubtedly improve as a result of any changes to these rules. But as it stands, they are the rules, so I just get on with it.

That said, that's just my opinion on it and tbh I do get why people get frustrated with it. Getting shot off is not the most engaging of experiences.

I wonder whether a suitable fix in points costs to the main shooting offenders would be a better option that fundamentally changing the rules? Hopefully time will tell in this regard.

[Nevvermore]

17 minutes ago, Turragor said:

I don't buy any 'suspension of disbelief' arguments you guys are selling I'm afraid. Not in the Age of Sigmar setting.

Age of Sigmar is exactly the sort of setting where suspension of disbelief is important, and where it's very easy to break. Creating an internally consistent world is very important. It's actually much easier to believe that gods the size of mountains walk the realms than to believe that a Grot in combat with a magical beast has the situational awareness to ignore it and point his bow at another enemy 100 meters away. Why? Because the former is internally consistent with the world, it's something we expect from a fantastical realm. The latter is not, and is very hard to imagine as being true in the context of the setting.

[Killax]

As Narrative is the cornerstone of Age of Sigmar I do believe that 'suspension of belief' matters, A LOT. The thing we see now is that there isn't any particular hate on Missle Attacks but the simplicity of the rule, the way it is not restricted in any way shape or form compared to other forms of attacks. 

I personally don't believe that re-costing solves problems that the game present regardless of cost. We also see this confirmed in the form of ANY shooting unit with a Battalion available that even so slightly improves them are fantastic.
Without doubt the way it works now shows that Missle Attacks are unrestricted and as a result provide a minor bonus to those who have it available in quality per faction.

Note that I see it as a minor bonus, which is why I would give it a minor restriction, which reducing its range to 3" while enemies are within 3" effectively is. 
The key problem Missle Attacks generate now come from the fact that they completely ignore any way of 'board control' where Melee, Summon and even Magic have to deal with this. In the forms of not being able to move closer as 3", how pile in works, not being able to summon into that range or larger and the fact that Unbinding a spell is a legit option. 

With so many explicit restrictions on these forms of 'Attacks' the question remains; why do Missle Attacks go unrestricted? 
Even if you don't care about the Narrative aspect of things, having rules with pro's and con's ideally is something you consistantly apply. There is no con to a Missle Attack, only pro's. This is what make it unique, stand out or feel unfair compaired to other forms of Attacking.

[stato]

35 minutes ago, Killax said:

Note that I see it as a minor bonus, which is why I would give it a minor restriction, which reducing its range to 3" while enemies are within 3" effectively is. 
 

Minor!?  youve changed it to a rule where i can charge a powerful shooting unit with a rubbish unit to tie them up.  Thats not minor, its a change to the whole mechanic of the game.  

[Guest]

I don't care one iota about the current 'meta', because I'm the least competitive person there is. So in my case at least the issues around shooting in/out of combat are genuinely about immersion and plausibility. Not 'realism' - plausibility. Any abstract system intended to model a real world situation has to decide where to draw the line between realism and abstraction in order to maintain a satisfying sense of plausibility - otherwise you may as well just show up at the table, roll off and declare the highest score the victor.

For me, the line of plausibility for shooting is drawn in the wrong place and isn't satisfying. But I can understand how this may seem completely alien to those who think of the game primarily in competitive terms, for whom the degree to which you can game the abstraction is more relevant than the form and nuance of the abstraction itself.

[Chris Tomlin]

Weirdly I only see hate for allowing shooting into/out of combat on the internet (and specifically this forum over Twitter), not in real life at the club or tournaments etc.....though this might be because 80% of players are using shooting heavy lists at the moment!

Just an observation, but I wonder if this is more of virtual problem (i.e. something fun for people to get their knickers in a twist about online) than an actual in game issue. Not sure.

I'm not for one second suggesting that shooting is not very very strong; is undoubtedly is. Any of the suggested fixes above would make my preferred army instantly better.

As for suspension of disbelief, that is down to the individual player and how they perceive the game. My previous comments were perhaps a little abrasive on that, apologies. I guess for me trying to relate rules to fluff or "what would happen in real life" doesn't hold water, but that's not to say it's not how others approach their gaming (which is of course totally cool as well).

[Killax]

13 minutes ago, stato said:

Minor!?  youve changed it to a rule where i can charge a powerful shooting unit with a rubbish unit to tie them up.  Thats not minor, its a change to the whole mechanic of the game.  

Rubish units should not excist. Nor will you see them in competative play.

Cheap units are units who lose out vs expensive units. They should if they are balanced.

[Turragor]

I don't buy the plausibility and internal consistency arguments you guys are selling either. Not in a tabletop wargame.

Look if you don't like shooting and want it tweaked that's okay. I don't think shooting should remain unchanged. It'd make things interesting to tweak it.

I just find the idea that it's 'weird' grots can shoot heroes out of a melee they are in that the hero isn't in, to be a bit flat. You're still selecting to argue against a mechanic you dislike.

Because it's equally implausible that a Stardrake charge roll of 9 into grots 3 inches away stops 2.5 inches and the grots hold.

It's equally implausible that Stonehorns have to accomodate their base size when moving 3" round a unit of skeletons instead of just mowing through them to the hero beyond.

It's equally implausible that a Thundertusk swinging its mighty tusks against a heraldor will do no splash damage to a unit right beside.

 

[stato]

12 minutes ago, Killax said:

Rubish units should not excist. Nor will you see them in competative play.

Cheap units are units who lose out vs expensive units. They should if they are balanced.

Put it this way. You can now nullify a huge 400pt or more shooting unit with a 80pt melee unit. Chances are you would be trying to kill them anyway as a priority if they are that big a threat, so if you manage this on turn 4 they would have only had 4 at most chances to shoot anyway. Add in the short range so if they had first turn they probably didnt shoot then either, so now 3 chances to shoot. So allowing you to nullify them say you get a charge on turn 2, so now they only probably had 1 chance to shoot freely (if they were lucky) and not be shooting at ****** targets. 

What will happen is you will now not get big units of shooting (which means many of the bonuses you get for large units are now never going to be used, so the unit is now over-costed), and you will get armies needing to field lots of small fast units incase someone does try to field a large shooting unit.

The game was made with the shooting mechanic it has, changing it changes the basic game. If GW had started with no shooting out of combat maybe they wouldnt have given melee armies such powerful charge bonuses, maybe they would be changed deployment rules. 

As for immersion, if you can imagine losing models from morale its possible to imagine models in the unit jumping back from the fight and loosing off shot at a distant important target to help their fellow warriors, while others in the unit hold off attacks or rotate around to loose off their own shot.  Dont forget that for each shooting phase (ignoring odd shooting in hero phase which would have its own 'immersion' based on how they are allowed to do it)

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Just an observation, but I wonder if this is more of virtual problem (i.e. something fun for people to get their knickers in a twist about online) than an actual in game issue. Not sure.

That's undoubtedly true to some extent - the internet amplifies all grievances, however minor. I'm not up in arms over the shooting thing by any means, it's just that if I could change one fundamental thing about the rules this would be it.

In my case I think part of the reason why the 'wrongness' of it feel so tangible to me is that prior to AoS my main game was Lord of the Rings, which has a lot more rules designed to more closely model the reality of combat and moving around a battlefield. One of which is no shooting into combat unless you're 'evil', and even then you have a chance of hitting your own guy ('good' would never risk harming their own people). No one ever complained that this disadvantaged 'good' players because it was a characterful rule that made sense and created additional tactical considerations for both sides. For someone like me who enjoys the narrative of a game more than the competitive side, coming to a system that replaces a more plausible and characterful rule with a completely implausible and more abstracted one just feels wrong.

What I honestly don't understand is why competitive players seem to be universally against this because, narrative and immersion considerations aside, it would add a great deal of strategic nuance and additional tactical considerations to the game that a shooting free-for-all doesn't. Why wouldn't competitive players be up for that? If the answer is because it would make shooting less powerful then that doesn't seem like the outlook of a true sportsman or strategist.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Turragor said:

I don't buy the plausibility and internal consistency arguments you guys are selling either. Not in a tabletop wargame.

Look if you don't like shooting and want it tweaked that's okay. I don't think shooting should remain unchanged. It'd make things interesting to tweak it.

I just find the idea that it's 'weird' grots can shoot heroes out of a melee they are in that the hero isn't in, to be a bit flat. You're still selecting to argue against a mechanic you dislike.

Because it's equally implausible that a Stardrake charge roll of 9 into grots 3 inches away stops 2.5 inches and the grots hold.

It's equally implausible that Stonehorns have to accomodate their base size when moving 3" round a unit of skeletons instead of just mowing through them to the hero beyond.

It's equally implausible that a Thundertusk swinging its mighty tusks against a heraldor will do no splash damage to a unit right beside.

 

The whole thing is an abstraction - every mechanic is implausible to some extent. It's a question of where you draw the line in order to create a satisfying balance. It's perfectly possible to be okay with where that line is drawn for one mechanic, and be unsatisfied with where it's drawn for another.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, stato said:

What will happen is you will now not get big units of shooting (which means many of the bonuses you get for large units are now never going to be used, so the unit is now over-costed), and you will get armies needing to field lots of small fast units incase someone does try to field a large shooting unit.

You mean so that your shooting units need to be screened with melee units to keep them safe? And so that the opponent needs to outflank them with, say, cavalry or something in order to nullify the threat? By Jimminy that sounds almost like a tactical scenario that might occur in a real battle! 

[Killax]

47 minutes ago, stato said:

Put it this way. You can now nullify a huge 400pt or more shooting unit with a 80pt melee unit. Chances are you would be trying to kill them anyway as a priority if they are that big a threat, so if you manage this on turn 4 they would have only had 4 at most chances to shoot anyway. Add in the short range so if they had first turn they probably didnt shoot then either, so now 3 chances to shoot. So allowing you to nullify them say you get a charge on turn 2, so now they only probably had 1 chance to shoot freely (if they were lucky) and not be shooting at ****** targets. 

What will happen is you will now not get big units of shooting (which means many of the bonuses you get for large units are now never going to be used, so the unit is now over-costed), and you will get armies needing to field lots of small fast units incase someone does try to field a large shooting unit.

The game was made with the shooting mechanic it has, changing it changes the basic game. If GW had started with no shooting out of combat maybe they wouldnt have given melee armies such powerful charge bonuses, maybe they would be changed deployment rules. 

You don't nullify anything. As a huge 400 point or more shooting unit should have the board control issues any large unit runs into due to their footprint. In addition a 400 point shooting unit should also easily be capable in dealing with that 80 point melee unit. 
The suggestion that you would be trying to kill them anyway is not a competative tactic that is applied in Tournament scenes. As 80 point units do not muster the Melee poweress to tople ANY 400 point unit, nor should they, for balanced reasoning. 80 point units are unable to cover all models within that 400 point unit within 3" if the opponent tactically knows what is comming at him. Something every unit and every general is capable to prepare for.

What you suggest would happen actually profits shooting units because shooting units more easily deal with smaller units due to how drastically Battleshock can effect them. 

The whole point of this notion is that the competative side of the game shows that the shooting mechanic as is is unrestricted, where the melee, spell and summoning mechanics are severly restricted by comparison. 

The basis for this notion is the continious tournament results who show that Missle attacks are the best kind of attacks in the game. As there is no way to restrict them by any tactical Unit use. Tactical unit use WILL restrict your Melee, Spell and Summoning capabilities. It is time for Missle attacks to follow that same patron if you want to improve the general competative army composition options. The same was true for 40K, where they have resently shown us that they applied it there.