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INSPIRATION FROM NEW 40K CHARACTER VS SHOOTING RULES


Teletomas

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So, my fellow GA: DEATH Players...

Does the new 40K character rules sound like a wet dream for you too?

...."To counter the fact that these Characters cannot join units and “hide” from enemy fire, there is a rule in the Shooting phase that means you can’t target a Character unless they are the closest enemy model. This represents the difficulty in picking out individuals amidst the maelstrom of battle and applies to all Characters with a Wounds characteristic of 10 or less, including things that previously might not have benefited from any protection. For example, Roboute Guilliman, who has 9 Wounds, can now realistically advance in the centre of a disciplined Space Marines army, directing his troops while remaining relatively safe from incoming weapons fire. Really big heroes, like Magnus the Red, will still need to brave enemy fire, but with, in his case, over a dozen Wounds and a respectable invulnerable save, he holds his own just fine."

Would be nice as a faction ability or something, huh? Like; Unnatural Mist; Your heroes are enveloped in an unnatural mist, making them harder to hit in shooting. ... Or something like that... 

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Yes, I really am hoping we see some of the new 40k bleed back into Age of Sigmar, whether in the form of a new edition of the game or generals handbook updates or whatever.  Units not able to shoot if they're engaged by enemy models (unless they have special rules saying otherwise), not able to target non-monster characters if they aren't the closest enemy (unless you have special rules saying otherwise), toughness values with scaling to-wound scores, etc.

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Why.  Why is keeping the systems different important?  They're so similar now, if one is doing some basic thing fundamentally better, then keeping them different for its own sake is just making one game worse on purpose.

Heck, if the games get similar enough, you could play crossover matches, and, frankly, that would be awesome.  And would also make finding casual game night opponents so much easier.

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the only bit i disagree with is toughness value. i think keeping the systems different is important as it means that the each game is fundamentally different. the idea of crossover play does not sound good. i want to seperate games that are different in the approach and rules, so when i play each one i know they are a different game ratehr than a slightly different system with different models.

AOS: simpler, few stats

40K: more advance, more stats to learn, more special rules.

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I think it could easily be implemented into AoS, with a simple, Hero that isn't Monster can also do X.

However, to be completely honest, I want the AoS team to reconsider the Missle Attack rule. It's just very unrestricted. Compair it to Spells, Melee attacks and Summoning and something should feel off if you know a thing or two about designing games ;) 

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have you seen the previewed toughness and to wound rules for 8e? they're so simple, there's hardly any added complexity to implementing them, and in exchange add considerable value in differentiated kinds of offense and defense.

I mean, something that simple and useful?  something so fundamental as portraying that some units are just tougher than others?  saying that AoS shouldnt have that for no other reason than because 40k does is like saying AoS shouldnt have a movement phase, or the ability to move units at all, because you can move units in 40k and you dont want the games to be "too similar".

The rules for AoS should be written with one and only one goal in mind: making AoS the best game it can be.  The second the designers start compromising that goal in the interest of propping up the uniqueness of some other game, they have beyrayed their purpose.

As a Chaos Marine player who was time and again seen my faction denied access to rules and units that by all narrative rights they should have, rules and units needed to be fun and functional, whether we're talking drop pods or assault transports or legion rules or homing beacons or artificier armor or anything else, all denied to us on the basis of maintaining distinction between regular and chaos marines, I have zero patience for this line od thought.

While its terrible to start, once you let that mindset in, favoratism inevitably leverages it to the worst possible effect.  Chaos can't have drop pods because we don't want them stepping in the loyalists toes, but loyalists can get legion rules even though those were a chaos thing first.  and then, now that loyalists have them, chaos gets theirs taken away because they cant be too much like loyalists, right?!

I know I got a bit off on a tangent there, but the analogy really does fit, imo, and should stand as a warning, because nake no mistake, despite the ground AoS has made up after its embarrassing introduction, between 40k and AoS, 40k is going to be the favorite and is going to get the preferential treatment.  If they arent allowed to share, if only one game is allowed to have a given good idea, 40k is going to get the best ideas, and AoS will live out its days as a cobbled together mess of leftover scraps and trial balloons.

No, far better not to worry about how they relate to each othet.  Make AoS the best game it can be, and if you look at 40k at all, do so exclusively to ask whether that game is doing something better that you can borrow.

Any differences you're left with will then be organic, serving the game and making it better, rather than arbitrarily inserted at the cost of fun and quality.

frankly, if they wanted their sci fi and fantasy games to be fundamentally distinct, they should have kept rank and file.  that was a difference that actually served gameplay and narrative.  im not saying AoS is worse than fantady (at least, not because of the rank and file thing), I'm just saying the 'keep 40k and fantasy as fundamentally distinct game play experiences' ship kind of sank two years ago.

edit pls forgive typos, am on phone

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As far as bringing the games close together enough to be compatible with each other.. There's a number of reasons that potential compatibility would be fun, but I don't think it's necessarily a good idea - even something as simple as Chaos Daemons, I think, should possibly behave differently in 40K to Age of Sigmar because of their relativity to the other armies and units. Maybe they don't have to, but I think both games would have to be designed from the get go to be compatible with each other. I'm not saying that's impossible, but it'd take either a collossal rules release, or a couple incremental editions of each game. Maybe that's GWs end game here, to make their games compatible in the way of Warmahordes, and the push towards Big Awesome High Concept Fantasy With Massive Monsters in Age of Sigmar and making 40K a little closer in playstyle to AoS is their first step. Maybe the games will learn from each other for another edition or two before becoming, essentially, the same game.

Maybe. Would that be good for the fluff for each game? Eh, debatable. But it's kinda happened before?

I get the appeal of having two distinct systems though - it's something that to this day makes me miss Fantasy a little. I liked walking into a GW and seeing two sides, and the immensely distinct grey vs red divide, and on the tabletops you'd have these futuristic skirmishes and fantasy/medival rank and files. It's nice having two distinct games with distinct rulesets that provide a little something different for each. But most of the rules they've previewed in this new edition of 40K - simplified Strength and Toughness comparisons, restricted shooting out of combat, characters and so on - it all sounds great, and none of it feels explicitly 40K, like it's worth keeping to a single system. Yeah, you could argue Age of Sigmar is a little easier, but the difference is nowhere near, say, 3rd Edition 40K and 6th Edition Fantasy.

I have no idea what GWs long term game is here, but I definitely forsee some more cross pollination of ideas for a while, and if GW is going the annual incremental update route with the Generals Handbook, then we probably won't see any more sweeping changes that require everything to have new warscrolls any time soon. I'll be very disappointed if the shooting and characters rules don't come to Age of Sigmar though!

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@Sception I think that we will meet the day where Warhammer will become one very compairable system, just not now. Not before Age of Sigmar and 40K are changed in such a way that the models would actually make 'sence enough' together. However the Kharadron Overlords are allready a great example of how Games Workshop could eventually blend both systems together. In this way you could still play Age of Sigmar or 40K alone but also go for a combined system... This is still something I think isn't part of their new decennia plan however :) But after 2025 I wouldn't be extremely suprised if they did go that way.

Back to the now, I think that indeed some of the 40K rules would be very benificial to AoS. Especially the way Shooting and Magic works. 
In that same way what I think GW is doing now is very effective. Have AoS and 40K reflect against the community and see what the community likes best.
It's no coincedence that a lot of 40K players actually stepped away from 7th into AoS. Likewise, if 8th is much better I think AoS players will pick up 40k (again). Then, ideally, AoS steps up it's rules and this way we'll get a game that changes (so keeps interest) while it also improves little by little. Because making a really great game isn't easy.

The biggest gain for GW to have the game closer together is that new customers don't have to make a tough choice on what to get. Instead, if we are in 'this is one game era' you can just pick whatever you like the most.

The new Toughness/Strenght way of 40K is also very much like AoS in many ways. Despite the option to wound on 2+ and 6+  the most common ways will be 3+, 4+ and 5+, like AoS :) 




 

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54 minutes ago, wayniac said:

I really hope that they backport SOME, not all, of the new 40k rules.  The character rule in particular I think fixes the one major issue with AOS.  I don't think we need to go back to S/T values.

I think the cool option of S/T values is that it adds some more character. Despite the functionality being largely the same I think that there is something about regular humans hurting a Mammoth (for example) on a 5+ instead of a 4+. The first will become the common case in 40K, the latter is the common case in AoS. The advantage of adding S/T values also is that this way you can skip on some abilities that interact with the way others normally hurt you :) 

In general @wayniac I think that if we use D6 as our medium 1 to 6 should matter. Not so much only 3,4,5, despite 3,4,5 being perfect as the most commonly required eyes.

With the spoilers we have in 40K I think Toughness 8 Dreadnoughts are a perfect example of how cool something like that could be. Greater Daemons or Orks on Mawz would also have Toughness 8 in my mind. While the biggest of Ogrun could even have Tougness 9. But before all that occurs, it's important to know what the 40K wound chart looks like and I like it!

New40kInfantryTable-239x500.jpg

I mean seriously! This is wonderful :)  

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The only change I'd like to see in AoS is shooting whilst in combat. I don't think missile troops should be able to fire out of a melee combat they are engaged in (or cast spells).

I really hope they don't add the hero targeting into AoS, mainly because of Totems, but also because it seems (to me) that it will add more clutter into the game.

I'm not a fan of S/T either. I like how each model has a hit/wound stat line, and how there is no universal wound roll.

I think that AoS thrives in its simplicity.

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I hope to never see the character protected byt the troops like it has been said to be in the next 40k edition. It's a killing move of the game at all. 

Cause Characters, so bonuses to much part of different warscroll battalions, mages and so on become invulnareble. You only need a bit of mas to become untouchable at all.

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AoS currently has two different types of offence & durability.  The first is attacks & damage vs. number of wounds, and the second is AP vs. Saves.  So you might have a unit with a ton of wounds - either because they're super cheap individuals like zombies or clan rats or because they're expensive but have a lot of wounds on their profile - but low save, in which case you're better off targeting them with something that has either a lot of attacks or a lot of damage (there's really no difference between the two in AoS), but doesn't spend points on good AP.  Alternatively, you could have something with fewer wounds for the point but a good save - like most characters - in which case offence that has higher AP (or deal mortal wounds), even at the cost of fewer attacks or less damage - is better.

And that system is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far.  Barring a few particular special rules (like ethereal, but all that does is make their armor save act like more wounds, but with a particular vulnerability to mortal wound attacks), There's really only the two kinds of offense and the two kinds of defense, despite the fact that there are several stats in play.  Like, what's even the point of the 'damage' stat?  In age of sigmar, there is none.  There really is no meaningful difference between attacks: 1, damage: 2; and attacks: 2, damage: 1.  Same with to-hit and to-wound, there really is no meaningful difference between to-hit: 3+, to-wound: 5+ and to-hit: 5+, to-wound: 3+.  Right now age of sigmar has meaningless complexity that does nothing but add unnecessary die rolls to the game.

The addition of just a few, very simple mechanics from 40k actually leverages the complexity that's already there in a way that makes it meaningful.  For instance, from what we've seen of 8th, it sounds like multiple damage doesn't get passed from model to model in a squad the way it does in AoS currently.  That allows for weedy numerous squads to be resistant to a kind of offense, multiple damage weapons, that big multiwound squads are vulnerable to.  The S vs T chart, as shown above super simple to resolve, makes the wound roll actually meaningful.  You can have a target with high toughness, but poor saves, which is vulnerable to high strength attacks with low ap (like the previewed force staff), but little bothered by low strength attacks with high ap (like the previewed force sword), or you could have a low toughness, high save unit that is precisely the opposite.

There's little added game complexity on the mechanical level, but tons more design space for having many more different kinds of offence and different kinds of defense to play off of each other.  It would encourage more variety in army lists, because the game wouldn't be full of one-size-fits-all offensive tools that kill nearly every possible target equally well.

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1 hour ago, deynon said:

I hope to never see the character protected byt the troops like it has been said to be in the next 40k edition. It's a killing move of the game at all. 

Cause Characters, so bonuses to much part of different warscroll battalions, mages and so on become invulnareble. You only need a bit of mas to become untouchable at all.

kill the unit to get to the character.  get something into melee to target the character.  use units with special rules that let you pick out characters.

But the current rules are non-functional.  Have you tried playing ghoul-heavy FEC and seen what happens to your ghast courtiers?  Have you tried running a general who isn't a big monster or a unit champ in anything but the smallest games?  People should be able to field a vampire lord or wight king as their general.  More to the point, if someone's army includes a vampire lord or wight king, they shouldn't feel compelled to make a skeleton champ their general instead.  It's madness, and it isn't fun at all.

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2 minutes ago, Sception said:

kill the unit to get to the character.  get something into melee to target the character.  use units with special rules that let you pick out characters.

But the current rules are non-functional.  Have you tried playing ghoul-heavy FEC and seen what happens to your ghast courtiers?  Have you tried running a general who isn't a big monster or a unit champ in anything but the smallest games?  People should be able to field a vampire lord or wight king as their general.  More to the point, if someone's army includes a vampire lord or wight king, they shouldn't feel compelled to make a skeleton champ their general instead.  It's madness, and it isn't fun at all.

 Not always you can kill the units to go catch the characters. If I placebefore you 30-40 zombies with double save you can't necessarily arrive to catch them.

I play the courtiers knowing their weakness, I don't only play one of them and I use the scenics and the units to cover them, cause anyway to be targeted they have still to be seen.

I tried and I have done. Why you should play a skeleton as general? It's you way to see that it's corrupted in this case. If you have such problems using such things you have to adequate. There is the ring evnetually if you want to recover the model. You have to engage and annhilate the enemies, cover your generale with the models or scenics; and so on.

Sincerly I prefe rso than seeing models boosting without caring behind the scenes cause they are untatgattlable, excluded maybe from certain units. 

In a system like it is now every units has it's role and it's not immortal. Give me a thing liike the 40k character untouchable and simply a Death list become only a grinding stone that annhilates everythng.

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rushing forward to engage the enemy with an almost exclusively melee faction like ours is mutually exclusive with hiding behind terrain in your backfield, and I'm tired of watching my characters deleted with nothing I can do about it.  Sit in the back and wait for my army to be deleted or just let the opponent win on objectives, or rush forward and watch all my support pieces get deleted, and have my weakened units fold.  These have repeatedly been the choices this game has presented to me.  My favorite models are infantry heroes, and apart from the necromancer who at least has some protection from this, or a tomb king who can get help from a herald, they're basically trash against any enemy who isn't deliberately holding back.  I would much rather see wight kings and vampire lords lose their buffing abilities altogether if its so unfair in exchange for the ability for me to actually get to fight with them, instead of having them cower behind a building miles from combat.

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5 hours ago, wayniac said:

I really hope that they backport SOME, not all, of the new 40k rules.  The character rule in particular I think fixes the one major issue with AOS.  I don't think we need to go back to S/T values.

WOW, this thread has gone to town while I was away! Love it.

@wayniac @Killax @ZephyrExia

I actually really like the idea of S/T values, most of all because it creates another layer of narrative gaming, especially in smaller skirmish games, which I personally like. I am thinking the whole mordheim/hinterlands model here. It's a way for the models to get an extra layer of character. Even in bigger war games IMO.  It's really simple enough with those extra values, wouldn't really over complicate anything if you ask me. 

@Sception @deynon

I see how making this rule universal might create more problems than solutions, but it seems they've thought of that with the new 40K rules, where some special character warscrolls like assassins and snipers can target any hero they want. Something like this could work for AOS as well, but the gist of my original post was actually more geared towards GA:DEATH.

I think a character heavy faction like ours, where our baseline troops are buffed by the characters, and from a fluffy side of things fall apart when said characters die, should have an answer to shooting. Especially seeing as we don't really have any real shooting ourselves outside of the compendium Tomb Kings... I think I'd work to give us something like dark mist. It could be a spell that our wizards could cast, which'd make it harder to hit with shooting weapons, or it could be something like they're doing in 40K.

@deynon Every AOS army has it's own flavor and unique ways to be played. I actually think something like this would work well for GA:DEATH. Tzeentch have their die. SCE have their meteor strikes. Orks have their extra moves. Why not an anti shooty character driven faction? The scenario you're giving with a hero shielded by a hundred zombies would actually tie in nicely with the fluff behind our faction, this is basically how GA:DEATH has been described through the times..... Also, there are answers to every list... One idea: spells? Tzeentch would still kick our vamp lords butt with some annnoying spellcasting.

Anyway, I would like some more melee in the game. Lets see what happens!

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1 hour ago, Sception said:

rushing forward to engage the enemy with an almost exclusively melee faction like ours is mutually exclusive with hiding behind terrain in your backfield, and I'm tired of watching my characters deleted with nothing I can do about it.  Sit in the back and wait for my army to be deleted or just let the opponent win on objectives, or rush forward and watch all my support pieces get deleted, and have my weakened units fold.  These have repeatedly been the choices this game has presented to me.  My favorite models are infantry heroes, and apart from the necromancer who at least has some protection from this, or a tomb king who can get help from a herald, they're basically trash against any enemy who isn't deliberately holding back.  I would much rather see wight kings and vampire lords lose their buffing abilities altogether if its so unfair in exchange for the ability for me to actually get to fight with them, instead of having them cower behind a building miles from combat.

I never have such a problem and never had my army smashed, quite the opposite, usually it's me to smash the opponent armies...

1 minute ago, Teletomas said:

WOW, this thread has gone to town while I was away! Love it.

@wayniac @Killax @ZephyrExia

I actually really like the idea of S/T values, most of all because it creates another layer of narrative gaming, especially in smaller skirmish games, which I personally like. I am thinking the whole mordheim/hinterlands model here. It's a way for the models to get an extra layer of character. Even in bigger war games IMO.  It's really simple enough with those extra values, wouldn't really over complicate anything if you ask me. 

@Sception @deynon

I see how making this rule universal might create more problems than solutions, but it seems they've thought of that with the new 40K rules, where some special character warscrolls like assassins and snipers can target any hero they want. Something like this could work for AOS as well, but the gist of my original post was actually more geared towards GA:DEATH.

I think a character heavy faction like ours, where our baseline troops are buffed by the characters, and from a fluffy side of things fall apart when said characters die, should have an answer to shooting. Especially seeing as we don't really have any real shooting ourselves outside of the compendium Tomb Kings... I think I'd work to give us something like dark mist. It could be a spell that our wizards could cast, which'd make it harder to hit with shooting weapons, or it could be something like they're doing in 40K.

@deynon Every AOS army has it's own flavor and unique ways to be played. I actually think something like this would work well for GA:DEATH. Tzeentch have their die. SCE have their meteor strikes. Orks have their extra moves. Why not an anti shooty character driven faction? The scenario you're giving with a hero shielded by a hundred zombies would actually tie in nicely with the fluff behind our faction, this is basically how GA:DEATH has been described through the times..... Also, there are answers to every list... One idea: spells? Tzeentch would still kick our vamp lords butt with some annnoying spellcasting.

Anyway, I would like some more melee in the game. Lets see what happens!

I don't agree. Otherway you should always include specific units to target the opponents characters, it means less freedom in making the roosters. And to gain at the same time the same result. If you have specific units to smash them... what the difference? Simply that you have less points to characterize and to be able to make sinergy with the army.

I don't find it a solution at all. Tzeench can't kick me even if it tries. It hasn't enough magic to do it, even if it makes efforts. And to counter it there is alsways summon... and even tzeench can't dispel what can't dispel by nature using command abilities or unholy swords...

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43 minutes ago, Teletomas said:

sorry about the caps lock in original post title by the way... ... dramatic.

Very awesome aswell ;) 

In reality I love functional characteristics, so the moment Iniative becomes part of a turn instead of a character you can remove it, though the moment you do so some character is also lost. So because of this my initial responce of AoS wasn't too amazing. That amazement came when models flowed forth out of great art and we saw (finally!) Narrative dedicate how a specific faction work.

It's because of that Narrative that I feel Death needs an update/upgrade. Necromantism is probably one of the most historical fantasy awesome used type of Magic, just after shooting Fireballs and Lightning and it's a pitty that to date GW hasn't covered that propperly. As an example, nice as my Blood Blessings are, from a general fan of the Fantasy genre, the lack of good Necromantism is dissapointing for this game's content.

All will come in good time, 40K rules are looking really swell. To the point where GH2 can be awesome but I wouldn't even mind an Age of Sigmar 2nd edition in now or two years.

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13 hours ago, Killax said:


It's because of that Narrative that I feel Death needs an update/upgrade. Necromantism is probably one of the most historical fantasy awesome used type of Magic, just after shooting Fireballs and Lightning and it's a pitty that to date GW hasn't covered that propperly. As an example, nice as my Blood Blessings are, from a general fan of the Fantasy genre, the lack of good Necromantism is dissapointing for this game's content.

All will come in good time, 40K rules are looking really swell. To the point where GH2 can be awesome but I wouldn't even mind an Age of Sigmar 2nd edition in now or two years.

 

I agree with everything here! 

 

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