GHB2-will it be bigger?

[Kosmion]

So with the announcements and reveals of the new 40k thats been out now for a while, its clear to see that GW i keen to give the players what they want: a big fat rulebook. Tho a large part is made up of fluff, they went with the thick hardback that we have come to know and love (i think most would agree?). Now do u think this will be the case for ghb2 aswell? Will gw give us a more roboust  book with more fluff detailing whats actually goin on on the mortal realms, and mabye even expand upon the basic rules? Will there be a collectors ed? I for one certainly hope we get all that 40k got, whats your opinion guys?

thanks!

[BaldoBeardo]

We already did - where do you think GW developed the model for book releases?

The GHB (and the 40k equivalent, chapter approved) are mechanic focussed appendices/expansions to the main rules. Only fluff you're likely to find in them is setting the scene for scenarios or campaign ideas.

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[Killax]

10 hours ago, Kosmion said:

Tho a large part is made up of fluff, they went with the thick hardback that we have come to know and love (i think most would agree?).
Now do u think this will be the case for ghb2 aswell?
Will gw give us a more roboust  book with more fluff detailing whats actually goin on on the mortal realms, and mabye even expand upon the basic rules?
Will there be a collectors ed?
I for one certainly hope we get all that 40k got, whats your opinion guys?

thanks!

Well to be honest at this point I think and hope that GW is also considering a second edition of AoS, which in some way would also be the second edition of the Generals Handbook (maby).

To awnser your questions!
- I think narrative should continue to drive AoS forward. AoS should remain a narrative driven fun game. Ideally the competative offenders are re-balanced/re-written or re-costed.
- I think that a second edition of the GH should indeed continue with some great narrative design aswell. At least more as 40K's new book. The thing again is that if you book lacks narrative suggestions the game will not be played within the narrative suggestion. This sounds silly but the way 40K reflects now is more competative as ever as you do not get the story reasons to run A over B. Making the statistical reasons the prime reason to run A over B. Offcourse some players do know the 40K lore but not all do, so if you exclude it from the book your also suggestion it could be excluded from the game... As apperantly it wasn't important enough to include it.
- I think the realms will and should be more covered by the Black Liberary novels. The difference here is that realms currently do not have an effect on the game and so long as this is the case I wouldn't include them heavily in game related content. 
- Collectors editions are made every time so if there will be a 2nd GH I think GW will consider a CE aswell. However it depends on sales numbers. I personally think that the free app and general free to find PDF's of AoS still limit the option for GW to make something really cool out of it. Plus a lot of AoS content booklets arn't even that interesting to buy. I play a lot of games and honestly some of the GW game content for AoS is just poorly written or executed. It's rare to see them "slam-dunk it", though the newer Battletome's bring me hope.
- We will get all 40k got once AoS is on the same sales levels, which is currently not the case.

My opinion is that AoS still needs to grow and that GW has made some errors in the past on how to approach AoS or design it. I personally think that the core concept of AoS is great but we also see that a lot of the rules presented by the GH are things we allready wanted. So ideally the GH2 will adres the issues we have with AoS now.
Unfortunatly a lot of AoS issues could have been prefented by using clear wording and consistent wording. In order to change that you should be considering a new edition because if FAQ pages become longer as your core rules it's a clear indication that a lot of the core rules are just too unclear.

My hopes for AoS are to 'fix' the following:
- Adres the units and battalions that continue to show up in every top 5 tournament for Matched play. We all know these units/battalions by now.
- Ditch the rules of one, make up some good rules that apply for each situation.
- Redesign the Shooting phase/Missle attacks/consider restrictions as seen in 40K
- Reconsider the Magic phase/Magic spells/give each Grand Alliance a Magic lore
- Reconsider the way summonning works/give Death a clear Battle Trait to do something with summonning

Two of the oddest things 40K presents us now is:
- Shooting is better in AoS as it is in 40K
- Magic is better in 40K as it is in AoS
To me ideally those two should flip around. Not that I dislike shooting attacks, Im just a firm believer that AoS' should largely revolve around Melee combat because the core rules have put a lot of depth and interesting restrictions there. All the while the Ranged combat goes unrestricted to the point where the game has become a stalmate of having lists with ranged modules that either shoot twice, have tons of Rend or Mortal Wounds. You could say this AoS edition is our variant of 7th to some extend. 

[Carnelian]

On 2017-6-7 at 9:55 AM, Killax said:

- Magic is better in 40K as it is in AoS 

What makes psychic powers better than magic? I thought they had the same mechanism - is it just that they can cast the basic smite power multiple times?

[Killax]

Just now, Carnelian said:

What magics psychic powers better than magic? I thought they had the same mechanism - is it just that they can cast the basic smite power multiple times?

Largely the same mechanism, however not completely. It's that they can cast several same named powers multiple times and that we have Wizards akin to "WFB" with this I mean that we have several examples of them being able to cast 2-3 spells, Deny the Wich 1-2-3 times. Which all makes Wizards/Psykers a much more relevant piece of their game. 

Likewise we see that shooting can be put to an halt and character sniping is around but only for certain 'specialist character snipers'. This contributes to a tactical depth that AoS currently doesn't offer.

So far in AoS spells seem supportive at best, in certain rare cases (LoC) a Wizard is also a very potent monster but in the mayority of them the way spells are restricted in AoS makes it actually much less magical as 40K is. Where again shooting in AoS is much more potent as in 40K, as you can shoot into melee with anything and can shoot characters with pretty much everything. 40K brings Perils of the Warp (Miscast) but if AoS gained that in order to allow you to go heavier on the magic it would actually be a good thing (and again a filtered variant of WFB). 

The difference in outcome is that AoS actively rewards you to not play much Wizards (if at all) and play a lot of shooting (perhaps ideally even only).
In 40K you get rewarded by bringing out at least 2 psykers for some factions (maby more) and while you can have dedicated shooting units a whole army of them can run into trouble fast when faced with really fast melee opponents. 

Long story short, Psychic Powers in 40K are more relevant because there is not a cap on it.
Ranged attacks in AoS are more relevant because there is not a cap on it.

[someone2040]

13 minutes ago, Carnelian said:

What magics psychic powers better than magic? I thought they had the same mechanism - is it just that they can cast the basic smite power multiple times?

The biggest thing that makes the psychic phase better in 40k is two points

1. It's after movement

2. Unbind range is greater than most spell range

This adds a great deal more flexibility into how you perform magic in 40k vs AoS.

At the moment, the only things that really get a lot of use out of magic are buffs.  If you didn't put your model close enough to a unit to buff it next turn, then that's a misplay on your part. However, when it comes to offensive magic, it's a misplay on your opponent if they put it within range of your mage (Which they may be trying to bank on the double turn). You don't really get to choose when to make the best use of offensive magic. But overall there's not much you can do to make your offensive magic work.

 

That's a very simplified explanation. Obviously you can try and place your wizards in optimal position to either get the double turn, or be able to cast spells regardless in their next turn.

 

The fact you can only cast each spell once is just a patch job into the system due to mystic shield being so powerful and so available. IMO if Mystic Shield wasn't a basic spell that everyone had access to (say everyone had Arcane Bolt instead), then you probably wouldn't see Rule of 1 for spellcasting.

Heck, IMO, if they changed that specific rule of 1 to same name buff/debuff not allowed to stack, and probably increased mystic shield to 7, it'd probably be better for magic overall.