acr0ssth3p0nd

One of the nice things about Bonereapers is how their core faction identity is more about their tactics and commands - the reanimation is more of a nice-to-have cherry on top that links it to the other Death factions, so it doesn't have to have too much impact. When it happens, it's nice and not insignificant, but it's not like a unit getting wiped before it ever gets a chance to reanimate feels like you're missing your faction's core ability, you know? Anyway, back to rumors. How about those Kurnothi? Do we think they'll be more faun-like, or like Qulathis from Cursed City? I'm hoping for some feral vibes, myself - deer-skull helms and the like.

As a Necrons player who played 8th ed, where the rule was also "hope your units survive long enough to reanimate in the command phase, then all of them can potentially come back over the course of the game" - no, no it is absolutely not, and most players who played seriously in 8th can tell you the same. It was functionally non-existent in standard 2,000-pt games against any decent opponent, who will have the skill to use their firepower to maximum effect and wipe each unit one at a time, and oppressive in smaller games and in more casual settings since you can entirely negate several turns of damage against people who don't have that skill and/or firepower. And while some stuff has changed in 10e, the source of the issues - I-Go-You-Go round structure and phase timing - have remained functionally same since 8e. Any durability mechanic that can be entirely removed from a unit by meeting a damage gate - in this case, wiping the unit - is going to suffer from the same issues of inconsistency and difficulty with balance. 9th Ed had its flaws, but it was a step up from 8th Ed and I cannot believe GW is returning to a design that was panned and criticised by so many Necrons players by the end of 8th edition. I could be wrong, of course - but when a company designs rule A is designed with intent B, and the last time it was tried it led to outcome C despite attempts to mitigate that, and then that same company designs rule A again with intent B again, I feel very comfortable assuming it will lead to result C despite further attempts to mitigate it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Well, my Necrons' Reanimation rules look to have the exact same problems as they had back in 8th Edition, and I can thus safely refocus my time and energy back to AoS news! When do you think we'll get more Cities reveals?

Coming out of 40K 9e, this here summarises so many of the problems with that edition. Trust me folks, you do not want -1 Rend and 2+ damage to feel like an "average" stat line. Say what you will about "mortals on 6s," at least it's an effect that's the result of a single, clear special rule with a "critical hit!" vibe that speeds up the pacing, and not the result of multiple different effects and characteristics stacking up over time. GW has shown that they are far quicker to to identify and tweak the former than the latter.

Can double up on Black Harvest. I love me some spooky Sylvaneth and existential religious dread, and Black Harvest delivers in spades. The prose is good and the fight scenes are entertaining and character-driven.

I'm actually excited for the Old World. I didn't think I'd ever say that, but I'm glad I can now!

If we're going to brainstorm new Fyreslayer concepts, I've always been partial to the Fyreslayers literally surfing on lava, with the big lava waves as part of the sculpt!

I was just talking about something similar in the Sylvaneth discord. Starting around the Slaves to Darkness tome, it feels like the tome writers suddenly got a whole suite of new design options, especially in regards to unique Heroic Actions. I wonder if the date of the 3.0 rules being "locked in" lines up with the date work got started in earnest with the earliest of those tomes? No proof that this is how it happened, mind - just some wild speculation.

Yeah, I'm hoping someone puts out some models for 3D printing that can fill that gap, but until then, I'm stuck wishing.

Yeah, but the other problem is the new models having the scrap-metal aesthetic. Believe me, if the Goregruntas had more of that old-school Black Orc armor design, I'd be running the heck out of them as Slave to Darkness!

Yeah, it's one of the biggest reasons I've not played Ironjawz yet. I loved how the Black Orcs in Warhammer Fantasy were actually competent and professional frontline soldiers, but the Ironjawz have gone back to just smashin' and bashin', with armor just made of scrap metal bent into shape and the 'Ardboyz at the bottom of the pack.

KURNOTHI KURNOTHI KURNOTHI KURNOTHI KURNOTHI

Oh boy, I am such a sucker for mechanics that use "equal to the current battle round," and I'm so glad to see GW lean into them more and more.

Yeah, the lore may be cliche, but it falls into a refreshingly-nuanced take on goodness in 40k - that it is, in some way, achievable, but only by working outside of existing power structures, since the inherent nature of the actions required to make the galaxy a better place are at odds with the methods said power structures use to cling to their power. And, of course, those power structures often have easy access to "do a genocide" buttons. "Everyone's evil" is a bland and reductionist take on 40K lore and the grimdark genre. In this essay I will...

Exactly - he's the Lord of Hubris, not the Lord of Competence!

Been talking with some other players at my local shop about Fyreslayer unit variety and what we'd like to see, and I came up with something I haven't heard yet. Fyreslayers are nigh-naked dwarves willing to take huge risks for Ur-Gold and have a close association with fire and lava, right? So here's the pitch: lavasurfing fyreslayers. A 3-model unit of dwarves surfing big lava waves, set on 50 or 60mm bases, or maybe large cavalry bases. And before you ask, this isn't just because Lego is putting out a Bionicle tribute set with Toa Tahu surfing on a rock on a lava-themed display stand.

Totally agree on the Sylvaneth front. Many of our units are in good places, but just aren't worth their points. These adjustments will really help out units that need that boost.

I ran out of reactions to give today, but I want to say that I think you've hit the nail on the head in regards to how to treat and understand complexity. Personally, I love Monstrous Rampages and Heroic Actions as individual mechanics, but both of them on top of the game just make it a bit too complex relative to what you get out of it. I'm hoping they get combined into a single mechanic in 4e - maybe something like "Epic Actions - you can do one Epic Action each phase" sort of thing. And, of course, the crown jewel of mechanical complexity are rules like Star Wars Legion's squad-leader-based movement, where the rule itself is undeniably more complex than Warhammer's "move each mini up to its Movement value" but actually speeds up gameplay and reduces mental overhead at the table.

Of the games I've played, the Middle-Earth SBG is the only game that I could honestly say I would recommend that everyone try out, with no reservations. The core mechanics are simple, accessible, and thematic, making it easy to get into. It's the game that got me into wargaming when I was 12. They also contain an extraordinary amount of depth, with an emphasis on board control and decisive movement that make it a legitimately-competitive game at the same time. The implementation of Priority/Turn Order is the main reason why I'm still not sold on the double turn in AoS - not because I don't see the benefit of it, but because I 100% see the benefit of it and think it adds a tonne to the game, but the Middle-Earth SBG just... does it better. Not every faction is balanced, but every "standard army" faction is competitive (think Minas Tirith, Rohan, Mordor, Isengard, etc), especially since so much of the game is about how you use your tools, rather than each faction having a massively-different tool box. The game has a rock-paper-scissors setup to its unit design that places a heavy emphasis on creating balanced, well-rounded forces, so the niche, narrative factions are less competitive simply because their smaller rosters make it harder to build that balanced force. And, of course, the rules are beautifully, wonderfully narrative-heavy - every battle is a story, and many of the special rules lean into translating the actual relationships between the characters to the table. Winning strategies and set-ups in the game are powered by things like "Sam will fight harder to stay near to and protect Frodo" and "Legolas and Gimli compete to get kills." That's not to say it's perfect for everyone, but the differences will 100% just be about your taste in games, rather than the quality of the mechanics in and of themselves. It's telling that the latest "edition" that's coming out right now is literally just a reprint of the old rules from 2017, with the errata and FAQs integrated and some slight adjustments to army building. I've heard it referred to as a "finished" game, and I agree - everything else GW is doing for it right now rules-wise is icing on the cake, little extras you can bring in but never feel necessary like some Warhammer expansions do.

So, I've been playing AoS since early 2nd edition, and I can absolutely confirm that 3.0 AoS is, in fact, more complex and harder to wrap your head around than AoS 2.0. It's a more interesting, more balanced game as a result, but is also less accessible, and that, broadly speaking, has made it harder to get new people into it. Your anecdotal results may differ - indeed, AoS is growing in popularity near me - but that doesn't change the basic trends of feedback I've seen across the board. It's something that Warhammer Weekly and the Honest Wargamer have talked about at length, and as a professional game dev myself, I have to agree with them. Games with more mental overhead are harder to teach and harder to get into, and since one of the original focuses of AoS was to make something that was approachable and easy to jump into, it's worth noting that the game has moved appreciably away from meeting that goal. I'm an "aggressively casual" player, myself, and I play lots of different wargames because I like different gaming experiences. When I want to play AoS, it's because it's a wargame that focuses on big moments of awesome through bespoke unit and faction rules. You get a lot of individual "toys" to play with and express your army's identity, like my Sylvaneth's penchant for bouncing around the board terrain like grasshoppers. Removing Grand Strats and Battle Tactics hardly makes AoS a "dice rolling sim;" that's a pretty hyperbolic claim. Players look for a standard, like Matched Play, because it provides a baseline level of assumptions they can make about how to approach the game and thus the sort of experience they can expect to have. That accepted standard makes it easier to invest yourself emotionally in that standard - it's why I think Path to Glory is a brilliant addition to the game. That desire for a shared, communal standard is not something weird, it's pretty standard human psychology, and you see it across gaming communities, whether that's Warhammer, D&D, or video games. Battlepacks provide that standard people look for. To this end, I've been working on a Casual's Handbook to help create alternatives for standard options to the GHB for pickup games and more-laid-back events. It's been a few months in the making, and I've had a bit of help from Tyler from Warhammer Weekly, so cheers to him for his input. If you're looking for a "throw down dice and fight over objectives" battlepack, I hope this is for you! If you cannot imagine playing AoS without grand strats and battle tactics, well, congratulations - you've got a GHB out right now and another on the way, so I don't think you have to worry about losing the game you love any time soon!

With all the rumors swirling of Wanderers getting dropped, I can only hope that they show up as part of the Wood Elves when The Old World comes out. I love those Wild Riders, and they hold up decently well.

Man I just wish Wild Riders could get the Sylvaneth keyword.

As far as getting more models in range, I propose it's set up as a binary - if the sergeant can target the target unit, everyone in the unit can. Just like charges, it's measured from the unit sergeant At that point, it's simply a matter of which models are in LoS, and that's less important in AoS than in 40K due to less terrain needed on the battlefields. For objectives, you might also check if the sergeant is on the point, but ultimately I think this is less of an issue, since both sides have access to these movement shenanigans, and you still have to keep everyone in coherency while also being within a certain distance of the sergeant. And at worst, it swings the balance back towards larger units for the role of objective holding, which feels thematically correct.

For the killing - I'm not sure. The Moments of Glory kinda cover that in regards to heroes, but not to the degree you're referring to. Ultimately, I think AoS is a game that works best when it's about fighting over objectives, so I probably won't add more in terms of kill scoring. Miscasts are one of those mechanics where it really doesn't add enough to the game to justify its inclusion, at least in my opinion. It's a neat idea, but it doesn't create interesting choices or tie into the larger themes of AoS as a mythic, heroic setting (unlike 40K, where the danger of psychic power is a running point). Official terrain rules are something that I think definitely needs an overhaul, for sure. I've tried to do something here where each type of terrain has a single rules that's thematically on-point and can be determined easily by looking at the terrain, but it's not the strongest area of the pack, which is why I want to keep them as an optional rule.

Hey all, I finally pulled together a new version of the Casual's Handbook, a battlepack for quick and casual games and events inspired by discussions I've seen pop up in the Age of Sigmar community. This pack is intended to provide streamlined army building and battleplan rules for casual pickup games and for events that want to focus on a casual, accessible format where the main goal is to get everyone in the local community to throw down dice and have fun pushing little aelves and goblins around. I've been working on this since the summer, and posted it a few weeks ago here in another comment thread. People seemed to like it so I figure I'll make a thread for it. I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback and talking about what else could be added to round out the pack. I'm thinking of even adding a little "beginner's campaign," the sort of thing where you and your buddy can split a Starter Set or grab a Vanguard box each and build up your knowledge over the course of 3 games. I want to give a shoutout to Warhammer Weekly for their feedback and encouragement, and to Tyler Emerson (AKA ScrubbyAndWells) in particular, as well as to the whole AoS community for their warm reception and feedback on previous versions. UPDATE Nov 11th, 2022 - Altered the standard benefits of Defensible terrain to comply with AoS charge mechanics. Previous versions require you "target" a unit with your charge to receive a benefit, which is not how charges work in AoS. - Altered the "Protect the General" rule to work for all non-Unique foot heroes, since replacing Look Out, Sir with an effect that only benefits your General would leave these other heroes even more vulnerable - the opposite of the intent of this rule! UPDATE Nov 28th, 2022 - Made some minor changes, and am calling it done for this year! I will begin prep work for potential additions and changes for next year's version. Please leave your feedback below!