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Yeah, this is what rubbed me the wrong way about this balance update - it addresses win-loss rates but does nothing to address the actual experience of play. I'm a fairly casual player, but I have a background in game development and design, so I love to engage with and think about the mechanics of the game and the experience they create in play (I follow the competitive community not because I myself plan to play in tournaments, but because the high end of the competitive community tends to be very fluent in the language of the game and can articulate gameplay problems in a way that, frankly, more casual players often can't). So when I ask for balance, it's usually as part of mitigating Negative Player Experience across the game, and this balance update doesn't meaningfully address that.

Anyone else hoping we get a way to take Wanderers as a Coalition option? It's not like they're particularly powerful models, and could add a nice bit of variety to our army with Wild Riders cavalry and Sister of the Watch for ranged units. It's been a dream of mine to be able to build a force where I can have those spooky deerbois pop out of a Wyldwood on the flank!

As summer approaches and our rumored 3.0 tome with it, I'd really love to see the 3.0 double down on our army identity as a glass scalpel force, with the main focus being on board control through terrain effects and easy repositioning of key units. To that end, I'd like to see two changes. - Reliable ways to get the "teleportation pad" terrain effect of our Wyldwoods out onto the table, hopefully in the form of the ability to "convert" unaligned terrain into "awakened" terrain that has the teleport ability, and a "place one Wyldwood or awaken one piece of terrain at the start of each round" effect. - The ability to teleport more than one unit per turn with the Spirit Paths, or a buff to charges for units that teleported that turn. Having the warscrolls of our units be somewhat subpar relative to their price in exchange for wicked levels of repositioning power and reliable execution of guerilla tactics would be a great tradeoff, as far as I'm concerned.

It's funny you should mention Necrons - the discrepancy between the Aeldari codex and the Necrons codex is what pushed me over the edge to quit 40K again. I'm a long-time Necrons player, and currently Aeldari shuriken catapults are better at filling the gameplay fantasy of Necron gauss flayers (basic infantry weapon that can deal reliable and useful chip damage to tanks and monsters) than Necron gauss flayers. Indeed, the Necrons rules are very much not evocative of the lore, because every other army can do at least one Necron thing better than Necrons. The state of the Necrons in general is a prime indication (amid a sea of other similar indications) of a codex design process that has no restraint or consistent vision, and shows that a faster release cycle to address design problems also speeds up codex creep, effectively replacing one problem with an exacerbated version of another. For all you can say about the 3.0 AoS Battletomes, they show some level of restraint, SC Dragons being an exception. For every rule that gets scaled up, something else usually gets scaled back just as much. And the core mechanics for each tome seem to actually work consistently, which is more than you can say for Necrons' Reanimation Protocols. I'm not saying the 3.0 tomes are universally good tomes, but at least it indicates that the AoS team has an eye on the health of the game in that area. Between that and the AP creep, and I would very much warn that "the grass is greener" should be ringing around the heads of any AoS players looking enviously at 40K. Lack of Path to Glory support aside, I would absolutely take the state of AoS over the state of 40K right now.

Hmm. It might just be a standard repackage, which doesn't necessarily mean a new tome.

I'm preparing my Lorax memes as we speak...

I don't. I've bought a 3D printer and am moving to OnePageRules as my system of choice. I buy the AoS models I like so as to maintain visual cohesion for my models, I pick up the paints I need when Army Painter and Vallejo can't offer me a more accurate color or better mix, and I follow the story of my favorite factions, but at this point, AoS is more something that I opt into from time to time as part of a wider wargaming hobby than a full hobby in and of itself.

"It's the internet," is the excuse of arseholes and jerks everywhere, and anyone who finds themselves using it unironically to justify their treatment of other people needs to do some serious self-reflection.

And if you don't think that someone who loved Warhammer enough to get a job designing rules for it wouldn't fix the problem immediately if they had the power to, then you're very much mistaken. A lack of quality QA (whether that's time, tools, testers), an out-of-date update-delivery mechanism, personnel being moved to other projects - all of these things can (as I have personally witnessed) make it impossible to immediately deliver fixes you desperately want to see happen. "If they care about memes on the Internet so much then fix the problem. That's it," straight-up does not reflect the reality of game development and how fixes actually reach the hands of the player.

Sure. GW is a corporation, and corporations are not your friend. You should not feel the need to go to bat and defend poor products over brand loyalty, or because you wish desperately that they were good. But you should care about the feelings of the developers actually making these things, because they're actual people. Chances are that they aren't 100% satisfied with the finished product, either, but that's what they were able to produce under the company's structure, release model, and budget. I work in game dev. I have been very vocal about my frustrations with Halo Infinite's transaction model. I have been vocal about my frustrations with the Sylvaneth and their Wyldwoods. I have torn the crud out of the current state of the Necrons book. The D&D 5e Ranger is straight-up the reason I no longer play D&D. I have said all of this because I genuinely believe that these flaws are flaws that reduce the quality of the things I love, and should be addressed. I have also felt like my frustrations were not being addressed by the company that makes those things, which absolutely exacerbated my frustrations. But every time I have talked about these things, and made my criticisms, I have tried very hard to not reference the people behind those choices in my criticisms, because that's beside the point and adds nothing to my points. I know from personal experience not to assume why things aren't getting addressed. And when I felt consistently like my frustrations weren't being addressed, like with the mess with the D&D 5e ranger? Well, first I got angry, unhealthily angry. But then, I realised that the anger wasn't worth it over a game, a hobby I do to enjoy myself. The D&D team, for whatever reason, wasn't going to adequately address my concerns with the Ranger, and if that meant I wasn't going to enjoy D&D, it wasn't worth me continuing to play D&D. I walked away from D&D and found new games. I took my frustrations and channeled them into making my own Rangers TTRPG. And I'm currently doing the same with AoS and 40K - moving away from these games that I'm finding more and more frustrating to read about and engage with. I love the hobby and the universes, but the games are making me frustrated enough that I find myself getting more anger out of them than joy. My point is, if you are that frustrated about the state of AoS that you are going to insult the people behind the mechanics and state that you don't care about their feelings, that's a you problem. This is a game, a hobby. There are areas in life where it is worth disregarding the feelings of human beings when addressing those human beings' actions. Games and the Warhammer hobby are not that area. Yes, it's frustrating when a hobby you love feels subpar and there are clear fixes. Yes, it can feel like bashing your head against a problem that feels like it should have been caught before release. Your frustration there is valid! Your criticisms of the material can be valid! But the response of going after the people creating that material is not. If you have begun to reach that point, I suggest you take a serious look at the place that AoS and GW has in your life, the aspects of the hobby you actually enjoy, and whether or not those aspects can be kept while removing yourself from the aspects that cause you frustration and anger.

Same for me. With OnePageRules showing it's not going anywhere, I have viable alternatives for the games I can play with my models. If the AoS game rules are going to cause me more stress and frustration than joy, why should I spend my limited free time on them? Life is too short!

Where have the Sylvaneth rumors come from? This is the first I'm hearing of it!

I've been amassing a small Slaves to Darkness mortals force, with a Nurgle theme. What overlap is present between my STD Chaos Warriors, Knights, and Marauders, and the new Maggotkin?

Weird question: does anyone have the dimensions of the Mangler Squigs? I'm looking to make some more storage containers and want to future-proof them for when I expand my Gloomspite army.

You take that back. The Harbinger of Decay is a fantastic model and I will not hear a cross word against it!

Funny you should mention D&D, since that's exactly another example of me disconnecting myself from a particular system that was causing me frustration due to the creators and I having different ideas of the direction my favorite parts of the system should take! My RPG life is a lot more interesting and varied since I gave up on hanging solely onto D&D in favor of a wide variety of systems!

This is what pushed me away from Destiny, a game series I really loved. The "seasonal" method on content delivery combined with Bungie's sunsetting of older material means that I feel like I'm on a time crunch to collect everything before it goes forever, and I just don't have time in my life for that.

I dunno if it helps, but I've found that I got less susceptible to hype and FOMO by broadening my minis/wargaming hobby to multiple games and lines, especially once I found folks willing to custom-print models for me. I started to define myself more by the specific sorts of models and games I enjoyed purely because I liked them; if Age of Sigmar didn't have a model or gameplay something I wanted, I was sure I could find it somewhere else. My hobby stopped being Warhammer, and started being "painting minis and playing wargames," of whic AoS was a part. When you're not concerned about whether or not you're going to get something (be that a certain style of model, or rules that fit the kind of army you want to play) because you know that it already exists somewhere even if it's not Warhammer, then the Warhammer reveals stop being about "will I finally get something I've always wanted" and more about "oo, what's new in this area of my hobby?" There's less to be super-hyped about, because there's less to be disappointed about. It's fun, but not anxiety-inducing. Sylvaneth rules suck, I can't effectively use my Wild Riders with them, and there's no Kurnothi? Well, not in Age of Sigmar, but I can absolutely run that sort of thing in OnePageRules, which is also more accessible, too! I'm not hanging onto every reveal for Kurnothi models or revised Sylvaneth rules, I just enjoy it when they come up for Warhammer specifically.

The "themes" of GA Destruction should be about the untameable, the things of the world that are far, far older than civilization and cannot be controlled by the shackles of industry and consumption - and then Sylvaneth should embrace the "protectors and restorers of the wild" and be moved to GA Destruction. This adds thematic resonance and variety to Destruction, as well as gods besides Gorkamorka. Beasts of Chaos would then represent Chaos corrupting and making a mockery of these themes. The insidious nature of Chaos would focus on corruption and despoiling things that already exist. For example, a predator doesn't seek to slaughter for its own sake, but simply to stop prey from moving and fighting to be devoured (Ogurs!), and even the most belligerent species will not fight to the death if it can help it (Orruks love a good fight, but they don't like dying - why else would they flee when a fight goes against them?). But Beasts of Chaos, on the other hand, would seek to slaughter and kill and spill blood for its own sake. That's not what actual beasts do, predator or not. Sure, a cat might toy with its prey, but it won't seek out battles or brutal protracted fights. But Beasts of Chaos aren't natural beasts, but a twisted mockery and hijacking of bestial forms to spread terror and discord to expand the influence of Chaos itself. While we're on that note, Daughters of Khaine should be GA Death. They literally worship a God of Murder. They expand the influence and power of Death as a concept, regardless of whether or not Nagash benefits. Nagash is an incredibly powerful being with the greatest understanding of and ability to control and wield the forces of Death in the Realms, but he does not own or control Death itself any more than Sigmar does for Order. Grungi, Sigmar, Teclis - all these figures work within the broad sphere of Order, so why should Nagash not have to share his space with a god (or goddess - shhhh, don't tell anyone!) of Murder? If we then take GA Order as a force for settlement, civilization, and literal order, then the only Order faction left that doesn't fully fit that theme is the Deepkin, and there's arguments to be made for it to be in Death, Destruction, or even to stay in Order. Basically, let's shake up the Grand Alliances by choosing concrete themes and sticking to them.

Waaaaiiit a minute...

Thanks for this. I've been avoiding chiming in directly without more info from those with actual legal expertise, and this goes a long way towards establishing context for the document within a practical legal perspective.

Another +1 for OPR. I'm just hoping we get just 1 or 2 big cool rules per faction, to help differentiate them a bit more, because the game is so elegant that it could absorb that bit of added complexity very well, and so well-maintained that any kinks that get introduced by adding these times will be quickly ironed out.

I'm already a few years into AoS, but a big part of why I play any game is "how easy will it be to grow the community?" Not every area will have a pre-existing gaming community, but if I can get my friends playing, then I'm guaranteed to have opponents that I know I'm going to enjoy hanging out with. And a big draw for those folks - as it was for me when I started AoS in summer 2019 - is the free and easily-accessible Warscrolls. Having official support for that sort of thing goes so far for getting newer players on-board.

Absolutely. I'm planning to run OnePageRules with my current GW models and am getting my SAGA Shieldmaidens painted up for an Age of Vikings warband. And hey, I'm always up for more of the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, GW's most-accessible, best-designed, and best-maintained game. I'll happily buy that new Witch-King model - heck, that's reminded me that I need to pick up Gondor at War for the Ithilien Rangers Legendary Legion. Ooo, and the Scouring of the Shire supplement has some lovely, smaller narrative scenarios!

Yeah, all this shift to W+ has done is make me not want to go to GW for my game rules at all, or use their stores for play. And it's actively made me feel worse about W+. I just subbed to OnePageRules' Patreon for the same price, because I'd rather my money go to a small creator who has a fast update time for a cleaner, more-balanced game and a focus on an open community with free materials than to a massive corporation engaging in classic "lock them into our ecosystem with sunk costs" practices.