[Warcry - how are you preparing for the launch!]

Gitz and idoneth pics are floating around now! Anything on a mount/thematically a knight seems to pack a heck of a punch.

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

Cheers for all the thoughts, so far folks!

I quite like @Ravinsild's comparisons to bloodbowl, in particular:
 

6 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

I guess the point of my post is why don't Age of Sigmar players think like this? Or what's the difference between Blood Bowl and Age of Sigmar? If you have a bad army but you play them on purpose, you made that choice (Ironjawz have been sitting in the bottom of tournament winnings for a long time, with a rare win here and there near the top of the heap, but I like big loud crazy orks that look cool, I'm playing the halflings of Age of Sigmar.) I would accept weather and stuff (realm rules and all the scenery rules etc...) as making it harder, easier, or whatever as that's just how it goes just like Blood Bowl. Maybe there's tons of deadly and sinister terrain, maybe it's the realm where I can't run. That's okay (to me). I'm just here to try and get objectives and score points how ever I am able and pilot my army as best as possible (i'm still bad at this game lol). 

Why are so many against this kind of game? Why are tournaments these sterile "everything is even stevens" surgery/hospital environments where there's no risk or chance or anything?  

and I'd just like to highlight @gjnoronh's fantastic points,:

5 hours ago, gjnoronh said:

 

I think there is a  subset that want AoS to be a highly defined standardized game where list building and skill trump randomness.   There is a subset that are happy with AoS rules as written and a subset that want it with max randomness. 

 

and

4 hours ago, gjnoronh said:

You could argue there is even a subset that want list building/experience  to trump at the table tactical acumen.  The more defined the game conditions are "a priori" the less you need to think on your feet at the table top.   

I think many of the suggestions from GW (i.e. battleplans and realms announced at the start of the round) over the last year really push the meter towards rewarding players who 'think on their feet' vs those who parse the rules set pre game and find the best army list to win under highly defined conditions.       Personally I love that tweak by GW  to the standard way scenarios have been handled for decades in Warhammer.   

I'm very much for the "think on your feet" approach, because I feel that AoS is *not* a highly defined, highly standardized ruleset, and houseruling scenario setup so there's more defined, standardized conditions coming into a game does little to change that.

I also agree that Bloodbowl's the better skill based tournament game. And seeing elements of BB in the recent matched play guidelines, I think the design team does too. Consider Meeting Engagements: it's an official matched play format that guarantees some very funky mixed up deployments and matchups, obviously another case of the design team pushing for "think on your feet".  


 

[Warcry - how are you preparing for the launch!]

Banging out my bonesplitterz in a particular order, so that I get a good spread of units done first, giving me a nice selection of all the Warcry-legal ones for next week. Once I finish I'll do up some retro squig hoppers for my gitz.

Not sure how big a deal the preset terrain loadouts are for Warcry, but my first few games are going to be on whatever's available at the store.

[Warcry- Cypher Lords Discussion]

1 hour ago, RaiderX said:

5(6) attack at 2/- damage is INSANE, but 10 hp, they won't survive to turn 3.

Strike hard and fast, I guess? Very keen to play these fellas.

[Warcry - Bonesplitterz Discussion]

Alright ladz! We got the best value Warcry box, some of the nicest, most expressive models, and from  what I can vaguely recall of the book I peeked during demo day, a pretty okay campaign quest!

What do you reckon we can expect for rules though? "Most Well Rounded" faction never really bodes well, IMO. Ironjawz don't got it any better with "Simple To Play".

I think we'll be a reasonably tough, reasonably mobile, reasonably hordey faction. I'm eyeballin "Lodsa Arrows" on our skillsheet, so that might mean we have situational shooting.  "Charge!" seems like it'll really help us cover some ground, "Toof Shiv" is a bit uuuh (maybe it's for nailing those last few HPs?), and the juju one is probably tied to our totem boy.

The thing I'm most looking forward to is the Big Stabba rules, they're always hilarious to use in core, and hopefully that carries over here.
 

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

11 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

That's cute, very wrong but cute none the less. In case you missed it matched play is neither defined as using GW's suggested tournament format or using the realm rules sweetheart. 

Hey, I'm not invalidating anyone's chosen way to play here, if the American GT's find a way to standardize the game in their community with houserules so more folks are happy, then more power to them!

 

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

14 minutes ago, Bluesummers said:

I have preordered the game because it looks cool but after reading the rules i got to admit that it looks bad on paper. One roll attacks, no save, no abilities or special rules on fighters, in general lackluster stats. That means differentiation will be harder to achieve between and within the warbands.

In a jervis johnson movement and positioning heavy game where most of the setups need the game done in 3-4 turns? I think differentiation will actually be pretty easy.  I bet you'll feel the little differences in move values and health values way more as you play more and more games.

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

19 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Fortunately they won't because GW's tournament pack is asinine and awful and TOs have been doing it longer and more successfully than GW. 

Honestly, good on them for making such robust use of Open Play!

[Warcry- Cypher Lords Discussion]

2 hours ago, Acid_Nine said:

So I dunno if I'm just too sheltered, but how many of the cypher lords are guys and how many are women? Is it the point that you can't tell?

That's what makes it fun~

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

4 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

When I play in the realm of Ghur and I bring a Ghorgon for my monster and my opponent brings a Magma Dragon there is no 'adapting my tactics' there is just a 300~ point difference in the game now. 

 

Oh hey someone finally addressing ghur!

This lovely realm rule is actually worded real vague, and having gone over it I think the best way to handle ghur is to have the organiser pre assign monstrous beasts. It doesn't say the players have to pick beasts out of their own battletomes iirc, so we can play this one by ear pretty easily.

That's my solution that sticks totally within what the ghb defines matched play as, at least. 

But also if your opponent brings something stupid and insists on using it as per the book you could simply avoid it and have it crashing back into his own army. Which is how you make a tactics out of one of the dumbest rules in matched play.

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

6 minutes ago, wayniac said:

I won't delve too deep into this tangent but people don't want randomness to dictate what they can't control, they want it to be actual skill and how you play, like wargaming of old where maneuvering and setting up charges and things like that were all the rule of the day.  Well actually most modern players seem to want list building to be the only real tactic, but my point stands:  The issue is it's just "We rolled the result on the chart which really hurt my army" isn't doing anything for tactics, it's just RNG ****** you over and making  you adapt instead of adapting coming naturally during the course of the game.

That said though, I still think the realm rules add some nice variety, even if I feel that having such huge swings of the game due to a die roll isn't actual tactics.

Im pretty sure we'll have a rough time coming to any sort of accord at this point. But i still think any sort of 'welp im boned' mentality born of rolling one of the simple realm effect variants you could have easily prepared a list for is *very much* something any player can curb at list building. 

It really just boils down to realm rules on not letting players roll the lists they want to roll (one trick pony lists as folks have called em) because that's what the game's early established meta has conditioned them to.

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

2 minutes ago, wayniac said:

Yet wargames don't have random things like that in such polarizing ways.  At least not any wargame I've ever seen other than Warhammer.  This is neither here nor there so I won't continue down this train of thought but randomness is not strategy nor tactics, it's just randomness.

Yeah, exactly. They're trying to differentiate further within the genre they previously defined. Nobody else is approaching it like they are, and they're leaning into it.

I can see a lot of people here don't regard the ability to adapt to something you can't control as good measure of tactica, but is it really not? Id be way more impressed with someone who can consistently win tourneys with realm rules on. Anyone can mathhammer an even playing field, not everyone can keep themselves form breaking when things look hairy, and manage to pull wins out their ass in a random, unfair environment.

 

[Double turn]

Just now, Worm said:

Do  you guys and girls like it or not and why?

It's fine.

I've won and lost my fair share of games off double turns, but it adds a lot of spice to the system. Adds something to worry about for unit placement and melee engagement, which I appreciate.

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

Just now, wayniac said:

I think the bigger question would be WHY the design team seems to think such a large random swing is a good idea to balance out the game as opposed to doing it at the army list and faction levels.  The realm rules are cool but and as I said I like them but I totally understand the "WTF?" response to them since they are so polarizing to games.

That's pretty clear to me personally: they've made a wargame and they acknowledge its nature. It's not an RTS, not a tactical action chess analogue like KT Arena or a hybrid tabletop competitive system like Underworlds*, it's a wargame.

And as pointed out earlier, if you want to emulate what is tested in war you need to make the competition a test of who can make the most out unknowable and terrible situations. Nobody else in the industry tries to do that, and if there's one thing GW has absolutely nailed across the years, it's making a one of a kind identity for themselves.

I'm pretty sure this is just them applying that philosophy to competitive play.

_{*(KT Arena and Underworlds are fantastic dedicated competitive systems more in line with the balancing seen in GW's contemporaries and everyone should give them a shot.)}





 

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

16 minutes ago, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

I’m of the mindset of including it all, mainly because it adds more to the tactical side of the game where players must react to novel situations and takes a bit away from the strategic list building aspect. 

I think it’s a real missed opportunity not using proper terrain rules and garrisoning etc. It can really change the dynamic of the game and the power levels of armies.

Although I do agree it can add extra time issues to the game and the old “fairness” issue will crop up if someone has bad luck with terrain etc. But these issues will always exist. 

I'm of the same outlook: I think the aos core system is one of the farthest things from "ideal competitive wargame system" I've ever seen, but all the game-changing, randomized factors in scenario setup help push it more towards being a very interesting, much more compelling meta where you're tested on your ability to adapt and think on your feet instead of your list's ability to take toy soldiers off the table in the first couple of turns.

EDIT: And I disagree about the list building being de-emphasised! Someone swayed me to this opinion in the meeting engagements thread: in a format where the scenarios are highly variable it is imperative that you make a list with less strategic holes in it, one that can efficiently cover its exposed hindquarters in any given situation.

[Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?]

And I'm not just talking about rolling scenery dice and realm artefacts, Im talkin full monty:

A.) All realm effects followed INCLUDING Ulgu in all it's 8" limiting glory, and Ghur and the often violently ignored Rampaging Monsters rule.
B.) Terrain rules as per their relevant warscrolls. This includes stuff like full on LoS blocking, Obstacle rules, and Garrison rules, that supersede the scenery dice.
C.) Full terrain and board setup as seen in the new GHB.

Most people I play don't ever bother with realm rules past the artefacts, or possibly the spells. The realm *effects* in particular are very polarizing.

Every single person I've played with isn't or is only partially aware of the terrain warscrolls, despite the GHB stating they should be used for matched play.

The new board setup is far more readily accepted, as the GHB is pretty clear on how this process is done. 

  ***

This topic is really interesting to me because there's a lot to talk about  around it.

Realm Artefacts for example are readily incorporated because it's a big range of toys for you to pick from, at no major disadvantage. Realm spells, not as much, because it will depend on how caster-heavy your army is. Realm Effects tend to be ignored because there is that one chance you roll something that completely shifts the game dynamic (Ulgu range limitations, Ghur Beasts, Ghyran no run rule, Hysh/Shyish spellcasting bonus rules, Aqshy total LOS blocking on all terrain, etc etc.).

Terrain warscroll rules are ignored for good reason: not everyone has all the bits required. There's also the extra layer of rules you now have to account for, and a lot of tournament players correlate not being fully aware of what rules could be in play to losing, often horribly. This is a fair outlook, as some of the terrain warscrolls are considerably more gamechanging than their scenery dice counterparts! 

And the board setup at this point is an easy adapt cuz it removes a very vaguely defined aspect of the game. The most pushback I've seen levied against it is that it makes the game longer.

***

Now, assuming you have a local independent shop, that has several multiples of ALL the warscroll terrain, all proper done up and presented on appropriate neoprene mats. It has two dozen 6x4 tables, it has loads of floor space, and all the nice little small tables with little wheels on the side for you to put your models on. It's an ideal tournament venue!

Now imagine the venue does indeed run regular tournaments, but with very specifically laid out rules: they will follow the GHB guidelines to the word. This includes everything I mentioned above (and the painting points/hidden agendas for tiebreaking, but those are less interesting talking points).

Would you frequent these hypothetical tournaments, knowing they followed the frankly much more random nature of the GHB's official take on matched play?

If you wouldn't, then at what point do you think a matched play game stops "being matched play"? How many of these optional rules do you have to keep intact for it to be an ideal tournament rule set? How much space in their wording do you think GW specifically leaves up for organiser interpretation in this regard? 

And just to throw another wrench into things, at what pointage  do you think would following the *full* GW-mandated matched play setup work best? 2k? 2.5k? Meeting Engagements?

 

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

8 hours ago, Nin Win said:

I actually really like that the campaigns can be warband specific.  I like the idea of a group of "my guys" embarking on a quest to accomplish something a bit more specific to them.
 

I like how you can easily slot your own writing into the format, and potentially bang out different quests for your entire gaming community if you're so inclined.

[Warcry- Cypher Lords Discussion]

14 hours ago, Circus of Paint said:

I'll probably dip in the Chaos warbands starting with Cypher Lords. Gotta paint some long-outstanding DoK first and Warcry seems a great excuse to do so!

Personally I find their whole look really fascinating and a great glimpse at our first "proper" Hyshians.

Same! They're the kind of chaos themeing that really grabs me (opulence + deception + a liiiiittle bit of intelligence to hide the bat**** insanity).

The thrallmaster a.) being a ripped dude in flowy, pretty robes and b.) having a secret third arm behind em is exactly what sold me on it.

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

22 minutes ago, Yirazk said:

I am never offended by a negative opinion.

But I am curious...

Why only center focus on “move and hit”?

Wait option seems very interesting for me. But is never mentioned when the critics of “It is only move and hit” appears.

I think what exacerbates the move and wait opinion in Warcry's case is the lack of a save roll. I don't think warcry's un-interactive because of this, because a save roll's just math that the system is forcing you to play out, when it could have done it in a less random way somewhere else. Which is what warcry did!

 

1 hour ago, Battlefury said:

But please, for the sake of humanity, several people should learn to accept negative opinions and dissapointment, even they can not confirm that themselves.
A negative opinion will not hit anyone in the face, or injure someone physically. The people don't liking stuff are not biased in any way, nor are they literally Hi*ler.

 

People are just very defensive at the moment because so far the highest profile review for a very hyped up system is sort of a rushed mess. Owen (finally got his name!) who was the main critic of it seemed like he was being unwillingly dragged through the entire process, and it really came off like he was spiting the game because of it. There's also the knowledge that a lot of people will now be heavily influenced by GMG's weighty opinion, potentially shearing off a portion of the playerbase before it even releases.

This kind of backlash is why most pro game reviewers who don't particularly enjoy hyper-competitive mobas or fighting games don't review em! It's particularly rough for Owen's case, but it's clear Warcry is the exact opposite of the kind of game he likes, just there wasn't any way for him to have possibly known beforehand, and now he has to help make an internets about it.

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

38 minutes ago, CitizenX said:

 

Not familiar with this channel, but just found his read through of the rules leak. One thing that has stood out to me is he has some pages that aren't included in the other leak that was shared here. His leak included the pages that let you know what the actual names of the runemarks are. One of those runes is apparently for Gargantuans. 

I had the rulebook in my hands like 2 days ago and i feel like a massive dunce for missing that.

[Meeting Engagements Relevance Declining?]

15 minutes ago, wayniac said:

I was super excited for Meeting Engagements, I like smaller point games.  But the combination of it allowing unbalanced combos out of the gate, the strange table size (why not just 4x4?  Why make it a weird size?) and the extra splitting your army stuff that IMHO wasn't even needed made it seem incredibly bad after the initial "Oh cool a way to legitimize something other than 2k" thing wore off.  It seems like they went too far in the wrong direction with what they decided to do with it.  it didn't need all the extra things on top of it

 

3x4 is so you take a standard 6x4 table and have two games on it at once, which is great space efficiency for tourneys and events.

And man im starting to sound like a broken record here but morathi in the spearhead isn't as scary as you'd think! Unless by 'broken straight out the gate' you mean two stacks of Tzaangor Enlightened in which case you'd have more of an argument, but that's also more of a warscroll problem.

Also the staggered deployment is seriously the best rules idea GW have had for this system since removing the S/T table.

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

2 hours ago, Jefferson Skarsnik said:

Is there any scope to house rule the deployment options so that warbands start out further away with more of a tactical first turn before everyone's bogged down in melee? Or would that ruin the card based battleplan setup?

 

It'd be dead easy to houserule. The cards have no words on em, just symbols and measurements, so making your own will be a piece of cake once you figure out which ones are paced to your taste.

Also the staggered deployment stops things from dying off all at once with little counterplay ala most of gw's larger scale games.

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

1 minute ago, Paniere said:

I'm in the wargaming world for so long but my local friends are more into boardgames and rpgs. I know they'd fancy try this new (for them) world out, but they are held back by the entry costs. I find this game perfect for whoever wants to drag more people in wargaming. This is the main reason I will buy it and it's not a point that the 2 guys at GMG even considered because they are after the perfect skirmish game, comparing this one with more complex and refined engines but surely less friendly to newbies 

If cost is truly an issue, even after splitting the monetary and hobby loads between yourselves, consider the non-chaos factions coming out in two weeks time. You can lend them models if you happen to own any of the supported armies, and some of the other factions have some very cost efficient kits for building a warband with (Bonesplitterz and their savage orruk box is bar none the best for this).

Once models are sorted, it's just a matter of terrain and the rules, faction, and battleplan cards. You can buy all of those just once, since it's something easily shared.

Gauge your options and suss out which will be the optimum choice for your group!

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

3 minutes ago, CJPT said:

I think this is mostly right, but there are a few things that aren't being factored in here:

• Characters act twice, and can perform actions in any order (i.e, everyone can effectively retreat and move/charge.)
• The initiative roll activates special abilities and lots of them are useful for opening up situations like this.

Some situational examples:

• You tie up my Golems with chaff. One of them is the chain whip person. I've been saving up my wild dice in case you tried to do this, give myself a quad 6, and do flat 6 damage to every enemy around the chain whip, wiping out the screen and getting ahead. You might see this coming, however, and try to force me to use my dice in other ways, refuse to engage the whip, etc. 
• You tie up my Untamed Beasts heavy-hitters with chaff. I disengage with the big cat and then use its leap ability to circumvent the blockers. Then the beastmaster character then gives it a bonus action, letting it do whatever it wants. The counterplay here would be to kill the beastmaster, but that means you're splitting your focus, etc, etc.

Great examples! And so far a really good demo of how the game is both deeper than it seems and, as you've said, spookily similar to bloodbowl.

The larger context of the numbers advantage being a big deal was in a campaign, since the game has still decided to let more successful players take on a bigger core warband, getting them bodies past the point limit. I'm of the opinion that this is a poor decision that can overall hurt a campaign experience,
 

14 minutes ago, robinlvalentine said:

Simple and streamlined can be great - I love Warhammer Underworlds, for example, which is a far less complex game than AOS and has similarly pared down statlines. But done badly it can be boring, repetitive, and lacking in character. My worry is that, out of the box, Warcry may be the latter - which, given how long we've all been waiting for an AOS skirmish game, would be very disappointing. 

Hoo hoo, man I would argue that Underworlds is roughly 4.2x the *tactical* complexity of a typical AoS game. For one, Underworlds can give me some severe decision paralysis (always a sign of great game design IMO), where in AoS I'm usually just going through the motions of sending my mangler squig murderball at [INSERT META UNIT HERE], making sure the other squigs are in his buff range, and hoping I get a double turn.

I do share the same qualms with Warcry, though. At a glance it seems almost too simple. But like most games I'm saving proper, proper judgement for after I've done two dozen games of it.

[Warcry is Killteam/Mordheim... ?]

54 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

Citing the review as some sort of authority is probably a bad idea. 

I'm not! Their review was very rushed and not all that well thought out, as you've made clear. Just everyone's engaging with the current topic with their review context in mind, and the action economy fact is one of the things they actually got right!

And I don't think it'll matter that the chaff units are bad. Consider this: if I tie you up in melee in warcry, you have to take one of two actions.

a.) retreat, only up to 3 inches in most cases
b.) attack me

That means if I have six dudes, and you have four dudes, and i send in four of my dudes to do nothing but waste your four dudes turns by engaging them in melee, I'm already at a mathematical advantage because I have two dudes left to sit on points/murder you.

Taking your custodes vs orks scenario: I'm an Ork player in KT. KT, especially arena, is also an action economy game. How does an ork...  hell let's step it up even further, how does an all GROT team beat a custodes one? You rush your grots into melee, one at a time, wasting the custodes' severely limited turns via the limitations of melee engagement (waste a turn whacking things or running away). This is the exact situation that Warcry is in at the moment!

KT curbs the horde advantage with the morale phase, but warcry doesn't have that at all! This is why the black haired boy from GMG was so worried about the action economy, because he'd seen how it could be gamed in a more complex system, and recognized the immediate flaws of a similar system with no shooting and no morale phase to curb a numbers advantage!

And once more, let me be perfectly clear, I am not citing GMG as a source, or as an authority, merely as an example of an opinion that in this instance, I happen to agree with.