Neil Arthur Hotep

May 24

22 hours ago, Mcthew said:

One group that isn't really covered here are the 8-18 year olds, school kids who pick up this hobby.

My eldest son plays Warhammer after school and what strikes me there is that school kids play AoS without worrying whether they use the whole rules-set or not. They can use just the basic core rules, no battletomes, and sometimes no command points. They don't declare games Open Play either, because they don't care about the imposed game modes. They just get on with it because that's fun.

What strikes me then, is that when we discuss the hobby here it is largely institutionalised. We discuss it within comfortable parameters that have been given to us by the game's producers, such as Narrative play, or Open Play or Matched Play. There's actually little freedom in how we play the game compared to how my kid and his friends play. And that's just sad.

The fact that we are now celebrating (some of us anyway) that the game is being made simpler to understand makes me feel we're being treated like over-the-hill gamers who can't grasp concepts. The reality is, that if we want to make a game simple, or quicker, then we can do that ourselves. Or are we saying as a community, that what school kids can do, we simply can't?

(BTW not talking about competition games here - but AoS isn't just about competitive play no matter what some people say.)

There are a few things I like about what we have seen of 4th edition that could broadly be called "simplification", and I feel like none of them come down to GW thinking that I am a dumb-dumb that can't handle complexity.

There are changes in rules communication, which I think are just overall a good thing. They help people grasp the effect of mechanics more easily and make it easy to find relevant rules text. That's just an overall quality of life improvement. I am able to read 3rd ed warscrolls no problem, but why would I be against making them easier to understand at a glance?

There are parts of the game that are being changed with the intent to make the game play quicker and flow better. That's something that I appreciate because it's hard to "house rule" in. People have a right to use their rules, and if carefully piling in and managing overlapping aura abilities gives them an advantage, then I am not going to insist they don't get to do it.

There is a bunch of unification on the timing of reaction abilities which seem to be aimed at reducing mental load. I like this because while I could usually keep these triggers straight in my head for important abilities, it didn't make things more fun. Neither did having to go through the whole "Oh, I forgot that I got to use this one thing, can we go back" routine if me or my opponent forgot.

There are some systems that are being removed from the game, like weapon range and battle shock. Personally, I feel like they always just added complexity without adding much interest. And again, those are facets of the game that certain factions benefit from and have a right to. I am not going to insist on "no battleshock" against OBR when that is one of their main traits, even if I think the juice is not worth the squeeze in terms of complexity and interest added for the mechanic.

Customizing the rules of the game to fit your taste is great. But it is important for game designers to get the starting point right, because the more you have to move away from it, the more negotiating changes with your fellow players and amateur game design is involved. And that's just a bunch of effort I don't always want to go through, for a variety of reasons. I don't think it is unreasonable to be happy about GW making the base line game more approachable, more fluid and less mentally taxing.

May 24

44 minutes ago, PraetorDragoon said:

Knowing the GHR, it will be green-blue mushy cheese.

Truly, his depravity knows no bounds.

May 24

8 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

Neither has real popular awareness though like Hashut does, so I'd say unless they some how bring back Malal there is no one else waiting in the wings.

Sadly, though, as far as I understand they lost the IP rights to Malal when the freelancer who created him quit working with them. It is unlikely we will see Malal return for that reason. Although I suppose they could reuse the concept of a chaos god of revenge if they just went through a name change and visual redesign. However, that means people won't go "I know what that is" and clap when they see it.

May 23

8 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

@KingBrodd @Gaz Taylor

Use the report function and don't proliferate spam by quoting it in the future. Just makes it harder to clean up for the mods.

May 23

19 minutes ago, Augusto said:

The new Loonshrine mentions gloomspite warmachine

Maybe the expansion brings some?

I would just put that down as general future proofing, not necessarily evidence of concrete plans for an expansion. This language might even be standard for all resurrection abilities.

May 23

3 minutes ago, cyrus said:

Easy list for 4th edition big/mid size releases:

Stormcast

Skaven

Cities

Chorfs

Kharadron

Fyreslayers

Idoneth

DoK

Lumineth

Seraphon

Ossiarch

The Era of the Beast is over. The Era of the Dorf has begun.

Let's just say the days...

...are getting shorter. 😎

May 23

21 hours ago, Enoby said:

With Age of Sigmar 4th edition around the corner, I thought it was a good opportunity to look at the 3rd edition of the game in a retrospective.

My gaming group sort of disintegrated throughout AoS 3, and I've seen a few others mention their groups collapsed too. Combined with other things going on, I ended up leaving AoS about a year into the edition, so I can't say I've really been up to date with events.

As such, I was wondering a few things:

- Overall, how did you find AoS 3?

- Do you think AoS became more or less popular in your area during 3rd edition? Any reasons why?

- For those who played in 3rd edition, did you find most players in your group were new or experienced?

- What rules did you like? Which did you not like?

- Do you think 4e is a step in the right direction?

- What do you think 3e did well, and what could it have done better?

My experience with AoS 3rd is pretty unequally distributed over its life span. I played the game a little at the start, then took a long break from playing in the middle, and now towards the end played very regularly. Overall, I don't know I can really say that 3rd edition was a straight upgrade over 2nd, but at the same time there were a lot of improvements that I would not want to revert back to the 2nd ed standard.

3rd edition was an experimental edition in my mind due to all the different GHBs, but also all the other adjustments that happened over the course of its life span. Remember Amulet of Destiny and how big of a problem that was? At times, this was overwhelming for me: In the beginning, I followed the rules closely and was thinking a lot about battle tactics, grand strategies and artefacts for my armies. I revised my lists when new changes were introduced, such as in the Tome Celestial updates from White Dwarf. But after the change to the first Gallet GHB, I really lost my motivation to keep up. Partially, this is because I was just not actively playing at the time, but in the past I have actually been into the whole theory-crafting and mathhammer part of the game even without having games lined up. I hope all the rules experimentation was worth it in the design process for 4th ed, because it definitely took a toll on me living through it.

As far as stand out rules go: I think what 3rd edition did a lot better than 2nd was faction rules. Not for all factions, but IMO for the majority. My least favorite bit of rules writing from the edition was what they did in Battlescroll: The Hunt, where they gave players victory points more or less directly for playing bad armies. I just thought that was the completely wrong approach to game balance, and I am glad it went away very quickly.

Much like I did for 3rd ed, I appreciate that 4th seems to want to address weak problems in AoS that I also personally perceive in my own experience. But I am more excited for 4th because the designers seem much more willing this time around to change basic mechanics of the game if they don't make sense anymore and I get the general impression that they have a similar idea of the kind of game AoS should be as myself. I hope they are able to realize their vision of AoS as a game that plays smoothly, but retain tactical depth and has something to offer to many kinds of players with different interests.

May 22

11 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Here is a version of the game which is official, which means it will be played in clubs and the chances of me being able to get games increases.

That's a big advantage not many people are picking up on. It is very helpful to have a common base line of what a small AoS game. Being able to play without first having to negotiate specifics (points level, table size, bans...) is huge.

14 minutes ago, PraetorDragoon said:

As somebody who has messed around a lot with trying to make small games of AOS work properly, I'm actually quite interested in seeing how it works. The main make or break for me will be how the small board feels when playing.

If you look at the Spearhead board, the objectives are on the corners of the board (as well as the center), while they are usually on quarter or half-way lines in big AoS.

If you lay it out in real life, the distances are more similar to full AoS than you might expect at first.

May 22

3 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Personally, I'm really excited for Spearhead - and I'm not usually a big fan of board games!

While list building is nice, and I certainly wouldn't want it going away for the main game, I appreciate the idea of having a small version to play that can be completed in around an hour.

Sometimes you'd like Wargame-like tactics without the whole faff of setting up 2k points.

My only hope is they continue to support this. Even White Dwarf creating new Spearhead teams would be very nice to see!

I think it is really easy for long time players to forget the barrier to entry and just how steep it is. Just being able to pick a Spearhead, play a game right away and get a feeling for what makes a good warscroll by actual experince is so huge. Having to decide what units you want in your list in the abstract, by just looking at the warscrolls before you even play a game, is so difficult. Unless you are based "I just play what looks the coolest" chad, of course.

May 22

Just now, Flippy said:

I’ve said this before, but regular AoS requires a significant amount of self-policing and modifications if you want to play small games. Doable for more experienced gamers but hardly user-friendly.

Self-policing, and also straight up homebrewing to make battleplans conceived for a 60"x44" board and 10+ units per side actually play well. That was that was always the biggest barrier to small games (sub 1000 points) for me. I played a few and they were fun, but they did require me to put in a bunch of design work that new players can't do because they lack AoS system mastery.

The self-policing point is really salient to me as well, though. It frequently caused some friction in my low point games when one side could assemble a unit combo, while the other either could not get there due to points or restrictions on big models.

In a way, I think Spearhead is the natural solution to the problems with low points AoS. A smaller board with a mission system tuned for it, recurring chaff units and fixed lists all made immediate sense to me because they directly adressed problems that I personally experienced with small games.

May 21

7 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

Of course they are. They were hired not just to playtest the game, but also sell it. That's why they're talking about it.

And I'm pretty chilled already, like I said I'm not into that crowd. But I guess making some observations from just the number of miniatures and the fact they're both Stormcast can't count in your eyes.

It's not just you, this whole thread has taken a weirdly negative turn since the preview a few days ago that I honestly find baffling. Everyone outside this thread in particular seems really positive about Spearhead, but this thread has been the notable exception (which I find very uncharacteristic for TGA).

I for one am still super interested in this new game mode, especially with people like AoS Coach, 2+ Tough Doug and Honest Wargamer Rob independently talking about how fun it is.

May 21

14 hours ago, Sarouan said:

Well, I'm part of the crowd who says "balance is rubbish in a wargame", but I already see the arguments of the competitive crowd coming to say Spearhead isn't a serious game mode and "full experience AoS" is better.

Maybe chill a little with making up scenarios that have not happened in your head and then getting upset about them?

So far literally all the opinions I have read from people who have actually played Spearhead have been positive.

May 21

23 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

For me it is normal they feel vanilla. The flavour should/ would come with the BT to make it something exciting.

Stormcast are the Ryu of AoS. Them being vanilla is to be expected.

May 21

56 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

the other thing she has going for her now is the 3d6 charge, which means she can reliably be deployed from reserve and successfully charge (with FLY and a small base), becoming a very effective assassin for small characters/small and medium monsters

Actual good beatstick characters? In my AoS?

Seems like Matt Rose watched that one Warhammer Weekly about foot why combat heroes suck just like the rest of us.

May 21

1 minute ago, Gothmaug said:

I'm not so sure... For an edition that's supposed to reign in the rend creep, every model in todays storm cast preview (and the chariot posted the other day) had a rend of at least 1, including the foot hero wizard!!

Rules do feel very much like 40K 10th edition. Though I wish they had kept the same terminology for similar things between games (like 6's to hit granting sustained hits or lethal hits).

Yeah, but Stormcast should have at leadt rend 1.

I don't want to play through another edition where the literal golden super men and women are among the most pillow fisted armies around

May 21

7 minutes ago, Nezzhil said:

It is red colour, so only in combat phase

3 minutes ago, Vagard said:

actually as a friend told me, it only works on close combat and not during the shooting phase (according to the red color of the ability)

Edit : Nezzhil 3 min earlier than me 😅

I need to get into the habit of actually paying attention to the ability frame

May 21

5 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Wow! Yndrasta is an absolute beat stick now. I think this might be the biggest glow up for a warscroll I've ever seen.

Three more attacks, better rend and double damage against monsters with her spear and she can charge 3d6. The only downside is that her ward is worse and she doesn't ressurect any more but she's going to do work in combat.

I didn't even see the damage doubling effect at first! That definitely makes her a huge threat against any kind of MONSTER. I occasionally ran the Ven Densts in my lists, and people were already respecting their rend 2 damage 4 shots on their WIZARD HERO MONSTERs. A big rend 3 damage 8 (!) shot will definitely make people pay attention.

May 21

11 minutes ago, BarakUrbaz said:

We know that the Sentinels of the Bleak Citadel are the Ruination Chamber subfaction, but for reference Lightning Echeleon is an Extremis Chamber themed battalion while Thunderhead Brotherhood is a Warrior Chamber themed battallion. Just to clarify because I'm pretty sure a lot of people have forgotten the names of the Stormcast Battalions seeing as warscroll battalions have become irrelevant. I presume the 4th out of the four Faction Pack subfactions is going to be Vanguard Chamber themed.

Oh, they are based on the old warscroll battalions? That's kind of cool, I'd love if Deathmarch made its return in the Soulblight Gravelords index. That's what I originially ran when I started in 2nd edition.

May 21

7 minutes ago, Nezzhil said:

Being an early rumour engine could be it is one of the first books with only a small hero.

Could be a small hero, could be a Lumineth situation.

May 21

52 minutes ago, Grungnisson said:

Seems a bit crude. More in line with the CoS humans' stuff.

Not sure I agree with that, we have pretty similar torches in Cities.

galen.png.10f660c4b5a2656e2f8389ce139a6eba.png

torchguy.PNG.44c0285ebd31e41b7d38fe9fb7092be0.PNG

EDIT: Should have read the thread before posting, lol

May 20

1 minute ago, Ejecutor said:

Bye bye CoS command tokens. They were nice for 6 months...

I enjoyed Orders while they lasted. Although Counter-Fire was a pretty big source of feel-bads. I wiped out many a hero for daring to fire their pistol before charging in.

May 20

9 minutes ago, Sigmarusvult said:

I have a feeling that they did a mistake in their article and swapped the cavalry profile with monsters. Indeed, based on all the current leaks, monsters always wound better than they hit.

They corrected the image: