Greybeard86

I am sure that's the case. But that's not how the game "designed" to be played, when it comes to matched play. One may make "bad" choices for the sake of bringing diversity, but wouldn't it be better if players weren't pushed to that corner? I get a lot of my enjoyment from painting, but paying some more attention to the gaming side, I couldn't help but notice this.

At this point, recasters are as easy to buy from (and sometimes more) as GW official products. FW is, IMHO, what truly kicked off the recasting business. Although plastic kits are pricey, if you compare them to the resin recasted prices you don't safe that much, but have to deal with all the resin issues. Now, for FW models, the savings are large and the costs minimal, I am surprised at how much one cannot tell them apart. I do not know what the solution is, but I know that constantly squatting FW products does not make one want to buy more of the "official" models. PS - Still salty over the squatting of the Marienburg land ship, for example.

Since my return to the fantasy side of the hobby, I have been surprised at how "spammy" the competitive and semi-competitive AoS lists feel. I won't go through all of them in detail, here you can find some obvious examples: LINK. As far as I can understand, this is due to the fact that a large part of the TT performance of units is linked to buffs, which are often restricted to specific keywords. These are linked to specific heroes (e.g. wardens buffing hammerers), or specific battalions (e.g. lords of the lodge). Often, choosing one such route truly prevents bringing other diverse units to the army in an effective manner. This seems to be very much the case for the wonderful Gitz (goblins). Armies in AoS already have fairly limited ranges, in general, thus this keyword focus further specializes the forces. In addition, it seems to kill, for the most part, effective cross-army options (e.g. within order), except for some niche cases. The result is that lists seem to focus on a subset of units, which are then spammed, together with a few supporting characters. Is this "good"? Or would you prefer more "diverse" being "competitive"? Am I missing anything?

Absolutely! That said, I do not see why GW would crab on 30 years worth of marketing just because they wanted to reboot the franchise. They aren't, as a matter of fact, since a fair number of the central characters in AoS are fantasy ones recycled. I guess over time it will be a mixture of both; there is just some awkwardness, for the time being, when for a lot of people some "dead" old heroes are more recognizable than the newer ones. We'll also have to see if they "ground" more AoS, since at the moment it still seems pretty "high fantasy and who knows what is going on in the kitchens" sort of business. More like Age of Sigmar = Age of Mythology whereas Fantasy had a more down to earth feel to it (granted, they didn't build fantasy from scratch, it was copy paste for a lot of things).

Those aren't AoS exclusive But thanks for the rest

OK. Well I would love for this to be a thing, and safe the 100 dollars that Boris costs on ebay (too late for me on this one). What are "new" mythic AoS named characters? I am not well versed on the lore, and for me the old names still have much more meaning. Even when I look at AoS lore, they seem to have recycled some of the main ones. What is a well-known AoS exclusive name? Also, if anyone has more info on this, would be happy to hear more about it.

May I ask, where have they announced these builds to order?

Personally, I am not sold on this concept of super narrow dawi armies with little senergy between them. They essentially picked the existing themes in dawi armies and hyperbolized them into niche factions: Steam punk tech theme: KO Slayers: fyreslayers Dawi "normies": dispossed / free cities, but these get absolutely no love. Everything seems over the top, and since all is pretty high fantasy crazy, it is not as striking. Seeing naked dawi with axes was shocking in a context of more "normal" looking dawi, same as for their "steampunk creations". Variety was nice, and it allowed you to customize your army. Now, choosing between flavors of naked giant axe dwarves, or flying steam punk dwarves, I see less customization and excitement for the wacky things. I hope they consolidate armies a bit more. Hopefully that way we won't see the game pushed towards "I run X battalion and thus I spam these 2 units until my opponent's eyes bleed".

No, please no. Do not equate many models with large blobs. In 40k the majority of armies have maximum squad sizes of 10. There are some armies that can create blobs, like the tyranids, orks, and so on. But sisters of battle, imperial guard, death korps of Krieg, May have multiple 10 man squads but that’s it; ig conscripts can blob and those are a rare sight. Saying that in 40k blobs are as prevalent as in AoS is demonstrably wrong. Some faction may blob, the vast majority of armies you see on the table do not. We could head to warhammer stats and look at every single winning list and whether it has blobs or not, and it would support my point, but this is an AoS forum and this exercise is better left to the curios reader.

In my case, I am endlessly confused by skirmish rules applied to blobs. I try, but it just seems counterintuitive to me; I cannot bring myself to accept conga lines and stuff like that. I naturally just form them up in tidy rows, etc. I think skirmish is not simple if you have too high model counts. Although skirmish is fun for smaller units!

You and @Ogregut right?

I snatched a goblin box for future projects. Those sculpts (both trolls and goblins) are among the best GW has ever done, in my own biased opinion.

I think that, outside GW, there seems to be a unspoken rule that states that for large forces representation you: i) don't use "skirmish" rules (i.e. rules that give high importance to models within units); ii) you do not represent 1 to 1 the models (i.e. regiments are such that 1 man counts for 100, or whatever scale). GW didn't follow rule ii) with WHFB (those large blocks....sigh), and is now "breaking" also rule i) in AoS. Players had a way around "Lil Timmy gets burnt out painting 30+ of the same, identical chaff he's going to be scooping up by the handful" using unit fillers. I personally loved them, as they were a chance to show creativity (of course there were bad ones, but there are also badly painting miniatures). Now, it is quite clear that unit fillers don't work with skirmish rules, so in that sense GW has an incentive to keep increasing unit sizes and also keep skirmish rules. It just means selling more plastic crack, which is their bottom line. But, at the same, time, if the game loses appeal ("Lil Timmy gets burnt [...] and just decides to go play with his Space Marines instead"), that also hurts their bottom line. I think that we may argue over some fine details, but most "wargamers" know what about skirmish vs rank and file games. As for the change, I do that already! I am currently carrying out several painting projects; my latest one is a bunch of old school Mordheim models that I plan to use as "counts as" in larger units of empire, ehem free guild, forces (and even as "unit fillers", I have several models of frenzied mob that would make awesome "camp followers").

Speaking of apoc and the other multitude of abandoned systems... I do think that AoS has been leading the charge in terms of testing innovations. Which is good in the sense of GW attempting to improve the game systems (not the nth iteration of the same) but also can be a tad hard on the players going through the roller coaster. I believe that skirmish rules can be fun and now there is a multitude of new not-mordheim games by GW. But my heart aches when I see conga lines and weird pile in moves (limit return fire and so on) with what is a regiment sized bunch of models.

I guess it is a possibility that we see OW being the equivalent to HH to 40k; personally, I'd be fine with that, I guess. In any case, you are right that lumineth do that, but I'd argue that funny enough they seem to be a better fit for skirmish (they have some big expensive models) than some of the armies that don't have such rules. Are unit fillers that scary to GW?

Please, a low fantasy faction. We already have crazy lightening riding humans.

I think you are right in saying that more emphasis is put on "individual models" than in units, as would be the case in a pure regiment style game. However, I feel that while "special models" do need special rules and level of detail, the 39th witch in a DoK blob does not. My impression is that the skirmish mechanics do not scale well to such high model counts in units. There is a reason why, as armies become larger, formations gain importance. I believe the reason is the exact same one that we face on the TT: if you have lots of models, having to consider each individually becomes cumbersome. Isn't that splitting hairs a bit? Faces of the same coin and so on. It just looks, from someone who wasn't there the early years, that the unit sizes just bloated. Agreed; that's the crux of it. My point exactly; it is a game played at a not skirmish scale with skirmish rules. I like skirmish rules for "modern" combat, say 40k, since it makes more sense based on the squad level organization and the type of "warfare". Skirmish also works for "skirmishes" (duh), but for big blobs on dozens of miniatures? I don't know, I think blobs should become "regimented", and perhaps allow smaller units to actually "skirmish".

You need to create a new one with the box checked.

No, large groups are rare in 40k. It truly is mostly skirmish based, and 30-40 man blobs are niche faction specific occurances. One could argue it is more about getting the right aesthetic than about the actual number of models. If you are going to push a 40 man blob around, then model based rules seem counterintuitive to me.

Absolutely, I was loose in the definition. But IMHO this is justified because usually "skirmish" rules (model by model) are used in "skirmish" sized games. That's why they are too cumbersone for large model counts, or simply unfun. So, if AoS uses "skirmish" rules, applying them to "regiment sized" units results in awkward gameplay situations, IMHO. Trade offs: free form making rear and side attacks difficult to interpret; measures from bases leading to gamey moves (8th edition 40k was freaking awful in that regard). And others more experienced players could bring up. As for formation options, I feel that there is some room even in rank and file games (allowing for wider frontage vs depth and what not, though with some restrictions). Nice discussion!

Aren't units awkwardly "ranked" anyway nowadays? It just does not matter from a rules perspective, but the OCD in me starts arranging the moment I see 10+ unit sizes.

You need to create a link that doesn't expire

When WHFB was nuked and replaced by AoS, one of the premises is that AoS would follow WH40k in being a "skirmish" game. Units moving from "regiment" were individual models didn't matter that much, to rules based on a model by model basis (touching bases, distance to base). However, since I have come back I cannot help but think that AoS has gone back to the "large unit" sizes of WHFB, while keeping the "skirmish" rules. In competitive play, it is very common to see "blocks" of 20-40 models in units (mortek guard, witch aelves, hearthguard, handgunners, you name it). At this point, can we call it a skirmish anymore? Are the "skirmish" base to base rules functional when you are moving around big blocks of infantry? What is the "gain" in having skirmish rules in massed infantry games? In 40k, blobs are still uncommon, and the game more naturally flows around model based rules, but clearly that is not the case at all in AoS. So, again, what is the point?

As someone who is currently collecting a large force of DoW (I think I have the majority of the original sculpts!), I would love for this mechanic to come back in force.

Show this man/woman some love! Orion centerpiece, then centaurs and satyrs. Plus it links well to current lore, apparently (fills a gap, but within story, etc.).