BadDice0809

A 100 times this. The 'it takes so much more time!!' argument is tiresome. This is a wargame. Its not a match on [insert popular online shooter here]. If you are going to play, you set aside a morning, an afternoon or an evening. Taking a bit more time (if it even does, nothing is ever given in support of the claim anyway), one would think, is worth it for better pacing and more engaging game play. The only subset who would care is tournament players (or those claiming to be them). Frankly, tournament players are not the largest portion of the hobby anyway, and there are easy fixes- play smaller games, use movement aids, and frankly adapting, whether by playing faster or building a smaller army. With the way AoS 3.0 books have trended, where armies generally cost more and there are less models, it feels like now is the time to hammer out true AA rules.

It comes down to managing the expectations of the person you play against. For hilariously unbalanced games, like every single GW mainstream game (honestly just about every GW game), if you want to avoid NPE have a conversation with your opponent before the game. If they want a no holds bar tournament game, then bring the most WAAC, net list thing you can make. If they (or you! You have a say too!) want a more casual game, tone the list down accordingly. There isn't a set formula.

I mean it does. GW doesnt have infinite time or money for molds and casting. Who gets a model release is 100% a zero sum game.

GW bought then out to ensure this never happens again. And since the ITC now has the 'official' stamp of GW expect ETC and the other competing competitive 40k formats to die off. But at least in Blood Bowl you are told up front (at least now) that you are playing an underdog or stuntie team in the rating system the game itself tells you about. Nothing like that exists in AoS, a game with a MUCH higher investment in time and money. Nothing in AoS tells a new player that BoK or BoC are nowhere near the strength of literally any aelf army or LotFP or whatever. Caveat emptor isn't a good philosophy if you want to keep people in your game or if you want it accessible for growth BEYOND the initial starter set buy in. Then again, since starter set sales apparently the main metric GW store sales are measured in... maybe they don't care.

The buzz for it died when they stopped supporting it. Also, it needed fine tuning. I get they wanted to make sure the custom characters were incredibly points inefficient but... if you you restrict it to PtG anyway, it's not really an issue (at least in my mind). My biggest problem with battletomes is right now they do 3 different things and all of them at a mediocre or horrible level. For rules, they get invalidated within 3 months (points change or rules change). All the scrolls are on the app, which gets somewhat regularly updated. A copy of the physical book even unlocks all the 'hidden' info in the app. Zero point in having the book for a rules reference. For fluff the books have largely been reprints of first edition lore with barely anything added. I doubt it takes them more than a day to throw together the 4 additional paragraphs of lore for 'the age of the beast' every tome. The narrative sections are ok, but kinda thin. 1st edition battletomes did this correctly (unique battleplans) and it needs to be folded over into more PtG content then they currently provide. Ultimately, it doesn't seem like anyone is getting a good deal out of the contents of the battletomes except GW, who gets to charge $55 for mostly recycled content.

I think you are grossly overstating the importance of Rob and his T sport gang. How well did his super series idea catch on? Hell if we go by his subscribers numbers the vast majority of AoS players don't know who he is.

I wish they would put the points in the app, and make the battletomes pure narrative and fluff. Include all the PtG stuff in the battletome and really expand on it (I want faction specific Anvil tables for PtG); include short stories, give units more than 3 paragraphs of lore; show off studio members armies like in the Core Rulebook. Codices and battletomes make them money they arent going to stop making them I just wish they would pivot the focus. To be brutally honest, and I think GW isn't being honest with themselves on this, people who just care about the points and rules aren't buying the battletomes anyway. Everything is free online if they spend maybe 5 minutes searching. Yet they still dance this dance, selling us $55 dollar books, for the purpose of rules, that are invalidated with 3 months.

Do you guys use the missions out of the GHB or do you try to mix it up? I'm curious about how well the battleplans scale (my guess is... not too well?)

I blame the GHB for the 2k de facto standard. Interestingly, the core rulebook mentions 1.5k as it's own battlesize. Then, suddenly, in the GHB, all mention of 1.5 disappears. All the battle plans are assumed to fit 2k games, and use the standard 2k board size metrics. Further, unlike in the 40k equilivalent, there are not any separate missions for 1k games in the GHB. Its like whoever wrote the Core Rules wanted to leave open the possibility for expansion in smaller level games (in the similar 'matched play' format). Then... whoever gave input in the GHB (I'd assume playtesters) promptly removed it from contention. I wish AoS had something like 'Incursion' sized missions to legitimize lower point match play style games. Frankly, meeting engagements was a complete mess. From the 'just hang the model off the base,' to the not!Warcry deployment... I dont know how that idea got through any feedback.

Would you? Yes. Would they be any good? No. Would a list with two or three be annoying as hell to play? For some armies (mostly lower tier ones that already get stomped by LRL) yeah. In an army full of NPE and "no you can't do that" multiple loreseekers could make it so armies whose only chance against LRL is playing the objectives can't even do that. Like much of the LRL army, he suffers from writers with too little self control just piling too much into him. Maybe if he didn't get a pregame deploy literally anywhere outside of 3" of enemies. Or didn't autotake an objective he deployed next to (provided no enemies). The unique tag was the lazy alternative to just pruning his stupidly written scroll.

This isn't talked about enough. The drop Mechanic for first turn priority 100% needs to go. They dropped it from 40k. It's not even in the core rulebook- they tacked it into the GHB. From what I recall of some 40k playtesters discussion, I'm not sure how much input playtesters get in feedback on the core rules (Tabletop Tactics discussion). That makes me feel this was feedback from the playtest group that threw that garbage back in. Next GHB needs to throw it right back out. As was mentioned, powerful armies that can get to/shoot/cast what and where they need to on turn one, who also control priority, is far too much.

This leak isn't potato cam. It looks pretty good. Frankly I wish AoS got the leak treatment 40k gets. 40k leaks let them have an idea of what's coming down the pipeline for the next year. Meanwhile, AoS gets what? Long silence only broken when the self appointed arbiters of AoS leaks deigns to post some "cryptic" pic (could literally just say what's next but no... where's the fun in that? ). If potato cam leaks force their hand I'm all for them.

I honestly thought the Fyreslayer Runes ability was interesting and well implemented. 6 bluffs, choose the 5 you want per game, in the order as you needed them, with a slight chance of a super buff. Not buffs on top of buffs on to of buffs that build on each other (DoK or LRL). I only wish the Lodges had 'favored' runes that gave them better than a 1/6 chances of 'super' activating. However, I suppose there is no point in pretending that FS players were doing anything other than Hermdar with doubling activating HGB blobs until 3rd killed that combo...

Funny they are pricing it this high when the "Special Warhammer Day Not!Sale" shows they couldn't move catacombs and are trying to shift the stock...

I dont know about you but there is an ad banner for movement trays on my web page right now.... movement trays are already back.

We can play the army chair general game on the specific examples all day (the LRL player teleports the sentinels, a CoS player places a wizard outside dispell and casts the bridge for irondrakes, KO get ready to drop off the clown car, etc etc). Also, I'm sure a lot of armies can afford to play slammed against the rear of the table to desperately avoid the 36" threat.... The point is, in the game as is (a point yukishiro1 made previously and you never responded too), NOT having the double turn creates a game of haves and have nots (like in 8th edition 40k). You either have one drop and heavy shooting/power projection, or you don't, and are competitively a second class citizen (once again, we saw this split in 8th edition 40k). The double turn providing a CHANCE for the second army to MAYBE close the gap before they are shot/magicked to pieces means the other army can't just measure deployments and ranges and have it 100% certain they will have it their own way. Is it a good system? No. Its still horrible. Frankly every mainstream 40k game still hugging the dinosaur of IGOYOUGO is so pathetically flawed the idea of taking it seriously as a competitive game is crazy. BUT, stating as you do that getting rid of the double turn would be better, given the current lack of anything to mitigate shooting (a la 40k style dense or obscuring terrain) is simply wrong. If anything, it would be EVEN WORSE because AoS, for some unfathomable reason, still has first turn order determined by drops (something even 40k has completely ditched). Games could literally be decided by who wins the roll off for attacker and defender. To answer your last point, given the state of AoS as is, I would rather play a game where there is at least a CHANCE of the LRL player NOT getting a double, then live in a world were the LRL player knows for certain the turn order and can plan accordingly.

With the lack of anything like 40k 9th edition obscuring or dense terrain, AoS would 100% degenerate into a race to get the first turn to shoot the opponent off the table. This was the entire issue with 8th and remained an issue to be grappled with in 9th design. They had to change last turn scoring to help solve it. Where is the challenge for players in an opponent with 50 sentinels getting first, then carefully measuring to know the other player has zero chance to reach them within X number of turns?

The spell sounds so cool but the effects really aren't matching the flavor text here. Overwhelming the foe with hail the size of METEORS!!!!... equals minus 1 Rend on their weapons... somehow? The 'choose the best debuff' is strong and all just getting a little disconnect here.

The one right next to the big Gryph Charger on the far right doesn't make it look too big. The Chargers' limbs look longer than the dragons. Just the wings really bulk his size out.

With the way their wings are posed thats probably a good thing. Might even make them easier to use in game since they are high enough to (hopefully) not get all tangled with the unit they are charging. Still look like a nightmare to transport... But, as any transport concerns, if you arent on the magnet train by now nothing can help you.

It still blows my mind that the stupid low drop game is still in matched play. Hell they finally got to the level 8th edition 40k was at, over a year ago, in the core rules, then they immediately rule back to the drop bull ****** in the GHB. 40k is much better for not making first turn priority a sure thing (or next to one). I would love to hear why it was shoe horned back into the game.

You get on this high horse about how insulting poverty wage is, and then list all this things you do despite this 'poverty wage' and then admit its ONLY because you make a 'comfortable wage'... which i will assume is more than the poverty wage your wife makes. And makes your combined income double that amount anyway. At least. Buddy what are earth was that post trying to prove? I am honestly confused here.

Its such an oversimplification to say "well we told them to put money above all else" and just nod our head like that answers every decision. If GW should just put "make money above all else" why the hell is any production still done in the UK? Literally nothing should be made there. Move it all to China (maybe India). Lord knows that if FW is any judge, the quality would skyrocket. For that matter, why have a Warhammer World and Bugmans? Most of GWs profits come from NA and only a fraction of NA purchasers (or even European, or Asian) will visit. Seems like a waste of money that could increase my share price. Why develop their own apps and Warhammer Plus? Frankly, the 40k app was a laughable, pathetic dumpster fire on launch. Battlescribe is still out there, and free. A lot of the 'official' 40k animations, which seemed to be using assets from a game almost 10 years old, looked like trash next to Astartes and Exodites. Why suddenly invest capital in a streaming service anyway? This lowered my share's price and reduced my dividends. Corporations have every right to make money. Some fans (and shareholders like myself) might be questioning if attacking these fan made productions (and frankly Warhammer Plus all together) is the best way to go about it. I'm getting ugly flash backs to early 2000s GW, flush with cash from the success of LotR, over extended. Then the wall hit, a bunch of places got closed (Battle Bunkers anyone?) and GW basically abandoned any community presence in NA. While I don't think if/when Warhammer Plus flops it will that bad, it just seems like a middle management good idea run amok.

I think a lot of the angst comes from people feeling that these content creators were filling a niche that GW, for the longest time, had either zero interest or ****** poor ability to fill. It kinda seems like turning around and slapping the people who through their own efforts were expanding aspects of the hobby GW abandoned. That might seem morally wrong. But morality has zero to do with what the law is. IP law is was it is, so these are the facts. As for the bit about corporate law, let's not pretend citizens had any meaningful input in crafting IP laws. In the case of many "developing countries" and the WTO, it was also a case of accept western IP and trademark laws, or you are not let in full stop. Hardly 'democratic.'

Not to make this a whole "thing" but the meme started in the same place other tiresome memes in the AoS community started (bin and sin guy, etc) and it was explicitly directed at Ash at GMG. It might have evolved (and thats a reach there are maybe three video content creators whom consistently reviewed AoS books for the life of the game) but it started as a snide swipe at him. It was kinda pathetic when the same people dismissing him with a meme still watched the videos to see the new stuff too...