Moldek

Completely agree with you. I think especially video games are a big influence. I don't think expectations should be the same because physically playing with actual people is very different than being connected to a worldwide community that is all on the same playing field, constantly updated by the publisher. I also think the internet skews our perception of what's going on in the hobby, since you don't hear about all the people playing a campaign with their friends in their garage or small clubs having their houseruled tournaments. I do think we need clear and usable rules out of the box, but I also find that a lot of people completely dismiss the idea of using the game as a toolbox to be "not real warhammer" 🙄

@VBS @JPjr I've found my people I totally agree that the "top down" approach has really taken off, personnally I'm not a big fan of it. It seems like a bunch of people at games workshop are trying to remind people as much as possible that they can have fun and do whatever they want. But there's a weird dichotomy too because of the lack of DIY features in White Dwarf and official books, pictures with 99% official terrain and such. Probably a mix of their commercial strategy and actual expectations from lots of players to have an official line on everything. With internet the communities are less local and people do have that McDonald's expectation of finding the same game everywhere. That said the internet also helps connecting with AoS28 communities and such, that are all about personalizing. Regarding terrain, I completely agree that plastic terrain on battlemats look very sterile. Just a bit of basing can do so much to blend everything in! @VBS if you want some good DIY resources I suggest youtube channels like Mel the terrain tutor or Miscast Terrain. Whereas building your own terrain used to be the norm, it's more like an extra hobby now. But there's still a lot going on @relic456 I see we have different expectations and that's cool. I hope AoS can stay that weird cross between international fast food and home cooked burgers haha. I actually wish that GW would give more examples of house rules and such to give Narrative / Open Play the same legitimacy and inspire players interested in that approach.

Do you use any house rules? What scenarios do you play? If they keep warcry as the small skirmish option maybe they could take the meeting engagement approach and create an AoS mode balanced around something like 500 points? Enough for the core rules to work but a lower cost of entry for new players

Well it can be a way to start collecting some of those armies. I’m sure it will expand to include more as time goes by...

Veering mostly off topic but I have to say, how I wish skirmish was a real thing! I love warcry but it’d still be cool to have something where you can play a couple of small units and heroes with anyone familiar with AoS rules. It would be such a great entry point...

Personnally the most recent price hike has not impacted me since I already « froze » my hobby spending for the year. Also I mainly play skirmish and warcry. What’s that about the warband price going up? I’ll say more generally that I never buy unit boxes that are over 40€ or characters over 20. I might get one after a lot of thought if I really want it but I won’t ever impulse buy. Whereas a cheap box of chaos hounds or a 12€ lord of plagues are the type of stuff I’ll have trouble resisting. It’s not too bad for my hobby but I do miss a bit of the thrill of going into the store and picking a cool model or 2. I suspect I might base a lot of my future projects around underworlds warbands since that’s kind of a price sweetspot for me...

Yeah they definitely scream marauders haha. I like that they included a dwarf and beastman too.

Well I have a lord of plagues I bought a long time ago, that guy is definitely getting repainted for my golems. On that subject, here is my first painted Iron Golem 😃

I think you’ve made the right choice! I don’t have a gaming club but I’ve been able to convince some relatives to start warbands, which I’ve never been able to do with AoS and other more rules heavy systems. A quick demo was all it took, even for non wargamers. It’s perfect for casual play, but you can still go pretty deep in the narrative and hobby side if you so choose!

How do you like them boys?

@GuitaRasmus wow man beautiful terrain! Looks fun to play on too... I’m working on a nagash warband for a narrative mini campaign that I’ll play in a month. After a while converting I’ve started painting and it’s pretty rewarding to see it come together!

I agree that going digital would be the best, at least for the most involved people in the hobby. I don’t think it’s feasible to integrate machine learning and swarm algorithm into playtesting. It’s a huge investment with questionable returns, though it would be very interesting to see it done. Also, personally what interests me in tabletop gaming is precisely how different it is from video games. I like not being on a screen, not having constant updates and data analysis, not being tied into a worldwide meta. Converting and painting my dudes, crafting a beautiful battlefield, cracking open a book and sitting face to face with someone to play is what makes warhammer special in my opinion. If a rule feels broken we’ll come to an agreement, and I’m very glad that social dynamic is there. I feel eliminating it would be a disservice. I think there’s a place for tournament restrictions / rules adjustments, but it probably should be up to TOs. Maybe with some official guidelines like they currently exist, but local metas and player expectations seem to vary quite a bit. All in all I don’t feel the need to have a set in stone « law » coming down from GW for every situation. Not to say that they can’t adjust the system, they should, but it will never be perfect and people will always complain. The feeling that you’re not playing a real game if you’re not playing exactly as written is alien to me. The DIY aspect of the hobby is what sets it apart; and I think that’s GW’s philosophy too mostly. I completely understand that some of you will strongly disagree with me, but that’s just the thing : GW wants both of our money, and that’s why I don’t think they’ll go all-in into fine tuning balance. Their goal is to keep most people mostly happy

What I mean is that people are not going to buy a 60$ unit and spend 10 hours painting it if it can get nerfed at any point. The time and monetary investment is very significant, and GW have to take that into account in their policies. People need to know that their rules are going to be halfway stable for a while or they won’t get invested in the game. To be clear I’m not against adjusting rules but I think the hobby is too different from videogames for it to be a straight comparison. Plus video games get a ton of perfectly accurate data and metrics.

If people had to photoshop the skin of each hero themselves after buying them at a high price, remember all of their stats, and read each patch note; then had to physically go to a lan party to play a game, that would be a fair comparison. I don’t get how people expect GW to apply a digital model to a physical product. It’s a completely different way to play, a completely different investment. If they changed the rules weekly most people would give up in my opinion.

I’ve been thinking about that point but you put it better than I could. Video game skews perception of balancing into something that has to be entirely handled by the company, and be as frequent as possible. But who would want to play competitive aos with weekly stat tweaks? How would we collect data half as plentiful and accurate as games that record litterally every interaction in a predetermined environment? The truth is that wargaming is a social contract. Personal interaction is THE MOST important factor in a fun game of AoS. Being able to have fun and to give your opponent a good time is crucial. I’m sure I could have fun being crushed by a tournament player if he’s nice about it, and I’m certain we could find ways for him to challenge himself : e.g giving me double the points to see if he can still beat me, etc. To be able to have fun outside of pure hardcore tournament, you have to make playing against you sound at least as fun as having a couple of pints with a mate. And of course the other person also has to check their expectations : if you refuse to try to optimize your lists, don’t get salty when a tournament player destroys you 😉

I remember around 96-97 my friends would play pretend space marines in the school yard. I decided to draw one and did some kind of goofy astronaut with a laser pistol. My friend was like : « THAT’S not a space marine !», and that’s how I discovered the hobby. I was really into fantasy at first, and went with my dad to a GW store expecting to walk out with a complete wood elves army. I realized I could only afford a squad of 8 identical plastic archers 😂 But then I saw a poster for Gorkamorka and decided that’s what I wanted. And that’s how I became a hobby butterfly!

@Lior'Lec I have about 8-9 chaos hounds. I suppose I could also try to make some custom chaos spawns and razorgor, with spare parts and a bit of sculpting 🤔 I also have a Lord of Plagues, and I guess with a bit of creativity I could convert some count-as StD mercenaries (my collection is mostly random old models such as flagellants and a lot of leftover parts). You may be right that it’s better to stick to the intended game size and extend that way. It does add a bit more work for me but I can probably paint up the beasts pretty quick and work on converting the allies and bigger beasts while the campaign grows. Plus I can make some unique dudes, which is always fun. Thanks for your suggestions!

Hey guys, I need some advice from people with more games under their belts. I don’t have a gaming group, so originally I started playing with just the card packs for NH and SCE since I already had some minis for those. Just played a few games with my gf and relatives. I managed to convince them to start a campaign! I’m pretty happy about it. I bought the starter set, and we’re going to add a couple of other chaos warbands. I’ll keep the AoS warbands for convergence battles and such. I expect this to stay pretty casual, and I don’t think they’d be too excited about pitching in for more models soon. I also expect to paint most of the models myself. In order to keep a sense of progression without having to buy more boxes, I was wondering if it could be feasible to start the campaign at a lower points threshold. It would help people get familiar with the rules, and have that feeling of success when they’re able to recruit another fighter. So to the point, what do you think about lower points battles? I’m thinking around 700-800. Do you feel it’s too unbalanced? Any advice? (if that helps, it’s gonna be golems, beasts, unmade and corvus)

Personnally the only problem that I have with the empire models is that their old school proportions don’t fit with newer models. Huge hands, shorter overall, etc. But I love the renaissance aesthetic and I think it perfectly fits AoS. When they release new sculpts I hope they go all in. Extra puffy sleeves, helmets with beaks and more feathers than a Brasilian carnival, flying steam tanks with triple barrelled muskets... It’s not like warhammer fantasy has been erased and no trace of it should be left. The old world is everywhere, from the lore to the design cues, to the name WARHAMMER age of SIGMAR 😂 otherwise let’s squat gloomspite gits, all of chaos, ogors, half of death... down with the old! It would be cool to open up that design space though, and my dream scenario is this : a new edition of warcry in a couple years, focusing on explorers from the free cities. Release 6-8 warbands from various cities and realms. A couple of them with the « controversial » Landsknecht aesthetic, and the rest exploring all the possibilities found in the lore. Then all these warbands form the basis of a new range for cities of sigmar. One can dream

Basing the ruins is cool, the only downside is that you can no longer stack them to create multiple story buildings. Unless you’re smarter than me and build the base as a partially broken stone floor, without any dirt of ground elements. I actually used a bunch of transparent plastic offcuts that I bought for next to nothing at a picture frame store. There I also got a lot of thick card offcuts, that I used to create the stone tile floors. I have some pics in this thread : I’ll try to remember to take a couple more precise pictures tomorrow to really show the bases

@Oath Stoned cool terrain! I think I’ve seen the giant rat one on reddit pretty cool to build full sets like that, approximatively equal to the starter terrain. here are some pics that I have on my phone of my current terrain. I have a bunch of wip stuff that I might post later. for now it’s mostly a set of azyrite ruins + some lichen, xps hills & idols.

I don’t really play AoS but I’ll still comment since I love talking about terrain ever since I got back into the hobby a year ago, I probably devoted 50% of my energy to making terrain. I find it both extremely fun to work on and incredibly satisfying. Especially playing on a textures board, with matching bases and fully painted terrain. I made 4 small buildings from the azyrite ruins, with bases including debris and stone floors, I have some hills, rocks and ancient stone idols, based and primed the azyrite township, primed sigmarite mausoleum, some scratchbuilt mordheim ruins that I want to re-paint. I may get the warcry starter set, but after that I want to make a whole lot more scratchbuilt terrain. If all goes well in a couple months more I should have enough terrain to do at least 5-6 different environment types for warcry. If I ever do get into AoS proper I’ll probably play 500-1000 pts max games, to be able to cram enough terrain on the board

I feel you man, that sucks. You should know your hobby is not actually soiled, but if it has bad association I'd recommend just letting it go for a while. Focus on seeing people you like, make sure to go outside, allow yourself to feel sad because that's a normal reaction that you need to go through. The desire to hobby should come back after a while. If you still want to paint right now, I'd say clean up your hobby space, pack up any projects that were ongoing so that they're out of your sight, and pick up a mini / box from a new army or game. Have fun painting it without the bad history attached to those other models. There's even the "like a virgin" option : buy a start painting box that comes with a few models (nighthaunt or SCE) and use only that box's contents. It sucks right now but I guarantee you're still a nerd deep inside. That corruption is never fully cleansed

Haha I was just on my way to post this. I do hope this new book will have more warbands than they previously released. Maybe they’ll use this to fix some of the imbalances. As a stormcast player I wouldn’t mind seeing the gryphounds lowered to 15 wounds or so, they are too tough right now. It looks like they’re heading towards a general’s handbook type format ( the cover says 2019)... All in all I’m pretty excited! It looks like they’re supporting warcry for the long haul; it’s the first time in a long time that I’m fully invested in a game. I’m definitely buying the book, and I need to see if I can convince some people to pool our money together to get the starter set.