Five rules you may not have notice or misread.

DISCLAIMER I am not a competitive gamer, I have never entered a competitive tournament and I play for fun and for background. While my after thought may be my own opinion this is not to cause a flame war or a reason to insult other players. Fun is subjective and many in fantasy got fun from playing it competitively; that is all.

On the opening day of Age of Sigmar, my friends and I played a total of ten games; four of which were using the models provided in the starter set whilst the other six games where using our own models. Of the six games we played two had no restrictions whilst the other four we restricted to thirty wounds each. Through out games we came across things we'd either missed or automatically assumed with the same across the board. In no particular order here are five rules you may not have notice or misread.

1 - You stop when you feel like it.

Set-Up - third paragraph
"You can continue setting up units until you have set up all the units you want to fight in this battle, or have run out of space. This is your army."

This one is probably what people may have noticed but not taken into heart exactly what this entails. Usually (especially with our ten games) we informed our opponents on what we were taking; a common courtesy but one that isn't enforced. If players played by how the rules were written this would happen.

So the first player (the one who got to choose the board side) deploys his first unit, say a Giant. The second player seeing that there is a giant reaches into his army case and pulls out an Empire Cannon and upon seeing a cannon the first player them pulls out a Flamespyre Phoenix.

This will continue in a form of cat and mouse play until one play feels he has enough models on the table. But what happens if one of these two opponents is a fifteen year veteran with a buck load of different models from different factions? The player with the smallest collection could be out-countered with every unit deployment. To my knowledge both 40K and fantasy have always had players agreeing to certain terms (I.E points limit) before writing their list but now you don't have limits or lists; you just bring what you want to the table and other then refusing to play your opponent will have no say in the matter.

2 - Your general can be anyone.

Now this was something we didn't notice in our games but afterward when reading, discussing and lamenting on the previous battles.

The General
"Once you have finished setting up all of your units, nominate one of the models you set up as your general. Your general has a command ability, as described in the rules for the hero phase opposite"

This means your general can be any model in your army not just those who were once allocated to the Lord and Hero slots. This means my Warriors of Chaos could if I liked be commanded by a Slaughterbrute or Warrior amongst my unit of thirty Warriors of Chaos; Hell I could have a single famous familiar as my general. This means you could grant the inspiring presence command ability to a unit, however this would sacrifice your other command abilities in your army. This brings me up to my next rule

3 - Only your general has command abilities.

The General
"Once you have finished setting up all of your units, nominate one of the models you set up as your general. Your general has a command ability, as described in the rules for the hero phase opposite"

Command Ability
"In your hero phase, your general can use on command ability. All generals have the Inspiring Presence command ability, and some may have more on their warscroll."

One of the cleaner cut of the rules, this means that only the General can use command abilities. So all those heroes you may have taken with command abilities hoping to use them to boost your forces was for nothing as there can only be one general; so choose wisely.

4 - You can shoot all the time.

Shooting
"In your shooting phase you can shoot with models armed with missile weapons."

"Pick one of your units. You may not pick a unit that ran or retreated this turn. Each model in the unit attacks with all the missile weapons it is armed with (see Attacking). After all of the models in the unit have shot, you can choose another unit to shoot with, until all units that can shoot have done so."

This means unless the unit has run or retreated you can shoot whenever and at whoever you want.

For example a unit of hand gunners is charged by a unit of warriors, during their own shooting phase they can choose whether to shoot the warriors in combat with them and then attack again in the melee round or choose to shoot someone else entirely. Likewise, units looking into combat can shoot into it as well.

This is when I found that Ratling guns are incredibly over powered. Whilst my unit of eight chaos knights were engaged in combat with a unit of rat ogres, the ratling gunners moved up and fired into the combat with 4D6 each worth of shots (there were four of them by the way). So now with no restrictions or penalties to moving, shooting, charging, or being in close combat Age of Sigmar has tilted in favour of the Bow rather then the Hammer.

5 - Single Models are Fearless.

Battleshock Phase
"In the battleshock phase, both players must take battleshock tests for units from their army that ever had models slain during the turn."

While this is obvious that single model units never take the tests, it also means that units reduced to a single model don't either. While this wouldn't normally be the case for single wound models when it comes to things like cavalry, ogre-sized units and elite soldiers; those guys who have been fleeing in droves over the past two or three turns are suddenly the most sturdy of them all. Being reduced to the last man standing seem to have the opposite affect the opponent would expect, suddenly that lone state troop has stopped all panicking and is ready to die if it means keeping the monstrous ogres from leaving the combat.

BONUS ROUND - These aren't mention in the rule booklet but they are things we picked up on during our games.

6 - Unit commands do different things.

Now I don't mean the difference between champions, musicians and standard bearers I mean the difference from one champion to another. Lets take Warriors of Chaos for example.

Aspiring Champion (Warriors of Chaos)
"The leader of this unit is the Aspiring Champion. Add 1 to the result of any hit rolls for an Aspiring Champion."

Marauder Chieftain (Marauders of Chaos)
"The leader of this unit is the Marauder Chieftain. He makes 2 attacks rather than 1."

It's not just the champions either some standards have options whilst others don't (the musicians seem to be stream-lined) leading to a level complication that while isn't big (small actually), it doesn't gel well with the stream-lining they've done with everything else. So be sure to check your rules twice because my friends and I thought it was the same for everyone.

7 - "You're Karl Franz? I'm Karl Franz too!"

Nowhere in the entirety of the rules or the warscrolls does it restrict you from using multiple characters with the same name. So if you own both the metal and the plastic version of Karl Franz you can field him twice.

8 - Bloodthirsters can't summon Bloodthirsters.

This one is one people all jumped to but upon reading the rules closer, you notice this;

"Chaos Wizards know the Summon Bloodthirster of Rage spell, in addition to any others they know."

Now when it means chaos wizards it means that models with the Chaos and Wizard keywords know this spell if a bloodthirsty is present on the battlefield. They don't mention this at all but I believe it's how the rule was meant to be interpreted.


Afterthought

After playing so many games it came apparently clear that there was no testing put into this game. Even on a casual level (as competitive is non-existent even with restrictions) there are just so many ways to cut the game short or turn it from the fun narrative experience they aimed for into something that's... not. And I feel that these rules were catered towards the Stormcasts as the win/loss ratio was heavily in their favour as many of them could move, shoot, charge and melee themselves to victory whilst the chaos forces had only melee to deal the damage.

Overall the rules are a waste of paper; I know Games Workshop are not renowned for their rules but you'd think an entire games studio could write four pages of well worded and/or balanced rules that don't make the players feel like their rolling off to see who wins.

I myself will be sticking to 40K as it was always my first choice but my friends, they want to continue 8th edition but that's up to the community they play in to decide. They might play Kings of War or just pack up entirely if that isn't the choice. After pushing me out of Battlefleet, Mordheim and now Fantasy with discontinuation or in the latter case rules. People can comment that I could keep playing the older systems (which I can) but they seem to not realise that the discontinuation of a game means few to no new players will enter the scene and as the player base dwindles so does the number of games one can get out of it before the whole thing is relegated to the back of a closet or onto an Ebay auction.

40K is where I will make my last stand on table top gaming and if they change make 8th edition 40k what fantasy has become I'm done.

I know for a fact that these rules have had more playtesting and development than any previous version of Warhammer Fantasy. Just so you know.

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Originally Posted by Path Walker

I know for a fact that these rules have had more playtesting and development than any previous version of Warhammer Fantasy. Just so you know.

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They may have but it doesn't feel like that.

EDIT: also sources please. I find it hard to believe that these four pages of rules were more developed then any other version of warhammer fantasy considering the page count between AoS and 8th.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

They may have but it doesn't feel like that.

EDIT: also sources please. I find it hard to believe that these four pages of rules were more developed then any other version of warhammer fantasy considering the page count between AoS and 8th.

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Its a lot harder to write clean, concise rules like that than a sprawling tome.

I have friends in the studio who have been play testing for a long time, can't give names for obvious reasons, but they've done an awful lot of work to make sure this is a system that will work and not need more editions to clean up.

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Originally Posted by Path Walker

Its a lot harder to write clean, concise rules like that than a sprawling tome.

I have friends in the studio who have been play testing for a long time, can't give names for obvious reasons, but they've done an awful lot of work to make sure this is a system that will work and not need more editions to clean up.

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I'm sorry; It isn't harder to write clean, concise rules like that than a sprawling tome. Look at all the board games and card games that have one or more pages of rules. I believe I could single-handedly fix the majority of issues with Age of Sigmar's core rules; it might not be four pages; five, six at best but there wouldn't be any many issues on rules balance with the core rules then there is now.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

1 - You stop when you feel like it.

Set-Up - third paragraph
"You can continue setting up units until you have set up all the units you want to fight in this battle, or have run out of space. This is your army."

This one is probably what people may have noticed but not taken into heart exactly what this entails. Usually (especially with our ten games) we informed our opponents on what we were taking; a common courtesy but one that isn't enforced. If players played by how the rules were written this would happen.

So the first player (the one who got to choose the board side) deploys his first unit, say a Giant. The second player seeing that there is a giant reaches into his army case and pulls out an Empire Cannon and upon seeing a cannon the first player them pulls out a Flamespyre Phoenix.

This will continue in a form of cat and mouse play until one play feels he has enough models on the table. But what happens if one of these two opponents is a fifteen year veteran with a buck load of different models from different factions? The player with the smallest collection could be out-countered with every unit deployment.

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And the fifteen year veteran should know when to exercise self control and not overwhelm a new player. If i am playing Timmy who just started last week i am not going to take the same warscrolls as i would against Joe who's been playing for 25 years.

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The General
"Once you have finished setting up all of your units, nominate one of the models you set up as your general. Your general has a command ability, as described in the rules for the hero phase opposite"

This means your general can be any model in your army not just those who were once allocated to the Lord and Hero slots. This means my Warriors of Chaos could if I liked be commanded by a Slaughterbrute or Warrior amongst my unit of thirty Warriors of Chaos; Hell I could have a single famous familiar as my general. This means you could grant the inspiring presence command ability to a unit, however this would sacrifice your other command abilities in your army. This brings me up to my next rule

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Not seeing the problem here.

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4 - You can shoot all the time.

Shooting
"In your shooting phase you can shoot with models armed with missile weapons."

"Pick one of your units. You may not pick a unit that ran or retreated this turn. Each model in the unit attacks with all the missile weapons it is armed with (see Attacking). After all of the models in the unit have shot, you can choose another unit to shoot with, until all units that can shoot have done so."

This means unless the unit has run or retreated you can shoot whenever and at whoever you want.

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This i agree could use some clarifying. Not so much shooting into combat- although i'd like to see at least some risk attached to doing so - but shooting while in combat shouldn't be allowed, because it makes no sense. If a ogor is bearing down on you with a hammer bigger than your entire body, you shouldn't be taking aim at the gnoblar stood thirty feet away.

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5 - Single Models are Fearless.

Battleshock Phase
"In the battleshock phase, both players must take battleshock tests for units from their army that ever had models slain during the turn."

While this is obvious that single model units never take the tests, it also means that units reduced to a single model don't either. While this wouldn't normally be the case for single wound models when it comes to things like cavalry, ogre-sized units and elite soldiers; those guys who have been fleeing in droves over the past two or three turns are suddenly the most sturdy of them all. Being reduced to the last man standing seem to have the opposite affect the opponent would expect, suddenly that lone state troop has stopped all panicking and is ready to die if it means keeping the monstrous ogres from leaving the combat.

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Fits the heroics often described in the fluff of GW games. Hans digging deep and vowing to die fighting after seeing his comrades slaughtered is pretty fitting in my opinion.

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7 - "You're Karl Franz? I'm Karl Franz too!"

Nowhere in the entirety of the rules or the warscrolls does it restrict you from using multiple characters with the same name. So if you own both the metal and the plastic version of Karl Franz you can field him twice.

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This again boils down to self control and playing within the spirit of the game.Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do something.

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Afterthought

After playing so many games it came apparently clear that there was no testing put into this game. Even on a casual level (as competitive is non-existent even with restrictions) there are just so many ways to cut the game short or turn it from the fun narrative experience they aimed for into something that's... not. And I feel that these rules were catered towards the Stormcasts as the win/loss ratio was heavily in their favour as many of them could move, shoot, charge and melee themselves to victory whilst the chaos forces had only melee to deal the damage.

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I think it's pretty clear that the rules are written with the starter set forces, and future AoS releases in mind. The Warcrolls for WFB armies are a placating gesture for existing customers.

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People can comment that I could keep playing the older systems (which I can) but they seem to not realise that the discontinuation of a game means few to no new players will enter the scene and as the player base dwindles so does the number of games one can get out of it before the whole thing is relegated to the back of a closet or onto an Ebay auction.

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And that's why AoS has come about in the first place. That method of recruiting wasn't working so they are trying something new. Now whether or not it's the right thing to try, that's another question entirely.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

I'm sorry; It isn't harder to write clean, concise rules like that than a sprawling tome. Look at all the board games and card games that have one or more pages of rules. I believe I could single-handedly fix the majority of issues with Age of Sigmar's core rules; it might not be four pages; five, six at best but there wouldn't be any many issues on rules balance with the core rules then there is now.

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That's simply not true, the rules are very well written, you might not like the game they've made but the rules are very well written, there is no excess information and they play easily, everything is explained to you with no ambiguity

What problems precisely would you fix?

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Originally Posted by Spider-pope

And the fifteen year veteran should know when to exercise self control and not overwhelm a new player. If i am playing Timmy who just started last week i am not going to take the same warscrolls as i would against Joe who's been playing for 25 years.

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That is true, I would too but I know many people who wouldn't. And it's not just age-old veterans I've watched kids/teens in the store doing the exact same thing.

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Originally Posted by Spider-pope

Not seeing the problem here.

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Didn't say there was, it was just something I thought I should point out. Though giving it to a non-hero unit would be not be in your own favour.

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Originally Posted by Spider-pope

This i agree could use some clarifying. Not so much shooting into combat- although i'd like to see at least some risk attached to doing so - but shooting while in combat shouldn't be allowed, because it makes no sense. If a ogor is bearing down on you with a hammer bigger than your entire body, you shouldn't be taking aim at the gnoblar stood thirty feet away.

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As do I, I found as a chaos player with little to no shooting that the shooting into combat was giving my opponent a distinct advantage. When I was engaged in combat it felt like I was fighting five units at once rather then the one and one of those units (the engaged one) could attack twice.

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Originally Posted by Spider-pope

Fits the heroics often described in the fluff of GW games. Hans digging deep and vowing to die fighting after seeing his comrades slaughtered is pretty fitting in my opinion.

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As did rolling the double ones when testing for break tests. The problem with this one is suddenly Hans gets a spurt of morale after seeing half his friends butchered and the other half flee in terror; it just doesn't fit at all.

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Originally Posted by Spider-pope

This again boils down to self control and playing within the spirit of the game.Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do something.

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Again true but it can be done, and people like playing for advantage; even if they don't admit it.

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Originally Posted by Spider-pope

I think it's pretty clear that the rules are written with the starter set forces, and future AoS releases in mind. The Warcrolls for WFB armies are a placating gesture for existing customers.

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That is the conclusion I came to; it also heavily favours the Stormcasts as many of them have both ranged and melee whilst the chaos side has I believe one shooty unit (the big monster) and only then it has a 6" range.

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Originally Posted by Spider-pope

And that's why AoS has come about in the first place. That method of recruiting wasn't working so they are trying something new. Now whether or not it's the right thing to try, that's another question entirely.

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The reason AoS came in was because the buy in was way too much; and that I agree. Whilst a 40k player would need a single box of Tactical marines to field a squad, A fantasy player may need four or five boxes of State troops to make a sizable unit. I'm all for a skirmish game, in fact I was the only one of my friends who was pumped for this. But I feel they went too far on simplicity and should have kept it to at least 40K standards of complexity.

@Spider-Pope These rules I pointed out weren't complaints; they were things I have missed and I assumed others may do so also when playing with a mindset of knowing the previous edition or any Wrhammer related rule set.

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Originally Posted by Path Walker

That's simply not true, the rules are very well written, you might not like the game they've made but the rules are very well written, there is no excess information and they play easily, everything is explained to you with no ambiguity

What problems precisely would you fix?

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But that is what I'm saying; it isn't well written because it's too easy to break. It took less then a day for my friends and I to come up with one turn wins through abusing the sudden death mechanic.

For example if you intentionally limit yourself to lets say three empire cannons your at twelve models (cannon plus three crew each). So If your opponent puts down a twenty man unit first he will already outnumber you by over a third and that means you can choose assassinate and then snipe him off the board.

Another example is having tar pits of skaven slaves and let the ratling guns do the work safely behind them since they can shoot into combat.

As for problems to fix...

- The general could be up for abuse depending on future content. If say a scenario had the killing of a general as the goal then players could nominate Hans from the hundred-strong state troop unit to be the general and put him behind ninety nine wounds before you can even touch him. Simply adding a sentence stating "Nominate a model with the HERO keyword as your general" would clear that issue up.

- Sudden deaths are also open to abuse, outnumbering by model count doesn't take into account what the models actually are. One side could have a horde of red shirts whilst the other side could have all elites force.

- Bases should matter, it shouldn't matter what the base shape is but a base does give an equal measurement from all angles. Measuring from the model doesn't; it allows players to abuse the pose of said model. During one of the starter games I helped the GW rep out (who was busy with other customers) teach a pair of kids how to play. The one who played the Stormcast quickly picked up that he could measure from the tips of the prosecutors wings. So when the second turn came round he turned the model so the wing tips and gained a two inch advantage.

- Shooting is the biggest concern; it is overpowered no matter how you look at it. You can't jump into combat to escape it and you can't engage them in combat to deny them.

- Battleshock tests should work off wounds, not models in both testing and fleeing.

- Cover needs a little reworking regards to narrow terrain pieces like walls; at the moment the wording sounds like you need to stand on it to grant a cover bonus. Putting 1" between within or would sort out the problem. Just so we're clear it would read;

"If all models in a unit are within 1" or on a terrain feature, you can add 1 to all save rolls for that unit represent the cover they receive from the terrain."

- They never once mention keywords and how they work or make it clear enough when they do in the warscrolls. This has lead to some players believing their Bloodthirster can summon more Bloodthirsters.

- A points system is required for quick balancing; It can be a simple one it doesn't have to go too deep to work.

I see most of these as new abstractions of things that need a mental adjustment on our part.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

1 - You stop when you feel like it.

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I don't think this will be an issue for long. Right now the game has no balancing mechanism at all and there are rumors of pending narrative campaign lists and some mechanism for event play. So atm I'm just doing some simple playtests and waiting.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

2 - Your general can be anyone.

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Actually this is pretty cool as the inspiring presence in the army could literally be anyone. Most people will likely stick with a character for the added benefit of additional abilities.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

3 - Only your general has command abilities.

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Makes sense and limits special rule interactions. So this keeps things streamlined.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

4 - You can shoot all the time.

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No issue with this mechanic as you can imagine the groundscale and timescale as being more fluid.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

5 - Single Models are Fearless.

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Works for me. Things that start the game as single models are pretty massive and a unit of one likely won't last long anyhow. Once again you can simply imagine the single bloke fighting to the bitter end once his mates are gone.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

BONUS ROUND - These aren't mention in the rule booklet but they are things we picked up on during our games.

6 - Unit commands do different things.

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Just a touch of flavor.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

7 - "You're Karl Franz? I'm Karl Franz too!"

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Since only one model gets to be general I don't see this being a thing. Especially once the balancing mechanism is revealed.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

8 - Bloodthirsters can't summon Bloodthirsters.

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Works for me.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

I myself will be sticking to 40K as it was always my first choice but my friends, they want to continue 8th edition but that's up to the community they play in to decide. They might play Kings of War or just pack up entirely if that isn't the choice. After pushing me out of Battlefleet, Mordheim and now Fantasy with discontinuation or in the latter case rules. People can comment that I could keep playing the older systems (which I can) but they seem to not realise that the discontinuation of a game means few to no new players will enter the scene and as the player base dwindles so does the number of games one can get out of it before the whole thing is relegated to the back of a closet or onto an Ebay auction.

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It's all relative. I've played 40k since RT and find 7th to be the most bloated, annoying, unbalanced version of the game in this age of the world so I barely play it at all anymore.

And yes you can keep playing the specialist games. Some of them, like EPIC have large online followings, free updated rules systems and a large list of alternative model producers that make it possible to get people into them. Takes a bit more effort then pop in the shop and pick up some minis but it's worthwhile if you enjoy those systems.

This game is definitely not WFB anymore... give some time for it to develop. If you were around during the rollout of the other games throughout the years you know the initial offering is bare bones... I can't even remember how many years I had to wait for the Adeptus Titanicus Expansions as a kid, but I do remember it was painfully long!

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Originally Posted by The Madman

1 - You stop when you feel like it.

Set-Up - third paragraph
"You can continue setting up units until you have set up all the units you want to fight in this battle, or have run out of space. This is your army."

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That's intriguing. However, it's important to note that while the rules don't stop you from doing various weird things, like fielding some kind of insane heterogenous army, you can always have a conversation with your opponent. I get that this isn't a replacement for a coherent rule on the matter, but... as I've argued before, there is an element of social contract to all games, even ones with totally coherent rules. For example: do you want to play a super competitive beardy game, or a fun narrative game? I'm not really bothered by the expansion of the social contract element - if I'm playing against some kid with a weird-*** collection, well, I either won't play that game or I'll figure that I've gotten into what I've gotten into, and do my best to have fun anyway.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

2 - Your general can be anyone.

...

3 - Only your general has command abilities.

The General
"Once you have finished setting up all of your units, nominate one of the models you set up as your general. Your general has a command ability, as described in the rules for the hero phase opposite"

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I don't really see how either of these are problems, or not-problems. They're just the rules. They make sense to me. And I like the command abilities I've read so far.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

4 - You can shoot all the time.

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Okay... I'll admit that this isn't my favorite rule. I rather liked the way that a chopping unit could shut down a shooting unit by charging them - it's a shame that you can't do that anymore.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

5 - Single Models are Fearless.

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This I kind of like, actually. Either it's a bold hero - and so he's fearless, so what? That's cool! - or it's a lone survivor desperately fighting off the hordes of opponents. That kind of forlorn, desperate hope is dramatic and cool. And really, how often is it going to happen that one mook of the whole unit ends up surviving to create this situation?

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Originally Posted by The Madman

6 - Unit commands do different things.

Now I don't mean the difference between champions, musicians and standard bearers I mean the difference from one champion to another. Lets take Warriors of Chaos for example.

Aspiring Champion (Warriors of Chaos)
"The leader of this unit is the Aspiring Champion. Add 1 to the result of any hit rolls for an Aspiring Champion."

Marauder Chieftain (Marauders of Chaos)
"The leader of this unit is the Marauder Chieftain. He makes 2 attacks rather than 1."

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Well, we already know that the warscrolls we've seen so far are not the "final" warscrolls for those armies. They're just for playing "goodbye games." We'll see real warscrolls for the new armies soon.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

7 - "You're Karl Franz? I'm Karl Franz too!"

Nowhere in the entirety of the rules or the warscrolls does it restrict you from using multiple characters with the same name. So if you own both the metal and the plastic version of Karl Franz you can field him twice.

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Okay, that's kind of dumb. Again, something I can solve when I set up the game... but dumb.

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Originally Posted by The Madman

8 - Bloodthirsters can't summon Bloodthirsters.

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I noticed that with my Lizardmen. It seems like it's meant to be a balancing factor for summoning armies. Additionally, you'll note that no wizards that can summon are, in fact

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Originally Posted by The Madman

40K is where I will make my last stand on table top gaming and if they change make 8th edition 40k what fantasy has become I'm done

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Dude... there are a lot of awesome games out there. Why make 40k your last stand? Just ditch GW entirely and play someone else's games.

However Heralds of Tzeentch are Chaos Wizards...

Brief response regarding super hero 1 man units...

Yes, morale/psychology as you know it (as a state) is no longer a thing. Now, whenever you take casualties, you take ADDITIONAL casualties to represent troops fleeing.

So the unit with 1 guy is not going to be rolling every turn like you are used to (because thats not how it works), except for whatever casualties got them down to 1 in the first place.

At that point, if the 1 guy is not removed via battleshock, then yes he will be on the table. And will probably die.



I think you are misunderstanding the rules because you are looking at them through a WHFB perspective.



Does that make sense?

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Originally Posted by acrimonger

Brief response regarding super hero 1 man units...

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I believe they're talking about heroes or monsters, how they don't use their bravery for a "morale" check (battleshock check) ever, however do remember that many spells use the bravery characteristic! You can still be destroyed for low bravery, just not from battleshock :)

I actually favour Battleshock over break tests.

It helps to mitigate Rubber Lance syndrome, or worse, losing a points intensive unit being lost due to a single double six.

I find it makes me consider my combats in more depth, and encourages ganging up on enemy units in order to clear them out quicker, and stop them being such a thorn in my side in protracted fisticuffs.

And I'm only just getting started in understanding how to get the most out of combat. My next trick? Learning how best to place my opponent in 'rock and hard place' situations when they're choosing the next unit to fight with, without winding up with a similar decision myself.

Best lesson on that one so far was when my opponent didn't choose his Greatswords, who promptly got flattened by my Ironguts before they got much of a chance to swing.

How best to use 'chaffe' units in such a situation? Dunno - I don't have enough experience yet. I was confident of their role in 8th Ed - just go for the flank, where the benefits almost always, barring some spectacular rolling on my opponent's behalf, worth the risk of presenting a soft, squishy unit (assuming five deep ranks, only five models would get to fight. Basic A1 infantry could kill 5 at most, whilst Gnoblars brought 3 Ranks, Flank and countered his own rank bonus, even if I didn't strip steadfast). Now? Not such a sure thing.

But hey, that's another advantage Battleshock has over Break Tests. Just because you picked on my weedy unit, my tough unit isn't going to care - they're just going to keep hitting you, and hitting you, and hitting you until you're murdered to death.

It's changed up the battlefield dynamic and no mistake, especially if your chaffe unit is one of those that gets benefits from being large sized!

I missed this thread before, and I don't want to jump on the bandwagon of commenting on the rules, but I have to scoff at the comments from Path Walker that I see being quoted at the start of the thread. Now I'm sure he has zero friends in the studio, or they outright lie to him.

There's no way AoS had more playtesting than any prior version of Warhammer. It's a whopping four pages of rules and a bunch of warscrolls for existing armies that clearly were never meant to be balanced anyway (as they're eventually going to be phased out, and often have rules that would embarrass the staff at a GW store if enforced). So you've got four pages and two small factions to playtest.

So, what, we're supposed to believe that in the past they did absolutely zero playtesting on a much larger set of rules? All the variety in Warhammer that was carried over between editions, they didn't test it to make sure it still worked right? Or they suddenly had the time and spent the money to do months and months and months of playtesting on four pages of rules?

And yet, in that playtesting, they didn't spot some of the issues that came about quickly? Why are the rules so ambiguous in areas that people seem to have more disagreement and confusion about four pages than they have with 200+ pages?

And why would they even playtest it that much? The game has no balancing mechanics and isn't meant to. The one "balancing" mechanic, based on number of models, is horrible. Actually, anything based on number of models is horrible. An army of Ogres can be 3/4 the size of an army of Skaven in terms of numbers and have a bonus in the game, despite being more powerful (if you're just using basic models). Even battleshock is bad on that front because multi-wound units like Ogres can suffer 13 wounds in combat, but only lose three models, so their Battleshock is +3; if they dish out 10 wounds to basic infantry, that infantry unit takes a test at +10 and is likely to lose a lot more models, despite "winning" that round of combat.

But balance and all doesn't matter if your intent is just to let people use whatever models they want to buy, in any combination, and make a story.

So, again, why would they try to do all that playtesting that they don't have the bodies or time for?

And, if he insists they did so much more than previous versions of Warhammer, why are the rules still so ambiguous in places, and lacking in any semblance of balance or logic in others? You playtest a game to tighten the rules and make sure it's balanced. The "selling point" of AoS is that it has neither of those, players are meant to just balance it themselves and determine what they want the rules to mean. So, yeah, we come back to the point that there's not even a need to do much of any playtesting, and if it's more than any prior version of Warhammer, that means they weren't playtesting Warhammer at all, yet it lasted for 30 years until their attempts to squeeze more money from even new customers came back to bite them.

I don't mean all this to bash AoS, just to point out how stupid the claim is and how unbelievable it makes any other claim PW makes about "friends in the studio." At best, his "friends" lie to him. More likely, there's no "friends," just someone wanting to defend a game and making up nonsense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Erik Setzer

I missed this thread before, and I don't want to jump on the bandwagon of commenting on the rules

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It's harder to write 4 pages of rules that are strong than 400 pages of rules.

The people who are saying AoS has had the most play testing are the same people who leak "rumours" that are 100% accurate and are never incorrect. So you're right, why should we believe these sources?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nsc

It's harder to write 4 pages of rules that are strong than 400 pages of rules.

The people who are saying AoS has had the most play testing are the same people who leak "rumours" that are 100% accurate and are never incorrect. So you're right, why should we believe these sources?

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Because it suggests that somehow the studio is either exceptionally incompetent, wasting months and months (if not years!) in testing something while still not spotting easy to notice issues, all for the purpose of balancing a game that inherently doesn't concern itself with balance, or in the past they somehow did a darn good job without really trying.

I'm not saying the game wasn't playtested at all, but to claim it had more testing than any prior edition is laughable. It's either a lie or it shows gross incompetence. (Oooorrrr.... The studio figured out they could play games on company time and get paid to do so, and continued to claim they were "playtesting" in order to just play games all day. So still a lie, but one I could totally understand.)

As an added bonus, I dropped the guy from my Ignore List long enough to go trawling through old posts and, what do you know, he doesn't really have history as a rumor monger, much less one that's "100% accurate." The only rumors he's mentioned are the ones going all over about Tau next and HH coming late in the year, hardly news and safe for anyone to mention. He even once said that no talk of AoS got outside GW HQ so he didn't know anything about it, and admitted to his gaming group sending false rumors just to troll websites.

Didn't see a single claim of playtesting on the 9th edition rumor roundup, except one person claiming they were testing all books after Dark Elves to be compatible with 9th edition... which of course isn't true.

So, yeah... Care to try again? Back up your claims a bit? Direct quotes and links would be useful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Erik Setzer

As an added bonus, I dropped the guy from my Ignore List long enough to go trawling through old posts and, what do you know, he doesn't really have history as a rumor monger, much less one that's "100% accurate." The only rumors he's mentioned are the ones going all over about Tau next and HH coming late in the year, hardly news and safe for anyone to mention. He even once said that no talk of AoS got outside GW HQ so he didn't know anything about it, and admitted to his gaming group sending false rumors just to troll websites.

Didn't see a single claim of playtesting on the 9th edition rumor roundup, except one person claiming they were testing all books after Dark Elves to be compatible with 9th edition... which of course isn't true.

So, yeah... Care to try again? Back up your claims a bit? Direct quotes and links would be useful.

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He owes you nothing. Ever. None of this is necessary. You're stirring up trouble.

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Originally Posted by Alaric

He owes you nothing. Ever. None of this is necessary. You're stirring up trouble.

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Answering a claim someone made, when that person has in the past admitted to trolling for laughs, is "stirring up trouble?" Seriously, people love to claim that any disagreement, especially if it can't be answered, is "stirring up trouble." Much easier to attack a person than answer valid points.

See, this attitude is what's hurting the GW community. If people are critical at all, they're attacked. They're not allowed to make a point, because such points can't be answered, and thus they must be stoned. Eventually it's either the more rabid pro-GW and anti-GW crowd yelling at each other, because those of us on neither side of that fence get sick of it, and eventually take the hint and leave the games (not the hobby) and go to spend money with someone else in the hobby, thus further harming Games Workshop and the community. Bring up valid points? Nah, folks can't answer those, gotta be all vitriolic and nasty and accuse you of being mean or something, because God knows that anything other than "Games Workshop makes the best products in the world!" is going to be frowned on.

Sorry I'm honest and a realist and that I dislike trolls. Maybe I should try to lie more. Seems that's how you get people to like you. I could never do that, though. Rather be hated than dishonest.

When the topic is closed and people move on, then you Mr. I NEVER Do Anything Wrong, make flaming accusations...yes, that's stirring up trouble. Since you love words so much why couldn't it have been phrased as "Yo path, Im not believing your sources, can you back them up better" or along those lines instead of a bunch of veiled contemptuous insults?

as always Erik, its not what you say its how you say it.

The topic wasn't "closed" and I only spotted it because it showed up with new posts. I only realized when I looked back at the first posts that it was an older topic someone had recently commented on.

See, you were quick yourself to throw out unwarranted comments based on an incorrect perception of things.

And if my comments were too "veiled," let's try this: Path Walker has no "sources." He's making it up, either for attention or to troll people again (as he's admitted in the past to doing). He certainly has no "100% track record." It adds nothing to a discussion to make a false claim, especially one that only serves to make GW look bad rather than achieve the opposite effect.

Just to be clear, I'm criticizing a person's actions. But if you want to go ahead and call it a personal attack on their character or whatever, be my guest. I'm too tired. Insult me, misconstrue my actions, portray my words inaccurately, hate me, call me the devil's spawn, suggest I'm the cause of all the trouble in the world, whatever. I'll accept it. You're right. I'm the lone source of trouble, and the world would indeed be a better place if people like me found creative ways to off ourselves. (Unfortunately, I am such a screw-up and coward that I can't muster the bravery to do that favor for the world. Or selfish. Or both. Let's stick with that, coward and selfish.)

Before Erik made his post, the last post on this thread was on the 22nd, so it didn't show up in the "latest", he's just being a dick as usual.

Its not hard to be told things by various people in the community who will know things when you're a well functioning adult.

The trolling he's referncing was me embelishing a rumour (about the Liberators) to make refernces to a group on Facebook to make a point about how easy it is for a rumour to be taken up by Faeit and passed about, showing how all those sites pass on "rumours" purely for the clicks without caring how it effects anything else. Part of a series of articles we were thinking of writing for the website, looking at the wargaming community and ethics.

"DISCLAIMER I am not a competitive gamer, I have never entered a competitive tournament and I play for fun and for background. While my after thought may be my own opinion this is not to cause a flame war or a reason to insult other players. Fun is subjective and many in fantasy got fun from playing it competitively; that is all."

Telling everyone this tells them you are a competitive gamer because you felt the need to point it out that you are not if your a competitive player or not no one really is going to assume as much unless you speak as one putting a disclaimer is not going to make you immune from that.

Number 1 even if they have a better collection you forgot to take into account terrain and terrain buffs/debuffs and lets not forget sudden death sure he could field 2000 troops but can he fit them all sure he can put down powerful troops but can they be countered and also do they synergise? Try reading the art of war from time to time.

Number 2 this can come down to the narrative because for the love of god GW keep saying time and time again the direction they want to go is the narrative if your general is something inspiring then it would fit the narrative but if its a peasant leading highly trained units how can you fit that into the narrative did the king just get really drunk one day and said to a gardener outside "YOU LEAD THE DAMN ARMY"

Number 3 this is to tell people pick someone with a command ability rather then a random troop to go with number 2 on my list.

Number 4 in battles such as fantasy why should games restrict shooting into combat or out of combat lets use this narrative sense for shooting inside combat your friend gets nocked down you put a gun up and shoot the enemy before he can lay the death blow. Shooting into another combat a enemy exposes his back you fire and take him out. This is to give the game a more cinematic feel like in films such as lord of the rings.

Number 5 Fear can drive a person to death if the last person standing knows there is no way out of this he will most likely loose all will to live and make a last ditch effort for many reason's could be honourbound he could be staying behind to hold them up so his friends have more time to get out of there or he could just be insane.

Number 6 yes because every faction would train there troops differently drummers keep the sound of marching constant to give people a means to focus on that sound a horn blow would be a alerting sound to make people more coherent and also could cause fear in the enemy.

Number 7 As I said before try to keep in the theme of the narrative or you become that guy and as someone said just because you can do something does not mean you should that's like saying someone who has 2 nagash models and use's them both sure he could use them but all they are proving is how much of a spoil sport they are.

Number 8 Okay people need to stop this with the hole summoning business first of all you don't need the model fielded to summon it warscrolls are there to show you how to play a unit or set that unit up it is NOT and I repeat NOT a physical object to the game the reason summoning is on that warscroll is because your summoning that unit and the rules are there not a additional rule to the game remember kids there is no warscroll limit to the game it was a community house ruling that everyone seems to worship...

Play the game in the spirit of fun enjoy the game for what it is stop trying to turn it into something it is not this is age of sigmar not old world let go of the ties to the old world and embrace age of sigmar if your unhappy with this games ruling you have two options that is play kings of war or play 8th edition.

Except you can't summon anything unless the Summoning Spell is on the Wizard's own Warscroll.

Knowing the spell and being able to cast the spell are two separate things. The rules say so.

Incorrect "Chaos Wizards know the Summon (named of a daemon from daemon warscroll) spell, in addition to any others they know." no where does it say it has to be accepted into the game as a fielded model and as I have said time and time again a warscroll is not a physical object in the game it is a means to give rules and a means to construct the unit with the rules it provides unless you can find somewhere in the rules that clearly states you must have a model on the field to use the content of that warscroll.

The only time you would be required to accommodate a rule if the core rules state so and as for choosing realms and terrain they are the only rules that state additional ruling to current games of age of sigmar.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr Mystery

Except you can't summon anything unless the Summoning Spell is on the Wizard's own Warscroll.

Knowing the spell and being able to cast the spell are two separate things. The rules say so.

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No they don't. The rules say (for example for a Daemon Prince) that CHAOS WIZARDS (nice two keywords eh, keywords are good, they make things easy, you just match up keywords) can cast SUMMON DAEMON PRINCE on an 8.

There is absolutely no where in any of the rules which say that wizards with the chaos keyword do not get this spell. Ergo they have the spell.

What ever is house ruled for tournaments or your games is fine, but RAW they have that spell.


It's perfectly reasonably to comp summoning, the best solution I've found is to limit the Chaos Lord's ability to a reasonable amount of wounds, and restrict summoning to one success per turn.

The house rule I came up with personally feel free to use it I got this idea from video games.

A model that can summon can only summon and maintain the amount of units by half there casting of spell amount rounding up for example.
nagash can only ever summon 4 and maintain 4 units a time in the event he summons 2 monster/hero's they count as 1 maintain slot.

If however you use the same summon spell as the wizard it will refresh the already summoned monster to max wounds/model count as if it was just summoned.

New spell Unbind summon every wizard has this spell it has a 14" range
Unbinding when used on the summoner choose one of his summons then you must roll as if to summon it this will be the value needed to unbind the summon but like normal spells the enemy wizard can unbind this by beating the number for example.

Summoning zombies is a +4 for a unit to unbind this you must roll a +4 models removed in this manner do not add to the death toll as they are simply banished back to where they came from.

If in the event summons have twin values to double up the same applies to removal when it comes to unbinding summon.

But in the event that the summoner is killed all summoned units under his control will also vanish and these add to the death toll as to say a magical feedback where there summoner dies is sent to all the monsters under his control explode.

Its about permission. Rules need to be permissive, ie they tell you how to play, and thats what you can do, rather than excluding all the things you can't do.

Because of that, without the warscroll, you don't have the spell because nothing is giving you permission to have that spell. I do think the intention is that you can summon regardless but I can see why the way its written isn't clear either way.

And FAQ that states in the spells section that Wizards know the Summoning Spells would fix that

Decide between you and your opponent, roll off if you don't agree.