AoS and Organised play

Not really news for UK gamers but judging by comments being made especially from USA based hobbyists it might be. GW never stopped running organised play and have been running events at Warhammer World.

More interestingly is that they've been running AoS organised play with a balancing mechanic. It works through a combination of model count, martial strength (wound count) and the scenario itself. I've posted picture of the battle plan for the Clash of Empires event so you can have a look. This is free to download on the Warhammer World website. This has been used for other events and the total number of miniatures does vary from event to event.



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From what participants have said it works rather well and can cause the deployment phase to become a rather interesting game of bluff. Generally speaking being the underdog is often the most preferable.

I guess it is still open for abuse but it does provide very easy way to aid in making games more balanced. At Warhammer world it is used to conjunction with an event pack which adds the usual "fully painted citadel miniatures" rule and clarifies that artillery and their crew all count as separate models.

Also given what has been rumoured about GW rolling out organised play back to the colonies. It might give a clue as how that will look.

Disclaimer: Age of Sigmar isn't really a game for me, and there might be some bias

last week I happened to be in the local Games workshop at the same time as a younger wargammer who had booked a table to play age of sigmar, unfortunately he had no opponent and ended up not playing a game and booking the table for the next day. The following day I took in some of my ogres so that in case he didn't have an opponent again, I could give him a game. It happened as expected and the GW manager gave us a printed off copy of the above rules.

we each had approximately the same number of wounds and also models (due to a block of gnoblar), we rolled on the table and got break though and began the game. I placed the Gnoblar on a flank, with my ogres facing off against the Saurus guard left to center. The Saurian player then, believing himself to have too great an advantage, took one of his two slaan off the table and we began. Turn one was uneventful, units moved forward, neither side reached the other table half and both players received a Laurel. turn two the Saurus walked forward to straddle the center of the table, a banner was planted. I moved the gnoblar into the far table side and charged the ogres into the Saurus, the ogres attacks where mostly ineffective against the 3+ save of the saurus, the return attacks where devastating leaving just a lone hunter. the gnoblar and the hunter died the turn later ending the game.

The game was completely one sided, 3 saurus died in exchange for the full ogre army. some of that comes down to my own inexperience, not taking better stated things and I believe a formation on the Saurian side: however the rules provided offered no real balance.

Thanks for replying and for giving the young lad a game very decent of you. Are you sure you didn't just get hammered by a more experienced player? He obviously suckered you right in with his Saurus Guard and buffed them up to take you on as they have a base save of 4+ They're also a pretty strong unit. It's quite an interesting report as generally speak ogres are a bit of nightmare to play against. I confess I didn't think it would give total balance.

I will be the first to admit that there is likely a lot of my own mistakes involved, and to be honest I don't mind losing if the game is close and has some moments where the result is undecided. Age of Sigmar hasn't provided that in any of the games I have seen or played in (admittedly a small sample), and I did likely handy cap myself quite badly by taking gnoblar, but they fit in the case between my ogres so it seemed a shame not to use them, I was also disappointed with the hunter, having mediocre attacks in melee and only single shot ranged attacks meant he had very little impact on the game. so very likely I could have taken a 'stronger' list, but I feel that is a downward spiral that ends with the argument that says it doesn't say you can't take more than one unique model so here's my 3 Nagash and well no one wants that.

If I remember correctly the +1 save came from a formation and wasn't something I could play around, and coupled with the shield the Saurus had that mitigated rend values of -1 it made them very tough to injure. comparing that to the ogres saving on 6's meant that although we had about the same number of wounds the ogres had a lot less durability.

AoS and balance is definitely something you pick up as you go along, and there's very much a need to not be a Richard about things.

Anyone demanding to field three Nagash is likely to be an unpleasant opponent, regardless of the system or game.