A question of rules...

[Renegade]

Lets just say that GW had not gone the AoS free rules reboot, what would have people actually supported? WFB 8Ed was horribly complex, long winded and clubersome. That is my view as someone who stopped playing late 5ed and slowly cme back to the game.

Would the Hobbit of LotR rules have been a better standard?

[Mr Mystery]

I dunno.

I still favour the old Warhammer rules. How could I not? I've played those rules for over 20 years. So long in fact I can't remember not knowing how to play Warhammer, and play it well.

Hobbit has a solid rules set right enough, and it's a really decent skirmish game. But for a non-AOS replacement, you're probably looking more at War of The Ring, which was massively underrated.

But with regard to AoS, it's really quite different to games I've played before. Stripped down rules, but without feeling hollow. The one thing I know I need to get my head around isn't just when to pick a fight, but in which order to fight them. Just because unit A has just chinned unit B, doesn't mean I need to have Unit B chin them back there and then. I might decide that Unit C can lay into Unit D before it's had its say in the combat phase.

To assist with remaining me who has fought, I'm going to raid my Bitz Box and put Ogre Clubs on bases, so I can mark who has fought each turn. Never had to do that before!

[Auticus]

War of the Ring was a solid system. I loved it. Could never get anyone to touch it. THats the nature of the beast.

[Erik Setzer]

But with regard to AoS, it's really quite different to games I've played before. Stripped down rules, but without feeling hollow. The one thing I know I need to get my head around isn't just when to pick a fight, but in which order to fight them. Just because unit A has just chinned unit B, doesn't mean I need to have Unit B chin them back there and then. I might decide that Unit C can lay into Unit D before it's had its say in the combat phase.

I'm still confused on that, I keep thinking it means to do that for each combat, i.e. pick a combat and sides take turns fighting with anyone eligible to fight there, then move on to the next. Otherwise it could get really messy as you try to remember who's fought where. That interpretation might be their intent, but I think that feels more like people going to an extreme with RAW, sort of like the people saying weapons measure range from the weapon even in combat.

- - - Updated - - -

Lets just say that GW had not gone the AoS free rules reboot, what would have people actually supported? WFB 8Ed was horribly complex, long winded and clubersome. That is my view as someone who stopped playing late 5ed and slowly cme back to the game.

Would the Hobbit of LotR rules have been a better standard?

If people had left WFB, they would have gone to KoW (and still might). For one thing, they could still use their existing armies. Hobbit/LotR is a fine system in its own right, but it's a different type of game from WFB, and wouldn't serve as a replacement for it any more than AoS does.

And if you think WFB8 was complex, long-winded, and cumbersome, then I can't imagine you actually played that much in 4th and 5th edition. The core game had remained largely the same since 4th edition at least. Only magic had really gotten a serious makeover, moving from cards to dice, which might not be as simple, but is less based on sheer luck, and is still pretty simple. They removed having to guess ranges for war machines. Otherwise, it's just been a bit of tweaking here and there. So I can't imagine you ever thought of WFB as anything over than overly complex, unless you have the good old "back in my days" glasses on (not saying that to be derogatory, a lot of us sometimes remember things as different than they were, because the passing of time leaves us with mostly the fonder memories).

[Katharon]

6th Edition was one of my favorites. It brought back the importance of your core choices, whereas 4th and 5th were heavily Hero-Hammer oriented.

[Auticus]

New era of gamers.

In the mid 90s when 4th was around, complex rules were the norm.

In 2015 modern game design says minimize the math and get rid of the charts.

[Erik Setzer]

New era of gamers.

In the mid 90s when 4th was around, complex rules were the norm.

In 2015 modern game design says minimize the math and get rid of the charts.

Hmm... And yet, a lot of popular games aren't that simple, and quite a few of them include charts.