Understanding AoS. Acceptance & Balance: The Break Up. The Future.

[Captain Bubonicus]

You can tell that Age of Sigmar is really fun because of the many, many articles that are required to qualify and explain its fun.

Exactly.

[Erik Setzer]

The loudest complaints that I've notice are coming from the competitive minority. The Average war gamer that is looking to research AoS has to sift through a lot of rubble on the interwebz and don't really care about maximizing or minimizing their lists, or math hammering out how x unit does against y. Now what we have is a resounding and much more simplified system, that isn't easily broken unless you're TFGing it.

Yeah, your anecdotal evidence is everything, right? Because your group enjoys it, it's gotta be the best thing ever and no one disagrees except jerks?

See, that's what makes me dislike AoS more than the rules or models or anything else. I can see the potential for fun, but I can also see the flaws. But if someone points out the flaws, they're rabidly set upon.

The "average" gamer damn well *does* care about making a good list that can compete. They wouldn't bother playing the game unless they thought they had a chance to win, and the mind is generally driven to try to win when you're competing. And this is a game, with a defined winner, so EVERY BLOODY GAME is competitive. Stop claiming that only 0.1% of games are "competitive." If you want AoS to not be a competitive game, petition Games Workshop to remove definitions of victory from the rules. Heck, even bashing tournament people makes you sound ridiculous, because you assume anyone who participates in a tournament is a WAAC player.

I've seen multiple locals selling off their armies because of AoS. Some people have enjoyed it, but usually it was either people who house ruled it to create balance - meaning they're playing a modified version of AoS - or people who were actually those WAAC style douchebags, who love the game now because they can unbalance the heck out of things and it's totally legal. You don't have to "TFG" it. The stock rules allow anyone to unbalance the game, often by accident. Claiming that a game with no balancing mechanic is automatically balanced because it ignores the idea of balance is, well... it makes my brain hurt.

It's a nice beer and pretzels game. If GW wasn't already showing they want to gouge the heck out of prices, I'd recommend it to people who want something to fill in 30-45 minutes here and there. But since the game's first releases already include $10-a-piece infantry, a $33 infantry character and a $40 infantry character (but he has a pet!) in locked poses, a $33 piece of plastic on a string to measure (because a measuring tape isn't good enough and GW has to charge four times what other companies would), and a $40 dice cup, and the rules are aimed at things like using only GW terrain, which means all your nice cheap homemade terrain is useless and you better buy a bunch of expensive chunks of plastic, even if the trees don't look as good as doing a small patch of forest with Woodland Scenics trees. To say nothing of the $74 book which seems to be the first in a series. See, AoS is a nice $25 game, or a nice free game you play with cheap models. AoS as a game trying to use premium product prices? No.

If I want to pay a ridiculous amount for a broken game, I'll go find EA's latest offering and grab all the DLC. There are plenty of people who like that, too, and will eagerly defend paying $200 to get what should have come in the $60 game.

[40kGamer]

Absolutely nothing wrong with playing the hits... old systems that is.

At the end of the day the entire WFB system was Squatted so long time fans of that game are not going to be happy with a watered down version that is meant to appeal to a larger audience. GW had to do something drastic to clean up the holy mess they made out of WFB over the years, same thing they are doing with 40k at the moment, making it so bloated that it will collapse under its own weight and have to be entirely rebuilt as well.

The base rules are ok, just not overwhelming so I'll reserve the right to have a strong opinion after we see a few months of releases. At the moment the single most important player tactic is having a large enough and broad enough model collection to counter deploy against your opponent in the set up phase. Good for model sales, somewhat boring for game play. If we see the rumored balancing mechanism and other options develop then I'll try game play again later. Although you have to admit that the models are quite nice and have multi-game utility (WFB, KoW and 40K) so I don't have to play this new game to buy the new toys anyhow.

[Katharon]

Yeah, your anecdotal evidence is everything, right? Because your group enjoys it, it's gotta be the best thing ever and no one disagrees except jerks?

See, that's what makes me dislike AoS more than the rules or models or anything else. I can see the potential for fun, but I can also see the flaws. But if someone points out the flaws, they're rabidly set upon.

The "average" gamer damn well *does* care about making a good list that can compete. They wouldn't bother playing the game unless they thought they had a chance to win, and the mind is generally driven to try to win when you're competing. And this is a game, with a defined winner, so EVERY BLOODY GAME is competitive. Stop claiming that only 0.1% of games are "competitive." If you want AoS to not be a competitive game, petition Games Workshop to remove definitions of victory from the rules. Heck, even bashing tournament people makes you sound ridiculous, because you assume anyone who participates in a tournament is a WAAC player.

I've seen multiple locals selling off their armies because of AoS. Some people have enjoyed it, but usually it was either people who house ruled it to create balance - meaning they're playing a modified version of AoS - or people who were actually those WAAC style douchebags, who love the game now because they can unbalance the heck out of things and it's totally legal. You don't have to "TFG" it. The stock rules allow anyone to unbalance the game, often by accident. Claiming that a game with no balancing mechanic is automatically balanced because it ignores the idea of balance is, well... it makes my brain hurt.

It's a nice beer and pretzels game. If GW wasn't already showing they want to gouge the heck out of prices, I'd recommend it to people who want something to fill in 30-45 minutes here and there. But since the game's first releases already include $10-a-piece infantry, a $33 infantry character and a $40 infantry character (but he has a pet!) in locked poses, a $33 piece of plastic on a string to measure (because a measuring tape isn't good enough and GW has to charge four times what other companies would), and a $40 dice cup, and the rules are aimed at things like using only GW terrain, which means all your nice cheap homemade terrain is useless and you better buy a bunch of expensive chunks of plastic, even if the trees don't look as good as doing a small patch of forest with Woodland Scenics trees. To say nothing of the $74 book which seems to be the first in a series. See, AoS is a nice $25 game, or a nice free game you play with cheap models. AoS as a game trying to use premium product prices? No.

If I want to pay a ridiculous amount for a broken game, I'll go find EA's latest offering and grab all the DLC. There are plenty of people who like that, too, and will eagerly defend paying $200 to get what should have come in the $60 game.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Yeah, your anecdotal evidence is everything, right? Because your group enjoys it, it's gotta be the best thing ever and no one disagrees except jerks?

See, that's what makes me dislike AoS more than the rules or models or anything else. I can see the potential for fun, but I can also see the flaws. But if someone points out the flaws, they're rabidly set upon.

The "average" gamer damn well *does* care about making a good list that can compete. They wouldn't bother playing the game unless they thought they had a chance to win, and the mind is generally driven to try to win when you're competing. And this is a game, with a defined winner, so EVERY BLOODY GAME is competitive. Stop claiming that only 0.1% of games are "competitive." If you want AoS to not be a competitive game, petition Games Workshop to remove definitions of victory from the rules. Heck, even bashing tournament people makes you sound ridiculous, because you assume anyone who participates in a tournament is a WAAC player.

I've seen multiple locals selling off their armies because of AoS. Some people have enjoyed it, but usually it was either people who house ruled it to create balance - meaning they're playing a modified version of AoS - or people who were actually those WAAC style douchebags, who love the game now because they can unbalance the heck out of things and it's totally legal. You don't have to "TFG" it. The stock rules allow anyone to unbalance the game, often by accident. Claiming that a game with no balancing mechanic is automatically balanced because it ignores the idea of balance is, well... it makes my brain hurt.

It's a nice beer and pretzels game. If GW wasn't already showing they want to gouge the heck out of prices, I'd recommend it to people who want something to fill in 30-45 minutes here and there. But since the game's first releases already include $10-a-piece infantry, a $33 infantry character and a $40 infantry character (but he has a pet!) in locked poses, a $33 piece of plastic on a string to measure (because a measuring tape isn't good enough and GW has to charge four times what other companies would), and a $40 dice cup, and the rules are aimed at things like using only GW terrain, which means all your nice cheap homemade terrain is useless and you better buy a bunch of expensive chunks of plastic, even if the trees don't look as good as doing a small patch of forest with Woodland Scenics trees. To say nothing of the $74 book which seems to be the first in a series. See, AoS is a nice $25 game, or a nice free game you play with cheap models. AoS as a game trying to use premium product prices? No.

If I want to pay a ridiculous amount for a broken game, I'll go find EA's latest offering and grab all the DLC. There are plenty of people who like that, too, and will eagerly defend paying $200 to get what should have come in the $60 game.

Erik...you're one of the ones we make fun of...

[Katharon]

Erik...you're one of the ones we make fun of...

Never seen anyone hit the irony that hard.

[odinsgrandson]

I'm not quite sure what to think when Charles Foster Kane is applauding you. I really mean it, I'm not sure, one way or the other if that's a sarcastic post.

Good for model sales, somewhat boring for game play. If we see the rumored balancing mechanism...

Are there actual RUMORS from reliable sources that there WILL BE A BALANCING MECHANISM? That would be great!

Or... are you talking about how many players are holding out hope that there will someday be a balancing mechanism in this game?

Because I've seen a lot of the latter, and I'd love to see the former.

[40kGamer]

Are there actual RUMORS from reliable sources that there WILL BE A BALANCING MECHANISM? That would be great!

Or... are you talking about how many players are holding out hope that there will someday be a balancing mechanism in this game?

Because I've seen a lot of the latter, and I'd love to see the former.

I remember reading something here one day where a GW staffer said there would be options released for 'event/tournament' style play. I'm reading a balancing mechanism into this comment as you absolutely can't have tournament style play without one.

And honestly until they release a balancing mechanism I have zero future interest in playing more of this game.

[Auticus]

The book coming this saturday has scenarios and the scenarios are supposed to be the balancing mechanism.

[40kGamer]

The book coming this saturday has scenarios and the scenarios are supposed to be the balancing mechanism.

That sounds a bit underwhelming... I don't really see how this would work but I'll give it a read.