I've realized my problem with AoS...

[Erik Setzer]

It wasn't much fun for my opponents... So I didn't abuse them. Not gonna lie... That lightning was amazing. Don't know if anyone has read doomwheel now... It's unplayable. :-(

The Doomwheel is... seriously nerfed. And for something that enjoyed blowing up on me repeatedly, I'm not sure it needed that bad a nerfing.

[Quaade]

[loads of irrelevant text]

to respond to the part of your argument that is relevant, i'd like to point out that if gamers want good rules, it would make sense to give them good rules. if WHF was always the advanced model from 40k, with more tactics and a greater spectrum of learning in order to become good at the game, arbitrarily making it immensely simplistic is an outright break with what their fans have looked to them for.
instead of creating a whole new game that pretty much has nothing to do with the old one, why not create a new edition of the same game with fixes to all the problems, adapted rules for larger and smaller play, and a fully-realized world that makes sense?

That's your argument. My argument is that AoS provides solid rules that are a lot deeper than they appear on the surface. Easy to learn, hard to master. It's a different game and right now it seems you want it to be 9th edition, which would had been more money out the window for GW in order to appease a dwindling, entitled playerbase. Blowing up an established franchise is never done on a whim, there's always a reason and usually it's that it's a moneysink.

or why not just reboot the game, a la ultimate marvel, or new 52? keep some of the themes and ideas, but approach it differently. same with the game itself -- and embed a real reason to want to play the game on both a larger and a smaller scale.

Marvel is ending the Ultimate universe and melting the good parts into the mainstream Marvel Universe. Their reason, only one title was really popular and the mythology had become increasingly complex for new readers to enter. So one Battleworld event later and it will be gone.

the weakly defined "realms," the increased importance of all these named characters, the lack of background and fluff and raison d'etre and purpose, the wealth of rumors that they allowed to circulate about WHF9 -- it's all stacked against the new game for veterans before we even open the rules. the old stuff created "awesome imagery in the mindscape" far better than the trite, hollow dumbing-down that they have offered up to us. the new stuff is like they hired middle schoolers to write their fluff.

You just mentioned the Ultimate universe and then you use this argument? Your cognitive dissonance is impressive and I do believe you're in a state of crisis over this whole affair.

Weakly defined realms allows for both new and old players to explore this new setting at the pace GW releases the books. The named character, other than the main eight Incarnates and a few select, are only there for purposes of being able to play with them, they have no influence on the fluff at all.

[Vlad78]

Curiously, the Old World didn't have that much of a narrative to it.

Yes it had seriously decent novels set in it (Gotrek and Felix, Time of Legends to name a few), but the world itself? It lacked (lacks?) the depth of 40k. A large part of that is it had identifiable 'goodies' and villains everyone would recognise as villains.

You know nothing of the old world if it is just that for you. Maybe you should begin with WFRP 1st edition and follow with the 2nd ed latest sourcebooks which were quite good as the writers tried to integrate GW foolish changes into the original setting. Maybe you should try to find the very first novels written by Kim Newman, Drachenfels, beast in velvet...

[Mr Mystery]

What, am I John Snow now?

Got those books, and it's certainly interesting reading about the Empire - but stuff that early on doesn't particularly resemble the Warhammer that just passed. If I'm right in thinking, for Silver Nails, Beasts in Velvet and Drachenfels, Karl Franz isn't Emperor yet, just a kid.

The world wasn't going anywhere. Unlike 40k, we only had the one planet to set stuff in, inherently limiting what could happen.

Now? Seemingly expansive realms, and possibly more to come.

What we have now is just the beginning - far, far too early to go saying it's rubbish. To date, we have Sigmar's opening gambit to start pushing back the forces of Chaos. Who knows what is to follow?

[40kGamer]

There is no substance because AoS is a full reboot of a dying game system. To accomplish this they jumped ahead millennia to this current setting to give themselves breathing room and the foundation to do whatever they want creatively. Which from a design standpoint is quite clever. Now we have the same type of universe as 40k where there was the world of WFB in the distant past and there is the realms of the AoS. They've even left themselves room to go back through this time period to flesh out story, settings and campaigns as they see fit... read as potentially profitable.

So while the rules aren't all that deep at the moment, it's a good time to try and bring new people into the system to 'learn as it grows'. I actually think that if this goes well we will see a "War of the Ring' style rules supplement that brings back movement trays and ranked up units.

However all is not cute and fuzzy bunnies as I'm not 100% on board with the new balance it yourselves mentality and I truly loathe the mechanic of measuring from the model vs the base. Regardless, I think it's going to be interesting if not fun to see where this goes and if they can make it work. The proof is in the 'annual stock report' pudding so to speak.

- - - Updated - - -

What, am I John Snow now?

Bloody noob.

[Mr Mystery]

Wouldn't mind being John Snow like, would mean some interest from redheads!

As for measurements etc - do as you want! As long as both players agree in a given game, makes no difference.

[Erik Setzer]

40K fluff is exactly where it's been for years. Sometimes things get a little jumbled and they retcon stuff or something. But Armageddon is a stalemate, the Eye of Terror campaign got stripped back, everything is exactly where it was 20 years ago. They added some new races, but those races haven't really changed the dynamic of the universe or the story.

"Expansive realms" is funny, that only works because they haven't defined what the heck a realm is. It's a vague concept of an area.

And just because fighting can happen in more places doesn't make the setting more interesting or alive. The reality is that we've already established there are no stakes in this setting. Chaos "won" but couldn't get the final victory. Now it's just Sigmar winning from here on out. Even if there were people to care about, it wouldn't matter, because for some reason Chaos became as harmful as a pack of Care Bears.

[40kGamer]

Wouldn't mind being John Snow like, would mean some interest from redheads!

As for measurements etc - do as you want! As long as both players agree in a given game, makes no difference.

Yes sir... measuring from the base was ruled in almost immediately locally. It just makes the other mechanics easier to deal with and lets you position your models without concern for which way the pokey parts stick out.

[Mr Mystery]

Erik - you act as if the background is complete. Which we know is not the case.

[40kGamer]

Erik - you act as if the background is complete. Which we know is not the case.

*Sigh* Is everyone too young to remember the lack of backstory for 40k and WFB when they started back in the Dark Age of gaming? If you read the fluff from Adeptus Titanicus it is thin, really thin, and most of it has changed dramatically over the years as they filled it out.