The Bad and Good in Age of Sigmar, a review.

[Voltigeur]

Hey guys and gals,

I wrote this review for a podcast but I thought it might be fun to share it here. This is my attempt at a balanced look at what I like and dislike in Age of Sigmar.

A week or so ago I was able to play some games of AoS with a few friends. We all started fresh, reading the rules for the first time and playing with several different forces that we balanced to the best of our ability. These are my thoughts on the good and the bad in Age of Sigmar.

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar is a bit of a misleading title for this game. It has very little to do with Warhammer as it has existed for the last 30 odd years. Instead of a tweaking of the existing rules and a skirmish add on. We have a brand new system completely trashing the venerable M, WS, BS, S, T, I, A, W, LD, stats that have been a staple of GWs' flagship games for so long. This new small streamlined system is meant to do anything from one on one hero slug fests to a table full of miniatures. So how does it fair? Let's break it down.

First the rules:

4 pages, that's it that's all. All of these other rules for the game take the form of individual unit rules in warscrolls. There is a certain elegance to this after editions of giant Warhammer rulebook tomes, but unfortunately less isn't more in this case. The first problem I ran into was the lack of a balancing mechanism. There is no points system in AoS and the rules tell you and your opponent to take turns placing units until one of you says enough is enough. This rule didn't cause us too much trouble as we tried our best to make the armies feel balanced, though without changes it makes the game utterly unsuitable for pickup or tournament play.

As it turned out our attempts at balance were fairly good considering we had no idea of any of the unit stats and were soley going off of our understanding how units faired in WHF. Playing without points felt wrong to me and gave me a weird feeling throughout the evening but that may just be me being set in my ways.

Our first game was Skaven vs Ogres and involved the interesting sudden death mechanic where if after deployment one player has 33% less models on the table than his opponent he gains an objective that if completed wins the game. Had it been better thought out, this mechanic might have been great. Unfortunately the objectives are all too easy. The assassinate objective especially is almost impossible to fail as you get to choose one enemy hero to kill and if you do you win. This game offers very few ways to protect heroes as they can no longer join units and cover bonuses are negligible. The first game ended on the bottom of turn two when my giant absolutely crushed my opponents screaming bell.

Another rule that gave us pause was the initiative turn system that AoS uses to determine who goes first each turn. A roll off determines who gets to go first each turn. This rule is one of my biggest complaints as it replaces strategy with luck. There is little you can do when your opponent ends up getting two turns in a row, and in our test games it became clear that the turn roll off was far more important than any decisions we were making on the battlefield. Consider this, you win the roll off for turn one and choose to go first, your opponent then takes his turn and wins the subsequent roll off for turn two. He now takes another full turn before you can again play; he then wins the roll for turn three. This means that after your initial first turn your opponent takes three turns, broken up by only one turn for you. There is very little you can do at that point except hope that the pendulum swings back your way and that you have enough units left to make a difference if it does.

Unit Stats were a mixed bag. They were easy to understand and use but there is no interplay between stats in this game. My goblin is just as likely to force a save on a dragon as it is on a gnoblar, and that's a problem for me. It makes me feel like there is no real interaction between models and it breaks my immersion in the game. Each unit has at least one special rule and that's quite nice, but remembering to use them takes practice.

So what in the rules section did AoS get right? Well there are a few really good ideas in this game. Firstly the combat phase. AoS does something really neat in this phase and that is giving you the choice when your unit fights. The way it works is that the player whose turn it is chooses a unit in any close combat to makes its attacks. Then their opponent chooses a unit to make attacks with that need not be in the same combat. This continues back and forth until all units in melee combat have fought. You have to choose carefully what order you want to strike in and what combats are most critical to your success on the battlefield. This rule is a home run as far as I'm concerned as it finds a way around the old initiative system that is both interesting and highly tactical.

The Battleshock phase is also a hit for me. Gone are the days where an almost untouched unit will break and get run down on the strength of combat resolution alone. Battleshock takes the place of the old leadership tests. At the end of the combat phase you test your units’ bravery against the number of models in the unit plus a d6 and for every point you score above the bravery you lose one model from the unit. I like this rule for its simplicity and its efficacy, it does a good job of simulating wavering morale and/or a unit getting overwhelmed while not destroying the whole unit all in one go.

Magic has long been a thorn in the side of WHFB, and GW has never got it quite right. AoS seems to recognize this and has radically simplified the process. Now a wizard casts one spell a turn either from their warscroll or the two generics in the rule book. A simple 2d6 roll to beat the casting value and the spell will go off. Your opponent can then try to nullify the spell if he has a caster within 18'' that LOS to your caster. He rolls 2d6 and tries to equal or beat your score. After that you continue the magic phase until all of your wizards have attempted a casting. The simplification of the magic phase is great and certain magical powers are no longer the win buttons they used to be. As far as I'm concerned this is a great development.

The models:

We've yet to see many new models for AoS so I'm just going to focus on those in the starter.

The Khorne Bloodbound are gorgeous. The Khorne lord with his pet flesh hound is one of the best looking models I have seen in a while. I'd have no trouble incorporating these guys into my Warriors of Chaos or Chaos Space marine forces. They certainly raise the bar on starter set minis. My only complaint is the naming scheme for these models. Below I have posted the names as they appear on the GW website, see if you can spot the pattern!

One Mighty Lord of Khorne
One Bloodsecrator
One Bloodstoker
One Khorgorath
Five Blood Warriors
Two units of ten Bloodreavers

Sigh...

Storm Cast Eternals: My first thoughts are: Get your fat dopey Space Marines out of my fantasy!!!
If I'm going to be fair the models are technically quite well done. The elimination of the need for a flying stand for the prosecutors is nice and the beasty that the Lord Celestant rides is very cool.

We're all aware that Games Workshop survives almost solely on Space Marines so it's no surprise that they would port them into a struggling system. I'll probably get used to them eventually but in the short term I can't help but feel a little disgusted every time I see them.

Conclusion:

There's a strong part of me that wants to like Age of Sigmar. It is a system that shows flashes of brilliance despite its brevity. Unfortunately the game doesn't feel fully functional and a number of poorly implemented rules undermine my desire to play it. I can see where they were going with this game, a fun lighthearted skirmish game that you can scale to any size. That's a commendable goal but the game just doesn't get you there on its' own.

Games Workshop has jumped into a very crowded and competitive market with Age of Sigmar and I fear they don't realise just how hard of a time this game may have against those with tighter rule sets and community support. It's hard to imagine the game can gain a significant foothold, as when it comes right down to it AoS has potential but it feels like an alpha release that needs more to become a decent game.

[Captain Bubonicus]

Thanks for the review - good stuff.

[Voltigeur]

Thanks for the review - good stuff.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[chipset35]

Great Review