So no one's posted anything here for a week?

[Mr Mystery]

Though oddly, this thread has been remarkably civilised, all things considered.

Time to come out of the shadows, my AoS appreciating friends. I suspect many of those who simply troll threads are on their last warning round these parts - they've been awfully, awfully well behaved of late

[Erik Setzer]

I figure this is as good a place as any to note this... One of the reasons I'm not fond on AoS is that it seems to have not just killed GW fantasy gaming in this town, but even 40K has dropped off significantly. Since AoS's release, the local GW stores sales have plummeted badly, and it's gone from being a great store with lots of sales and excited people to having hardly anyone show up on the weekends, and the sales seem to have slumped so bad I'm worried the store might close up.

For fantasy, people are turning to other games. Right now, Frostgrave is being talked about a lot. Kings of War would probably have more traction if the rules were more readily available (the new printing should help). But 40K isn't really even being played much. Not really anyone at the GW store, I've only seen a couple people playing each time I'm in one of the local FLGS's (one actually named "FLGS"), and the only time I've actually multiple people playing was this past weekend at another FLGS where a couple of tables had two-vs-two games going, likely in preparation for an upcoming team tournament.

The 40K scene might pick back up when new 40K releases show up, but it seems AoS was a "last straw" of sorts. The pricing was getting too much, the rules were being wrecked to throw balance out the window in favor of more sales of certain models (and direct sales), and then they topped it off with a series of expensive books that were then closely followed by blowing up and wiping out the entire 30-year-old game that those books were part of, replacing it with something that is, to be honest, akin to slapping green army men on a table, moving them around, and arguing about who's really killing who. No balance, no real way to know if it's a fair game, none of that. I think if the game had some kind kind of points system, that wasn't abused for sales, it could have gained traction locally and kept it. Instead, most of the games seem to involve things like an equal number of Ogres against any other army (ends poorly for the other armies), multiple Bloodthirsters, and all kinds of madness, and even the people who were excited just got sick of that.

For now, I'm enjoying spending my hobby dollars on other stuff. Got a Scum squadron for X-Wing and starting on Rebels (there's a growing X-Wing scene locally). Got the rulebook and a sourcebook for Edge of the Empire RPG, going to start playing a weekend session of that this weekend. Looking at Bolt Action, and my friend just picked up Halo Fleet Battles so I'm also going to grab a copy and maybe get that going in the area. And there's also computer games.

In the meantime, I'll still have my modeling projects that I had on deck (need to get some green stuff to properly finish this fyreslayer, for example), and I might but a Battlewagon for an idea I had, but since no one's playing the games, I just don't have a need to buy anything.

I'll still chat about it, though. Even if people would like to sew my mouth shut.

[Morgrim]

Personally I'm wondering if AoS is stalled because so much focus is on the Sigmarites. Yes, yes, they're the shiny new toy. And Khrone has gotten a lot of love too. Nurgle and pure-treant focused armies were mentioned in a book!

...too bad for anyone that doesn't play Chaos (but only highly specific bits of it), Wood Elves (but only a tiny fragment of it) or Sigmarines. So basically the mono-Khorne players and the players of new army. Everyone else has been left in limbo. Sure, they have rules, but that's it. There's no engagement, no focus, no 'what the heck is my army fighting for?', and no idea if your stuff shouldn't actually have rules but has been sort of grandfathered in and will never receive support again.

Maybe when they pull back and give a little time to the other races the players of those races will return. I know my lizardmen are staying shelved until I have a clue what else I should be doing with them.

[Caitsidhe]

It is stalled (and there isn't much talk about it) because....

1. Not many people are playing it.
2. A significant number of people are unimpressed with it and unlikely to play it beyond trying it once or twice.
3. There isn't much to talk about as the game is almost mindlessly simple.

What is there to talk about? About the only thing to discuss is what the models look like. Whether you like them or not, that only covers about five minutes of conversation.

[Path Walker]

It is stalled (and there isn't much talk about it) because....

1. Not many people are playing it.
2. A significant number of people are unimpressed with it and unlikely to play it beyond trying it once or twice.
3. There isn't much to talk about as the game is almost mindlessly simple.

What is there to talk about? About the only thing to discuss is what the models look like. Whether you like them or not, that only covers about five minutes of conversation.

Depends where you are, in my local area, more people are playing AoS than ever played WFB

There is more to the game than 2 minutes glancing at the rules would let you think. Its not simple, its different, units with different abilities and synergies add complexity instead of rules.

[Caitsidhe]

Depends where you are, in my local area, more people are playing AoS than ever played WFB

There is more to the game than 2 minutes glancing at the rules would let you think. Its not simple, its different, units with different abilities and synergies add complexity instead of rules.

If you say so. Good to see you back. You can get the ball rolling on the conversation then. Explain these complexities and synergies to us. Those are the conversations missing, i.e. the tactical game talk. I've stated why I think it is missing. You have a great opportunity to prove me wrong. Show us the depth.

[Mr Mystery]

Rank and flank is great.

But free form units, pre-planning and getting your head round ccw having their own range is also pretty great.

Form up a line, base to base of defensive troops, remembering to place some 'backwash' protection. Follow up 1" behind with nastier troops. Troops which have a 2" range. If X is the former, and Y is the latter, look a little like this....

XXXXXXXXXXX
X YYYYYYYY X
X X

Boost up the X unit with defensive boosting spells, perhaps trigger something to prevent Battleshock. Enemy cannot reach the Y unit, but can still be clobbered by them. Net result? You stand a chance of doing far, far more damage to the enemy, even more so if they don't have any kind of formation and just attack you in a blob.

And if you're expecting a protracted punch up, don't forget unit Z, armed with ranged weapons to either flank, allowing them to shoot up the now pinned down enemy unit.

Foolproof? Of course not. It's tricky to pull off, but puts paid to the nonsense AoS requires neither strategy nor tactics. Easiest way to form it up is at the point of deployment of course, and maintain it through moving in a manner akin to the previous editions. But it can be formed up noon the fly as well. The shape of your units when attacking can also be used to pull enemy units in a chosen direction, potentially opening up the path for a small unit (like a Dragon or whatevs) to penetrate your opponents defence - perhaps to duff up characters, removing their buffs.

And like PW, I've been seeing more games of AoS than I saw Warhammer in its (sadly) dying days, and my local store now has permanent dents in their Warhammer stock, and has seen the Average Transaction Value for them shoot up quite nicely.

And oddly....its not the Stormcast doing that. It's across the range. Not what I'd consider a sign of a fluffed launch, or a game without a player base.

Yes. This is indeed anecdotal evidence. Not aimed at yourself, but there's usually someone quick to point out the bleeding obvious as if it's some kind of trump card.

[Path Walker]

I don't do tactical talk, I play the game but I'm in it for the models, the fluff, painting and spending time with people I like. I have a thread of fluff and rules for a campaign I'm running in case people wanted to see that, its going over very well in the local game shop and players are writing fluff pieces about their armies and smack talking in character ahead of their games. That's what a successful game looks like to me, not whether some guy online whose never played it thinks its too simple.

Reading and writing essays on tactics for a game of soldiers is dull as dishwater for me, so I won't. If you can't read the rules, warscrolls and battleplans and see how there are a lot of tactical decisions that have to be made, then that's fine, others can. Its not my place to write about something I don't care about particularly.

Tell me, how do you feel about Chess? Is that too simple for you? What about Go? No tactics there, right? I mean it only has one unit type and the rules can be explained in about a page of writing.

(also my local GWs ATV is up too, despite me trying to ruin it by buying one pot of paint at a time...)

[grimmas]

Khorne Bloodbound are all about the synergy. Bloodreavers in particular are very impactive when used in conjunction with other units/heroes. It really is quite thematic as well as the way to beat them is to disrupt that synergy. They're powerful as a rampaging horde but are much weaker when disrupted.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. And the best trick for that is to use smaller, sacrificial units to pull apart said mob, exposing the characters then giving them a damned good shoeing all to themselves!

Or, a Thundertusk's icy blast to the face. That knacks many things!