Age of sigmar

[Dragonet]

I've got to say I love what Najo's saying, and I really want to believe that there's improved realism and tactical depth in Ao$, but I need to see more flesh on the bones.

Is it fair to judge the game based on how it deals with set piece engagements from history? I don't know how well Warhammer would hold up there either to be fair, and both games are set in a fantasy world with a lot more going on than infantry, cavalry and artillery, which means the rules have to cater for very diverse confrontations...

 

[Skittelz1981]

I didn't say he had to take weaker units to be a sportmsan, but to have no balance and to just take as much as cheese as you can is showing a lack of sportmanship. If you read the youtube comments the guy he played said he was 'being a d**k, 110%' so I don't know what else to say to you.
Imo the video makes the game look like the rules were cobbled together by a bunch of drunks.

well, you might be absolutely right, they most likely were written by drunks. Where previous cheeselists were still bound to very specific rules which kind of prevented ultracheese, the new wounds#ruleset totally frees any restriction. So you can whine about somebody creating "unbalanced cheeselists" the blame is in the camp of the rulewriters, they provided the totally retarded unrestricted ruleset.
If you have the liberty to taking 4 vampirelords+Nagash why wouldnt you do it? I know i would, up to the opponent to come up with his own Cheese de la Cheese.
Conclusion is: instead of any kind of balancing, GW simply simplified (the irony here) everything and didnt bother to actually care about gaming. Im curious as to what they will bring out next and wether it will have more depth, coz AoS, to a more seasoned WHFB player is just suck. Im sticking with 8th edition for sure, so is my entire community and even some higher profile tournaments, which says enough about the quality of AoS.

 

[Draykorinee]

Conclusion is: instead of any kind of balancing, GW simply simplified (the irony here) everything and didnt bother to actually care about gaming. Im curious as to what they will bring out next and wether it will have more depth, coz AoS, to a more seasoned WHFB player is just suck. Im sticking with 8th edition for sure, so is my entire community and even some higher profile tournaments, which says enough about the quality of AoS.

I don't disagree entirely with this, although clearly there are many many seasoned WHFB who are enjoying this.

I am currently high after spraycoating 70 models...

 

[Dragonet]

I just undercoated my 2nd version metal zombie dragon in the front cab of my van... Smelly.

 

[Oppenheimer]

I'm excited to try out AoS's movement. I think having movement freed up is going to be more fun. Now I can be okay inside a city game and have units go down narrow alleys. Seems like it will be much more cinematic.

 

[Menkeroth]

Idk if I'd go so far a to say this bit right here. As far a a skirmish game goes, AoS is one of the simplest out there and not very appealing to the skirmish gaming crowd. When given to people who want to play a battlescale game, that "complexity" just seems silly for a block of troops. The romans never won battles by circling their opponents regiment, they let the other regiment break formation to thin themselves and circle them, and never make it past their formed wall of soldiers. Its why the agile losely formed barbarians never won even when in the rare circumstance that they outnumbered the romans.

In fact the barbarians did win sometimes, and not only they - the romans had lots of defeats, but they were not the only ones skilled in the art of the warfare, to be honest, and rarely used complex tactics. For this you have to come to the Far East into China and Japan. AoS is in this regard a simple game as it's a european one, but it does offer lots of potential if you want it to.

 

[Skittelz1981]

As a 25 year veteran of Warhammer and a student of historical warfare, I can honestly say all of you wargame fanatics should give AoS a shot before you write it off. Its a simple set of rules with a lot of potential complexity in its tactics. No offense intended to the battle reports so far, but many are playing the game wrong just like new WFB players played WFB wrong. You don't just slam units into each other and do your pile-ins and roll dice. You maneuver, control match ups and use the 3" control zone and the loose formations to use real tactics in this game.

I'm telling you, I went in skeptical but with an open mind. There was no kool-aid. I just brought my wargame experience with me. Right now, with the handful of games under my belt and studying the rules and units and discussing the tactics the rules allow, AoS offers WAY more tactical options than WFB. Right now, I'm torn between WFB regiments and AoS open formations. Mostly just because of the ease of using movement trays and magnets and the LOS arc. But the AoS formations are much more varied, simple rule-wise, complex tactically and may end up being the more advanced for actual strategies and tactics.

I think most of this is beyond many of the Warhammer players. Anyone who is still all about deathstars and running straight at their opponent with little thought in deployment or moving, is not going to see the value in AoS.

@najo , you might be right but if the Deathstar/Cheese running straight at you (well deployed and moved) eats your non-deathstar/cheese away, whats the point of trying to move tactically. As you said, movement now has more liberty and units have far more ease at charging, which in turn makes it ALOT easier than before to get that ultra-killing machine where you want it. Ive played games in WHFB where getting your VL into combat that mattered was actually really hard because the opponent managed to move properly.
Now you can run a Character on its own and defeat rank&file in 1 turn, which was completely impossible before. I dont really see how thats an improvement gamewise, fluffwise yeah, since Vampires are insane killing machines that would butcher through hundreds of regular soldiers with ease. But gamewise there is hardly any point in taking core/special units that tend to lose their combats against anything that kills more models than they do themselves.

 

[Undying Scourge]

A perfect example of brilliant tactics in the new game are thus: RETREATING!

You can charge in with cavalry, engage for a turn, supported by infantry. You can retreat in the following turn to avoid getting bogged down, then charge in with the infantry to prevent the enemy from pursuing your precious cavalry. Next turn, you can then retreat your infantry and charge in with your cavalry for a second devastating charge (looking at you Blood Knights).

Another thing you can do is, if you are against overwhelming odds and there happens to be a piece of terrain behind you, you can retreat from combat into the terrain and form up in there giving yourself a defensive bonus (+1 AS).

Also, you don't even need to put characters into units, because of True LOS. You can look down, and hide your general behind your troops to block LOS and prevent them from sniping him / her.

Also, "core" infantry units get stronger in larger numbers: Don't forget that. Because of this, massive infantry formations are very potent, though they will suffer a lot of attrition, however summoning reinforcements mitigates the losses.

These are just some that I thought of, I'm sure there are many more tactics that you can use. Age of Sigmar is a fluid, realistic wargame. Gone are the days of angles and arcs.

 

[Undying Scourge]

So essentially you can do a one-two, one-two double punch where you go in with one unit, fall back, charge in with the other, fall back, charge in with the other. This way you can keep getting charge bonuses which is important for units like Blood Knights. Cavalry are now proper shock troops.

You can also use a retreat move to break through the enemy lines. If you kill enough models in a certain area, not necessarily wiping the unit out, then do a retreat move in the next turn while your other units tie the enemy up, you can break through and attack their support & ranged units.

 

[Dragonet]

This is brilliant, so it's possible to disengage from combat? So long as your retreat's covered, I guess.

 

[Menkeroth]

 

[Sception]

So essentially you can do a one-two, one-two double punch where you go in with one unit, fall back, charge in with the other, fall back, charge in with the other. This way you can keep getting charge bonuses which is important for units like Blood Knights. Cavalry are now proper shock troops.

Charge bonuses are nice, but I don't think they're worth giving up a round of regular attacks, let alone potentially two or even three depending on how the initiative dice go. Ie - if you withdraw at the top of a game turn, you don't fight in that combat round, then you don't fight in your opponent's combat round (unless they charge you with something else, in which case you still aren't getting charging bonuses), then if your opponent wins initiative on the next game turn you won't get to fight in that combat round, either.

 

[Undying Scourge]

Charge bonuses are nice, but I don't think they're worth giving up a round of regular attacks, let alone potentially two or even three depending on how the initiative dice go. Ie - if you withdraw at the top of a game turn, you don't fight in that combat round, then you don't fight in your opponent's combat round (unless they charge you with something else, in which case you still aren't getting charging bonuses), then if your opponent wins initiative on the next game turn you won't get to fight in that combat round, either.

All the initiative thing does is slow it down, it still works. Try it. You charge in, then you run out, charge your other unit in, if they win initiative, so what, they can't do anything because they're stuck in combat with your rubbish infantry. Also when it comes to cavalry charge bonuses really do make a difference. Take Blood Knights, they get D3 DAMAGE on the charge, so each attack (3 attacks each) does D3 DAMAGE. Plus they have a guaranteed charge distance of 6" so it makes it even easier. You just move 6" or 7" away.

 

[Sception]

There are only so many combat rounds in a game. I do not feel it is worth withdrawing your blood knights from combat, missing out on one to three of those rounds, just to get charging bonus on another round later. If you had just stayed in, you'd stand a decent shot of wiping them out and charging again against something else by the time you would have been re-charging the same target had you withdrawn.

 

[Undying Scourge]

There are only so many combat rounds in a game. I do not feel it is worth withdrawing your blood knights from combat, missing out on one to three of those rounds, just to get charging bonus on another round later. If you had just stayed in, you'd stand a decent shot of wiping them out and charging again against something else by the time you would have been re-charging the same target had you withdrawn.

Think what you want. You aren't even considering the vast number of different units out there in the game, against which such a tactic would be not only viable, but necessary. D3 damage is a huge bonus compared to 1 damage per turn.

A really good synergy for blood knights is to take a vampire lord on abyssal terror and a vampire lord as your general and a big unit of blood knights (like 30 - 40). Turn 1: Cast Hellish Vigour on the blood knights with the VL on Abyssal Terror. Cast Mystic Shield on the Blood Knights with VL. Use VL command ability on blood knights. The enemy won't be able to dispel it since they will be out of range. Movement: Move Blood Knights 20" towards enemy. Charge phase: with a guaranteed charge distance of 6", you will get into combat with 4 attacks per Blood Knight, D3 Damage, 2+ Armour Save. All on Turn 1.

If you fail to cast Hellish Vigour, either hold position or fall back depending on the situation and keep doing that until you cast it successfully. With the standard bearer bringing 1 model back every turn your blood knights will survive.

 

[najo]

Idk if I'd go so far a to say this bit right here. As far a a skirmish game goes, AoS is one of the simplest out there and not very appealing to the skirmish gaming crowd. When given to people who want to play a battlescale game, that "complexity" just seems silly for a block of troops. The romans never won battles by circling their opponents regiment, they let the other regiment break formation to thin themselves and circle them, and never make it past their formed wall of soldiers. Its why the agile losely formed barbarians never won even when in the rare circumstance that they outnumbered the romans.

This happens the opposite way with only a couple dozen combatants, but if your looking for small scale, this is not the best one out there, if your looking for big scale AoS formations just seems silly. I think you'd really like some of the already established skirmish games najo, seems weird that this is your first taste of them as you seem blown away by simple skirmish tactics.

I never said encircle your opponents units, I said encircle your own to make units with combined arms.

From my experiences, many new and moderate Warhammer players just run units at each other. Only the advanced/veteran players get real tactics going. Death stars don't require tactics and you saw plenty of that.

You also keep making assumptions about me that is coming off as undermining. Please stop. I have a life time of experience with wargames. Most games that come out I at least look at. The big ones or interesting ones I try. AoS has a lot going on in a little amount of space.

 

[najo]

As someone who puts a lot of thought in deployment and movement, even as a newbie, I don't see the value in AoS, that just sems like a fairly patronising statement even if it wasn't meant to be.

Tbh its sounding like a lot of air at the moment, you're not offering any kind of substance to your opinion that would convince me, I've seen battle reports from other people, I've watched a game, sure its early days but I don't like what I see, once I get a game in then I can judge properly, but even then, people will just say you can't base it on one game.

I've seen the battle reports to. Most are throwing their old armies on the table and running into each other. There is no maneuvering, baiting, no formations being made, no denying combat, none of the lockdowns. You need to play the game multiple times and pay attention to the control zones and maneuvering to get combats into your advantage. The goal, make your opponent lose a greater percentage of his army while you maintain yours.

Do that. The game is free.

 

[najo]

well, you might be absolutely right, they most likely were written by drunks. Where previous cheeselists were still bound to very specific rules which kind of prevented ultracheese, the new wounds#ruleset totally frees any restriction. So you can whine about somebody creating "unbalanced cheeselists" the blame is in the camp of the rulewriters, they provided the totally retarded unrestricted ruleset.
If you have the liberty to taking 4 vampirelords+Nagash why wouldnt you do it? I know i would, up to the opponent to come up with his own Cheese de la Cheese.
Conclusion is: instead of any kind of balancing, GW simply simplified (the irony here) everything and didnt bother to actually care about gaming. Im curious as to what they will bring out next and wether it will have more depth, coz AoS, to a more seasoned WHFB player is just suck. Im sticking with 8th edition for sure, so is my entire community and even some higher profile tournaments, which says enough about the quality of AoS.

There are tactics that don't work without larger units. You can kite and lock down characters with disposable units while you're focusing your attacks on one of them. Also, Nagash synergizes better if you take units that give him summoning spells.

 

[LordTobiothan]

I never said encircle your opponents units, I said encircle your own to make units with combined arms.

From my experiences, many new and moderate Warhammer players just run units at each other. Only the advanced/veteran players get real tactics going. Death stars don't require tactics and you saw plenty of that.

You also keep making assumptions about me that is coming off as undermining. Please stop. I have a life time of experience with wargames. Most games that come out I at least look at. The big ones or interesting ones I try. AoS has a lot going on in a little amount of space.

Many very very very experienced tournament level warhammer players also run units at each other, because in a battlescale game, using tactics made for small unit skirmish games is not why there playing a game at this scale. You say I'm making assumptions but your posts are frequently backing it up by saying these tactics are going over new players heads when realistically new players do not want them to be an available option in their ranked infantry game in the first place.

As I stated earlier, there are much better skirmish systems then age of sigmar that are all about the kind of formations you are talking about. The difference is, AoS plays like a skirmish game but demands a full scale battles worth of models.

The fact you keep saying it has a lot going on is what is making you feel undermined when i keep telling you that the amount going on in it is abysmally small compared to other games of this type, your stuffing a final fantasy rpg into the total war genre and telling us the specific character control is so much better. Even many of those that agree with you about AoS don't even like that these wonky unit structures are a thing.

I heard you the first three times, your experienced, people not enjoying it are bad, and AoS is crazy tactical for a war game. You can repeat it all you want, but until your tactics get back into the full scale battle kind of tactics and not the skirmish level ones, your great AoS experience will fall on deaf ears.

 

[Banat]

I don't believe AOS does "demand" a full scale battles worth of models.

Can I recommend you try an AoS game on the level of scale that you desire?

 

[LordTobiothan]

I don't believe AOS does "demand" a full scale battles worth of models.

Can I recommend you try an AoS game on the level of scale that you desire?

The summoning alone makes games get up to the hundred count of models, and the rules encourage placing everything you've got. I suppose you can play it at the level of a regular skirmish game if you don't use any hordes or bring much magic, but I don't want to play a skirmish game, and if I did I have better options to turn to.

Not to mention shooting becomes horribly broken the less horde and summoning you take.

 

[Banat]

Not every army has summoning.

And a few armies having summoning still doesn't equal "demand".

I have in my mind to put together some Mordheim esque lists, A vampire, a necromancer, 5 dire wolves, 10 zombies, 2 bat swarms and maybe a corpse cart for example, for really small scale games.

I get what your saying, there are other skirmish games that you feel have better mechanics out there. For me, my entire hobby is centered around my local Games Workshop however, so turning to other skirmish games, unless I feel like playing against... myself (or talking to Konrad) isn't an option.

I think its a comfort thing. A lot of people are having kneejerk reactions because its not the same as what they're familiar and comfortable with. People just need to give it a try (and by that I mean say at least 3 games, because you will make mistakes on your first game like I did, then a full scale game with the starter box and then at least 1 game with your own preferred force) and be willing to go beyond their comfort zones.

If you're not interested, you're not interested. But let it be because you tried it, explored the mechanics, and deemed them not what you want, from actual experience rather than just what you've read. Not sure how many games you said you'd played, so that wasn't aimed at you personally, but generally the people out there complaining with out having actually played it.

 

[LordTobiothan]

Its not just that there are systems that I feel are better though. There are systems with aos' good atributes and none of the horrendous aspects (obviously some of the bad aspects as no game is perfect)

The comfort zone thing could be good for the other side too. Your so stuck with your friends refusing to budge from GW that you arent trying games that could be exactly all the good your finding on this broken system.

Ive had a few walkthrough simulations trying to see how to break the rules (less salty people when they know the stupid stuff beforehand) and one full game played that ended in a landslide turn 3 because we started small and i brought more shooting. Okay I brought all shooting, but it seemed good...

 

[Blutsauger]

If you're not interested, you're not interested. But let it be because you tried it, explored the mechanics, and deemed them not what you want, from actual experience rather than just what you've read. Not sure how many games you said you'd played, so that wasn't aimed at you personally, but generally the people out there complaining with out having actually played it.

I simply don't have time to play every wargame on the market three times before I decide to invest in it or not. AoS is not at all what I want in a wargame, and not least because I find the plane-hopping nature of the new background deplorable.

 

[najo]

Many very very very experienced tournament level warhammer players also run units at each other, because in a battlescale game, using tactics made for small unit skirmish games is not why there playing a game at this scale. You say I'm making assumptions but your posts are frequently backing it up by saying these tactics are going over new players heads when realistically new players do not want them to be an available option in their ranked infantry game in the first place.

As I stated earlier, there are much better skirmish systems then age of sigmar that are all about the kind of formations you are talking about. The difference is, AoS plays like a skirmish game but demands a full scale battles worth of models.

The fact you keep saying it has a lot going on is what is making you feel undermined when i keep telling you that the amount going on in it is abysmally small compared to other games of this type, your stuffing a final fantasy rpg into the total war genre and telling us the specific character control is so much better. Even many of those that agree with you about AoS don't even like that these wonky unit structures are a thing.

I heard you the first three times, your experienced, people not enjoying it are bad, and AoS is crazy tactical for a war game. You can repeat it all you want, but until your tactics get back into the full scale battle kind of tactics and not the skirmish level ones, your great AoS experience will fall on deaf ears.

Your overall tone is the issue. You keep painting my own experience and observations as wrong and each post you stack up how many other sources negate what I am saying. I don't care if you like the game or not, I am not trying to convince you. What I am doing though is being open-minded and trying to give the game a chance and I am reporting my findings, contrary to what many of the nay-sayers are doing who are playing one game and saying screw it or they aren't even touching it.

Your posts keep attacking AoS and those in "authority" who are supporting it. Look at the post you made above. "Many very very very experienced"; "abysmally small compared"; "final fantasy rpg into total war genere"; "Even many of those that agree with you"; "I heard your the first three times";"You can repeat it all you want"...

All of these comments are disrespectful, inflammatory and dramatic. You are trying to invalidate my posts, trying to make me look like I don't know what I'am talking about and that I am ranting and raving on, repeating myself or arguing with people. All I've done is written one article, posted in a handful of places where people who want to read it can and then replied to comments directed at me or posts that quote me.

Most people here know who I am and that I know my way around the Warhammer table. They also know that I have a reputation of being leveled-headed, objective and fair. If AoS was a piece of shit, I would be the first to demand a 8th edition revision or a proper 9th edition. What I found in my exploration with AoS says there is something worthwhile here to explore, change isn't always bad and give it a chance.