And yes for the record I have tried to play AoS two times but it feels incomplete. It's like somebody at the studios cried 'just release it already!' and didn't think to include what makes a game an actual game. And the release schedule...man oh man so snooze-worthy. It's way too slow for a new product they want to let thrive.
Now if GW wants to solely focus on miniature models fine, but be honest about it and quit making rules. Stop calling yourselves Games Workshop. I'm more than okay with that. I'm only playing FW 30K right now anyway. Much more fun.
Ohman, they definitely could be doing better with the release schedule. I mean I know it's fitting the bill of what they've been doing as a company, from what I've seen with the
40k stuff when I recently got back into the game, but for something new that "Wow factor" isn't as there when it's one model at a time. They really should be releasing a least a bit more meat at once, and not just the starter set. Or at the very least they shouldn't be releasing only Stormcast. I really want to see what they're doing with the other armies/model lines!
Also it's funny because, GW definitely says they have the stance of being a model company, but I never even thought of the fact that "games" is in the name of the company. That's actually a really funny point. PS Malifaux is too freakin' good.
And @no-one-in-particular, I don't quite understand the mentality that it is a skirmish game. I mean sure, you could play with few models, and there is no longer rank and file, but is that the definition of skirmish? I mean at the same time, I could play literal heaps of undead and have a battle on the scale of Apox.
40k, and I would say I am "playing a skirmish game on a grand scale!" It's just.. the game is the scale you make it. And the lack of rank and file is not the definition of skirmish as far as I know, it's the scale of the fights. So yeah, you can play with a few models when you're starting out. Or you can play with as large of armies as we've collected over the years, but the game isn't one or the other. It's just a simple system that works in either.
Although, IMO, it works better
the more models you play. And I say that from the respect that, given more dice to roll, you will experience the sting of bad-dice far less due to averages; Which is important, because when people are already questionably invested in liking
AoS any other bad experience while playing it is just like.. they Scapegoat
AoS into the reason. Like when people claim that
AoS is incapable of having tactics or skill because
they choose to slam all the armies into a giant mess of a combat in the center. That's a bad experience, and it's easy to say it's
AoS's fault if you already think poorly of it.
I actually just played with my good friend whom I have gamed with all my life for about the first time yesterday. A game of
AoS. And we started and it wasn't anything bad, but during the course of the game we ended up discussing much of what has been discussed here about why to not like it, and he didn't see any of the values of tactics and was rather turned off to it all together. And I feel like a big part of that is getting bad rolls on 1-attack abilities that
could be devastating or interesting, but then we played a 5 turn game and he never got one off the whole time, and it felt so hallow to him. Like the cool monsters he was using were just worthless because they.. can never even hit? And he echoed that concern that the dice would only further betray him once he got a
chance To Wound when he simply failed that. The "Barrier" to fun mechanics, I can certainly see as an issue, and it made him feel like some of his models were not.. Epic enough, not devastating or .. it just didn't feel fantasy to him. The game had always been
HIGH Fantasy, epic battles and such. And I can totally see that issue with how the game is reduced to so little in rules there is very little variation to be had, and with a ton of abilities that rely on To Hit and To Wound rolls (Often 3+ at best, with far fewer getting 2+ for anything) it can feel very.. hit or miss. And then you feel cheated, and it's a sour feeling when you're huge model isn't doing everything it can to make your opponents army ground to dust.
But I still slightly feel like he was looking at it through shades of negativity, even though he said he wanted to like it. And I can understand his complaints. And I really feel like a larger battle would mean more dice so less focusing on the poor rolls, when you can see the good ones hitting as well. I don't know.
I mean we did the first scenario from the starter box, the extreme "intro" one with only 3 models duking it out. About as simple as the game can get. And between both of us, we landing not a single hit and wound the first round. So after round one, we both looked at the table and were like.. "Errm, this is looking shitty already.." But I really feel like it's just impressing the feeling of things we associate with negative (Bad dice) onto something that is the fault of it.
But at the same time, with static To Hits and To Wounds, and the reliance on D6 still (Gods only know why GW stuck with D6 when they were ENTIRELY changing the system anyways!) means that there is still very "Swingy" effects, like that Hit or Miss mentality with a lot of cool abilities on monsters. It feels bad when they just whiff. And it feels bad when you cast magic missile on your caster and it's just "Oh yeah I cast the
only attack spell, take D3 Mortal Wounds." And I can see how that steals from the.. complex nature of The-Game-That-Was, and I can see how that's
EXTREMELY non-immersive, if you aren't really throwing in your imagination to design the "Why is this attack cool, what is happening" mentality into it. Because if someone wants to be TOLD a story, The-Game-That-Was did it so much better, but if someone wants a framework for telling their own story? Then
AoS can happen, and you can use it's loose framework to your advantage.
And as a miniatures battle game, I think
AoS does at least a decent job, if you want to look at the WHOLE battle, but the more people look at the tiny, the specifics, or individual dice rolls. Yeah the game breaks so much, and is so half-hearted feeling. And I really don't know if
@najo and I, or any of the ones who are more into
AoS are
trying too hard to like it, or if we perhaps weren't as interested in many of the details that were stolen away that make many players feel spurned by GW or even just less interested. Because I can understand list building was important, and it's gone. And characters being "built" is.. gone in the same sense that list building is gone. But it's there if you play the game like it's D&D, or any other game of the imagination. If you just agree on rules with your friends, or make up your own special rules, items, and abilities. And I really like that, but it's impossible for me to get someone else to see the good when they only seem to think those things are bad.
It's frustrating, because I want to have fun with my friend. And he said more than once "This game just doesn't have that feeling... I'm not going to walk away from this battle thinking 'man I can't wait for the next!' it just doesn't have that." and I see the things he was focusing on and questioning.. but I can't for the life of me tell if it's the difference between a glass half-full/glass half-empty mentality or if he is being more reasonable, and I am the one grasping at straws to embrace something that is rightfully lacking.
And it's frustrating because I don't want to force him to play a game he doesn't like, but I want so badly to explore the game like
@najo has gotten to with his friends, and I want to see what happens when you play more. Because I believe that many of the bad experiences come from inexperience or negative-association with bad dice or such, but I can't tell if I am just turning away from the bad that is really there.
And I respect my friend and his opinion, but if he doesn't see the game as.. an open system that allows us the creative control to design and play out battles.. but rather a game of mechanics stifled by simplicity and devoid of the epic level of fun he was looking for..
I can't reconcile things that are simply opinions.