• It's time once again to ferret out those murderous vampires in a new VAU - Vampires Amongst Us. A cross between Cluedo and a roleplay, sometimes gory and often hilarious! Find out more and sign-up! here.

Disciple of Nagash

Oldblood
Staff member
Feb 12, 2008
27,732
I've been reading more and more into the background of the AoS, and I've come to realise I did GW an injustice when I dismissed AoS previously because of how much they changed what I had grown up with and loved. There have been some fantastic thought put into AoS, especially the latest realise, and some things are really for the better.

That said, there are also somethings that I still don't like and I thought this would be a good way to share and also highlight to others things they might have missed.


Favourite Change

There are quite a few things I like here. The Mortal Realms I have to give a thumbs up to, now I've read more in the Core Book. Yes the old Warhammer World had time to become developed, but it was very much like other fantasy worlds and based upon ours. The Mortal Realms are much more unique and push the flights of fantasy further. It really encourages players to be able to develop their own little mini worlds and kingdoms, whilst still retaining enough structure for good storytelling.

I like how the "gods" and god-like zodiac creatures are more prevalent, showing how they are working to influence the realms

Chaos actually having already taken over the realms, and the realms having to fight back is also a strong plus for me. Too many fantasy worlds paint a big bad who can never seem to invade more than one place (like how Chaos could never seem to move past the poles in WHFB). You get a real feeling for how potent Chaos is with the amount of land they have hold of

But my most favourite change, is closer to our wonderful vampires. I love - LOVE - the changes to Strigoi xd The concept of them believing they are like Bretonnian knights, full of grandeur and fine armour etc, this derangement overpowering the minds of their Ghoul followers. It's brilliant. It not only shows why these cannibals have semblances of order, but stops them just being mindless beasts they were previously. I'm looking forward to writing some stories with them included.


Worst Change

Firstly, I'm not going to harp on about the gameplay changes here, and for one good reason; I haven't played a game of AoS yet, so it is unfair to do so. I will say that my initial impressions of not being able to use some of the previous tactics like flanking etc does make me wonder whether I'll like it as much, but we'll have to see.

So I'll stick to what I do know, and that is the fluff. I have got to say I still have reservations about Stormcast; the super-soldier good guys is very overdone and whilst I see that GW have done everything they can do make them fit fluffwise, give them more nuances in the latest edition with "losing their humanity", I feel they still stand out.

I mean, I really do understand why GW did it. Fantasy was flagging, they looked at their biggest income for WH40K and tried to replicate it. I suppose if they choice was AoS + Stormcast or scrap the fantasy element altogether, I prefer having the Stormcasts! But I much preferred the mortal armies of the Empire/Elves/Dwarfs as the main good guys

On that note, whilst I understand for IP reasons, some of the renaming has irked me, Malerion? Going to be a while before I stop just saying Elves...

Biggest thing I don't like? Not fully referencing the background of WHFB. I get things had to move on, but why does that mean that in the latest books all the extensive history built up before has to be ignored. There are references of course, take Nagash for example. It says that some believe he was once a mortal man....no, we know he was. We have his full history which was very interesting and a great read. There is no reason why some of the history couldn't cover the iconic events in WHFB (same as AoS covers details in the Age of Myth), with the Battletomes fleshing out the earlier histories of Nagash, Malerion (grr) and so on.

So that's my thoughts, what do you guys think?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Menkeroth

Mad 'At

Dumb enough to work
Staff member
True Blood
Apr 2, 2011
2,378
Grödinge
I never got into AoS, nor do I have any intention of doing so, but I have been keeping up with it a bit by listening to Warhammer Weekly while painting. For me there is little in it catches my interest, but now that you say it DoN I do agree with it being a good thing that Chaos are so strong to start with. WFB always did have a problem with chaos never really doing anything, but in the Mortal Realms there is room for more pushing back and fourth. The good guys can also be shown beating back chaos instead of just defending their walls.

However, there is one thing that recently stuck me that i really dislike about AoS, and that is Archaon. I just wish they would have gotten rid of him. Archaon was a really cool character in WFB, as Everchosen he had managed the incredible feat of uniting the many forces of chaos under a single banner. Very few had done this before him, and all how came before failed in their attempt to bring fourth the End Times. But Archaon did it, in a story that was amazingly epic. One aspect that I really liked about him in the End Times, that I can't quite put my finger on what it was that gave me the impression, was that he felt tiered. He had all this power, but seemed incredibly bored at just about everything. He was sick of being a pawn at the hand of the Choas Gods and just wanted it all to end. So he did, end of story.

Or that's what I thought. Apparently he survived the End Times and has now waged war on the mortal realms for thousands of year. To me this takes away the best parts of his character, but also stripes the Chaos Gods of their character. They are gods of Chaos, they are meant to be fickle in my opinion. It feels wrong to me that they would be content with having Archaon as the Everchosen for this long. I would much have preferred it they had cycled through a few more in battles of the Mortal Realms. Archaon should have been left with his feat of destroying the world. Since his model was quite old during the End Times too, GW had the perfect opportunity to do something new for AoS. I would have greatly preferred some new guy atop that three-headed dragon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Menkeroth

Disciple of Nagash

Oldblood
Staff member
Feb 12, 2008
27,732
nor do I have any intention of doing so
What's the reason(s) for not having any intention of looking for into the AoS? Is it the fluff, change in playstyle, both?


there is one thing that recently stuck me that i really dislike about AoS, and that is Archaon. I just wish they would have gotten rid of him.

I agree with this. Most of the characters that remained from WHFB feel like they belong in some fashion, have evolved and moved forward. Nagash for example perfectly works ruling over Shyish - although I really question the fluff around Sigmar deciding to "wake" him. That just doesn't make sense based on their history. He knows full well Nagash's plans and that he would not stick to any treaty. They could have easily just have had Nagash awaken on his own as some of the others did when they sensed the return of Sigmar.

Anyway, back to Archaon - he destroyed the old world and completed his task, so I do agree with you that it feels like is arc was complete. That was one character who could have ended up as a myth for those who followed Chaos, with new champions vying to take that role. The fact that the Chaos Gods themselves have tried to destroy him and failed also feels off for me, like GW are just trying too much to make a big bad they already have with the Chaos gods.

I'm still undecided on what to make of the Skaven being added to the Chaos bunch, I kinda feel they worked better on their own.
 

benvoliothefirst

Grave Guard
Nov 22, 2011
278
I just got a big delivery from GW, and I'm reading the Malign Portents book now. I think my favorite thing about the new setting is the ability to make old things new again... I like that the old Observatory has now become this new celestial arcanum or whatever (forgive my inability to remember names) and that it has a bigger justification in the world than just being a thing that exists.

I think that's the best part of scrapping the old world in favor of the new, there's potential for everything old to be new again. They can always recycle things, but they don't have to, and that uncertainty makes for some great storytelling.
 

Disciple of Nagash

Oldblood
Staff member
Feb 12, 2008
27,732
Malign Portents book now

Ah, I was wondering whether to buy that, is it worth it?

As for me, the Mortal Realms means everything is new and things can be retold or developed in new ways....but I still wish the legacy of where it came from was still better maintained
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
For the plus:

I, for one, am greatly enjoying how the whole world got expanded many times over and how much possibilities all the realms offer. Old World had lots of free space to put your dudes there, but some things just wouldn't make sense or would seem forced - while in the Mortal Realms almost every crazy idea about your army can be explained and/or handwaved with crazy magic that flows through all the elemental realms. I am currently devising some fluff for a small Skryre force I started collecting and what I have in mind just wouldn't work with the Old World logic, while in AoS it seems completely doable, so there's that :)

Also, all the gates make all the pairings possible - not like in the old world, where Tomb Kings duking it out with Wood Elves was always off and forced at best.

I also like how aesthetically grimdark is the whole setting slowly getting. And how they managed to create a clearly fantastical force that managed to keep the 'swirly bits' to the minimum - Nighthaunts look great with those realistic and believable swords ;)

And the most important part - I just love how GW opened themselves to fans, how they can make fun of themselves, how fun they seem to have with making the game. No matter what you can say about the game itself, how the company behaves right now makes it so much better.

For the minus:

I am still to actually play AoS so I cannot say anything about the gameplay... Well, except for one thing - the special rules. I read many times how people were thankful for getting rid of all the special rules that were in the Big Red Book, making everything much smoother and unique. But, at the same time, every single unit has their own special rules on their scroll - that's much, much more rules to remember than earlier - and if uniqueness was needed, there were always unique special rules for that.

Also, the names. I understand that they are trying to do their own thing and separate themselves from the old guy Tolkien, but it's so forced sometimes... Aelves sound more mystical, cool. Duardin is just their native name, cool. Orruks sound also kinda more barbaric than orcs, cool too. But Ogors? That is just inserting letters into normal names for the heck of it - I think they should have gone with something completely new than staying in this in-between state of old and new...

And the word salad unit names... Grimghast, Myrmourn, Glaivewraith, Dreadscythe, Dreadblade, Bladegheist, to look just in the Nighthaunts range, Nurgle is much worse... We had Varghulfs, Vargheists, Terrorgheists back then, but it seems so over-prevalent right now - as if they're using some scripts to get those names...


Also, regarding the post of @Disciple of Nagash and the treatment of the old world - I understand that they have to do this, to avoid creating too much of a 'metaplot' for the new players. All the things that regard AoS itself is rather vast, especially right now - adding all the WFB stuff into the mix would make it even more difficult to get into. If I imagine myself as a new player, this would make less than enthusiastic - I love some background and lore, but with so little free time it's just difficult to face even more research and reading. Still, I think they could definitely add some small nods here and there to people who know the old stories - just like modern superhero movies make nods to old, old comics that are completely unknown to the movie-only audience. But well, maybe they add them right now - and if so, all is good to me ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Menkeroth

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
I'll split my answer into fluff and rules categories.

Favorite fluff change: as with DoN, it has to be the new lore for the ghouls & ghoul kings. The inability of the ghoulish types to recognize what they've become is a really simple and compelling idea, providing endless opportunities for both drama and comedy. I was skeptical of ghouls as a stand alone faction conceptually, but this one idea absolutely sells it. It's too bad they got such an early book, back before the devs had fully worked out what AoS faction rules should look like, and one without any new model kits, but I'll expand on that complaint later.

Least favorite fluff change: the age of myth. The old warhammer world ended with a chaos victory in a great catastrophy. Then a whole age passes of the non-chaos gods fighting back and claiming their realms, then chaos returns and has a great victory and another age passes, and now the non chaos gods return to fight back and reclaim their worlds. Everything between the first chaos victory and the second is, frankly, redundant. With very few changes to the end times and the current mortal realms, AoS could have been set a few centuries or even mere decades after the destruction of the old world, rather than countless millennie. Given how many of exactly the same faces are running around, not just in terms of gods like sigmar or nagash, but also in terms of lesser figures like drycha or even characters from short lived races like thanquol. And not just around, but largely unchanged in motivation and personality.

I've softened on this point more recently, as GW has started to fill out the history of the age of myth eith interesting details, but still, imo the decision to set the game so much later than the previous one, after an entirely separate chaos apocalypse, just feels needlessly clunky and too far removed from a game that they didn't actually seem willing to cut ties with given the overlap in the primary cast.

Favorite rules change: shifting the weight of rules from core rules with standardized equipment and universal special rules to individual unit 'warscrolls' with bespoke special rules & equipment allows for much more unique and flavorful mechanics. Yeah, it also makes balance worse and harder, but we're also getting regular, system eide updates, faqs, and points adjustments now, so if something's a problem we don't have to waid half a decade for a fix.

Least favorite rules change: batch pricing. Instead of taking the number of models you want in a unit and paying points per model, at least in pitched battle you have to purchase your units in multiples of a set batch size. Did you trade a single morghast to a chaos playing friend to convert into a daemon prince? Well now the other one is useless. The starter box comes with four grimghast reapers when their batch size and only box size is ten, so the starter box reapers are badically unusable. Flesh eaters are hit especially hard by this, since their imprtant courtier heroes don't have models, you're supposed to convert them from regular models, which leaves the rest of the box unusable. Very frustrating. A lot of communities will let you play fractional prices for fractional units, but that's house rules that not all groups and basically no events allow.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Menkeroth

El Syf

Vargheist
Dec 4, 2011
648
Eastbourne
Favourite lore change: GW not being afraid to move things on timeline wise; I know it could be argued this started with end times but it's nice I feel the setting can grow and different races wax and wane.
Least favourite lore change: as others have said Archaon still bein around let alone grand Marshall of the apocalypse doesn't sit too well with me. Undead characters popping back up I can understand; nagash is the god of death if he wants to bring former generals back he can. But as others have pointed out in lord of the end at least Archaon was portrayed as disenchanted and wanting an end to it all and not the chaos gods golden boy.
Rules wise I'm not too sure but the the shooting fiasco being addressed is A good thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Menkeroth

Mad 'At

Dumb enough to work
Staff member
True Blood
Apr 2, 2011
2,378
Grödinge
What's the reason(s) for not having any intention of looking for into the AoS? Is it the fluff, change in playstyle, both?

I've thought about this a bit over the year and realised it is quite complex. The fluff plays a big part, as there is little in it that seems interesting to me. It is much too grandiose and epic for my taste. The world dosn't feel tangible when everything is over the top and incredible. Like Syndrome said: "When everyone is super, no one will be". I know GW has started looking more into the life of the commoners in the realms, and that is good, but I miss the politics and the intrigue. Too much bashing heads or the world ends.

About the game, there are certainly both goods things and bad things to say about it. To me the biggest issue is that I feel I've become spoiled with the rules writing of The 9th Age. I look at AoS rules and I just remember the parts of warhammer that I miss the least: the inconsistent wordings, the endless rules debates, the broken combos, the unflavourful loopholes. As a rules judge at tournaments I never want to go back to having to reference and look up 15+ official FAQs, 1+ unofficial FAQ and still not being able to sort a situation out. Even going to tournaments I often had to ask the organizer beforehand so that I would know how certain rules would be played. With T9A there are the official rules document and at most an FAQ, and if I do find a situation that cannot be solved, I can be sure that leak will be patched in the next version if I report it. AoS if anything seems to have only gotten worse in this regard when compared to 8th.

Overall though it is also a matter of time. I enjoy The 9th Age too much to be looking at game to replace it, and I simply don't have the time to engage in more games. If I did want to get into AoS, I'm sure I could. As with everything, if you are willing to invest yourself in a game and a setting, you will enjoy it. I just don't have the reason to do so with AoS.
 

Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
let's see...

What I like about AoS:

1. The game is easy to get into (great for the hobby in general and for gaining new players)
2. The getting started kits. Cheap (for GW standards) and friendly for beginners
3. games are fast
4. making lists with points for matched plays is incredibly fast. 5 minutes and i can do 2 or 3 competitive lists.
5. units move fast, even the slowest ones are much more manoveurable than the ones in oldhammer
6. Monster's getting less effective as they are wounded.
7. Mixed armies, cause finally i can field that allegiance of Dwarfs and Empire.
8. Synergies rule the games, and thanks to that, everything can be more or less effective
9. new armies are cool

What I dislike about AoS:

1. destruction of the old world.
2. discontinued armies. I hate that.
3. the rules are spread out all over the place rather than neatly organized in the BRB + army book. You need the battletome of your army, the general's hanbook, the allegiance books...
4. some of the new names (Khorne grinder of bloodied skullgore and similar)
5. no more ranks/flanks, with associated bonuses/penalties. Napoleonic war is fun.
6. despite the customization with artefacts and Allegiance abilities, heroes and wizards still feel much more generic.
7. Mixed armies. I like to play the strenghts and weaknesses of my beloved army, not to play an empowered mix.
8. movement is sometime excessive. Certain armies can enter in melee with you in the first turn and devastate your line before you begin to play!




the game is very tactic... but in a totally different way from WHFB
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kassill

El Syf

Vargheist
Dec 4, 2011
648
Eastbourne
Rules wise a big negative would be customization of characters, very specifically vampire lords.
In 8th edition you could tool them up to be absoloute beasts in combat and pretty good casters too. I miss spending 400+ points on a vampire lord and charging him in with a unit of blood knights (back when being charged by blood knights would worry am opponent) and pretty much wiping out whatever they came into contact with. :(
 

Disciple of Nagash

Oldblood
Staff member
Feb 12, 2008
27,732
Lots of good points made xd Plus some more insights into the game I hadn't realise either

Also, all the gates make all the pairings possible - not like in the old world, where Tomb Kings duking it out with Wood Elves was always off and forced at best.
Yes, I like this one as well. At times in the Old World it felt like they were pushing it with some of the match-ups - the gateways in the Mortal Realms make this more realistic, but it does seem like gateways pop up everywhere. I thought them to be relatively rare, to be fought over by armies. But more and more battletomes seem to discover new ones.


I just love how GW opened themselves to fans
Definitely one of the biggest improvements. The engagement with GW is much better than it used to be, and more responsive, although still some way to go

every single unit has their own special rules on their scroll
This I don't like. I know that some people want their units to feel special, but to @Mad 'At is right with "When everyone is super, no one will be". I don't mind army wide special rules, and in the case of the Legions of Nagash, I'd have been much happier with something akin to army-wide Fear or immunity to Fear.

Plus, apart from some really specific ones (and it was fair enough for some special units), at least we all had an idea of what our opponents could do. Now, I'd need to understand all the special rules for my opponent as well

Least favorite rules change: batch pricing.
Yup, another big dislike from me. Why I can't have unit sizes the way I want them? It really cannot be that hard to multiply one value by another - everyone had phones with calculators now anyway!

You need the battletome of your army, the general's hanbook, the allegiance books...
The Battletome thing does irk me, especially where previously they were one army, like Chaos Daemons. I get that GW are trying to make things flexible, but then that goes onto this point:
Mixed armies.

I don't like how it feels at times that everyone can be allied with everyone! The fact of Sigmar and Nagash initially buddying up is ridiculous. An army which had certain restrictions and strengths that forced you to play was much better for me. Also, am I right in thinking there isn't an Empire style Battletome out there?

Rules wise a big negative would be customization of characters

I didn't even think of that until you mentioned it :'( Now I do, it is a big loss, I loved customising my characters, starting in the Warhammer world back when it was herohammer - who remembers the S7, T6 Vampire Lords? Give him the Hydra Blade and he generated extra D6 attacks for each successful initial to-hit rolls xd

Awwwww....now I'm missing my herohammer
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kassill

Kassill

Grave Guard
Sep 28, 2011
221
I never feel fully up to par in the lore category, but from I what I knew the old world was fun but as some have said, kind of samey/expected for a fantasy setting. As for gameplay I argued very hard for rank and flank initially and swore off AoS, but a year or so after I realized I was the only one in my circle that liked that style of play, and now that we've jumped into AoS and given it a go, I realize I much prefer all of us having fun together. Sometimes you have to let go of things before you can really enjoy something.

Favorite changes:
-Faster, smoother gameplay
-ease of access for older and newer players
-the layers of what kind of game you want to play
-new and exciting world/lore setting
-more dynamic figures that aren't limited to rank and flank static poses

Least favorite changes:
-Loss of the old world (regardless, I still loved that setting and it's tropes)
-Loss of character customization (I had not though of that either till just now...sadness)
-Name changing for the sake of uniqueness...
 

benvoliothefirst

Grave Guard
Nov 22, 2011
278
Ah, I was wondering whether to buy that, is it worth it?

I kinda skimmed it quickly for the story and I'm still painfully teaching my gaming group HeroQuest so I haven't started playing AoS yet so I'd say you can safely skip it. A lot of the story is available on the Malign Portents site.

HOWEVER, Nagash: Undying King is worth every penny and I'd say is MANDATORY for anyone on this site! The final battle... OH MY LORD:

Nagash can't move his corporeal form, so he manifests himself as a NECROLITH COLOSSUS, straight out of Forge World's MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM!!! It was bittersweet seeing the updated M.C. rules recently, because as nice as it is that they're still supporting the Forge World Warhammer stuff, I always wanted to see what they would've done with a second volume and/or the Black Fire Pass supplement they were supposedly working on. But this made me feel like they might still get to it one day... hasn't been abandoned yet!
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Yeah, Malign Portents were cool in the moment, but that moment has come and gone. Most of the best/relevant fluff is off the malign portents website and not in the book anyway, and the malign portent rules themselves, while conceptually interesting, aren't particularly fun to play with, imo. Shame they couldn't have worked out some sort of tarot card fortune telling type system. Bah, whatever.

Do check out malignportents.com for the short stories, though. They're pretty good, nicely atmospheric, and much lower down in terms of PoV than the vast majority of AoS fluff, so you get a feel for the normal people struggling to live their lives and defend their only recently established homes in the mortal realms.

Fluff-wise, Undying King *is* an absolute must. I'm working my way through Soul Wars as well, and so far that's really good, too. The core rulebook is pretty good if you happen to have ended up with one after splitting a box or two for the nighthaunt models in it, otherwise $60 is a bit much, and wiki timelines will fill you in on most of that stuff. Mortarch of Night / Lord of Undeath, the two novels which most involve the undead out of the Realmgate War story arc that stretched over most of 1e are... well, they're alright, if you're looking for more, or want a better idea of what the undead were up to between Undying King and Malign Portents.

Which mostly amounted to Nagash spinning his wheels, playing Sigmarite and Chaos forces off of each other, teasing like he might join up with Sigmar if only to keep the stormcasts off his back, while simultaneously making a big fake show of his forces being in disarray and one of his mortarchs in open rebellion in order to justify never actually following through on the military commitment that such an alliance would require of him, so that his not-actually-in-disarray undead legions could be fully committed to building

tumblr_pbs3tmed8Q1woua6zo1_400.png


For use in the necromantic ritual that kicks off the Soul Wars novel.

Whoops, it seems I just told you everything the undead are up to in Mortarch of Night / Lord of Undeath. I guess you don't need to bother with them after all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Menkeroth

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
On the issue of special rules, I find it much easier to have them all on the warscrolls. It makes them much quicker to find if I forget anything and after playing a number of games using the same scrolls, it becomes easy to remember what they all do. It's just a change for all those of us who played Warhammer for years and are not used to it.

There are a lot of positives coming out of Age of Sigmar recently, most notably linked to the development of the lore, which is progressing very well. The thing that it is still troubling me though is the number of books and expansions. I accept the argument that not all of these are required to play the game, but a lot of them are required to get the most out of the game. Having played just using the free online rules and warscrolls, I can assure you that it doesn't make for an overly enriching experience, but to obtain that experience requires spending rather a lot of money, too much in my opinion, especially given that some books are going to be updated annually. If, like me, you don't have many opportunities to play (I can normally only play about twice or three times a year these days), it feels like a poor return for your money. If you play every week, then you probably won't mind.
 

Menkeroth

A Knight of Blood
Nov 11, 2013
934
Sehnde, Niedersachsen
My favorite changes are the setting overhaul fluffwise and "streamlining" of the game playwise, while things like name change (not all, but as others have already pointed out, sometimes they are just dumb) and some inconsistency in the lore development when GW is pushing back and forth without a clear idea of what they want are the worst. But not bad in the long run.
 

space cowboy

Zombie
Jun 17, 2010
35
So here is my caveat: I played literal zero games of AoS 1.0. I am a WFB guy from back in the 4th edition days and played every version from then on except AoS 1.0. I have played several games of 2.0, however, so let that information inform you on the value of my opinion.

What I like:
1 - Smoother, faster gameplay. I am a husband and father, and my friends who play are also of the adult variety. This lets us get in a game or two in a reasonable amount of time instead of basically an entire day.
2 - Squad-based movement. This kind of falls under #1, but I like squad-based movement rather than maneuvering units (especially if one or both people don't have movement trays) in big blocks.
3 - Undead are just better. I feel like I am playing a game that involves my entire army, not just ablative hit points for my heroes. That may be fun for some (or many), but for me the fact that even skeletons are more than just a tar pit is a breath of fresh air.
4 - The lore. I really enjoy the new direction for the lore, but moreso with Malign Portents. Having your army able to not just be an alignment, but also from a realm, with realm-specific artifacts (even if you don't get a ton of them in an army). This can inform an entire look to your army to give it much more flavor and just a better feel as you paint, play, and think about the hobby.

What I dislike:
1 - Players being left behind. This is a bit nebulous, but it encompasses everything from obsolete armies to armies that made the transition that don't play the same. I know GW is trying to sell a new game with new minis, and they are under no obligation to make the miniatures of the past compatible with the present and future, but it still feels bad. The best example of this is my friend who played High Elves. We were learning AoS 2.0 together, and he just didn't have fun because neither Swifthawk Agents nor Grand Alliance Order reflect what interested him in High Elves to begin with. He bought in for elite troops that strike first and a bit of magic, and that is not what Aelves are now. I felt bad that his army was no longer something he found value in. I feel especially bad for those who can't swing the cost of a new army to find what they like now.

2 - Anything other than Matched Play/Pitched Battles. Basically anything that doesn't use points to generate the armies. I understand the desire for GW to be able to say "Buy what you want, bring what you own, and play", but it is dangerous to not (basically) evenly match both sides. Not for any tournament level play or anything, we still have points for that, but for kitchen table play.

3 - Poorly designed terrain and realm effects. If you are going to play in a realm, and with terrain, the randomness shouldn't overly benefit/handicap one side or the other. A Realm of Light realm effect of "-1 bravery to all Order units" or "-1 bravery to all Chaos, Death, and Destruction units" are *lazy* designs, no matter how thematic they may seem.
 

About us

  • Our community has been around for many years and pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion among people of all different backgrounds. We are working every day to make sure our community is one of the best.

Quick Navigation

User Menu