True, and in all honesty I don't mind "simple" strategies like deathstars that are effeciently countered by "simple" counters like a big spell of doom. In essence that's fine. It's not the simplicity that I take issue with, plenty of abusive tactics can be freakisly complicated. What I take issue with is when a deathstar can only be countered by a big spell of doom, or when a big spell of doom Always counters a deathstar. Or when it simply becomes a matter of "who goes first". Or when the abusive tactic basicly just breaks some core aspect of the game, usually a physics or movement-related rule. And for some reason way too many games use that balancing approach, and what I personally find far more confusing far too many "hardcore" players seem to prefer it for some godforsaken reason cuz it allows them to look cool, despite them doing nothing more than just abusing cheezy tactics, (after all, who doesn't like to cast the big spell of doom and blow up half an army). When that happens the game tends to get decided either by sheer luck (yay you rolled a succesfull spell of doom before my deathstar did a succesfull charge) or the actuall game is kind of moot as the outcome is more or less decided by the metagame that happens beforehand (yay, you picked a list that counters my list, unless I'm a god or you're a complete idiot I stand no change of winning). And lastly, it tends to force you the play the game a certain way. Basicly you can choose; use one of the abusive playstyles or be stomped. No idea if WFB was balanced that way, it's just something I really really dislike and made me want to rant . AOS does a relativly decent job so far of avoiding that particular pitfall in my (addmittadly limited) experience, which is one of the reasons why I do think it's a fairly good game.
Luckily there are multiple other ways to counter a deathstar besides a big spell of doom... templates (like breath weapons or stone throwers, etc.) other death stars redirection neutralization use of movement & terrain (because death stars are typically awkward to move and have a huge footprint) Those are some of the examples I could think of, but there could be many others depending on your creativity, army compositions and specifics to a particular situation. In regards to the big spell of doom, those don't always work. The magic phase can be quite unpredictable. You may not roll well, your opponent may stop it, or your wizard might be killed. So while uber spells are a hard counter to deathstars, they are far from absolute.
As long as all players in the group are of the same mindset I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. If everyone is ultra competitive and list optimizing for the win, that is okay. It is also okay if everyone is into fun lists, or narrative lists, etc. It's when you mix those groups that you have problems. I (obviously) don't play AoS, so any insight I have is based purely on what I have heard from others. However, from what I have gathered, AoS suffers from game breaking lists/tactics just like other games do. I've heard of armies being blasted off the table in turn 1 or 2. Games with this many rules, units and compositions will always be susceptible to such exploits. If you want a miniature wargame that is the cleanest in that regard, your best bet is probably The 9th Age since they place VERY emphasis on minimizing such builds/tactics and are constantly tweaking the game to ensure the best balance.
It's not competitive vs "fun" or "narrative", it's a specific way of balancing. The "hardcore" players simply tend to like it cuz it fits well with crushing your opponent and it easily achieves a shallow kind of complexity that looks very impressive from the outside. Also, in my experience the people liking that approach tend to be the "fake"-competitive ones. In videogames it'd be the people that claim a game is difficult when it artificially creates problems by for example demanding you make a blind jump or having an attack set up from a blind spot, demanding that you learn by trial and error what the correct way forward is... Winning isn't so much a matter of being good as much as it is a matter of knowing the game well, with enough time everyone can figure it out (provided they're not complete idiots) Needless to say, some people will like it, it just gets annoying when a game you like gets ruined because people push it in a direction you don't like. And this particular group of people tends to be quite vocal... What you said about deathstars simply gave me flashbacks to some issues I've had with some videogames, and pointless discussions I've had over em , hence the rant, I'm sure i does, so far it seems relativly limited fom what I can tell though, and yeah virtually any game has it, at least for the first few hundred years it exists, but say chess and football seem to have worked out the kinks by now . Admittadly I'm not playing at any significant level so I might simply be saved the horror.
But this sort of attitude/behavior is not exclusive to 8th edition. Your speaking of a personality type, and as such, it is likely found across just about all games. There will always be people who choose to play a game in this manner. I see nothing wrong with it as long as they remain positive and play the game fairly with like minded individuals. In terms of the difference between knowing the game well and being good, I'd say knowing the game well is the first step in being good at any game. That could definitely be possible, as I don't play the game and pay only a little bit of attention to it, I cannot say one way or another.
True, I just find it an extremely annoying, and in my experience it encourages people to be that guy. And playing with that guy I don't find to be much fun. And since the game encourages it you essentially end up with a playerbase that largely consists of that guy. So meh. As for knowing the game versus being good, yes it is the first step to it. But if you can read a single guide and be on equal footing something's screwed up in the learning curve of your game, and for the examples I'm thinking of this seemed to be the case with some regularity. Turn based games fortunatly seem a lot less suspectible to it. Anyways, I'l stop ranting before I've completly derailed the thread
A humorous aside, why is it that I've never heard of deathstar counters being referred to as Luke Skywalkers?
I take issue with GW killing the old world. Have not read enough sigmar fluff because I have no desire to pay money for the books
Well I guess you asked for it. I tried to follow the path of the Jedi, but you've pushed me towards the dark side... And here we go.... Spoiler: How a WFB player views AoS: I hope you are happy @Lord-Marcus
Darkness Rises, and Light to meet it! I certainly love the look of these Shadespire Fyreslayers! Certainly one of the best-looking teams so far, along with the Black Orc team. We have a Runefather leader standing on the skull of a big monster he has killed (because he has a latch-key Grandaxe), with a Hearthguard Berzerker (the one on the right) and two Vulkites, an ordinary one on the far left and a Karl in between him and the Runefather. Probably the thing I'm most pleased with is that GW say that there will be two AoS warscrolls for these chaps (according to Warhammer Community), so I'm imagining there will be one for the Runefather, giving the Fyreslayers their first named character, and another for the three Chosen Axes that accompany him. This will be especially brilliant because I can include the Runefather as another named character in my unofficial Cult of Grimnir army book for Fantasy that details Slayer armies and attempt to tie him in with Fantasy lore (basically saying he existed before the End Times occurred, it's just that GW never noticed him until he got himself lost in Shadespire with his men). In addition, to represent the Chosen Axes, I thought that in Fantasy the Runefather character can choose a unit of Troll or Giant slayers to accompany and they can be upgraded to the Chosen Axes for an extra few points per model, which will give them a bonus of some sort (re-roll all failed to Hit rolls I was thinking). I'm really excited for these chaps to come out!
So as people happily playing our game instead of the WFB's who're constantly complaining that everything was better back in their day and we have it so easy now whereas they had to play the game uphill in a snowstorm both ways every day?
Yea... but I have the high ground! Hahaha. God that was such a shitty end to what could have been a decent action movie. Of course even as Achilles died, at least he had lived a glorious life and is remembered across history and time. Paris (Mr. Bloom) saw his whole city decimated and didn't fair much better in the end according to the source material: Now imagine the two of them meeting in the afterlife. I know who I'd have my money on. Achilles was awesome! The movie flopped but Achilles was great. That opening sequence has to be one of the best ever and the Hector fight was great too. "You gave him the honor of your sword. You won't have eyes tonight, you won't have ears or a tongue. You will wander the underworld blind, deaf, and dumb, and all the dead will know - this is Hector, the fool who thought he killed Achilles." It was (is) a beautiful game. A glorious game. I still enjoy it today. I find it rather fitting that the Age of Sigmar reigns during a time when the Tide Pod challenge has arisen. Poetic in my eyes.