AoS Age of Sigmar Rumours - Mk II. (Our new name)

Rubberbands, obviously!

 

Two theories: 1) Smaller games encourages us veterans to branch out to new armies. For example. I now have a greater incentive to make a small-scale Bretonnia army, where before I was uncertain about making a big one. 1b) New players will have the same thought about their first army. 2) I doubt the Stormborn Eternals are the last new model line. I'd bet we see loads more in the coming months. Like lizardpeople with jetpacks and lightsabers (I hope I hope I hope).

EDIT: 3) Maybe they just want to be nice for once (siiiiiiigh...)

 

I imagine it's just a way to placate veteran players for now and GW will figure out a way to empty vet's wallets later.

 

I hereby declare this great Predatory Fighter debate... over.

 

So there's actually no balancing mechanic... Even if we did say 'a ten scroll game', there's no upper limit to unit sizes so I could just have 10 units of 100 chaos warriors or something stupid. I don't get how anyone would think a game with no way of balancing the two forces against each other is a good idea..?

 

Wall of Text ahead. TL;DR, this lack of army-composition regulation is super weird, but small armies might actually have a chance against enormous cheeseballs, and the situation might actually benefit the veterans... but I don't know yet if I want to play.

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I'm going to deliberately dust off my rose-colored glasses, don them, and opine on something I saw related (in much more colourful language) in the comments on another site. My concerns about no restrictions on unit size *might* be a little premature:

I say this because of the "Sudden Death Table." I won't dare re-type it here, but it's in the links in this thread. If you're outnumbered by 33% of your army or more, apparently at the start of the game, then you gain access to certain "Sudden Death" victory conditions, which look far easier than actually beating your opponent the old fashioned way. One of these in particular, "Endure," might be a Dwarf player's dream come true, or "Seize Ground" for the one weirdo who brings just a team of ten carnosaurs to the party. A focused team that anticipates, even desires, being outnumbered, might actually be competitive.

So, small armies may actually have a competitive chance.

Additionally, a nuanced reading of the "Army" and "Set-Up" sections suggests to me that your potential army is your whole collection. You do not appear to be bound by a previously constructed "list." I say this because "your army" appears to be defined by what you actually deploy in Set-Up (where it says "This is your army."), not anything that you announced beforehand. You can deploy whatever parts of that collection you want, reacting to your opponent's alternating deployments, and you aren't required to deploy the whole collection. This adds a layer of potential depth and, uh, "maskirovka," for lack of a better word, that was previously unknown to us. For example, you could deceive your opponent into thinking you're going to eventually deploy a lot of war machines, so they bring in otherwise-useless countermeasures, but then you never deploy your WMs, and your opponent hates your guts (I actually hope I've misunderstood this part because it would be a total dick move, but I can see it being fun for some gamers who agree on it in advance.)

./takes off the glasses.

I'm still worried, because this is totally unknown territory - I don't know if these special win conditions are actually that easy. Also, I can still imagine outlandish matchups. For example - nothing in my reading suggests that you have to stop placing units when your opponent does. The rules currently permit you to keep going until your opponent is so outnumbered that nothing they have matters. Developing that capability may be prohibitively expensive for most players, but it still looks rules-legal right now.

Also, I don't need to be outnumbered by 33% to be at a fatal disadvantage. From harsh experience, I know that losing 200 points, out of a 2500 point army, on Turn One to a war machine, frequently means I lose the game. If my opponent has fifty war machines, claiming (and currently, rightly) this is rules-legal, then... I would be unhappy.

Anyway, one last note, this army-building arrangement, looked at in the bleakest light, might actually benefit the veterans. You guys often speak of your collections of twenty-one Kroxigors, or seven carnosaurs, eight stegadons, fifteen ripperdactyls, or untold hundreds of skinks. If that whole collection is potentially your army, what newbie with a starter set will be able to match you, even with special win conditions?

Put another way, in this bizarre new world, if I've understood the rules right, veterans are no longer the newbie's plausible battlefield equals - they are unrivaled superpowers with impossibly vast reserves of manpower and materiel. It's not just that a starter army is inflexible; in the proper meta it is always hopelessly outgunned (absent some kind of kind-hearted agreement).

All that said, I totally understand if veterans don't want to play this. I'm still kinda queasy myself. I rather hope I've misread something, or that the rules we've seen are incomplete. Oh, and the warscrolls for existing models could totally blow chunks. That would be disheartening too.

 

The tin foil hat no longer seems to be deflecting rumours, the information is coming thick and fast and are pretty well backed up now.
TBH I'll just go with whatever my local gaming group goes with. I love all the models I've collected so there's no regret there and I'm sure there will be something that fills the 8th Edition Warhammer void.

 

...armor save failed..?

 

Maybe "Ok, I roll a ward save... oh... I, uh, don't actually have a ward save..."

 

Despite my attempts at optimism, this is approximately how I feel.

I think it would be silly to *not* try the game out, for the precise reason you identify However, I have yet to see something that made me want to buy things, and just now I deliberately bought the last two models I wanted second-hand off eBay, just to avoid giving GW the misimpression that I was supporting this seismic shift.

Maybe a month from now I'll be genuinely enthusiastic. Maybe this game will be fun! But for now, enthusiasm takes more effort than I can maintain forever.

 

Yeah, I'm interested to have a look for sure, but I think the local players I know will most likely stick with 8th.

 

Write your own scrolls? Do mods as you see fit. Act like a paying customer.

I really thought that is what they would do. And maybe they will eventually, anyway. There could be something on the 'cutting room floor' that the marketing gurus/IP lawyers have decided to axe ... for now.

If I must be thought of as a domesticated animal then I prefer "sheep that is tired of being fleeced". And, BTW a customer = buys products; a costumer = makes costumes; a customizer = makes one of a kind models or does custom work. I know: Pesky, tricksey, vowels ... best to get them sorted.

In agreement. If GW is not selling enough stuff it is because they don't make a sufficiently appealing product.

Ummm. How is that again?

Not agreeing much here. Why did you like the list building exactly?
​

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But as I have been saying all along... Lizardhammer ...maybe the time has come.

 

Would you feel more encouraged if the starter box had included more models for some of the older factions?

A pair of Lizards
An Orc; a Goblin
A Bret knight, An Empire knight
A couple of Wights/dead things
A pair of rats
Two new Ogres
A pair or Norscans
Some elfses

instead of
​

Five of the Board and Anvil Siggy guys
and Ten less Chaos guys.

About the same model count, but more variety.

 

You're definitely not the only one. There is no chance of me leaving 8th edition for this sorry excuse of game.

I remember reading that too.


To be honest it could have been worse (speaking of the situation... not the game, which looks to be about as bad as it could be). While I was hoping for a really solid 9th edition, my biggest fear was the release of a mediocre edition that fragmented the community. AoS looks to be terrible, so there is a greater chance that more folks will stick with 8th. I know that many people will move on from 8th, but my hope is that a significant number stay behind and keep it alive.