AoS Second Edition

After playing a few games of 2.0 I can say I really like it! The games seem closer, and our summoning is a lot of fun! Haven't tried a 2k or more list though. Been playing at 1k and mostly team games bc of the crowd! (Good thing, not bad lol)

 

Please do continue to share those reports, they are valuable and important to the community and the mere fact you share already shows you care about the community at large. Again I apoligize for using your name I shouldn't have, sadly I'm rather bad at realizing those things and usually only do when it's too late.

As for my rant against "power gamers", it's a valid way to enjoy the (or well, any) hobby (be it one I don't enjoy much myself). And if you, or anyone else, enjoys building super efficient lists and taking every little advantage you can get to its extreme more power to you. My rant as such wasn't aimed at people playing that way, but more-so at people claiming it should be the reference point for balancing. Balancing that way results in stuff like the rule of one breaking "cool" stuff like infinite ripper's bites, whereas a different approach could retain the "cool" part of these mechanics while keeping em from being overpowered.

 

it's a decent way to Ensure the FoTM doesn't become too dominant & adds some variation to the game. Though it'l depend on how influential those realm rules are.

There's 1 bit I disagree with though. They advice you only pick the specific realm shortly beforehand so players only have a few moments to readup on the realms but can't just tailor their list to the realm. Which is fine for the most part except with regards to magic. Specificly the various bonus spells you get for being in a particular realm. This can lead to particularly big issues if you're expecting a certain spell. For example take the defensive spells in the malin sorcery book we then get:

ghyran: realmblood - a heal
Ghur: Impenetrable hide - re-roll failed saves
Chamon: glittering robe - re-roll saves of 1
Aqshy: Incandescent form - substract 1 from hit rolls aimed at the target
Shyish: Unnatural Darkness - substact 1 from hit rolls aimed at it
Ulgu: Phantasmal guardian - 5+ ward save
Hysh: Healing glow - a heal (no duh..)

Not only do they vary wildly in power, the variation of effects potential synergy is immense and depending on which realm you might fight in your wizard might learn some additional spells with tremendous power, or learn something that has basicly no use in your army at all as you already have 4 differnt ways of getting it (e.g. Ghur & chamon would be fairly pointless in an army with skink priests…)

I'd say that for magic they should use the same approach as with the artifacts and allow you to pick (some) spells for your wizard beforehand by simply stating they come from a certain realm. This way it won't be a gamble if you're wizard is actually going to know something usefull. The other rules associated with the realms seem to be far less extreme in the effects they have in comparison.

 

Picking spells for your wizards would completely go against what they're trying to do: limit extreme-oriented lists and favour all-around lists.

 

I disagree with that on account of the comperativly vast difference in power between the various spells while the other realm rules aren't as extreme.

The other rules only punish overcommiting to a certain extreme. Thus if you have a "balanced" army you shouldn't perform particularly different in each realm. The spells however will be noticable no matter how balanced a list you'l make as some of em might be completly pointless in your army while others might have amazing synergy.

I'd be fine with it if they all had relativly similar spells. But the sheer fact that one realm may give a heal while the other gives a "re-roll failed saves" makes it a bit much of a difference. This means that your wizards can get a completly different role depending on the realm.

The other rules seem to be more on the level of "add -1 to rend of this attack in such and such case". Or "roll a dice during such and such phase, on a 4+ suffer D3 damage". This means that your army still performs the same in each realm. Your archers still shoot, your tarpit still tarpits, your big monster still eats your enemies. None of em change roles, unlike the wizards that can suddenly become healers if they hit the right realm while getting no additional defensive benefits in another since your army already has acces to the mechanic (e.g. the example with skink priests I gave earlier).

Hence the spells feel weird to do this way.

Also, why would artifacts then be acceptable to pick beforehand?

 

So why not help the armies that have no spell lores?

O we'l probably find something usefull in each realm. However given the relative big difference in effects I suspect it'l be frustrating more than anything else, especially if you're playing with "powerfull" wizard armies like ours that have plenty of wizards, but no spell lore to keep em busy with. Especially for the defensive and buff/debuff oriented spells. The damage spells are far more similar in terms of their effects and thus will be far less frustrating to play around the different realms in that aspect.

 

When I pick a wizard for my army, I pick him because he's part of a plan. He is either there because he already has access to a spell that I want to use in my army, or / and to unbind enemy spells. The fact that he gets to choose from a spell lore is a bonus, it doesn't change his primary role. Case could be made for the archers or tarpit you mentionned when they suddenly deal 2 damage instead of 1 because of Inferno Blades. They're still doing their role, but they are suddenly much more potent at it, much like the wizard that got access to a spell lore.

Artefacts work differently because usually you'll only get 1, sometimes 2 or 3 of them in your list. With the lores it's every wizard gets access to every spells.

Let's not pretend that people wouldn't build entire lists around spell lores, which is very much extreme-oriented lists.

 

That's the case when you have a wizard that has a decent special spell (or spell lore), and that you have enough unique spells. And if the realm spells don't bring mechanics you cannot get in any other way. At that point they're only a bonus providing some redundancy and some flexibility to your wizards. However if you have say no acces to any ward-saves then Ulhu's phantasmal guardian is probably going to be a fairly big deal when you gain acces to it, similarly if you have no heals, but a lot of Multi-wound units, gaining Hysh's glowing light will change a lot. In those cases they're not "nice bonusses" but basicly gamechangers as your wizard isn't just doing +1 damage but gained a whole new and crucial ability causing the wizard to change roles.

Alternativly you could think of situations like having 2 starpriests in your army. Given their venom buff this is an entirely reasonable thing to have in your army both for redundancy and to be able to buff more at once. However, one of those two starpriest is now going to be dependent on the spell-lore and thus will see use as a different type of caster depending on the realm (does the realm have good buffs? he'l be buffing. It only has good damage? Than that's what he'l be spamming etc.)


What I think would be best would be to simply have all the realms provide similar enough spells that it's not too big a deal regardless of which realm you end up in. E.g. all realms have a spell that can be used for healing but the way they heal differs. Say one heals little but multiple targets, one heals a lot but only 1 target, one heals but may hurt the caster etc. At least then you can count on having the mechanic of healing, but can't properly min-max around it either. The fact that right now some realms provide something as powerfull a new mechanic as a heal while others merely provide a copy of mystic shield is rather a bad thing for wizards...

A simpler solution would be to just allow us to pick spells beforehand, but yes that will be subject to min-maxing.

None of those realm spells seem to be especially powerfull, the only one I could see being particularly annoying on kroak would be the phantasmal guardian as it pushes his defenses to even more ridiculous levels. But it's not like he really needs that to be mindnumbingly difficult to kill to begin with so I can't imagine that'd be a real issue either.

 

Let's just agree to disagree

 

where's the fun in that

 

Perhaps you might be tempted to start now?

 

One day we will succesfully drag him in
.