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Heelanhammer Talks Behind The Scenes On Age Of Sigmar Rules Changes
April 27, 2016 by brennon
The Heelanhammer Podcast has now released their newest episode where they talk about workings Behind The Scenes as they joined forces with Games Workshop to help with the changes coming to Age of Sigmar this summer.
They talk a little bit about the background to the decisions made to take Age of Sigmar in a new direction. You can Download The Podcast from a variety of different sources - give it a listen and let us know what you think of the news on The Generals Handbook.
The podcast is about forty five minutes long and goes into detail about how they were approached.
It's a great listen!
"...give it a listen and let us know what you think of the news on The Generals Handbook"
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Can anyone give the Cliffnotes?
Called The General’s Handbook and should contain around…
5 Campaigns, 22 Battleplans, 6 Pitched Battles, Multiplayer Teamplay & Warscroll Points
…I urge you to listen to the podcast though as it really does push forward the enthusiasm behind this project.
I’m probably not going to get to it any time soon, and it’s probably not going to be enough to get me over my dislike of the ruleset and minis to get me playing AoS. I’m mainly interested in this from an industry-watching point of view and seeing how GW and AoS evolve. Is it going to be a book you have to buy or will it, or at least the basics, be a free download?
It sounds like a book right now. There hasn’t been any news on whether or not there will a download.
Cheers 🙂
Very interesting stuff. The general’s Handbook sounds like a pretty seismic shift in AoS, and certainly seems like it will open up all kinds of new options for the game.
I am left wondering if the different styles of play will survive long term though – there was a time when points were optional in Old Hammer as well, but over time the use of points came to dominate and squeeze out other types of game. I wonder if we will see that again, or if this time GW will be able to sustain rules support for multiple different types of game play?
Either way, the return of an option for points should please a lot of established Warhammer gamers who have been on the fence about AoS, which is a good thing for both the game and the community.
I think it’ll either wind up being the dominant mode of play or not take root at all. I can’t see there being much middle ground. As you say, way back in the day WFB 1st ed had what AoS is calling ‘open play’, if anything it had even less structure than AoS, but the arrival of army lists helped the game take off and become the dominant mode of play. I realise that current players of AoS might not agree, but I do hope matched play does become successful, as it’ll help AoS become a success.
There are already a number of point systems for AoS (despite the folks arguing that they aren’t needed).
I think the community will embrace point values.
Well, I just listened to it. It is great that GW asked them in to discuss the new rules, etc. From the sounds of it they were very receptive to the input and if they thought something didn’t work than GW tossed it and put in something else (specifically scenario’s).
From the sounds of it if you are going to play scenario’s that they by there very nature may not be “balanced” in the way that matched play would be.
I will probably never be a matched player or tournament player but I think it is good that they are making this option for those that really want it. I don’t think that tournament play is what drives a game, though, it is obvious that it does increase exposure among gamers.
I hope GW continues to interact and work with those in the community that want the game to be a success.
It drives some games though it’s important not to conflate what GW are calling matched play with tournament play. The latter obviously depends upon the former, but not vice versa. The introduction of army lists didn’t help with WFB’s rapid growth because it allowed for tournaments, but because it provided a structure.
It’s just going to start the treadmill all over again. “Oh, gee. I don’t have enough points for the standard size game everyone around here plays, so I better buy some more figures.”
Indeed. Because it is physically impossible for people to talk to other people and agree on smaller battles?
Wouldn’t you have that issue no matter whether points were used or not. If everyone does open play at larger army sizes than you have, wouldn’t you be incentivised to buy more figures?
I do get that in open play there’s nothing stopping you turning up with a smaller army and claiming one of the instant win conditions*, but wouldn’t the incentive still be there to move up to the army size everyone else is playing?
*IIRC this is how the rules attempted to balance numerically smaller armies.
But right now, sans points, people go into it knowing they are going to need to be more flexible with regard to army size, it’s effectively part of the game; ‘how much of my collection am I going to use?’. With points, standard game sizes are going to develop and people will be expecting to play at those sizes, when someone comes along that doesn’t fit, to play them you are compromising your expectations/enjoyment.
Out of genuine curiousity, to the people who play AoS regularly, how do you normally go about figuring out what size of army you will use? If matched play turns into the default setting for the game, how do you think it will it impact on you?
Sure, that’s how it works now, but if they don’t want to play smaller? Having three “different ways to play” just creates more fracture points. You can agree to anything. You can play 40k without points. How often do you see that happen?
With points you are going to get a “regular” size game. Sure you can play smaller, and if you have a nice tight group of players it will work out. But if you are showing up at a store to play on Sigmar Saturday, a standard is going to evolve and if some gets stuck playing you at a smaller size, they’re not going to be happy. so now you are ruining someone else’s game.
On that I agree wholeheartedly, though don’t necessarily see it as a bad thing for AoS, though obviously it may be for some current players. Having a standardised version of the game you can turn up to a club or store and know you’ll get a game at is good for the growth of the game IMO.
If they go with a simpler point system, like Warmachine or Malifaux, then resizing your force is fast.
I suppose we’ll see.
Sounds a bit like the General’s Compendium from days of old.
I’m not entirely sure there is much difference between these “three ways of playing” to me.
Open Play: (unbound) standard AoS buy everything, give us your money £££ agenda here (which was 40K’s doing, before anyone blames Age of Sigmar for it… 40K was the test pilot here).
Narrative: buy a fixed army £££ and play a “narrative” campaign – I assume this is basically “Formations £££” with the “narrative” slapped on: classic misdirection … Again, blame 40K not Age of Sigmar. Getting people to buy fixed formations from the webstore / a specific amount of units to get a special rule is the agenda here.
Match: (tournament) Appeasement – but a lot will be forgiven if the points are FREE. Maybe this is something some of the disgruntled GW game designers have been pushing for – maybe the people at the top finally gave in to at least one of their annoyances.
Proof is in the pudding – but this seems like an incredible exercise in misdirection to me… And so.. they played a scenario and they told Jarvis that the scenario didn’t work so it was auto-binned? WHAT??? Can we just think about that for a second? They wrote a scenario that was debunked after a single round of play testing ? GW didn’t play test before they invited these folks along ? Are they the *only* play testers!? This sounds like a PR stunt… I don’t want to be negative as this seemed like an amazing thing, but once I listened to the podcast alarm bells started ringing all over the place.
And there’s something truly ridiculous about people saying “oh now we can play the game how we want” < that's always been how it was. I can't be the only one who remembers WD battles which featured armies just thrown onto the table without points, and the various campaign books and WD narrative scenarios thrown out every month.
You keep talking about misdirection like this is all some grand conspiracy @poosh, which I think on the one hand gives GW too much credit for being organized enough to conspire toward much of anything effectively, but at the same time also seems to cast GW in an unreasonably Machiavellian role – the more parsimonious explanation is that AoS is a new system and they are working through a few early kinks. Sure, it isn’t as slick and well organized as it might be (I remind you this is GW we are talking about, so that isn’t a huge surprise – they have always had a slightly ad hoc approach to everything), and you could even argue it is unprofessional for such a relatively large (in war gaming industry terms) modern company, but that is hardly the same thing as a level of manipulative villainy that is deserving of its very own volcano lair.
It seems to me that GW is throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, and unusually doing it fairly openly rather than behind closed doors. That is odd, but doesn’t rise to the level of being sinister, at least to my mind.
Then again, maybe I am simply insufficiently cynical, and won’t see GW’s evil bid for world domination until their legions of attack lawyer storm troops besiege the capitols of the world, and a new age of brutal tyranny begins marked by ever escalating model prices, the public execution of the owners of competing wargaming companies, and the expenditure of billions so that GW can create their very own Inquisition (nobody expects the GW Inquisition!) to cement their hold on power…
I, for one, welcome our new war gaming overlords… 😉
I realise you’re creating a strawman with your “Machiavellian references” but please keep in mind Games Workshop is a company that went after a single mother who was raising money for war veterans, because her weird sci-fi romance novel had “Space Marine” in the title.
So yeah, You are being insufficiently cynical.
A very basic PR stunt is not exactly conspiracy material is it?
It’s not exactly difficult to say “let’s pick some online personality “in the community” and have them come over for a few days of play testing, so we can have some positive PR”. I’m not saying that was the defo agenda and I hope it isn’t – but I find it extraordinary that a studio that employs professional game designers had to invite 3 randoms to tell them what seems like obvious stuff.
“Went after a single mother who was raising money for war veterans”
You keep bringing this up in post after post @poosh . I’m sure you’ve even spun it as GW attempting to sue a poor single mother. There a grain of truth here, but you spin it into evil GW attacking a poor defensless woman cos they’re evil. Its bollocks.
Spots the Space Marine infringed GW’s trade mark on the use of Space Marine in the titles of games and books. Whether you think it’s right that they were ever granted that trademark, and personally I don’t, the fact is they were. Having gained the trademark, they have to defend it.
So when Spots the Space Marine appeared on Amazon, GW issued a request under trademark law for the book to be removed from sale. Amazon took the book down, but after the resulting media coverage and social media storm, Amazon decided to offer the book for sale once more and GW took no further action.
At no point did GW “go after” anyone. Nobody was sued, no legal action was taken and all the author would have had to have done to comply with GWs trademark claim would have been to change the title of the book. They didn’t though, because GW quickly saw that it wasn’t in their best interests to press the matter.
I’m not on the side of GW in this one. As I said, I don’t think GW should ever have been granted trademark on Space Marine, but presumably they just got in there before anyone else thought to do it. Just like Marvel weren’t the first to think a man could be made of iron and DC didn’t invent the idea that a man could be super. Having to change titles for copyright reasons happens a lot. I mean the classic British children’s book, “The Iron Man” had to be renamed “The Iron Giant” when it was published in the US and the movie released as “The Avengers” in many parts of the world was called “Avengers Assemble” in the UK.
What riles me is this regrettable incident that was eventually dropped, has been spun by innuendo, half truths and occasionally blatant lies into a tale of an evil corporation taking legal action against some poor little soul, by people with an axe to grind.
That’s before you even consider the patronising way in which the author is constantly referred to as a single mother, as if single mothers are somehow less able to defend themselves.
… Of course I expect this to get me about a hundred thumbs downs 🙂
If I was GW CEO, I would have asked Amazon to take the book down. I would have done this from my volcano lair…
“the patronising way”
Please don’t try playing word games @erastus – I think you know exactly that the emphasis on the single mother aspect (and the war veteran aspect) is to emphases how callous GW are. You’re no better than that other GW fan who declared I hated the mentally ill because i referred to GW’s business model as “schizophrenic”.
You know exactly what you’re doing there, don’t play the fool or pretend you actually thought I was being patronising. It’s a classic debate tactic used by politicians.
And the mental gymnastics you will go to defend GW are hilarious (“half truths”, “innuendo” LOL as if no one else was here as it happened live in front of their eyes).
If I didn’t make myself clear @poosh , I’m not defending GW.
I don’t think they should have ever been granted a trademark on “space marine”. I don’t think they should have defended something they have no right to own. I also blame Amazon for complying with GW’s request, no questions asked.
However, I don’t believe that anything that happened constituted “going after” someone, which is actually one of the mildest and least emotive ways you’ve referred to this incident. All I’m doing is trying to make sure we don’t lose sight of the actual facts of the incident.
Regarding single mothers; I don’t accuse you of being deliberately patronising. Having said that, to refer to “single mother” to “emphasise how callous GW are” is patronising in my humble opinion. There’s an implication here that GW wouldn’t have been as much in the wrong had the author been a married man with no children. I’m also certain that GW did precisely zero research into the authors marital status or number of children before contacting Amazon. What you’re doing by constantly referring to a single mother raising money for charity I’d deliberately playing up the author as victim. I’m not saying the author shouldn’t be defended, but saying we should feel even more sorry for her because;
A) she’s a woman
B) she has children and
C) she’s not married
Is unbelievably patronising.
Anyhow, I don’t want to get into a tit for tat row @poosh . I just wanted to clarify my thoughts, but this really is my last word here. You have of course, every right to reply, to disagree and a legal right to insult me as much as you like 😉
@poosh nobody said you hated the mentally ill for calling GW schizophrenic, only that your choice of words was insensitive and in poor taste.
I’m expecting Games Workshop to feature in an episode of the new X Files series. The level of conspiracy going on there dwarfs Roswell and Area 51.
GW’s targeting of a single mother raising money for charity over the use of “space marine” is all over the media for all to see and the media storm that followed kinda removes the possibly that GW were not aware of what they were doing. Even Wil Wheaton got in on the act.
@onlyonepinman @erastus exactly. exactly. You’re not stupid enough to be unaware that “schizophrenic” is a perfectly apt way of describing someone – or a company – that behaves in a contradictory manner, or dullard enough to actually think it’s “insensitive”. You all know exactly what you’re doing: you’re playing games and it’s not cricket – I don’t want to play.
“Even Wil Weaton” sorry but I actually spat out my coffee at that.
Anyway @poosh , what we have here is a difference of perspective. Let’s agree to differ. I’m not attacking you, at least that’s not my intent. I’m just vehemently disagreeing with the way in which you are choosing to present this incident and the emotive language you’re choosing to use.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone is welcome to interpret the facts of the case however they want … as long as they stick to the facts.
“Even Wil Wheaton” who seems to have some very left leaning opinions got involved. Quelle Surprise.
As for your continued use of the term “schizophrenic” to describe Games Workshop, colour me stupid and a dullard. I don’t for one second think it’s an apt description of a company and the fact that you are creating an analogy between Games Workshop (who you clearly believe to be “bad”) and people suffering from Schizophrenia is insensitive. They’re also not behaving in a contradictory manner. They had a vision, they stuck to it for a while, it wasn’t working so they’re doing something else. They’re not saying one thing and doing another, they’re saying a thing and then doing it. It seems to me the problem is that a juxtaposition exists between what YOU want and what THEY do; that is, you feel they should act one way but they act another. That’s not GW acting in a contradictory sense nor is it schizophrenic; it’s just a difference of opinion.
If I ever become GW CEO, item #1 on the agenda is ‘build volcano lair’.
Everybody loves a good volcano lair @redben, especially if their last name is Blofeld… or Kirby… 😉
I’m old fashioned, I prefer a moonbase as my lair 😀
Not every super villain can afford to go off-world, you know. Damned villainous 1%, evil lair elitists… 😉
What are the chances they would scrap igougo and their tiresome turn order and actually design a NEW set of core rules? Im feeling its slim personally
Note to self:- when the new GW order seizes power, this bit of wargaming heresy (deny the clunky, outmoded glory of igougo? Treason!) might net me a position as a petty functionary if I am ruthless enough to sell Hatamoto down the river to toil ceaselessly in the subterranean hell of the GW resin mines, where brutal task masters beat the indentured workers with rule books if they fail to meet their quotas, and the poor unfortunates sleep on uneven beds of miscast Forge World minis… 🙂
haha ouch! well it was probably worth it, and i can hope im hit with the 7th edition 40k slipcase on my first day. Funny thing is, a new GW order probably would stick to the old core and just add few more layers of special rules (aka exceptions) 😛
It is the tried and tested GW way @hatamoto. With such an understanding of the overlords, maybe you will get to be one of those ruthless, rule book wielding task masters one day… 😉
I like igougo 🙁
Who doesn’t like firing 5 cannons before your opponent has even moved 😉
Your opponent.
@jazzfrezi So what you’re saying is… whoever has the first turn in igougo has an incredible and unfair advantage against their opponent and can even decide the outcome of the game, if he gets the first turn ??? !!! 😮
In some games, yes 😉
I like that @poosh – it’s a kind of ‘Mook Chivalry’ (see the TV Tropes link at the bottom of this post for details).
“We can’t move yet, they haven’t fired all their cannons. You want to take cover, Trooper Jones? What kind of coward are you!? After they have fired their cannons, any of us that survive will attack their most powerful hero one at a time. That is one at a time, so he can dispatch each of us with ease, not – I repeat; not – all at once. It’s the only honorable way to be a soldier!”
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MookChivalry
lolol not heard that one before!
I play the “open play” method and it works just fine, but then I play with like minded people. We just agree to how many warscrolls we use. Yes it is potentially open to abuse, but then I don’t play people that do that.
I like a challenging fun game with cinematic moments that BOTH players enjoy. Wargaming is just playing with toy soldiers and something I’ve enjoyed doing for 40+ years. If people want points for their games that’s fine, but don’t assume everyone else does.
Personally I have loved AoS as it reminded me of the first games I played with rulebooks borrowed from my local library – Featherstone & Grant. You turned up with your models (usually Airfix Napoleonics back then) and played games.
Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost, but I had fun.
David
I don’t there’s an assumption that everyone wants to play with points. I think this more around what impact the introduction of an army structuring system will have. There was nothing stopping people playing WFB without points, but once points-based army lists were introduced then it very rarely happened. Structures like this have the tendency to become the norm for how a game is played, and it takes on an irresistible momentum even if individuals playing the game would rather it didn’t. For some people playing AoS now there’s a fear that this will prevent them from playing the game as they enjoy unless they can find and/or maintain the kind of like-minded group you have.
That was a very interesting pod cast and it’s always great to hear people enthusing about their hobby. I find listening to other peoples’ enthusiasm infectious.
I also think that the book sounds incredibly interesting and I can’t wait to see how they are implementing army structure and points etc.
I just listened to the podcast. It is less about the generals handbook itself than their childlike enthusiasm for their trip to GW and for being involved in developing AoS.
I found it really enjoyable hearing their 100% positive vibe on AoS. Not that it doesn’t deserve a little criticism — but I don’t want to hear it all the time.
Anyway, will likely pick this book up since I’ve had fun playing a few games of AoS and am keen to see where it goes next.
Finally!