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Weekender XLBS: Do Points Costs Matter & Star Wars Podracing Game Mechanics!
July 5, 2015 by warzan
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first
lol
They see me troll’n….
Happy Sunday!
i’m glad this is here to watch since i won’t be sleeping any time soon (spent all night making music)
Happy Sunday
Happy late Birthday BoW
I think you’re stereotyping about Fantasy players. Not all of us are competitive (I’m certainly not, I’ve never been interested in tournaments). They could have just copy pasted the rules from 40k and the game would have been great,
As for the description on the show, you don’t necessarily need points for a well rounded balanced game. MTG doesn’t have points but it still has limits and a sense of balance. Also toy soldiers aren’t representative of real warfare 😉
Yeah your right I am generalising quite a bit on fantasy players, but just to try and make a point a little more clear 🙂
Yeah I get what you’re saying about the nerd raging neck beards, but c’mon man we aren’t all bad lol
Problem is it doesn’t take many of them to poison a whole game.
Unfortunately, die hard neckbeards are the reason I don’t enter tournaments (that and I prefer to have a fun relaxed game)
The problem is this is to some extent a case of GW being hoisted upon its petard. They shaped their rules to try and take advantage of the neckbeard types and rule jockeys to force people to buy more to be able to compete and all it’s done is turn people away from the game.
Warren all the war scrolls for your older minis/races are free to download as a PDF from GW web page.
Happy Sunday! Points make prizes!
Happy birthday fellows
Happy Sunday
Happy birthday yesterday! Also, Happy Sunday!
For Mad Max/Podracing, When a model reaches a curve in a canyon you can roll a D3:
1 – Model under-steers and crashes
2 – Model turns the corner successfully
3 – Model over-steers and crashes
Keep that as a standard
Then for skilled drivers/pilots you could re-roll the result.
Just an idea…
Nice simple mechanic, but far too granular I feel.
True, but it was an on the spot idea 🙂
Needs a mechanic linked with speed. The faster you go, the harder to control your vehicle on corners.
I was thinking that. Maybe you only have to roll the D3 if your vehicle/Pod racer is going full speed?
Happy Sunday All!
All the current unit War Scrolls are available for download
There are also War Scrolls for all of the GW fantasy terrain kits which I really like
War scrolls are on the GW website for the fantasy armies – free to download in the rules bit for AoS.
Yup, they dropped not long after filming 🙂
Happy Sunday. Have watched my first play through – Check out Guerrilla Miniature Games on Youtube and thought it looked fun. This there’s a problem with measuring from models though – particularly swords, spears and standards. I would definitely house-rule the main body of the miniature as the measuring point (arms, legs, torso head) – 40K used to do something similar for LOS with wings and banners saying they didn’t count so make all the pretty models you want. Looks much more organic and cinematic than old fantasy for my tastes though – actually tempted… though not with the new miniatures (which I personally don’t like). Maybe e-bay some classic undead or knights for me.
Or as a novel idea, from the base :p
Happy Sunday!!
Rock is overpowered but paper is fine.
Sincerely,
Scissors
Points cost ARE common sense. They are common sense in that people notoriously have very skewed and biased views of what is actually fair in a game.
Points costs mean that in theory someone acting as a neutral third party was paid to spend the time and effort required to test things under some sort of rational play testing regime and arrive at a professional opinion of what point valuation is reasonably fair enough that players will find the valuation to be an acceptable guideline to facilitate playing the game in a satisfying manner.
The players are free to discuss and reject or modify the guidelines if they feel the scenario they want to play doesn’t match up, or play at unequal points values if they want to.
To not even include the points in the first place is producing a crippled product. Players don’t have to use the points costs, or can agree to have unequal points for each side, but the publisher of the game is derelict if they don’t provide those points valuations for the players to ignore if they so choose.
If you watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zw_63NZ0D0 you see an outnumbered ogre player get the sudden death victory condition due to being outnumbered, and then their army walks over and smashes the chaos player’s army into pieces by virtue of having better models. In another video the Chaos player said he didn’t have any fun and it was a boring train wreck where nothing mattered.
Who knows how things will shake out… but at this point I suspect that Age of Sigmar’s tombstone will end up saying: nice idea in theory but a train wreck in practice.
These are concerns that I have too. It’s not so much that people will game the system to try and win, though some will, as it will be difficult to figure out how to balance the games. It’ll take trial and error with a lot of unsatisfactory experiences along the way. As you mention, this is part of the process that the games designer should be doing, not us.
Have to say I like the idea of no points, it was always artificial to me, ok I am an historical gamer at heart and prefer to play games based on actual forces… especially in Naval Warfare there are times when it is actually tactics that win the day, not how many troops you have.
I have not completely finished reading the rules yet but to me a few things will kick in here
1. Power gamers will soon find that they don’t have opponents if they are unreasonable.
2. Objectives change the game massively at times a smaller force is better in a situation
3. Get away from thinking about open battlefields with no terrain
4. I have not read the war scrolls but I am guessing there are certain characters of features in each army that give them an edge over certain types of troop so you know your opponent will be playing x army so you design your army for that battle against that type of force
5. Time… If your limited with time your not going to play with hundreds of figures as it seems the more men the longer the battle.
6. It gives you the opportunity to have almost role playing bands of adventurers in a dungeon situation so the scope is there.
1. I’m not concerned about powergamers as nature finds a balance there. It’s broad appeal for pick-up gamers that is the concern.
2. Objectives do change the game, but as things stand the rules don’t handle them very well. One of the main problems, which was highlighted by Justin, is that the game doesn’t discriminate on troop quality, which is real problem for the sudden death balance (amongst other things). The sudden death chart also skews the game radically and makes it very one-note.
3. I don’t think about open battlefields with no terrain.
4. That is list building 101 and not really relevant to the problems being highlighted.
5. That doesn’t stop your opponent fielding hundreds of models. Which means you either enter the arms race or you’re not competitive. It’s the latter which is of greater concern as the mass appeal of the game is limited as a result.
6. Again, not really relevant to either the concerns or it’s likelihood of finding a mass audience.
As probably comes through, the concern I have is primarily around whether AoS can have the mass appeal it needs in its current format. In trying to be accessible, it risks making itself inaccessible in one of the most fundamental ways it needs to be if it’s to be a mass market success. I play and enjoy all sorts of different games, but I understand that some are more likely to attract a mass audience than others.
Ok all fair points and my observations s are based on a brief reading until I get to play I cannot really tell…
One thing I do like though is I can get my old mini’s out and see if they will work in the new system:-)
Everything I have read still convinces me that GW’s primary concern is to try and force customers to buy the more expensive higher profit margin models. I’m sticking with KoW
I the models sell GW wont care. And if they don’t try will try to force them to sell.
I hope they don’t turn their eyes to 40k and say “hey AoS boosted fantasy, lets boost 40k and do away with rules”.
I’m assuming you have some intimate knowledge of how the management in there feels right now yes?
Because from where I’m sitting (and that’s still very much on the outside) I’m seeing quite a lot of changes, since KR took over 🙂
It’s all speculation from all we are, yes? Call it an educated guess, just like you’ve made an educated guess. They’re all guesses, none of us have the facts.
But lets face it GW have said they’re a model company first and foremost, not a games company so if their models sell then they will obviously make more regardless if people like the rules or not.
Of course they will. Though if they sell lots of AoS models they’d be justified in assuming people do like the rules. Consumers don’t buy product they don’t want.
@redben The rules aren’t the product though. I myself am not a fan of the rules but I do love the sigmarines and plan on getting some for my space marines, I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
Since GW have said it’s not a games company we can assume that the rules don’t matter to them as long as their miniatures are great.
If the Age of Sigmar minis are a success, then the game has been a success. Sales of minis for use in other systems will only go so far. It would be unprecedented for a minis line from a game to be successful and the game itself not be successful.
Also, GW aren’t a minis company. They’re an IP exploitation company. It just so happens that they exploit the IP best by selling minis.
Surely this will have had to be in the pipeline for a good long time pre ceo change?
Hi Nork,
Watched part of the link you posted. Don’t feel to bad for the Chaos player, I have seen him in other vids & he does have that why am I here attitude & it gets worse when he is losing or has lost. We just have to wait for more battle reports to be posted before we start sounding the death bell.
Here is another AoS battle report to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D54nIzA1VsE
All I can say is play a few games
Happy Sunday & happy 5th belated birthday as well.
Welcome to the game designing world with the Pod Racers & the Mad Maxxer, but before you go to kickstarter make sure you get it IP approved. 😉
The talk about Age of Sigmar was interesting. I have some trouble with Justin, first & for most, he has to grow some sort of facial hair or go with the Miami Vice look aka the 5 o’clock shadow lol. Secondly Justin talked about bring in 20 dragons, well on some of the forums the same thing roughly was talked about, but with 10 demons. The first thing said in reply was could that person afford to bring in 10 demons or 20 dragons in Justin’s case. Cause if they can’t bring in 10 demon or 20 dragon mini’s on their side, then why ask how fair it would be if they played against 10 or 20 Orc Boar Chariots.
Your weekender shows are doing great.
I won’t rehash my thoughts on the AoS rules other than to say that many of the points you make about how to play it work in a ‘basement meta’ environment, but aren’t suited to a ‘pick up meta’. Also, wargames are games, not battles. They have to work as a game first and foremost.
Hail Caesar and Black Powder both sprung to mind as games that were designed to throw models on the table rather than use points. It’s somewhat ironic that in the first edition of Warhammer to be released after Rick left that they do this. I didn’t mention them as examples of games that don’t use points in the thread on the topic because both of those games wound up using points and army lists. Not because Rick wanted to, he didn’t, but because the consumer base demanded it. Which if anything makes them the worst examples of games that don’t use points as all they did was highlight the demand for balance mechanisms.
Finally; happy spirit-journey formation anniversary! The creature thus be born and five bells will chime!
Perhaps by placing the onus of fairness on the players it will force a rethink of ‘the spirit of the game’
It’s a bold move no doubt, and it will be interesting to see what comes out next (probably a whole series of mini games with missions and terrain etc – and the warscrolls we have seen are there just to placate those who own those models)
By focusing on the existing way things are played and the existing model range we may intact be missing the point of where this range is headed 🙂
I’m not wedded to a points-build system or army lists. If anything I like to seek out games that do things differently and I welcome innovation. My concerns with Age of Sigmar based purely on what we know right now are that it is flawed in its execution of this and that in trying to remove all hurdles to play, they have inadvertently inserted a new hurdle. Compared to other games that have been the success that Age of Sigmar needs to be (or greater), whether it be 40K, X-Wing, Settlers of Catan, or Magic, what they all have in common is they provide a simple framework to pick up and play. That’s not the same as saying they are balanced, rather that they don’t ask the players to balance the game. Right now AoS doesn’t do that and that is a hurdle at which many potential players will fall. Whether they intend to right now or not, it wouldn’t surprise me if future AoS releases begin to inject a framework.
Here is the thing with placing the onus of fairness on the players. It reminds me of something Monte Cook said about writing rules for roleplaying games: DMs that have the spare time and talent to write their own roleplaying systems don’t need the products I make, so I write material for the people who don’t have the time or talent to do so.
Literally nothing is stopping players from just writing their own home brewed wargaming system.
The only thing that seems to be going on here is Games Workshop throwing everyone who doesn’t have the spare time and talent for wargame design under the bus.
The entire concept of telling people they can do what they want could be covered in Games Workshop version of Page 5 where they tell players the rules are a guideline and to feel free to ignore them, just like most RPG books do.
I think Monte is spot on there and essentially is summing up the job of the games designer.
And yet with set force organisation charts, magic items, unit upgrades and the like how much longer would we spend drawing up army lists? Whether it’s to squeeze in that new unit, take something to fill a mandatory slot even though it doesn’t fit you army ethos, or doing endless hours of mathhammer to come up with the winning combo.
Warhammer in its previous incarnations took FAR longer to prep for than it does now whereby a 10 min pre-battle chat with your mate and maybe 1 practice game is all that’s needed. If you stick to the balanced points cost mentality you deny yourself of so many opportunities for great scenarios that you and your mate will reminisce on (or even lend itself to in a narrative campaign).
As a GW player I found it weird to drop into Flames of War and see people take tank armies against infantry with little or no antitank.
“Where’s the balance in that?” I asked.
“History shows battles were rarely balanced” the player controlling the soviet conscripts replied smiling.
At the end of the day this is a bold move by GW. I’ve heard on the grapevine that this is more like an Albion campaign before the big battles ruleset comes out. Pinch of salt needed there.
There is a big difference between prep to play a game and prep to make a game work. Not least of which is in the former case, you know you’re playing the same game as everyone else, which is crucial for a game with mass market appeal. I would contest that all WFB players spent countless hours of prep on things like mathhammer. I certainly didn’t and no-one I played against did.
And just to stress the point, that made pick-up games very easy. We could go to a club or a store and play anyone. All that was needed was an agreement on the size of the battle and we were ready to go. We didn’t need to break the game, and we didn’t need to negotiate the game. In its current format, if AoS is to avoid the former, then it demands the latter. Only the basement meta is spared this.
I hope AoS does good, but time will tell. If i was GW I would have decks of magic spells ready for sale along with existing army war scrolls, just in case you don’t have a printer or only want certain war scroll cards at hand so you don’t have to flip through pages of one’s home made war scroll book. And yes AoS is geared more to the first timer & cheap at 75 pounds. Depending on where goes, I don’t think they will be spending more than 200 pounds in a year. You can laugh at that, but think of how much you have spent on your armies over the years & how many of those can you still use?
The box set certainly is geared that way, and if you’re in a like-minded playgroup then you can make AoS whatever you want. Is it the low-entry point with sustainable scalability that it needs to be? I don’t think we can know that right now.
The biggest problem with ‘spirit of the game’ as written, as far as I can see, is that at the moment, who knows what is actually fair and balanced. Everything is different now, even existing army units work differently.
How many high elf, sorry aelf, spearmen are comparable to a unit of the sigmarines with hammers and shields? I’m not averse to house rules and so on, I play 2nd edition 40K with current vehicles and units because we have adapted everything, but we had the knowledge of the game and its basic synergies to be able to do that, no one has that with age of sigmar.
As the game stands right now, I think it has potential for gaming groups, but is unsuitable to pick up games (as played in GWs own stores) or any form of competetive gaming environment. I don’t think it can sell well enough to be considered a success without at least one of those other groups being able to take part meaningfully.
Who knows where they will go with it, I like the models (not so much the sigmarines other than bits for my angels of sparta blood angels), the chaos stuff is fantastic although a bit too skull heavy, but they really need to complete the game, quickly to give it a chance. Especially with mantic announcing the release of the free kings of war 2.0 rules on the same day.
But without a points system, how do you know if the game is fair, bit late to find out once its finished.
Even with a points system, GW players have spent decades complaining about the lack of balance in the game being inherent to the “crappy job” the GW designers have been doing for years. If it wasn’t points, it was the force org, if it wasn’t he force org it was a lack of percentage system, etc etc.
To be fair, I think what happened here is GW thought they were removing a point of contention, and instead added another one.
I’ve been spending the weekend reading and watching AoS info as if it was some sort of slow motion train wreck. My schadenfreude love of GW has been going overdrive.
On consideration I think vagrantwhisper is correct about the removal of points. If GW had included points for everything then two things would have happened first a team would have had to grade and test the points on units and second we would have complained that the points were incorrect. Just because there is a points cost doesn’t mean it is balanced. Getting the values right is something that requires rigorous testing and is probably best approached with a living rulebook sort of approach.
Removing the testing team obviously will save money, it also will speed up the release schedule both excellent business reasons to remove it. If I were to pick up this game with a mate (something thats not going to happen), in the first few games one of us will probably get destroyed. As we continue to play, adding and removing units, the games should get more challenging and interesting as we tweak the armies. In the end I’ll probably end up with a larger army compared to by opponent because they will be the better player, but the games will be tight and down to the wire. Weirdly enough the armies won’t be balanced, if we switched chance are I’d lose. If two other players picked them up it wouldn’t work out for them. It would be perfect for us though.
On a side note, if our main rule for fielding was that only fully painted units could be fielded then maybe I’d have less of a pile of grey plastic sitting in the corner.
Happy Sunday!!
Got a morning game of Saga in already, now time for the XLBS 🙂
Just on the new format having now seen both shows, if it saves you time then keep doing it. Any loss of editing quality is minimal and long before the end I had mentally adjusted to the occasional look into the wrong camera.
Ok after today’s xlbs I had a couple of minutes to check out the GW site… now I am interested having seen they have a war scroll for Bretonnians I can finally dust off my Mk 1 Bretonnians and have a game….only thing I now have to find them…and cringe at the 25 year old paint job…holy cow is it really that long ago…..#scary
I definitely agree that AoS is putting the old grey matter into action, to me they must be looking at losing money on this product in the short term. New players need less figures and won’t need to buy a shiny codex. Old players may run into the arms of KoW or jet keep player their old rules. Unless we see another jump in process the cost of armies should now be lower I’d guess a decent size skirmish force costing 50% of previous editions.
Happy Sunday
Happy Birthday!
The video format was fine, no issues at all. The wall thumping was hilarious!
I think the thing with points is that it’s much easier to take points out of a game to have some narrative gaming than it is to add them in to have competitive gaming. You could do all those scenarios you mentioned and still have points, but you can’t play a balanced or competitive ‘game’ (yes real battles arent balanced, but this isnt a real battle, its a game) without some sort of balancing like points or force structure. I also feel there is a danger of an arms race, and the people who spend the most money on the best minis will have the best armies, similar to Magic.
With regards to the game design, I had thought of using poly dice to represent the gears, but normalising the values so a d20 would go from 10-20 say rather than from 1-20, that way there was a minimum distance you would go, and to reduce the randomness of your speed.
Oh, and happy Sunday!
So much yes.
AoS smells like a pay to win system.
Itnis much easier to remove an army selection system from a game, to build one that works.
Due to the sheer amount of variation in fantasy armies a system must have some way of balancing to make it fun and fair. This isnt an issue in historical games where there isn’t such a vast difference and the rules themselves balance out forces rather than points such as DBA or SAGA. No, can’t see if being a fun game is somebody brought along 40 goblins to fight 40 of these Sigmarites.
Historical games have the further advantage of having a lot of actual material to draw from. We can re-fight an actual battle without worrying whether it is balanced, and we can look at how army A fared against army B when they actually fought. Balance tends to come into its own in historical gaming with ahistorical battles. When you need to figure out how a Roman army would have fared against a Viking army, for example. By definition, all fantasy gaming is ahistorical gaming.
Well, just ask him to remove some of his Sigmarites.
Bugger. Down voted by accident because of glue on my thumbs.
Yes. This exactly. It will take a 2 min discussion to quickly amend the forces on the fly. There seems to be a mentality that whatever force your opponent brings, you HAVE to face it in its entirety.
That mentality is encouraged by the rules, though it’s a red herring to the real issue, which is how many Sigmarites should be removed the make the game balanced. That’s a trial and error you’ll need to go through every time you play someone or something new.
Exactly, without any sort of guidlines how can you say how many X = Y to have a good game?
How many ? Without any points values or any sort of list building system it’s just going to be a process of trial and error especially as the rules are so different now and that doesn’t sound like a fun thing that you have to do before every game with a different list
Happy Birthday guy’s!
Perhaps I’m a bit odd but with shows like the Weekender I don’t actually watch them. I’m either painting a model, ironing a shirt for Monday morning etc. I tend to only look up when something is being shown like something under close cam. So for me, the editing won’t matter on this type of video.
As for the Mad Max/Podracing game there perhaps needs to be a mechanic for forcing your opponent into walls etc when cornering. I had thought of a card mechanic but perhaps that is more suitable for a Wacky Races type game.
Happy Sunday, and belated happy birthday. Would it be possible to start a hobby section to support how Warren and Lloyd progress through the design stages?
Happy Sunday and Happy birthday.
Happy sunday.
As for the age of sigmar lack of points costs, me and a mate are basing armies on wound counts.
It`s not a perfect balance, but it sure gives us a better guideline.
This is a good example of how AoS is best suited to a basement meta. (No criticism is intended or implied of sercoffee and I agree that this is probably a better way of balancing the game).
It might be a start but are 10 goblins as good as 10 wounds worth of chaos warriors? I highly doubt it(I’ve looked, they really aren’t) and then the question is well how many are they worth? With the rules for both now being so different I have no idea.
happy sunday and happy 5th birthday
Happy Sunday and happy birthday!
Excellent show gents! I’m really looking forward to your AoS coverage. So many possibilities of narrative gaming 🙂
How exactly does AoS have more narrative possibilities than any other system?
Game design is tricky. Balancing luck and skill, mechanics and narrative, feel and playability, start, mid-game and end-game flow as well as player interactions. There are plenty of books now on the subject. I like the discussion of how AoS is a bold move for GW. As I listened to the discussion, I kept asking myself why I like playing games and war games in particular. Striving for balance drives the game towards a battle of wits and skill, how well you know a complex game to take advantage of the elements as in the Art of War.
For me, game play is great when there are surprising results, when the situation seems pre-determined and the game turns out differently. For example, Blood Angels assaulting Fire Warriors and the Fire Warriors winning.
As the discussion proceeded, the Battle of Hastings 1066 came to mind. Two differently composed armies (as best we know) both in size and composition.
Happy Sunday! I had a small idea/comment I would not make pods faster then others but give them more chance for evading damage or other pods bumping into them. This will make sure that no pods will shoot ahead and keep the pods together.
Offtopic: airco on in my hobby room and let’s finish building a box of German genadiers company and Rämsch’s charge from flames of war. Going to be a good sunday
Suggestion: Play a game or two of Mille Bornes The French auto race card game. It might provide some idea for the Star Wars Pod Racing game.
Also: Meta-race game mechanics like sabotage cards played pre-race will skill checks to overcome later in the game. Certain events in the race being triggers for the sabotage event.
Good luck in designing a game.
Here is a link to a battle report of a couple of guys using the free rules & war scrolls for Age of Sigmar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zr-M11E8Cg
Great show. Hope you don’t lose your enthusiasm for AoS warzan.
Idea for pod racing. Justin mentioned about taking a chance of rolling a large dice but needing to get below a certain number. How about good pilots can affect the number +/- and bad/rookie pilots can not. The pilots gain experience over the course of a season.
Happy Sunday and Happy Birthday!
I’m sorry Warren but I cannot agree on the awesomeness of AoS. I think GW just stopped working on providing any sensible rules at all. What you describe as the ‘new way of army building’ is just very young kids play where everyone piles up there awesome armies and then rolls some dice and have a laugh. I think this will not even be attractive to teenagers because they will immediately see there’s now way to have a fair game. There is now way to make it sensible because you don’t know how strong certain models are in comparison unless you try it out for yourself (or let others do the work which is exactly what points cost are). I’m no historical player but I think points costs are not needed there because one fields units bound by historically means and not some crazy fantasy mash-up.
I fully agree that a tactical and fun game does not need hundreds of pages of rules but the rules must provide the means of tactical depth. I do not see the tactical depth in AoS, it is simple dice rolling game. Have a look at innovative combat systems like the one found in Assault on Doomrock – you can clearly see that the designers had a look at tabletop gaming, extracted the core of it and made a simple combat system that half the pages of AoS but has ten times the tactical depth..
And about ‘GW wants you to make your own game’ is just another word for: we don’t care for a playable game, we just want you to buy our models. Just as stated in last years annual report where they talked about their customers being collectors, no word about gaming. We are now miles away from deep tactical games like Epic: Armageddon or Warmaster where not only the best units and heavy dice rolling matters but real tactics on the battlefield.
I was pretty pumped for this game but now that buzz is all dead. I’ll have to wait and see to definately make up my mind but I see so many potential fails and pitfalls with this game. I liked fantasy for its lore and fluff. That’s gone. Now it just feels like some over the top silly unbound fantasy version of 40k. And with no points as GW have capitulated in trying to create a balanced environment. They have cheaped out and given that responsibility to the players. And when people talk about “oh, but it’s so nice to be able to make the army of my dream”, YOU COULD ALWAYS DO THAT before as well.
Happy Sunday guys.
To be honest I find the front on camera angle more than enough and the side view one unnecessary. When any of you guys turn to talk or make a point to someone specific, the viewpoint from the front lets me see which person you are addressing and their reaction. If this occurs while in the other view I can only see the person talking and miss the other persons body language and facial expression which often says more than their responses do 😀
I appreciate the information on AoS and am happy to see that the warscrolls have now been released for us to have a look at. We seem too quick these days to put out what we think without having really given things a chance. I don’t think I will have an opinion of it until I have racked up quite a few games using a variety of forces and different opponents. Luckily I am part of a gaming club so we will probably make a day of it, blow the dust off of our old models and do a round robin event. At the end we will grab some food and drinks and discuss what we think. This for me is why I do the hobby at all and the moments we will talk about the most are those where it went nothing like what the odds say it should have.
@warzan I really like the idea of the overtaking making up the combat element within podracing rather than have to set an exact speed and stay side by side. It may be worth putting in a DRS system on the pods when within a certain distance behind an opponent (maybe set a max number each pod has). This would help maximise the number of overtakes during a race using a special poly die which gives you a boost and mean that even the slower pods or pods that have made mistakes have the chance to get back into the race or even pip you over the line if they have tactically held one back. After all who didn’t hold back the speed boost on Mario Kart during your last lap, so you could blast past your opponent on the final straight and watch them throw their controller against the wall and turn to see your huge smug grin of victory 😀
Happy Sunday! From speaking to a Games Workshop employee in Southampton yesterday, the store is now simply called Warhammer btw. He seemed to think the best way to play was to agree a set number of warscrolls with your opponent and play with that as your sort of points cost. Say a ten warscrolls game, and just pick any ten from your list. The scrolls mechanic is a bit like Heroscape.
The problem with that though is that a single warscroll can have a 100 models.
No problem, just ask your opponent to remove of 80 models or 70 or whatever.
Talk to each other before the game, agree upon something, communicate, make weird noises, just agree. Don’t play against the douche who dumps a pile of 666 greater demons on the table. 😉
Obviously 100 models per scroll is extreme. But it’s a fair example, I think a “wounds per scroll” system would be better.
Anyone who can afford 666 greater daemons drinks the blood of children haha
This is the second suggestion so far on a system to make Age of Sigmar games more balanced. We’re already seeing the drive to find a common currency of balance to make the game playable and it’s why I don’t see AoS succeeding long-term in its current format. The playerbase, whether intentionally or not, will demand balancing mechanisms they can plug in use and GW will either have to supply them or risk losing customers. This ties back to the Hail Caesar and Black Powder example of a game that launched without a balancing mechanism and was forced to evolve one.
That employee needs to read the rules on the warscrolls then, no fixed sizes for units, some can be 1 to infinity.
I think the argument about measuring to the model vs measuring to the base is valid. Measuring to the model is definitely abusable, and you can argue till your blue in the face that reasonable people won’t abuse it. But we all know players who would, using just the tactics described by the guys. Warren talking louder than them doesn’t discount their arguments.
Measuring to the base instead would alleviate issues and arguments surrounding cheap tactics. It’s a uniform and identifiable spot that circumvents dealing with ‘enthusiastic gamers’ and clumsy opponents chipping up your paintwork with their measuring tape.
Of course you guys didn’t talk much about the issues surrounding the poor wording of cover or the complete lack of rules for movement over difficult terrain. Although I guess you could argue if I want such details as cover and difficult terrain then this isn’t the ruleset for me.
Finally, on the points issues. If I take 10 greater demon of Khorne’s (or something of that ilk, I’m not sure what’s available) and you take 20 orcs (lets not muddy the waters by saying you take a thousand or something crazy). By all rights, I get the choice of special win condition, even though my army is clearly the superior one. Models as balance does not work as long as the model’s power is unevenly balanced (and from what I’ve seen there is no concern about balance whatsoever).
In a less extreme way, there are going to be players who figure out the powerful, lightweight combos so that they have a overpowered unit combination PLUS the benefit of the instant win objective. They are going to dominate the meta vs players who just want to play a fun game with somewhat balanced forces. So, again, while you can argue that historical systems don’t have points values, they also don’t have units of wildly different power levels which can be used in ridiculous combinations.
Now I’m not saying the game wont be fun if you’re playing against a reasonable opponent with a fair army. Simplistic maybe, but not broken. However you cannot argue that this is an elegant, well designed system when it is so open to interpretation and abuse.
Oh, and happy birthday by the way.
Leaving aside the abuse issue, and I’m with yourself and Lloyd on it, it has the larger problem of not being very practical. Having to identify the closest points on two models every time you want to measure a range between them is an additional point unnecessarily added to the game.
I don’t wanna be flogging the dead horse, but who wants to play a game like that, 10 greater demons vs. 20 Orcs? No fun for either side.
Games are supposed to fun for both sides, and it can’t be that difficult to reach an agreement with your opponent before a game on what seems to be a fun and fairly balanced game. Sure it will take probably take a couple of games before you learned just how powerful Sigmar’s golden boys are, and then adjust model count after that knowledge has been learnt.
AoS has got my attention, but whether buy it or not depends upon if I can get my son interested in the game. But anyway, it’s going to be interesting to follow GW’s new game. I see potential… potential for success or failure…
And base to base measurement is the first house rule I’d rule.
If it was that easy to balance games that quickly, then games designers would be out of a job.
In this case a couple doesn’t equal 2. 😉
I understood that wasn’t literal, but the implication is still that you can quickly and on the fly balance a game. If that’s true, then games designers would be out of a job.
“It can’t be that difficult to reach and agreement with your opponent” is a poor reason to completely discard balance all together. Sure, it wouldn’t be difficult to reach an agreement with a reasonable opponent. But if you have reasonable opponents that you can regularly game with then you’re a lucky person.
A lot of people aren’t lucky enough to have a reliable gaming group, or they do have one but it includes ‘that guy’. It’s because of ‘that guy’ that I’m concerned that the rules simply aren’t good enough. It’s bad enough when he can work within a points limit and come up with the most broken bullshit ever. If he can completely disregard points and just put down whatever he wants it mean’s I’m not going to even bother attempting to play him anymore, and my already precariously small pool of potential opponents goes down by one or two.
Not that any of this matters, I seriously doubt I’ll actually end up playing Age of Sigmar for these very reasons, which is a shame because I would have liked a more skirmish oriented fantasy game (that I might have been able to convince some of those blind to other rulesets and manufacturers to actually try).
If this was April and I didn’t see an actual unboxing of the starter set already I would write this off as an April fools joke.
Secondly not at all impressed with the models design. I’m going to get blasted but I never liked the look of 40k marines with their comically oversized shoulder pads and not thrilled to see it seep into Sigmar.
Another issue is time. I don’t have much time to spend on my hobby and love many different miniature games that I have to divide my free time between. That being said I don’t have time to play out test games to try and achieve a sense of balance with units being fielded hoping it equates to a fun game for both parties. Then to try and achieve that type of game again but with a different player and units. Oh well just my opinion plenty of other great gamEs to play. Anyways only opinion that matters is your own if you like it then my negative post shouldn’t have any effect on your enjoyment of the game. I might have to have have a look at those Kings of War rules, betting their company is thrilled with the Sigmar ruleset.
I’m putting two and two together, and possibly making five, but I pretty much spent the whole day yesterday trawling the interwebs for leaks and hints about what is happening with AoS.
I’m pretty sure that the free rules are nowhere near the complete picture. GW is treating this as a brand new IP and releasing it drip by drip. We’ve only had one product so far, essentially a box of new minis with a background book and free rules so you can start having some fun with them. I don’t think that’s it for rules though.
I’ve seen a scenario from the starter which forms part of the campaign. Now it appeared to actually specify the exact units and models on each side which fought in this battle. GW has said all battle scrolls will come free with the minis in the future but I’m certain that there will be book releases for AoS. It’d be a shame not to release books. GW make good books on the whole.
So, I’m thinking we’ll see campaign books released which build an ongoing narrative in this new setting. That’s where the serious balance will be I think: campaigns and scenarios which specify the ‘historical’ armies which fought in that battle. It’s similar in a way to what FW are doing with the Horus Heresy. A series of campaigns that say ‘of course you can use whatever models you want, but these are the actual armies’ gives you balanced fights (not necessarily matched armies, the balance can come through victory conditions) and it also generates GWs ongoing model sales. The game can stay skirmish level(ish) but encourage people to buy the new releases to play the new campaign.
Of course I could be totally and utterly wrong and guilty of wish listing. I do however think we can’t judge where GW are going with this after one release. Whatever else AoS has done, it’s got me excited about fantasy again after years of total disinterest.
I think if GW don’t have either that or something similar planned then someone should forward them your email address 😉
The tactic of styling their new product to entice 40k fans is a clever one by GW. I should state I don’t mean this to sound cynical. It is well known that the 40k line is by far GW’s biggest seller, so if they are able to bring in new entrants to the hobby to the fantasy side all the better.
I recently took my son to a Warhammer store, he’s massively into his space marines and wanted to buy a predator, however once inside he was totally amazed by the fantasy line and we ended up leaving with a box of skeletons and some Chaos Warriors. Now he bought these because he liked the minis and wanted to paint them, the gaming side of it was just not viable to him, far too complicated, and frankly expensive to enable him to get into it. Sigmar changes that, and this for me is a very good thing.
I am not enthused by AoS at all. What I will say is it is good for Beasts of War to have an advocate for it as well as nay sayers, so well done Warren. I also think that debate about rules design that it is throwing up is good (as long as we keep the rage out and analysis in). I began this hobby by reading a book by Donald Featherstone called Battles with Model Soldiers. He and fellow author Charles Grant were very influential in the growth of the hobby in the 1960s and 70s before the rise of D & D. These rules remind me of those days and of throwing what ever Airfix Napoleonics I had on a table and playing a game. I may not play AoS but if it gets another generation into the hobby then I cannot be entirely against it.
Happy Birthday, may you have many more years of success. The AGE OF SIGMAR has no interest for me . I’m sorry but I’ve cut GW out of my life because of all of the crap!
I for one don’t really notice the change in filming guys. Only a few times are you looking off camera but other then that it looks great to me.
The wife and I, after being long time fantasy players are diving head first into this. We like the simplicity of the new version though think they’ll add onto it further down the road. Having fun with it and that’s all that matters in the end
What makes me smile is hearing Warren talk about game balance …. knowing he’s the one who would go “wouldn’t it be cool to field a massive Dragon rider army”.
And here’s me just fielding hobbits. Crunchy and delicious hobbits.
Yum! 😉
Happy Birthday! 6th birthday to be correct (2015-2009=6)
You are correct!
Thanks for making us feel old 😉
Off to count some more grey hair!
Happy Sunday, looking forward to the vlog on the lake town board. Happy Birthday BoW 🙂
The big problem with the sudden death rule is that if warren brings his 100 dwarfs and Justin brings twenty dragons as it is written Justin is the outnumbered player and he is the one that gets to choose a sudden death objective.
Meaning Justin with his more powerful dragons picks himself an auto win condition.
warren with his weak dwarfs has to try to kill 75% of the dragons before Justin wins.
The intent is obviously to give a player with less models a chance to win, as its written what it does is give the advantage to the guy that turns up with fewer more powerful models.
Now if they had points that could of said if your army is worth a third more points the player with the less points gets to choose the sudden death objective, thus eliminating the problem they have where bringing say three greater daemons of nurgle to beat on 50 empire state troops makes it even easier for the daemon player to win.
intent is good but the execution stinks.
Jumping to these edge cases 100 dwarves and 20 dragons doesn’t really mean anything though.
An extreme but fair example though 🙂
What about 80 daemons against 60 orcs? That’s not such an extreme example but the daemons have the edge and will get sudden death. If the solution that springs to mind is the daemon player should field fewer models, now you’re getting into the real problem of how to balance AoS.
Do you mean the other way round?
How strong is a daemon compared to an orc?
Indeed I did mean the other way around. The word leaking from the open day as reported on the AoS balance thread is that GW don’t intend on leaving the game ‘as is’ and will be giving lots of scenarios to allow for balanced gaming.
I imagine the AoS “Sudden Death” rules as a means for the new guy/kid with fewer toys to be able to play against the beardy guys. Also the “Most Important Rule” implies that unfairness would be identified and remedied between opponents.
The problem is that without points no-one has any idea how many dragons should be used against 100 dwarves to give each side a reasonable chance of winning. If you want to play a desperate last stand scenario then that’s fine but how do you even do that if you have no idea of the relative power level of units?
Assigning value to units by game effectiveness is counter to what AoS is about. GW wants you to collect any kind of army you like and be able to USE it, not necessarily COMPETE with it.
More to your point: Yes you won’t know how units stack up against each-other until you play some games. When things get unfair players should invoke the “Most Important Rule” to resolve the unfairness.
So you can collect and use any army you like, but if it’s unfair you can’t actually use it, so you can’t collect and use any army you like. If the rumours coming out of the Forge World open day are true, then GW are putting balance mechanisms into AoS, so it isn’t counter to what AoS is about.
Happy Birthday for yesterday!
I very much agree with Lloyd regarding modelling for advantage. I dislike the lack of points as well, as we need something to guide us regarding army builds and balance. I believe that if you want to say a Skavenslave is the exact same value as a Sigmarine, you might need an examination of your cranium.
OKay a few points im sorry if the comments already addressed this but Im writing this as it come up
1. the example of the spear turning is actually wrong because no part of the model can end up more than its movement from itself after moving if I tuned a model with a three inch spear 180 degrees it has moved a little over 6inches in just a pivot. even without modeling for advantage this can become an issue with the coherency rules.
2. Coherency rules are one inch model to model, while this doesnt sound bad consider a clanrat on a 25mm base if both rats are stuck in the center of thier base the bases can only be aproximately 1/2 an inch from eachother. while the models dont have to rank up this tight of a coherency will create formations.
3. The issue with points is that they aren’t there… nothing is preventing you in WFB or 40k from just ignoring the points altogether. I am all for freedom of play, getting rid of the force organization especially in fantasy is a great idea it was unbelievably restrictive and forced large armies of crap models to allow you to play the fun ones. However, if I go into a LFGS and want to play WFB i make sure my list comlies by those rules as it takes down a barrier to play, namely I can tell my opponent that I have 2500 points and thats the discussion. In AoS it becomes more complex. Say I want to play an army of a vampirelord spirits wraiths banshees direwolves and a terrorghiest in total im looking at 50 models. my opponent drops down nagash all three mortarchs a zombie dragon a terrorghiest a horde of zombies, again 50 models, this is FAR from balanced or even fun for either of us especially since with that amount of magic hurtled my way I doubt Ill even get to take a turn. both of our lists are valid lists and in the right type of play fluffy interesting lists. Can we figure this out on our own of course we can but it becomes a Barrier to Play I don’t want to spend two hours of my game figuring out how to balance this scenario, I am much more an evolving narrative type of player I want to focus on the awesome things that will happen on the table.
4. Of course no battle has ever been fair, THIS IS NOT A WAR its a GAME!!! some factor of balancing needs to be in place, which obviously GW understands or the sudden death victory conditions wouldn’t exist. it just doesn’t account for the HUGE power curve in their models
Will be interesting if they can manage the war scrolls and power creep that many long running non-historical games can particularly suffer.
The war scrolls could be an excellent mechanic to do that with a split for basic level, for pick and play casual gamer, and advanced for the beardy/tournament player and the common sense player who will house rule anything that’s particularly knocking the fun factor.
The warscrolls can’t manage anything, unit size 1 to infinity?
Happy Sunday and Happy 5Th Birthday! are you planning to do week of warzone ressurection too? This would be great to see.
First of all, happy Sunday!
Few things I wanna say on this particular age of sigmar chat.
Firstly, everywhere age of sigmar is being discussed, and this is no different, people who are still feeling positive about the new game are over-simplifying, and deliberately characterising everybody who is saying anything negative about the game as grumpy warhammer players nerd-raging about their beloved game changing.
There are loads of people who think the age of sigmar rules are a load of crap who never liked or played fantasy. I’m one of them. And there are loads of people who started out really positive and excited about the rumours, or just the idea of a new release, and the potential of a new direction, who now think, having seen the miniatures, read the rules, downloaded all the warscrolls, and as I write this today, there are plenty of people who’ve watched and played actual games, that it is a load of crap.
There were games played today down at my FLGS, and the initial reports are: this game is horrible to play.
I’m sure by now warren, you’ve downloaded and read through at least some of the warscrolls, and you’ll have seen that the tactical depth you were hoping for to overlay the very basic rules is simply not there. Instead there’s special rules invoked by dancing around the table, having facial hair, or bribing your opponent.
The problem with this game really has little to do with whether or not there is any suitable mechanic for balancing games. Some people will like that, seeing it as an opportunity to get creative, some will hate it, seeing it as GW asking us to do their jobs for them. Ultimately if the game is worth playing, opponents will find ways of balancing it themselves, and the community will invent and share any number of ways of playing balanced games. Possibly, GW will even support the game by producing balanced scenarios and sourcebooks.
The problem with this game, based on my reading of the rules, watching battle reports, and talking to people who’ve played and watched actual games locally, is that there is no tactical depth. The game rapidly devolves into smashing lots of miniatures together, rolling lots of dice until everybody is dead.
I’m yet to come across anyone so far who’s actually played it, or watched somebody else play it who’s saying anything other than that this game is pants. But it’s early days yet.
If you guys are gonna keep talking about AoS though, I think you ought to play a few games. You have everything you need now, so why wait until your board is built? Play a few games and you might find yourself looking for another game system to play games on Loch Death.
“I’m yet to come across anyone so far who’s actually played it, or watched somebody else play it who’s saying anything other than that this game is pants. But it’s early days yet.”
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/07/age-of-sigmar-1st-battle-report-aelfs-vs-duardin.html
Overall: Positive.
Thanks. Yeah, that’s certainly more positive than anything else I’ve seen.
Still I’d say their final assessment was more “we can see this is flawed, but there’s potential if…”
Yup, which is why I think it’s slightly disingenuous of us as a community to suggest that this is possibly the be-all end all of the rules set.
If this truly is a living rulebook, we need to get out of the mentality that this is what we’re stuck with for the next 2-5 years, or longer in the case of some of the army books.
If GW is taking feedback, it’s conceivable contentious issues are addressed in weeks or months, rather than years.
Here is another AoS battle report & all I can say is play or watch a few games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D54nIzA1VsE
That looks really fun, I like the simple rules.
Spotted a small error in the way they handled wounds, but overall a great battle report.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BoW.. for yesterday
Dudes… seriously!? Fantasy Warhammer has always had just as much grim darkness as 40K…. If you think that’s untrue you just don’t know the history or fluff. Yes there is some cartoony stuff – same with 40K.
And I think some of you dudes have based your views of what Warhammer is on a few dodgy experiences… That’s not the Warhammer many of us know. And it’s not exactly different to any other game including 40K, Warmachine, which isn’t the easiest game or rules light game out there. You always get “those” people.
Even more bizarre, yeah it seems time consuming to move entire ranked units of infantry .. until you buy a movement tray – but what’s bizarre is in 40K, and other games, you may not be ranked but you’re STILL moving 20+ models one at a time!!!! And it’s tougher and rare to use movement trays in sci-fi games. So eh what’s your point?
Warhammer Fantasy has many problems and Age of Sigmar kinda moves into the right track but they’ve done some really dodgy things, such as the fluff which is worrying. Whilst all the tactical depth that is realistic is gone, there’s no reason it can’t be fed back in, into the game. It’s easy to create a rule where you get bonuses for being ranked etc (not just the hoard bonus they have in the War scrolls). 40K does this – certain models get +1 to Toughness for being in base to base contact. This is easily transferable into AoS. If your unit is ranked you can agree on some rule.
I very much doubt GW get any feedback through the stores seeing as their staff appear, at least, to be trained to shut down any negative or critical talk about GW. Not sure if that’s an official line, or the result of GW cult mentality – but it happens in my experience.
Speaking of AoS here’s something I found on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/bishmeister1/status/617681079722360832
Other things being overlooked, or not getting talked about a lot all over the Internet.
Unit coherency is one inch. That’s from the model, not the base.
So no big scenic bases, or you actually won’t be able to achieve unit coherency.
Likewise, bases don’t matter, all measuring done from the base means if I want to get all of my models into combat, I will just pile them all in on top of each other’s bases.
The rules discourage armies and battles that actually look good in this respect.
Also, the balancing mechanic that is written into the rules (model count more than a third higher than your opponent gives them an instant victory condition) encourages a particular style of play: buy/build/paint only elite models. Put down on the table as many of these elite models as possible. Don’t bother putting down anything that isn’t super hard, because you run the risk of ending up with more models than your opponent, giving them the instant victory objective. So the winner of any game should be the person who has the highest number of super elite models in their collection.
This totally fits in with the way GW conduct their business: endless power creep, releasing one massively overpowered big elite model after another.
The future of age of sigmar is not lovely fluffy themed armies and battles, it’s more likely to be full on pay to win.
Regarding measuring from the base or the model – most of the time it’s fine using the base when handling infantry. But when it gets to monsters etc it seems more logical to measure from “the body”.
Guess what. 40K does that with Vehicles. Makes far more sense to simply do as 40K does surely? Measure from the dragon’s head.
There’s no way I’m playing a game where I’m measuring from spear tips lmao.
Sorry to harp on, but other stuff the first games getting played are demonstrating:
Shooting is ridiculous. You can move, shoot, charge, fight a combat, then win the initiative next turn and do it all over again. Even if you choose to stay in hand to hand combat, there’s nothing stopping you shooting out of combat at stuff over the other side of the battlefield.
War machines and artillery pieces can run around the board shooting at stuff as if they were light bowmen.
And there is loads of broken summoning stuff going on, like endless infinite summoning loops of greater daemons, or slann bringing on 50 wounds worth of models in three turns.
Mostly though, impression people are coming away from games with is: maximum randomness. Minimum thinking.
Re: GW having other means of receiving feedback.
Raph Koster gave a series of very good presentations at various game development conferences after his time with Star Wars Galaxies (and prior to that Ultima Online) about feedback in MMOs.
I can’t recall the exact breakdowns from the graphs now, but for interest sake I’ll use whole numbers. Something like 60% of feedback came through direct, in game channels, 35% came through external feedback options like contact us pages, etc., 5% came from the forums. Interestingly though, forum subscription numbers were around 10%, so simple math suggests only about 50% of those people were posting.
In GW Vein, lets assume there’s 1,000,000 (pretty sure it’s more, but whatever) GW players globally. Warseer, 94,914 members. BoLS 53,647 members. DakkaDakka 95,824 members.
Even added up, and assuming that every one of those members was an active -unique- poster (unlikely, since they all list most users online ever stats – BoLS is 5,194 users, for example, and most everyone is member of multiple forums) and dedicated to providing feedback that GW could use, then at most GW would receive about 24% of it’s feedback from online community sources.
It stands to reason that GW absolutely has to be using other feedback sources, and using similar numbers I’d hazard a guess that @warzan is absolutely correct, well over half of the feedback probably comes from direct feedback sources, or in this case, the GW stores themselves.
I want to love this game but im afraid i wont. I am stil planning to collect a khorne army and give age of sigmar a good shot and my brother is planning a Skaven army based on the rats of nimh. Happy days 😉
My mates and us have had more games without points than with for since I really don’t recall. These games have been the most enjoyable we have played every type of game more or less there is always different objectives, in fact again with these we have agreed them amongst our selves. Warhammer, 40k, WW2 loads of stuff. just go for it we have been saying this for an age. I have played players who turn up and cannot comprehend not choosing something of a scenario without rolling for it to the point where they walk away. Their loss, next, move on!
Victoria and Chris G
The thing is you can do that with any game, but without some form of points system there is no other way to play at all, do you not think that that may limit the player base somewhat ?
You can further only do that with common, frequent, like-minded opponents. It’s no good for pick-up games against occasional opponents, which will stunt AoS’ mass appeal. As it is, I don’t expect GW not to introduce a balance framework.
I believe that points are more limiting than anything else plus it needed to open out and have more flexibility with in it but this is just my opinion and my mates
As a bearded member of this communtiy I shall be speaking to my lawyers about your slanderous words on gamers with beards 😉
Beards!? More like raggy carpets! Amirite?
Lol thankfully well past peach fuzz phase 😛
happy Sunday & happy birthday guys.
have you looked at Circus Maximus as a basis for the pod racing rules?
Movement, combat, teams, betting.
Great game, though Circus Imperium by FASA based on grav chariots might be a better fit
The audio and video on this one is perfect, i didn’t notice any issues so keep it up!
But there is one thing abou AoS coverage that you make that i have to give my, hopefully, constructive critisim :
Please read more about it and read the rules in detail. I know that this is all new and we can all make mistake ( surely my comment has tons of mistakes because i’m not very good with writting in english… semidecent, i hope ). Here is one key element that you got wrong :
Is not miniatures what compose your army but rather units! For example 5 Plague monks are a unit, if put 5 Plague monks on the table my oponnent can place a Daemon Prince on its side, not five Daemon Prince!
In any case i’m looking forward to hear more about it in and probably play it with KoW minis next month.
Base to base! None of this model part to model part rubbish! Every company is adopting this for a reason, it works regardless of the model’s pose and avoids unnecessary arguments.
Happy Sunday Birthday! 2009 would make BoW 6 years old.
Good show guys. Another race that I think your rules might work for is Death Race (the movies). In the newer movies things are activated when you drive over them such weapons on your vehicle. It can also activate traps, etc that can hinder the other drivers. The movies weren’t that great but I can see the actual race being pretty cool on the table top.
Happy Sunday
Have you looked at Circus Maximus as a basis for your pod racing rules?
Racing, combat, gambling. It is all in there.
Hi guys. Just joined up today (both to the site and backstage) after watching your Youtube channels content last night. I love watching these kinds of vids. Having not played any miniature wargames in a long time I’ve hopped on both the Infinity and New Age of Sigmar trains.
welcome to the community 🙂
Welcome matey.
Happy Birthday Beasts of War! Thinking it may come down to the base game for sigmar….then a scenario book/release…..but believe they are mentioning tournament rules later (from Forge World open day). But the first releases will be a “lets show you the world type thing” Tournament rules could then use units/points/wounds, etc. to make “balanced tourney rules”
With measuring to the model rather than the base I might just agree with my opponent to just measure to the models torso or equivalent and ignore weapons. I like how simple the rules are, as it leaves room for you to adjust them and use them creatively.
Another great show guys! the Demi Gods game looks awesome!
In regards to points I don’t thnk it’s massive deal if a game dosen’t use them as long as you and your opponent mutually agree to what’s placed on the table in regards to the army then it’s fine. I think that it may become an issue at a tournament but I’m pretty sure other guidelines and restrictions could organised to limit what can and can not be fielded in an army.
Happy Sunrthday (late) Glad to see your ideas coming along. Interesting discussion on AoS…looking forward to seeing what happens with it and Loch Death
Apparently, the latest rumors doing the rounds promise the “BrB” is coming for Age of Sigmar. Here’s the details taken from BOLS: If this is true I’m all over AoS ;0))
via one of Gary’s birds 7-5-2015
Regarding a “Big Rulebook” for Age of Sigmar:
“I’m hesitant to call it a “Summer Campaign”, because a majority of the bigger stuff will come out after the summer is over, but the big new
selling point of AoS is going to be vast narrative campaigns and story arcs. The Realmgate War is going to be the first of these campaigns.
Future campaigns might be more focused, but RgW is primarily going to a walking tour of the new setting. The release pattering is going to be formulaic: Here’s the new world (Sans Azyr and Chaos, we go to them during the final), here’s the evil force that’s making everyone’s life awful, here’s the good force that’s going to liberate them. Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde each get their own named faction, and The Horned Rat and Nagash will each get their respective 15 minutes of fame.
Once all the new factions are introduced, and the war scrolls proper are put up, that’s when we finally get the BrB. Don’t think of this as 9th edition, think of this as the first expansion to Age of Sigmar. It’ll be much smaller than a core rulebook, but larger than a codex, and will look and feel a lot like the Horus Heresy books from FW. There will be rules for list building, missions, campaigns, as well as all the “advanced rules”, more rules for gods, magic, heroes, loot, more terrain abilities, and special rules for games on specific realm. Then there’s going to be a few weeks of 40k, followed by a few weeks to wrap up the Realmgate War. The conclusion will take the form of an actual, factual summer campaign, as the forces of order launch an assault on the forces of chaos undecided on their home turf, all while death and destruction go around making sure everyone’s having a bad day.
Then a few months later the cycle starts again. There’s going to be a few weeks of breathing time, setting up the campaigns, introducing characters, factions, and whatnot, followed by an expansion book that’ll expand on the rules and let people play their own mini campaigns, followed then a big conclusion with plenty of heroic deaths and things going south for everyone.”
So, basically exactly what others have said. The Age of Sigmar starter set is apparently – just that. It’s a starter set with super streamlined rules and missions. It’s not meant for organized play, but for gettin your feet wet with the new miniatures, game mechanics and setting. The actual “organized play” rules are described as an “codex sized” addon with all the structures and detail that players will need to make balanced large forces.
But note that the book is described as an addon/supplement to Age of Sigmar and that the rules will build upon the existing 4-page rules. So even if/when the BrB arrives, it will be Age of Sigmar in nature, not WFB 8th. It’s time to start to let that system go. It is slipping beneath the waves after 33 years of service.
“If this is true I’m all over AoS”
I think that applies to a lot of people who are interested in AoS but put off by the current iteration of the rules. As I said in forums on this, GW really need to learn how to talk to us. I understand why they normally don’t talk about future releases, they want you to buy today’s release and not save your money for the future release, but in this instance, not knowing what’s coming and just having these four-page rules that aren’t much more than a beta is putting people off. It’s not just the lack of balance, and if these rumours are true it puts to bed any suggestion that GW really do think they can put out a game without guidelines on balance and it be successful, but also the incomplete nature of the rules which are filled with grey areas and poor wording. Knowing that all this is the first step and here’s what’s coming would have gone a long way IMO.
This is what I’ll be waiting for.
If it comes to fruition, AoS may still get some of my money further down the line.
If GW were prepared to talk to some degree about future releases, even just the odd hint, I might even take the plunge now, on the basis that I could get some stuff built and ready to go for when some proper rules came out.
But at the moment I can’t exactly buy the starter set based on vague rumours, because it that four page pamphlet is all were getting, I want nothing to do with it.
On Age of Sigmar, If it lets me do the tomb kings army i want to do then cool – I always wanted to do just do an army of the Sepulchral Stalkers, never liked the humanoid skeletons and all that lot, I just LOVE those snake models and sphinx. I sort of want to model a medusa-esque tomb queen riding one too.
I have to say that I am honestly interested in AoS. I had been a big 40K fan, with Rogue back in 88 but got frustrated and rage quit back in 2003. Never got into Fantasy (but I had Ruglud’s Armoured Orks because they looked cool). If anything is going to get me back into GW, it would be this. After the rage quit, I found that there was a whole world of options out there, and they didn’t include points. Let’s call points what they are: Beardy Tournament Builders. They are only worthwhile to tournament players, and since when does GW have an obligation to the tourney scene? Warren hit the nail on the head in that war is not fair. Battles are not fair. Play Hysterical Wargames and Indy Miniature Rules, and you learn that pretty quick and yet have a ton of fun! Here is something else: Don’t like a rule (measure to model)? In-house a change and move on!
I am hung up on the Pod Racing and Mad Max. I’d say keep the maneuver as simple as possible without move templates. The faster you go the fewer turns and later you can make them. Just have range bands. Slow range band allows turns at the beginning, middle and end. Medium is at the middle and end. Fast is only at the end of the move. Special cards you can use allow for things like a slid slip. To bump someone you have to do opposed rolls.
Great episode. Live edit is coming along, even between Weekend and XLBS. Good job!
AoS has me interested as well for a “skirmish” game. I wouldn’t buy hundreds of models for it, but may buy dozens (which, if you’re GW, is better than zero). If I want to play massed fantasy battles I will play Kings of War.
Happy Sunday!
Yeah not all that keen on no points/balancing in AoS. Maybe the “weaker” player getting to choose from a list of victory conditions may help, but what if the stronger player just wipes them out? It has yet to be seen how AoS will go in the long run.
It’s kinda akin to Battletech, in the sense you can have whatever you want in your force (though AoS keeps players to a specific faction, so far). That said, Battletech does have battle value to help balance it, or Point Value in their Alpha Strike rules.
Battletech, YES! Man, I have so much pewter sitting around waiting to be painted…
I also get a vibe from Battletech that I can assemble a force true to the Fluff and win some or lose some based on my strategy. With some game systems the internet tells me which forces are obsolete and which are auto-include.
Reading and responding to posts has helped me think about AoS more, and I like what GW is doing. AoS is a paradigm shift. They have designed a game that exactly complies with their mission statement: selling awesome looking miniatures. The previous Fantasy editions polluted the minds of too many customers to assign value to their products NOT based on how awesome they looked, but by their game effectiveness. “These clanrats look cool but I need 3 boxes before they will be effective” or “The internet says this unit is not worth their points cost”. AoS says bring whatever toys you want and play with them, because there are no points values. Sure you may lose some games, but you will learn and adapt – Just like every other game, ever.
“Blue whippy sticks”.. now with extra skulls! lol Cheers guys and happy sunday come monday.
Long pikes or such will not allow what Lloyd is looking at as no part of the model may move further than the move characteristic of the model. So, turning it will be all your model, will use up all your movement.
I think something that has not been mentioned about the AoS miniature style is that in my opinion it takes the game model style very close to what we’ve been seeing in computer gaming industry. The new style is something that a gamer coming from World of Warcraft, for example, would instantly recognise.
The style choice leads me into thinking that as Warren said the new game is meant to capture new audiences. The old WHFB will still be there. It’s not like GW will come to your home and burn your rulebooks. It just didn’t sell so it got pulled.
GW must be looking at the new generation of gamers who have started as computer gamers and thinking how to convert them into miniature gamers. We, the old folks, got started in model building and D&D etc so we got lured in with the “proper” fantasy style we have learned.
The new generation has learned their fantasy from computer. That’s where the new money is..
Here’s an interesting YouTube video about the math of force sizes in battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0goQrvf-tU
This can very interesting when thinking about fighting unbalanced forces in 40K or even in AoS.
fascinating watching the brainstorming 🙂
Having looked at lots of bits and pieces across the world wide wobble web I’m intrigued by AoS not sure I’d jump in at launch… like to see a few more reviews etc to protect my already stretched gaming budget. I think the key thing for me is its not trying to be big battles anymore they’ve seeded that space to KoW ( Well done Ronnie) but it could offer a real competitor to Warmachine/Hordes.
My only tiny concern is whether its going to be too close to 40K in flavour/theme and thus lose its individual identity? I liked what they did with the end times so feeling positive but only time will tell.
Happy Birthday Guys, well done for keeping the show going and I hope you have many more years of entertaining and inspiring us !!!!!
I have not read all the comments posted so far so I hope I am not duplicating anything but just a quick thought on your pod racing design. Perhaps you could play on the pilot skills and add some mechanism where you can select a really cool move and then role a dice to see if you could pull it off. Obviously a particular pilot skill could add to dice role or the lack of that skill could subtract form your dice role and if you succeed on your role plus “skill” bonus points added then you successfully make the move if not then there could be some “penalties” and you end up crashing or missing your line and going in the wrong direction or even have an opponent select something to happen to you. Almost a morale check combined with a “FUBAR” chart.
My gaming group are garage gamers, don’t go to tournaments and generally play scenario type games where points per army is not balanced and go for a fluffy feel for the games we play.
I have had a look through the rules provided. There are many things in it that I like but find it too simplified, would have been grand as a relaunch of Mordhiem. I like the idea of massed ranked armies facing off each other but now its a skirmish game where movement does not really matter? No benefit that I can see in flanking etc.
I like how magic was simplified and not overpowered. I like that they specify what you need to roll to hit/wound right off the bat on the warscroll. The phases expanded and giving the game a different feel.
Not much for customizing characters, no additional magic items/abilities to choose from to give characters/armies a different feel. Can’t see why you would want to have units 20+ strong as you would need to move each model manually.
I suspect that there will be a more filled out rule set coming to provide abit more customzing options but I doubt I will move from 8th edition to AoS.
Well it is making me more interested in Flames of war/historical in general.
Hi guys. Great video
How about event cards? If your behind the leader you get an event card, these could be set in different levels due to the distance between the pods? Event card could look like a bolt loose on the lead pod he slows down or a positive your now slip streaming the lead pod and get a boost to your movement?
Or drop the idea as the phantom menace was poo
I respect where Warren is coming from in terms of common sense and community stuff…but there are two big issues I see with this.
First, I paid money to buy into the game as a whole and part of that is saving myself time from coming up with rules and balance. I want to meet up with a friend (or random), plop down my army and play out a balanced and hopefully fun game over a set period of time. Having to make up rules just to balance things adds far too much time and stress to the game after I have already forked over a tonne of money and time.
Secondly if this idea that all gamers have common sense and will get together and make an awesome game and community…why do most game systems have rules? Why do we have rules at all? The answer is people don’t have common sense and that people aren’t all that friendly in a competitive environment. This is why we ask for a rule set (Warhammer 8th) to then go on and balance further (Swedish Comp).
I like so many of the streamlined rules in Age of Sigmar and it badly needed a refresh…but to have the gall to not throw in a points system (or some well thought out alternative) is just a slap in the face to anyone who buys into this game to play with strangers. So many of my gaming buddies I met in tournaments where they were stupidly competitive but were controlled by the rules. Once I had a tough and challenging game with them I was able to get to know them better and they became friends. I firmly believe that had I met them without a strong rule set behind the game I would have hated their guts and gotten frustrated at how ruthless and competitive they were.
Oh and Happy late Birthday for BoW!
I know it is a long time after the weekender but I have some things I want to share about this episode and GW.
I have not played a GW game in over 10 years due to the ever increasing costs and the redundancies of armies and figures. Unlike many others I do not spend pointless hours getting on forums and bagging out GW. I have always followed their changes and progress with some interest.
The new Age of Sigmar looked quite interesting to me and the show spoke a little about how GW were not interested in old gamers but I actually thought there is another side to this that might have been missed in the show … I think GW might be interested in the older gamer … but the one like me who walked away years ago, they (me) don’t have time and money invested in an army (sold it years ago). So something new might bring some of us older Warhammer players back to the table as well as scooping up new blood. (If this was considered in the planning – well done GW … it has worked on me). 🙂
I also wanted to share the first bump into accepting GW back into my heart (i.e. wallet). Today while I was working I decided to drop into the local GW store on my break and see what’s new. I had the mindset of grabbing the new White Dwarf so I could check out and paint one of the new miniatures. On the way there I was thinking .. wow I might even consider re-subscribing to WD if the coverage is good. (I do miss the old WD reading days). So I pull up at the centre with the GW store – Grab a large malted chocolate shake (my favourite) from a few stores down and head to the GW store (wondering what they are like these days – more than 10 years remember) … When I get there.
It’s closed.
Huh??
It’s Tuesday and 13:30 … what the?
The next nearest store is over 60kms away.
Looks like I wont be getting that WD … or seeing what’s new in the GW store.
Now I work 10 hours a day minimum and travel a lot for work .. I might not be near a store again for weeks or even months. ….
My resolve is not yet broken to grab the new WD and I know I can get it online but I wanted to walk in to a store and get a vibe for what’s happening 🙂
Had the store been open it may have rolled me on to a pre-order .. some paints and other bits and bobs,,, and refuelled a GW fire that was sparking away in the embers …
A rather disappointing start to my return. I do hope GW see this and understand that they are potentially losing customers (old ones like me who have the potential these days to spend more than they ever could in their younger years on the hobby)
Anyways 11/10 for the new stuff so far – 4/10 for customer service, availability and fuelling the embers.
Warhound – Out
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Happy Sunday! (on Tuesday)
Re mad max. There was an old mb game called thunder road that I played as a kid. It had a simple quite elegant rule set that we easily adapted to vary combat and introduce progression and skill points for a campaign. Could be worth a look. Anyone else play this?
Age of Sigmar looks like a great game to get some more of my mates to try out table top gaming. Nice simple rules so quick gameplay.
I HATE spacemarines tough. So i won’t be getting the new starterset.
Some additional rules GW is working on to balance armies. A start but still a long way from a true solution. These were leaked but confirmed to have come from GW. So they may be changed or have more added to them when released.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/07/age-of-sigmar-army-comp-rules-leaked.html
Nice speculating Warren, really admire the faith you still have in GW despite how they have treated you over the years … but can GW really afford to toy with their customers like that? wouldnt a strategic goal be to reclaim lost players of fantasy, or make sure the ones playing now are interested enough to carry over to AoS? Do they really have the luxury to say “this game is not for you?” … just speculating 🙂
Moar Age of Sigmar!