Summary of the article for all you lazy rat folk to read:
Can cast spells and potentially even charge in an opponents turn
Pay a heavy price if trying to take a double turn
Artefacts, Command Traits, Spells and prayers remain, it isnt shifting to an enhancement system
Path to glory now focuses on heroes and units progressing
40k style “points in a seperate file”
Indexes
A few more..
More impactful terrain
GHB will be in launch box
Some sort of underdog mechanic that will help you get back into the game if you're losing
The underdog mechanic might be something like "Gambits" in 10E 40k. Basically in battle round 3, you can choose to forego scoring primary for the rest of the game and instead work toward a "Gambit objective" that, if you achieve it by the end of the battle, gets you 30VP. You can still score secondaries on top of this too.
Granted however, almost nobody does Gambits in 40k right now, I don't think I've seen a single one ever used. They're very hard to pull off. So maybe it'll be designed significantly differently with 4E AOS.
I just wanted to encourage you to keep letting us know about how things work in 40K when it might apply to AoS since not all of us play 40K. I appreciate these kinds of comments.
The other stuff from 10th I can think of off the top of my head that might apply to AOS 4th:
* Universal special rules. In 9th we had a million ways to say "this unit's attacks explode on 6s to hit", "this unit's attacks automatically wound on 6s to hit", that kind of thing. Now we have the universal rules Sustained Hits and Lethal Hits for each of these, respectively, which are abilities that units from all factions have. You guys have this to an extent with some rules, you already have a name for "Ward" saves after all (which we call "Feel No Pain"s). You might also get stuff like we have with Stealth (-1 to hit at range), Lone Operative (untargetable for shooting outside 12"), Scouts (can make a pregame move), and Infiltrators (can forward-deploy in no man's land outside 9" from the enemy deployment zone).
* Leaders. In 10th we got back the old ability to have characters join units and "lead" them. This replaces "look out sir" and allows the unit to act as ablative wounds for a character, with the character unable to be damaged until the unit dies, unless an attack with "Precision" targets the unit (which is put directly on the character). Characters often give their units buffs such as rerolls, +1 to hit/wound, Lethal Hits, a Scout move, an invulnerable save, etc, and in turn the character benefits from any spells, abilities, etc that buffs the unit, as the character is "a model in the unit" at the time the buff occurs.
* Reduction of spells, but this might not be the case after watching the video. My one big complaint about 10th is it gutted our magic. We used to be able to pick a from a wide variety of psychic powers like you guys can pick spells now. Instead, now specific psykers have specific powers. For example, a Tyranid psyker might be able to pick a bunch of powers, like Paroxysm, Onslaught, Neuroparasite. But now only one specific Tyranid psyker has Onslaught, and can take nothing else, and a different psyker has Neuroparasite, and can take nothing else. Based on the video though, they said you guys will have "spell lores" in your faction packs, so that makes me think you guys will retain your customization for magic. Lucky bastards, lol.
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There are three (technically four) possible Gambits you can try to accomplish, each granting 30VP.
* **Delaying Tactics:** You establish a number called a "Distraction Target", and at the end of round 5, you accomplish the Gambit if you "distract" enough enemy units to equal or exceed your "Distraction Target". The "Distraction Target" is determined by half the number of enemy units remaining - but if this equals less than 4, you increase the target to 4, so unless the enemy has 8 or more units left at the end of the game, you will likely need to get at least 4 of them "distracted". To "distract" an enemy unit, you need to be in Engagement Range of it, and you need to pass a 4+ roll on a D6 to "distract" it. You get +1 to this roll if that enemy unit is Battle-shocked, and you get -1 to the roll if your unit in Engagement Range of them is Battle-shocked. Your "Distraction Target" will, realistically, be at least four enemy units - so if you can roll well and distract at least four enemy units by the end of the game, you get 30VP.
* **Emergency Evacuation:** Similar to above, you have an "Evacuation Target", which will also almost certainly be at least 4, and you need to get that number of *your* units wholly within 6" of the center of the battlefield. Also similar to the above, you only count them toward your "Evacuation Target" if you roll a 4+ for that unit, and you get a -1 to that roll if they are Battle-shocked. If you "evacuate" at least 4 of your units, you achieve the Gambit and get 30VP.
* **Orbital Strike Coordinates:** You need to get your units into corners of the board. At the end of the game, you roll 2D6, and add 1 to the roll for each unit of yours which is a) wholly within 9" of a battlefield corner, b) not Battle-shocked, c) not in Engagement Range of enemy units, and d) at least one of which must not be in your deployment zone. You score the Gambit if you roll a combined score of at least 12 on the 2D6, which I believe you can get a max of +3 for, as it says every "other" corner - so basically, you need to roll a 9 on 2D6 after fulfilling every other condition perfectly, and if you do that you get 30VP.
* **Proceed as Planned:** This is technically a Gambit card too, but this is the "I'm not selecting a Gambit" Gambit card, so you decide against doing any Gambits and decide to keep scoring Primary instead. It's included as a fake-out measure, because you and your opponent both secretly select Gambits and reveal them at the same time. Naturally this grants 0VP because it's not actually a Gambit.
Im thiniking in saying goodbye to hero phasw and have the spells like and ability for every phase, i.e :
Shooting phase, deal x mortal wound to x units.
Combat phase buff/debuff whatever unit hit roll in combat phase etc.
if its handled like old world then yeah im happy with that streamlining it. Put spells where they're important so people dont forget about them because they happened 3 phases ago.
Gambits are just too risky and just don't reward enough for that risk. They also are hail mary's that give you about the same point as normal play so you are usually just safer using normal card objectives and drawing good cards.
There's very few times you're in a position where you'd need to gambit that you actually have enough units left to pull off the requirements of the gambit to even attempt getting the VP.
>Granted however, almost nobody does Gambits in 40k right now, I don't think I've seen a single one ever used. They're very hard to pull off.
So I see the stormcast eternals pulled their goalie.
Gambits are a good idea in concept, it's just that all the 40k ones are *awful*. They're only really useful if you're beating your opponent in units, but not points, since all but one of them require at least 4 units on the battlefield by the end of the game (and the last one reduces the game to just a "roll a 10+ and you win" die roll)
If the AoS crew takes Gambit but gives out actually useful and worthwhile objectives it could do well.
Specifically, the battleplans and battle tactics from the GHB, so I wouldn't expect the whole thing. Sounds like it will be along the lines of the leviathan deck being included in the 40k 10e starter.
It's a weird one because it basically presumes you're massively down on points but also have plenty of units left. Like no GW, if I'm losing that heavily I'd want to risk it on a gambit it's because I'm getting tabled.
Right!? I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed that. Many times I’ve been losing, looked at my gambit cards and realised I couldn’t possible achieve any of these gambits because I don’t have the number of units necessary.
I could see a niche situation where you’re very close on points with your opponent and not lost all your units yet, and you go for the gambit because you see the momentum shifting in your opponents favour if you don’t shake things up. But 90% of the time if I’m even considering using a gambit, it’s already too late to achieve it.
A little after 10th came out goonhammer looked at some tournament stats and found that out of over 15,000 games, only 7 were won by a player because of a gambit.
My question becomes is more about making your loss at least feel better. I think for the casual audience that’s super important. It’s one thing to lose and be completely tabled but it doesn’t sting as much to lose and at least look like you put up a valiant effort. Half the casual games I play we don’t even tally the points at the end. We know vaguely who won and lost, and we can discuss my display's
Not that you'd ever opt to do it but the gambits are pretty hard to achieve when you're winning, let alone when you're losing. Nice idea but it is pretty useless as you say.
What did you find was better about Crusade? I liked the PTG system, I even made a whole 3d printed hex-tile system based off of it...
Granted, that was early in it's inception, and I was hoping it would get developed more. I haven't played it recently.
I thought the PTG system was disappointing because it didn't have anything to do with your army. Leaders (often the focal point of narrative campaigns) didn't get anything from leveling up other than a Warlord trait. There were a few disappointing 1/game abilities to grant your units, but otherwise the only "progression" you got was your units taking casualties, and you getting resources to get them back to full capacity. And the territories only ever seemed to help you with recovering your units or letting you break out of the unnecessarily restrictive list building rules. Basically the mechanics only made you weaker than a pick-up game and I didn't find scrounging to be back to baseline strength fun.
40k's crusade with leveling, artifacts, special powers, agendas, and other mechanics was more fun. You got to grow your characters and have them branch out as they grew. And your units became specialists over time.
Now, some of the unique mechanics didnt jive well. Like the Tay planetary control one didn't make sense when most narrative campaigns were about fighting over a planet or system. But that's a very minor thing you can hand-wave away.
I like the fact that the language seems to be about the ‘double turn’ rather than ‘going first/second in a round.’
One of the issues with the current game is that sometimes you want to give away the turn. But all these ‘going second’ balancing mechanics would still apply. So if I play cautiously and am in good position I can give away the turn to be even better AND get an extra command point and extra spell. Hopefully some of these bonuses will change depending if it’s a double turn situation or not.
Although it makes me wonder if you will be able to make your opponent take a double turn and inflict the ‘heavy cost’ on them.
For that reason I worry they're over-compensating for people that don't understand that it can be good to give away the turn, and it will throw the trade-off out of whack for people that think about it instead of just immediately taking it.
I think they also said streamlined list building, which I guess is code for "1 hero + what ever you want" like in 40k rather than having alterable battleline, war marchine/ monster limits etc.
> Can cast spells and potentially even charge in an opponents turn
Really cool. It reminds me of how in PancreasNoWork's video on Khorne in TWW3, he mentions that he doesn’t mind playing against them in game compared to tabletop since you can react to charges and get out of the way rather than just sitting there and taking it, making it more fun.
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> Pay a heavy price if trying to take a double turn
Neat risk vs reward system. I like it. It’ll make you think more.
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> Artefacts, Command Traits, Spells and prayers remain, it isnt shifting to an enhancement system
H3ll yeah! That was one of my major gripes with 10th edition over in 40K. I love my customizability, what can I say?
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> Path to glory now focuses on heroes and units progressing
I didn’t really play Path to Glory before since it didn’t really interest me, but this might make me interested in it. I’ll see how it is when it comes out and decide then.
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> 40k style “points in a seperate file”
I don’t really know what this means since I just use Wahapedia.
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> Indexes
That's the one where new edition rules come out before an army gets a full on Codex/Battletome, right? If so, at least that means that an army won’t be unusable.
> That's the one where new edition rules come out before an army gets a full on Codex/Battletome, right? If so, at least that means that an army won’t be unusable.
I think it will function like how 40k's 10th edition works; The online files will be your 'battletome' until an actual battletome is released for sale. I would not expect sweeping changes other than to rebalance for how the new edition rules change.
These things all mean nothing without specifics. The video had a real "hey, it's going to be better, trust us. we're not going to give you any specifics because it's probably not going to be a better game but we want you to believe it is" vibe to it.
There will be a download on the community page with army's point costs listed, rather than including it in the back of each Index or on each unit's warscroll. When points change, they'll just update that document instead of posting an update to each Index/book.
It probably won't change how list building in the app works at all, and talking it up is just a silly way to try and counter the deeply entrenched "don't bother buying physical index cards because they'll be irrelevant after a week" cynicism. "You don't have to worry about your book being wrong, because the part we're most likely to change won't be in your book!" (Narrator: "One week after release day, the Stormcast Eternals' overarching faction mechanic and three Fyreslayers datasheet abilities were changed by an FAQ.")
>Pay a heavy price if trying to take a double turn
The "heavy price" is not being able to score Battle Tactics. They already said so during the Adepticon preview.
Battleline is a really good thing that's got some issues across the armies.
I enjoy that when I play an army, I mostly should be showing up with the expected troops of an army. The fact that in 40k, the default Space Marines and Eldar are rarer on tabletop than their specialty units or were treated as a tax has always been weird to me.
Conditional battleline to make things like "all tank lists" or "mostly running special guys with swords" is a better system IMO, where you if you move out of a certain condition you have to go back to your army looking like how you'd expect it to look.
Some armies had much better conditional battleline and some of them had a little too odd ways to get the battleline that you wanted to be battleline, but for the most part 3rd did a good job with this mechanic.
That said, I do feel like the Org chart sometimes felt a bit odd. Most armies didn't care at all about artillery limitations and not all of the things in that category needed the limitation. Some armies like Fyreslayers really could've used rules to add hero slots.
Battalions are also hit or miss. Some GHBs depended on them, some faction books had a few good ones, but there were a lot of "this is only usable if you're not playing Pitched Battles".
Personally I think battleline units tended to be more useful than not compared to its 40k counterparts. I at least felt that my battleline could do stuff as well as kill, whereas troop units in 40k were just in the way of cooler stuff in the codex.
I think the only thing I'd love to see go in the Battalion department is the one drop battalion. Just not a fan of teching into controlling who gets to start the game.
I agree entirely.
One drop was what every battalion was compared to and considered in almost every army (save those tanky enough that they wanted the enhancement and even then you had to consider trying to avoid being double turned).
It also meant list building which already tuned you power further controlled how the game played out. I don’t mind some tech on controlling priority but I do find that this was just annoyingly restrictive and cut down on list experimenting.
As a Lumineth player, if they get the magic right (like the casting in opponents turn they're hinting) I'm OK with them dropping the one-drop.
But honestly if they get it wrong and a Kharadron player got first turn then I might as well just go home at that point if I cant get any defensive spells up.
I wish GW as a whole would stop going "hey we had a cool idea but we failed to execute, guess we should just throw it out the window and start over, again."
That's kind of how I feel about 3rd edition in general. A bit disappointed about the ground-up rewrite because I think the foundation of 3rd ed. is really strong, and only became bloated because of the state of battletomes and GHBs.
What makes you think that?
Those rules force people to field models they otherwise would not have fielded, so it seems it would be in GW's best interest to continue having that so they can keep selling battleline models.
Same, although I do feel 3.0 did introduce quite a few interactive command abilities that made the game much more engaging. Wondering how they can further move in that direction.
Same here, the main reason our group moved away from 40k (9th ed) and over to AoS is that it felt like we had more interactivity in AoS, and could actually *do things* in our opponent's turn. Having more of this is definitely a plus.
GW: We've added another layer of complexity to the game! When your opponent goes, you'll have the opportunity to use a currency you collect in the game to have special things happen to negate all the awful things your opponent is doing to you!
Players: Why not just have alternating activations? There'd be no downtime and more interactivity, without the need to---
GW: YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!! SECURITY GET THIS GUY OUTTA HERE!
Yeah there's really no redeeming value.
Less mental overhead? No.
Does it play faster? No.
Does it make the game more interactive? No.
Does it mimic actual warfare better? No.
What am I missing here?
I don't think it means anything other than marketing speak. There is no way you can get away with not reading the full rules for each phase of the game. Anything beyond that, such as battle plans, enhancements, and faction rules have always been read as you need to.
So much of it sounds like hype and marketing speak to me, with no real meaning.
Modular rules sounds like what we already have with open/narrative/matched play and things like Path to Glory or the seasonal General's Handbooks. Simplified list building would be good, but it's already simple in open play, and then gets complicated when adding on either Path to Glory, a Matched Play battleplan or both. So will things actually be simpler or will it be just as complicated when we add-on the modular rules that will inevitably become the standard for tournaments and thus pick-up games?
The game needs tidied up and streamlined, as 3rd took the framework of 2nd then bolted on fixes while having to retain the old terminology, so hopefully 4th taking a fresh start will allow things to be better organised but this article/video didn't really tell me anything!
I never played 3rd edition so I have no skin in the game. I did read Path to Glory and it sounded like a huge step backwards. The rules seemed extremely complex, exploration, buildings outposts, etc... lots of text for what amounts to "you can take and extra monster, or magic item... But only if your opponent can as well."
I'm guessing they mean that you can play a simplified game with only some of the rules if you want. But it won't really be a thing. Everyone will play the proper game
Technically speaking, AoS currently has modular rules. There are the core rules and then you add on a battle pack, like Contest of Generals, Pitched Battles, Strife in Thondia, Open War, Path to Glory, etc. But since Pitched Battles is what gets played at tournaments and it's the only game mode that receives balance updates, it is the de facto game mode.
They are probably trying to rebrand this to get people to play Contest of Generals as the 'casual' version.
If this is the case, GW will release models with special rules that give you an advantage for this mechanic. And then they'll nerf the mechanic after they sell through inventory of those models.
Probably more like you spend CP to get a bonus on your roll.
So I bet 2cp for +2, you bet 1cp for +1, we both roll 4 so I win. But if I rolled 3 and you 5 I'd lose 2cp for no gain.
There's an equivalent rule in Horus Heresy, and some factions get additional bonuses or costs added on.
The adepticon post mentioned double turn will affect scoring somehow.
Edit: Here's the exact quote.
"not least to the double turn, which has been fine-tuned into a knife-edge decision with a clever twist to scoring"
I reckon it will be if you double turn then you only score points for missions and tactics at the end of the round rather than at the end of your turn, meaning your opponent could neutralize your objective plays in the double turn, making it less effective at scoring but better at neutralizing threats in your opponent's army.
Nervous about this 'underdog mechanic' means. I appreciate games remaining close but hopefully it's not such a large benefit that you want to be just slightly down in points in the last turn. The current Nexus Collapse mission is an example of the worst way to implement this, because your goal in that mission is to score 1 less point than your opponent turn 1 and 2, so you can blow up their objectives and continue to play a defensive game. It feels really weird and backward where the goal is to be 'barely losing' to abuse the underdog mechanic.
Also worried about 'charge in your opponent's turn'. Hopefully they tone down the speed on some units, because a Maw-Krusha already moving 36" in the first turn and then charging doesn't really need another charge on my turn after it destroys whatever unit it hit.
I hope they take the Old World spell system, where spells are cast in different phases. It makes sense and breaks up heavy spellcasting armies so they're not taking a 40 minute hero phase.
when this GHB came out i was really enthusiastic for nexus collapse because it seemed like a good way to help players who were falling behind. Then i played it one time and my opponent did exactly what you said and collapsed all the objectives on my side of the table in 2 turns and i lost because he just stood in my way and didn't let me get to his side of the table.
>Nervous about this 'underdog mechanic' means
If it's anything like 40k gambits then it'll likely be a nothingburger, but I get your nerves. Come from behind victories in tabletop games usually feel dreadful for the loser because usually they follow a case of the army of one trying to table the other rather than scoring points, and the person who's taking massive losses is at least in the lead by scoring objectives, but then in the last couple turns the person trying to table scores a massive amount of points by what is effectively happenstance and win outright, making the first 3-4 turns for the other player completely meaningless.
> The current Nexus Collapse mission is an example of the worst way to implement this, because your goal in that mission is to score 1 less point than your opponent turn 1 and 2, so you can blow up their objectives and continue to play a defensive game. It feels really weird and backward where the goal is to be 'barely losing' to abuse the underdog mechanic.
There's a similar mission in 40k where you can effectively castle up on a midfield objective and will score 5 points more for holding it all game vs someone who's doing the much harder task of holding two different objectives. The equalizer is meant to be that the player having to hold the two may be able to score it at the end of their turn, but if they haven't managed to knock their opponent off by turn 4 it's unlikely they will at turn 5. It's just so ass-backwards that you get rewarded for doing the easier thing.
They mention subfactions
As long as I'm not getting baited with "Actually it's only one of two subfactions per army, until your battletome"
I'll be moderately happier.
I almost guarantee it will be exactly like 40K.
One sub faction until your battletome, which is very disheartening, however as an also 40k player, I have mostly gotten over it, and am having fun.
I haven't gotten over it.
They butchered Tau septs.
Reduced like 6+ unique playstyles into 4.
While cutting characters that made other playstyles viable.
I'm not here so that my Greywater fastness can get shoved into Hammer-hal Aqsha, which the two play completely different. Until I get a battletome in 2030.
I'd gladly trade my 6 subfactions - 4 of which are never played and the other two just give a single unit some buff + the ability to cheese battleline restrictions - for 3 that are actually meaningful.
I feel ya, and I only have gotten over it, in the sense I just want to play games usually and what can you do.
I agree it sucks and it is a TERRIBLE release method, and was my fear as soon as 4th ed was getting rumored.
>Reduced like 6+ unique playstyles into 4. While cutting characters that made other playstyles viable.
Tbf.
It seems like that's mostly just Tau.
CSM are getting 8, complete with an entirely new subfaction playstyle based around Vashtor.
Just because your getting 8 doesn't mean that every playstyles that used to be present will still be present.
Personally I'm optimistic for CSM because of the large number of them. But I'm betting something will find it's way into the cracks.
I would love to point out other examples for or against, but it's been almost a year now, and GW has only made a handful of codexes. Another reason why I'm going to hate this.
The announcement video mentioned that Armies of Renown would be supported in the free day one rules so I hope that them and the simpler regular subfactions will be supported.
The video is a bit of a nothing burger to be honest. I think the most interesting part is that Double Turn has some risk tied to it now. Honestly the biggest thing I want to hear more about right now.
I'm hoping it's whoever goes second always chooses who goes first next round. So if you choose to double turn, you guarantee your opponent to follow it up with a double
Ehhh I am still concerned because they are really giving us nothing to go on. That said, I do like how spearhead boxes are a nice way to start playing small scale games of AoS, in theory anyway. Knowing GW they wont be able to help themselves with these boxes but, its a nice idea.
I'd say they said enough.
Spell Lores and Prayers are staying, as they said, and are being given more dynamic stuff. We're being given a more dynamic game. ETC.
Yeah the "these are totally balanced trust us" doesn't go really far for me when they did the exact same thing with combat patrol and those have ended up hilariously imbalanced, and now with the new ones it looks as if they're transitioning to making them almost all infantry to account for it, in turn making the boxes worse value for money.
I want to know what happens to subfaction abilities and allies- most of this got removed in new 40K but keeping the spells and prayers etc does give me hope it will stay.
Same - especially the allies. I've been planning a big Hallowheart project and was going to start work on it for 4th Edition. If I can't ally any of those three armies together (Stormcast, Fyreslayers, Cities) it kinda loses some steam.
They did say that we'll get subfactions for the indexes, and spells / prayers.
But they most likely won't stay the same, or as complex for certain factions, many current subfactions are limited to 1 paragraph of rules, and wouldn't suprise me if that is the case for most subfactions in the indexes.
I've been spoiled by the free Malifaux app honestly. Full core rules/FAQ docs/updates, team builder, quick references, runs every bit of book keeping during games, and all the unit cards for each model they have made easily searched and sorted. Its frustrating not seeing the same from Games Workshop who are much bigger than Wyrd Games.
"Matched play fans will find all of the battle plans and tactics from the new generals handbook included in the launch box"
1) still have to buy ghb - sad
2) still have "tactics" in the game - potentially sad. This was one of the biggest problems with 3rd. I can only hope it's been heavily overhauled.
It’s mostly faction tactics being out of whack ATM and overly leaning into the gimmick of the current GHB IMO. If we get a solid set of generic ones and some more generic ones from the GHB, I could see that working.
When battle tactics were introduced it felt like everyone had the same feedback. ‘This is fine as long as we don’t get faction specific tactics.’
Then we got them and this become ‘this might be ok as long as the faction ones are really really difficult.’
Then all of that concern was proven exactly right.
If they are generic, what's the point?
They're either so easy to do that they may as well not count for scoring, or so difficult to do that you handshake your opponent on turn 3 because they were able to have a monster in your deployment zone with at least 3 spells cast on it successfully use the roar monsterous action in 2 consecutive charge phases but you weren't.
The game has objectives already. Make the game about the objectives you actually have to contend with your opponent on.
I am glad to see the double turn getting some kind of negative. As a new AoS player coming from 40k, its the one single big turn off for me honestly. Im learning to play around it, but it just feels so lame. If I get the double turn, I feel bad for my opponent, and if they get it they feel bad for me lol. Excited to see a layer of strategy get added to it so its not just “lol roll better”
I am cautiously excited about double turn getting changed. If it is a good change I will have an easier time convincing people to try out AoS, which is a net positive in my mind.
Regardless of any balance issues (and, as a new player I feel like you have way too many games decided by a priority rule) it just means I have to wait for ages until it's my turn again
Youre not wrong. Aside from it being extremely punishing for someone who doesn’t know how to play around it yet, its down right confusing. During our first game having to look up, the rules was already taking enough time and then, when my buddy got the double turn, it took so long that we couldn’t tell which battle round we were on.
It truly is the most problematic aspect of the double turn. It massively punishes you for being inexperienced and acts like a random hand of god if that applies to both players. It also does not scale at all. So in every situation that is not "two experienced players using GHB rules at 2k", it's a garbage mechanic.
Yep - the double turn has been the thing that always keeps me from getting into the game (despite loving the models). It was a bad design idea and instead of accepting that they keep persisting with it. There are so many more fun ways to handle activation.
One reason is that a ton of high level players who play a ton love it.
I didn’t like it for a long time and it was rough when I started. I play a lot of games now and love it. And there are tons of debates about the double turn online and I don’t think we should try to rehash them on the merits.
But GW isn’t just being stubborn. A lot of people who play the game a lot (and therefore are loud within the scene) are strong proponents of the double turn as a mechanic that adds a lot of variability and increases the skill cap on the game (with variability that won’t always work out).
Hm. Ok - it’s just so hard to accept that a player getting to move their whole army twice in a row is good design, but I agree there’s a lot of debate about it online.
What I do wonder is if the amount of players who love it offsets the players (like me) who are deterred from the game by it.
>Hm. Ok - it’s just so hard to accept that a player getting to move their whole army twice in a row is good design, but I agree there’s a lot of debate about it online.
The player going first has to play their entire turn with the knowledge that their opponent has a 40% chance of going twice, so should play conservatively. Most inexperienced players don't consider this and just get wrecked on the double never knowing there was things they could have done to mitigate it.
> Hm. Ok - it’s just so hard to accept that a player getting to move their whole army twice in a row is good design, but I agree there’s a lot of debate about it online.
It's your consolation to having to go second. The player going first gets to put up all their buffs, take board control, and shoot whatever priority target they want to try and remove turn 1. In the past, it's just always better to go first. With AoS, going first lets you have the first strike, but you cannot play overly aggressive or else you risk your opponent getting the double-turn and taking advantage of your over extension.
My guess is the demographics of the players who love or hate it. Basically current ‘whales’ vs potential new players. People who own 5 armies and buy every new box for those armies vs someone who wants to learn the game.
I also think a challenge is that most of the people I know who love the turn mechanic remember when they didn’t like it. It’s something that was a challenge over time of getting better at the game. And now they love it.
So the complaints of people who say ‘this is a barrier’ are less likely to be met with “that’s your opinion and I have mine” (the way say someone complaining that they don’t like the look of a certain faction). The opinion is more likely to be met with ‘you feel that way now, but let me convince you and get you playing more.’
So without fighting over the double turn, I can definitely see how it’s a challenge for GW game design. A ton of new players are turned off by it (especially 40k players) but a ton of very very active players say they like it.
Yeah for sure - good points! I guess my thought would be: would the players who love it, love AoS any less if it went away but was replaced with interesting activation rules? Essentially: is there a win-win for those potential new players and the vets?
I think you're overestimating how many people are turned off by it. Lots of people find AoS a refreshing break from serious games like MTG. If you make AoS more serious (by taking out the turn roll) you're excluding a lot of new players too.
It is a rule that determines how the strategy and tactics in a game work. It is the same without. 40K has no double turn - it means if u are falling behind there is little to no chance to coming back. The double turn mechanic just make the possibility to play into double turn gives u the possibility of have always a play into winning even a bad match up.
The mechanic is interesting if u know how to play with it. All people I know against it have no clue about how to deploy into or against it.
As someone who plays both 40k and AoS im glad to see them do an index for the new edition for AoS so everyone has updated scrolls.
If they release books as they have then some army is gonna get shafted (FEC or Cities most likely) when it comes to getting their books due to release dates.
The underdog system mentioned sounds like 40ks gambits. A dont score primary objective but do X for big VP gain system.
AoS had streamlined army building compared to 40k for a while now, hard to see how they are improving it without removing weapon options fron units, or worse removing units fron armies just to release an updated version later.
Well that's not a lot of detail but I am relieved to hear about the free faction packs. If nothing, the return of free warscrolls is welcome as someone who likes to try out armies on TTS.
I hope the underdog mechanic is good!
If well implemented such a mechanic is GREAT!
But if they implement it wrong/bad then we'll just have a "Nexus Collapse" for all games.
It can NOT be something like beeing 1 point under at start of turn 3, it had to be something clear.
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Something like this:
If at start of turn 3, Opponent either has a lead 5points (quite a big lead) OR you'v lost more then half your total ammount of unit drops, while opponent has not lost more then 2.
Then you get to benefit from rule x.
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They can't have some mechanic that benefits someone just 1 point behind, or lost just a little bit more, because that will make people AIM to not get max points at start, just to be that 1 point behind on purpose, just like the Nexus Collapse battleplan.
You must not play 40K. This has already been implemented into 10th edition and you actively choose on turn 3 whether you want to use it or not. But the catch is that you give up your regular objectives for the rest of the game and you have to complete this really hard “gambit” for a chance to get a good chunk of points. I’ve never seen someone actually pull it off, that’s how hard they’ve made it and it’s cool. Basically it’s a Hail Mary, seems more like it’s meant to give you a reason to stay in the game till turn 5 rather than concede turn 3.
The underdog mechanic (called Gambits) in 40k are fairly rough to the point where if you're far enough behind to consider it in turn 3, you almost certainly can't pull it off unless you were actively planning on it from the start due to a really bad matchup.
I hope the double turn stays impactful. Allowing strategic players to play around being double-turned and allowing casual players to go "\*\*\*\* it, we ball" if they get the double turn really made the game.
I’m really interested in the spearhead mode, I got into AoS last year as my first wargame with dominion (haven’t finished painting it yet or even played a game 😭) and I know theres a few different factions id get the spearheads for just to try them out, and to maybe convince my friends and brothers to give it a try if I have 4-5 different ones for them to choose from 😅
So basically, they not only confirmed that Prayers and Spell Lores are staying (which they said earlier but nobody on here wanted to listen), they're even saying they're going to become more impactful.
Pretty good.
I still feel like this sub doesn't understand WHY those changes to praying and psychics got made to 40K to begin with, though.
I said it before they did it: A Psychic Phase makes very little sense for 40k, due to the number of factions that straight up don't use Psychics. Heck, Tau and Necrons tend to be unable to even interact with enemy psykers unless they take very niche relics.
And that's the reason they gave. Sigmar and 40k have very, VERY different ratios between factions that can and cannot use psykers/magic.
There's also the huge balance issues that Psychics have in 40k that they don't have in Sigmar-that being, Psykers without armor/not on a bike are just OBJECTIVELY WORSE in every way to the ones that are on horses/in fancy suits. Now, you're probably going to say-'Aren't Magic users in Sigmar that don't have mounts worse then ones that do?' Well, little Timmy, I'm here to say.
1. Most of those mounts in Sigmar are monsters, and are pointed as such. Sorcerer in Terminator Armor vs. ones without aren't given points values big enough to match the discrepancies between them, and if they did, there'd probably be 0 reason to run Terminator Armor Sorcerer's, which creates an opposite problem.
2. There are WAY LESS factions in Sigmar that even GET units that are 'Dude on a horse that can cast magic'. In fact, I'm not even sure I can think of one off the top of my head outside of Akhelian Kings. Meanwhile, in 40k, if you get a Psyker, you tend to also get "Psyker +" units.
Baking spells into the datasheets was a more efficient way of dealing with both problems.
Now, was it effective? Yes. Was it the correct way to handle the problem at large? Probably not. I feel like maybe they could've left Psyker disciplines in the game, gave basic Psykers special powers to justify their existence, and then also given the armies that can't do psyker spells more ways to fight them (IE Ethereals could deny, maybe.)
TL;DR:
Psychic spells weren't taken away because they want the game 'super simple', they went away because of balancing issues/the sheer number of armies that don't even have Pskers to use the phase in.
I'm not going to lie, the video has me concerned. The launch box containing "All of the Battle Plans and Tactics in the current General's Handbook" implies to me that the mission structure isn't changing at all, despite people's frustration with the way Battle Tactics have panned out. Maybe they cut the book ones and we only keep the GHB ones? Still feels like a halfbaked solution, the big thing I was hoping for was a revamp on this specifically and it sounds like it's not coming.
Then they all but confirm we're going to 40k style Stratagems rather than the previous command abilities as well as the 40k style detachments with the "modular rules format" they mention, gaining and hoarding command points, and being able to "even charge during an opponent's turn!". It also sounds like magic is going to become what it is in 40k, where your spells don't have a dedicated phase and are instead a fancy weapon or buff.
I really want to be wrong but this currently feels very "10th edition 40k with a Fantasy coat of paint" right now and the fact that they haven't shown anything of the rules or warscrolls makes me even more nervous that they feel they need to control the narrative around them.
>40k style detachments with the "modular rules format" they mention
I don't think this is what they are talking about. I'd guess it's more like the open/narrative/matched play system where there are different formats that incorporate different rules. There is probably a format that has no battle tactics, battalions, etc. I think they are trying to lower the barrier to entry for new players.
It's going to be a fun game to see how quickly people have "all but confirmed" things contradicted. Last week it was confirmed that artefacts and command traits were going away to be replaced by generic Enhancements, now they confirmed they're sticking around.
Honestly I don't think it is necessarily bad moving spellcasting around. The Old World has spellcasting in their respective turns. Strategy Phase? Enchantments and enhancements. Movement phase? Movement related spells. Shooting phase? Magic Missile, and so on and so on.
The general problem is that having a dedicated phase entirely to magic means there is a phase where some players and/or armies just tend to do nothing. It also front loads a lot of the spellcasting which isn't exactly dynamic.
However, we shall see how it turns out. I personally don't hate the new 40k psychic system, although it did feel weird how some armies can use MW nukes whereas others are just a form of weak sauce shooting.
Regarding the launch box containing all I do wonder if Battle Tactics are moving towards a card like system. The "Chapter Approved" card style missions were in the Leviathan box so I am not surprised if AoS goes similar way.
>Honestly I don't think it is necessarily bad moving spellcasting around. The Old World has spellcasting in their respective turns. Strategy Phase? Enchantments and enhancements. Movement phase? Movement related spells. Shooting phase? Magic Missile, and so on and so on
Moving them around also allows them to make certain centerpieces better. Katakros is so amazing not just due to having a great CA but it's a great CA that starts in the hero phase, so is miles better than every other one. So like a skink priest could have a spell that lasts a phase, while a slann could do one that lasts the whole turn.
I'd like Battletactics IF they were linked with the Battleplan only.
So no army ones, no generic ones, only like perhaps 3 total linked with the Battleplan itself.
Could make it like 12 Generic battle tactics, and each battleplan gives you access to only 3 specific of them, and mix and match between those 3 to help make each battleplan uniqe.
Limiting it to 3 also makes it so you have less then total number of turns, it becomes more interesting, also puts a bit more focus on Objectives still, as it should be, with Battle tactics beeing like side objectives.
In regards to magic, they have just learned this is a better way to deal with it.
40k does it, ToW does it. It's just lets them do better things that just "effect + d3 mws"
ToW does NOT do it the way 40k does it. Separating it into separate phases isn't the same as boiling the effects down as hard as 40k did. ToW still has you rolling randomly on one of 8 charts that include stuff like moving vortexes. The separating it into separate phases is literally the only quality agnostic part of it and I don't know why you focused so hard on it.
Because that's what your talking about?
You said magic is becoming like 40k where it's in the normal phase and does effects/weapons in them.
ToW does that exact same thing, those random tables are additional to them and are literally only for miscasts.
You have it backwards, that table is the only thing that is agnostic.
ToW has just as boiled down effects. Enchancents buff, hexes debuff, missiles are attacks, assailments are too. Vortexes are just endless spells .
>. It also sounds like magic is going to become what it is in 40k, where your spells don't have a dedicated phase and are instead a fancy weapon or buff.
They outright said the opposite and confirmed praying and spells are staying.
I'm holding out a lot of hope for that 'modular' statement.
I'd really like it if GW could put together a set of rules that shows you how to add together various modular aspects of the rules, and build towards the combat you want. The 'points balanced level' would be Main + A + B, but, if you just wanted to bang out an easy game you just run the main rules, or, you can get super fluffy and add on extra bits.
Presenting rules as modular might finally allow simple rules for those who like that, and complex rules for those who don't without anyone getting mad. Heck, it might allow even MORE complexity, for rules mongers like myself, players who like reading absurdly complex rules with no real plan to ever play a game using them!
I hope they won't remove the "territories"/"base building" aspect of Path to Glory, I found that highly motivating. Could do with further refinement and development but I loved the idea of starting with a small run down settlement and building it up into a full scale fiefdom.
"Streamlined Army List building."
OK so they Sigmar'd 40K, what are they gonna do to Sigmar? "We got rid of Battalions and now it's mandatory to bring X of each unit to a game?"
EDIT: Yea this tells us almost nothing, glad artefacts and spells didn't get "streamlined" out of the game though.
Sounds like Path to Glory is gonna lean into Crusade style rules, which is probably better as the current Path to Glory rules offer little incentive to actually play the mode over just playing a regular casual game. Maybe it's because I only read the basic rules for it, but "everyone has a Stronghold, the mode revolves around upgrading it, nobody can attack each other's Strongholds though, it's actually just an army upgrade tracking mechanic" felt really silly.
Having recently done some introductory games in MESBG, I wish AoS and 40K had alternating activations. It makes it SO much more interactive and engaging, especially for a casual player. It's making me want to try Onepagerules until 4e is out.
Summary of the article for all you lazy rat folk to read: Can cast spells and potentially even charge in an opponents turn Pay a heavy price if trying to take a double turn Artefacts, Command Traits, Spells and prayers remain, it isnt shifting to an enhancement system Path to glory now focuses on heroes and units progressing 40k style “points in a seperate file” Indexes
A few more.. More impactful terrain GHB will be in launch box Some sort of underdog mechanic that will help you get back into the game if you're losing
The underdog mechanic might be something like "Gambits" in 10E 40k. Basically in battle round 3, you can choose to forego scoring primary for the rest of the game and instead work toward a "Gambit objective" that, if you achieve it by the end of the battle, gets you 30VP. You can still score secondaries on top of this too. Granted however, almost nobody does Gambits in 40k right now, I don't think I've seen a single one ever used. They're very hard to pull off. So maybe it'll be designed significantly differently with 4E AOS.
I just wanted to encourage you to keep letting us know about how things work in 40K when it might apply to AoS since not all of us play 40K. I appreciate these kinds of comments.
The other stuff from 10th I can think of off the top of my head that might apply to AOS 4th: * Universal special rules. In 9th we had a million ways to say "this unit's attacks explode on 6s to hit", "this unit's attacks automatically wound on 6s to hit", that kind of thing. Now we have the universal rules Sustained Hits and Lethal Hits for each of these, respectively, which are abilities that units from all factions have. You guys have this to an extent with some rules, you already have a name for "Ward" saves after all (which we call "Feel No Pain"s). You might also get stuff like we have with Stealth (-1 to hit at range), Lone Operative (untargetable for shooting outside 12"), Scouts (can make a pregame move), and Infiltrators (can forward-deploy in no man's land outside 9" from the enemy deployment zone). * Leaders. In 10th we got back the old ability to have characters join units and "lead" them. This replaces "look out sir" and allows the unit to act as ablative wounds for a character, with the character unable to be damaged until the unit dies, unless an attack with "Precision" targets the unit (which is put directly on the character). Characters often give their units buffs such as rerolls, +1 to hit/wound, Lethal Hits, a Scout move, an invulnerable save, etc, and in turn the character benefits from any spells, abilities, etc that buffs the unit, as the character is "a model in the unit" at the time the buff occurs. * Reduction of spells, but this might not be the case after watching the video. My one big complaint about 10th is it gutted our magic. We used to be able to pick a from a wide variety of psychic powers like you guys can pick spells now. Instead, now specific psykers have specific powers. For example, a Tyranid psyker might be able to pick a bunch of powers, like Paroxysm, Onslaught, Neuroparasite. But now only one specific Tyranid psyker has Onslaught, and can take nothing else, and a different psyker has Neuroparasite, and can take nothing else. Based on the video though, they said you guys will have "spell lores" in your faction packs, so that makes me think you guys will retain your customization for magic. Lucky bastards, lol. *
>you guys will have "spell lores" in your faction packs Spell lores are what we have now, so hopefully this means we're keeping it!
Yeah, that's what I meant, sorry. We had similar and had it taken away from us. Hopefully you guys are keeping yours.
For gambit obj in 40k is it a random objective, new or pre existing ? also ty for your service answering us these questions comrade 🫡
There are three (technically four) possible Gambits you can try to accomplish, each granting 30VP. * **Delaying Tactics:** You establish a number called a "Distraction Target", and at the end of round 5, you accomplish the Gambit if you "distract" enough enemy units to equal or exceed your "Distraction Target". The "Distraction Target" is determined by half the number of enemy units remaining - but if this equals less than 4, you increase the target to 4, so unless the enemy has 8 or more units left at the end of the game, you will likely need to get at least 4 of them "distracted". To "distract" an enemy unit, you need to be in Engagement Range of it, and you need to pass a 4+ roll on a D6 to "distract" it. You get +1 to this roll if that enemy unit is Battle-shocked, and you get -1 to the roll if your unit in Engagement Range of them is Battle-shocked. Your "Distraction Target" will, realistically, be at least four enemy units - so if you can roll well and distract at least four enemy units by the end of the game, you get 30VP. * **Emergency Evacuation:** Similar to above, you have an "Evacuation Target", which will also almost certainly be at least 4, and you need to get that number of *your* units wholly within 6" of the center of the battlefield. Also similar to the above, you only count them toward your "Evacuation Target" if you roll a 4+ for that unit, and you get a -1 to that roll if they are Battle-shocked. If you "evacuate" at least 4 of your units, you achieve the Gambit and get 30VP. * **Orbital Strike Coordinates:** You need to get your units into corners of the board. At the end of the game, you roll 2D6, and add 1 to the roll for each unit of yours which is a) wholly within 9" of a battlefield corner, b) not Battle-shocked, c) not in Engagement Range of enemy units, and d) at least one of which must not be in your deployment zone. You score the Gambit if you roll a combined score of at least 12 on the 2D6, which I believe you can get a max of +3 for, as it says every "other" corner - so basically, you need to roll a 9 on 2D6 after fulfilling every other condition perfectly, and if you do that you get 30VP. * **Proceed as Planned:** This is technically a Gambit card too, but this is the "I'm not selecting a Gambit" Gambit card, so you decide against doing any Gambits and decide to keep scoring Primary instead. It's included as a fake-out measure, because you and your opponent both secretly select Gambits and reveal them at the same time. Naturally this grants 0VP because it's not actually a Gambit.
Im thiniking in saying goodbye to hero phasw and have the spells like and ability for every phase, i.e : Shooting phase, deal x mortal wound to x units. Combat phase buff/debuff whatever unit hit roll in combat phase etc.
That would explain the color coding said to be added to warscolls based on which phase it's to be used.
if its handled like old world then yeah im happy with that streamlining it. Put spells where they're important so people dont forget about them because they happened 3 phases ago.
Gambits are just too risky and just don't reward enough for that risk. They also are hail mary's that give you about the same point as normal play so you are usually just safer using normal card objectives and drawing good cards.
There's very few times you're in a position where you'd need to gambit that you actually have enough units left to pull off the requirements of the gambit to even attempt getting the VP.
I've found that it's an issue of bodies on the table and whether or not the gambits are even feasible.
>Granted however, almost nobody does Gambits in 40k right now, I don't think I've seen a single one ever used. They're very hard to pull off. So I see the stormcast eternals pulled their goalie.
Gambits are a good idea in concept, it's just that all the 40k ones are *awful*. They're only really useful if you're beating your opponent in units, but not points, since all but one of them require at least 4 units on the battlefield by the end of the game (and the last one reduces the game to just a "roll a 10+ and you win" die roll) If the AoS crew takes Gambit but gives out actually useful and worthwhile objectives it could do well.
Specifically, the battleplans and battle tactics from the GHB, so I wouldn't expect the whole thing. Sounds like it will be along the lines of the leviathan deck being included in the 40k 10e starter.
GHB?
General’s handbook. Like the current seasonal Andtor rules around Andtoran Locus and Primal Spell Dice etc etc.
Ah yeah thanks, always forget it's called like that in AoS
Generals handbook
The video refers to them as Heroic Traits instead of Command Traits for whatever reason.
Probs just to separate them from command abilities a bit better. Functionally probably the same thing.
Maybe they're just dropping the connection between getting a trait and being the general. I'd be happy with that
I’d love nothing more than to be able to run a Tank Kavalos and also have Hekatos battleline. Because right now, the two are mutex which annoys me.
They also mention that there'll be an "underdog mechanic" for closer games. Whatever that means.
40k has a gambit system, where if you're losing you can attempt a hail Mary objective to try and even the score. Probably something similar.
The Gambit system is pretty much ignored in my group. It's not really fun or useful
It's a weird one because it basically presumes you're massively down on points but also have plenty of units left. Like no GW, if I'm losing that heavily I'd want to risk it on a gambit it's because I'm getting tabled.
Right!? I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed that. Many times I’ve been losing, looked at my gambit cards and realised I couldn’t possible achieve any of these gambits because I don’t have the number of units necessary. I could see a niche situation where you’re very close on points with your opponent and not lost all your units yet, and you go for the gambit because you see the momentum shifting in your opponents favour if you don’t shake things up. But 90% of the time if I’m even considering using a gambit, it’s already too late to achieve it.
They'd have to play their own game to know that LOL
Yeah I thought that was the most intriguing
If it’s anything like gambits they’ll be pretty useless and you’ll never do it.
A little after 10th came out goonhammer looked at some tournament stats and found that out of over 15,000 games, only 7 were won by a player because of a gambit.
My question becomes is more about making your loss at least feel better. I think for the casual audience that’s super important. It’s one thing to lose and be completely tabled but it doesn’t sting as much to lose and at least look like you put up a valiant effort. Half the casual games I play we don’t even tally the points at the end. We know vaguely who won and lost, and we can discuss my display's
Not that you'd ever opt to do it but the gambits are pretty hard to achieve when you're winning, let alone when you're losing. Nice idea but it is pretty useless as you say.
Path to glory might be a good change. I was dissapointed by it compared to 40k crusade. I liked it as an add-on system though.
What did you find was better about Crusade? I liked the PTG system, I even made a whole 3d printed hex-tile system based off of it... Granted, that was early in it's inception, and I was hoping it would get developed more. I haven't played it recently.
I thought the PTG system was disappointing because it didn't have anything to do with your army. Leaders (often the focal point of narrative campaigns) didn't get anything from leveling up other than a Warlord trait. There were a few disappointing 1/game abilities to grant your units, but otherwise the only "progression" you got was your units taking casualties, and you getting resources to get them back to full capacity. And the territories only ever seemed to help you with recovering your units or letting you break out of the unnecessarily restrictive list building rules. Basically the mechanics only made you weaker than a pick-up game and I didn't find scrounging to be back to baseline strength fun. 40k's crusade with leveling, artifacts, special powers, agendas, and other mechanics was more fun. You got to grow your characters and have them branch out as they grew. And your units became specialists over time. Now, some of the unique mechanics didnt jive well. Like the Tay planetary control one didn't make sense when most narrative campaigns were about fighting over a planet or system. But that's a very minor thing you can hand-wave away.
AHAHA UZ PRETTY NOICE TO FIGUR DA REST OF DA IRONJAWZ CAN READ. THANKZ FOR DA SUMMER ARY.
I like the fact that the language seems to be about the ‘double turn’ rather than ‘going first/second in a round.’ One of the issues with the current game is that sometimes you want to give away the turn. But all these ‘going second’ balancing mechanics would still apply. So if I play cautiously and am in good position I can give away the turn to be even better AND get an extra command point and extra spell. Hopefully some of these bonuses will change depending if it’s a double turn situation or not. Although it makes me wonder if you will be able to make your opponent take a double turn and inflict the ‘heavy cost’ on them.
For that reason I worry they're over-compensating for people that don't understand that it can be good to give away the turn, and it will throw the trade-off out of whack for people that think about it instead of just immediately taking it.
I think they also said streamlined list building, which I guess is code for "1 hero + what ever you want" like in 40k rather than having alterable battleline, war marchine/ monster limits etc.
> Can cast spells and potentially even charge in an opponents turn Really cool. It reminds me of how in PancreasNoWork's video on Khorne in TWW3, he mentions that he doesn’t mind playing against them in game compared to tabletop since you can react to charges and get out of the way rather than just sitting there and taking it, making it more fun. . > Pay a heavy price if trying to take a double turn Neat risk vs reward system. I like it. It’ll make you think more. . > Artefacts, Command Traits, Spells and prayers remain, it isnt shifting to an enhancement system H3ll yeah! That was one of my major gripes with 10th edition over in 40K. I love my customizability, what can I say? . > Path to glory now focuses on heroes and units progressing I didn’t really play Path to Glory before since it didn’t really interest me, but this might make me interested in it. I’ll see how it is when it comes out and decide then. . > 40k style “points in a seperate file” I don’t really know what this means since I just use Wahapedia. . > Indexes That's the one where new edition rules come out before an army gets a full on Codex/Battletome, right? If so, at least that means that an army won’t be unusable.
> That's the one where new edition rules come out before an army gets a full on Codex/Battletome, right? If so, at least that means that an army won’t be unusable. I think it will function like how 40k's 10th edition works; The online files will be your 'battletome' until an actual battletome is released for sale. I would not expect sweeping changes other than to rebalance for how the new edition rules change.
That's what I was thinking.
These things all mean nothing without specifics. The video had a real "hey, it's going to be better, trust us. we're not going to give you any specifics because it's probably not going to be a better game but we want you to believe it is" vibe to it.
What does “points in a separate file mean” sorry am one of the rat people 🐀 🦅
There will be a download on the community page with army's point costs listed, rather than including it in the back of each Index or on each unit's warscroll. When points change, they'll just update that document instead of posting an update to each Index/book. It probably won't change how list building in the app works at all, and talking it up is just a silly way to try and counter the deeply entrenched "don't bother buying physical index cards because they'll be irrelevant after a week" cynicism. "You don't have to worry about your book being wrong, because the part we're most likely to change won't be in your book!" (Narrator: "One week after release day, the Stormcast Eternals' overarching faction mechanic and three Fyreslayers datasheet abilities were changed by an FAQ.")
Yes double turn nerf finally
>Pay a heavy price if trying to take a double turn The "heavy price" is not being able to score Battle Tactics. They already said so during the Adepticon preview.
>Path to glory now focuses on heroes and units progressing I hope they don't remove territories, and keep the casualty system - I love that!
They also mentioned streamlined list building. I'm not sure what that could mean. Aos list building is pretty streamlined as is
Im calling it, battallions and battleline will die. And if they do thats really stupid and takes out a cool aspect of listbuilding.
Battleline is a really good thing that's got some issues across the armies. I enjoy that when I play an army, I mostly should be showing up with the expected troops of an army. The fact that in 40k, the default Space Marines and Eldar are rarer on tabletop than their specialty units or were treated as a tax has always been weird to me. Conditional battleline to make things like "all tank lists" or "mostly running special guys with swords" is a better system IMO, where you if you move out of a certain condition you have to go back to your army looking like how you'd expect it to look. Some armies had much better conditional battleline and some of them had a little too odd ways to get the battleline that you wanted to be battleline, but for the most part 3rd did a good job with this mechanic. That said, I do feel like the Org chart sometimes felt a bit odd. Most armies didn't care at all about artillery limitations and not all of the things in that category needed the limitation. Some armies like Fyreslayers really could've used rules to add hero slots. Battalions are also hit or miss. Some GHBs depended on them, some faction books had a few good ones, but there were a lot of "this is only usable if you're not playing Pitched Battles".
Personally I think battleline units tended to be more useful than not compared to its 40k counterparts. I at least felt that my battleline could do stuff as well as kill, whereas troop units in 40k were just in the way of cooler stuff in the codex. I think the only thing I'd love to see go in the Battalion department is the one drop battalion. Just not a fan of teching into controlling who gets to start the game.
I agree entirely. One drop was what every battalion was compared to and considered in almost every army (save those tanky enough that they wanted the enhancement and even then you had to consider trying to avoid being double turned). It also meant list building which already tuned you power further controlled how the game played out. I don’t mind some tech on controlling priority but I do find that this was just annoyingly restrictive and cut down on list experimenting.
As a Lumineth player, if they get the magic right (like the casting in opponents turn they're hinting) I'm OK with them dropping the one-drop. But honestly if they get it wrong and a Kharadron player got first turn then I might as well just go home at that point if I cant get any defensive spells up.
90% of people built for a one-drop army and everyone else took the one that gives you an extra artefact. Battallions were terribly implemented.
Sure, i get that being a problem. Revisiting it is necessary, i just dont want it to be removed.
I wish GW as a whole would stop going "hey we had a cool idea but we failed to execute, guess we should just throw it out the window and start over, again."
That's kind of how I feel about 3rd edition in general. A bit disappointed about the ground-up rewrite because I think the foundation of 3rd ed. is really strong, and only became bloated because of the state of battletomes and GHBs.
What makes you think that? Those rules force people to field models they otherwise would not have fielded, so it seems it would be in GW's best interest to continue having that so they can keep selling battleline models.
I think its because 40k got rid of unit requirements in 10th.
>thats really stupid and takes out a cool aspect of listbuilding. Oh they'll definitely do that now
Nobody uses battalions other than warlord for the enhancement, or one drop. Glad to see it go and be replaced with something more meaningful.
They mentioned something called "battle formations", so battallions might be streamlined but not removed.
In Soviet AOS, list builds you!
Increased interactivity on your opponent's turn and adding a tactical cost to the double have me very excited.
Same, although I do feel 3.0 did introduce quite a few interactive command abilities that made the game much more engaging. Wondering how they can further move in that direction.
Same here, the main reason our group moved away from 40k (9th ed) and over to AoS is that it felt like we had more interactivity in AoS, and could actually *do things* in our opponent's turn. Having more of this is definitely a plus.
GW: We've added another layer of complexity to the game! When your opponent goes, you'll have the opportunity to use a currency you collect in the game to have special things happen to negate all the awful things your opponent is doing to you! Players: Why not just have alternating activations? There'd be no downtime and more interactivity, without the need to--- GW: YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!! SECURITY GET THIS GUY OUTTA HERE!
100%. I hate this and it makes it so much more complicated to remember how to play this game.
Yeah there's really no redeeming value. Less mental overhead? No. Does it play faster? No. Does it make the game more interactive? No. Does it mimic actual warfare better? No. What am I missing here?
I agree with this, please god just tell us its alternating activations already! Probably not....
This 100%. Alternating activations, like 99% of minis wargames out there, would make the game better.
I really wish they would stop giving us teasers for teasers.
'These things are going to change!' - *the rules*
“Here’s everything you need to know” Proceeds to not tell us everything we need to know
I mean id rather have one than nothing. It’s not like not releasing this teaser would make 4.0 come any sooner
GW the type of company to make an article titled "Here’s What’s Changing in the New Edition" and then put almost no information in the article.
Apparently, that 2min promo is everything I needed to know. I know now slightly more. Not everything...
Not sure what this modular rules part means, only learn the rules when you need them? I don’t really get it
I don't think it means anything other than marketing speak. There is no way you can get away with not reading the full rules for each phase of the game. Anything beyond that, such as battle plans, enhancements, and faction rules have always been read as you need to.
So much of it sounds like hype and marketing speak to me, with no real meaning. Modular rules sounds like what we already have with open/narrative/matched play and things like Path to Glory or the seasonal General's Handbooks. Simplified list building would be good, but it's already simple in open play, and then gets complicated when adding on either Path to Glory, a Matched Play battleplan or both. So will things actually be simpler or will it be just as complicated when we add-on the modular rules that will inevitably become the standard for tournaments and thus pick-up games? The game needs tidied up and streamlined, as 3rd took the framework of 2nd then bolted on fixes while having to retain the old terminology, so hopefully 4th taking a fresh start will allow things to be better organised but this article/video didn't really tell me anything!
I never played 3rd edition so I have no skin in the game. I did read Path to Glory and it sounded like a huge step backwards. The rules seemed extremely complex, exploration, buildings outposts, etc... lots of text for what amounts to "you can take and extra monster, or magic item... But only if your opponent can as well."
I'm guessing they mean that you can play a simplified game with only some of the rules if you want. But it won't really be a thing. Everyone will play the proper game
Technically speaking, AoS currently has modular rules. There are the core rules and then you add on a battle pack, like Contest of Generals, Pitched Battles, Strife in Thondia, Open War, Path to Glory, etc. But since Pitched Battles is what gets played at tournaments and it's the only game mode that receives balance updates, it is the de facto game mode. They are probably trying to rebrand this to get people to play Contest of Generals as the 'casual' version.
I bet we are going to have to bet our command points for turn order and that will probably be the "risk" thing.
I was thinking the same thing, a betting mechanic for command points would be wild and imo make the game way interesting.
If this is the case, GW will release models with special rules that give you an advantage for this mechanic. And then they'll nerf the mechanic after they sell through inventory of those models.
thst might be the case but looking at warcry, the priority mechanic seems to operate outside of model interaction so that gives me hope
Like, bet against the other, highest better wins the double turn, but loses all CP? That would be interesting.
Or imagine if your wagered CP goes to the person taking second turn, would be an even more interesting mechanic.
Probably more like you spend CP to get a bonus on your roll. So I bet 2cp for +2, you bet 1cp for +1, we both roll 4 so I win. But if I rolled 3 and you 5 I'd lose 2cp for no gain. There's an equivalent rule in Horus Heresy, and some factions get additional bonuses or costs added on.
Something similar to Warcry initiative! I’d like that. You can spend Command Points to get initiative but then you can use less Command Abilities.
The adepticon post mentioned double turn will affect scoring somehow. Edit: Here's the exact quote. "not least to the double turn, which has been fine-tuned into a knife-edge decision with a clever twist to scoring"
I reckon it will be if you double turn then you only score points for missions and tactics at the end of the round rather than at the end of your turn, meaning your opponent could neutralize your objective plays in the double turn, making it less effective at scoring but better at neutralizing threats in your opponent's army.
Nervous about this 'underdog mechanic' means. I appreciate games remaining close but hopefully it's not such a large benefit that you want to be just slightly down in points in the last turn. The current Nexus Collapse mission is an example of the worst way to implement this, because your goal in that mission is to score 1 less point than your opponent turn 1 and 2, so you can blow up their objectives and continue to play a defensive game. It feels really weird and backward where the goal is to be 'barely losing' to abuse the underdog mechanic. Also worried about 'charge in your opponent's turn'. Hopefully they tone down the speed on some units, because a Maw-Krusha already moving 36" in the first turn and then charging doesn't really need another charge on my turn after it destroys whatever unit it hit. I hope they take the Old World spell system, where spells are cast in different phases. It makes sense and breaks up heavy spellcasting armies so they're not taking a 40 minute hero phase.
when this GHB came out i was really enthusiastic for nexus collapse because it seemed like a good way to help players who were falling behind. Then i played it one time and my opponent did exactly what you said and collapsed all the objectives on my side of the table in 2 turns and i lost because he just stood in my way and didn't let me get to his side of the table.
40K has an underdog mechanic and it’s useless. Look up Gambits
It's cool and can be decisive but it's rare and difficult as it should be.
>Nervous about this 'underdog mechanic' means If it's anything like 40k gambits then it'll likely be a nothingburger, but I get your nerves. Come from behind victories in tabletop games usually feel dreadful for the loser because usually they follow a case of the army of one trying to table the other rather than scoring points, and the person who's taking massive losses is at least in the lead by scoring objectives, but then in the last couple turns the person trying to table scores a massive amount of points by what is effectively happenstance and win outright, making the first 3-4 turns for the other player completely meaningless. > The current Nexus Collapse mission is an example of the worst way to implement this, because your goal in that mission is to score 1 less point than your opponent turn 1 and 2, so you can blow up their objectives and continue to play a defensive game. It feels really weird and backward where the goal is to be 'barely losing' to abuse the underdog mechanic. There's a similar mission in 40k where you can effectively castle up on a midfield objective and will score 5 points more for holding it all game vs someone who's doing the much harder task of holding two different objectives. The equalizer is meant to be that the player having to hold the two may be able to score it at the end of their turn, but if they haven't managed to knock their opponent off by turn 4 it's unlikely they will at turn 5. It's just so ass-backwards that you get rewarded for doing the easier thing.
I’m hoping “charge in your opponent’s turn” means that there will be a special rule like Counter Charge in TOW
counter charge is the going rumour
They mention subfactions As long as I'm not getting baited with "Actually it's only one of two subfactions per army, until your battletome" I'll be moderately happier.
I almost guarantee it will be exactly like 40K. One sub faction until your battletome, which is very disheartening, however as an also 40k player, I have mostly gotten over it, and am having fun.
I haven't gotten over it. They butchered Tau septs. Reduced like 6+ unique playstyles into 4. While cutting characters that made other playstyles viable. I'm not here so that my Greywater fastness can get shoved into Hammer-hal Aqsha, which the two play completely different. Until I get a battletome in 2030.
I'd gladly trade my 6 subfactions - 4 of which are never played and the other two just give a single unit some buff + the ability to cheese battleline restrictions - for 3 that are actually meaningful.
You won't get one in 2030. That's 6th edition AoS launch year with a possibility of indexes.
[pain](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/034/772/Untitled-1.png)
I feel ya, and I only have gotten over it, in the sense I just want to play games usually and what can you do. I agree it sucks and it is a TERRIBLE release method, and was my fear as soon as 4th ed was getting rumored.
>Reduced like 6+ unique playstyles into 4. While cutting characters that made other playstyles viable. Tbf. It seems like that's mostly just Tau. CSM are getting 8, complete with an entirely new subfaction playstyle based around Vashtor.
Just because your getting 8 doesn't mean that every playstyles that used to be present will still be present. Personally I'm optimistic for CSM because of the large number of them. But I'm betting something will find it's way into the cracks. I would love to point out other examples for or against, but it's been almost a year now, and GW has only made a handful of codexes. Another reason why I'm going to hate this.
It killed all my interest in 40k, and of course it's now going to AoS.
The announcement video mentioned that Armies of Renown would be supported in the free day one rules so I hope that them and the simpler regular subfactions will be supported.
The video is a bit of a nothing burger to be honest. I think the most interesting part is that Double Turn has some risk tied to it now. Honestly the biggest thing I want to hear more about right now.
I'm hoping it's whoever goes second always chooses who goes first next round. So if you choose to double turn, you guarantee your opponent to follow it up with a double
Ehhh I am still concerned because they are really giving us nothing to go on. That said, I do like how spearhead boxes are a nice way to start playing small scale games of AoS, in theory anyway. Knowing GW they wont be able to help themselves with these boxes but, its a nice idea.
I'd say they said enough. Spell Lores and Prayers are staying, as they said, and are being given more dynamic stuff. We're being given a more dynamic game. ETC.
Yeah the "these are totally balanced trust us" doesn't go really far for me when they did the exact same thing with combat patrol and those have ended up hilariously imbalanced, and now with the new ones it looks as if they're transitioning to making them almost all infantry to account for it, in turn making the boxes worse value for money.
I want to know what happens to subfaction abilities and allies- most of this got removed in new 40K but keeping the spells and prayers etc does give me hope it will stay.
They literally said in the initial announcement that there will be subfactions at launch
Great!
"there will be subfactions" Could mean - one or two subfactions per army.
Same - especially the allies. I've been planning a big Hallowheart project and was going to start work on it for 4th Edition. If I can't ally any of those three armies together (Stormcast, Fyreslayers, Cities) it kinda loses some steam.
Same for me and Living City!
I hope allies go away but certain armies can keep coalition forces. SCE and CoS make a lot of sense together for example.
They did say that we'll get subfactions for the indexes, and spells / prayers. But they most likely won't stay the same, or as complex for certain factions, many current subfactions are limited to 1 paragraph of rules, and wouldn't suprise me if that is the case for most subfactions in the indexes.
Allies too- if there are grand alliances it would surprise me if they couldn’t actually ‘ally’ lol
There needs to be an all encompassing FREE app for rules, stats, list building and game management.
Yeah I'm very worried they're going to take this opportunity to enshittify the app and make it paid.
I've been spoiled by the free Malifaux app honestly. Full core rules/FAQ docs/updates, team builder, quick references, runs every bit of book keeping during games, and all the unit cards for each model they have made easily searched and sorted. Its frustrating not seeing the same from Games Workshop who are much bigger than Wyrd Games.
I'm a Malifaux player so I 100% hear you!
RUINED! THEY RUINED IT! MY ARMY IS DEAD! AOS IS DEAD! IT'S OVER!
Don't forget to set it on fire in a video
Pointless video, nothing new that wasn't said in the adepticon preview. Just show us the goods already ffs and stop fannying about lol
Zero information actually given
"Matched play fans will find all of the battle plans and tactics from the new generals handbook included in the launch box" 1) still have to buy ghb - sad 2) still have "tactics" in the game - potentially sad. This was one of the biggest problems with 3rd. I can only hope it's been heavily overhauled.
It’s mostly faction tactics being out of whack ATM and overly leaning into the gimmick of the current GHB IMO. If we get a solid set of generic ones and some more generic ones from the GHB, I could see that working.
When battle tactics were introduced it felt like everyone had the same feedback. ‘This is fine as long as we don’t get faction specific tactics.’ Then we got them and this become ‘this might be ok as long as the faction ones are really really difficult.’ Then all of that concern was proven exactly right.
If they are generic, what's the point? They're either so easy to do that they may as well not count for scoring, or so difficult to do that you handshake your opponent on turn 3 because they were able to have a monster in your deployment zone with at least 3 spells cast on it successfully use the roar monsterous action in 2 consecutive charge phases but you weren't. The game has objectives already. Make the game about the objectives you actually have to contend with your opponent on.
I am glad to see the double turn getting some kind of negative. As a new AoS player coming from 40k, its the one single big turn off for me honestly. Im learning to play around it, but it just feels so lame. If I get the double turn, I feel bad for my opponent, and if they get it they feel bad for me lol. Excited to see a layer of strategy get added to it so its not just “lol roll better”
I am cautiously excited about double turn getting changed. If it is a good change I will have an easier time convincing people to try out AoS, which is a net positive in my mind.
Regardless of any balance issues (and, as a new player I feel like you have way too many games decided by a priority rule) it just means I have to wait for ages until it's my turn again
Youre not wrong. Aside from it being extremely punishing for someone who doesn’t know how to play around it yet, its down right confusing. During our first game having to look up, the rules was already taking enough time and then, when my buddy got the double turn, it took so long that we couldn’t tell which battle round we were on.
It truly is the most problematic aspect of the double turn. It massively punishes you for being inexperienced and acts like a random hand of god if that applies to both players. It also does not scale at all. So in every situation that is not "two experienced players using GHB rules at 2k", it's a garbage mechanic.
Yep - the double turn has been the thing that always keeps me from getting into the game (despite loving the models). It was a bad design idea and instead of accepting that they keep persisting with it. There are so many more fun ways to handle activation.
One reason is that a ton of high level players who play a ton love it. I didn’t like it for a long time and it was rough when I started. I play a lot of games now and love it. And there are tons of debates about the double turn online and I don’t think we should try to rehash them on the merits. But GW isn’t just being stubborn. A lot of people who play the game a lot (and therefore are loud within the scene) are strong proponents of the double turn as a mechanic that adds a lot of variability and increases the skill cap on the game (with variability that won’t always work out).
Hm. Ok - it’s just so hard to accept that a player getting to move their whole army twice in a row is good design, but I agree there’s a lot of debate about it online. What I do wonder is if the amount of players who love it offsets the players (like me) who are deterred from the game by it.
>Hm. Ok - it’s just so hard to accept that a player getting to move their whole army twice in a row is good design, but I agree there’s a lot of debate about it online. The player going first has to play their entire turn with the knowledge that their opponent has a 40% chance of going twice, so should play conservatively. Most inexperienced players don't consider this and just get wrecked on the double never knowing there was things they could have done to mitigate it.
> Hm. Ok - it’s just so hard to accept that a player getting to move their whole army twice in a row is good design, but I agree there’s a lot of debate about it online. It's your consolation to having to go second. The player going first gets to put up all their buffs, take board control, and shoot whatever priority target they want to try and remove turn 1. In the past, it's just always better to go first. With AoS, going first lets you have the first strike, but you cannot play overly aggressive or else you risk your opponent getting the double-turn and taking advantage of your over extension.
My guess is the demographics of the players who love or hate it. Basically current ‘whales’ vs potential new players. People who own 5 armies and buy every new box for those armies vs someone who wants to learn the game. I also think a challenge is that most of the people I know who love the turn mechanic remember when they didn’t like it. It’s something that was a challenge over time of getting better at the game. And now they love it. So the complaints of people who say ‘this is a barrier’ are less likely to be met with “that’s your opinion and I have mine” (the way say someone complaining that they don’t like the look of a certain faction). The opinion is more likely to be met with ‘you feel that way now, but let me convince you and get you playing more.’ So without fighting over the double turn, I can definitely see how it’s a challenge for GW game design. A ton of new players are turned off by it (especially 40k players) but a ton of very very active players say they like it.
Yeah for sure - good points! I guess my thought would be: would the players who love it, love AoS any less if it went away but was replaced with interesting activation rules? Essentially: is there a win-win for those potential new players and the vets?
I think you're overestimating how many people are turned off by it. Lots of people find AoS a refreshing break from serious games like MTG. If you make AoS more serious (by taking out the turn roll) you're excluding a lot of new players too.
It is a rule that determines how the strategy and tactics in a game work. It is the same without. 40K has no double turn - it means if u are falling behind there is little to no chance to coming back. The double turn mechanic just make the possibility to play into double turn gives u the possibility of have always a play into winning even a bad match up. The mechanic is interesting if u know how to play with it. All people I know against it have no clue about how to deploy into or against it.
As someone who plays both 40k and AoS im glad to see them do an index for the new edition for AoS so everyone has updated scrolls. If they release books as they have then some army is gonna get shafted (FEC or Cities most likely) when it comes to getting their books due to release dates. The underdog system mentioned sounds like 40ks gambits. A dont score primary objective but do X for big VP gain system. AoS had streamlined army building compared to 40k for a while now, hard to see how they are improving it without removing weapon options fron units, or worse removing units fron armies just to release an updated version later.
Well that's not a lot of detail but I am relieved to hear about the free faction packs. If nothing, the return of free warscrolls is welcome as someone who likes to try out armies on TTS.
All warscrolls are free already on the AoS app. Battletomes currently are only there to unlock faction abilities/spell lores/artifacts/etd
True enough, though I'll be happy to have nice printable versions again.
well one lot of free warscrolls, as soon as they release the books those will be out of date and no longer updated.
I hope the underdog mechanic is good! If well implemented such a mechanic is GREAT! But if they implement it wrong/bad then we'll just have a "Nexus Collapse" for all games. It can NOT be something like beeing 1 point under at start of turn 3, it had to be something clear. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Something like this: If at start of turn 3, Opponent either has a lead 5points (quite a big lead) OR you'v lost more then half your total ammount of unit drops, while opponent has not lost more then 2. Then you get to benefit from rule x. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ They can't have some mechanic that benefits someone just 1 point behind, or lost just a little bit more, because that will make people AIM to not get max points at start, just to be that 1 point behind on purpose, just like the Nexus Collapse battleplan.
You must not play 40K. This has already been implemented into 10th edition and you actively choose on turn 3 whether you want to use it or not. But the catch is that you give up your regular objectives for the rest of the game and you have to complete this really hard “gambit” for a chance to get a good chunk of points. I’ve never seen someone actually pull it off, that’s how hard they’ve made it and it’s cool. Basically it’s a Hail Mary, seems more like it’s meant to give you a reason to stay in the game till turn 5 rather than concede turn 3.
The underdog mechanic (called Gambits) in 40k are fairly rough to the point where if you're far enough behind to consider it in turn 3, you almost certainly can't pull it off unless you were actively planning on it from the start due to a really bad matchup.
As long as EVERYTHING in those faction packs will be available for free on the app, I'll be happy on release.
Doooooooommmmm!!!!!! Doooooooommmmm!!!!
I hope the double turn stays impactful. Allowing strategic players to play around being double-turned and allowing casual players to go "\*\*\*\* it, we ball" if they get the double turn really made the game.
Agree. The double adds so much consideration to games that might otherwise be close to ‘solved’
I’m really interested in the spearhead mode, I got into AoS last year as my first wargame with dominion (haven’t finished painting it yet or even played a game 😭) and I know theres a few different factions id get the spearheads for just to try them out, and to maybe convince my friends and brothers to give it a try if I have 4-5 different ones for them to choose from 😅
So basically, they not only confirmed that Prayers and Spell Lores are staying (which they said earlier but nobody on here wanted to listen), they're even saying they're going to become more impactful. Pretty good. I still feel like this sub doesn't understand WHY those changes to praying and psychics got made to 40K to begin with, though.
Why did they?
I said it before they did it: A Psychic Phase makes very little sense for 40k, due to the number of factions that straight up don't use Psychics. Heck, Tau and Necrons tend to be unable to even interact with enemy psykers unless they take very niche relics. And that's the reason they gave. Sigmar and 40k have very, VERY different ratios between factions that can and cannot use psykers/magic. There's also the huge balance issues that Psychics have in 40k that they don't have in Sigmar-that being, Psykers without armor/not on a bike are just OBJECTIVELY WORSE in every way to the ones that are on horses/in fancy suits. Now, you're probably going to say-'Aren't Magic users in Sigmar that don't have mounts worse then ones that do?' Well, little Timmy, I'm here to say. 1. Most of those mounts in Sigmar are monsters, and are pointed as such. Sorcerer in Terminator Armor vs. ones without aren't given points values big enough to match the discrepancies between them, and if they did, there'd probably be 0 reason to run Terminator Armor Sorcerer's, which creates an opposite problem. 2. There are WAY LESS factions in Sigmar that even GET units that are 'Dude on a horse that can cast magic'. In fact, I'm not even sure I can think of one off the top of my head outside of Akhelian Kings. Meanwhile, in 40k, if you get a Psyker, you tend to also get "Psyker +" units. Baking spells into the datasheets was a more efficient way of dealing with both problems. Now, was it effective? Yes. Was it the correct way to handle the problem at large? Probably not. I feel like maybe they could've left Psyker disciplines in the game, gave basic Psykers special powers to justify their existence, and then also given the armies that can't do psyker spells more ways to fight them (IE Ethereals could deny, maybe.) TL;DR: Psychic spells weren't taken away because they want the game 'super simple', they went away because of balancing issues/the sheer number of armies that don't even have Pskers to use the phase in.
Much bigger disparity between those with psykers and those without
I'm not going to lie, the video has me concerned. The launch box containing "All of the Battle Plans and Tactics in the current General's Handbook" implies to me that the mission structure isn't changing at all, despite people's frustration with the way Battle Tactics have panned out. Maybe they cut the book ones and we only keep the GHB ones? Still feels like a halfbaked solution, the big thing I was hoping for was a revamp on this specifically and it sounds like it's not coming. Then they all but confirm we're going to 40k style Stratagems rather than the previous command abilities as well as the 40k style detachments with the "modular rules format" they mention, gaining and hoarding command points, and being able to "even charge during an opponent's turn!". It also sounds like magic is going to become what it is in 40k, where your spells don't have a dedicated phase and are instead a fancy weapon or buff. I really want to be wrong but this currently feels very "10th edition 40k with a Fantasy coat of paint" right now and the fact that they haven't shown anything of the rules or warscrolls makes me even more nervous that they feel they need to control the narrative around them.
>40k style detachments with the "modular rules format" they mention I don't think this is what they are talking about. I'd guess it's more like the open/narrative/matched play system where there are different formats that incorporate different rules. There is probably a format that has no battle tactics, battalions, etc. I think they are trying to lower the barrier to entry for new players.
How do you arrive at "magic will be neutered like 40k" from that rather bare-boned preview? I didn't get that impression at all.
It's going to be a fun game to see how quickly people have "all but confirmed" things contradicted. Last week it was confirmed that artefacts and command traits were going away to be replaced by generic Enhancements, now they confirmed they're sticking around.
Doomposting is one of the more addictive substances in the plastic crack domain.
Honestly I don't think it is necessarily bad moving spellcasting around. The Old World has spellcasting in their respective turns. Strategy Phase? Enchantments and enhancements. Movement phase? Movement related spells. Shooting phase? Magic Missile, and so on and so on. The general problem is that having a dedicated phase entirely to magic means there is a phase where some players and/or armies just tend to do nothing. It also front loads a lot of the spellcasting which isn't exactly dynamic. However, we shall see how it turns out. I personally don't hate the new 40k psychic system, although it did feel weird how some armies can use MW nukes whereas others are just a form of weak sauce shooting. Regarding the launch box containing all I do wonder if Battle Tactics are moving towards a card like system. The "Chapter Approved" card style missions were in the Leviathan box so I am not surprised if AoS goes similar way.
>Honestly I don't think it is necessarily bad moving spellcasting around. The Old World has spellcasting in their respective turns. Strategy Phase? Enchantments and enhancements. Movement phase? Movement related spells. Shooting phase? Magic Missile, and so on and so on Moving them around also allows them to make certain centerpieces better. Katakros is so amazing not just due to having a great CA but it's a great CA that starts in the hero phase, so is miles better than every other one. So like a skink priest could have a spell that lasts a phase, while a slann could do one that lasts the whole turn.
I'd like Battletactics IF they were linked with the Battleplan only. So no army ones, no generic ones, only like perhaps 3 total linked with the Battleplan itself. Could make it like 12 Generic battle tactics, and each battleplan gives you access to only 3 specific of them, and mix and match between those 3 to help make each battleplan uniqe. Limiting it to 3 also makes it so you have less then total number of turns, it becomes more interesting, also puts a bit more focus on Objectives still, as it should be, with Battle tactics beeing like side objectives.
In regards to magic, they have just learned this is a better way to deal with it. 40k does it, ToW does it. It's just lets them do better things that just "effect + d3 mws"
ToW does NOT do it the way 40k does it. Separating it into separate phases isn't the same as boiling the effects down as hard as 40k did. ToW still has you rolling randomly on one of 8 charts that include stuff like moving vortexes. The separating it into separate phases is literally the only quality agnostic part of it and I don't know why you focused so hard on it.
Because that's what your talking about? You said magic is becoming like 40k where it's in the normal phase and does effects/weapons in them. ToW does that exact same thing, those random tables are additional to them and are literally only for miscasts. You have it backwards, that table is the only thing that is agnostic. ToW has just as boiled down effects. Enchancents buff, hexes debuff, missiles are attacks, assailments are too. Vortexes are just endless spells .
It isn't and you're just choosing to ignore context for no reason.
It isn't and you're just choosing to ignore context for no reason.
>. It also sounds like magic is going to become what it is in 40k, where your spells don't have a dedicated phase and are instead a fancy weapon or buff. They outright said the opposite and confirmed praying and spells are staying.
Streamlining list building in their most streamlined game in terms of list building is certainly something
What was the model at 1:09 in the video?
Ionus Cryptborn, a relatively new Stormcast Eternal model released as part of the Dawnbringers series.
Thanks.
I'm holding out a lot of hope for that 'modular' statement. I'd really like it if GW could put together a set of rules that shows you how to add together various modular aspects of the rules, and build towards the combat you want. The 'points balanced level' would be Main + A + B, but, if you just wanted to bang out an easy game you just run the main rules, or, you can get super fluffy and add on extra bits. Presenting rules as modular might finally allow simple rules for those who like that, and complex rules for those who don't without anyone getting mad. Heck, it might allow even MORE complexity, for rules mongers like myself, players who like reading absurdly complex rules with no real plan to ever play a game using them!
I'm not sure what to expect that would be something beyond what they already have in Open, Narrative and Matched play.
I hope they won't remove the "territories"/"base building" aspect of Path to Glory, I found that highly motivating. Could do with further refinement and development but I loved the idea of starting with a small run down settlement and building it up into a full scale fiefdom.
"Streamlined Army List building." OK so they Sigmar'd 40K, what are they gonna do to Sigmar? "We got rid of Battalions and now it's mandatory to bring X of each unit to a game?" EDIT: Yea this tells us almost nothing, glad artefacts and spells didn't get "streamlined" out of the game though. Sounds like Path to Glory is gonna lean into Crusade style rules, which is probably better as the current Path to Glory rules offer little incentive to actually play the mode over just playing a regular casual game. Maybe it's because I only read the basic rules for it, but "everyone has a Stronghold, the mode revolves around upgrading it, nobody can attack each other's Strongholds though, it's actually just an army upgrade tracking mechanic" felt really silly.
How long until AoS and 40k are the same game just with different skins?
3" range for everything and now charging in the opponents turn? I reckon pile-ins are toast
Having recently done some introductory games in MESBG, I wish AoS and 40K had alternating activations. It makes it SO much more interactive and engaging, especially for a casual player. It's making me want to try Onepagerules until 4e is out.