Age of Sigmar Rumor Roundup

[Bigred]

via Atia (http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?409361-Warhammer-9th-Rumor-Discussion-Mk-III&p=7456436&viewfull=1#post7456436) 5-28-2015

Regarding the new "Age of Sigmar" product for WFB 9th:


ladys and gentlemen

i confirm the upcoming release of Age of Sigmar
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That image indicates a product page for "Age of Sigmar" exists on the GW website, but is currently not redirecting to another placeholder page until it is used.


via one of gary's birds (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Faeit212/~3/V9bMIM9c3Go/age-of-sigmar-and-9th-edition-fantasy.html) 5-29-2015


Age of Sigmar will be not the first part of a Three-Part Ruleset in the 9.Edition, it will be the Name of the first Starter Set. The Set includes Simplyfied Fantasy Rules, based on the new Edition with Skimisher Rules. Age of Sigmar will be an easy and "cheap" introduction for new People and the first Release of the new Edition. Soon after the Set GW will release the Full Rulebook with full skimisher and standard Rules. Later in this Year, there will be a classic Starter Set like the previous with two Armies and a Full Mini-Rulebook.


Via Steve the Warboss 06-02-2015


Age of Sigmar is not the Starter Set of the 9th Edition. It will be a Board Game like Space Hulk or Execution Force and with this Set, the Releases of the 9th Edition will begin.

via Hostingpics (http://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=4090581419.jpg) 6-2-2015


Age of Sigmar
Pre-order July 4th
Streetdate: July 11th
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via Atia on B&C (http://www.bolterandchainsword.com) 6-3-2015

Age of Sigmar

- new start for warhammer fantasy, some big changes are coming
- round bases - yes
- if you want something important - you should buy it now - starting with saturday, some products will vanish

WFB Age of Sigmar - MAJOR PRODUCT CHANGES Coming:

via Harry (http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?409361-Warhammer-9th-Rumor-Discussion-Mk-III/page23) on Warseer 6-3-2015

yeah .... about the army books .... there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is ..... OK .... actually ... there is no good news.
...I have been trying to describe a "full on reboot" for months ... or is it years now.
...You are still assuming there will be army books as you know them.
...I would not be surprised if it was one book ... or two books one for the good guys and one for the bad guys or one for the good guys one for the bad guys and some sort of additional book for the four factions.


via RaffazzaTime (http://raffazza.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/times-changin-get-ready-for-age-of.html) 6-3-2015


The first big date: June 6th

What's happening:
Stores have been told to remove the following from their shelves:

Island of Blood
Warhammer Rulebook
All WFB Army Books
All WFB End Times Books
All WFB Campaign Books/Boxes
All magic cards
Movement trays
Templates
Deathknell watch

No models or Black Library novels will be affected

Age of Sigmar preorders: 4th July
Age of Sigmar release: 11th July

via reader Sleibniz (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/06/age-of-sigmar-so-whats-in-a-name.html) on BoLS 6-11-2015

A quick summary of the Age of Sigmar Novel by A.Lanning:


I had the chance to spend about 20 minutes with the upcoming book Age of Sigmar by A. Lanning (a novel, not the game) that deals with the aftermath of the end times. The prologue makes it very clear that Sigmar survives and the whole plot takes place after the end times. Nothing that I have read suggests that there is any time travel involved. It is just a continuation of the story on a much broader scale. I think it is safe to say that the game of the same name follows the story of book and doesn't establish a totally different setting.

In the prologue Sigmar survives and pulls the winds of magics through the gap into the warp. In the process the pure untouched currents of the warp are tainted with the personifications of the winds - the Incarnates. This is the birth of eight new minor gods.

But most of the book is not about sigmar or the incarnate gods directly, only three chapters as far as I could see were written from their perspective. The rest of the book is an ordinary fantasy adventure story. The book follows Martellus Mann, a reikguard quartermaster who was slain in the end times, but is reborn in Sigmarshall, the domain of Sigmar.

I then skipped some hundred pages forward so I don't know what happened in the aftermath, but in the middle of the book, he has gathered a large party of heroes from many realms and realities in a quest for something called the spirit mill or soul mill or something like this. I know for sure that there are several worlds and that the protagonist can travel from one to the other but I didn't read a chapter where this was described in person and I don't know if this is part of the game world.

In the middle of the books there is a huge betrayal, sigmarshall is under siege by the armies of the chaos gods. incarnate fights against incarnate and all are cast out from the warp. Mann starts a search for sigmar in the believe that he was reborn somewhere. The second half of the book is set on a world called Regalia. And here it gets interesting: Regalia is the only area/realm/world that has a map in the book. Regalia looks like the old world or earth and has very familiar regions and city names, etc. But there are some huge alterations: there is no Ulthuan, but a huge landbridge that connects Canada with Scandinavia.

There are no elven or dwarven sounding cities or lands but strange sounding names in the Americas and Africa that don't fit any race of the old setting. There is no empire, but lots of different states in Europe and Asia - Nuln, Middenheim, etc are there, but Altdorf is not. There are more things you can deduce from the map if you assume that it represents the setting of the game, which I strongly think it does. Mann finally arrives in the city Heldenheim that is build in the Worlds Edge Mountains just in time to visit the crowning of emperor Karl Franz where he announces his plan to conquer the whole world. Mann thinks that he has found Sigmar and the book jumps to the epilog.

Sigmar is chained somewhere and starts to dwindle, but then he smiles and proclaims that his great work to eliminate the chaos once and for all has only started. He vows to conquer the warp.

I think it is pretty obvious that the game will be set in this new world. Why would they establish all this in the book when the game doesn’t use it at all, but I haven't seen any actual game material (though there is a slim chance that I get a glimpse this weekend - fingers crossed), so take this into account.

via Dakka's Sinalelbniz (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1560/643158.page)6-16-2015

+++MAJOR NaCl Alert - You Have Been Warned+++

Age of Sigmar Description

No, no, no. No square bases, no rank and file, no two game systems.

-------------------------

I had the chance to look thoroughly through the proper Age of Sigmar rulebook (the one that consists of three books) yesterday evening. Spent my time with the three books and ignored the novel in favour of the real interesting things. So I cannot fill in the blanks there. But maybe I have the opportunity to look at the rulebook and novel again and hopefully the age of sigmar box, too. But now I have a way clearer picture what’s coming and I’d like to share with you because I am very (!!!) excited, but I cannot provide any photos for obvious reasons. So if you don’t believe me, I don’t blame you. But please don’t attack me personally.

- Title of the rulebook is: Age of Sigmar: a Warhammer strategy game
- first the basics (most of which are already known):
- full fledged rule system; no skirmish game - meaning not restricted to low miniature count: 50 models on average, way lower possible, in general you use units but you can field an army consisting of only single models
- everything is on round or oval bases (there paragraph that explicitly allows legacy and diorama bases, though);
- 2 books: the rules (rules and scenarios) and compendium (pictures, unit cards and fluff)
- there are unit cards for every (as far as I can see) old unit in the second book, including warhammer forge models and most or all special characters. Some units get the full treatment with a small fluff text, pictures of the actual miniatures and rules, some units get only rules with nothing more.
- all new rules with complete new mechanics: think not of 40k 2nd -> 3rd but Warhammer 8th -> Bloodbowl, very compact and fast paced, huge emphasis on individual champions, magic and gods (don’t know how powerful, but these have the most rule pages)
- no photos (and no artworks except some very generic drawings) of new miniatures except a couple chaos and human miniatures that are very likely from the Age of Sigmar box.
- all the races are in, but some are clearly favored. There are few pictures of beastmen and lizardmen for example and some units like steamtanks, gunpowder units (Skaven and new-dwarfs use them still), etc. can only be fielded as mercenaries from a different world or summoned units (in case of most special characters, there is even a picture of a Teclis painted in ghost colors)
- the tech level is between and ancient roman empire and early medieval times, lots of nomadic barbarian tribes, etc. But judging by to the age of sigmar miniatures the armour design draws only a little bit from history and is has a very stylized high-fantasy design instead
- there are lots of different people, races, gods and lots of different alliances. The world is a lot more open minded than the old one, Empire-Orc Alliance would be unthinkable, but a human-waaghkin force is nothing unusual in this setting

Army building
- you pick one or more gods that determine the theurgic or magic schools (don’t know what the difference is, sorry) you can use and how your champions get power-ups during the game. You can take several gods, but they have to be from the same pantheon - so no nurgle-sigmar armies, but Nagash-Morr is possible.Then you choose whichever unit you want - from every race. There is no limit as far as I can tell.
- The only mechanic that I have spotted that limits the useful choices somehow is that most spells and special rules only affect units with certain traits, the powers of Grimgor (magic and gods are always connected, each lore has a patron god that grants the power) affects only mortals or enemy units in the proximity of mortals.
- There are only rules for one pantheon in the rule book, all the other gods and pantheons are only mentioned in the fluff
- Guardians of Regalia, a conglomerate native spirits and gods and lately some new gods, the incarnates Grimgor, Gelt and Nagash, there are thousand of gods and their relevance changes over time and in different regions, but there are seven big gods that have seven schools of magic associated with them and have rules in the book
- Geshemet or Gesheket or something like this (male and female, fertility, natural disaster) is the head of the pantheon, the other six gods are dual pair of good and evil:
two death gods: Nagahs and Morr
two smith and labour gods: Hashut and Gelt
two war gods: Grimgor and Myrmidia
- five other pantheon get a page of fluff each, and additional minor pantheons/deities are mentioned in the fluff. The big five are Chaos, Sigmar, Cuth’adai (elven gods), Exoatl (old ones) and the triumvi-rats (Horned Rat + 2 more)
- all characters can earn favor of their gods and get promoted just like the chaos champions until they reach apotheosis, this is also a huge mechanic in the game + you can field gods or at least their avatars, but only three incarnates have rules in the book

Rules
- there is only one ruleset (don’t know what is in the AoS box, but in the book there is no distinction between skirmish mode and battle mode or something like this)
- rules have nothing to do with the old warhammer rules,
- profile is: Melee, Range, Might, Armour, Initiative, Resolve, Wounds, values from 1-6, lower is better
- simple turn sequence: initiative -> player 1 unit 1 moves, shoots, casts -> p1 unit 2 moves, shoots, casts -> ... -> player 2 moves, shoots, casts -> melee
- players roll always against each other, for example Melee vs Initiative and Range vs Initiative, Might vs Armour
- units regenerate all lost wounds at the end of the phase
- both sides in a melee fight simultaneously, winner can roll to fight instantaneously another round until one side is extinct or one side chooses to break from the combat
- there is no moral system or combat resolution whatsoever, but unit can be bounced back
- units use a 1” 40k formation without any facing
- magic spells are all one-use only, when you use it, you have to discard the card
- you can collect ascension points throughout the game and spend the point to buff your champions, mechanic depends on your god(s)
- unit costs points as before, you are not allowed to field multiple units of the same kind unless the former unit have full strength - there are all kinds of unit sizes from 1-3 to 3-15 (that’s the highest I have seen), but you can field lots of different 1-man units
- you don’t buy champions, a set number of models are automatically upgraded to champions, but you cannot exceed the limit
- there are rules for different weapons, magic items, war engines, monsters, special rules, etc and a large section for scenarios and terrain, larger than the actual rules


Setting
game is set on world Regalia that is connected with other young realms through portals of the old ones. Young realms are realms that were populated by the old creators and were guided on similar historical paths. They were untouched by chaos but this has changed since the arrival of sigmar (as a new faith) and archaon (as an actual emissary in flesh and blood)

there is no explanation (or just a brief one so that I have missed it) how this all came to be, just a description of the history of Regalia (and to a lesser extent some neighbouring realms)

On Regalia is dominated by hundreds of human kingdoms. Fast travel is possible through a number of stone circles that allows mages to open portal from one to another and a system of streams and seas under the earth that can be navigated by ship. There were a long period of peace curated by the Exoatl (Old Ones) that watched over the world from the North and Southpole. But then suddenly new faiths arrived, lots of human tribes started to pray to Sigmar and to conquer their neighbouring kingdoms. These lands are each independent, but are united in their faith to Sigmar. The history ends with the conquering of the Worlds Edge mountains and the crowning of the first emperor. At the same time, the first agents of Chaos arrived and began to corrupt the native people. A part of the Waaghkins rebelled against the old ones in favour of new gods, the Skaven arrived the first time, and in the south and east a death cult began to spread. The world is in turmoil. There are lots of unfinished story hooks so I think the story will be continued, but that might be wishful thinking.

humans are the majority in this world and they have kingdom and tribes everywhere, most of the known earth-inspired regions like cathay are there, but they are not described as fully flegded feudal nations but constantly changing petty empires and nomadic people ruled by warlords and champions of the gods. there are two factions of humans, the worshippers of sigmar and the polytheistic rest, both are not monocultural, but have different skin colors and cultures. Women fight beside men!

The dominion of sigmar is special, because they are the only ones that are reluctant to allow any other race than humans. They have only one god and their goal is to destroy all other gods and conquer their domains - for the greater good of the world of course. This has nothing in common with the Empire of the old world, except the heraldry, griffons are still en vogue. All tribes and city states and kingdoms are independent, the only common ground is their faith, the emperor is only a warlord with the purpose to expands the dominion towards the east. There a still knightly orders, zealots, witchhunters - so they retain some of their medieval flair but there are no state troops. There is no gunpowder, except from some dwarven imports, but they are known for using large warwaggons on their trek to the east. Kislec, Estalia, Araby, city states of Bretonnia, Norse and tribes of the Reiklands are part of the dominion. There are also some enclaves scattered across the world that are connected with magic portals

The Skaven arrived on their own on Regalia and are basically the same. Haven’t spent much time on them. They have now three gods called the triumvi-rat …..

Dawikorr (dwarfs) and Inneadim (elfs) have their own realms that are connected with Regalia. The Inneadim have outposts in America.

Dawikorr are only a legend on Regalia and nobody has seen them, but there are legends that they aid whorshippers of Sigmar in peril. They deliver the dominions of Sigmar with artifacts. They live underneath the world Karak Korr and guard the Soul Mill. Dawikorr have rules, so they can be fielded.

The Soul Mill is a huge machinery that allows minor deities to feed on the power of dead spirits or let them reincarnate or serve them as guardian hosts. It was built by the surviving dwarves of the old world on command of the Incarnates on a older machinery of the old ones. The dwarfs guard the soul mill and are aligned with Sigmar after the shattering of the Incarnates, but are under siege of the skaven that have found their way on this world and managed to steal two mighty souls that formed their new gods.

Inneadim whorship the dreamers, gods that have dreamt themselves, basically the elven gods. They live on their own world and protect the dreamchild. Under Araloth they founded enclaves on Regalia in search for the archelves, lost gods of their pantheon. They are a darker take on the elves, nightmare are as much part of their culture then dreams. They use necromancy and the death god Ynnead is at the centre of their pantheon. But they still live in symbiosis with the nature. The artwork shows an elf on a feathered mount, not like a chocobo, but more like a feathered raptor. the artbook shows pictures (and rules) from all existing elf armies.

Skaven and Dawikorr are the only races that use blackpowder, the rest of Regalia is on stuck on an ancient/medieval tech level. The Exoatl use magic techno gear. There is a certain level of anachronistic gear but it is not steampunk but powered by ancient magic. The only steampunk elements are in the Skaven and to a lesser extent the neo-dwarven fluff.

Chaos has no foothold in the north but is anywhere and consists of corrupted tribes and companies from every region of the world. The barbarian theme of the nomadic tribes is more associated with khorne than with chaos as a whole. Beastmen and demons are likely part of their faction because they are described in the same chapter (both in the fluff and unit cards), but demons can be summoned by everyone, so I don’t know for sure. And beastmen have very few pictures, so that’s a bad omen.

Waaghkins: orcs, goblins and are the servants of the old gods and live in a strict caste system, orcs are the manual laborers. There is a new race called nigmos: a tall and slender priest caste. Waaghkins travel the undersea, a system of flooded caverns that connects the whole world, on longboats and do the dirty work for the Exoatl. There is an artwork of the three different kinds of greenskins (no squigs and snotlings mentioned): an ork in very strange armour, very front heavy, textured like a symmetric turtle shell, he wields is an axe with multiple disc shape blades, goblin looked like a viking but has a futuristic looking handgun, the third was taller than a ork, female, slender - probably a nigmo. But in the photos of actual miniatures only show the old orc style. There is a subfaction of waaghkins that changed allegiance from the old gods to grimgor incarnate and are much more ferocious than their cousins.

undeads, deamons and spirits, and guardian hosts are used by every faction of the game, necromancy but not summoning is common in the dominion of Sigmar. The Inneadim are famous for their use of animated constructs. These things are not a big taboo in Regalia. However the most fearsome necromancers are (obviously) employed by the Empire of Nehekhara (which is not a desolate wasteland and has no egyptian vibe but is a rich and green country and feels more babylonian to me) and their death gods. But there is no Undead faction per se anymore. Vampires are called Necrarchs now.

Guardians hosts are troops that were granted by a god from another realm or the realm of the dead. They are living beings and have free will, but were brought to Regalia on the command of a deity.


- Lizardmen are not gone. There is a race called Servants of the Exoatl that guard the pole portals on flying pyramids, but no drawings and no fluff page (other races and tribess get at least half a page). They get unit cards for their old units (which confirms that they are simply lizardmen with a new name), but instead of beautiful pages with pictures like the rest of the bunch they get a simple list in the appendix of the compendium book.

Beastmen get the same lowkey treatment, but ogres get pictures and all, but I cannot say with which pantheon/faction they align. They are mortal, so you can use them in any the guardians of regalia army, but I don’t know if this is a stop gap solution or not.


Age of Sigmar box content:
Extrapolated from the pictures, they are the only new models. If you think you get 3-5 UNITS for each side, you are wrong. you get 10-15 (haven’t counted) CHARACTERS per side. Each model is really individual and it is in no way possible to field the majority of them as a visual coherent unit. It is late and this summary is long as it is, so I make this brief, but I will come back later and add some info on the miniatures. Chaos looks very similar to the old style except the berserkers, the Sigmarite Force is completely different.

Missionary Force:
3 Knights of the Order of Sigmars Blood, Roman looking armour but more bulky, leather Bands, swords and teardrop-shaped shields, champion is a woman
a pair of vigilantes: Male and female, leathercloaked, tricorn, 2 hand-crossbows
a hand full of heavy armoured warrior with different weapons and cloaks, almost knightly in appearance but completely over the top bulky, some have eagleshaped helmets
One hooded, chainmail wearing, hammer wielding girl
a bulldog
standard bearer: naked, chains that are hooked into the flesh, very archaic looking
one arabic looking guy with a two-handed scimitar and full armour
one guy in rags that wields a chain that burns at both ends, very impractical looking

Chaos Cult:
two outriders, basically chaos barbarians as we know them, but female
~5 berserkers: african looking, no armour, barefeet, clad in cloth stripes, two axes, bald and gaunt looking, not overly muscular, bone chain, both male and female
three pristesses: flowing robes, sacrifical ziggzagged daggers, skullmasks
two armoured harpies with spears and shields, crooked looking, feathered wings
at least five chaos warriors similar in appearance to the old chaos warriors, very dynamic fur cloaks and poses, one of them bigger on a larger base, all male as far as I could see
one large bloodletter, almost twice the size of a human
the leader has armour that looks like a chaos dwarfish, very babylonic, rides a demonwolf, a juggernaut, but with flesh and fur and spikes
some more viking-like infantry but with more chainmail
That’s only a broad description. Every model is highly individual.

Sorry for the chaotic nature of the info, I spent the evening writing this in a very fast manner. This is only the tip of the iceberg and I will come back with a little bit more soon - hopefully in a more ordered fashion. If you have a questions or need specifics and a topic, feel free to ask, maybe I remember something of use.

via "Mikhael" 6-22-2015

Regarding Age of Sigmar Product Changes


Retailers have been informed that these kits are will be pulled shortly after Age of Sigmar ships:

Empire Free Company
Empire State Troops
Empire Handgunners / Crossbowmen
Empire Great cannon / Mortar
Reiksguard / Knightly Order Box

Khorne Chaoslord on Juggernaut
Galrauch
Marauders of Chaos
Warriors of Chaos
Chosen
Dragon Ogre Shaggoth

There has been regular talk of BIG core product and range shakeups with the new Warhammer. This is only further fuel to the fire.

via Steve the Warboss 6-24-2015


Age of Sigmar Contents

1x Empire General on Griffin
5x Knights of Sigmar
10x State Troops with Spears
10x State Troops with Muskets

1x Lord of Khorne on Daemonsteed
5x Chaos Knights
10x Chaos Warriors

-No small rulebook
-Full rules for all models
-Small intro of the fluff (Humans only)
-5 Scenarios to introduce players
-Text is written very childfriendly

via Mengel Miniatures (https://www.facebook.com/mengelminiatures) (facebook) 6-2-2015

Age of Sigmar
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via Atia (https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia)(twitter) 6-25-2015


Age of Sigmar Teasers

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Via El Taller De Villa (http://eltallerdeyila.blogspot.com/2015/06/age-of-sigmar-miniaturas-del-bando-del.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ElTallerDeYila+%28El+taller+d e+Yila%29) 6-26-2015



The First Shots of the Age of Sigmar Miniatures are HERE.

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Via Spikeybits Hobbies Page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/spikeybitshobbies/permalink/881356485266065/) 6/27/2015


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Via Warseer (Darnok) (http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?410468-Age-of-Sigmar-Mk-II) 06-27-2015


The official part first: "Age of Sigmar" is the first box set in the "remake" of Warhammer, with the first pre-orders up on the 4th of July, to be released on the 11th.

The most recent of my bird singings:

Quote Originally Posted by Some Birdy
Concerning models:
humans much larger in scale than standard WHFB humans
not just more bulky and differently proportioned, but I mean the models themselves stand taller, they're just a different scale as WHFB humans (each about the size of a Terminator)
about the model compatibility, and they just went like "yeah well if someone really wants to use their old armies they can, but we didn't intend the new models and old models to be compatible, we think larger models are the way forward, blah blah"

Concerning rules:
it's really for small battles and not as deep and strategic like LOTR was
very simplified, seems intended for short quick beer & pretzel games, lots of random and little strategy
no way you can use it for existing warhammer armies, so with the scale difference and incompatible rules I don't think there's any point in rebasing your existing collection
'post it note' size of the rulebook is pretty much accurate
very much revolves around your commander, which has elaborate special rules
rest of the squads feels much as filler for the commanders to smash up and feel good about
no info yet about anything planned for really large-scale battles

This box set is not the full deal though. There will be a "big rulebook" coming shortly afterwards. That one should cover larger battles, I have yet to hear anything definite on it though (unless I missed something ). Also, even if only a guess:

Quote Originally Posted by Harry
Oh .. this is just the tip of a very large pile of ... I mean iceburg. There is a a lot of stuff backed up ready for release. Did you mean weeks or months?
I would expect to see nothing but more Humans and Chaos stuff for a couple of months along with a bunch of terrain (so folks can build 'new look' tables) and then the Skaven stuff to hit.
Comment of mine: I have been told it'll be weeks rather than months of new "WHF" releases. And early August will see the "big Warhammer version"; this AoS is some kind of a game on its own - specifics should leak as soon as the GW store managers had their meeting on coming Monday.

Via Turgol on Warseer (http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?410468-Age-of-Sigmar-Mk-II/page6)


New rumour on Dakka, from Sad Panda: one free Sigmarite coming with White Dwarf.
I have not seen that since like 94 with one... Space Marine!

Via Captain Citadel

Age Of Sigmar Latest Prices & More


Age of Sigmar will be rather large gents. No armies will be phasing out, no army books for that matter. It will be a bit like chess, easy to learn but difficult to master. It can be played to any scale almost, small or large.

Rules will be free and releases this Saturday the 4th.

The story revolves around Sigmar's disappearance from the Fantasy world as he set up kingdoms of warriors to battle Chaos in this new age.

The starter will cost $125 and contain the two factions that has been rumored previously. The models will all be on round bases to be more dynamic (similar to 40k's stance).


And today's sales sheet that seems to support what were hearing currently.
New Age of Sigmar Sale Sheet. Checkout these highlights folks;

14842



Via Games Workshop and Lady Atia 6/29/2015


“Don’t worry. Warhammer Fantasy miniatures stay relevant. Old miniatures can still be used, however how you will play them has changed.””On the 4th of July all the new rules will be available digitally on the GW website for FREE – It will explain to you how the new game works”“The new rules for each miniature will also be in the newly rebranded boxes.
Square bases and movement trays are gone.”“The new and rebranded products will now come with oval and round bases. However don’t worry, as you can play the game with any base shape”

We have been informed the Age of Sigmar rules will include rules for EVERY EXISTING WFB miniature. So there will be zero miniatures that become obsolete.

Via Dr. Caligari 6-29-2015


White Dwarf
- WD 75 WILL include a free Stormcast Eternal.
- WD 75 will include all four pages of AoS rules in it.

Rules
- There are no point values in Age of Sigmar.
- All units will be represented by warscrolls.
- If your side is severely outnumbered, there are several "Sudden Death" objective you can pick from that success will result in your victory.
- Warscrolls have all the rules for the models with them.
- New models will come with warscrolls in their boxes.
- Army books are gone.
- Bases will not matter.
- Measurement is based on closest point of the models. (So yes, a sword that thrusts well past your base is where you'll be measuring from.)

via Dr. Caligari 6-29-2015


- White Dwarf 75 states bases don't matter and show a small Nurgle group with round and square bases.


AoS World Information
- Nine Mortal Realms, all based on the eight colours of magic, and Chaos makes nine.
- Sigmar rules from Azyrheim, and when a Stormcast Eternal dies, he returns there.
- Four Great Alliances:
- Order: Stormcast Eternals, Steamhead Duardin (Dwarfs), Red Slayers (Mercenaries of sorts. Where the old Empire went?), Aelf, and Seraphon - reptilian warriors who appear out of nowhere.
- Chaos: Fully combined army - beastmen, warriors, daemons, *does* include the Skaven.
- Death: Undead.
- Destruction: Orruks, Grots, Ogors, and ravening beasts beyond count.

Turn Sequence:
Hero Phase - Spellcasting and Command Abilities used here.
Movement Phase - Movement in inches, on warscrolls. 5" seems like the new standard. Cannot move within 3" of the enemy during the movement phase. Running is a d6 added to the distance. Flying ignores scenery and friendly models, but still cannot come within 3" of the enemy. Units that start the movement phase within 3" of the enemy can remain stationary or retreat (moving up to full movement away.)
Shooting Phase - Units that ran or retreated may not shoot. Roll to hit and wound as normal.
Charge Phase - Within 12" of enemy. Could not have ran or retreated that turn, nor be within 3" of enemy. Roll two dice and that's your charge distance. Must end within .5" of enemy or charge fails and no models move. No charge reactions.
Combat Phase - Charge or units within 3" of enemy unit. Two steps: 1.) Pile in, may move models in unit up to 3" towards closest enemy model. 2.) Attack with melee weapons.
Battleshock Phase - 2d6 + Casualties. For each point the total beats the unit's bravery, one model flees and is removed from play. Bravery is +1 for every 10 models in the unit when the test is taken.

Attacking Rules:
Pick attacking unit, and target unit.
1. Hit Roll. No WS vs WS, all to hit rolls are the same regardless of who target is. Based on Warscroll.
2. Wound Roll. No S vs T, all to wound rolls are based on weapon on attacking unit's Warscroll.
3. Save Roll. Save on Warscroll, modified by attacking unit's weapon Rend value.

via Troy Cadiff (Facebook) (https://www.facebook.com/groups/spikeybitshobbies/) 6-29-2015


14850148511485214853148541485514856

Warscroll Pics via El Taller De Yila (http://eltallerdeyila.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/reglas-y-battlescrolls-de-age-of-sigmar.html)6-30-2015

1486314864

[Bigred]

Rumor Roundup CONTINUED

Age of Sigmar Pics via El Taller De Yila (http://eltallerdeyila.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/reglas-y-battlescrolls-de-age-of-sigmar.html) 6-30-2015


14865148661486714868

via El Taller De Yila 6-30-2015 (http://eltallerdeyila.blogspot.com/2015/06/mas-imagenes-prosecutors-en-detalle-y.html)

148771487814879148801488114882

[Ben_S]

Age of Sigmar Roundup CONTINUED

via Atia (twitter) 6-30-2015 (https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia)


14883
"Ionos Cryptborn, first & highest of the Lord-Relictors, champ. from the realm below, plucked from his grave by Sigmar"


14884
"Lord-Celestand Vandus and his Dracoth Calanax"


via Atia (https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia) (twitter) 7-1-2015

Age of Sigmar (Formations) Batallions, round bases, and lore:

14885148861488714888148891489014891

ORIGINAL POST
------------------------------------


WD 74 WILL include a free Stormcast Eternal.
- WD 74 will include all four pages of AoS rules in it.

You mean 75?

74 is the current issue: http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/White-Dwarf-Issue-74-ENG

[Kirsten]

via Atia (https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia) (twitter) 7-2-2015


148931489414895148961489714898


New Terrain Spotted

via Atia (https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia) 7-2-2015


Ophidian Archway
14899

It looks like the first of the new range of Age of Sigmar terrain pieces is here.

via Wargamer 7-2-2015

Age of Sigmar Sprues
14901


via GW 7-3-2015
Free Rules & Warscrolls
...are out!


Rules
Age of Sigmar Rules (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Rulesheets/warhammer-aos-rules-en.pdf)

Warscrolls
Beastmen (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-beastmen-en.pdf)

Bretonnia (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-bretonnia-en.pdf)

Daemons of Chaos (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-daemons-of-chaos-en.pdf)

Dark Elves (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-dark-elves-en.pdf)

Dwarfs (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-dwarfs-en.pdf)

The Empire (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-the-empire-en.pdf)

High Elves (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-high-elves-en.pdf)

Lizardmen (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-lizardmen-en.pdf)

Ogre Kingdoms (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-ogre-kingdoms-en.pdf)

Orcs & Goblins (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-orcs-and-goblins-en.pdf)

Scenery (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-scenery-en.pdf)

Skaven (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-skaven-en.pdf)

Tomb Kings (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-tomb-kings-en.pdf)

Vampire Counts (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-vampire-counts-en.pdf)

Warriors of Chaos (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-warriors-of-chaos-en.pdf)

Wood Elves (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-wood-elves-en.pdf)

via one of Gary's birds (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Faeit212/~3/aEbkCat-zUY/aos-realmgate-war-campaign.html) 7-5-2015

Regarding a "Big Rulebook" for Age of Sigmar


I’m hesitant to call it a “Summer Campaign”, because a majority of the
bigger stuff will come out after the summer is over, but the big new
selling point of AoS is going to be vast narrative campaigns and story
arcs. The Realmgate War is going to be the first of these campaigns.

Future campaigns might be more focused, but RgW is primarily going to a
walking tour of the new setting. The release pattering is going to be
formulaic: Here’s the new world (Sans Azyr and Chaos, we go to them during
the final), here’s the evil force that’s making everyone’s life awful,
here’s the good force that’s going to liberate them. Inky, Blinky, Pinky,
and Clyde each get their own named faction, and The Horned Rat and Nagash
will each get their respective 15 minutes of fame.

Once all the new factions are introduced, and the war scrolls proper are
put up, that’s when we finally get the BrB. Don’t think of this as 9th
edition, think of this as the first expansion to Age of Sigmar. It’ll be
much smaller than a core rulebook, but larger than a codex, and will look
and feel a lot like the Horus Heresy books from FW. There will be rules
for list building, missions, campaigns, as well as all the “advanced
rules”, more rules for gods, magic, heroes, loot, more terrain abilities,
and special rules for games on specific realm. Then there’s going to be a
few weeks of 40k, followed by a few weeks to wrap up the Realmgate War.
The conclusion will take the form of an actual, factual summer campaign, as
the forces of order launch an assault on the forces of chaos undecided on
their home turf, all while death and destruction go around making sure
everyone’s having a bad day.

Then a few months later the cycle starts again. There’s going to be a few
weeks of breathing time, setting up the campaigns, introducing characters,
factions, and whatnot, followed by an expansion book that’ll expand on the
rules and let people play their own mini campaigns, followed then a big
conclusion with plenty of heroic deaths and things going south for everyone.



via birds in the trees 7-20-2015


- As mentioned, August holds Chaos terrain kits and Khorne minis.

- Look for a Khorne set of Blood Warriors with more weapon options.

- Look for 1-2 Khorne clampack characters.

- Into September look for a second Campaign book featuring Skaven, Dwarfs, Elfs, Tzeentch.

- Tzeentch will get a handful of new kits.

- There will be a very short 40K Tzeentch release window alongside the kits.

- Summer is rounded out by more Age of Sigmar racial kits then back to 40K for Fall.



Now add that on top of yesterday's set and a clearer picture starts to form:

via birds in the trees 7-18-2015


- August will focus almost entirely on Chaos

- Look for Chaos themed terrain

- New Khorne boxed sets to build off of what is in the AoS boxed set - basically the Khorne version of the Stormcast Eternal kits we've seen these past few weeks.

- Look for Tzeentch to make appearance at the tail end of August

- Tzeentch is said to getting lavish attention this year in both Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. Whispers of the new all plastic Lord of Change abound.

------- original posts ----------------
no way that measuring thing is true, that is ludicrous

[Mr Mystery]

Rumor Roundup Continued
Age of Sigmar Introduction Campaign Missions:


150231502415025150261502715028

These missions form the 6-part campaign in the Age of Sigmar background book. Mission one is a basic introduction to the rules, while mission 6 is a wild free for all for all the marbles. The 6-part campaign covers Sigmar's opening moves to open the Gates of Azyr, and Lord Celestant Vandus Hammerhand's chance for justice (and a bit of vengeance mixed in) against the forces of Korghos Khul!

Each mission presents a larger board, with more scenery, and additional units, building upon the last mission. By Mission 6, both sides are using all the minis in the box and should have total familiarity with the 4-page rules. All in all, a very good training campaign for the new system - exactly what you should expect in a starter boxed set.


Original Post
-----------------------

Hmm.

Steve The Warboss continues, despite being reliably wrong on most, if not all occasions.

Big post from Dakka already shown to be bollocks. Stuff about the novel is also quite possibly bollocks.

Me, gonna wait until I have it in my mitts.

[Spider-pope]

no way that measuring thing is true, that is ludicrous

If it is we may see the rise of the two foot long cannon.

Can we not have Steve the Warbosses "rumours" removed from the round up, given we know they are entirely false?

[Bigred]

You mean 75?

74 is the current issue: http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/White-Dwarf-Issue-74-ENG

Oops my bad - typo. All fixed.

FYI, all future Steve the Warboss will come with "Salt disclaimers" attached. I think it's best to be complete and include them, just so we have them down and can avoid multi-forum "rumor reverb".

[Mr Mystery]

I'd say keep 'em.

Useful for future prognostication analysis.

[Bigred]

no way that measuring thing is true, that is ludicrous

I would normally agree with you, but a 4-page ruleset makes it possible. I would expect the rules to be super streamlined, so maybe...

[Mr Mystery]

Edge to edge makes just as much sense - after all, smaller bases gives no tangible advantage, as all measurements involving it get the same dimension.

There's also the worry of 'modelling for advantage' to consider.

But, time will tell.

[Kirsten]

I would normally agree with you, but a 4-page ruleset makes it possible. I would expect the rules to be super streamlined, so maybe...

measuring base edge to base edge is no harder to explain that going from any part to any part

[Tomgar]

Leaked rules out. Horribly simplified. No semblance of strategy. It doesn't even tell you how to build an army beyond "take as many models as you want." Do not like.

Short sentences.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Hmm.

Steve The Warboss continues, despite being reliably wrong on most, if not all occasions.

Big post from Dakka already shown to be bollocks. Stuff about the novel is also quite possibly bollocks.

Me, gonna wait until I have it in my mitts.

Yeah, it's always dissapointing when I see a new rumour then see it's one from that person.

[TabletopMinis]

Some images of the rules here (http://www.tabletopminis.com/age-of-sigmar-rules-leaked/http://)

[Bigred]

via Dr. Caligari 6-29-2015


- White Dwarf 75 states bases don't matter and show a small Nurgle group with round and square bases.


AoS World Information
- Nine Mortal Realms, all based on the eight colours of magic, and Chaos makes nine.
- Sigmar rules from Azyrheim, and when a Stormcast Eternal dies, he returns there.
- Four Great Alliances:
- Order: Stormcast Eternals, Steamhead Duardin (Dwarfs), Red Slayers (Mercenaries of sorts. Where the old Empire went?), Aelf, and Seraphon - reptilian warriors who appear out of nowhere.
- Chaos: Fully combined army - beastmen, warriors, daemons, *does* include the Skaven.
- Death: Undead.
- Destruction: Orruks, Grots, Ogors, and ravening beasts beyond count.

Turn Sequence:
Hero Phase - Spellcasting and Command Abilities used here.
Movement Phase - Movement in inches, on warscrolls. 5" seems like the new standard. Cannot move within 3" of the enemy during the movement phase. Running is a d6 added to the distance. Flying ignores scenery and friendly models, but still cannot come within 3" of the enemy. Units that start the movement phase within 3" of the enemy can remain stationary or retreat (moving up to full movement away.)
Shooting Phase - Units that ran or retreated may not shoot. Roll to hit and wound as normal.
Charge Phase - Within 12" of enemy. Could not have ran or retreated that turn, nor be within 3" of enemy. Roll two dice and that's your charge distance. Must end within .5" of enemy or charge fails and no models move. No charge reactions.
Combat Phase - Charge or units within 3" of enemy unit. Two steps: 1.) Pile in, may move models in unit up to 3" towards closest enemy model. 2.) Attack with melee weapons.
Battleshock Phase - 2d6 + Casualties. For each point the total beats the unit's bravery, one model flees and is removed from play. Bravery is +1 for every 10 models in the unit when the test is taken.

Attacking Rules:
Pick attacking unit, and target unit.
1. Hit Roll. No WS vs WS, all to hit rolls are the same regardless of who target is. Based on Warscroll.
2. Wound Roll. No S vs T, all to wound rolls are based on weapon on attacking unit's Warscroll.
3. Save Roll. Save on Warscroll, modified by attacking unit's weapon Rend value.

[Kirsten]

not much of that appeals

[Wildeybeast]

Sounds like utter dog sh1t to me. I'll reserve final judgement until I've given it a try for myself, but I'm pretty sure I'm done. I think this will alienate a lot of existing Warhammer players. GW are obviously gambling on picking up a lot more, because they clearly aren't bothered about the existing market.

[Houghten]

It doesn't sound very different to me, except being able to shoot and charge in the same turn.

"Seraphon - reptilian warriors who appear out of nowhere."
Seraphon is the name of Malekith's dragon.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Sounds quick and dirty. I'm intrigued, at the least.

[Paintingplasticcrack]

Sounds like utter dog sh1t to me. I'll reserve final judgement until I've given it a try for myself, but I'm pretty sure I'm done. I think this will alienate a lot of existing Warhammer players. GW are obviously gambling on picking up a lot more, because they clearly aren't bothered about the existing market.

I don't think GW are too bothered with existing players and the huge armies they already own. This is an attempt to get new players into WFB, who will be buying more than just a few new models. It's got me interested.

[Austin Becht]

All I'll say about the rules is...interesting. I like how simple they are, and that will certainly help with getting into the game...but the lack of complexity and tactics kind of annoys me. It looks like it will work well for all levels of play, from small skirmishes to massed battles, but then one could have said the same for 40k by just looking at its rules, and not the various armies and units...

I think GW have hit the nail on the head here in creating an easily accessible game, with simple rules and a low entry point, and I feel that will help attract a lot of customers that might not have otherwise entered Fantasy, or the GW side of the hobby for that matter. And the similarity in aesthetics between Age of Sigmar and 40k will also help drag Sigmar players into 40k, and vice versa. The problems I see are: a) perhaps the rules are too simple, and b) they have alienated the entire current WHFB community. Those two things might hurt them, but otherwise I think this might be a great new game from them, though no proper successor to WHFB.

[Chronowraith]

Sounds like utter dog sh1t to me. I'll reserve final judgement until I've given it a try for myself, but I'm pretty sure I'm done. I think this will alienate a lot of existing Warhammer players. GW are obviously gambling on picking up a lot more, because they clearly aren't bothered about the existing market.

Keep in mind that most rumors indicate that Age of Sigmar is just the intro set of the intro sets. Remember in previous versions you'd have the small rulebook and then the tiny pamphlet? The tiny pamphlet that wouldn't even explain statlines and would simply say, "roll X dice when fighting with this model, any that roll 5+ hit"? Age of Sigmar is that pamphlet magnified. Most of the rumors point to an expansion of rules later down the line.

I'm very curious how this release works and ties into future releases. I'm concerned with a lot of the over simplified mechanisms in the rules snippets I've seen such as units not costing points, the stats of "I need this to hit, this to save, etc." I'm also concerned with what appears, on the surface at least, to be some really atrocious backstory. Most of this it seems will end up waiting for later releases.

So I'd hold off casting any opinion because of Age of Sigmar. If you like the miniatures inside, pick it up. Otherwise, just wait it out. If it doesn't get better, move on. If the latter is the case then he next time I'm in the UK I'll gladly bring my army along for a game of proper Warhammer Fantasy.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

As to complexity, we'll have to see what the Warscrolls for various units look like in the next few months. The decision seems to be to go for a very basic set of rules - suitable for learning in like a half an hour intro session - and then adding in layers with new units and their attendant Warscrolls. That's my hunch, anyway.

[Austin Becht]

As to complexity, we'll have to see what the Warscrolls for various units look like in the next few months. The decision seems to be to go for a very basic set of rules - suitable for learning in like a half an hour intro session - and then adding in layers with new units and their attendant Warscrolls. That's my hunch, anyway.

Yeah I feel the same way. If you were to take out some of the more "complex" rules in LoTR, shorten the sentences, and simplify the language, you could probably fit all its rules on 10 or less pages, maybe even 5 or less. I mean I could probably write out all the rules for LoTR right here. And a lot of LoTR's complexity comes from its more special rules, such as magic, and monster attacks and such, which could just as easily be considered a unit's rules as much as a game mechanic, and could have easily been produced on the unit's profile and not be included as a core rule. So the size of the rules is not indicative of the complexity of the gameplay. Perhaps the various warscrolls will bring in the complexity we all desire, much as the various units, and their rules, do for LoTR.

[Erik Setzer]

Destruction: Orruks, Grots, Ogors, and ravening beasts beyond count

Okay, you know what, GW? Your whole legal department can [censored for the children]. They are ORCS and GOBLINS and OGRES. You can't just change names to some weird spelling and pronunciation just to try to copyright or trademark them. Those names sound utterly stupid and I'll continue to call them what they really are.

- - - Updated - - -


It doesn't sound very different to me, except being able to shoot and charge in the same turn.

Really? Go read the leaked rules. There's pretty much no similarity to Warhammer. If you think there is, you clearly haven't ever played Warhammer.

- - - Updated - - -


Keep in mind that most rumors indicate that Age of Sigmar is just the intro set of the intro sets. Remember in previous versions you'd have the small rulebook and then the tiny pamphlet? The tiny pamphlet that wouldn't even explain statlines and would simply say, "roll X dice when fighting with this model, any that roll 5+ hit"? Age of Sigmar is that pamphlet magnified. Most of the rumors point to an expansion of rules later down the line.

Rumors also claimed state troops in the boxed set.

As opposed to rumors, rumors, and more rumors, we've got emails and stuff circulating from GW using as a selling point for Age of Sigmar that the full rules are just four pages. They're not saying "starter rules" or anything like that. Age of Sigmar is the name of the game, and the rules are four pages.

[Chronowraith]

Okay, you know what, GW? Your whole legal department can [censored for the children]. They are ORCS and GOBLINS and OGRES. You can't just change names to some weird spelling and pronunciation just to try to copyright or trademark them. Those names sound utterly stupid and I'll continue to call them what they really are.

To be fair, they've been called Grots in Fantasy for a long time too. Goblin was simply the original name. I've played since the late 80s and I remember players referring to goblins as grots quite frequently. Nonetheless, I agree with the overall point you are trying to make her. Changing the name of them doesn't really protect your IP any more than if I were to start up a company, grab the Apple logo, recolor is purple, and call my company "Gibbertyfitz".


As opposed to rumors, rumors, and more rumors, we've got emails and stuff circulating from GW using as a selling point for Age of Sigmar that the full rules are just four pages. They're not saying "starter rules" or anything like that. Age of Sigmar is the name of the game, and the rules are four pages.

The question is simple. Is Age of Sigmar just a box set that is used to capture people and introduce them to the new setting or is it the complete box set. Of course there is a GW circular saying, "this is all you need". Do you think it would be a great selling point if they said, "Well this is a starter with over simplified rules. The real rules come out in a month"? Yeah, not so much.

I'm simply trying to add some sanity to people rushing around saying, "this is the end of Warhammer!" Unless you know GWs full release plan for Warhammer, in which case please enlighten all of us, we don't know if these are the full final rules or not as all of the rumor mongers, including the more reliable ones, most indicated that full rules would come after the initial box set.

You rail on GW and accuse them of shady business practices and poor decision making skills but at the same time your willing to take their marketing propaganda at face value? At least be consistent with your paranoia.

Until GW comes out and says, "This is it folks" I'll sit back patiently and watch. I have other games to play and a ton of miniatures to assemble and paint. I've got time to wait.

[40kGamer]

I don't think GW are too bothered with existing players and the huge armies they already own. This is an attempt to get new players into WFB, who will be buying more than just a few new models. It's got me interested.

THe sad truth is they only care about you until you are a customer then crickets....

[Mr Mystery]

Interesting.

Intrigued to see what these Heroic Commands are, and if indeed this is one of several takes.

[silashand]

not much of that appeals

None of it to me. Changing names so they can copyright new names for orcs, goblins and elves? The more I hear about AoS the less I like what I hear and the more likely I am to give it a pass. Seems like the morons in charge didn't learn a damn thing about how they managed to kill the system that started them as a company. It really is looking like they just threw this new garbage over the fence hoping it would stick.

[Wildeybeast]

Agreed. The more I hear, the less I like it. The silly names, the back of a *** packet rules, the loss of ranked up units, the new aesthetic. I'm not running around saying Warhammer is dead, because I will quite happily keep playing 8th ed with my existing armies and rules. But any attempts by GW to claim this is Warhammer 2.0 and has some sort of connection with the game we all knew and loved are looking laughable.

If it works and brings in a load of new players for them, then Job done and fair play. But I'm willing to bet this will cost them a large chunk of the existing fanbase, so it has to work or Warhammer really will be dead and gone.

[Clymer]

Looks like most of the rumors were bunk. No surprises there.

The new models look cool, but not in a way that interests me, so hopefully there will be ways to preserve the models I have and new additions to lines I collect (Empire and Ogres). That plus the background will be the main reasons whether I stay or go.

I kind of gave up on 8th a while back because the games were getting too tedious. Too many models, too many magic dice, etc. The streamlined rules could certainly fix that, but hopefully they didn't go too far and make the game too simple.

[Mr Mystery]

Overall, I think a greatly simplified/streamlined base rule set is no bad thing. As long as they then expand from there.

What I dread is a Warmachine take where a tight rule set is given precedence over variety.

But in any case, it's not as if all the 8th Ed books had self destruct timers, so if push comes to shove I can still happily play Warhammer as I always have - big and ballsy.

[Kirsten]

Not going to bother with Age of Sigmar anyway, will wait and see what else they bring out

[FUZNAZ]

After playing games like x-wing (ST Attack Wing and SW Armada) a lighter set of rules sounds amazing. Only the deepest of neckbeards can vouch for the old 2" thick BRB. (Perhaps a little harsh as its service in anihlating insects has been well worth the buy)

[Path Walker]

It seems like a fun, rules light game, different from fantasy battle but maybe people will actually buy this

[Kirsten]

Does make me wonder, for all people criticised Forge World, I bet their dropping of warhammer is because of this, not because of the Horus Heresy

[grimmas]

Blimey just had a look at the WM/H quick start rules and low and behold they are 4 pages long, looks like GW could really be making a play at its rivals.

[Mr Mystery]

Does make me wonder, for all people criticised Forge World, I bet their dropping of warhammer is because of this, not because of the Horus Heresy

Six of one, half dozen of the other.

I remain intrigued, and enough so to pick up a copy and see what it's actually like.

Bare bones rules can work - it's all about what's in them.

[Erik Setzer]

You rail on GW and accuse them of shady business practices and poor decision making skills but at the same time your willing to take their marketing propaganda at face value? At least be consistent with your paranoia.

You can be insulting all you like, but I'll be nice and explain it since you seem incapable of getting such a basic concept: They're not going to outright lie and claim "these are all the rules" as a selling point, because getting people into the game based on "look how simple it is, you'll never need anything more!" and then saying, "Ha! Gotcha! You need more!" is a good way to piss off the people you haven't already turned off by replacing a tactical war game with a beer and pretzels game.

I "trust" them on those comments because they're being made to the people who sell the games, and lying too much to your retail partners is a good way to run your business into the ground. I'm assuming they aren't *that* stupid. Though yes, the renaming of races thinking they can copyright them does suggest that.

- - - Updated - - -


Blimey just had a look at the WM/H quick start rules and low and behold they are 4 pages long, looks like GW could really be making a play at its rivals.

Not really. Those actually straight-up say that they don't have all the rules for the game. I played a game with them against a friend, then read the rulebook, and a game will play a lot different once you know how everything actually works. Also, GW's telling retailers, "These four pages are all you need." So not the same as Warmachine or anyone else with quick-play rules.

- - - Updated - - -


Overall, I think a greatly simplified/streamlined base rule set is no bad thing. As long as they then expand from there.

If this wasn't meant to replace Warhammer, it wouldn't bother me really. As a completely brand new game, it could be fun. The lack of points values and idea people will just "balance it yourselves" is the only thing that'd really bug me, and I remain that's one of the things that hurt Inquisitor. Simple game, able to play in a half-hour, cool. Using this to replace a game of tactical combat between ranked forces with a lot of depth? Not really so keen on that.

Oh, and those names. Legal teams shouldn't be involved in making design decisions...

[Mr Mystery]

We still don't know that this is the final product.

Rumours are somewhat conflicting, even after you excise the clearly false (seriously Steve the Warboss, just....just stop, mmkay?)

All depends on how this version (if indeed it is just a version) scales up, and how it facilitates that.

[Cutter]

Oh, and those names. Legal teams shouldn't be involved in making design decisions...

I was promised Nigmos.

[Mr Mystery]

Just had another look over the first page.

Now, I am indeed cherry picking here, but not without some logic to it....

Harry we know to be largely reliable - even when he's not 100%, he's close enough that you can see where things got confused.

Darnok is likewise normally pretty reliable.

Darnok has info that this is an intro game type affair - a way to play Warhammer with fewer models perhaps - with a full rulebook of some sort expected in August. Harry doesn't seem to have contradicted this, which he has done in the past.

[Al Shut]

The lack of points values and idea people will just "balance it yourselves" is the only thing that'd really bug me, and I remain that's one of the things that hurt Inquisitor.

That's one thing I won't believe until I saw the complete four pages and some sample Warscrolls. There just has to be more than that, otherwise the most cautious and restrained thought I have would be 'I don't see it working at all. The only attempts at balancing we've seen so far are based on model count and I think it's fair to assume not all models are supposed to be equally strong.


And if you call ogres Ogors you might as well spell them with a zero

[Mr Mystery]

Points or alleged lack thereof is an interesting one.

One assumes there'll be some kind of 'wound count', otherwise your 20 Gobbos get to play with my 19 Ironguts, and I'll have the advantage.

But hey, early days, and a still incomplete picture.

[Kirsten]

Yeah, the game would hardly work without them. If they do go that will pretty much be the end of my involvement

[Mr Mystery]

Unless there's a separate rating on Warscrolls?

I can see each box of models being a separate scroll, and thus rateable from there?

[grimmas]

Points or alleged lack thereof is an interesting one.

One assumes there'll be some kind of 'wound count', otherwise your 20 Gobbos get to play with my 19 Ironguts, and I'll have the advantage.

But hey, early days, and a still incomplete picture.

Very incomplete. Could be that all the warscrolls( or whatever) are balanced against each other and one picks a set number each eg. you play a 4 scroll battle or something on those lines.

[Mr Mystery]

Not sure how that might work?

[Austin Becht]

Very incomplete. Could be that all the warscrolls( or whatever) are balanced against each other and one picks a set number each eg. you play a 4 scroll battle or something on those lines.


I was thinking the same thing. In fact, if you look at the leaked pics, both sides have 6 units. The Stormcast Eternals have their two units of Stormcast warriors, the heavy-weapons guys, and the Seraphim-esque guys, alongside their standard bearer and their hero. Chaos has two units of Marauders, one unit of Warriors, the beast and his master, as well as the banner bearer and the hero. I think if they want to go "no points" then balancing gameplay based on number of warscrolls is probably the way to go.

However, if units have maximum and minimum sizes, and there's no rules that state "feilding a unit above its minimum size counts as two warscrolls for army construction," then I'm not sure how the game will be intended to be played with any semblance of balance.

If course, all these rumors about a lack of points could be wrong as well. I mean, think about how many rumors about the rules and models were invalidated once we got these leaks. At this point, its hard to believe any rumor is true, even if its coming from a reliable source, when so much we've been hearing for ages was all false.

[grimmas]

Not sure how that might work?

Simples each warscroll gives a set number of each unit eg the goblin one give 20 goblins, the human one 10 soldiers and the ogre one 3 ogres, for a game if you decide to pick a 4 scroll game you just pick 4 of the scrolls you'd like and both armies would be balanced. Obviously it may take some balancing a chaos Lord on a dragon and a goblin Warboss but they could make some units be worth more than one warscroll. If you wanted bigger units you could combine warscrolls eg have 2 scrolls worth of ogres to have a 6 strong unit. Of course that would mean fixed equipment in units but at this point I think anything could happen.

[Kirsten]

Yeah, that would be terrible

[Haighus]

Would mean less customisation, but then a lot of wargames out there have little to no customisation.

[Erik Setzer]

Well, the leaked rules (and, being photos of WD, they're more likely than that "leaked" 40K rulebook a few years ago) don't mention points at all. Just basically "take what you want" and that armies can "be as big as you want" but "Typically, a game with around a hundred miniatures per side will last for about an evening."

The inclusion of that last line also suggests these rules are intended to be used for all size battles.

There's also rules for giving a bonus to armies that don't have as many models. "If one army has a third more models than the other, the outnumbered player can choose one objective from the sudden death table..." So, yeah, if you bring an army of Empire State Troops against Chaos Warriors or Ogres, then even if it should be theoretically balanced, they'll get a bonus because you brought more models. Now, sure, you could argue that having more models means they'd need to kill more in order to score a higher percentage of kills than you, but again, if the armies are pretty much balanced otherwise, that wouldn't be an issue for them.

The rules for army selection and all would make sense if every model was exactly in line with every other model, all perfectly balanced against each other (basically, having the same attacks, saves, etc.). That would make for a boring game, of course. So now we're left with unbalanced matches where one side that would already have an advantage in terms of power will get even more of an advantage.

I'm sorry, but how was this in development for two years? It's four bloody pages, and feels like an idea someone would jot down thinking "I know game design better than a whole team of people, I'll show the Internet!"

And can someone explain what "repair to their lair" means?

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Simples each warscroll gives a set number of each unit eg the goblin one give 20 goblins, the human one 10 soldiers and the ogre one 3 ogres, for a game if you decide to pick a 4 scroll game you just pick 4 of the scrolls you'd like and both armies would be balanced. Obviously it may take some balancing a chaos Lord on a dragon and a goblin Warboss but they could make some units be worth more than one warscroll. If you wanted bigger units you could combine warscrolls eg have 2 scrolls worth of ogres to have a 6 strong unit. Of course that would mean fixed equipment in units but at this point I think anything could happen.

You do realize that you're delving into describing a points system?

[Mr Mystery]

Repair to the lair - go home, lick your wounds, and have a good old fashioned sulk.

And if it's Football, blame everyone except the players on your team.

[Arkhan Land]

Yeah, that would be terrible

I feel like if this is true its banking on the way several other systems with fixed figures work, definitely not why I play WFB. All those years GW wasted my time with modular kits

[Erik Setzer]

Repair to the lair - go home, lick your wounds, and have a good old fashioned sulk.

Hmm... Took me some effort to find "repair" used that way. Threw me off and seemed like a typo. Luckily it's not in any of the rules, just a descriptive note in there.

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I feel kind of bad for a lot of people out there right now. There are a lot of people in denial over no points ("they have to be on the war scrolls!") or insisting that more rules are to come and GW is just lying when they say "these are the rules, that's it, simple innit?" When there's no way to deny it left, they're going to be some very unhappy folks.

[Mr Mystery]

We don't know that though. All of that is based off rumours, which may not be the entire story.

War Scrolls we know are coming. There's reference to them. But how they work remains unknown.

There's a solid postulation above, that it'll be approximately 1 x Box of Models per scroll.

Though as things stand stats wise right now, I'd totes take 6 Ogres over 20 Gobbos :p

[Kirsten]

I feel like if this is true its banking on the way several other systems with fixed figures work, definitely not why I play WFB.

this is it. I have nothing against the Age of Sigmar rules, models, etc. it just isn't Warhammer. holding out hope for a proper warhammer release in August or later. Otherwise, I might pick this up at some point, but I am not sure why I would bother.

[40kGamer]

I know it isn't a popular thought, but regardless of how much any of us end up hating Age of Sigmar after we get the full flavor release, WFB will never die. All the specialist games have vibrant communities that support living online rules and many companies continue to produce models that can be used to play. Best part? Once GW stops supporting a game the majority of WAAC asshats move on to the next great thing and what you have left is a group of people who are passionate about the system and far more beer and giggles then the original community. So for me, I'm going to set back, relax and not give a damn. I love and play all the Specialist Games so I've been down this road with GW many times before. And this feels a whole lot like the Epic 40k (Epic 3rd edition) system reboot... and we all know how well that game worked out. :p

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I don't see people stopping with Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles anytime soon. I mean, you've got the models, you've got the books - and I'm pretty sure that the "9th Edition Warhammer Fantasy" was already released, it's called The End Times - why stop if you and your group enjoy it?

[Erik Setzer]

Though as things stand stats wise right now, I'd totes take 6 Ogres over 20 Gobbos :p

And you'd get a bonus for being outnumbered!

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I don't see people stopping with Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles anytime soon. I mean, you've got the models, you've got the books - and I'm pretty sure that the "9th Edition Warhammer Fantasy" was already released, it's called The End Times - why stop if you and your group enjoy it?

If End Times was WFB9, then most people I know will stick to WFB8. People tried the End Times stuff and would then insist that the rules in it were purely 100% optional and didn't want to use them (including not wanting to use the ET magic rules when playing a combined Elf army). It was interesting for occasional giggle games, but not terribly awesome for full-time gaming.

[40kGamer]

I don't see people stopping with Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles anytime soon. I mean, you've got the models, you've got the books - and I'm pretty sure that the "9th Edition Warhammer Fantasy" was already released, it's called The End Times - why stop if you and your group enjoy it?

Exactly. So for existing players Age of Sigmar poses no risk... It's GW that's taking a big risk by changing everything up in an effort to get a new player base.

[Kirsten]

Exactly. So for existing players Age of Sigmar poses no risk

well that isn't true, one of the good things about Warhammer is looking forward to the next army book and new unit. so if that stops a lot of the interest will go. I have a Bretonnian force badly in need of an armybook that I am now worried will never come.

[40kGamer]

well that isn't true, one of the good things about Warhammer is looking forward to the next army book and new unit. so if that stops a lot of the interest will go. I have a Bretonnian force badly in need of an armybook that I am now worried will never come.

Totally understandable... I'm an big Adeptus Titanicus/Epic player (my favorite GW offering of all time) and I was crushed when they stopped supporting it. But the online community rallied around the game and there are 'living' rulebooks that add new units and the community even updated the races that GW never made rules for. I can see WFB being the same if not more so as it has a richer history and larger following then the Specialist games did. And WFB has the added bonus of most everything not being IP protected like it is with Epic, so models should be readily available from a myriad of sources if GW changes the look. I can imagine all the smaller companies are drooling over the Age of Sigmar change up as it will allow them to make bank off the old style WFB minis with players.

And I think you may be onto something with FW dumping the WFB line being related to the new direction with AoS.

[Kirsten]

yeah, why else would they drop their one Warhammer book? the Imperial Armour books hang around for ages, get updated etc.

[Zaonite]

one of the good things about Warhammer is looking forward to the next army book and new unit. so if that stops a lot of the interest will go. I have a Bretonnian force badly in need of an armybook that I am now worried will never come.

I feel the same. I have been eagerly awaiting a new Bret army book for about 5 years. IMO the traditional armybooks won't ever be updated again.

I am interested to see what AoS will bring though. Can't wait to get my mitts on the rules.

[silashand]

this is it. I have nothing against the Age of Sigmar rules, models, etc. it just isn't Warhammer.

This +1. AoS may be a good game in and of itself, but if all I wanted was a skirmish game I already play several of those and don't really need or care for another.


If it works and brings in a load of new players for them, then Job done and fair play. But I'm willing to bet this will cost them a large chunk of the existing fanbase, so it has to work or Warhammer really will be dead and gone.

If I were a betting man I know where I'd place my money (and it isn't on AoS being a huge success :( ). Then again, most of the time I have actually bet on something I have lost, so who knows...

[Ravingbantha]

From everything I've seen so far, I think this version of the game is going to be utter crap. I like 40k because of it's complexity, but fantasy sounds like it's going to be as complex as monopoly.

[Ben_S]

All the specialist games have vibrant communities that support living online rules and many companies continue to produce models that can be used to play.

I know there are still people out there playing, but it can be hard to find a group where you live. I would be happy to play Necromunda, Mordheim, Gorkamorka, etc. I have managed Blood Bowl semi-regularly, and one night of Mordheim late last year, but haven't played any of the others in years, despite willingness. I fear that WFB 8th would gradually die out in a similar fashion. You'd be ok if you're part of a close-knit group of friends, but not have much luck if you go to the club/store looking for pick-up games.

[40kGamer]

I know there are still people out there playing, but it can be hard to find a group where you live. I would be happy to play Necromunda, Mordheim, Gorkamorka, etc. I have managed Blood Bowl semi-regularly, and one night of Mordheim late last year, but haven't played any of the others in years, despite willingness. I fear that WFB 8th would gradually die out in a similar fashion. You'd be ok if you're part of a close-knit group of friends, but not have much luck if you go to the club/store looking for pick-up games.

Facebook groups and forums really help put people in touch with those in their area although if you're not near a metro it may be hard to find enough people to play regularly which is sad.

[Tomgar]

The wholesale chucking of a venerable IP, combined with the lack of communication from GW about the massive changes they were planning have really got me down on the hobby. GW need to start communicating more and maybe people would have time to prepare for the shock of the game they've spent decades playing being chucked in the bin. I bought my first Fantasy mini when I was 10 years old. GW have basically told people like me "play Age of Sigmar, with its awful ruleset, or gtfo."

I'm pretty much done with GW at this point. If they want to treat the consumers like children and refuse to communicate, then I'll take my business elsewhere. In no other hobby besides this one do people continually make excuses for and continue doing business with a company that has demonstrated such contempt for its consumers. I strongly urge Old Fantasy fans to move to Kings of War. At least that's a ruleset that still receives support.

[Erik Setzer]

I know there are still people out there playing, but it can be hard to find a group where you live. I would be happy to play Necromunda, Mordheim, Gorkamorka, etc. I have managed Blood Bowl semi-regularly, and one night of Mordheim late last year, but haven't played any of the others in years, despite willingness. I fear that WFB 8th would gradually die out in a similar fashion. You'd be ok if you're part of a close-knit group of friends, but not have much luck if you go to the club/store looking for pick-up games.

One thing people tend to forget in these discussions is that Space Marine/Titan Legions was considered one of their "big three" games originally. It had a lot of support, got quite a lot of models, featured regularly in White Dwarf for years. Then it got changed to Epic 40K, lost a lot of players, and ended up being shuffled over to Fanatic/Specialist Games and eventually forgotten.

Something to keep in mind with all of this.

[Spider-pope]

Personally i'm not leaping to any conclusions regarding whether or not points are involved. The 40k rulebook mentions points less than a handful of times, and in the setting up a game section treats them as entirely optional - players decide for themselves if they want to use a points limit in their game. That coupled with not having seen a warscroll or whatever they are calling them, makes me think it's premature to declare points dead and gone.

In the end, for me the deciding factor will be the fluff, as it always has been. It's the setting that has kept me playing GW games. If i like the new setting, i'll probably invest in the game, regardless of the rules, because they can and will change over time. If i don't, well, even the best ruleset in the world wouldn't get me to play. I'm a big fan of the Flightpath game system from X-wing for example, but i only play Star Trek Attack Wing because i'm not particularly into Star Wars.

[Erik Setzer]

Someone put up better images from WD, so you can read all the rules and see an example of a warscroll (though a bit hard to read the special rules):

http://eltallerdeyila.blogspot.com/2015/06/reglas-y-battlescrolls-de-age-of-sigmar.html

Things that can be confirmed from this:

- You do indeed measure from any point on a model, with a specific note that the base isn't considered part of the model (hello, modeling for game effect!).
- Warscrolls do not have points values listed on them.
- Unit rules are pretty basic. Four attributes, weapon statline, special rules, and keywords.
- Sudden Death is broken as heck.
- Characters are "units" of their own and can't join other units (as a unit can't be composed of models from different warscrolls).

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Looks fun to me!

[Erik Setzer]

And now Lady Atia has a lot more on Twitter, including more warscrolls:

https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia

As she noted, the warscrolls don't have a set number of models. One of the units I opened says the unit may contain "any number" of models.

All the people planning on "take X number of warscrolls" figuring they'd have certain unit sizes and all? Nope.

To review, we now have a game with no points values, no min/max number of models in a unit, and basically no way to build armies other than, "Well, use what you feel like, and if you outnumber your opponent, he gets a bonus."

/sigh

[Cap'nSmurfs]

As ever, you and your opponent, and the wider community, can work out standards. We've been doing this with Warhammer Fantasy for years. We had the same arguments when 8th came out - oh, this is broken, oh, that's overpowered, oh, that spell is too good - and what happened? The community, tournament organisers, garage groups, whatever, came together to agree on the standards for the games they wanted to play. Why would this be different? Furthermore, why abandon it before making the attempt?

And if it's not for you, what's the point in going on (and on, and on) about it?

[Spider-pope]

And now Lady Atia has a lot more on Twitter, including more warscrolls:

https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia

As she noted, the warscrolls don't have a set number of models. One of the units I opened says the unit may contain "any number" of models.

All the people planning on "take X number of warscrolls" figuring they'd have certain unit sizes and all? Nope.

To review, we now have a game with no points values, no min/max number of models in a unit, and basically no way to build armies other than, "Well, use what you feel like, and if you outnumber your opponent, he gets a bonus."

/sigh

Or you know, talk to your opponent before a game. It could be disasterous, but i'll give it a try when the free rules come out with my friends and see for myself.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Right. It could well be ****ing dreadful!

[40kGamer]

And now Lady Atia has a lot more on Twitter, including more warscrolls:

https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia

As she noted, the warscrolls don't have a set number of models. One of the units I opened says the unit may contain "any number" of models.

All the people planning on "take X number of warscrolls" figuring they'd have certain unit sizes and all? Nope.

To review, we now have a game with no points values, no min/max number of models in a unit, and basically no way to build armies other than, "Well, use what you feel like, and if you outnumber your opponent, he gets a bonus."

/sigh

Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of traditional historical wargaming. Every game has to be meticulously planned, self balanced and scenario driven.

[Erik Setzer]

Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of traditional historical wargaming. Every game has to be meticulously planned, self balanced and scenario driven.

Didn't that end ages ago, though? When people decided to start playing more "what-if" style games for fun. I can't think of a historical game right now without points values or something similar. I'm not sure how far back you'd have to go for that idea to be "mainstream."

I'd like to meet up with someone, say, "Want to do a quick 1000 point game?", and then throw down with models, without having to have a discussion/debate over what type of units to bring, how many models, what kind of models are acceptable, etc.

Yeah, I know they don't do a great job of balancing things, but just giving up completely seems lazy at best.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

According to Lady_Atia's white dwarf stuff, sounds like every existing Warhammer miniature will have its warscroll downloadable from GW.com, either this weekend or next.

Rules for every extant model.

[silashand]

Right. It could well be ****ing dreadful!

Yup :)

Personally I am looking forward to Kings of War 2.0 this summer. I want a battle game and if GW won't provide it, then I don't have to play whatever they do decide to try and sell me. JMO though...


Didn't that end ages ago, though? When people decided to start playing more "what-if" style games for fun. I can't think of a historical game right now without points values or something similar. I'm not sure how far back you'd have to go for that idea to be "mainstream."

The one I can think of off the top of my head is Force on Force, though the owners of that system are working on a revised version with point values as an update to their original Ambush Alley rules as I understand it. I think Fire and Fury still may not use point values or army construction rules, but I haven't looked at it in a while. But in general you are correct. All the currently popular historical games (Flames of War, Bolt Action, Hail Caesar, Black Powder, etc.) all use point values and are quite fun.

[Erik Setzer]

According to Lady_Atia's white dwarf stuff, sounds like every existing Warhammer miniature will have its warscroll downloadable from GW.com, either this weekend or next.

Rules for every extant model.

Yeah, that's been known for a couple days or so now, thanks to leaked memos from GW. This Saturday, July 4th. You'll actually have the rules to play the game before the official release. I think that'll help the stores (like the local one) hosting a launch party on the 11th, because people will actually know the rules and be able to play games, which is the best advertisement that could be done.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Yeah, that's really cool.

The White Dwarf text also implies that the "Mortal Realms" might still be the Warhammer World... just what's left of it after it got swallowed up (it refers to The Age of Myth and "the world-that-was"). It's Sigmar's War of Reclamation.

[Erik Setzer]

I just thought of something rather amusing.

It says that models in a unit must remain within 1" of each other.

It also says bases aren't considered part of the model, and all measuring is done from parts of the model.

So, honestly, big bases aren't really your friend. I was considering getting some 32mm bases to toss some Black Orks on (seems it'd look better than 25mm), but I'm not so sure on that now. Definitely a good thing to keep in mind before basing any existing models. Put the models on too large a base, and you might not be able to keep them in coherency.

Just think about that one for a moment.

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Yeah, that's really cool.

The White Dwarf text also implies that the "Mortal Realms" might still be the Warhammer World... just what's left of it after it got swallowed up (it refers to The Age of Myth and "the world-that-was"). It's Sigmar's War of Reclamation.

The rules refer to battling in the "seven mortal realms." Given that one of them was the "Realm of Fire," I'm thinking the realms all refer to one of the Winds of Magic, and that made me wonder about why only seven and not eight, but then I remembered that the Realm of Death might not really be a "mortal realm."

[Tomgar]

"You don't need points values! It's not GW's job to write a game that makes sense, you and your opponent have to do that!"

Gee, sounds real fun.

[Spider-pope]

"You don't need points values! It's not GW's job to write a game that makes sense, you and your opponent have to do that!"

Gee, sounds real fun.

When my group and i have done that in 40k for various games, it has been.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

it would be cool if that if the realm of death was the "old" warhammer world.

I like the miniatures the more I see anyhow, yeah they are the fantasy equivilent of space marines but it's nice to see an offensive WHF "good" force. Not sure how I feel about those rules, but as they are free I may give them a go with a friend who says she wants to start skaven.

[Erik Setzer]

When my group and i have done that in 40k for various games, it has been.

It's fun to do scenarios and stuff at times, but not trying to work that stuff out for every game. Sometimes you meet a new player and just want to have a quick match, rather than spend 30-60 minutes discussing what forces can be used, what the scenario should be, etc.

[Kirsten]

so, my next lot of thoughts

no points values on those scrolls

if every unit will get a scroll on saturday then we can at least get a good idea of stuff staying/going etc. and how it fits in.

scrolls are a big departure from previous statlines, which means there are limits to what any 'bigger ruleset' might contain. the scrolls go hand in hand with the new mini rules, so I am not sure how a rulebook for larger battles would actually differ, aside from perhaps adding rules for ranks somehow, or at least just outnumbering the enemy or similar.

[Tomgar]

It's fun to do scenarios and stuff at times, but not trying to work that stuff out for every game. Sometimes you meet a new player and just want to have a quick match, rather than spend 30-60 minutes discussing what forces can be used, what the scenario should be, etc.

Yep. The great strength of 40k (for all its many, many faults) is that you can say "wanna play 1500pts?" and then play a game. Bam. Minimal set-up time, just agreeing on a pts limit, then you're away. Who wants to spend half an hour before every game saying "right, I can have this many Warscrolls and you can have this many Warscrolls?"

It is literally the laziest games design I've ever seen.

[Erik Setzer]

scrolls are a big departure from previous statlines, which means there are limits to what any 'bigger ruleset' might contain. the scrolls go hand in hand with the new mini rules, so I am not sure how a rulebook for larger battles would actually differ, aside from perhaps adding rules for ranks somehow, or at least just outnumbering the enemy or similar.

It looks like having more models in a unit means that you might be able to position more to strike (though if I'm understanding things right, melee weapons have a 1" range, so you need to be within 1" of an enemy model to strike), and you get a bonus to your "battleshock" rolls to keep from losing more models to flight. On the flip side, if you have more models in your army, your opponent gets the ability to pick a way to end the game instantly with a "major victory" by doing something so simple as having a model close to a certain piece of terrain at the end of turn 4, or killing a certain enemy unit or character, or just having a single model alive at the end of turn 6.

[Auticus]

Yep. The great strength of 40k (for all its many, many faults) is that you can say "wanna play 1500pts?" and then play a game. Bam. Minimal set-up time, just agreeing on a pts limit, then you're away. Who wants to spend half an hour before every game saying "right, I can have this many Warscrolls and you can have this many Warscrolls?"

It is literally the laziest games design I've ever seen.

Historical games were often like this. The games I started with were exactly like this in the late 80s and 90s. The concept of points was not something that I started experiencing until 1996 or so. Until then I went almost a decade without ever using points based systems.

[Erik Setzer]

Who wants to spend half an hour before every game saying "right, I can have this many Warscrolls and you can have this many Warscrolls?"

It has to be more than that. The Warscrolls don't list a number of models on them. So you have to figure out relative power levels between units, and how many models a unit can have. If you just say "we'll both take X number of warscrolls," you could still find yourself facing a couple hundred models to your 50.

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Historical games were often like this. The games I started with were exactly like this in the late 80s and 90s.

They moved away from that for a reason. And they were usually designed to represent actual historical battles anyway. This isn't a historical game.

[40kGamer]

The one I can think of off the top of my head is Force on Force, though the owners of that system are working on a revised version with point values as an update to their original Ambush Alley rules as I understand it. I think Fire and Fury still may not use point values or army construction rules, but I haven't looked at it in a while. But in general you are correct. All the currently popular historical games (Flames of War, Bolt Action, Hail Caesar, Black Powder, etc.) all use point values and are quite fun.

You are both quite correct, hence my reference to "traditional" games. Although PIQUET rules still avoid points in general and a lot of smaller non-mainstream games don't bother over points. However, the fact that the majority of popular Historical games systems do use points should be an indicator that the community as a whole approves of some semblance of balance.

So if they do ditch points it is a huge step backwards in game theory and a full admission from them as a company that they think game balance is irrelevant. Quite a departure from the believe they followed just a few years back when there was at least an effort to balance things through points. In fact if you read the designer notes in Epic Armageddon Jervis launches into a full exposition regarding the importance of Game Balance and Tournament rules. This isn't just a different game but an entirely different company.

I'm not willing to bet on anything anymore as I didn't believe they would ditch square bases and regiments in favor of what looks to be 'another version of 40k', so no points is within the realm of reason.

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Yep. The great strength of 40k (for all its many, many faults) is that you can say "wanna play 1500pts?" and then play a game. Bam. Minimal set-up time, just agreeing on a pts limit, then you're away. Who wants to spend half an hour before every game saying "right, I can have this many Warscrolls and you can have this many Warscrolls?"

It is literally the laziest games design I've ever seen.

I agree the PV are awesome for ease of game play but 7th 40k is such a debacle of game balance pick up games have become increasingly difficult.

[Auticus]

It has to be more than that. The Warscrolls don't list a number of models on them. So you have to figure out relative power levels between units, and how many models a unit can have. If you just say "we'll both take X number of warscrolls," you could still find yourself facing a couple hundred models to your 50.

- - - Updated - - -



They moved away from that for a reason. And they were usually designed to represent actual historical battles anyway. This isn't a historical game.

Battletech wasn't a historical game either ;)

It worked fine until the competitions started. Once tournaments became a thing, points had to be used.

I don't think a game *requires* points to play well, and I don't see it as lazy design.

However I do think that if you want to play tournaments that you need points, but those points have to be meaningful and not just arbitrary (like 40k seems to be for example)

[Mr Mystery]

£75 in proper munneh.

Worth a punt if you ask me, and better value than Armada.

[Wildeybeast]

Okay, I'm going to come out and say it. When these rumours started emerging a couple of months ago, I thought Erik was just being a doom merchant. Turns out he was right and in fact it looks even worse than he thought. Warhammer is dead and unless there is something very important that we aren't currently aware of, this games looks beyond stupid.

[fraziersm]

Okay, I'm going to come out and say it. When these rumours started emerging a couple of months ago, I thought Erik was just being a doom merchant. Turns out he was right and in fact it looks even worse than he thought. Warhammer is dead and unless there is something very important that we aren't currently aware of, this games looks beyond stupid.

I heard from my local store today, that this is a stand alone game, and that this is not WHFB 9th ed.

[Spider-pope]

I heard from my local store today, that this is a stand alone game, and that this is not WHFB 9th ed.

Well yeah, it's not WFB 9th edition because there isn't going to be a 9th edition.

[Mr Mystery]

I'll be up my local store on Saturday to see what's what.

No point worrying about anything until I've played the game.

[Tomgar]

My local GW is telling people that they can only play Fantasy on the designated night for OOP games ("Anything Goes Wednesday" I believe). Fantasy is dead. There will be no 9th. If you don't like AoS and don't have friends you can keep playing 8th with, you're right out of luck, basically.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

The End Times was "9th Edition". This is the new Warhammer.

I'm not sure how many more times they can say "nothing will ever be the same again" before it sinks in, really.

[Lexington]

These mechanics sound pretty nice to me. Maybe they work, maybe they don't, but they're interesting and miles away from anything that's come out of GW in decades.

Unfortunately, the background looks to be...well, boring. Epically boring, emphasis on the "epic" - like all those superhero movies where the Earth itself is imperiled every twelve seconds, these gods, celestial superarmies and magical realms of magic get fairly ho-hum when they're the focus of everything. The old school Warhammer World had an interesting, varied world with civilizations and histories and plain old people for whom magic was a bizarre, fearful and very rare thing. It gave the setting a grounded feeling and a verisimilitude that balanced out the gods and monsters that lurked on the map's edges. Maybe everything we've seen so far is just marketing, and GW has actually fleshed out a real winner of a fantasy world somewhere between these gleaming gold godlings and their blood-soaked enemies. Given the company's recent dismal record when it comes to developing their existing IPs, it seems more likely that we'll be getting the sort of big-n-bland storytelling that makes most big video games so unpalatable. Too bad. RIP Warhammer.

[Kirsten]

we will just have to see what comes out over the next few months. this is something totally new, we have no idea what will happen, and there are plenty of rumours concerning future releases.

[40kGamer]

Trying to give this the benefit of the doubt but between all round bases, a 40k vibe and no points values it keeps feeling more and more like this...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-02NH3uS9guk/UR-46l6MaoI/AAAAAAAAEEg/DifU-bYLaNc/w506-h380/mlp-fim-jump-shark2.png

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I am quite frankly amazed. I actually want to play Fantasy now.
No more working out charge arcs and trying to rank up models that just aren't made for it. A new angle, a fresh start.

I am very optimistic.

[Ravingbantha]

Hero's are the center of the game with some troops to back them up, and now warscrolls? The game sounds more like HeroQuest then Warhammer 9th.

[daboarder]

[removed]


These mechanics sound pretty nice to me. Maybe they work, maybe they don't, but they're interesting and miles away from anything that's come out of GW in decades.

Unfortunately, the background looks to be...well, boring. Epically boring, emphasis on the "epic" - like all those superhero movies where the Earth itself is imperiled every twelve seconds, these gods, celestial superarmies and magical realms of magic get fairly ho-hum when they're the focus of everything. The old school Warhammer World had an interesting, varied world with civilizations and histories and plain old people for whom magic was a bizarre, fearful and very rare thing. It gave the setting a grounded feeling and a verisimilitude that balanced out the gods and monsters that lurked on the map's edges. Maybe everything we've seen so far is just marketing, and GW has actually fleshed out a real winner of a fantasy world somewhere between these gleaming gold godlings and their blood-soaked enemies. Given the company's recent dismal record when it comes to developing their existing IPs, it seems more likely that we'll be getting the sort of big-n-bland storytelling that makes most big video games so unpalatable. Too bad. RIP Warhammer.

yeah the background was always GWs strongest point. I think throwing the old world out was the silliest thing they have ever done. They could have overhauled the game system for all most people would have cared.
And while it can be admitted that portions of the old world were quite generic it was the combination of them as a whole that made the setting entirely unique and unlike anything else I've seen.

[40kGamer]

Okay, I'm going to come out and say it. When these rumours started emerging a couple of months ago, I thought Erik was just being a doom merchant. Turns out he was right and in fact it looks even worse than he thought. Warhammer is dead and unless there is something very important that we aren't currently aware of, this games looks beyond stupid.

Sometimes the doomsayers are right! :p

http://www.forward-now.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/RIP-THE-END-IS-HERE.jpg

[Cap'nSmurfs]

FWIW, I'm pretty sure Sigmar's to blame for all the storms we've been having here in Austin.

Those minis are amazing.

I'm excited to try the ruleset. Like I said before, it looks quick and bloody.

[40kGamer]

we warned you, but noooooo! "you lot are just a bunch of GW haters....."

oh man this is sad, really sad and I feel so sorry for the majority of fantasy players, but for some of you I have only one word.

Karma.

30 years of game history has officially been Squatted!

If the new silly trademarkable names proves true I wouldn't be surprised to see a model design change that will basically make old models look so out of place that they won't be used.

This was circulated by a local bloke and sums up the general opinion of our community quite well.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/11692580_10153168651597798_1123980505708846306_n.j pg?oh=d2f6609aeee373d011867fb0df9628c9&oe=56170C4E

[Kirsten]

lol, 'we warned you' as if you know the slightest thing. how is being patient and waiting for proof karma? what a tit.

[Spugnoberto82]

Hello everyone, sorry for my poor english but some question come at my mind, reading those rules ...
1) i can have as many models as i like, if i outnumber my opponent at least of 1/3 of the models , he get a Sudden Death Victory option , but tbh why should i be troubled about it when i deploy 120 models and you 40? Why should i care about this SDV ?
2) How can veterans play theyr armyes if they don't know how much units/models are worth?

[40kGamer]

lol, 'we warned you' as if you know the slightest thing. how is being patient and waiting for proof karma? what a tit.

I guess the karma part comes from having faith in a company that has a history of poor communication and screwing it's customers over.

[Tomgar]

Agreed Daboarder, it got pretty bloody annoying being told "you're just a hater" whenever I voiced my concerns (that turned out to be 100% accurate). I mean, are these people 5 year olds or something? It's akin to just going "you're a silly poo head!" Maybe people will learn not to dogpile anyone who's remotely critical of GW in any way.

[Chronowraith]

Warhammer is dead and unless there is something very important that we aren't currently aware of, this games looks beyond stupid.

+1

[Tomgar]

I guess the karma part comes from having faith in a company that has a history of poor communication and screwing it's customers over.

And in telling everyone who pointed that out that they're a "troll" or "hater." Maybe the self-appointed online positivity police will calm the hell down now.

[Kirsten]

yes, damn them and their moderate, considerate opinions and willingness to wait for solid news, let us mock them with more complaining, because that will show GW and entertain everyone as well.

[Trojan66]

As if the figures weren't bad enough...turns out they've got ridiculous names too.
Great. Childish.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you guys all pawing over those photos trying to find something to make you go...you know what there not too bad...too ?

[Wildeybeast]

I am quite frankly amazed. I actually want to play Fantasy now.
No more working out charge arcs and trying to rank up models that just aren't made for it. A new angle, a fresh start.

I am very optimistic.



And that's the rub. GW has ditched all that to pick up customers like you, which is great for you. For people like me who enjoyed the nuances of what formation to put my unit in, the vagaries of movement (guessed or random), consulting tables to work out how your models interacted, the joy of outmanoeuvring your opponent to nail that flank charge, it's the end of something we loved.

I get the complexity was off putting to some people, but plenty of people enjoyed the challenge. It was what made the game fun. And it's not like the rules were that complex. I can't help but feel that there was a middle ground to be found, instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[Tomgar]

yes, damn them and their moderate, considerate opinions and willingness to wait for solid news, let us mock them with more complaining, because that will show GW and entertain everyone as well.


Sorry, but when people reply to any critical opinion with "just wait until it's out before you judge! Stop being a hater!" and then, in the same sentence, unironically say "I'm really excited!" it becomes clear that they're not trying to be moderate, they're just passive aggressively telling any mildly critical person to shut up.

[Erik Setzer]

If this wasn't replacing Warhammer, and it had something to balance it (not even traditional points values, just *something* more than "take whatever you want"), I think I could enjoy it.

I might still play it, putting together some figures I have left over, giving it a few tries. But it'd pretty much have to be with friends, and every game would require discussion, which could get a bit tedious for something that seems like a quickie match system.

I'm not all negative... I can see some good, but the negatives are hurting it for me. Wiping out 30 years of a game's history in terms of story, aesthetic, and rules, pretty much everything? Nothing at all to even suggest how people might balance rules? And if it's to be a game for just telling stories, well, why not have some scenarios, even basic stuff?

I think I might use some free time to fill in the holes I see. Heck, I've got a website, I need to use it more, like I used to. Maybe I can work up something and spread it to people to try out.

[daboarder]

Sorry, but when people reply to any critical opinion with "just wait until it's out before you judge! Stop being a hater!" and then, in the same sentence, unironically say "I'm really excited!" it becomes clear that they're not trying to be moderate, they're just passive aggressively telling any mildly critical person to shut up.

careful tomgar, they'll put you on ignore and then just make passive aggressive comments about you constantly.

You know, its funny to see grown adults act like children in a school yard who attempt to use exclusion as a form of belittlement.

[Arkhan Land]

I think a lot of this will hinge on how powerful each unit is and if they took the time to sort out each unit and its comparative points and if they playtested the hell out of most of the scenarios you could find it in. or maybe this will be a total lopsided mess where players find and exploit this tiny little system essentially making whole swaths of units unplayable.

I guess I worry that this whole thing's strange success hinges on GW playtesting this a great deal, which, I would be concerned they are not. but then again theyve gone for nothing but suprises with this, for all we know they play-tested it with a third party focus group children who have 0 experience with these kind of games.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Don't worry about a third-party focus group, they famously "don't do market research". ;)

There's no points.

[Mr Mystery]

Again there's lots of cherry picking over the rumours.

We still don't know a great deal about the game. We've seen some of the rules, but haven't actually played it. The entire game is being knocked because some aren't fussed for the aesthetic of an entirely new army. We haven't seen the Warscrolls for our existing forces. And you'd seriously think that GW have done a Farenheit 451, kicking in doors and torching people's books.

Me, I'm happy to give it a whirl. And yes, I am braced to once again face the online ridicule of those who seemingly have nothing else to occupy their life beyond whining online about something they profess not to like on the off chance I play it and realise 'hey, this is actually kind of fun. Different, but y'know, fun'

I may not enjoy the game - who knows? There's many games I've played a couple of times then not returned to. But I've never felt he compulsion to go on and on and on and on and on about on the Internet, typing with my left hand because the right is occupied by my tumescent lad.

But for those poised to attack someone's actual informed opinion, based on their own experiences, I'll default to my usual advice. Suck. My. Balls.

[Clewz]

I'm quite excited about it all. My only concern is the the take as many as you want rule on the war scrolls. Just seems whats stopping someone from taking a bucket load of blood thirsters. I'm sure all will be revealed though

[Mr Mystery]

Common decency?

Not being a power gaming arse?

Respect for your fellow gamers?

Lots of things really.

[daboarder]

Common decency?

Not being a power gaming arse?

Respect for your fellow gamers?

Lots of things really.

Howd that work for 7th ed 40k?


Oh.......I am so sorry fantasy players

[eldargal]

lol, 'we warned you' as if you know the slightest thing. how is being patient and waiting for proof karma? what a tit.

Not to mention they have literally been predicting doom and gloom for ten years, and even now its just based on not actually knowing anything about how the actual game functions, its pure kneejerk reaction to admittedly huge changes. Say something long enough and eventually it will happen, then the cretins come out and demand respect for getting something right. As always the fandoms reaction to anything new is ****ing pathetic. We have only the most slight inkling of how anything functions and everyone is ****ting themselves over it.

Hell if it does bomb GW will just try something else, its not like they are going to drop the millions and millions of pounds they have invested into WFB.

Edit: I mean the fact that people are treating 'wait and see before you start hating' as a illogical position of support for GW shows up ****ed in the head they are.

[Mr Mystery]

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/c6/c6912089d58fe824549c538d48b7dc0a49c4042a101bb0aeb1 0e2eff926640d8.jpg

Especially when it appears it may have addressed previous criticism about the game requiring too many models, but hasn't necessarily capped how many you could use.

But hey, as I said - gonna give it a bash. If I enjoy my game on Saturday, I'll pre-order then and there. If not, who knows.

[spagunk]

I think these models are cool and this game sounds enjoyable. Since I have no existing Fantasy armies, this may get me into WHFB or whatever they turn the game into.

[Mr Mystery]

And you're not the only one expressing new interest.

Various gaming friends who either haven't played Warhammer, or haven't played it in years are expressing new found interest.

I strongly urge people to just give it a bash. It could be a really great game, it might be seven shades of awful - we just don't know, and its something that will vary from person to person.

But I guarantee you this - a thread on the internet, and the 'opinions' of those who haven't given it a try aren't exactly compelling reasons the game is bad/disappointing etc.

[Kirsten]

Sorry, but when people reply to any critical opinion with "just wait until it's out before you judge! Stop being a hater!" and then, in the same sentence, unironically say "I'm really excited!" it becomes clear that they're not trying to be moderate, they're just passive aggressively telling any mildly critical person to shut up.

mildly critical is fine, I am mildly critical of this release. I am also going to wait and see what happens in the next few months. A lot of the comments here are not mildly critical, they are hysterical screeching.

[Path Walker]

Honestly, its looking great, the mechanics for choosing your army are nice, you can change stuff up and you can counter your opponent's units as they place them, you control how big the game is by deciding when your army is deployed, if your opponent keeps going, you're going to gain a massive advantage with the sudden death victory so its in their best interest not to.

Did people complaining about the lack of points on Warscrolls not then read the rules on how to start the game before they began kick off online?

I place a War Scroll on to the table, then you do, I can then choose to put another one down or not, if you choose to keep going and out number me, you will risk Sudden Death Victory.

This will be better for pick up games than anything else we've seen, you can bring as many models as you like, slowly build up a collection and still play, thats exactly what the problem was for fantasy, the time and money requirement just to start playing was huge.

[Trojan66]

I agree with Mr m...for once !
The game needs a chance. I also think it will start basic but develop as new figures come out and their rules impact on the game lay and tactics.

For me it's the massive change of direction with the figure design and the 40k ing of the warhammer world that is a ball breaker.

[Al Shut]

According to Lady_Atia's white dwarf stuff, sounds like every existing Warhammer miniature will have its warscroll downloadable from GW.com, either this weekend or next.

Rules for every extant model.

I remain sceptical/cynical about that. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of different units were summarized in one warscroll. With less cool rules than upcoming new units.

I'll give it one or two tries but at this point mostly because I already publicly stated that. My willingness to work out ways to balance the game myself is limited at best.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

And that's the rub. GW has ditched all that to pick up customers like you, which is great for you. For people like me who enjoyed the nuances of what formation to put my unit in, the vagaries of movement (guessed or random), consulting tables to work out how your models interacted, the joy of outmanoeuvring your opponent to nail that flank charge, it's the end of something we loved.

I get the complexity was off putting to some people, but plenty of people enjoyed the challenge. It was what made the game fun. And it's not like the rules were that complex. I can't help but feel that there was a middle ground to be found, instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

How incredibly condescending. Thanks beast, thought you were a bit more respectful than to sink to that level.

[Kirsten]

the point here is the difference between what is good for some, and good for the game.

this Age of Sigmar is not what I want from Fantasy, I wont be pre-ordering on Saturday, and will wait until September ish to see how the game has gone before I get anything. I will try it at some point though, once I have other purchases out of the way.

But whilst I am not keen, it might well be what Fantasy needs. lots of people here have said that fantasy was dying off and nobody played it in their area, so they obviously need to do something drastic to get more people playing. it isn't the change I wanted, and I am disappointed, but I hope it does well for them and people enjoy it.

[Path Walker]

Tonight I'll be rebasing my Blight Kings

[Spider-pope]

I agree with Mr m...for once !
The game needs a chance. I also think it will start basic but develop as new figures come out and their rules impact on the game lay and tactics.

For me it's the massive change of direction with the figure design and the 40k ing of the warhammer world that is a ball breaker.

Well the Warhammer world isn't being 40k-ised, because they blew it up. There's nothing to make 40kish. Model design, i like the Sigmarines and i can see why they would move away from the more generic designs, thanks to the IP leeches.

But after reading the rules i do have some concerns. Especially when it comes to scaling up the game, moving dozens of miniatures one by one will be a pain in the backside. I'm also dubious about the warscrolls. From what i've seen of them, there are no options to customise your army. A Lord-Protector or whatever will always have the same gear, no matter who's army. No choice in how your units are equipped is not a design element i like.

[Mr Mystery]

But those are War Scrolls from the boxed game - which won't have many options, as they rarely (if ever) do.

Which could also be said of the points values.

We just don't know at the mo.

[miteyheroes]

The lack of points costs I find a bit odd. Only model counts as a balancing force means that Goblin armies will suffer badly against all-Bloodthirster hoards. But hey, looking forward to trying the game.

[eldargal]

mildly critical is fine, I am mildly critical of this release. I am also going to wait and see what happens in the next few months. A lot of the comments here are not mildly critical, they are hysterical screeching.

Exactly. I don't like the Sigmarites, I'm concerned about how the lack of points values will work and I'm quite concerned that the background will be ridiculously macho Indefinite End times, but you don't see my faliling about squealing the world is coming to an end because we don't actually know anything much at all.

[Erik Setzer]

Hell if it does bomb GW will just try something else, its not like they are going to drop the millions and millions of pounds they have invested into WFB.

Well, they did exactly that with Epic, which, again, was one of their core three games for a long time, until Epic 40K came along.

If AoS bombs, then they'll likely let it go. Maybe they'll aim for something small, something Mordheim-sized, with a relatively small scope. But there comes a point for a business where you're just throwing away too much money chasing something that isn't there. If AoS bombs, they're likely to see more people go to competitors, and at that point, they'll have to invest a lot in game development at least, if not more new figures, in order to create another new system, which will need to be so amazing it can draw people back from the competitors. The investors will look and see WFB falling into obscurity, then AoS also failing, and will almost certainly put a stop to any more money going into seeking money that isn't there to get.

The phrase that describes it best is "throwing good money after bad." At some point you accept that the investment you've made won't pan out for you in a productive way and you have to move on.

Not saying I hope that happens or trying to be a doom-sayer, just pointing out that your concept is flawed from a business sense.

- - - Updated - - -


And you're not the only one expressing new interest.

Various gaming friends who either haven't played Warhammer, or haven't played it in years are expressing new found interest.

Anecdotal. I know people who dislike the game because it's not Warhammer. Doesn't mean anything more than you knowing excited people. Just peoples people have a wide variety of opinions, and trying to guess based on local opinion doesn't do anything. After all, some folks kept pointing out how strong WFB was doing in their area, and, well, here we are with the game that's replacing it.

[Mr Mystery]

Nobody said it was anything but anecdotal.

The matter at hand here is that there are some decrying the end of days from a few pictures.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody on BoLS has actually played the game yet. Nor has anyone seen stuff beyond the pics published in this thread.

The Warscrolls we've seen are those from the boxed game - and you don't generally see the full shebang of army selection in such sets, least not from GW. There's a comment above about them lacking upgrades. Well yes, the ones we've seen do lack upgrades. But there's also a bullet point marker thingy comment box saying 'this is where you'll find the unit options' - suggesting that at least some units will still have upgrades available.

In short? People are going off half-cocked, based on incomplete information. It's not a case of 'how very date you not like this', so much as 'whoa, hold on there Pedro, there's more to be known before you can draw a conclusion'

[Erik Setzer]

Exactly. I don't like the Sigmarites, I'm concerned about how the lack of points values will work and I'm quite concerned that the background will be ridiculously macho Indefinite End times, but you don't see my faliling about squealing the world is coming to an end because we don't actually know anything much at all.

Well, those of us who just voice our concerns without "flailing about squealing" are still being thrown into a category to be casually dismissed and insulted, which is rather a shame.

Also a shame is that people kept doing "Four pages aren't all the rules, we just don't know yet, there's more coming, there must be!" to dismiss criticism of the simplified rules, until there was no way to keep saying that GW saying "that's it" was somehow less reliable that Internet Rumormonger #78 saying "There's going to be three rulebooks!" And now the same thing is going with points, where people are trying to refuse the lack of existence of points in any way they can, rather than accept it and address that criticism. Hey, if you're okay with no points, fine, say that and defend the point. (Clearly, you aren't, but I'm speaking in broad terms here.) Instead, people said, "Wait until we see warscrolls!" Now we have some, and they're from WD, not intended as part of the starter set, but still those people have switched to, "But that's the starter set, it never has points," which reminds me of them saying, "It's the starter set, it always has quick-start rules, there's no way those four pages are all the rules." I feel like I'm less pessimistic about the game than the people who are insulting and mocking others for being "pessimistic," because their denial feels like someone in shock and not wanting to admit to what's inevitable.

We actually know a lot. All we don't know is exactly what the rules for existing armies will be.

But what happens when they come out and still have no points, the warscrolls say "You can include as many models as you like in this unit," and there's warscrolls for Goblins who are weaken than Ogres, leaving the lone "balancing" mechanism in place to be a horribly abusive concept? What will the argument turn to then? What about after people have played for a month with it?

I have a theory on how it's intended to pan out... but that's a theory on the future, and it's not really that great (some would take an optimistic view of it, others pessimistic, with reason). Having labeled it as just a theory and not something I'm sure will happen or saying will happen, I'll put this out there: It's possible the game was intended to be relatively balanced with completely new forces, with no thought given to balancing it with existing forces, or even balancing those forces against each other. So while we'd get rules to use our current armies right now, in order to get "proper" enjoyment from the game, we'd need the new armies for the game, which won't be available for about a year (I mean, having a selection of them to choose from). At that point, it's either buy a new army, or accept that WFB armies aren't particularly suited to AoS because they were made for a different game. Again, just a theory, but it feels like a strong possibility given the rules and that this is a complete reboot.

[Arkhan Land]

the age of mordhammer

[40kGamer]

the point here is the difference between what is good for some, and good for the game.

this Age of Sigmar is not what I want from Fantasy, I wont be pre-ordering on Saturday, and will wait until September ish to see how the game has gone before I get anything. I will try it at some point though, once I have other purchases out of the way.

But whilst I am not keen, it might well be what Fantasy needs. lots of people here have said that fantasy was dying off and nobody played it in their area, so they obviously need to do something drastic to get more people playing. it isn't the change I wanted, and I am disappointed, but I hope it does well for them and people enjoy it.

Have to agree... This isn't what I want from WFB but then again WFB was basically dead in my area anyhow so they needed something drastic... and hopefully this is 'the' game to bring in a flood of new players. I have serious doubts that's going to happen but who knows.

I'm also going with a wait and see where it goes mentality, although I may wait well beyond September before putting a toe in. I was hoping to be interested enough to hop in out of the gate but so far nothing has me that excited.

On a positive note my 40k Daemon army is now based and ready to play in two game systems! Yay!

[Path Walker]

Nerd Rage of Sigmar

[grimmas]

I would like to remind people that these changes are not about "us" the existing WFB gamers. This wouldn't be happening if there were enough of us to support the system. GW isn't really interested in us a group because clearly we don't buy enough.

We do have one luxury we've never had before though, we aren't going to have to buy anything to give AoS a go. Who knows it might be good, if not well I've still got all my End Times and 8th Ed just like everyone else, so I can just play that till I get my monies worth (which I probably already have)

I am a little concerned how the Warscrolls and army selection will work but hell i'm going to find out in 3days.

[Al Shut]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the unit set up. Did I get that right? At one point one of the players is supposed to say that they feel they have all the units they need, knowing full well that after that the other player can continue to place as much units as he can fit on the board?

Madness, i say.

[Mr Mystery]

Collaborative game is collaborative.

I can't think of a bigger two fingered salute to those who demand the game be geared toward high level competitive play, despite the general lack of prize munneh.

[Wildeybeast]

How incredibly condescending. Thanks beast, thought you were a bit more respectful than to sink to that level.[/COLOR]


the point here is the difference between what is good for some, and good for the game.

this Age of Sigmar is not what I want from Fantasy, I wont be pre-ordering on Saturday, and will wait until September ish to see how the game has gone before I get anything. I will try it at some point though, once I have other purchases out of the way.

But whilst I am not keen, it might well be what Fantasy needs. lots of people here have said that fantasy was dying off and nobody played it in their area, so they obviously need to do something drastic to get more people playing. it isn't the change I wanted, and I am disappointed, but I hope it does well for them and people enjoy it.

I'm very sorry TDA, that wasn't meant to be at all condescending or critical of you. Kirsten expressed what I was getting at in a much more elegant way. This will be a totally different type of game to appeal to to a different gamer. It has clearly worked as its got you excited. The problem for me personally is it seems to have ditched everything that enjoyed in Warhammer, but clearly there were people who didn't like all that stuff.


Exactly. I don't like the Sigmarites, I'm concerned about how the lack of points values will work and I'm quite concerned that the background will be ridiculously macho Indefinite End times, but you don't see my faliling about squealing the world is coming to an end because we don't actually know anything much at all.

Whilst I share all your concerns (+the stupid measurement rules), I disagree that there is no reason to worry. It's not like we are talking about some half baked rumours here, we have WD photos. Sure, it could turn out that this is just a quick intro and there is a 500 page tome coming in a couple of months, but on the basis of what we have, I see nothing I like or that bares any resemblance to the game I loved. I'm usually a fairly positive, wait and see kind of guy (as I hope my time on here would show) but it seems pretty inescapable that Warhammer as was is dead and that makes me sad. I'll give the new rules a try and if I don't like it I'll use it as a catalyst to get my group playing 40k again, or maybe move onto Kings of War. One door closes and all that.

[Path Walker]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the unit set up. Did I get that right? At one point one of the players is supposed to say that they feel they have all the units they need, knowing full well that after that the other player can continue to place as much units as he can fit on the board?

Madness, i say.

You can stop yeah, and the opponent can carry on but, if the opponent has 1/3 more models than you do, you get to choose a Sudden Death Victory condition than makes it a lot easier for you to win the game

[Erik Setzer]

Collaborative game is collaborative.

I can't think of a bigger two fingered salute to those who demand the game be geared toward high level competitive play, despite the general lack of prize munneh.

Also a similar "salute" to those of us who like to show up at a shop, meet a random person, and play a game without devoting more time to discussing how we're going to play the game than actually playing the game.

[Path Walker]

I'm very sorry TDA, that wasn't meant to be at all condescending or critical of you. Kirsten expressed what I was getting at in a much more elegant way. This will be a totally different type of game to appeal to to a different gamer. It has clearly worked as its got you excited. The problem for me personally is it seems to have ditched everything that enjoyed in Warhammer, but clearly there were people who didn't like all that stuff.



Whilst I share all your concerns (+the stupid measurement rules), I disagree that there is no reason to worry. It's not like we are talking about some half baked rumours here, we have WD photos. Sure, it could turn out that this is just a quick intro and there is a 500 page tome coming in a couple of months, but on the basis of what we have, I see nothing I like or that bares any resemblance to the game I loved. I'm usually a fairly positive, wait and see kind of guy (as I hope my time on here would show) but it seems pretty inescapable that Warhammer as was is dead and that makes me sad. I'll give the new rules a try and if I don't like it I'll use it as a catalyst to get my group playing 40k again, or maybe move onto Kings of War. One door closes and all that.

If you're hoping Kings of War will provide you with a deep and detailed game you'll be sorely disappointed. The Kings of War rules aren't really that much different from AoS apart from having ranked units.

It doesn't need a 500 page tome to be a good game.

- - - Updated - - -


Also a similar "salute" to those of us who like to show up at a shop, meet a random person, and play a game without devoting more time to discussing how we're going to play the game than actually playing the game.

This isn't a problem in AoS, in fact, easier than before,

WFB: meet a random, "want to play WFB? ok, what points? 3000? oh I only have 2400 with me, can you write a 2400 list?" - 20 minutes of list writing.
AoS: "Want to play? cool" - both players take turns placing War Scrolls of models on the table.

[the jeske]

This isn't a problem in AoS, in fact, easier than before,
Why would you want to deploy more models. All you need is one fast moving flying model. Anything on a flyer base is almost impossible to engage through melee and the speed can keep you out of shoting range. This way you can win most of the time by sudden death.

[Erik Setzer]

Anything on a flyer base is almost impossible to engage through melee

Not really. You might have wings sticking out, or something like that. Those count as part of the model, too.

[40kGamer]

Collaborative game is collaborative.

I can't think of a bigger two fingered salute to those who demand the game be geared toward high level competitive play, despite the general lack of prize munneh.

And this is exactly why I strongly dislike the current direction Games Workshop has moved in. I'm as much a historical player as anything and I already have a host of collaborative games with no points values... and yes they are fun as hell with my group.

But Games Workshop "was" special because I could pick an army to a set points value and go play any random person with NO PREGAME DISCUSSION. That was special... in fact it was bloody AWESOME! I loved going to events where I met new people, made new friends and got to drool over beautifully painted armies. It had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to beat the **** out of some random person. What do I have now? 40k is friggin useless for pickup and event play and now WFB goes to AoS which looks to be even more useless. Instead of making the game less competitive GW has made their games into a WAAC players wet freaking dream. 7th Ed 40k events are truly hideous affairs. Someone get me a whip or flail, I'm joining up with the flagellants.

[odinsgrandson]

I'd like to point out that the four pages have no rules for force building whatsoever. While the art and fluff definitely imply that those Khornates will fight against those Sigmarites, the four pages make no mention of anything like a faction.

It is possible to create factions form the warscrolls by giving every model a rule that only allows them to be played with other models that have certain key-words, so I suppose they might show up there. But it does make me wonder if there will be an "Advanced Rules" section sometime.

They might also have rules that say "You may only have one Greater Daemon for every X models in your force" to keep us from fielding an army of nothing but giant powerhouse characters. Or maybe characters will count as more than one model each.

Otherwise, I don't see why anyone would ever take a unit (as they just add to your overall model count, and make it more likely that you won't be the one to go for the sudden death victory).

I mean, a match of 12 Bloodthirsters vs 18 Goblin grunts shouldn't be giving the underdog bonus to the Bloodthirsters.

I still want this game to be cool, but I honestly wonder what they're thinking.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I'm very sorry TDA, that wasn't meant to be at all condescending or critical of you. Kirsten expressed what I was getting at in a much more elegant way. This will be a totally different type of game to appeal to to a different gamer. It has clearly worked as its got you excited. The problem for me personally is it seems to have ditched everything that enjoyed in Warhammer, but clearly there were people who didn't like all that stuff.



Whilst I share all your concerns (+the stupid measurement rules), I disagree that there is no reason to worry. It's not like we are talking about some half baked rumours here, we have WD photos. Sure, it could turn out that this is just a quick intro and there is a 500 page tome coming in a couple of months, but on the basis of what we have, I see nothing I like or that bares any resemblance to the game I loved. I'm usually a fairly positive, wait and see kind of guy (as I hope my time on here would show) but it seems pretty inescapable that Warhammer as was is dead and that makes me sad. I'll give the new rules a try and if I don't like it I'll use it as a catalyst to get my group playing 40k again, or maybe move onto Kings of War. One door closes and all that.

No worries pal, just try AoS out first though. :)

[40kGamer]

But it does make me wonder if there will be an "Advanced Rules" section sometime.

I fully expect a lot more will be coming our way over the next few weeks/months. This game may truly be awesome... of course that still doesn't mean it will be a success. Epic40k was a huge change up and it is also awesome... unfortunately it still fell flat.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Confirmed (from more White Dwarf pics) that Warscrolls for every extant Warhammer mini will be up this weekend, at age-of-sigmar-compendiums on the GW website.

There's also pictures of a Dark Elf and an Ogre Kingdoms army on the new round bases and they look... really good. Really, really good.

[Wildeybeast]

No worries pal, just try AoS out first though. :)

Oh I will. I'm not giving up on Warhammer just yet. I'll even try not to spend all my time thinking 'this isn't Warhammer'. I just hope that GW gives us some proper information about what exactly this is and how it's going to work long term. They could lose a lot of existing players early doors just through not communicating hat the longer term plan is.

[40kGamer]

Confirmed (from more White Dwarf pics) that Warscrolls for every extant Warhammer mini will be up this weekend, at age-of-sigmar-compendiums on the GW website.

There's also pictures of a Dark Elf and an Ogre Kingdoms army on the new round bases and they look... really good. Really, really good.

I expect a server crash is in GW's near future. :p

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I reckon the next few weeks and months is going to answer a lot of those questions, Wildey. Whether we like the answers or not is another matter. ;)

Who was it said way back when the first rumours hit that there'd be a Ravening Hordes type deal for the new Warhammer? I didn't believe it then, but they're doing it.

And on the "here's my army, it's ten bloodthirsters" point... bear in mind that some of the biggest advantages of the Bloodthirster in ages past are gone. Weapon Skill and Toughness are gone, they don't matter. You get hit on a stock number, you get wounded on a stock number. Those Sigmar boys hit everything from a Grot to a 'Thirster on a 3+ and wound it on a 4+ (unless I've got it the wrong way 'round!). I'm sure Greater Daemons will have loads of wounds and other advantages but that's an important consideration to bear in mind.

[Erik Setzer]

Otherwise, I don't see why anyone would ever take a unit (as they just add to your overall model count, and make it more likely that you won't be the one to go for the sudden death victory).

I mean, a match of 12 Bloodthirsters vs 18 Goblin grunts shouldn't be giving the underdog bonus to the Bloodthirsters.

I still want this game to be cool, but I honestly wonder what they're thinking.

Characters are about $20-$30 each now (and rising), whereas units are $40-$60 for up to ten models. Similarly, elite units are more expensive for fewer models. It's a better profit if you convince people to just buy the elite stuff and big nasty stuff and characters.

[silashand]

I would like to remind people that these changes are not about "us" the existing WFB gamers. This wouldn't be happening if there were enough of us to support the system. GW isn't really interested in us a group because clearly we don't buy enough.

The problem is they never bothered to figure out *why* we weren't buying into the existing system, nor did they attempt to ask why new players weren't picking it up. Nothing in this release gives me any confidence they know what they are doing. If their whole premise that they are a model company not a games one were true, wouldn't people have been buying their models in the quantities they expect already? Some of the new WFB figures are fantastic. I *really* think GW don't have a clue that it was the game that helped sell their figures. If that were not the case then it would not have impacted WFB at all and it would not have died the death it apparently has. This is why I don't think AoS will succeed. I could easily be wrong, but if they couldn't attract new players with the old system by fixing it (it existed and was successful for 20+ years before it started failing) then how exactly do they think the new one will be any better?

I will likely give it a try, but as others have mentioned it's not what I want out of a battle game so no matter how good it may turn out to be I doubt I will play it long-term. I have plenty of other skirmish games to occupy my time already.

[Erik Setzer]

I expect a server crash is in GW's near future. :p

If they didn't get smart and bulk up their infrastructure, it will. But they could help the situation by doing something like setting up another server to hold the AoS files, increase the bandwidth on the main servers to handle number of visits, and then the file transfers won't blow up their main server.

The thing is, that stuff costs a bit of money. Not really that much, overall, especially if you've already spent 4.5m pounds on the website (though without making sure it could handle the weight of a bunch of hits and transactions). So if they didn't dedicate enough money to prevent a crash, well... I'm not sure I'd be able to take dealing with a company so cheap it wouldn't invest in making sure what they've got to hope will be a big deal goes smoothly.

- - - Updated - - -


And on the "here's my army, it's ten bloodthirsters" point... bear in mind that some of the biggest advantages of the Bloodthirster in ages past are gone. Weapon Skill and Toughness are gone, they don't matter. You get hit on a stock number, you get wounded on a stock number. Those Sigmar boys hit everything from a Grot to a 'Thirster on a 3+ and wound it on a 4+ (unless I've got it the wrong way 'round!). I'm sure Greater Daemons will have loads of wounds and other advantages but that's an important consideration to bear in mind.

You still have a saving throw. I didn't notice much in the way of Rend from the Sigmarines, so I'd guess the BT will get his stock save most of the time. If a BT has, say, 12 wounds (very possible with the leader guy having, I think, 9 wounds?), and a 2+ save, it'd be hard to bring him down. Even a 3+ save wouldn't be able to take down that fast. Might also have some special rules.

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see some models show up with rules saying something like, "Can't be hurt on a Wound roll of better than 5+."

- - - Updated - - -


I *really* think GW don't have a clue that it was the game that helped sell their figures.

Well, according to their investor site, they *do* recognize the importance of having a good game to sell models. The problem is more likely that, given their lack of talking to customers (existing or prospective), they probably don't know what people view as a good game.

[Kirsten]

will armies be getting 20mm round bases, or 40k style 25mm ones? Because my elf army for example is fairly average, 100 ish infantry, but if they all suddenly go from ranked up flush on square bases to skirmishing on 25mm round bases, the extra space required is massive. anyone with a goblin army is going to fill the table.

actually that is quite tempting, just a huge green swarm of gobbos covering the board...

[Guillaume Berger]

Characters are about $20-$30 each now (and rising), whereas units are $40-$60 for up to ten models. Similarly, elite units are more expensive for fewer models. It's a better profit if you convince people to just buy the elite stuff and big nasty stuff and characters.

This won't stop some people to buy a truck load of elite miniatures. But it's astonishing that nobody thought it before, but regarding crappy infantry, it would be totally normal to see a special ruke like: "without number". This unit, when under 25 models, count only for one miniature.

Or something similar to this. So now, your looking at 250 gobelins VS 10 bloodthrister. All gob hits on 5+, wounds on 5+ regardless of your characteristics. Come at me bro...

People have to be more imaginative. What could stop wood elf to roll the turn order with a +3, skaven count one miniarure for each 30 slaves, etc. Think outside of the box people!!

[Bigred]

via Atia (https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia) (twitter) 7-1-2015

Age of Sigmar (Formations) Batallions, round bases, and lore:

14885148861488714888148891489014891

Batallions are groups of units who get special rules - so formations basically.

Mortal Realms are:

Azyr: Realm of Heaven (Sigmar's pad)

Aqshy: Realm of Fire

Shyish: Realm of Death

Ghyran: Realm of Life

Hysh: Realm of Light

Ghur: Realm of Beasts

And not a square base to be seen...

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I always hated the look of the square bases and as a newcomer, i'll be happy to put the models i buy on round ones - but at the same time I can see why older fans would be annoyed and frustrated at the switch :/

[Spider-pope]

I always hated the look of the square bases and as a newcomer, i'll be happy to put the models i buy on round ones - but at the same time I can see why older fans would be annoyed and frustrated at the switch :/

The measuring in AoS is from the model, not the base edge, so the shape and size of the base is largely irrelevant.

[40kGamer]

The measuring in AoS is from the model, not the base edge, so the shape and size of the base is largely irrelevant.

I'm not really fond of the idea of measuring from the model. The base is just so much easier and more consistent.

[Erik Setzer]

"Orruk" and "Ogor" are real terms... I think I'm going to need a strong drink tonight.

[40kGamer]

"Orruk" and "Ogor" are real terms... I think I'm going to need a strong drink tonight.

The required level of inebreiation to play the game just went up a bit. :D

[Lexington]

"Orruk" and "Ogor" are real terms... I think I'm going to need a strong drink tonight.

I remember making this comic (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/03/misfire-comics-29-whats-in-a-name.html) a few months back, and thinking "you know, at least they can't do much worse..."

[Spider-pope]

At least it's clear the stuff that came from 4chan was a load of tosh. Ogors and Orruks aren't racial slurs at least.

[Austin Becht]

Reading the game rules and the Thunderstorms Brotherhood, there's nothing preventing you from charging the turn you come down through Lightning Strike. Sure, its a 9"+ charge, but you can technically charge. Plus, don't the winged Sigmarites get 3d6 for their charge range?

I gotta say I'm liking the game and its rules, the lack of balance however ticks me off. Oh well, I bet given time communities will find their own ways to balance the game, and if it gets popular enough, TOs might be able to do something about it too.

[Insert_nickname_here]

I was a little nervous, but I kind of feel everything is beginning to gel together now. Looking forward to giving AoS a go.

[Ben_S]

I would like to remind people that these changes are not about "us" the existing WFB gamers. This wouldn't be happening if there were enough of us to support the system. GW isn't really interested in us a group because clearly we don't buy enough.

We do have one luxury we've never had before though, we aren't going to have to buy anything to give AoS a go. Who knows it might be good, if not well I've still got all my End Times and 8th Ed just like everyone else, so I can just play that till I get my monies worth (which I probably already have)

I am a little concerned how the Warscrolls and army selection will work but hell i'm going to find out in 3days.

+1 to this.

I'll give AoS a try since it won't take me long to learn the rules and I already have models. In future, I'll continue to play something, but whether it's WFB 8th, AoS, or KoW really depends on what I and my gaming group make of them.

[Erik Setzer]

Reading the game rules and the Thunderstorms Brotherhood, there's nothing preventing you from charging the turn you come down through Lightning Strike. Sure, its a 9"+ charge, but you can technically charge. Plus, don't the winged Sigmarites get 3d6 for their charge range?

It gets better. I'm pretty sure you actually only have to be within 3" of the enemy to attack them (and then you get 3" pile in and all that jazz). So if you can charge 6" on 2D6...

[Austin Becht]

It gets better. I'm pretty sure you actually only have to be within 3" of the enemy to attack them (and then you get 3" pile in and all that jazz). So if you can charge 6" on 2D6...

Actually, you have to finish a charge withing 1/2" of an enemy, so yes, its a 9" charge. The 3" thing is talking about units that moved/were already in 3" of an enemy; they count as being engaged too.

[odinsgrandson]

Austin is right- if you can't get within 1/2 inch with your first charger, then none of your models get to move.


Have we gotten a good look at any of the warscrolls yet? I'm still wondering if they fill in some of the balance rules that we're missing.

[daboarder]

http://www.warseer.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=216265&d=1435741278&thumb=1

This kinda illustrates just how dumb this system is


Oh, another example


There are huge problems with this. If model collection (which varies massively player to player) is potentially limitless you could get really unbalanced games. For example, Player A has the following collection: 10 spearmen, 10 swordsmen and one captain on warhorse. Player B has of 200 Longbowmen. If the 200 Longbows player wants to field at least one single unit of 40 Archers (maybe he thinks it is very cool and his rulebook says that's the most important thing) then he may as well put down all of his Longbowmen models because after passing the 33 model count the other player (with 21 models) already has Sudden Death bonuses.

So, if you are going to have 30% over your opponent's model count anyway, why not* flood the field? Moreover, if you are going to have less models than your opponent, why not* make sure you have just below 30% less and get sudden death bonuses? I think that this is a bit of a mess and will turn competitive deployment into a farce. It's why we had points limits and list-building in the first place.

*Beyond collection limitations, a desire for fairness and a sense of common decency. Not every player or opponent has those all of the time! Nor does everyone agree on what it and isn't fair! This is with the presumption that one of the players in the game wants to win and takes the game at its word when it says put down as many models as you like.


Saw this on a different forum - while the word "balanced" seems like a total joke, it's at least some semblance of army building rules

Suggestion from GW staff for creating basic army construction that is balanced.

Quick way to organize a balanced battle in Age of Sigmar for your customers who feel that they need something like this to be successful.

Warscrolls can't be duplicated more than once

1-12 Warscrolls
1-2 Hero Warscrolls
0-2 monster warscrolls
No single warscroll may contain more than X wounds (ie 24)no duplicate Heroes

courtesy of Deadhorse

[Erik Setzer]

Austin is right- if you can't get within 1/2 inch with your first charger, then none of your models get to move.

Yeah, sorry, I should have looked at the rules again, rather than relying on flimsy recollection and seeing someone else talking about the system. That did sound a bit off.

- - - Updated - - -


http://www.warseer.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=216265&d=1435741278&thumb=1
This kinda illustrates just how dumb this system is

Well, since the weapon is part of the model, then it is within .5" of the enemy model. You just have to get tricky with positioning. Not that I'm saying that's a good thing, and you could theoretically be cheeky with base size... but then, since bases don't really count, nothing says your opponent can't put his base overlapping your base. (Huzzah, we're already rules lawyering!)

[daboarder]

Well, since the weapon is part of the model, then it is within .5" of the enemy model. You just have to get tricky with positioning. Not that I'm saying that's a good thing, and you could theoretically be cheeky with base size... but then, since bases don't really count, nothing says your opponent can't put his base overlapping your base. (Huzzah, we're already rules lawyering!)

Not really Erik, thats a 2d image, the weapons are almost an entire 1' apart

and yeah, you can overlap the bases. imagine just plonking your minis on someone else s....HAHA that would not go well.....

[Erik Setzer]

14892

For the folks putting me in the "naysayer" and "doom and gloom" and "GW hater" groups, this is the selection of Dwarfs I just got done working on tonight. Lord, Thunderers, and Miners from a WFB starter, a box of 10 metal Ironbreakers from ages long past, and a couple of characters, plus a cannon. I'm thinking of 32mm for the characters to mark them out. Would have gone 40mm, but that was way too big for Dwarfs. 32mm seems about right, though the Slayer was a bit too small for that. Sadly, I can't find the 32mm bases I didn't use in Deathstorm, so I only had 3 from Execution Force (because the CSM went on 25mm bases). Guess I'll have to get more. Artillery might not have a single profile (though it'd make sense that it would), and if it doesn't, I can set up other artillery on separate bases and just mark wounds on this one to mark dead crew, but I liked the way it looked.

I figure I should have enough to do a very basic Dwarf force by Saturday, will have the downloads in the morning, everything will be ready to go by the time my friend picks me up and we hit the shop, and I'll have an AoS-ready army, which will let me get in some games to try it out, and let other people maybe get a feel for it (which might even drive up preorder sales, though I'm not particularly concerned about those myself).


Please excuse the state of the table... it's my small "dining" table that had some OLD figures on it to check out for a D&D campaign, and then some Iron Warriors where I'd been playing 30K with friends and working on them (using my CSM force), and I also had unloaded some Skaven on the table to use a case for RPG figures, with no space on shelves to put them yet. Basically, the whole table is covered in gaming stuff where I swap out depending on what people want to play that day.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Hope you have fun! I'm really coming around to how things look on the round bases, as much as I'll miss the serried ranks of spears in big blocks.

I actually didn't buy anything after Archaon, as I was unsure what'd be coming - as such I only have a three-quarter painted Nagash and a mortarch still in (her, let's be honest) box. I'll be poring over Warscrolls at the weekend and would love to read some after-action reports from people who do get to try it out, positive, negative, whatever. :)

[Arkhan Land]

on the topic of the weapons/bases/distance concerns, almost all of the new AOS minis most of the models are posed to take up a lot of the base/have weapons hanging significantly over the edge of their bases if not almost nearly all of them. I think this is kind of what they meant when they said the new models are designed for the game, perhaps well have to assume that most older models just go all the way to their base edge and call it a day?

I feel so conflicted inside over this tiny game of lead and plastic warriors. its kind of incredible.

As sad I as I am about the great simplification (any "Canticles" fans here?) I have to admit Im a little curious as to how this will workout and if a new more universal system will help attract people to this game ide love to be able to play more of. I purposely have only been buying fantasy styled terrain for a bit now in hopes itll sort of pick back up at some point, hopefully this wasnt a big flop.

kinda bummed on the forever disappearance of some of the terrain kits but I guess theres always a turnover on those every decade anyways

[Mr Mystery]

Not sure the 'point to point' is such a bad decision.

Modelling for advantage in that respect carries no real advantage, as yes you've successfully increased your charge reach, but you've also done the same should I wish to charge that model. I'm sure some will find a way, but the same is true of any rule, as there's always a way to exploit if you really, really want to.

[daboarder]

Not sure the 'point to point' is such a bad decision.

Modelling for advantage in that respect carries no real advantage, as yes you've successfully increased your charge reach, but you've also done the same should I wish to charge that model. I'm sure some will find a way, but the same is true of any rule, as there's always a way to exploit if you really, really want to.

Because charging that carnosuar sidewise so that you arent penalised by its long tail is good game design hurp derp

[Wildeybeast]

I cannot actually believe that anyone at GW thinks a) those names are any good or b) they will provide any greater protection to their IP. Only idiots like chapter house would go around calling their stuff durdin steamhead, everyone else will just make dwarfs/dwarves since that what they are.

[Spider-pope]

I cannot actually believe that anyone at GW thinks a) those names are any good or b) they will provide any greater protection to their IP. Only idiots like chapter house would go around calling their stuff durdin steamhead, everyone else will just make dwarfs/dwarves since that what they are.

I would expect that with the new names will come a new, less generic aesthetic. I don't think any future Duardin release will look much like the Dwarves we know now, beyond being short.

[Kirsten]

I will probably stick to base to base measurements, it is the only thing that makes any sense, changing that is moronic.

[Mr Mystery]

Yep. Again, there's little enough advantage to be had from different sized bases that if someone's trying it, they'll also be trying other ways to ruin your enjoyment.

Roll on Saturday I guess - defo picking up WD, just for the mini, and may order the boxed set if the intro game proves enjoyable.

As for everyone else? The rules and scrolls are free. Give it a bash. No need to go in-store to do it.

[eldargal]

Yup, I have concerns, bottom line is its free so I can test it out without having to pay out fifty pounds or whatever for a giant rulebook or try and borrow someone else's who paid out fifty pounds for a giant rulebook. If its terrible can keep using 8th edition until GW change course if it bombs, and continue to get high quality kits from GW so who cares. Its not ideal but I still play Necromunda and Gorkamorka and Mordheim and they haven't been supported in years.

Certainly won't be getting the box though, don't like the muscle clad marauder look at all, and th Sigmarites look stupid and its all stupidly hyper masculine.

[Mr Mystery]

[comment redacted by the bols feminist mafia]

[Kirsten]

this weekend is a long one over here so might get a chance to give it a go, we shall see.

[Erik Setzer]

Certainly won't be getting the box though, don't like the muscle clad marauder look at all, and th Sigmarites look stupid and its all stupidly hyper masculine.

The one thing in the box interesting me is the fluff book. It'd be nice if they'd sell that separate for those of us who might play but don't want to buy the box.

[Mr Mystery]

I'm still torn over whether or not to bother buying the box.

On the one hand, I can just get the rules for free, completely legitimately, which is nice (and something others have been calling for for years now).

On the other....I'm a sucker for spanglenew.

Right now, I'm not feeling compelled to grab it straight off the bat, and may instead plump for more models for my burgeoning Mechanicum force instead (could add more Kataphron and a second box of Electropriests). Perhaps two boxes of Kataphron Destroyers.

Still going to give it a decent bash though.

[Kirsten]

I shall be curious to see how combat resolution works, hard to imagine there is much benefit to taking a 50 model horde with no rank and standard bonus. Probably some form of bonus for outnumbering the enemy, but I would imagine it will mostly lie in getting as many models attacking as you can

[Chronowraith]

I shall be curious to see how combat resolution works, hard to imagine there is much benefit to taking a 50 model horde with no rank and standard bonus. Probably some form of bonus for outnumbering the enemy, but I would imagine it will mostly lie in getting as many models attacking as you can

Theonly advantage I see is the number of attacks. If I surround a chaos warrior model with skaven, he can only attack up to a number of models equal to his attacks. My skaven can all attack him though. There is no ranking up so I can focus my Skaven on the flanks where I get better covereage and less risk of your forces piling in. Also, big units are harder to break as they get a bonus to the bravery roll for every ten models. Just my first thoughts...

I'm curious to see what comes of this... The rules are overly simplified but, for me at least, it all depends on how diverse the warscrolls are. I can live with simplified rules if all my units feel unique to me. I'm still concerned with the apparent lack of points and balancing factors. I'm still concerned about the fluff (which sounds horrendous). I still don't consider this Warhammer.

[Al Shut]

Every 10 models in a unit give +1 to bravery for the battleshock test

[40kGamer]

I will probably stick to base to base measurements, it is the only thing that makes any sense, changing that is moronic.

I will definitely be sticking to base to base measurements. Measuring from the model is the single dumbest design concept I've seen in years. Add to that the basing doesn't matter and someone can simply build an all ranged weapon list on large enough bases that guarantee you never have a single successful charge. WTH GW?

[Mr Mystery]

Dude. If someone is that vested in cheating and bending the rules, their choice of base will be the least of one's worries against them.

I suspect their personal hygiene might well top that list.

[Kirsten]

I will definitely be sticking to base to base measurements. Measuring from the model is the single dumbest design concept I've seen in years. Add to that the basing doesn't matter and someone can simply build an all ranged weapon list on large enough bases that guarantee you never have a single successful charge. WTH GW?

I think it will be less accurate to go from sticking out model bits, which is probably why they have introduced that half inch silliness instead of base to base contact. I am against it for practical reasons as well, if you are trying to measure distance between two protruding weapons you are far more likely to knock stuff over

[40kGamer]

Dude. If someone is that vested in cheating and bending the rules, their choice of base will be the least of one's worries against them.

I suspect their personal hygiene might well top that list.

Neckbeards abound mate! :p

- - - Updated - - -


I think it will be less accurate to go from sticking out model bits, which is probably why they have introduced that half inch silliness instead of base to base contact. I am against it for practical reasons as well, if you are trying to measure distance between two protruding weapons you are far more likely to knock stuff over

Good point! Hadn't even considered the practical aspects of trying to measure from a weapon point. I've always thought of the base as an abstraction of the models immediate 'zone of influence'.

[grimmas]

Neckbeards abound mate! :p

- - - Updated - - -



Good point! Hadn't even considered the practical aspects of trying to measure from a weapon point. I've always thought of the base as an abstraction of the models immediate 'zone of influence'.

Yeah I think the base not mattering is going to take a little getting used to, I've always had the same perception as you on that one.

[Mr Mystery]

If both players have their models mounted on 'the base it came with', just gentleperson's agreement and switch to BTB measuring. Dead easy :) As long as there's consistency, there isn't a problem.

[40kGamer]

Yeah I think the base not mattering is going to take a little getting used to, I've always had the same perception as you on that one.

I don't think I'll ever get used to this one... measuring from the model is simply all kinds of awful. How I choose to place/base or convert my models should not have any impact on gameplay. For example take a Slaaneshi champion with a whip, how does it make any sense that the in game impact of the model depends on whether I have the whip reared back ready for a strike or extended out over the front of the base in mid strike? It's pure game design madness!

[grimmas]

Of course but who's going to make them if GW doesn't 😜😜😜😜😜

Defo the most sensible approach. I'm think AoS is going to work fine if one simply applies a little common sense.

[odinsgrandson]

GW has allowed people to alter the base sizes of their models for many years.

- I have seen quite a few people do it in ways that don't disrupt gameplay, and especially not to give them an advantage.

- I have heard a lot of complaints about how someone could use it to disrupt gameplay.

- I have never seen anyone actually alter the base size in such a way that gives them an advantage.


So... while I find measuring from the model to be inconvenient, I don't think it will actually hurt game balance.

If game balance is even a thing in the Age of Sigmar.

[Mr Mystery]

I read about someone who modelled for advantage at a 40k tournament, and bases were part of the issue....

'converted' Bloodcrushers by plonking Bloodletters on LotR horses, using the horsey bases (Approx the same size as a Terminator). Claimed this was OK, because he had the larger bases with him, and he asked every opponent if they minded him using a smaller base......

[Erik Setzer]

If both players have their models mounted on 'the base it came with', just gentleperson's agreement and switch to BTB measuring. Dead easy :) As long as there's consistency, there isn't a problem.

Well, it sort of it a bit of a problem if you're having to house rule the game right of the gates to fix one of the fundamental rules of the system. How much of a problem it is depends on how many people will feel the necessity to do that over time.

- - - Updated - - -


I shall be curious to see how combat resolution works, hard to imagine there is much benefit to taking a 50 model horde with no rank and standard bonus. Probably some form of bonus for outnumbering the enemy, but I would imagine it will mostly lie in getting as many models attacking as you can

I think it's getting more attacks, and having a bonus to battleshock, so if you lose combat (quite possible), you're less likely to lose additional models (unless you just got absolutely wrecked... in which case previous rank bonus wouldn't do that much good either).

Kind of sad if there's no bonus for musician and standard. It's possible there'll be something on the warscrolls noting it, like how there's a note one guy can be a champion and his CC attacks get +1 Attack. But it just makes more sense to put something like that in the core rules instead of repeating it endlessly. Regardless, I'll put full commands in my units (where I can), because it just looks cool.

[40kGamer]

I read about someone who modelled for advantage at a 40k tournament, and bases were part of the issue....

'converted' Bloodcrushers by plonking Bloodletters on LotR horses, using the horsey bases (Approx the same size as a Terminator). Claimed this was OK, because he had the larger bases with him, and he asked every opponent if they minded him using a smaller base......

I've seen people try to justify stupid things for an advantage before so I'm not surprised... those same mooks will have an absolute field day with a 'measure from the model' mechanic. :)

I'm really anxious to see how the game balances at all without points.

[Bigred]

New Terrain Spotted

via Atia (https://twitter.com/Lady_Atia) 7-2-2015


Ophidian Archway
14899

It looks like the first of the new range of Age of Sigmar terrain pieces is here.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Looks lovely, an' all.

[40kGamer]

That is an attractive piece of terrain!

[Mr Mystery]

Yes Sir, I like it.

And unless I am very much mistaken, a new Realm of Battle tile to boot.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Looks that way. Bigger cracks and fewer skulls.

[40kGamer]

Yes Sir, I like it.

And unless I am very much mistaken, a new Realm of Battle tile to boot.

Yes! It looks to be one without all the silly skulls! Yippee!

[Chronowraith]

Archway looks pretty slick.

Even though I largely dislike the aesthetic of Age of Sigmar that I've seen to date, if GW drops the "Skulls everywhere!" I may actually look at their terrain when it's released.

[Kirsten]

one of them problems I am seeing with the no points/model count affecting bravery etc. If my opponent takes 200 skaven, there is nothing stopping me taking 130 chaos warriors, having a massively superior army, and still claiming the 1/3 difference sudden death advantage. It seems like it will be a particular problem for horde armies.

[Arkhan Land]

is that new a new battle tile?

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

love that Ophidean Archway, looks very pretty.

[Al Shut]

It seems like it will be a particular problem for horde armies.

Unless the old cheap hordes are severely powered up in the new warscrolls, which I don't hope.

on the other hand nobody is forcing the Skaven player to stop at 200 models, I smell an arms race coming.

[Kirsten]

I think you mean rat race...



http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd380/KirstenIGMB/tumbleweed_zpszku6fsqn.jpg (http://s1216.photobucket.com/user/KirstenIGMB/media/tumbleweed_zpszku6fsqn.jpg.html)

[Kirsten]

got enough round bases to re-base my high elf infantry I think anyway, and nine spare 40mm bases and a large oval base to do a few of the ogres. going to have to buy a bucket load to do all the others though.

I am really wondering about warmachines too, they are all instantly massively less useful with spread out units, and no doubt firing them will change drastically too.

[40kGamer]

Maybe they'll ditch the templates and such in favor of a new set number of "attacks" against the target unit. Seems like a workable option since they have to change to be remotely relevant in the new setting.

[Kirsten]

yeah that is what I thought too

it occurred to me too that if they do ditch templates, as seems likely to me, then there is nothing actually stopping you from ranking up your models like you would in the past anyway, and then piling them in for combat.

[40kGamer]

Other than the whole measure from the model thing, which I feel they put in to gloss over the square to round base change, the game mechanics seem pretty solid... I still have no idea how you're supposed to balance the forces but hopefully that will be obvious this weekend.

[Kirsten]

maybe there will be GW branded weighing scales and you literally balance the models...

[40kGamer]

maybe there will be GW branded weighing scales and you literally balance the models...

That could actually give us the first fully balanced lists ever... although if the scales are official I may not be able to afford them. :p

[Houghten]

plastic OP, buff metal

[Kirsten]

I can confirm that Thundertusks are definitely pretty large on an oval base, I imagine arachnaroks will suffer...

[Houghten]

An Arachnarok fits on a Knight base relatively well.

You can technically get all six back legs on a regular oval base if you turn it sideways, but everything from the neck forwards sticks out.

[Kirsten]

also, ogre shoes stick much better to bases than they do to ogre feet

[Wargamer]

Sprue picture!
http://i61.tinypic.com/2hx1wyf.jpg

[40kGamer]

Thats because Ogres hate shoes! :p

[Kirsten]

I don't know why they were ever separate, surely it can't have been a mould issue to have them all in one

[40kGamer]

Agreed! Seemed odd to me that I had to glue all those little parts to their feet! Maybe it was an undercut issue or something specific to the time the models were created. Things have came a long way since those days! :D

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I feel like it's going unremarked so far, but every single piece of artwork we've seen from this has been gorgeous.

[grimmas]

Apologies if this has been posted already. It was on 40k for grown ups FB page
14900

Look at the size of that sigmarite

[40kGamer]

Yippee! My future Fluffscale Marine endeavors just got infinitely easier.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

If you're not glued to @lady_atia's twitter, you're missing out on some amazing pictures.