Can AoS work with modifications?

[harveydent]

I had high hopes for the AoS release.

After reading the rules PDF a few days ago, I thought that if they created some artificial limitations to army sizes (some level of resource scarcity), then there would be hope... as long as the warscrolls were something close to what 8th Edition's armybooks looked like. What I ended up finding out was that the revamped warscroll armybooks are very poorly done. They deviate almost completely from 8th Edition's armybook format. Instead of creating order within an otherwise free-form system, they create an environment that emphasizes disorder and extreme exploitation. I would venture to say that AoS isn't really a game any longer.

I remember a similar feeling when GW released 40k Apocalypse back in '07 (IIRC?). They could've created a nifty, streamlined system for using tons of models. Instead they just said "Use everything you have, and take a week to play your 50,000 point game." GW could've created a streamlined version of 8th that removes barriers to entry (cheaper models, streamlined rules, quicker setup time), but instead they shook up the rules like an Etch-a-Sketch, increased setup time, and did nothing to decrease prices.

So, given that we need a more streamlined game that doesn't keep people from playing, is there a way to use AoS's simpler rules?

1) There needs to be some form of resource scarcity. Players must make army building choices on some level other than asking the magic 8 ball.

2) There needs to be a more well defined set of victory conditions. Perhaps the existing AoS victory conditions would work (if slightly modified) if there were a system of scarcity (see #1).

3) Warscroll 'armybooks' need to be re-evaluated. Simply giving each unit a set of unloaded keywords like Aelf, Wanderer, Hero, and Totem so that they can be accessed by other random units that say "For each Totem you have, do X" is overly complex for a system that has no scarcity.

So can we just use the AoS PDF with the existing set of 8th Edition armybooks with points costs? Obviously there would be some pitfalls to this, but at least it's a starting point that addresses the poorly designed warscrolls and issues of scarcity, and subsequently the oddly defined victory conditions.

[40kGamer]

I feel your pain, but at the moment I wouldn't even know where to start. In theory the old PVs were tied to stat lines that no longer exist. :(

[HsojVvad]

1) There needs to be some form of resource scarcity. Players must make army building choices on some level other than asking the magic 8 ball.


The resource scarcity I see is the person with the most money wins. Maybe GW is treating this like an actual Sports team, where the team owner with the most money can buy the best people. Does this make for fun? No, at least not for me.

I agree with what you say. Thing is if you want to start with Age of Sigmar, people need to look at it the way it is, not the old ways. Just like how people tried to play 6th edition and edition of 40K as 5th edition, it just doesn't work.

So we have 3 choices. Try play the old ways and get upset. Try and play the new way and see how it plays out. We quit or don't start. Well there is two more possibilities as well, but that will need to play with like minded people. Play AoS with "house rules" or play older editions of Warhammer.

So we either adapt or don't.

[harveydent]

BoLS already ran an article talking about the rules issues existing with the four page PDF. I'm not surprised to see that their over-simplified rules are full of problems.... it's GW after all. And I am usually the guy that says "Play with the rules as-is," but this time I am not sure it's worth continuing.

[ElectricPaladin]

At the moment, I think that most of AoS can stand as it is, and it's actually pretty good, unless you were really fond of the old, highly gearheaded system. It's straightforward, simple, and pretty intuitive. That said, there are three pretty huge problems:

1) No system of army composition. Nothing stops me from bringing nothing but my badass cavalry and a ton of Lords and Heroes. We need to figure something out. It could be as simple as "for a game of size X bring Y Heroes, Z units of this type, W units of this type, and so on, or as complex as figuring out some formula for pricing models on our own. Both of those seem achievable.

2) Some of the armies (not all) include some rather silly rules. We'll need to scrap those and rewrite them so they are balanced and not stupid.

3) I'm not sure if the summonable armies (Lizardmen, Vampires, Tomb Kings, Daemons) are balanced or not. On the one hand, you're using up a valuable spell, on the other hand, we've all seen how nasty that can be in 40k... though at least here you can't summon a unit that can summon a unit...

I think it will be possible for communities - perhaps even, thanks to the Internet, the community at large - to create standards of play that allow us to enjoy the benefits of AoS in a context that makes sense.

It also wouldn't surprise me to see some sort of "advanced rules" coming down the pipe that tell us how to create armies.

[Reldane]

To be honest it isn't even so much the nothing stops player 1 from taking x y and z, for me the lack of comparison says take a guess at how many of y matches so many of b. I will be giving it a go tomorrow, and we'll see how it plays but I honestly have no idea how many Brettonian knights I should take and what ratio they need to be in with regards to warriors of chaos to give a good game.

[Ravingbantha]

After reading the rules the game has a very half*** feel to it. Like the idea of a rule set was completley overlooked until a few days before release. No point value means there is no way to even attempt to balance a game. Measuring from mini instead of base is going to create all sorts of munskin players arguing over the nose and milimeters. Models will be piled on models, and the board will end up terribly confusing. The current armybooks are not even organized in the same way they are on the GW site, much less how the fluff has them.

My only hope is in the next week or two, we will see the armybooks for Chaos, Death, Destruction, and Order released with actual point values. This release has the rushed feeling of 3rd edition 40k, when the rulebook had a barebones codex of each army in it. Clearly none of the existing army books are in any way compatable with AoS.

[vonDietdrich]

To balance AoS, someone would have to come up with a formula for how points costs are calculated for a basic statline and then go in and manually value each of the special abilities/synergies in the extra rules, WYSIWYG upgrades, etc. And it would all have to be ppm.

So something like..

Saves:
6+ - 1 point
5+ - 2 points
4+ - 4 points
3+ - 6 points

An ability that allows rerolls of 1s for saves is an extra 3 points, or 1 point if it only applies during a single phase (for example, shooting).

Wounds are 3 points apiece.

Weapons get tricky, but..
To Hit/To Wound (each one is a separate points amount)
6+ - 0
5+ - 1
4+ - 2
3+ - 3

If damage is 2 or d3, add 2 points (rationale being that d3 can sometimes roll 1, while 2 is a guaranteed higher value). If Rending 1, add 1 point. If Rending 2, add 3 points.

Each attack after the first is 3 points per model.

Bravery is as follows:

4 is the base value at no additional points. Each point of Bravery above 4 is 1 point per model.

Upgraded unit sergeants are 3 extra points (to represent the extra attack).

Situational special rules are 1 point per model, general rules are 2 points per model. ('When fighting x models' vs 'all to-hit rolls made by this model') Stronger rules for characters or heroes may need to be more expensive.

Cavalry and Flight add 5 points for the extra movement and then also pay for any extra attacks (if the attack numbers are weaker than their 'main' weapon profile (the one with the highest attacks), they only pay for the number of extra attacks, not the to-hit and to-wound statistics. If they're stronger, they only pay the difference, not a whole second set of point costs.)

So, Liberators under this general pricing system clock in at 18 ppm, with the sergeant being 21 (so a squad of 5 is 93 points). That seems about right, if we're trying to keep points 'generally consistent' with WFB 8th point values.

Obviously this isn't even close to exhaustive, but it's the sort of 'math formula' that would be necessary to even begin to consider a game like this.

And it's the main reason I'm not picking up AoS, because GW should be paying professional designers to do this, not hoping their players do it for free.

[Vangrail]

Me and my gaming group is going to try playing by two ways.
1. Games are x many warscrolls.
2. I prefer games are x many wounds on the board. Example 40 wound games could be 40 clan rats or 10 minotaurs. Or a combination of units.

Also staying withing your faction. So order, chaos, destruction, and death

[ElectricPaladin]

Me and my gaming group is going to try playing by two ways.
1. Games are x many warscrolls.
2. I prefer games are x many wounds on the board. Example 40 wound games could be 40 clan rats or 10 minotaurs. Or a combination of units.

Also staying withing your faction. So order, chaos, destruction, and death

Hm... I kind of like the "wounds on the board" system. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any units that are too terribly elite while also being low wounds - though, remember that I've only read the Lizardmen scroll in any detail, and even that not really a full deep read. You still probably want to limit the number of heroes, though.

Also, what would you do with Lord Kroak (he has no wounds, uses a unique system to determine if a hit "kills" him)?

[vonDietdrich]

Hm... I kind of like the "wounds on the board" system. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any units that are too terribly elite while also being low wounds - though, remember that I've only read the Lizardmen scroll in any detail, and even that not really a full deep read. You still probably want to limit the number of heroes, though.

Yeah but then you've got an equivalence between things like clan rats and white lions or executioners.

[ElectricPaladin]

Yeah but then you've got an equivalence between things like clan rats and white lions or executioners.

I haven't read the rules yet. Is that a problem?

Do you think you could easily go through the scrolls and categorize the one-wound models as "normal" and "elite"? Then you could just add the rule that only X% of your wounds on the table must be normal and only Y% can be elite.

[vonDietdrich]

Do you think you could easily go through the scrolls and categorize the one-wound models as "normal" and "elite"?

Yes, you probably could, but then that gets into the issue of summoning extra wounds onto the battlefield. If you're forced to take X amount of regular line infantry in the list-building phase, and your opponent is playing a summoning army who dynamically brings most of his models onto the board through spell-casting, you're now at a large disadvantage because the overall 'quality' of your wounds is substantially less.

The main problem with wounds as the device of comparison is the sheer amount of special rules and synergies. For example, a lot of unit entries have a 'To Summon This Unit Spell' where if you own the models, your wizards automatically know the appropriate spell to summon them and this lets you slap down a lot of units for potentially very little investment. Spells don't blow up anymore and each Wizard can attempt to cast each spell they know once per turn.

So in other words, if you're a Vampire Counts player and have three Wizards (not an uncommon situation for me in WFB 8th), you can attempt to summon Black Knights, Grave Guard, Skeletons, Zombies, Crypt Ghouls, Crypt Horrors, Varghulfs, Cairn Wraiths, Tomb Banshees, Spirit Hosts, Hexwraiths, Terrorgheists, Zombie Dragons, Vargheists, and.. I think that's it. Once per Wizard, per turn, until you run out of models to summon. If your opponent has a Wizard within 18" of your caster they can attempt to dispel it, but that's the only downside to rolling the dice (aside from ruining all your friendships).

In other words, I could easily take a 'small' army with a bunch of Wizard characters (Mortarch Mannfred, a couple nameless Vampire Lords and Necromancers) and some random filler models for meat shields, then proceed to make about 20 summoning rolls on my first turn and still get the benefits of Sudden Death for being 'outnumbered' when the curtains open up on the battle. It could even be argued that this is how the new Vampire Counts are designed to function, continually replacing their losses with a wave of fresh summoning rolls every turn. And I don't have to worry about my Necromancers randomly blowing up anymore to top it off.

So how do you comp that sort of thing against a 100-wound Empire, Orc and Goblin, or Skaven army that's mostly going to be lots of cannon fodder when the list is built using a 'normal troop' and 'elite' profile comparison method?

'Limit the Wizards' is the most obvious response, but then you're taking away the entire gimmick of the Vampire Counts as written into their faction design (which is that everyone who isn't skeletal cannon fodder is either a mage or else Konrad). If you limit the Wizards to just two, for example, then you're making Wizards who don't have monstrous mounts (and therefore a lot of wounds) dramatically less useful compared to a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon or a Mortarch. Why use your precious Wizard slots on guys with few wounds instead of Vampires riding big monsters with 14 wounds apiece?

And so on and so forth. Once you start comping Summoning factions by limiting their casters, then you also have to comp other factions so they can't stack their particular flavor of advantage to the point that it breaks the wound comp system and that's a slippery slope.

My point is, the unit rules were not designed with balance or comp in mind. Without some kind of precise point system, a 'general comp' can work for casual games but it won't be a one-size-fits-all experience. Is it possible to wrangle a "balanced" game out of the rules as they are? Maybe. But until more detailed rules are released, there's way too much grey area for my taste.

[ElectricPaladin]

Yes, you probably could...

Hm... good point. I think you're right - recreating a points system is probably the way to go.

[Jack Shrapnel]

Here is the listbuilding comp we have been testing and thus far it is working out well:

1 formation each plus 2 warscrolls

maximum wounds per warscroll is:

if a unit of one wound models has a regimental bonus, they can have up to 10 wounds over their maximum number for regimental bonus (ie: orc archers can be 30, goblins can be 40).

if a unit has no regimental bonus or has more than one wound / model the maximum wounds for the unit is 20.

Add ons to units count as part of the warscrolls (ie: crew with a cannon) - (we didn't have to use this with our armies this time)


It could easily be expanded to larger games by adding warscroll numbers to the limit above. Requiring a formation means that players are having to bring traditional core units to the table. Wound limits to units based upon regimental bonuses is simple to apply (the only outlier found thus far is ogres, which is why the wound restriction)

thus far simple and works. games have seemed quite fairly balanced between forces.

[harveydent]

So according to BigRed, some store is using the following (ridiculously convoluted) 'point' system:

Games are recommended to be played at 50 or greater points.
For every 25 counted wounds you may take:
- 4 Warscrolls
- 8 Wounds of models with the Hero keyword (only 60% can be spent on a single model, rounding up)
- 6 Wounds of models with the Monster keyword
- 6 Wounds of models with the Warmachine keyword (note that crew Wounds are stilled paid for, but they themselves do not typically have the Warmachine keyword)
- All models with 10 or more wounds must be from the same Compendium
Regardless of Wound Totals
- All named Heroes are 0-1 choices and may not be taken multiple times.
- All unnamed Heroes are 0-2 choices and may not be taken more than twice.
- Models with both the Hero and Monster keyword count against both allowances (and may therefore by limited in some games if only allowed by one of the two categories).
- When a model receives a Wound through an upgrade (for example Blight King Champion upgrade), the bonus is not counted towards your army’s total wounds.
- When a unit exceeds 10 models, receive 2 models for each one purchased with wounds.
i.e. a unit that begins at Five, 1-wound models, would cost 10 wounds total for a unit of 10, but only 15 wounds for a unit of 20 or 20 wounds for a unit of 30.

So I pose the question again:

Can't we just use the existing set of army books for point values? Can't we just use the rules that are already written and understood with the new rules system?

[Auticus]

With minor tweaks its actually quite fun.

The problem I'm seeing is that people of course want a universal game, not one that has to be house ruled or tweaked. Barring those people though, those that are willing to houserule can have a great time with it.