Age of Sigmar "Laws of War" Balancing Rules

[Bigred]

via BoLS (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/08/age-of-sigmar-balancing-rules-sighted.html) 8-10-2015


There are reports of a new set of add-on rules for Age of Sigmar that balance the game and allow mismatched sized armies to fight on an equal footing!


The New Rules
Sources tell BoLS the new rules are described as “Laws of War” and work as follows:

– There are still no points

– Both sides will deploy forces as normal then check against a list of criteria for “mismatches” including things such as :

a) does one side use more factions?

b) does one side use more spammed warscrolls?

c) does one side use more special characters?

d) does one side use more monsters?

e)… There are several more

Both players tally up their total points and determine the difference in who has the most “mismatch” points.

The player who has the lowest total gets a number of free “Law of War” warscrolls based on a chart.

These “Law of War” warscrolls are themed after the 8 Realms and grant a variety of game altering effects. Some make your army harder to kill, some do damage to the enemy, some make casting magic more difficult for opponents, and so forth.

via Warseer's Laws_of_War (http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?412670-Age-of-Sigmar-Balancing-Laws-of-War) 8-11-2015

PDF Posted Here (http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?412670-Age-of-Sigmar-Balancing-Laws-of-War)

[Mr Mystery]

Interesting stuff.

I see the whingebrigade have already passed judgement over on Warseer.

[Path Walker]

Doesn't look official to me

[Mr Mystery]

Dunno dude.

If it is a fake, someone's gone to a decent amount of effort to make it look the part.

[Erik Setzer]

Well, the other whingebrigade probably thinks it's perfect and anyone saying otherwise is evil and cold and soulless.

You can say "you need to play games with it before you can pass judgment!" but it's kind of obvious from the start that it's a mess and doesn't add balance at all. I would definitely not use these in a tournament meant to test player skill.

Seriously, look at that first one. On average, you'll be able to take 1/3 of the wounds out of a number of units equal to the difference in "army power."

It could add some more amusing randomness to a basic game (and that can be fun, sure), but these are not rules for balancing. If you enjoy them for adding fun randomness to a game, cool, you're not wrong for doing so, I might even try them for a bit of random fun here and there. Just don't call them "balancing rules," because they aren't.

Something about the wording in this also doesn't feel right. But I'll just avoid saying more on that, lest the whingebrigade whinge some more about me not being a 100% AoS cheerleader.

[Mr Mystery]

FFS Erik.

Seriously.

Just.....FFS.

[Path Walker]

Looks the part a bit but its not very intuitive and doesn't support the idea of building the army you want which GW have been really keen to promote (they've given stores who try and put comp systems for local game days in place a telling off for example)

[Erik Setzer]

Dunno dude.

If it is a fake, someone's gone to a decent amount of effort to make it look the part.

It's possible. When I get a chance, I want to try to see if I can make my own warscrolls (for adding new units or resurrecting old units). Someone with the right software could make it look right.

Since we've opened this can of worms, I'll comment on where the wording feels weird to me... First off, it comes right out talking about "balance" and "philosophy" and mentioning tournaments. The language in the "Philosophy" section seems to meander a bit, like it's not sure what it wants to say, but really wants to get across "AoS is a serious game that requires serious tactics and strategy!" It's particularly odd that the document says it's good for pick-up games and tournaments, and says "bring the number of models you agreed to" but then suggests you don't know who your opponent is or what the scenario might me. Maybe they're trying to cover all scenarios and just doing a poor job of it.

It's possible it was faked, but it's more likely it was just a quickly pushed project to answer concerns about balance. If so, I mean, kudos to them for recognizing that's an issue, but maybe don't get an intern to write it really quickly at the last minute?

[Mr Mystery]

It's extra stuff.

If it's legit, extra stuff is always welcome.

If it's not legit, extra stuff is always welcome.

[Al Shut]

Real or not, not necessarily my cup of tea. If you wanted to avoid the laws of war (and some quite powerful) keeping track of all ten power benchmarks during setup could be quite a hassle.

And I would most likely try to convince my opponent to skip the part where each player can take at least one scroll.

[Erik Setzer]

FFS Erik.

Seriously.

Just.....FFS.

Well, you didn't help things off by immediately jumping with inflammatory language. If you want to set that as the tone, then accept the tone that YOU chose.

It's impossible to note that there could be issues with something and that it's not perfect without being attacked for not declaring it the "best thing ever," made clear by such comments as yours to start it off.

Seriously, man, you want a civil discussion, maybe don't open with an insulting comment about people who disagree with you.

[Mr Mystery]

Go back.

Read my post.

I described it as 'interesting stuff'.

That's what we call a neutral statement. It is not an endorsement, glowing or otherwise. It's not a rejection, wholehearted or otherwise. Just a neutral statement, expressing interest.

Indeed, my critique was purely of the usual gang of idiots honking on about how something is bad without ever having tried it. You know, the sort of people who could be given a solid gold stately home and a bevy of sexual partners of their choice by GW, for free, and still decry it.

[Erik Setzer]

And I would most likely try to convince my opponent to skip the part where each player can take at least one scroll.

Ah crud... missed that one. Ouch. You can do something like select Ghyran with Ogres and knock a lot of incoming damage down to protect your army longer. Or if you're playing against an army that uses magic, you can just take Chamon. Or Ghur to mess with armies of Knights or other armored troops. Luckily (?), Azyr only works for the side with less power, though you might be able to trick the system so you have relatively equal armies but "less power," allowing you to wreck your opponent's army right off the bat (at least a few units).

- - - Updated - - -


Go back.

Read my post.

I described it as 'interesting stuff'.

That's what we call a neutral statement. It is not an endorsement, glowing or otherwise. It's not a rejection, wholehearted or otherwise. Just a neutral statement, expressing interest.

Indeed, my critique was purely of the usual gang of idiots honking on about how something is bad without ever having tried it. You know, the sort of people who could be given a solid gold stately home and a bevy of sexual partners of their choice by GW, for free, and still decry it.


Well, my own comments were "neutral." I did say I thought it could be fun and I'm willing to give it a try, but you don't have to play it to see some of the issues with it, or recognize that it's not particularly good for balancing. Optional rules for more random fun? Cool. Balancing? Nope.

Are you also going to slam the people who claim something is good before they try it? Surely they are also guilty of heinous acts of pre-judgment? You know, the people who you could give them a literal [refuse] sandwich and they'd say it was the tastiest thing ever because it has the GW logo on it? See, that whole thing goes both ways.

[Mr Mystery]

Not seen anyone commenting in that way?

I've seen people enjoying their hobby, and preferring to chat about, y'know, stuff they enjoy, rather than find a cosy corner of the Internet to gently piss in the wind with endless complaining.

[Erik Setzer]

Some of us like to say what we enjoy and what we don't enjoy, because we don't always go 100% one way or the other, and discussion is good and healthy, so we don't feel the need to try to silence those who disagree with narrow viewpoints.

The moment the forum title changes to "Pro Games Workshop Cheerleading Forum," let me know, I'll make sure to only post positive comments, and nothing that's even neutral. Until then, it's fair game for people to have differing opinions. Much like you saying you dislike some X-Wing models is fair enough. I see no problem with you saying "I think the K-Wing looks horrible and is jumping the shark with design," even if that "jumping the shark" feels rather harsh. Hey, it's your opinion, and it's okay for you to dislike something. Kind of wish you'd accept others can dislike things as well.

[harveydent]

AoS - A simple new set of streamlined rules that only takes a rulebook worth of rules to fix. Just wait...

[Erik Setzer]

They're optional, so I doubt they're intended to "fix" anything. I suppose you could look at it that way (and the text does seem to suggest that), but it's really just "more of the same" rather than fundamentally changing anything about the game. If you like AoS, you'll probably like these rules. If you don't like AoS, I doubt they'll change your mind.

[grimmas]

It mentions a wound count which is inconsistent with the model count in the 4 page rules. Strange change of terminology and approach if it's true.

I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing was official its been obvious for a while they a going to be releasing additional optional rules as things progress, they already have with the first source book.

[Mr Mystery]

As an Ogre player, wound count over model count does make a certain amount of sense :)

[Erik Setzer]

Well, it first says that you use the same number of models as your opponent (maximum, anyway), it mentions wounds later to suggest more wounds = more power (which, yes, I suppose is a bit inconsistent with the rulebook basing the sudden death rule on model count).

The odd thing is that this sort of conflicts with the Sudden Death rule, too, which now seems kind of moot. But hey, it's all optional, so it's up to the players involved which to use.

[Wildeybeast]

I like the random smiting element of it, but I honestly don't see how it is a) any less complicated than points and b) that it actually properly balances the game. It's clearly an attempt by GW to address complaints about the lack of a balancing mechanic and whilst is is good that they are evolving the game to suit customer requirements, it doesn't actually fix the problem some people have with AoS.