I'm Bores of Brexit lets talk about AoS

[grimmas]

There's been a glut of stuff leaked from the Matched Play section of the Generals handbook,

What are people's thoughts.

I like how summoning has become "magic deepstrike" and a unit repair mechanic.

The "Rule of Three Ones" seems a very sensible addition for competive play, no more stacking of Mystic Shield and automatic happenings.

I know many will bemoan why this wasn't brought out at the beginning but let's not forget the organisers of the biggest tournaments have been involved in its creation so it probably directly addresses issues that have arisen from it being played in anger out on the wild so to speak rather than in GW towers.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. Matched Play. So far, seems to be everything people hoped it would be, but there is early days whining from Summon-heavy army, and a complete lack of empathy from those who can't Summon.

I'm excited for this book!

[grimmas]

Always whining from some quarters, though I doubt in this is actually from people who play in the tournaments given that they've all put restrictions on summoning anyway.

It seems a pretty sensible way to go for matched Played given its designed to reduce people from exploiting the system to gain advantage. If it true it can still be used to replace loses in units it is still very powerful.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. Plus, being able to effectively deepstrike units in, with no scatter, is pretty huge.

The classic say, Undead tactics of popping up blocking units remains - and this time without any form of Crumble rule, or the other traditional downsides of Undead (low initiative, ridiculously easy to beat up line units).

People just need to suck it and see.

[Al Shut]

Delicious Classic Cola.

[grimmas]

Loads more stuff on the front page from gift copy given to one of the fellas who helped out, the narative stuff looks to be a proper advancing campaign. All good news. Even the comments are positive, well apart from the obligatory "but they destroyed the Old world" one but if felt forced.

[Morgrim]

I'm a little confused about summoning. The snippets I've seen suggest you can only summon a unit once? Is that correct, or can you resummon it if it is wiped out?

[Mr Mystery]

Only the once, but it seems you can use summoning as healing spells?

[grimmas]

Yep that's what I've heard, you can only summon stuff once but you can "heal" it.

Well I suppose you could resummon a unit but it would still count against the points you set aside for summoning.

[Path Walker]

Seems like it'll be interesting and might help people reluctant to embrace the standard game without restrictions. I hope matched play is more of a gateway drug, to get people playing the OG anything goes version more.

[Erik Setzer]

Summoning is kind of weird and feels wrong, but I think it was an effort to try to prevent summoning being used as an insane force-multiplier in what's meant to be a balanced match. I'm not really a fan, but I won't complain too much, because I understand the intent here. As long as they don't up-charge the summoning models, that's fine. Sure, let them pay for being able to bring a unit out of reserves and plop it somewhere (and make sure Sigmarines do the same with units that have those abilities), but don't charge for them like they're able to add to the army.

I think it'll be fine in time. For "fun play," people can opt to change that rule. For actual matched play, it makes sense.

And if people think it doesn't, well, point them to Chaos Daemon armies in 40K tourneys that spam new units.

[grimmas]

Matched play is only one aspect of the system so I guess it makes sense that it loses a certain amount Narative to provide a more "balanced" approach. Although in terms of the Undead it does seem to fit that they would have a more limited approach to summoning as they need the actual dead bodies or constructs to reanimate. Chaos and Seraphon on the other hand are limited only by their ability to control their summoned creatures or in the case of Slann by their imagination.

[grimmas]

I'm also very interested to see how the less conventional factions such as the Ironweld Arsonal and Collegiate Arcane are going to work in the generals handbook. They don't have what I'd consider to be "conventional" battlelines units but do have Faction specific key words. Will taking them mean that the bonuses available for a single faction force be impossible as a balance measure as they will need to be taken together with another faction or will we see some interesting army builds with them.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I'm also very interested to see how the less conventional factions such as the Ironweld Arsonal and Collegiate Arcane are going to work in the generals handbook. They don't have what I'd consider to be "conventional" battlelines units but do have Faction specific key words. Will taking them mean that the bonuses available for a single faction force be impossible as a balance measure as they will need to be taken together with another faction or will we see some interesting army builds with them.

Had hands on for a while now. I'd say, judging from how things currently are, that these forces will be restricted to "Order" or equiv bonuses until they get their own battletome. At that point I'd expect to see them getting their own Battleline units. Since at the moment the only single-faction bonuses come in the form of X=Battleline, apart from for sylvaneth, they aren't missing out.

[grimmas]

Cheers I've not had it in hand so to speak. It's a little disappointing there's not more faction specific bonuses at this stage. I rather liked the idea that having such specialist units would come with an extra downside. Still I'd be quite keen to see Battlelines units for the more specialised factions, they could go to town on the creativity.