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Crackbone
May 23, 2003

Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Is there really anything in the AoS ruleset that is unique and balanced enough to try and rebuild around? I sure haven't seen it.

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TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer

Crackbone posted:

Is there really anything in the AoS ruleset that is unique and balanced enough to try and rebuild around? I sure haven't seen it.

Honestly? Monster ability/wound charts is a good thing. Uh, not sure otherwise.

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

HardCoil posted:

But double turns statistically happens half of the time?

I don't sit and watch AoS games hugely often :v:

Leperflesh posted:

For some people, AOS is the only fantasy minis game in town, literally. For others, they have friends they want to play with. I can relate to the folks who just cave in and play what people want them to play.

Also, re: chat on previous pages, AOS does sorta kinda have alternating activations. In the melee combat phase, your opponent gets to fight with his units alternating with you fighting with your units. It's limited to melee only, though, so they can't like move or shoot or whatever, but I figured in fairness it's worth mentioning.

The game is still poo poo, of course.

It seems like going first in a given combat is often decisive unless your units suck. I often felt the optimal thing for people to do, instead of resolving it "fairly" or "common-sense" as I heard it described, was to abandon any unit that's had swings at it already, to get a pre-emptive assault on some other combat and massively reduce the incoming harm there. Maybe there's a rule I don't know about that prevents that.

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops
Largely unrelated question since this is basically the wargames chat thread: How long does it usually take your FLGS to get stuff in after you put in orders, and whereabouts are you?

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer

spectralent posted:

Largely unrelated question since this is basically the wargames chat thread: How long does it usually take your FLGS to get stuff in after you put in orders, and whereabouts are you?

Two or three days here in Winnipeg.

Chill la Chill
Jul 2, 2007

Don't lose your gay


As much as Frostgrave isn't perfect, I like it enough that I'm really looking forward to this.



More than 150 years have passed since the apocalypse that nearly destroyed the Earth. Today, the planet is a torn remnant of its former glory, ravaged by nuclear fallout and mutagens. New lifeforms - Mutants and Synthetics - challenge True Humanity for dominance, while warring factions compete for survival and supremacy, and all must carve out their place in this brutal landscape, or else perish as billions before them.

Scrappers is a skirmish miniatures game set in the wastelands, where players assemble Scrapper Crews and send them out to scavenge scraps of Ancient technology and battle rival factions. Explorers, cultists and raiders clash with mutated creatures, robotic soldiers and embittered True Humans in this wargame of salvage and survival in the ruins of the future.

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Chill la Chill posted:

As much as Frostgrave isn't perfect, I like it enough that I'm really looking forward to this.



More than 150 years have passed since the apocalypse that nearly destroyed the Earth. Today, the planet is a torn remnant of its former glory, ravaged by nuclear fallout and mutagens. New lifeforms - Mutants and Synthetics - challenge True Humanity for dominance, while warring factions compete for survival and supremacy, and all must carve out their place in this brutal landscape, or else perish as billions before them.

Scrappers is a skirmish miniatures game set in the wastelands, where players assemble Scrapper Crews and send them out to scavenge scraps of Ancient technology and battle rival factions. Explorers, cultists and raiders clash with mutated creatures, robotic soldiers and embittered True Humans in this wargame of salvage and survival in the ruins of the future.

Looks pretty dope tbqh

Ashcans
Jan 2, 2006

Let's do the space-time warp again!

Scrappers isn't the Frostgrave guy, is it? I thought it was a different author going through Osprey.

Either way, I hope that it's rad as hell; I would love a crazy mutant-punk skirmish game where my guys get to die over a rusting tank of filth and radioactive sludge.

Guy Goodbody
Aug 31, 2016

by Nyc_Tattoo
The new Gundam has giant power drills for knees

Chill la Chill
Jul 2, 2007

Don't lose your gay


Well, it's "plucky band of adventurers attempt to discover the secrets of magic the universe so I called it sci-fi Frostgrave. I do hope they have rules for giant robots so I can fight my friend's space wooden trashpile space orc titan with my sleek tau gundam.

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer
Time for a little :effortless:

Here is my long critique via BatRep. I will attempt to give an honest critique of the system but to be up front there were a few clear issues I encountered:

  • New army versus old army and the obvious power difference for the points
  • Unfamiliarity with the units and their rules
  • Playing against an experienced opponent
  • Tactical blunders on my part, I am not good at games

Anyhow, the mission was on a 4' x 4' table, with one piece of terrain in each quarter and an objective in the centre of each deployment zone. The objective was to hold both of the objectives by having only your unit within 6" at any time. If there was no winner at the end of turn five you would add up kill points. Knowing that my units were slow rear end dwarves I opted to castle up, use withering firepower against (in order) enemy shooters, characters, then infantry blocks. Since you can shoot into combat, all I needed was my blocks to hold them in place and then shoot them to death which seemed more like Skaven tactics but whatever.

Here is the table layout, the objectives are the big skull tower and the staircase thingy. None of the terrain was special we just kept it simple. If you want to see lovingly painted models, go elsewhere.



The stone walls are the table edges, this was just to mark off the 4' x 4' area.

My list was:

Leaders

Belegar Ironhammer (140)
- General
Grimm Burloksson (100)

Battleline
10 x Dwarf Warriors (100)
- Shield & Axe or Hammer
10 x Dwarf Warriors (100)
- Shield & Axe or Hammer

Units
10 x Quarrellers (120)
- None
10 x Thunderers (120)
- None

War Machines

Cannon (180)
Organ Gun (120)

Total: 980/1000


The organ gun + Grimm Burlocksson combo should have been putting out 4d6 shots with -1 rending pretty much every turn, and the cannon is 2 shots a turn at d6 wounds with -2 rending. Should have been pretty nasty. Should have been.

My opponents list:

Leaders
Ogroid Thaumaturge (160)
- General
Tzaangor Shaman (120)

Battleline
20 x Tzaangors (360)
10 x Pink Horrors Of Tzeentch (140)

Units
3 x Tzaangor Skyfires (160)
10 x Blue Horrors Of Tzeentch (50)

Total: 990/1000

The Blue Horrors were off the table, they are summoned when the pink horrors die. At least in matched play, summoned units have to be paid for from points. Basically putting a new unit on the table cost points, but healing models back into a unit does not as long as you don't go over the original size. This means that healing is super loving good, and Dwarves don't get any. Disciples of Tzeentch get a poo poo ton. Imagine that. This also becomes important later on when the Blue Horrors do show up.

Anyhow, I deployed like I would in WHFB which is tactical error #1. I didn't think LOS would matter that much since anything can be targeted and TLOS is almost impossible to avoid, so I have my warmachines on the hill with the babysitting engineer. I call it Fort Fuckoff. All are welcome.



My opponent deploys heavy on my right side so I put one warrior block on the right of Fort Fuckoff and the other on the left. My Thunderers and Quarrelers both get shields for free so I leave them on the left to hold a flank. They both have good range (Grimm also gives one unit experimental weapons so my Thunderers had 24" to play with) so they could shoot anything that came across the board. Belegar camped out with the warriors to give a large AoE bravery boost and a little more counterpunch to anything approaching the good Fort.



Now since he deployed less units he gets first turn apparently. Not a bad thing, he has to come forward then I can open up with my artillery and hopefully pull off the double turn to shoot twice. But here is where I learn important things. This is the end of turn 1:



See how I have no crew on the Organ Gun? Here is what happened. He flies his disc arrow dudes over the buildings and right into the middle of the table. He reads off a couple of rules and then starts pulling off his special 'Destiny Dice'. Destiny Dice are a thing that Disciples of Tzeentch get where he rolls 9 dice before the game and puts them to the side. He can use those dice instead of rolling at any time he likes, but each die only once per game. So his three arrow dudes shoot, and target the warmachine crew. Yes, you can target warmachine crew. I have no idea why they even put stats on the warmachine itself (4 wounds, 4+ save) when you can just kill off the whole crew (3 wounds, 5+ save). Crew get a +1 cover bonus to their save when within 1" of their machine at least.

So he rolls six dice to hit and gets a couple of hits. This is where the bullshit starts. He tells me that if any roll is a six, it deals d3 Mortal Wounds. Mortal wounds do not need to roll to hit, wound, and allow no armour saves. He gets no sixes on his attacks so he grabs one from his Destiny Dice. Now he is guaranteed to get d3 unsavable wounds against my three crewmen. He pulls a five off his Destiny Dice so he's guaranteed the full 3. I have no crew left on the organ gun so it will not fire once all game.

To recap:

  • Guaranteed first turn
  • Guaranteed to be in range of anything he wants in turn one due to 12" deployment zone + 16" movement + 16" weapon range
  • Guaranteed dice results from Destiny Dice
  • Guaranteed wounds from Mortal Wounds because Dwarves have no mitigation against them

His 160pt unit flew across the board and wiped a 180pt warmachine off the table and I had exactly zero player agency in the result. Not particularly impressive for the start of the game. His Shaman was right behind them boosting their to-hit rolls as well, so it was just bad luck that he needed to use two of his Destiny Dice. The sorceror cast a spell putting 2 or 3 Mortal Wounds on Belegar. Again, no wound roll, no armour save just take these wounds thanks. On my turn I returned the favour by charging down the hill with my rightmost warrior squad and Belegar. I needed 7" and 8" respectively but made both charges and kicked the disc archers teeth in. The sorcerer was kept exactly 3.0001" behind the archers so he could not be piled into or otherwised engaged. If you wipe a unit out in combat you just stand there, no reform or anything so I couldn't pull him into the combat zone.

Critique time - the 3" bubble is super important which I now realize. If you start your turn within 3" of an enemy unit you can only stand still or retreat, which is a regular move but you have to end up outside the 3" bubble and further away from any model in the unit you started close to. So by shaping your units and positioning them you can prevent movement or force your opponent to engage where you want. In fact, standing still and taking a charge is usually the better option then charging because you can pull unit shaping tricks to 'trap'. There is a tactics article on the Warhammer Community page that basically goes into the details here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/02/14/tactical-toolbox-charging/

If someone was to ask me where the movement tactics are in AoS, this is basically it. It's bumping 3" bubbles of control forward until you can force the engagement you want.

Anyhow here is the end of my turn 1:



The disc archers are gone, the sorceror is just beyond my reach, and the rest of his units are piling forward. I've marched up the left warrior unit, but they are going slow since they get rerolls on their armour saves if they do not run or charge due to forming a shield wall. My cannon and shooting units have done some good work and I sniped off his Ogre general. TLOS, no look out sir, no way to hide your characters. They are gonna die I guess. I killed a Tzaangor or two as well. Now here comes the manpile.



So the sorceror scoots away and the pink horrors have hit my right warrior unit. The Tzaangors hit the left one and start wrapping around. You'll notice that on the left side of Belegar and his warriors, there is a semicircle of new units. This is the Pink Horror/Blue Horror thing and it's a little more bullshit. The first five Pink Horrors I kill spawn two Blue Horrors each, but he can place them anywhere he wants within 6". What he's done is forced the warriors on the left to freeze because you can only pile in to the closest enemy model (which will be the Blue Horrors) but you can't split unit coherence, so they can't pile into the different unit. By selectively removing wounded Pink Horrors he freezes them there. Belegar could kill the blue horrors but unless I wipe them out, Pink Horrors that die will keep topping up the unit (instead of placing a new unit which does cost points, they can heal the closest Blue Horror unit which costs no points, remember), but Belegar can't pile into the Pink Horrors because they are not the closest enemy. Belegar is now also frozen in place, and eating more Mortal Wounds from the Sorcerer on Disc.

So I have to kill the pink horrors, and the Dwarves are fortunately much better warriors then they are. I kill the unit down by four, and they have something like one or two left. He now has to take a Battleshock test, which really works like a crumbling did back in WHFB. Roll a die (just one) add the number of models killed this turn, compare it to your Bravery and then for each point you are higher, one more model flees the battle. He needs a 1 to stay in the fight, so I should wipe the rest out!

...remember the Destiny Dice? He pulls a one out. Oh, also if Pink Horrors roll a one on a Battleshock test they get back d6 models. He grabs a four from the Destiny Dice. gently caress.

All this time the Tzaangor are murderpunching my other Dwarf unit. Since the controlling player always chooses how to allocate wounds, he keeps allocating wounds to guys with some sort of Chaos shields that give a 6+ to any wounds before their armour save. He can allocate every wound taken to the shield dudes first, 6+ any of them before taking regular armour saves after that. Not too bullshitty but a bit funny. It's like allocating wounds in 40k to a guy with an Invul save, but you can't bypass it by shooting from a different angle and gets to invul every wound first before anything else happens . It's only a 6+ but it did negate a cannon shot somewhere in this turn.

The synergies of the new units is also on display at this point. By having 20 models in the unit and having the sorcerer within 9" he's getting between 3 and 4 attacks per model, plus a beak attack. Sure this is an expensive unit but they are also 2W models, get a damage spell as a bonus from their banner, carry mixed equipment to maximize attacks, have rending attacks, and are faster than my Dwarves. So double the wounds, plus all of those extras for 80% more points. Not very balanced.

During the next turn, I also find out that the Sorcerer has a spell that does D3 Mortal Wounds to my unit, and heals back D3 models to the Tzaangors, so he has healing on top of everything else, and he can bring them back with any equipment he wants so he always heals back the 6++ sheild dudes. I'm forced to move my Quarrelers and Thunderers over to my objective in an attempt to fend off the instant win. I actually pull off the double turn on turn three but my one cannon shot is 6++ off the Tzaangors and the Thundered and Quarrelers just can't do enough damage to reduce the Tzaangor numbers (and of course they are healing). My general and Warriors finish off the Pink Horrors, but the Blue Horrors simply retreat out of range and start shooting the last wound or two off of my General. The sorcerer leaps over and mauls my Cannon crew.



The Tzaangors plow into the newly positioned Quarrelers and it's just a matter of time now. I've killed probably 17 or 18 of them, but there are still more than 10 on the table due to healing.



I plan to run Grimm and the Thunderers over to the tower as well, but my opponent gets the double turn, kills the Quarrelers and it's game over.



So tactically, issues I had:

  • Failed to keep units within range of the objective which was inexcusable
  • Didn't really realize how fragile warmachines were, should have hidden them behind the hill and moved them since they can apparently move and fire now?
  • Got tarpitted hard by the Pink/Blue Horrors
  • Target priority should have been on the Shaman instead of the Tzaangors early
  • Didn't properly prepare for the risk of the double turn

Part of this comes from not realizing what the units can do, but there is also a pretty obvious disparity between compendium armies (old lists) and the new hotness. Stuff like the Destiny Dice are stupidly powerful and do not scale to small games, he gets 9 dice everytime. Shooting into combat wasn't as bad as I thought, since shooting seems much weaker than melee for the points, but Characters and Warmachine crew are ridiculously easy to kill.

Tactically, I think I learned more about how this game is supposed to be played, and WHFB it ain't. It is literally a game of min-maxing your list to maximize the most broken abilities of your units which isn't exactly news, but the factions are so small you only have ten units or so to select from. Internal balance doesn't really matter when you only have two Battleline choices and one is clearly much better than another. They fixed summoning with the points cost, but healing is extremely powerful, especially when it brings back multiple multiwound models.

I need to do more playing to figure out how the 3" bubbles work. I've read that article I linked above and I get it. That's where the tactics are in this game, limited as they are.

The double turn was not particularly powerful for me (some unlucky dice helped this) but was game-winning for my opponent. I would always decline to take the double turn unless I could absolutely guarantee that it would be game changing. Decline, decline, decline until you can win the game with it.

Speaking of guarantees, in a game where you randomize with dice rolling, there are far too many guaranteed outcomes. Mortal wounds, first turn selection, unit abilities and bullshit like the Destiny Dice. My Dwarves had literally *none* of these, no Mortal Wound dealing, no mitigation against Mortal Wounds, etc... This goes back to min/maxing the lists but that is not an AoS unique problem.

TL;DR
The game is better than at launch but still flawed. Summoning is okay, healing is a bit broken. Mortal wounds remove all player agency and have no mitigation for 95% of units/armies. Internal balance in factions is bad, external balance across armies is worse.

I'm going to proxy some games with Sylvaneth and see if they are balanced better against the new books. I do this for science, and I do it for you my lovely goons.

This was rambling as gently caress , so are there any questions?

TKIY fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Feb 21, 2017

Runa
Feb 13, 2011

The entire bit where the Organ Gun crew got slaughtered by some incredible bullshit left me speechless for a minute.

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer

Xarbala posted:

The entire bit where the Organ Gun crew got slaughtered by some incredible bullshit left me speechless for a minute.

You weren't the only one.

I have been chatting on an AoS forum about this exact thing and the basic argument I got back was that I deployed outside of the 4" strip of table edge that his archers could not target, therefore it was my fault and that choice negated my player agency.

Skinty McEdger
Mar 9, 2008

I have NEVER received the respect I deserve as the leader and founder of The Masterflock, the internet's largest and oldest Christopher Masterpiece fan group in all of history, and I DEMAND that changes. From now on, you will respect Skinty McEdger!

Wait, even with points the first turn still goes to who places less models on the table? I thought that existed only as a "balancing" mechanic when they had no points.

Cinnamon Bear
Aug 29, 2016

by FactsAreUseless
Well that sure does seem like a massive waste of time and money

Chill la Chill
Jul 2, 2007

Don't lose your gay


How many hours did it take, with and without setup/teardown.

Cassa
Jan 29, 2009
But did you have Fun™?

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer

Skinty McEdger posted:

Wait, even with points the first turn still goes to who places less models on the table? I thought that existed only as a "balancing" mechanic when they had no points.

It's not less models it's less deployments, and that player chooses first or second. If you have a deep striking Army like stormdudes you can null deploy and always go second.

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer
Sorry for the double post, I just figured out how to multi quote on mobile...

Cinnamon Bear posted:

Well that sure does seem like a massive waste of time and money

I already had the dwarves and I'm going to proxy the tree dudes so at least this isn't costing me anything.

Chill la Chill posted:

How many hours did it take, with and without setup/teardown.

Just the game itself, maybe 2 hours. Probably less, maybe 90 minutes. My table is a bitch to set up though so that's an extra half hour on its own.

Cassa posted:

But did you have Fun™?

You'll laugh at this but it wasn't terrible. There were fun moments like making the charge to wipe the disc archers, ganking his general with a double tap from the cannon.

I enjoyed WHFB more but there is a simplicity and fluidity that is not terrible, even with the heaps of stacked up special rules.

Mind you this was a small game. 2k probably would have felt different. Kings of War has both the simplicity and the depth so it's a far better game to my mind but no one here plays it very much.

LordAba
Oct 22, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

TKIY posted:

This was rambling as gently caress , so are there any questions?

You reflect some of my first experiences as well. Had a lizardmen army against an ogre army, and was able to shoot most of his army off the board because of a double turn right off the bat. I also charged two hardhitting but fragile units (the ripperdactlys) into the army which was a mistake because of the alternating units which is kind of a bullshit mechanic. Then discovered that saurus warrior by themselves pretty much suck.

The whole game feels very... touchy. I think it is supposed to be "tactics" but the 3" melee thing is annoying. It's not very intuitive at all and is just stupid detail.

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
"intuitive" is out the window in AoS. Your primary concerns are whether there's an even or odd number of units in combat, and doing weird counterintuitive bubble movement. Only the movement thing would count as "tactical", since the other is purely a weird meta-game mechanics concern forced by how the rules are written.

And honestly, for a lot of armies the bubble movement doesn't even matter. It's mostly a concern if you know you've got much weaker combat units than your opponent or your opponent doesn't have very powerful ranged attacks. Whoops.

mcjomar
Jun 11, 2012

Grimey Drawer

Chill la Chill posted:

As much as Frostgrave isn't perfect, I like it enough that I'm really looking forward to this.



More than 150 years have passed since the apocalypse that nearly destroyed the Earth. Today, the planet is a torn remnant of its former glory, ravaged by nuclear fallout and mutagens. New lifeforms - Mutants and Synthetics - challenge True Humanity for dominance, while warring factions compete for survival and supremacy, and all must carve out their place in this brutal landscape, or else perish as billions before them.

Scrappers is a skirmish miniatures game set in the wastelands, where players assemble Scrapper Crews and send them out to scavenge scraps of Ancient technology and battle rival factions. Explorers, cultists and raiders clash with mutated creatures, robotic soldiers and embittered True Humans in this wargame of salvage and survival in the ruins of the future.

My take is that this is basically alternative Not-GW Necromunda type game?

E: :psypop: at that AoS report. Especially things like instagibbed warmachines, and the bubble stuff. That right there is a whole lot of "nope". Never mind "destiny dice" (:wtc:) and the deployment turn initiative thing. For half of the post I was hopeful that you might have discovered some good bits to AoS, but as usual with a GW game "hope is the first step on the road to disappointment".

mcjomar fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Feb 21, 2017

Moola
Aug 16, 2006

TKIY posted:

Time for a little :effortless:

Here is my long critique via BatRep. I will attempt to give an honest critique of the system but to be up front there were a few clear issues I encountered:

  • New army versus old army and the obvious power difference for the points
  • Unfamiliarity with the units and their rules
  • Playing against an experienced opponent
  • Tactical blunders on my part, I am not good at games

Anyhow, the mission was on a 4' x 4' table, with one piece of terrain in each quarter and an objective in the centre of each deployment zone. The objective was to hold both of the objectives by having only your unit within 6" at any time. If there was no winner at the end of turn five you would add up kill points. Knowing that my units were slow rear end dwarves I opted to castle up, use withering firepower against (in order) enemy shooters, characters, then infantry blocks. Since you can shoot into combat, all I needed was my blocks to hold them in place and then shoot them to death which seemed more like Skaven tactics but whatever.

Here is the table layout, the objectives are the big skull tower and the staircase thingy. None of the terrain was special we just kept it simple. If you want to see lovingly painted models, go elsewhere.



The stone walls are the table edges, this was just to mark off the 4' x 4' area.

My list was:

Leaders

Belegar Ironhammer (140)
- General
Grimm Burloksson (100)

Battleline
10 x Dwarf Warriors (100)
- Shield & Axe or Hammer
10 x Dwarf Warriors (100)
- Shield & Axe or Hammer

Units
10 x Quarrellers (120)
- None
10 x Thunderers (120)
- None

War Machines

Cannon (180)
Organ Gun (120)

Total: 980/1000


The organ gun + Grimm Burlocksson combo should have been putting out 4d6 shots with -1 rending pretty much every turn, and the cannon is 2 shots a turn at d6 wounds with -2 rending. Should have been pretty nasty. Should have been.

My opponents list:

Leaders
Ogroid Thaumaturge (160)
- General
Tzaangor Shaman (120)

Battleline
20 x Tzaangors (360)
10 x Pink Horrors Of Tzeentch (140)

Units
3 x Tzaangor Skyfires (160)
10 x Blue Horrors Of Tzeentch (50)

Total: 990/1000

The Blue Horrors were off the table, they are summoned when the pink horrors die. At least in matched play, summoned units have to be paid for from points. Basically putting a new unit on the table cost points, but healing models back into a unit does not as long as you don't go over the original size. This means that healing is super loving good, and Dwarves don't get any. Disciples of Tzeentch get a poo poo ton. Imagine that. This also becomes important later on when the Blue Horrors do show up.

Anyhow, I deployed like I would in WHFB which is tactical error #1. I didn't think LOS would matter that much since anything can be targeted and TLOS is almost impossible to avoid, so I have my warmachines on the hill with the babysitting engineer. I call it Fort Fuckoff. All are welcome.



My opponent deploys heavy on my right side so I put one warrior block on the right of Fort Fuckoff and the other on the left. My Thunderers and Quarrelers both get shields for free so I leave them on the left to hold a flank. They both have good range (Grimm also gives one unit experimental weapons so my Thunderers had 24" to play with) so they could shoot anything that came across the board. Belegar camped out with the warriors to give a large AoE bravery boost and a little more counterpunch to anything approaching the good Fort.



Now since he deployed less units he gets first turn apparently. Not a bad thing, he has to come forward then I can open up with my artillery and hopefully pull off the double turn to shoot twice. But here is where I learn important things. This is the end of turn 1:



See how I have no crew on the Organ Gun? Here is what happened. He flies his disc arrow dudes over the buildings and right into the middle of the table. He reads off a couple of rules and then starts pulling off his special 'Destiny Dice'. Destiny Dice are a thing that Disciples of Tzeentch get where he rolls 9 dice before the game and puts them to the side. He can use those dice instead of rolling at any time he likes, but each die only once per game. So his three arrow dudes shoot, and target the warmachine crew. Yes, you can target warmachine crew. I have no idea why they even put stats on the warmachine itself (4 wounds, 4+ save) when you can just kill off the whole crew (3 wounds, 5+ save). Crew get a +1 cover bonus to their save when within 1" of their machine at least.

So he rolls six dice to hit and gets a couple of hits. This is where the bullshit starts. He tells me that if any roll is a six, it deals d3 Mortal Wounds. Mortal wounds do not need to roll to hit, wound, and allow no armour saves. He gets no sixes on his attacks so he grabs one from his Destiny Dice. Now he is guaranteed to get d3 unsavable wounds against my three crewmen. He pulls a five off his Destiny Dice so he's guaranteed the full 3. I have no crew left on the organ gun so it will not fire once all game.

To recap:

  • Guaranteed first turn
  • Guaranteed to be in range of anything he wants in turn one due to 12" deployment zone + 16" movement + 16" weapon range
  • Guaranteed dice results from Destiny Dice
  • Guaranteed wounds from Mortal Wounds because Dwarves have no mitigation against them

His 160pt unit flew across the board and wiped a 180pt warmachine off the table and I had exactly zero player agency in the result. Not particularly impressive for the start of the game. His Shaman was right behind them boosting their to-hit rolls as well, so it was just bad luck that he needed to use two of his Destiny Dice. The sorceror cast a spell putting 2 or 3 Mortal Wounds on Belegar. Again, no wound roll, no armour save just take these wounds thanks. On my turn I returned the favour by charging down the hill with my rightmost warrior squad and Belegar. I needed 7" and 8" respectively but made both charges and kicked the disc archers teeth in. The sorcerer was kept exactly 3.0001" behind the archers so he could not be piled into or otherwised engaged. If you wipe a unit out in combat you just stand there, no reform or anything so I couldn't pull him into the combat zone.

Critique time - the 3" bubble is super important which I now realize. If you start your turn within 3" of an enemy unit you can only stand still or retreat, which is a regular move but you have to end up outside the 3" bubble and further away from any model in the unit you started close to. So by shaping your units and positioning them you can prevent movement or force your opponent to engage where you want. In fact, standing still and taking a charge is usually the better option then charging because you can pull unit shaping tricks to 'trap'. There is a tactics article on the Warhammer Community page that basically goes into the details here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/02/14/tactical-toolbox-charging/

If someone was to ask me where the movement tactics are in AoS, this is basically it. It's bumping 3" bubbles of control forward until you can force the engagement you want.

Anyhow here is the end of my turn 1:



The disc archers are gone, the sorceror is just beyond my reach, and the rest of his units are piling forward. I've marched up the left warrior unit, but they are going slow since they get rerolls on their armour saves if they do not run or charge due to forming a shield wall. My cannon and shooting units have done some good work and I sniped off his Ogre general. TLOS, no look out sir, no way to hide your characters. They are gonna die I guess. I killed a Tzaangor or two as well. Now here comes the manpile.



So the sorceror scoots away and the pink horrors have hit my right warrior unit. The Tzaangors hit the left one and start wrapping around. You'll notice that on the left side of Belegar and his warriors, there is a semicircle of new units. This is the Pink Horror/Blue Horror thing and it's a little more bullshit. The first five Pink Horrors I kill spawn two Blue Horrors each, but he can place them anywhere he wants within 6". What he's done is forced the warriors on the left to freeze because you can only pile in to the closest enemy model (which will be the Blue Horrors) but you can't split unit coherence, so they can't pile into the different unit. By selectively removing wounded Pink Horrors he freezes them there. Belegar could kill the blue horrors but unless I wipe them out, Pink Horrors that die will keep topping up the unit (instead of placing a new unit which does cost points, they can heal the closest Blue Horror unit which costs no points, remember), but Belegar can't pile into the Pink Horrors because they are not the closest enemy. Belegar is now also frozen in place, and eating more Mortal Wounds from the Sorcerer on Disc.

So I have to kill the pink horrors, and the Dwarves are fortunately much better warriors then they are. I kill the unit down by four, and they have something like one or two left. He now has to take a Battleshock test, which really works like a crumbling did back in WHFB. Roll a die (just one) add the number of models killed this turn, compare it to your Bravery and then for each point you are higher, one more model flees the battle. He needs a 1 to stay in the fight, so I should wipe the rest out!

...remember the Destiny Dice? He pulls a one out. Oh, also if Pink Horrors roll a one on a Battleshock test they get back d6 models. He grabs a four from the Destiny Dice. gently caress.

All this time the Tzaangor are murderpunching my other Dwarf unit. Since the controlling player always chooses how to allocate wounds, he keeps allocating wounds to guys with some sort of Chaos shields that give a 6+ to any wounds before their armour save. He can allocate every wound taken to the shield dudes first, 6+ any of them before taking regular armour saves after that. Not too bullshitty but a bit funny. It's like allocating wounds in 40k to a guy with an Invul save, but you can't bypass it by shooting from a different angle and gets to invul every wound first before anything else happens . It's only a 6+ but it did negate a cannon shot somewhere in this turn.

The synergies of the new units is also on display at this point. By having 20 models in the unit and having the sorcerer within 9" he's getting between 3 and 4 attacks per model, plus a beak attack. Sure this is an expensive unit but they are also 2W models, get a damage spell as a bonus from their banner, carry mixed equipment to maximize attacks, have rending attacks, and are faster than my Dwarves. So double the wounds, plus all of those extras for 80% more points. Not very balanced.

During the next turn, I also find out that the Sorcerer has a spell that does D3 Mortal Wounds to my unit, and heals back D3 models to the Tzaangors, so he has healing on top of everything else, and he can bring them back with any equipment he wants so he always heals back the 6++ sheild dudes. I'm forced to move my Quarrelers and Thunderers over to my objective in an attempt to fend off the instant win. I actually pull off the double turn on turn three but my one cannon shot is 6++ off the Tzaangors and the Thundered and Quarrelers just can't do enough damage to reduce the Tzaangor numbers (and of course they are healing). My general and Warriors finish off the Pink Horrors, but the Blue Horrors simply retreat out of range and start shooting the last wound or two off of my General. The sorcerer leaps over and mauls my Cannon crew.



The Tzaangors plow into the newly positioned Quarrelers and it's just a matter of time now. I've killed probably 17 or 18 of them, but there are still more than 10 on the table due to healing.



I plan to run Grimm and the Thunderers over to the tower as well, but my opponent gets the double turn, kills the Quarrelers and it's game over.



So tactically, issues I had:

  • Failed to keep units within range of the objective which was inexcusable
  • Didn't really realize how fragile warmachines were, should have hidden them behind the hill and moved them since they can apparently move and fire now?
  • Got tarpitted hard by the Pink/Blue Horrors
  • Target priority should have been on the Shaman instead of the Tzaangors early
  • Didn't properly prepare for the risk of the double turn

Part of this comes from not realizing what the units can do, but there is also a pretty obvious disparity between compendium armies (old lists) and the new hotness. Stuff like the Destiny Dice are stupidly powerful and do not scale to small games, he gets 9 dice everytime. Shooting into combat wasn't as bad as I thought, since shooting seems much weaker than melee for the points, but Characters and Warmachine crew are ridiculously easy to kill.

Tactically, I think I learned more about how this game is supposed to be played, and WHFB it ain't. It is literally a game of min-maxing your list to maximize the most broken abilities of your units which isn't exactly news, but the factions are so small you only have ten units or so to select from. Internal balance doesn't really matter when you only have two Battleline choices and one is clearly much better than another. They fixed summoning with the points cost, but healing is extremely powerful, especially when it brings back multiple multiwound models.

I need to do more playing to figure out how the 3" bubbles work. I've read that article I linked above and I get it. That's where the tactics are in this game, limited as they are.

The double turn was not particularly powerful for me (some unlucky dice helped this) but was game-winning for my opponent. I would always decline to take the double turn unless I could absolutely guarantee that it would be game changing. Decline, decline, decline until you can win the game with it.

Speaking of guarantees, in a game where you randomize with dice rolling, there are far too many guaranteed outcomes. Mortal wounds, first turn selection, unit abilities and bullshit like the Destiny Dice. My Dwarves had literally *none* of these, no Mortal Wound dealing, no mitigation against Mortal Wounds, etc... This goes back to min/maxing the lists but that is not an AoS unique problem.

TL;DR
The game is better than at launch but still flawed. Summoning is okay, healing is a bit broken. Mortal wounds remove all player agency and have no mitigation for 95% of units/armies. Internal balance in factions is bad, external balance across armies is worse.

I'm going to proxy some games with Sylvaneth and see if they are balanced better against the new books. I do this for science, and I do it for you my lovely goons.

This was rambling as gently caress , so are there any questions?

what an absolute miserable piece of poorly written poo poo this game is jfc

It seriously sounds like baby's first war game; It's like if you designed a war game but made no attempt to look at any other game made since the 90s

Cassa
Jan 29, 2009
The bubble thing reminds me a little bit of 40k positioning back when I played in tournaments before they put in shooting before you get charged, but dumber.

Less models = initiative seems ludicrously geared towards elite armies like sigmarines.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
Also, speaking as someone who plays x-wing (and no offence to you guys) but boy does it look poo poo having a bunch of unpainted minis on the table for a game like this.

This is the one reason I probably don't end up buying Runewars, because loving having to paint an entire army before the game looks good, ain't nobody got time for that.

Just Dan Again
Dec 16, 2012

Adventure!
All of the unintuitive aspects kill any slack I might have cut AoS for being 'skirmish-y.' All wargames wind up having some kind of weird aspect where the rules cut into how you'd expect a battle to play out, but that was such a huge number of instances where the rules defeated the game's concept it's almost beyond belief. Guess that's what happens when you write a brochure for a rulebook and expect a half-dozen follow-up sourcebooks to fix everything.

Runa
Feb 13, 2011

AoS rules were designed not to allow you to craft narratively interesting or tactically engaging battles but to frontload a bunch of synergies through unit selection to try to win before the game even starts. Victory is even more likely when your opponent is using a legacy army from WHFB as those are deliberately underpowered to encourage sales of newer models for this lovely, lovely game, and it's both painfully transparent and incredibly insulting to AoS players' intelligence.

Incidentally, not many AoS players notice or mind.

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer

thespaceinvader posted:

Also, speaking as someone who plays x-wing (and no offence to you guys) but boy does it look poo poo having a bunch of unpainted minis on the table for a game like this.

This is the one reason I probably don't end up buying Runewars, because loving having to paint an entire army before the game looks good, ain't nobody got time for that.

To be fair, my warriors also don't have arms. I am bad at gaming.

Just Dan Again posted:

All of the unintuitive aspects kill any slack I might have cut AoS for being 'skirmish-y.' All wargames wind up having some kind of weird aspect where the rules cut into how you'd expect a battle to play out, but that was such a huge number of instances where the rules defeated the game's concept it's almost beyond belief. Guess that's what happens when you write a brochure for a rulebook and expect a half-dozen follow-up sourcebooks to fix everything.

Yeah there is nothin intuitive about it. It was a bad call for my staunch warriors to charge his squishy but highly mobile and dangerous ranged unit because he could tarpit them with a cheap unit and guarantee with his Destiny Dice that the tarpit would last pretty much the whole game.

Xarbala posted:

AoS rules were designed not to allow you to craft narratively interesting or tactically engaging battles but to frontload a bunch of synergies through unit selection to try to win before the game even starts. Victory is even more likely when your opponent is using a legacy army from WHFB as those are deliberately underpowered to encourage sales of newer models for this lovely, lovely game, and it's both painfully transparent and incredibly insulting to AoS players' intelligence.

Incidentally, not many AoS players notice or mind.

I find it funny that one of the 'pros' that AoS boosters crowed about was that WAAC players couldn't min/max anymore and that you could play whatever you want, etc... Then the new books come out with huge combo bonuses for certain model selections and guess what you are right back to cookie cutter lists. It's actually worse because each faction now only has maybe eight to ten units.

Sylvaneth, for instance, gets:

Treemen - 3 variants
Dryads
Revenants - 2 Variants
Hunters - 3 Weapon Choices
Characters - 2 unique, one with 2 variants

That's it.

TKIY fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Feb 21, 2017

Eggplant Squire
Aug 14, 2003


Xarbala posted:

AoS rules were designed not to allow you to craft narratively interesting or tactically engaging battles but to frontload a bunch of synergies through unit selection to try to win before the game even starts. Victory is even more likely when your opponent is using a legacy army from WHFB as those are deliberately underpowered to encourage sales of newer models for this lovely, lovely game, and it's both painfully transparent and incredibly insulting to AoS players' intelligence.

Incidentally, not many AoS players notice or mind.

From before I quit playing Warhammer fantasy, 40k, and LOTR (so about four years ago) this is 100% how those games were played competitively. Every time my tournament playing friends talked up their latest army lists, they were describing how they would basically win by turn 2 (or were effectively unbeatable in the case of LOTR) unless they were hard countered. It's totally unsurprising that AoS is even worse and that the people that played GW games are cool with that. It's one of the reasons I quit because why bother to play this expensive game that's decided on a piece of paper?

Chill la Chill
Jul 2, 2007

Don't lose your gay


TKIY posted:

I find it funny that one of the 'pros' that AoS boosters crowed about was that WAAC players couldn't min/max anymore and that you could play whatever you want, etc... Then the new books come out with huge combo bonuses for certain model selections and guess what you are right back to cookie cutter lists. It's actually worse because each faction now only has maybe eight to ten units.

Sylvaneth, for instance, gets:

Treemen - 3 variants
Dryads
Revenants - 2 Variants
Hunters - 3 Weapon Choices
Characters - 2 unique, one with 2 variants

That's it.
Hm, seems about on par with kings of war. 🤔

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer

Chill la Chill posted:

Hm, seems about on par with kings of war. 🤔

Really? I'd have to look again I guess, this felt very restrictive to me.

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




GW fans are the same as WWE fans who don't know, or refuse to believe, that wrestling is not a real sport

Not a viking
Aug 2, 2008

Feels like I just got laid

Chill la Chill posted:

Hm, seems about on par with kings of war. 🤔

How so?

This is the KoW Elves list

Admiral Joeslop
Jul 8, 2010




Why is the AoS thread closed? Did this thread win the roll to go twice?

Chill la Chill
Jul 2, 2007

Don't lose your gay


Admiral Joeslop posted:

Why is the AoS thread closed? Did this thread win the roll to go twice?

Moola is our doombell+wizard combo.

Thirsty Dog
May 31, 2007

Admiral Joeslop posted:

Why is the AoS thread closed? Did this thread win the roll to go twice?

There was some in depth criticism made by someone who actually plays AoS and that cannot be.

Moola
Aug 16, 2006

NTRabbit posted:

GW fans are the same as WWE fans who don't know, or refuse to believe, that wrestling is not a real sport

there are people who still believe wrestling is real and not a soap opera drama?

TheChirurgeon
Aug 7, 2002

Remember how good you are
Taco Defender

Moola posted:

there are people who still believe wrestling is real and not a soap opera drama?

I'm sure there are some adults out there that do in the same way that some adults believe the earth is flat, but the short answer is "no, only children believe this"

TKIY
Nov 6, 2012
Grimey Drawer

Admiral Joeslop posted:

Why is the AoS thread closed? Did this thread win the roll to go twice?

I engaged in discussion.

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Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
It was pretty obvious from early on that all they wanted to do was to share lists and to post pictures of new releases. I'm not sure why they felt SA was the best place to do that when plenty of other hugboxes exist.

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