What are some valid criticisms against Age of Sigmar besides "old is good, new is dumb"?

What are some valid criticisms against Age of Sigmar besides "old is good, new is dumb"?

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The game is actually fun.

Just needs a system to balance games.

It's more expensive than buying the old one second hand.

Also, 40k conversion potential

My main gripe is about the new setting.
I loved the medieval/renaissance look of the Old world, it was at once familiar and fantastical. I've also played the setting since the days of Heroquest and I grew fond of how the setting treated Fantasy elements.

Now, it's a very shallow setting, full of bling and superheroes fighting at a cosmic scale. It's not as appealing.

This.

If they wanted to reboot the game, fine.

There was no need to throw out a beautiful, deep setting with decades of lore.

Want to rehaul your game with new rules that make it easier? Fine. But this was a mistake.

Also, the game lacks any semblance of balance whatsoever.

casual shit that destroyed old WHFB

You betcha!

This, to me, mostly.

The old world was a good setting and I liked the delicate politics of the empire and the danger of other nations ambitious and all of that. Now is just the fighty bits, in fantasy space.

read the original post, dipshit.

Killing WHFB is pretty inexcusable. Just because 8th took it in an awful direction model count wise doesn't mean that just can't be undone in a more practical way.

Also, those Sigmarines look horribly out of place. The concept of warriors of the gods of order is fine, the designs are not. Except, as others have mentioned, for use as 40k conversions.

There's a lot less variety to it, as far as I can tell. It's a lot simpler good versus evil, where WFB at least left it up in the air that anyone could find a reason to fight anyone.

point systems aren't the only way of creating balance, and don't necessarily do the job well (see all other GW games). They can give an excuse that something is balance when it clearly is not.

HOWEVER: having no rules or guidelines for creating balance was extremely stupid.
It's possible that the new plan could work pretty well: Casual Play (do whatever you think is fun), Scenario Play (unit choice based on scenario, for better stories, and adjusting how valuable a unit would be considered based on the scenario rules), and competative play (point system) would work.

Pie in the sky hope, the competitive point system adjust fairly frequency in response to emerging balance issues discovered by the community.

New setting is boring, non-detailed, and an uninspired mess

No points system and oversimplified rules kill the gameplay

It's bad design desu, if the units have the shield special ability in the same army and it changes what it does between the different guys it's possible to mix them in mid play, specially when they can change a lot. Magic does it right, AoS not so much. Plus it's true they will put a FaQ for a 4 page rules? How the fuck you botch that?

I personally have a soft spot for schlock, which Age of Sigmar is. Big grandiose statements about cosmic empires, gods of order and chaos and Paladins. I eat that shit up. The problem is when that setting is introduced ontop of the still-kicking body of Warhammer Fantasy, which I happened to like even more. Decades of lore and worldbuilding, a dark humor built into the setting that is absent from 40k and a smaller scale where it felt like a battle mattered.

Now it's just a mess and it's a shame.

>Also, those Sigmarines look horribly out of place.
they look horribly out of place against the old fantasy models.
They could work pretty well in their new super high fantasy world. If you look at Silver Tower they fit a lot better against that selection of models.

AoS should really have been created as it's own separate thing, with WHFB staying WHFB.

>shit setting
>siegmarines
>expensive as fuck models
>axing stuff left and right
>super simple rules
>40k blobs
>"bring what you got" games

If it had been a totally different game, I would have not given two fucks about it. But they had to burn down a game I liked (well, other than I didn't enjoy 8e that much, but 5e-7e were enjoyable enough for me) to make it. They might as well burn down 40k and replace it with 30k and shit rules. Also, half the legions will get axed and grey knights are now the heroes of the setting.

> if the units have the shield special ability in the same army and it changes what it does between the different guys it's possible to mix them in mid play, specially when they can change a lot.
no, because you expect that there is a 'rule for shield'.
It's a bad habit to apply to this game. Look at each unit as that unit, it behaves as itself. Not according to some broader large list of rules.

4 simple pages, and the unit itself.

It's a can be a hard habit to break, but the problem is your habit.

>how do you botch that
corner case clarification. You know Magic right, look at how long corner case ruling can get for a single card.

>point systems aren't the only way of creating balance, and don't necessarily do the job well (see all other GW games).
That's not the system's fault. If a unit or item is better or worse than its cost demands then that fault is on the backs of the designers and rulebook makers.

Mantic does it well tough, like in KoW.

that's what I meant. It requires proper execution, and can be bad when poor execution gives an excuse for imbalance.

if you've played 40k for a long time with a good group, then you know that often you have to balance the armies on top of the point system to make a good game.

Plus even a good system doesn't work as well when you want stuff like scenario play with heavy scenario rules. Being able to free yourself from that system when making a scenario encounter works too.

Then there is stuff like slot based balancing, and other systems.

I'm not saying point cost is bad, just that it's not the only way or the best way in all cases. It has downsides.

>awful art

wrong

The game requires players' input and self restriction to have the minimum semblance of balance.
Many artpieces and miniatures visibly suffer from being hastly put together.
The design of the stormcast eternals try to capture the feel of space marines in a fantasy setting and fail to translate the important bits while mismanaging others and bringing something that clashes with the actual model line's visuals.
The setting is left vague, so vague it often ends up being repetitive and void when comparing the expressed to the potential.
It upped the magical powerlevel of things while removing their lower levels from view, practically removing the contrast that is supposed to make such introductions interesting to begin with.
>if anything is possible, nothing is incredible

The times AoS does things well are when it is running on tested formulas from and applicable to the old setting, which makes you wonder on the point of the change.

Now, what are valid praises about Age of Sigmar that aren't "old is bad, new is good", "change is always for the best", "warhammer wasn't as profitable as 40000"?

>that
>not awful art
wrong

Is that good art for you? A souless speed paint piece?

Sitting like that is terrible on your back

Why is Ghal Maraz an adze?

again, it's casual and it killed old WHFB

>praise
Rules being free and most of the rules being on the unit cards, so minimal consulting of rulebook tables.

lots of interesting scenarios and tools for scenario building.

high wound monsters becoming weaker as they get hurts means they act more like units, and there is benefit to hitting them even if you can't bring them down right then.

Rules are incredibly simple
Design quality falling while prices rise
Setting has very little lore and it's impossible to take seriously

>generic monochrome 3 hour digital
pic related, good sigmar.

that anatomy holy shit

>If you look at Silver Tower they fit a lot better against that selection of models.
Now look at the OP pic and tell me with a straight face that a more classic looking knight wouldn't have looked more at home with the rest of the archetipical characters there in the place of the sigmarine.

>typical Sigmarine is weaker than a typical Ironjawz Ork boy
Sigmar took the best of humanity's warriors over hundreds of years and reforged them with sigmarite and celestial magics woven into their soul to arrive at an end product that's about as good as an ork.

This. The Old World may have been derivative, but it was well curated in it's derivativeness. They knew what to rip off, what to distill and what to exaggerate and how to synthesize.

okay, you got me, the face helmets are a little weird.
They aren't without historical precipitant, but the historical ones always looked weird to me too.

After that, it fits fine. And the other heroes in their are among the most normal of the hero selection.

squat chests

big arms and thighs

huge shoulders

That first piece you posted was a lot better.

>okay, you got me, the face helmets are a little weird.
It's not the face helmet, try again, or tell me if you need more hints

I want to ask what parts of Stormcast Eternals you feel were mangled from Space Marines.

>change is always for the best

GW shills confirmed for Chaos cultists.

Not him but...

They are clearly copies of those guys, even the color scheme it's spot one.

Pretty ancients too.

Massive pauldron, big flat easy painting army pieces, the general supersoldiers aesthetic.
It's made to make space marine players- who are the majority of sales for gw coming from space marine selling-look at the sigmarines and say "oh cool, it's like a space marine, but magic"

are you saying that image is a better fit?
Or are you upset about the filigree and scrolls on the sigmarine.
Because fit, and would show up on the more ornate of traditional knight armor. The gold color is also fine in that high color of an art piece and a setting.

Or him being big? because he's a little large, but big things like that show up in fantasy, and in the OP pic you can't even really tell how much bigger he is than a normal man.

Lazy game design. Absolutely no attempt at balance. Expensive minis.
I don't really care about AoS either way. I'm fine with people enjoying it, but I won't play it myself because those rules have absolutely zero depth and I don't like the minis and fluff.

Free and quick to learn rules, cheaper entry cost than WhFB, unit cards.

I need background on this guy
why did they give a fantasy sanguinius rebrearher hoses, that's so out of setting it's terminally autistic

>Fantasy sanguinius.
He is some heroe of the blood angels I think, Dante perhaps?

Goddamnit GW, YOU DONT HAVE TO PUT FUCKING SPACE MARINES IN ALL YOUR GAMES!
This is one of my biggest problems , stupid space marine-not space marine bullshit.

Fantasy?
That's just how they look isn't it?
games-workshop.com/en-GB/Sanguinary-Guard
or
games-workshop.com/en-GB/Blood-Angels-The-Sanguinor-Exemplar-of-the-Host

>If they wanted to reboot the game, fine.

A reboot would also have been very controversial.

That is Dante, chapter master of the Blood Angels in 40k. Has nothing to do with Fantasy or AoS, outside gold armor.

That's not dante, but it's a unit that largely took inspiration from him

Are you asking me what parts were translated badly or what makes the stormcast space marines copies?

>A reboot would also have been very controversial.
Less so, though, and expanding on a "setting-historical" timeframe would have let them distance themselves from the End Times debacle.

I don't speak for everybody, not having played Warhammer Fantasy (Battles, I have played WFRP) before it was shut down, but I would probably have taken the plunge if they'd decided to run a new grand worldwide campaign set during the Age of the Three Emperors or something.

Imperial infighting while Vlad runs about being fucking awesome? Yes please.

I'm saying that the face is not the main problem of sigmarines

It is proportions of armor (especially chest and arms), the abdominal plate not being fused or interlocking over rather than under the chestpiece, the decorations running on a completely different direction than the rest of the setting's near designs (stylized and geometrical rather than curvilinear and detailed), the general lack of soft surfaces like mail and capes to give volume to the model without running into robotic shapes and the nonsensical pauldrons that lose even that little logic the 40k's ones had.

Anatomy you say?

>complaining about the number of shields in the game
I know you
go back to SA you faggot

They could have done all sorts of things, creep the lore forward, do the end times stuff but have it way more drawn out, moving forward like 100 years before everything ends just have Sigmar show up with his angels and start kicking shit down etc.

Then run a year or two of Fantasy (with only minor rules updates) and Sigmar both existing side by side, Sigmar being the Skirmish game, Fantasy the war scale rank and flank game.

No you twat, he is saying that "it's new therefore it is bad' is not a legitimate argument.

He's right. New stuff is not inherently worse (or better) than old stuff.

No points

Awful WoW art

WHFB was already close to death. Killing it off to make a big spectacle for AOS was the only value it had left.

fluff =/= crunch

Same reason Space Marines are chronic rape machines in the fluff but shit tier units on the table.

>it's bad because it is monochrome

>the only value it had left
It had value in its rich world, you cunt.

That was the main value it always had.

The battle-game was always a mediocre forgettable sideshow.

Less colours is inherently lazier than more colours

The setting lives on in vidya at least

>this is what idiots believe

Ever deviantart oc donut steel digagrees

I think the problem isn't really with Age of Sigmar, but with364 what they threw out the window to "make room" for it.

People just miss their favored setting, especially because the new one isn't really there to replace the old at all.

No it isn't, it's an artistic choice

More colours doesn't mean more effort

I can't believe you actually said this!

The parts that were translated badly. I don't honestly know much about their backstories, but they seem fairly obviously Space Marine-y, and I don't see how you could get that wrong - big supersoldiers, brave beyond human norms, big weapons.

I found some high effort art that you will like

More colours is better right?

The books are good so far

That's just because 40k is a bad game. Marines are rape machines in EA.

Isn't Age of Sigmar just a test-bed for what GW is eventually planning for 40k?

I hope so

40k is a fucking mess

Yes but it's a selling and economically working mess, popular with the consumer base.
Although apparently that doesn't matter as much as I've thought.

>proportions
>looks at everything else in the picture
>decorations being a completely different style
>looks the dwarf axe and cleric hammers
>pauldrons
>looks at the barbarian behind the sigmarine in the OP pick
sure, totally doesn't fit there at all.

I don't think there are actually negroes in Warhammer? There's definitely Arabs and Chinamen, but I don't think there's an Africa equivalent.

Is that the new mount for the Stormcasts? Looks about right.

What do you think skaven are?

You're thinking Orcs

>Live in sewers.
>Can't trust anyone.
>Always try to invade "The world above"
Obviously mexicans.

Nah. Greenskins are thuggish and unintelligent, sure, but skaven are ungrateful, backbiting treacherous scum who breed far faster than is sensible and whose dangerous forays into technology tend to blow up in their faces, put too much emphasis on numbers and steal whatever they can get their hands on.

You know that the effort of adding colours is not just the act of slapping them on canvas but also to orchestrate them to have the ideal contrasts and associations?

It is a whole additional part of painting that monochromatic stuff ignores, making the use of it needing objectively more attention than a similar work without colours.

Or are you telling me that drawing stickmen is not lazier than also drawing more realistic details because stickmen can be an artistic choice or because some people make details wrong?

>what are southlanders and pigmies?

Total lack of any balancing mechanic whatsoever, for those who want to add even the slightest competitive element to their competitive game.

Personally, I find TLOS to be an abbomination, and now that they've gone FULL TLOS, and literally stated that the basing doesn't matter, instead of the inverse that used to be true, I happen to find this a significantly bad design choice.

Otherwise, I don't mind the aesthetic.