An honest discussion about AOS

I don't particularly like the focus on new factions. None of them appeal to me and wish they'd kept up support for existing ones. It's in an odd situation where it's not quite ending the last game but it also doesn't continue support. I'd have less dislike if they'd just flat declared old models wouldn't be usable rather than this 'sort of but not really'

The only Kharadron mini that seems on the bad side design wise to me is the character model, and even that kind of gained some charm when you learn the backstory is that his father never made it as a crew member on one of the ships and so he vowed to attain one of the top positions in society.

Even the aesthetics I don't see as too bad when you realize that past the ornamentation the mechanical bits that are on the model either serve to power their weapons or their breathing system. They generally describe as going into environments that are corrosive or otherwise unhealthy and thus need gear to help them to breathe.

It's a bit disingenuous of them to continue selling them when in a few years they'll either stop supporting them or they'll just look so out of place with the rest of the range.

The setting doesn't appeal to me. I much preferred WHFB. WHFB could've done well but for GW's greed in the first place, so I'm a little sore about that.

There are already a ton of skirmish games out there I wasn't playing. I have no ill will toward those who enjoy AoS, but it isn't something that appeals to me in the slightest, so it's basically in the same category as the lord of the rings battle game GW made in that it's a product I'm never going to pick up.

Memes aside.

The lore doesn't appeal to me.
The aesthetic doesn't appeal to me (I like historical look-like armors).
Moving thousand of minis one by one doesn't appeal to me (I like shitty infantry).
Making combos with units rules over positioning units doesn't appeal to me.
Find the models over designed.
Models are too expensive for what they are.

I mean, I could keep going but the real issue is that we already have 40k, I already have mordheim, and I have lot of systems that do this skirmish level of game better, then why would I play this?

I'm not going to defend fantasy because it wasn't a perfect game (far from it), but it was a game in its own right.

When're they gonna bring back Mordheim/Necromunda type stuff? Like, Kill Team is fun, but I wanted even more narrative.

Is that Shadow War thing supposed to be the next step in that? I haven't looked into it, I figured it was just like Silver Tower or whatever.

I love putting tons of time into character minis. It's more personal and less expensive.

Yeah shadow war is the next step for kill team. Regarding mordheim I play starstruck city in my local store (mantic fan made mordheim), people got insane when I showed the game on the store and now we have people double the people playing minis in the store (the owner is now bringing reaper stuffs because how good is he doing now).

Except it's not a skirmish game.

At risk of being called a shill, I genuinely do love the game. I find the lore a lot of fun and refreshing, rather than being yet another 'muh tolkien'. The game itself is actually really solid, and I have played a lot of games, tried several, and AoS is the one I keep coming back to. The models are still GW quality. My reaction to their aesthetics range from 'meh' to 'fucking awesome'.

Again I am being honest, even with me trying trying so many different skirmish and mass wargames on the market, AoS is the one I keep returning to.

>rather than being yet another 'muh tolkien'.
fantasy was never tolkien tho

lizardman, giant rats, ogre kingdoms, humans at Renaissance level tech, orcs were different with actual personalities, and so on.

I got into the hobby about 2 years ago, starting with 40K. I liked the background of fantasy, but I literally came into it at the time age of sigmar began, and I was never really a fantasy guy to begin with, more of a sci-fi.

That said, I loved the lore, as Warhammer just has this special blend to make it engaging. I was, and still am in some regards, mixed about the Old World being gone (more because of the minis they axed, had they kept those, I probably wouldn't have minded as much). That said, I really enjoy the lore in AoS, it is absolutely undeveloped just as WHF was in its beginning, and any comparison to the glory of the WHF world will result in it being blown out in that regard. And yet, I find it great in its own right, and I think many would have had it not followed on WHFB and been its own thing. I think, while it never will occupy that same spot as WHFB did, it will grow into its own, and I think the GHB and especially the Kharadron overlords really began to sold people on both the game and the universe. I love 40K, but after playing AoS I realized it did something more important than any other game - the models played like the fluff entailed that they did.

When I place a vampire lord on the table (I play VC/Death), s/he fights like a vampire lord would. When I have a horde of skeletons to command, they fight, die, and return like the never ending hordes of mooks that they should be. I love the Old World, I bought old lorebooks, play TWW, etc to enjoy it, but I enjoy both in their own right. I'm always mixed on which universe I enjoy more, and I love some of the older models, and maybe AoS should have been 9E, but at least the universe lives on in many respects.

Age of Sigmar may be a mixed bag, but I think it has a lot of potential, and it paved the way for a better grim dark future - soon my Blood Angels will play like Blood Angels, not gimped marines, and orks? Roight and proppah they soon will be!

I only recently got into it to take a break from 40k until 8th arrives. I had never played a game of WHFB or AoS so I was coming in fresh. I had a demo game with a GW stafer and immediately bought a flesh eater army. I found the straight-forwardness of it to be really refreshing, turns were snappy because there was no need to go pawing through codex and supplement, no need to look up charts. Information was accessable and simple to understand.

Having said that, I don't blame people who were there in the WHFB era who feel like they've been passed over. I have nothing to compare my experience to in regards to WHFB so I'm probably part of GWs target demographic; lots of disposable income, ignorant of WHFB.

Are you serious? It started out as a mashup of tolkien and moorcock clone. I get it deviated from the original inspiration plenty as time went on to become a pretty good and interesting setting. I loved it plenty. I do miss it, but seriously, plenty of tolkien elements outside of the fantasy races were there. AoS tries to be as different as possible and still remain high fantasy, and I think that is what turns a lot off to it.

Im a 40k player, never played AoS, i love the character design though, thats the thing that gets me interested in it most. Is AoS just a basic version of 40k in terms of play? It seems very easy in comparison

I would say in comparison (especially with 8E coming soon), the phases are similar, you certainly won't be lost. The way combat and stuff is handled is something you'll just need to adjust to (but again, 4 pages of rules, easy flow). There are still technically special rules, but they only apply to your dudes. Not only are they more special because of this (e.g. skeletons get banners to resurrect them, a banner on a free guild increases bravery, etc.), you simply need only look at their stats to see the rule, not flip through pages of them.

I put it this way, but many will scream at this: AoS, and soon 40K, is simple, but complex, and 40K, and from what I hear, WHFB, was just complicated. It was not unfun, I still enjoy 7E, but it was needlessly complicated, and that's why 8E feels like a breath of fresh air (in addition to Gee Dubz honest to God becoming a better company overall)

For what it is, it's an alright little game.
It should have been a specialist or beginner game for fantasy though, rather than a replacement.

So by itself, it's probably a 6/10, alright game
But as the replacement for fantasy, it's probably 3/10, and would be completely forgotten about if it wasn't Warhammer

Fair enough, i agree in that 7th ed can be fucking annoying, so im excited to see 8th adopt some AoS style stats

You see, I disagree entirely: WHFB in its 8th edition format just did not lend itself to being a flagship game for GW. The rules were too unwieldy, the start up fee was silly, starting with at least 80$ for just the coee books, and than the necessary 40+ infantry mini's to needed play the game at a acceptable level. And than, add on the tenious release cycle, where certain armies get left in the dirt, and its just a disaster.

Meamwhile, AoS is ridicously easy to get into: The rules are free, every unit profile is free, and all you need to do is buy the minis.

I would have liked to see WHFB go on as a specialist side game, but its clear that without drastic measures, it had no place as the alternative to 40k

I got a question about fantasy. I'm a 40k player so I'm used to lots of terrain on my battle fields, blocking LoS, etc. The batreps that I see on YouTube for Fantasy (and AoS as well) always have the armies basically lining up against each other on the long ends of the board, with maybe an artillery piece in cover, and then just charging into each other.

Is cover not as big a deal in Fantasy as 40k? Is maneuvering to hit the sides of enemy formations more important so they leave the middle of the field so denuded of cover?

I'll agree with you that the game was a bit cumbersome, but I think there were ways to cut it down without reverting to such a basic level.
The free rules and army books could have been done all the same in fantasy, and I don't really think the cost of entry was all that much compared to 40k.

I think if they had come out with 9th edition, with some streamlining of some rules, and free armybooks and rulebooks, it would have been much better.

As someone who has never played tabletop anything in his life, I have to say any setting whose angel equivalent is aztec lizardmen made of stars with lightning for blood riding dinosaurs under the command of undead space frogs has got my seal of approval. If I'd gotten into wargaming instead of cardboard crack I'd be all over AoS.

I honestly like it a lot better than 7th Ed 40k in terms of rules. I find the gameplay a lot more fun, and I like the focus on gaming it has.

I would play it a lot more, but not many of the armies appeal to me, and for some reason all the AoS models in Australia are insanely expensive compared to 40k (eg: Kharadron Overlord Arkanauts: $77 AUD for 2 simple sprues, vs virtually any other 40k Army line troop, $45 AUD).

All in all, I really like AoS, and I'd probably play it more if it wasn't for the model prices compared to 40k.

I am probably going to start a Kharadron Overlords army soon, and just have it be fairly small, eg 500 points. Thinking a Frigate, Some Arkanauts, some of those balloon-on-back guys, and maybe an Aetheric navigator.

>I'd rather have less options than more

How do you guys remember how to breathe?

Shadow War IS Necromunda, except for a few rules tweaks

By looking on this thread I'm starting to see a correlation between 40k players and AoS. Obviously can't state anything with this sample, but its kinda interesting to think that most of AoS players come from 40k.

Just watch KoW, in my experiense most matches of fantasy and aos end up with killing blobs on the middle.

>end up with killing blobs on the middle.
Huh, hasn't been my experience with it. Battles have been pretty dynamic, especially with the GHB scenarios.

Well, a few things.

Firstly Fantasy is an abstraction. The number of troops used in most Fantasy games (50 - 150) would be unlikely to fight in formations like they do. Fantasy's tactics are meant to represent regiments, thousands of troops instead of hundreds.

So for a start, if you imagine these armies being that large they would never fight in a city or a village, they would pick a nice field somewhere that maybe has some kind of geographical advantage to either side. So that's one reason for having little terrain.

As you say, the other is that Fantasy is won and lost in movement. You want some terrain in the middle to give people options to bait their opponent and to block LoS, but overall it's about out outmaneuvering him. Terrain just annoys people because too much will restrict your manoeuvring options.

Lastly, breaking your regiments up to get them over a fence or something is so fucking annoying. People usually just remove the terrain rather than take everyone off their movement tray.

No that's AoS you're thinking of.

wow, how rare a sight is this? Fully painted Fantasy armies!

They're not mine unfortunately, I would never pick such a boring scheme for my Bretonnian army.

Agincourt blue and red or bust.

I tried it for a few months.

Cons: It kind of got rid of all the reasons I liked fantasy. It wasn't terribly fun to play and balance is non-existent. The power creep made the game progressively less balanced. The generals handbook was pretty badly thought out for points and rules. The game got way too simple and just kind of felt like bringing large toys to a table and bashing them against other toys for fun rather than a strategy game. The names and lore are very cringe worthy to listen to or read about. They basically nerd raged and flipped the table on the old setting. Far too much pay to win and large models. Dwarfs and sigmarines look awful. No trays sucks. Models are too busy. Nickle and dime you for everything and it is very expensive.

Pros: Some new models are very pretty, especially the Iron Jaws. Decent community where I live. Lore may get better as it evolves. In a few editions it may be fun to play again.

This was my overall feeling. I just felt insulted that the already thin veil of trying to make a good game was completely dropped.

They always said they wanted to make miniatures and sell them for a profit and the AoS rules allow them to do this with minimal fuss. They've dropped all pretence of trying to make a game in exchange for just giving people a reason to buy 3 of a kit rather than the 1 a collector would want.

Oh well, there comes a time when you realise you're not GW's audience anymore and you just have to move on to another game.

My only advice for AoS players is put your models on squares. If GW is willing to drop the game that made them they may one day drop other and by putting your models on squares you're giving yourself an insurance policy.

That wasn't remotely what was said. What was said was 'If they don't intend to provide ongoing support for the factions, they should just openly say they are not armies for it any more'

Well, it's not really surprising. Most WHFB fans either quit the hobby entirely or turned to older editions, Kings of War, or Malifaux/Infinity/other games.

It's really not anything beyond mediocre. The ruleset is poorly balanced and involves very little in the way of thinking. You are better off playing other fantasy skirmish games.

The setting itself is very uninspired, and more proof that everyone who is creative left GW a long time ago. The huge dudes in armor and general MOBA aesthetic that they are going for doesn't help.

Regardless line battles and the setting setting were one thing that helped make WHFB unique. Now there isn't much that separates it from any other fantasy skirmish smorgasbord beyond being made by GW.

Thank you for the thorough answer, I appreciate a view from the inside.

I think they took the lore in the wrong direction. If they discussed the realms as an actual divine/arcane concept where the whfb deities resided, and the battles fought their as the million year conflict, I would have been satisfied.

But instead GW squats 1 setting in favor of another, when they could've easily given us 1 more.

Implying an hero shooting an arroe is in fact destroying 10000 soldiers instead if one.

nice try faggot

You can't be that dense can you?

The ruleset is meh. There's better skirmish games and AoS is one of the slowest due to all the special rules. If it was supposed to be a mass battle game then it fails entirely, for the same reason and the lack of movement/direction-based gameplay. Also the game relies nearly entirely on luck, making strategy and planning mostly useless.

In terms on aesthetics it's not my tastes, but I understand why some people like it, it's epic and zany, with steampunk dwarves and marvel asgardians.

In terms of lore it looks like diarrhea.

You what ?

Can confirm, most of the former fantasy players there are into KoW. It's a nice little game, Mantic know what they are doing with their rules and they listen to the community.

it is compared to 40k.

>grey AoS tide
Why do AoS players never paint their minis ?

Mass battle games are based on movement rather than cover. Usually on a games of WHFB (6th edition) or Kings of War you would first try to put yourself in a good position so you can get a good charge without getting trapped, then charge by turn 2 or 3 and the first combats would be solved by turn 3 or 4 freeing the centre for more movement, combat and the last turns would be mostly objective capturing or denying, or mop what's left on the table.

It's more a GW thing to be honest.

Relying on churn and burn does this.

>a GW thing
More like a general wargamer thing. Unless you've got a really top shop, most tables will be seas of bare/just primed plastic/pewter.

It's especially galling in infinity, because they tend to combine unpainted models with unpainted MDF terrain.

Compared to warmahordes, I see more 40k and aos painted armies than anything. Most tournaments and events require some percentage of painting, but warmahordes does not from what ive seen. It's pretty fucking depressing. That and their 'pieces of felt that are rocks and ponds' terrain.

My store has a lot of really nice terrain and I feel guilty for putting unpainted models on the board sometimes.
I still struggle with the motivation to paint, though.

Yeah me too. I try to get my stuff painted as much as possible. More often than I like to admit, I will have an army that is mostly painted, with a few unpainted models or a unit or something. But I have never fielded an entirely unpainted army. It's depressing facing guys who do bring them, even moreso if its the same unpainted army that I played a year ago.

Sounds like people just sucked at the game

People should really stop listening to slavposter

Honestly it's just a pretty unremarkable game. If GW wasn't releasing that much it would be deader than death.

I disagree. It feels less like a card game than warmahordes or malifaux.

the point is moot, at least Warmahorde and Malifaux have some player agency, not everything is lolrandumz.

Not wanting to start an argument, but I disagree as well. There isn't any more lolrandumz in aos than any other wargame. You are still a slave to the dice, and a smart player will always beat a player who thinks everything is random. Of course random initiative is contentious in this regard. But a smart player doesn't find it so random. I've lost several games, and none of them I felt we're because my opponent got double turns, it's because I got outplayed and didn't prepare for them properly.

So I disagree. There's as much strategy and tactical depth in AoS as in many other good games. If you disagree, that's cool. There's really nothing I can say to convince you other wise. It's perhaps your experience playing it, or maybe it's prejudice, but in my experience, it's a fine game and one I recommend to new players often.

the miniature designers compromise quality of concepts for ease of sculpting in cad
rulewise balance is yet not found and the tactical choices are limited by a ruleset that moves towards simplicity alone
the good parts of the background are the ones that the players make themselves a few tidbits of ideas here and there.

40k 8th edition is shaping up to be the shift from whfb to aos, but better in every single way
hopefully aos will also benefit from that with its second version, but the design choices of certain armies are now set in stone as is the detachment from a solid fluff to expand on, best they can do is introduce alternative designs to the existing flawed ones and reintroduce old elements of the fluff piece by piece.
which is what they look like are doing so I'm rather optimist for its future.

the game is otherwise in a good spot to be played now, to get started on and to improve on; better supported than fantasy has been in years.

If I wanted to play WH40K, I'd play WH40K. Not Sigmarines.

WFRPGfag here, never played the wargame. I like it, if only because it's a fresh change of pace from GW jacking off their gloom'n'doom boners. The setting feels epic, and you get the sense that the forces of Order actually stand a chance of coming out ahead for once.

Don't get me wrong, though, I still don't like that GW tanked the Old World to create it. I'm pretty sure that making an interesting setting was entirely an accident and that their real goal was to simply shit out something with more easily-copyrightable names and to add Fantasy Space Marines because GW has an unhealthy fucking obsession with the bastards.

So I like the setting they made but I think they did it for entirely the wrong reasons.

>I preferred the gothic low fantasy (for the most part) aesthetic that fantasy had going on and I miss the Old World.
Same here.
Old warhammer was one of the last "80s low fantasy" settings.
AoS is one of those souped up warcraft style settings.

>mashup of Tolkien and Moorcock
>hurrr it has elves and chaos in it so it must be a copy of those
Just stop

Memes aside, it is shit.

>all these people playing
>all these battle reports on jewtube
>all these people having fun

GAME SUX BRUH

>c-come to the store please! you ll see people screaming and having f-fun!
GW please

>battle reports
There are battle reports of oldhammer and 40k too, and it is going to be squated soon.
Your point is..?

It's established fact that WFB's setting stole Chaos wholesale from Moorcock. I'd temper the accusation of ripping off Tolkien with the knowledge that everyone fucking did at the time, but still.

Here here, feels good to be a lizardmen player, we get lore changes that are not terrible but also not insignificant while not trying to fix what wasn't broken in the models

Oh look another thread full of people who've never played AoS complaining about it.

You hit it on the head. I have 3 armies for WFB and just bought units here and there for 8th. 8th is GREAT to play as it's a mega-minigame, so much fun with massive armies on the table, but holy shit to buy into the game to get to the amount of stuff you need to play for it to be fun was insurmountable. AOS is at least a try to make that barrier way fuckn lower, even though the rules/play is not interesting at all for the WFB players.

Things I like: Ease of use, multiple friends liked it enough that we all started at the same time. (Three had dabbled in Fantasy previously, I had played 40k). I love the detail of the new models and the quality of their fitment. I like the high fantasy aesthetic and appreciate GW taking old races in new design directions.

Things I dont like: Cost of models, Models not as flexible to pose or kit bash, lore isnt inspiring enough for me to invest my time into but is open enough for me to tell my own stories with my models.

Overall I've been happy with the game. I started 40k at the tail end of 3rd Edition and could never get a rhythm going in terms of playing because I didnt have any friends who were into it and was too young to shepherd myself around to stores on a whim. Seemed like every time I tried getting back into it there was a new rulebook and spending $70 on rules was a turn off for a young broke kid who relied on Christmas and Birthday gifts to build his army.

Having friends who are into it makes the game worthwhile in and of itself. I now have 6000 points of StD:K/DoK/Bloodbound/Chaos Daemons/Monsters alone not to mention Stormcast Eternals.

>honest discussion
Never played it, models look cool but a little to ridiculous. Setting is full retard saturday morning cartoon with none of the niche appeal of WHFB filthy middle ages. Not about to drop hundreds of dollars and hours to find out if it might be fun.

As long as they stay out of /aosg/ I'm happy.

So did Advanced Fighting Fantasy. Everyone was stealing from Tolkien and Moorcock in the early days of fantasy games.

Ive found that the aus price on the overlords was pretty fair considering that they are the same price as you're old-school unit of 10 disposessed longbeards/hammerers and ironbreaker/irondrake kits

I don't play AoS, but by God are their models superb. I use Stormcasts in my DnD game as members of a paladin conclave. I use the orc megaboss as my Ork warboss in 40k with some conversions and the Mistweaver for my Harlequins. But I especially ADORE pic related. Holy crap, a finely detailed barbarian that doesn't look evil. And that SMIRK! That tastefully arrogant smirk! AoS has amazing minis, if anything.

Really lad that model? It just looks so boring

you're taste is shit
also you're waifu is

While fantasy stuff appealed to me, I never like Fantasy's square bases and none of the factions really were all that interesting to me. Some of the models looked like complete ass, so I went to 40k for a while.

Now, I'm only being drawn into it because of 8th edition. So I'd rather play Age of Sigmar in the 40k universe instead of the Fantasy universe.

Slowly getting back in. The early 'big guy' locally (back when the rules were 'bring everything') tromped all over the newer players due to zero balance and no points..

I got suckered in to play him. I fielded nearly as many Chaos foot as he had figures and then put down a dozen old metal cavalry, Another dozen drgon-ogres, about 30 chaos centaurs and some two dozen beasts of varying types. He conceded without a die roll and I still had Giants, first run chaos dwarfs, chaos goblin bow (100) and I hadn't put the first Daemon, Minotaur, Ogre or sorcerer on the board. A crappy point system was cobbled together ahead of GW's attempt and the 'bring everything' games ended.

Please note that I started when GW was just making card counters for WH 1.

Having played a few 'point' games, the rules have weaknesses and the point values bite. Magic could be better, but all three are traditional GW weaknesses, unlikely to change. They seem almost proud of crappy rules.

The new figs are so much better than my metals, particularly the Daemons. Damn them for the new greater daemons, forcing me to replace the set on the display shelf! I traded my old metal Daemonettes to a friend for some new ones (He's a much better painter) and am priming new pink horrors this day.

Maybe one day GW will actually publish a good game for their figs.

Same here. Games of 40K will be shorter so I am looking forward to that.

I don't see what you are getting at.

AOS GOT RPG!

community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/246244-games-workshop-the-makers-of-zweihänder-grim-perilous-rpg-partners-for-the-age-of-sigmar-the-rpg/

Not flawless, but still easy to pick up and most ppl I know have fun playing it - including myself.
I'm really looking foward to GH 2.0 that will probably ballance this game and change it course just a bit into right direction.

Only dissapointing thing is that they cut-off all the fluff, and now we're fighting "somewhere" in mortal realms, in places with no names, heroes etc. Names in GH are useless, because we have no idea what's there besides "skellingtons realm and river of ghosts" or "big forest of tree-people".
I wish I could have old world with AoS rules, and named heroes connected to places they came from and matters they fight for.

I asked at least 10 people if they know AoS fluff, and noone had a clue, but nobody care tho - they're just having fun with chill game.

It seems to me that WFB came from pre videogaming, pre mmo, pre weeb era. An era of true grognards in a time when art, music and story really fit the scene encompassing heavy metal, comics, animation, monty python, traditional english and french odditry, drugs, horror etc...
AOS is decades later rinsed of all life juice and reduced to the capacity of average leage of legends player / kickstarter shitbox. but with a huge budget. all the good creatives have left i guess. art and lore seems done by deviant art tier 12 year olds with expensive computers.

Ravioli, ravioli....

>easy to pick up and kinda fun
>no lore

go play LoL or CSGO

AoS is a fucking disgrace and are just whoring out the GW name.

Yeah, they stole chaos. They also used elves and dwarves from tolkien.

What about the rest of the setting? You know, the most important faction, Empire, which is nothing like humans depicted in tolkien or moorcock? How about the lizardmen? The skaven? The orcs which are absolutely nothing like tolkien orcs?

Saying that fantasy is "muh tolkien" is fucking retarded in every way. It has about as many similarities as age of sigmar. As in, both have elves, orcs, and dwarves, and that's about where the similarities end.

>rare
?

I see them all the time

analogy:
WFB / d2

analogy:
AoS / d3

>generic barbarian dude
well it certainly fits a D&D game