Which system, as it stands now, has the better rules?
Which system lends itself to high level tournament play?
Which system has the better army composition rules?
Which system, if you play both, do you prefer and why?
Seems to me that the character rule in 40k is just a never ending clusterfuck of clarifications and loopholes.
What do you prefer? Protections for your characters or just relying on careful planning and tactics to keep them safe?
40k has the better rules for list construction; AoS is in between settings and it shows. A lot of armies were arbitrarily split into multiples factions of about 5 entries each (some as few as a single model), some are in the process of being squatted or just receiving no attention at all.
If you had a reasonable skaven collection, for example, clanrats are only "battleline" (troops) for verminus, and only skryre and pestilens have formation support, etc. My 3000 points worth of skaven don't actually collect into a coherent age of sigmar list.
40k stepped back a lot of the formation nonsense that essentially ruined 7th, and streamlined a lot of rules for the better. It still has issues and I don't consider either to be an especially tight ruleset, but I've found 40k to be more fun because the list construction is more forgiving and involves less handholding.
Also, AoS rules are simple until the dozen situational abilities that you need to do bookkeeping for. I miss the universal special rule system, as opposed to the "every unit has a wall of text to explain a rend mechanic" system.
AoS felt like 1 step forward 2 steps back in a lot of respects. It's still a fun game, though.
Overall I like the rules in 40k better because there are a couple crippling rules in AoS, and i find 40k is better supported so that game breaking combos are removed quicker.
Random player turn order every game turn is the worst thing ever as literally every game I have player where the player who goes 2nd turn 1, and then goes first turn 2 has won the game.
The list building in AoS is pretty much a joke and I find that the battle line rules really favor the new armies GW has put out while screwing over legacy armies.
Stormcast Eternal units for example benefit from the current system where you have to have x # of battleline units because they have squad leaders in their units that typically are stronger than the rest of their unit combined.
This means that increasing the squad size and denying a free squad leader is actively hurting yourself plus all the usual benefits to MSU
Meanwhile legacy units typically have garbage battleline units that get a significant bonus after tripling the squad size.
This ends up meaning you are at a minimum buying 3 10 man squads that are way inferior to a single 30 man squad, but the cost of upgrading those 3 squads to a 30 man squad for a total of 90 models is far too costly while these improved units are also significantly weaker than other units they could have been taking instead.
In my area we have house ruled that you have to buy 3 iterations of a battle line so you can either take 3 msu units or 1 big unit as legacy armies tend to be weaker anyway.
At first I hated the fact damage would spill over from a slain model in AoS, but after dealing with the fact that 40k has no damage spilling over I have come to appreciate it more.
I'd personally prefer it if the changed it so that damage spilled over at a 2:1 rate rounded down, but I realize this is too "complex" to really be implemented.
can't forgive 8th for bringing back Move as a characteristic, and a lot of the other RT/2E-era feel to the current rules is... irritating
AP was fine, for example - you knew instantly whether something would likely get through your armor, but now we're back to save mods, and that means, sooner or later, 2D6 saves and 1+s.
feels like it's very much a dynamic, changing background again, where they're not just introducing new toys like 5E-7E, but there's actual background change going on the way it was back in the day before people realized Move is retarded
not sure about Wounds being an all-type characteristic; I liked HP, but I do like the attempt to streamline everything
i just happen to think 4 facings and hard to kill with a bolter but not with massed bolters was the optimum amount of differentiation between light vehicles and heavy infantry
personally i blame the Tau players and their endless fuckin monstrous creatures in 7E
>In my area we have house ruled that you have to buy 3 iterations of a battle line so you can either take 3 msu units or 1 big unit as legacy armies tend to be weaker anyway.
I like this rule. It wouldn't actually help me because I just run multiple giant blocks of my Glade Guard and Eternal Guard and always wanted to do that, but it'd be handy for e.g. my friend's Skinks.
>can't forgive 8th for bringing back Move as a characteristic, and a lot of the other RT/2E-era feel to the current rules is... irritating
Why though? Move characteristics are great, different things should move at different speeds. Wyches should run faster than plaguebearers.
We have tried out multiple different house rules covering a bunch of stuff and that one is by far the one people like the most.
Well the one that people like the most after not rolling for random turn order which just about everyone does.
>Which system, as it stands now, has the better rules?
You are going to get opinions on this, but for me it's AoS honestly. And this is from a guy who got started in wargaming in 4e. AoS is just simple and elegant. Even all the things people mostly get riled up about, like random turn order, no SvT, range attacks in combat, I feel work as a whole in the system. I got excited when 40k went to a simpler system in 8e, but it just felt like a game where the designers of AoS lost sight of what make AoS good.
>Which system lends itself to high level tournament play?
Honestly, AoS again. There is imbalance issues in it, but nowhere near as large as the gap between certain types of armies in 40k. I think 8e is the best rendition of 40k rules so far, but the balance is still as terrible as ever. I have had very few completely one-sided battles in AoS, and still have them friequently in 40k.
>Which system has the better army composition rules?
40k does have this because of individual costs of models and units and their options. So there is more granularity here which listbuilders like most of all. AoS list building is very simple, which isn't a bad thing, but often it leaves people wanting.
>Which system, if you play both, do you prefer and why?
AoS, for the above reasons.
>Seems to me that the character rule in 40k is just a never ending clusterfuck of clarifications and loopholes.
That's the problem.
>What do you prefer? Protections for your characters or just relying on careful planning and tactics to keep them safe?
The latter. AoS does it better.
AoS just feels pointless to me. I don't like how it flows and I don't like the big combats that form in the middle. I hate that you wound on a flat value. A goblin wounding both a greater daemon and a human on a 5+ is stupid and I don't like it.
40k still has more variation
I disagree. I am a pretty big fan of it and find myself playing it more than 40k lately. Also the big combats in the middle is really not as much of an issue as people say it is. Unique scenarios, even open war cards, really give variation to games. Sometimes the pile-ups happen in the middle, but it's few and far between. Besides, I will take a middle table pile-up over 40k's turn 1 shooting alpha strike any day.
Sure 40k has more variation, but more variation doesn't necessarily = better. And 40k variation just still seems too much. The variety of dataslates and their unique interactions creates enough variation, but on top of that we also have so many rules with so many exceptions and a constant FAQ to fix shit competitive players keep finding and breaking, expanding the rules even further. AoS doesn't have that problem as much.
But again, this is just opinions here. I myself am preferring AoS games over 40k games lately. Theyre just more fun and exciting to me, even when played competitively.
All in all the most important factor in any game is the hobby aspect: which model ranges interest you for collecting painting and converting, also the community: which community around you is full of cunts, and which one seems like it has more cool dudes.
After those 2 factors then you look at the game's rules.