I used to play 9th Age, then I stopped...

[Jason]

Hey guys! 

I am/was a die hard warhammer fantasy player. I own several armies. I ran campaigns and tournaments back in my home town. I played 5th-8th editions of the GW game. After the End Times travesty I played some Kings of War and 9th Age. I really enjoyed early 9th Age editions. It was just a re-skinned 8th edition with a few nice fixes. But as the editions kept grinding on and updating I lost a little interest as the game moved away from the familiar and added new elements (new magic phase mechanics,  etc.) I was poking around the forums here and am super happy to see a 9th age event that has over 30 players! That's great!

Can anyone try and sell me on the current state of the game? I dropped off right around 2.0. How are things now?

[Andrewgeddon]

Hello Jason! So I had a similar start to 9th Age: I was a previous 8th edition player who was sad to see it go to round bases. When 9th was just a modified copy 8th, I was pretty content with it, and had some pretty strong reactions to some of the departures it made when it switched to more of it's "own thing." In my mind, most of the new changes are great:

-I love the new magic system! I can't tell you how many games of 8th I won / lost because I was rolling hot or cold on the Winds of Magic roll. The new system seems a bit daunting at first... flux cards? Veil tokens? But after you use it a few times it feels really intuitive, and leads to a lot more interesting interactions than "I get 12 dice you get 6 haha!" The way some of the army books and some magic items work with the new system is really cool too!

-Army book balance still isn't perfect, but it's the best it's ever been, IMO. Two of the supposed "weakest" army books (Dread Elves and Infernal Dwarves) took 2nd and 3rd in battle points at the tournament this weekend, right behind Vampires. Towards the end of 8th edition, a lot of army books were relegated to "hobby hero" status. You could play Tomb Kings or Beastmen, sure, but you were fighting an uphill batter versus newer books (Double Demon Price / Nurgle Warrior lists come to mind...). In the current state of 9th, there may be some books that have an advantage over others, but these advantages are slight, and nowhere near as abusive as they were in 8th. I truly think a good general could be successful with any army book they fancied in 9th Age.

-The 2.0 rules are out, and they are the permanent rules for the foreseeable future. While army books and magic may get updates throughout the year, you don't have to worry about our core rules changing anytime soon. 

I may be a fan boy, but I think 9th Age has a lot to offer players right now 🙂

[TheBeninator]

Andrew hit the nail pretty well. I love all the changes that were made, I will even concede that the loss of the templates was a good choice (RIP templates).

This is by far my favorite version of the game, and last weekend's 5 day tournament really proved that to me as I had 5 great games where I did not feel like I lost the match before the game even began. This is compared to 8th where I lost games at spell generation during pre-game.

The biggest problem T9A had was constantly changing, that part is over! Army book changes will be fairly glacial in the meantime (points changes), with the exception of the full AB projects which will redesign the whole army. It's doubtful that any models will become obsolete, but armies will be able to take advantage of the new rules space and game mechanics that were built into the core rulebook. Essentially the current rule book has design space built into it that will be implemented in each army as their ABs are reworked. They are reworking 1-2 books at a time to ensure a high quality product.

If you are in the Portland/Vancouver area I would be happy to play a game with you and show you the ropes of the changes. No need to read the tomb of rules, most of it you will recognize, we can just cover the latest (and final) changes as they come up. 

[Jason]

On 3/6/2019 at 1:06 PM, TheBeninator said:

Andrew hit the nail pretty well. I love all the changes that were made, I will even concede that the loss of the templates was a good choice (RIP templates).

This is by far my favorite version of the game, and last weekend's 5 day tournament really proved that to me as I had 5 great games where I did not feel like I lost the match before the game even began. This is compared to 8th where I lost games at spell generation during pre-game.

The biggest problem T9A had was constantly changing, that part is over! Army book changes will be fairly glacial in the meantime (points changes), with the exception of the full AB projects which will redesign the whole army. It's doubtful that any models will become obsolete, but armies will be able to take advantage of the new rules space and game mechanics that were built into the core rulebook. Essentially the current rule book has design space built into it that will be implemented in each army as their ABs are reworked. They are reworking 1-2 books at a time to ensure a high quality product.

If you are in the Portland/Vancouver area I would be happy to play a game with you and show you the ropes of the changes. No need to read the tomb of rules, most of it you will recognize, we can just cover the latest (and final) changes as they come up. 

I'm in Portland and I think I'd be up for a game sometime 🙂 I'm not a "total newb" but I stopped playing before 2.0 dropped. So there's definitely some mechanics that are unfamiliar (like the split WS i'm seeing in the army books).  I think I can muster a small list without too much trouble. 

 

[TheBeninator]

@Jason that sounds great! Reach out anytime when you are ready to play, we can find you a game. If you want, PM me your email and I will add you to our mailing group.

The new mechanics are fairly straightforward, the WS split is probably one of the biggest changes along with the new magic system. The split in WS was really just to provide design space to have units that are very defensive, but not offensive, or vice versa. In most cases the offensive Weapon Skill (OWS) and defensive weapon skill (DWS) are the same, and are identical to what they use to be from legacy. Things like paired weapons provide you +1 OWS, whereas things like shields provide you +1 DWS (or match your DWS to your enemies OWS, whichever is more advantageous). 

Similarly they removed the AP gained from strength, and just added AP as a separate stat. This again is to provide design space for stuff that is high strength, but low AP (such as hellfire, the attribute spell for WODG, or the cobalt club, the new face smash weapon for Temple Guard). Still, most things are as they use to be, for instance, Great Weapons still provide +2 Strength, +2 AP.

So in many ways, the game is as it use to be, they just broke all the rules down into their most basic component elements. That provides the flexibility to build the game back up in any fashion, leveraging more degrees of freedom for army balance and unit flavor. You also don't have to remember nested rules, such as when "fly" also means that you are "light troops" (free reforms) and "swiftstride". Now, all of these rules still exist for models with fly, but they are explicitly stated in the unit profile. This is to make things easier when you are learning your army.

Hope that makes some sense ;D