Initial rules review on AOS.

[Threejacks]

Yes use movement trays,,I do with my NG`s as im not moving 40+ gobblins one at a time,lol.

 

When you make your first contact with the enemy just start piling in off the tray into the scrum,this is actually something I really like about this game,the swarming effect.Also small models with 2" reach weapons can get waaay more attacks in than large models with 1" ranged weapons.That batrep with the Ogres showed that real well,that guys 2nd rank and beyond couldn't attack at all and piling in was kinda tough too with such large models.

 

Im NOT rebasing anything,actually the only time I would consider that is if I wanted a uniform looking army for show purposes.Actually I think I will still do all of my rank and file troops on squares,mainly so I can rank them up for KoW.Other than that you can use octagon,triangle or friggen daisy shaped bases if that's your thing.

 

Its pretty clear that this ruleset is the basic version of their new game,designed to introduce players to it and miniature gaming as a whole.When using them,as and experienced player you really need to set up as fair a matchup as possible ,otherwise its a waste of time.Right now my Son and I are trying out some of the formation scrolls in the back of the army listings as those seem pretty well matched.As for trying other matchups,I would just use the old point values from 8th and try to get within 5% difference with your opponent.

[indytims]

I see a lot of people hate the idea of measuring from model to model, instead of base to base.

 

As long as BOTH players are doing it the same way... it really doesn't matter. "Measuring from his sword-tip is stupid!". Why? If YOU are measuring to his swordtip, and your opponent is ALSO measuring from the same location... no one is being cheated. The 'base' of the figure essentially changes to a shape that matches your model.

 

I actually like this, because 1) You don't have to rebase SQUAT, and 2) you can be as creative/free with your bases as you wish. And since 'base to base contact' is not required in this game, you don't have to worry about slamming figs up against each other.

 

It's different. Doesn't mean it's 'bad'. :)

[Kremmet]

I see a lot of people hate the idea of measuring from model to model, instead of base to base.

 

As long as BOTH players are doing it the same way... it really doesn't matter. "Measuring from his sword-tip is stupid!". Why? If YOU are measuring to his swordtip, and your opponent is ALSO measuring from the same location... no one is being cheated. The 'base' of the figure essentially changes to a shape that matches your model.

 

I actually like this, because 1) You don't have to rebase SQUAT, and 2) you can be as creative/free with your bases as you wish. And since 'base to base contact' is not required in this game, you don't have to worry about slamming figs up against each other.

 

It's different. Doesn't mean it's 'bad'. :)

 

Mostly it matters because I don't want to put my Night Goblins on top of your nice and creative bases in order to attack.  It's a messy and unnecessary abstraction that is so open to modeling for advantage as to be absurd.  

 

Furthermore if you want to argue that rebasing was really a problem people were facing in terms of game play (ie not an aesthetic one) then I'd say cutting off all the arms of their models to give them extended spears/swords/whatever is an even larger one.  The range is not built with those rules in mind and stacking my models on top of each other's bases to get a game advantage, such as being able to attack at all, is bad.

[pretre]

The arm thing is a bit overblown. If you can reach, so can your opponent.

[indytims]

Mostly it matters because I don't want to put my Night Goblins on top of your nice and creative bases in order to attack.  It's a messy and unnecessary abstraction that is so open to modeling for advantage as to be absurd.  

 

Furthermore if you want to argue that rebasing was really a problem people were facing in terms of game play (ie not an aesthetic one) then I'd say cutting off all the arms of their models to give them extended spears/swords/whatever is an even larger one.  The range is not built with those rules in mind and stacking my models on top of each other's bases to get a game advantage, such as being able to attack at all, is bad.

 

I think the minimum 'reach' in this game is 1". If I make this big honkin' huge base for a model I have, then I have to accept the fact that to reach my guy, you might have to put a fig on my base.

 

I guess my statement should have been finished with the words 'within reason'. Looking back at the games I've played over the past decade, very, very few of the models I've faced had bases so large you'd have to physically put a fig on their base to 'reach' the model.

 

Watching the two guys play yesterday, there was never a case (that I saw) where they needed to stack minis on top of bases. And with parts of some models extending past the confines of their own base that came with their figure, there's even less reason to do so. But I do suppose if someone gets a little TOO creative with their bases, this could pose a problem.

 

My main point was, having an 'arm' or 'sword' extend past the confines of a models base does not incur any sort of advantage to either side. As long as BOTH players are measuring in the same way, it's a wash. :)

[bkieft]

One thing I was doing in the game we played with 2 horde units was just putting the movement trays in base to base and assuming the models were intermingled instead of moving them on and off the movement tray. 

 

What is annoying with O&G and Skaven is that you spend a lot of time doing that...this was an issue in 7th ed too.

 

The problem with keeping them on the tray is 1) charge distance not being enough that the whole unit can get into melee range and 2) the pile in step to get everyone in melee range.

 

Don't care for the 'counting' attack types aspect after piling in with hordes either.  40 2" spear attacks and only 25 1" regular attacks.  It is a bit clunky when you have more than a couple horde units.

[indytims]

One thing I was doing in the game we played with 2 horde units was just putting the movement trays in base to base and assuming the models were intermingled instead of moving them on and off the movement tray. 

 

What is annoying with O&G and Skaven is that you spend a lot of time doing that...this was an issue in 7th ed too.

 

The problem with keeping them on the tray is 1) charge distance not being enough that the whole unit can get into melee range and 2) the pile in step to get everyone in melee range.

 

Don't care for the 'counting' attack types aspect after piling in with hordes either.  40 2" spear attacks and only 25 1" regular attacks.  It is a bit clunky when you have more than a couple horde units.

 

That's not a terrible idea bkieft. As long as you and your opponent agree, I could see that also speeding things up even more.

 

Of course, horde-type armies will generally have that issue no matter what. There's a ton of figs there for a reason, and they generally move around at some point. I know when I bought into Skaven, I had to mentally prepare myself for that. LOL! :)

 

You might not be able to keep them -all- on a movement tray, but until combat is reached, they still definitely help.

 

Not sure what you are referring to on counting attack types, though... Is it the sheer volume of attacks that you're referring to that bothers you?

[MexicanNinja]

I may have missed it in the not so vast rules, but is there anything which says they can't be in movement trays?

[pretre]

I may have missed it in the not so vast rules, but is there anything which says they can't be in movement trays?

Nothing. Bkieft's idea is very sound and probably the way to go for big warscrolls.

[thatdave]

I don't think so. It says you are supposed to be within an inch of other models on the unit. That's all I remember. I'll look again.

[bkieft]

 

Not sure what you are referring to on counting attack types, though... Is it the sheer volume of attacks that you're referring to that bothers you?

 

Goblins have 2 melee attack types with different ranges, Spears and Slashas.  When you 'pile in' 40 gobbos it becomes a counting nightmare around who is in range with what attack. 1" is pretty easy but squidgy with 20mm based troops.

 

ooo, there is a question.  Are there 20 mm round bases or am I Mr cheaterpants by piling in more gobbos than I should?

[pretre]

Goblins have 2 melee attack types with different ranges, Spears and Slashas.  When you 'pile in' 40 gobbos it becomes a counting nightmare around who is in range with what attack. 1" is pretty easy but squidgy with 20mm based troops.

 

ooo, there is a question.  Are there 20 mm round bases or am I Mr cheaterpants by piling in more gobbos than I should?

Generally, the small round base is 25mm. Can you just make your units one or the other for ease of play?

[bkieft]

Not sure what you mean.  Fantasy had 20mm square, 25mm square, 40mm square, 50mm square with a few rectangles in there for good measure.

 

Humans and gobbos were 20mm, are you suggesting we rebase? 

[bkieft]

Ah, I got your question finally...

 

Combat Phase step 2 says "Each model in the unit attacks with all of the melee weapons it is armed with (see Attacking).

 

From Attacking "The number of attacks a model can make is equal to the Attacks characteristic for the weapons it can use."

 

When I first read these I thought I just pick one weapon statline per combat phase.  I don't think this is true.

 

After playing a bit I realized for balance sake you need to use as many attacks as you can in every warscroll, as the above states, ie every weapon at your disposal each round because that is your # of attacks for the model.  

 

If you don't do this with Heroes and Monsters they are pretty weeny and will rarely kill anything.  

 

As for the goblins, they have 5+ to hit and wound on everything so a group of 40 with 2 attacks each will rarely take down big models, but it might happen if you get really lucky and your opponent gets really unlucky.

[pretre]

Yeah, I meant all spears or all slashas. Sorry, that was vague.

[Threejacks]

Ah, I got your question finally...

 

Combat Phase step 2 says "Each model in the unit attacks with all of the melee weapons it is armed with (see Attacking).

 

From Attacking "The number of attacks a model can make is equal to the Attacks characteristic for the weapons it can use."

 

When I first read these I thought I just pick one weapon statline per combat phase.  I don't think this is true.

 

After playing a bit I realized for balance sake you need to use as many attacks as you can in every warscroll, as the above states, ie every weapon at your disposal each round because that is your # of attacks for the model.  

 

If you don't do this with Heroes and Monsters they are pretty weeny and will rarely kill anything.  

 

As for the goblins, they have 5+ to hit and wound on everything so a group of 40 with 2 attacks each will rarely take down big models, but it might happen if you get really lucky and your opponent gets really unlucky.

Check the unit description for the explanation on the weapons used,It will say how units are armed as in Pokas and Shields,,Stabbas and Shields and so on.So when you attack you use the weapon line that they are armed with.

 

As far as your 40 gobbos unit with stabbas,they will actually be hitting on 3+ and wounding on 5+ so they can actually wail on big models especially once you surround them.I personally like the NG pokas and their 2" range,30+ strong blob of those guys hit on 5`s and wound on 2`s:)

[McNathanson]

I may have missed it in the not so vast rules, but is there anything which says they can't be in movement trays?

 

You can put them on trays but what about moving through a narrower-than-tray opening in terrain?  Are you going to "fudge" it or take them off?  What about piling in?  

 

I haven't played the game yet so maybe it could work but I'm imagining trying to play 40k with trays and it wouldn't really work.

 

And 50 Men at Arms without a tray is not gonna happen.

Again all of which is not to say "AoS suXX!" it's that I don't see how it's practical with larger armies!

[Kremmet]

 

Watching the two guys play yesterday, there was never a case (that I saw) where they needed to stack minis on top of bases. And with parts of some models extending past the confines of their own base that came with their figure, there's even less reason to do so. But I do suppose if someone gets a little TOO creative with their bases, this could pose a problem.

 

My main point was, having an 'arm' or 'sword' extend past the confines of a models base does not incur any sort of advantage to either side. As long as BOTH players are measuring in the same way, it's a wash. :)

 

 

Then try it from the other direction because there's a clear advantage to being on your own models' bases (you get more models into melee range).  

 

And I really do get your main point.  What I take umbrage with is that this rule is an unnecessary change and allows for significant modeling for advantage whether pretre or you think so.  People do not have to do it and I suspect that few will be overly abusive in their pursuit, but it will be something that affects purchases and what models show up on the table even if it's as simple as always choosing to build your guys with their lances lowered to charge/making sure your wizards are as 2D as possible.  You spoke of how this allows people to get creative with their basing which is something I would sacrifice so they could be the same with their models without losing in-game benefits. 

[bkieft]

Thanks Rcnjack. Missed that...worked pretty good for us anyway but I see that now...a bit confusing there in the way you need to deal with different scroll unit types

 

I am still curious in general on people's opinions on the 20mm bases. I get a boatload more attacks when piling in with 20mm bases.

[Ring_of_Gyges]

AoS reminds me a lot of Ravening Hordes, a quick and dirty "get you by" set of rules.  That's fine if there is something more polished coming later, but what's the rush?  Why not wait until it is finished to release the $125 box?  Thats a lot of money for a new player to plunk down only to find GW has finished the miniatures but hasn't written rules yet.

[indytims]

Then try it from the other direction because there's a clear advantage to being on your own models' bases (you get more models into melee range).  

 

And I really do get your main point.  What I take umbrage with is that this rule is an unnecessary change and allows for significant modeling for advantage whether pretre or you think so.  People do not have to do it and I suspect that few will be overly abusive in their pursuit, but it will be something that affects purchases and what models show up on the table even if it's as simple as always choosing to build your guys with their lances lowered to charge/making sure your wizards are as 2D as possible.  You spoke of how this allows people to get creative with their basing which is something I would sacrifice so they could be the same with their models without losing in-game benefits. 

 

The rule was quite necessary for those folks who didn't want to have to rebase their entire army. To me, the rule works fine, AND you can leave your dudes on square bases. That's far more important than the fear of facing a player who is going to try to pull the tricks you suggest. 99.9% of all players I've ever played with base their figs with the bases their figs came with. COULD someone get creative with their base width/length in order to try to gain some sort of advantage? Sure. There's no denying that some players will try to buck the system for an advantage but that goes for every edition. But when it comes down to the mechanics, you measure from model to model, the base is 'only there to hold the figure up'.

 

If you choose to build your model with the lance lowered, how does that give you any sort of advantage though? You measure from your lance tip to your target... but then I get to measure from my guy to your lance-tip. It goes both ways.

 

What it also does is prevents people from trying to model to their base-size so that they can fit the models all crunched in together. Now, you can pose your models all you want and not have to worry if the arm off to the side or the tail off the back is going to prevent you from basing-up with other members of the same unit.

 

There's certainly pros and cons, but I think the main benefit is that you aren't required to go to round bases if you don't want to. For most folks I know, that's a pretty enormous benefit, worth the risk of playing with the occasional beardy git who wants to play base-model shananigans. ;)

 

Just my opinion, tho!

 

-Tim

[orkdork]

@RoG, the Ravening Hordes example is right on, except that they won't be releasing new rules for old models.

 

 

Shooting into combat touches on to an issue I have: true line-of-sight. KoW 2nd edition uses the good old 'height category' mechanic I find so much better for these kinds of games. Unit footprint + height mechanic would resolve a lot of issues, imo.

 

Character sniping is a problem only because of 25mm characters. I doubt any new lone heroes will come mounted on anything less than 40mm rounds, and they'll have stats to let them take some punishment.

 

Boring wizards is again about the "Ravening Hordes" effect, where they've pushed out a TON of new rules at once.

 

There is no balance at present. For the folks I play with, I'm not too worried. We'll just let the loser add some stuff for the next game until we start trading games happily.

 

New unit summons is bonkers. Not sure how they got that so wrong.

 

No idea what could be confusing wrt to flying dudes and charging. They have to land within 1/2" of the target unit. I'm missing where that breaks down.

 

Pile in manipulation is there, but you're still a long cry from either 40K or WFB in terms of annoying shenanigans you can pull in combat positioning.

 

Objectives will be the life-blood of this game, imo. WIthout them, it's a pile-in cluster-jam :)

 

I agree on the rerolls. It's a product of attacks-per-model. Not fine-grained enough otherwise.

 

As a 40K and WFB Ork/Orc player, buckets of dice are my norm :)

 

Movement trays are fine up until pile-in/terrain :( This is a problem, I think.

[indytims]

New unit summons is bonkers. Not sure how they got that so wrong.

 

Objectives will be the life-blood of this game, imo. WIthout them, it's a pile-in cluster-jam :)

 

Movement trays are fine up until pile-in/terrain :( This is a problem, I think.

 

Lots of good comments orkdork, and I won't bore you with a huge wall-o-text to chat about each one. Instead, I'll bore you with a smaller wall-o-text to address only a few. ;)

 

Summoning and/or reinforcemenets are the second biggest issue I see with this game. It -is- bonkers. Summoning loads of free stuff, turn after turn, is ridiculous. I am curious to see how this is addressed in their 'scenarios' they will eventually come out with, or in the 'competitive play' hints that I keep reading about.

 

Objectives are indeed mega-important. Without objectives/missions/scenarios, it really will just boil down to a scrum in the middle of the table.

 

Movement trays work fine until pile-in... but of course, once that happens... you're gonna start losing models anyway, so you'll have less to move! :) The games I've watched live or on video, the participants have not bothered using the 'retreat' mechanic. It's like they're used to previous editions where once you're stuck in... you're -stuck-. If that continues, the need for a movement tray becomes unnecessary anyway. ;)

[dkieft]

So, considering summoning, I am guessing you could take say 12 Summoner Warscrolls (why not 20!), pit them against your buddies unsuspecting regular looking force, gain the sudden death objective and then summon a real army.

[indytims]

So, considering summoning, I am guessing you could take say 12 Summoner Warscrolls (why not 20!), pit them against your buddies unsuspecting regular looking force, gain the sudden death objective and then summon a real army.

 

You sure could do that!

 

But then how long would your buddies remain 'buddies'? ;)

 

But yes, by the letter of the rules - you can do that. The Chaos Lord can summon 'reinforcements' - a unit of Slaves of Darkness (any unit you want, by the way) on a 4+ *every turn*. Hmmmm, and how big do you want that unit to be? Well, how many models do you own?

 

Force Building / Summoning really causes issues, which is sad, because the basic in-game mechanics aren't bad.