Using the chess example to illustrate why a 500 points game is likely to feel bad, the pieces in a chess game are assigned point values to roughly determine who is in a better position. Pawns are worth 1, knights and bishops 3, rooks 5 and queens 9. Kings have no point value. You start a game of chess with 39 points of pieces. Imagine playing games of chess where each person could choose only 10 points worth of pieces to start the game with, and the way that would affect the game. Most people aren't going to play a lot of pawns (chaff), and they're also probably not going to play a queen (big, expensive faction leader). You're reducing the game, most of the time, to some combination of knights, bishops, and rooks with pawns filling whatever 1 or 2 points are left over, depending on choices. Trading pieces at that point feels devastating, and strategies will be constrained by the limitation of what pieces you took in and how badly they are or are not countered by the opponents choices. Even if you like it, you're not really playing "chess" at that point.
@@HeyWoah It's not rocket science though. At 500 points you should probably just be playing an Open Play format OR, if you have to play points, you have to cap how many points can be spent on a single unit - to keep the play competitive (I hate to use the word balance), OR you can't take units less than an agreed on number (i.e. monster on monster).
There is a fantastic learning chess game out for children that does something like this, where they play various iterations with reduced pieces though. The point is for children to learn how the pieces move and the basic rules. The leaning games continue on and on until kids are eventually playing with all the pieces. I think a battle pack with rules and perhaps points for a 500 et al game makes sense for leaning and getting folks involved. No, it won’t be the same as a regular game of AOS, but it can make the barrier to getting involved (financial and knowledge) lower and more welcoming. Like most complicated things in life, it feels easier once we understand. But having someone throw you in a pool when you can’t swim isn’t the best learning experience and doesn’t lend itself to people wanting to go swimming again.
@@querldox9300 This doesn't take into account things like summoning, recovering units, etc. You might be thinking, "ok, well just ban those too," but that's half of how those armies are balanced. Even just the power level of certain units is point costed to 2k, not to lower points. Open play is a meme. The lower from 2k you go, the worse and less strategic Sigmar gets. Narrative is the only mode that has the right scenarios for low points, and even it struggles.
This is a wonderful example of how design is fractal. The new person FEELS but can't articulate problems that the in trenched are painfully aware of that are common design issues.
My Problem wtih AoS is that the core mechanic is, according to Vince definition, a bad rule. You need 3 to 4 rolls to get a result. This shows the age of zu the system Kllteam needs 2 Warcry 1. I men Gitz against Nurgle....poor Gitz, I Hope you Like rolling for nothing.....but I am 100% in on the soso-pro painter apron. Shut Up and take my money Scott!
I am only at 1:50:50 in the video so forgive me if it's addressed later but I wanted to point out something that I think Warhammer has a big problem with - I think it has a severe issue with shelf life. The current 3 year cycle for editions feels very bad for everybody... new players (especially kids) that maybe don't want to drop 1k and go "all in" right off the bat, a lot of times it seems like the rules will be invalidated before some of these people even have a chance to save up and buy them. Models they saved up for may suddenly be terrible in the newest version of their faction rules. Cards and gameplay aids are almost always worthless as soon as the first FAQ comes out, which may be within days of a new faction release. Returning players (like me, who comes and goes with the game as I get busier or gain more free time) have a wall of content to chew through every time they come back to the game, sorting through what is needed or not, what has changed in a battle scroll, etc. It feels like every dollar I spend on rules is just flushing my money because it won't last. Sometimes it feels that way with models too, when they are made nigh useless with rules changes. I know this kind of aligns with a lot of points you already made, but just something I was thinking about and there is never harm in leaving a comment for the Algorithm god. :)
Getting back into AOS after a couple years the complexity has sky rocketed. Grand strategies/ battle tactics/ heroic actions/ monstrous rampages/ seasons/ Galletian champions/ faction specific artifacts and battalions which had only just been removed when I stopped playing, sure there’s more, the last few games have felt mainly like slogging through rules.
How cool would it be to have mermaid sirens for the Deepkin function kind of like the howling banshees were there fast, and have a banshee like siren wail. GW, hear my plead the Deepkin still need crab warriors or elves in crab like armor! Don’t make me convert striking scorpion.
This was alot of fun. Good dialogue I enjoyed it alot. -as an aside, the shared warscroll idea is awesome. I don’t think they’d ever do it either but I would be stoked to have regiments of various elves/dwarves or whatever that share the same “heavy troop” role or whatever. Anything to promote model freedom within reason
Honestly there is little excuse. If you buy the book you get the digital book for the army. FAQs and balance updates should be integrated into the digital books and have it version numbered like Stormcast 3.4. For aos3 4th update.
The priority roll can definitely be played around, but I still feel it's a terrible mechanic for a few reasons : 1- It skews the desire to have the choice of going first to an extreme degree. There's a reason why 50%+ of armies in tournaments (according to Honest Wargamer stats) are sitting at 4 drops or less. Because being the second player, unless you play a very specific army like Lumineth, is an incredibly huge advantage. Because you are immune to getting double turned, and if your opponent chooses to play like they're going to lose priority, you can punish that also, AND you get an extra CP, AND you get two heroic actions. A common question being asked is "Well, if the priority roll is so important and random, why aren't top players losing randomly because of it." I'd really love to see some stats on that (priority roll victory/getting choice of first turn vs win rate) because clearly it's a huge factor, otherwise people wouldn't give up battalion advantages like artefacts or command points in favor of being low drops 2- The priority roll giving you the choice is a bad idea. Because everything is in the hands of the player that wins the priority roll. If the roll determined who played (IE. you roll high, you have to go), it would be much more balanced. But as it stands, it's nothing but an incredible advantage to the player who wins it. Again, if this wasn't true, why would people invest so much effort into getting that choice when list building? 3- It's very, very bad for anything below competitive play. Since the rule is the default, so many games at below tournament level competitiveness are decided by that roll. It's rarely the come back mechanic that people tout it to be. It most often beats down the person on the receiving end of it, because it requires very high level play to master how to play around the priority roll. But the problem is, unless you want to house rule a core component of the game, you HAVE to play with it and it creates very negative play experiences that can, will, and do chase people away from the game, whether before they try the game or after they try it once or twice. That's not a good place for a growing game to find itself. It's also extremely boring and disheartening to find yourself sitting through 2 turns back to back in a casual setting. You have limited interactivity available during your opponent's turn, and sitting through 20+ minutes of someone just getting to play the game is just not fun. So while it might be a good mechanic in theory, in practice I feel like it falls short for the vast majority of non-tournament attending/high competition players.
This mechanic has always worried me as a nonAOS player with a Lizardmen army raring to go. It's obvious that you play this game taking priority roll into account, but I am concerned that too much of the game still comes down to the result of a few single die rolls to determine priority. Here's an example of what I'm concerned about: lets say my opponent plays very aggressively, and essentially fifty-fifty's the game on winning a prior roll. If I win, I will punish the aggressive play and have a large advantage. If my opponent wins, they will be rewarded for their aggressive play, and have a large advantage. Thus, the outcome of the game comes down largely to a single die roll, and I personally feel very low agency when it comes down to the result of the game. is this a reasonable concern for me to have? The other reason I haven't played AOS is the cost of entry of rules.
@@peavizzle It depends a lot on who you're playing with. If you're playing with a close knit group of friends you can definitely try it out and house rule it if you have no intentions of going to a tournament. The scenario you describe is exactly why some people, (not me) love this rule. It's essentially a decision between playing ultra defensively and sacrificing some chaff units, or playing aggressively and being rewarded. I however find that being the second player is such an incredible advantage in most games, and when you're playing at a casual level, you don't necessarily have time to re-rack and start a second game if the one you were playing ended after 2.5 turns because of a double. Be aware that there are a lot of people that are pro-priority, and you might become one of them. I've been trying for a year and a half and it's just not for me. Every new GHB my friends and I try to play with the priority roll, then we have a few games when someone gets stomped, and we go back to traditional turns. As for the cost of entry, let me introduce you to the wonder that is Wahapedia. All the current rules are available there, with less mistakes than the official app has! You can use Warscroll Builder to make lists, which is also free. I hope you decide to join us, it's really a wonderful hobby. The good massively outweighs the bad, but as with any passionate group of people, have deep talks about our hobby is part of the fun.
Agree. The double turn is a built-in advantage for more experienced players to take advantage of (i.e. the 'it requires more skill' argument). It's a 'gamey' concept that throws an extra layer of randomness into a game already replete with randomness. Any rule that can effectively end your game in the 2nd or 3rd turn is simply bad design.
I'm one of those people that are on the fence about it, and I appreciate your breakdown here. I've grown to appreciate what it does regarding game tempo and planning - I just think that there are better mechanics to get those benefits without those negative-play-experience side effects you've discussed. The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game's I-go-you-go structure being divided into phases rather than turn is a great example. In that game, Priority is key for being able to control movement and engagements, but the pacing of the game feels much better and the player without priority has more options for responding, and those options stem from the state of the game board rather than needing Commands and CP, which improves the versimilitude and approachability of the game without sacrificing depth.
This video is the perfect example of how discussion/debate should be done, didn’t attack each other or there ideals. Hats off to you guys! I’m semi new to AoS and I find my self agreeing with him or seeing his points of argument but I still absolutely love this game. Last thing, maybe this game just isn’t for him and that is PERFECTLY fine, it’s not for every one
Not a 40K player but I believe there is a way you can play that with a deck of cards that contain your objectives. You draw each turn to see what you have to do. So one turn might be "hold objective point A" then next might be "kill a character". So it's like the shifts in battle result in new things that become important for you to do. I like the idea of that for AoS.
I'm having a big hype for AOS lately, and am very hyped to get back into it, and videos like this really help to fuel the hype. That said - from the things you said you guys like - list building, factions feeling unique, and the verisimilitude aspects - I *cannot* recommend taking a peek at Malifaux enough. It seems like it would tick pretty much every box across the board.
Re: Models, I personally think the only good-looking armies are the ones that survived from Warhammer Fantasy. I don't like any of the new AoS-exclusive armies like Stormcast, Deepkin, Fyreslayers, OBR.
I started playing AOS in August 2021. For me the on ramp was battle reports. I probably watched close to 100 of them. First I watched every one featuring my army of choice, then I watched anything I could find. However I had the soft on ramp of playing two games of fantasy back in the 90's.
I think the Battle Tactics are such a good idea, but just like Secondary Objectives in 40k it started going a bit haywire once they introduced faction specific ones. If you don't have good faction Battle Tactics/Secondaries you're already on the backfoot and will struggle to score points, and very few armies have strong enough rules to make up for that. I love having themed missions to achieve with my armies, but it must be an absolute nightmare to even attempt to balance. I still think Malifaux handles that part the best with their Scheme system. But I think that would fall apart as well if every faction got their own ones.
I think there was a lot of talking around 'micro' gameplay issues in the video while my complaint about AoS and other GW games tends to be more macro game-philosophy focused. Lots of inconsequential dice rolls, lots of different abilities and stratagems and such that require extra rules overhead and effort but ultimately even out and provide functionally identical results. Lots of mechanical micromanaging of model positioning within units, while paradoxically broader maneuvering is rendered less consequential because of the large amount of movement/teleport/deepstrike shenanigans and a lack of unit 'screening'. Weird abstraction of retreat and rally mechanics that cause models to disappear and reappear in unintuitive ways. It's a game that feels less like it's taking place in a physical space and more in a conceptual one.
I've found that everyone has very different levels of abstraction and application of that they are willing to accept, it's just a deeply personal thing.
Best discussion on priority I've heard. I finally understand why it's a NPE for me and you guys didn't just butt heads and argue if you like it or not. I'm still holding out hope they'll make it not 'feel' as impactful for the beginners or casual 'spike' players.
On the topic of battle plans and battle tactics, the implementation makes the game feel more gamey. I may be showing my age and RP mindset but I prefer the game hiding the point system from me. When I play Warhammer now (40k and AoS), it feels more like work. I am not invested in the spectacle of fantasy war, I am an accountant filling out Excel sheets.
I much prefer shows like this that discuss the nature and design of the game than the faction of the moment style shows such as battletome reviews. So more of these please! Though I’ve disagreed with you on battle tactics and faction battle tactics in the past after the discussion in this show it’s apparent we actually have a lot of common ground on them. Conceptually they are good for the game, the issue is in the execution. I would have liked to have balance mentioned as part of the discussion, the way I see it some armies have an inherent advantage to the objective game, and I think battle tactics are a great way to keep the game close against some other armies rather than just making those other armies better at killing or holding objectives. Also, though I know giving examples is dangerous in that a poorly chosen one can undermine the point if people focus on it and miss the point being made, but they are important. Removing the requirement to provide examples or evidence opens the door to being able to suggest the impossible. It may actually be that what we want from battle tactics is actually impossible in their current form. Additionally I think it’s possible that the introduction of faction battle tactics is a symptom of the issue that the generic ones available to all armies are poorly designed.
I wish this was broken into sections to make responding easier! 😊 Models & their Rules: 2 models stand out for me here, Yndresta and Eltharion. I got into the game because of Eltharion and the Lumineth design aesthetic, but boy were his rules disappointing until the latest book, where he finally feels right. I got SCE because of Yndresta, she should have been a 300-400 point beat stick that terrified people running monsters, instead she is a confusing bucket of mediocre rules that the main narrative feature one needs a FAQ to work and then becomes only mildly less confusing and significantly worse. This is very much “feels bad” when getting into the game given how important the aesthetics are to the experience. The Rest of the Video Except Prio: I’m really excited to see how good a job they do with 10E 40K, because everything they have announced for it so far is what they need to do with 4E AoS. They need Vanguard as the on ramp version of the game, they need to update the entire game to 4E at once, they need to make the game work at 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 points etc.. Then (now in full on wish land) they need to do narrative expansion that adds new models and units to armies (which were designed but not released with launch) and gives cool scenarios to play for the first 12 months and only then, after a lot of data has been accumulated in the 2nd year release the books. This allows lore updates and meaningful rules updates to occur which addresses so, so, many of the problems.
thx guys! interesting topic. one thing I think u missed wrt on ramp of players is how big an investment AoS is, both money and time so if you don't value the hobby part, I think most ppl would not find the game attractive to invest in at all (maybe some exception if u have a lot of close friends playing). if u are willing to invest in the hobby, I don't think the rules are that much of a barrier in comparison. hence imo on ramp problem reduce to how u get ppl into the hobby for which I think they solved it with Underworlds, that game is all u need in a box and great entry to the world of warhammer but its lacking enough as a game to drag people into the larger AoS (at least that's what happened to me 😂)
I wanted to return to Warhammer after 20 years old brake. I bought AoS book, and Cities of sigmar 2.0 army book. And I could not understand it. There were rules in the army book for units with "Keyword" and no unit in army book had this "Keyword". Also which CoS units can be together with an army? What are warscrolls, battle scrolls, core battalions, battle tactics, commands points, how do I make an army, etc etc... I was completely lost and I returned.... even unit names and roles were intuitive in WHFb, in AoS they are "fancy"... and I returned to... WHFB. I left it around 5th edition, and found out that 8th edution is pretty much the same in the broad sense as 5th (obviously rules differ a little bit).
Also when I play WHFB and I do not have army book for opponent's army, the opponent is able to give me a 10 minute explanation what are the units, special features of army etc.... I cannot imagine that with AoS, as large % of the actual rules that are applied during the game are in the army book.
Lang time 40k player, just now dabbling in AoS. I think the biggest way to fight swininess is to move away from igougo. Alternating activations I believe would balance things soooo much better.
This this this!!! I’ve been looking into Age of Sigmar and I have no idea where to begin! I’ve played Warcry and I have a so-so understanding, but AoS feels like a whole new mountain to climb and I don’t have the correct gear 😂
To have a debate you actually need two people that know what they are talking about. Miniac is just not qualified to talk bout a game system that he obviously does not really know much about. This video kind of reminds me of when I was a professor of evolutionary biology and some KU knucklehead in the administration would request for me to debate the latest popular Kansas creationist. Eventually they did stop calling me, I heard it was on account of my sarcastic replies. I like this channel (a lot !) but to be honest I didnt bother with this video because miniac has already established his poor understanding of gaming in other videos.
I get that, at the same time, a lot of what Scott was saying was coming from the perspective of what he feels as a newer player coming into the game. That is the position of a lot of players, and if we think what he is saying has value or points at some truth, it's very worth paying attention to, as others are likely experiencing the same thing.
As a German who dislikes soccer, but loves basketball i was blown away by th suspense-analogy. After more then thirty years i may finally understand why everyone and his mother love soccer in germany :D Thanks Vince!
Always happy to help. It's actually very interesting to look at the sports through that lens. For example, American Football doesn't have constant suspense, but has moments of ver high suspense when a team is approaching the end zone. Then there are moments of very high surprise when you have a hail mary pass or some incredible field goal, interception or sac.
Yeah I hate Battle Tactics. My DoK army has some easy ones to achieve but I genuinely hate playing them as it’s just boring and in some cases makes you auto include otherwise trash units to simply check off the tactic…
warhammer, magic etc are like billiards or darts. at a low skill level it's all randomness but at the highest skill level it's all tactics and probabilities.
Nah in Darts and billiards you just miss. In AoS your bloodthirster just didn’t roll any 6 in 4 games in a row or your Be Lakor just didn’t get his 3+ on the enemy dragon in the enemy double turn…
There sounded to be multiple attempts this episode to characterize viewpoints and/or ideas as largely being "Spike based" or "All Spikes think like this". On WWeekly, you and Tom have gone over how the psychiographical profiles often get caricatured, which is not fair to the people who identify in those roles. Shouldn't the case also be to not view oneself completely within a profile's lens as well? It felt in this episode there was hitting into similar language used for astrology signs, when skill expression, as been said many times on the podcast, is a tremendous indicator on how people approach this game. When the official player code specifically calls out complaining about your bad luck, it felt weird by Scott for him to place onus on being such a Spike with his gripes towards his perspective on probability.
Its a fair point, and that's why I try to say "tend to think like this" or some such softening language, but you are right that we need to be careful in painting with too broad a brush.
@@VinceVenturella For sure on the softening language, I do remember you have used that in the past. Appreciate you reading my comment, can't wait for next week's episode!!
From curiosity, does Scott know that the round 1 Priority isn't determined by a die roll but by who finishes deployment first? His video talks about how every round's priority is determined by die roll including round 1. The only reason I bring it up is because it does allow him to exert a level of control over the game and being able to potentially set the pace for the game.
"needing to field units to die" "needing to put units in front of other units to prevent them from dying" etc etc all those points sound like Strategy which is something Miniac seemed to think the game is lacking. Calling that bad game design is like calling a banana a poor tool for self defense.
Its a strange thing, because I completely agree, it's super tactical and trading, but it's an emergent property, not something "in the rules" so that might be what he's chafing against.
Really great discussion, I don't think there was anything said that I disagree with, even if it is distinctly not my preference. I think one point that tweaked my interest was the micro decision and movement aspect. A lot is made of exact positioning, something odd to me in an army scale game, and I understand its importance at least theoretically. However, a lot of the impact it seems to me is due to effect of implimenting the rules, as opposed to the wording of the rule. How much, if at all, do the you thing the implicate nature of those interactions provides that barrier to skill acquisition. As opposed to say a rule that offers and obvious advantage to employing, even if implementation may not be easy? Also any thoughts on my perception of game design pushing towards dice rolling as soon as possible? Also games being decided by turn 2-3 in a number of occasions. Definitely a preference thing but I like the build up to the engage, and if I am setting up a large game that in theory runs 5-6 turns being done by the mid-point cheapens it. To be clear a 3 turn game is great, if you designing into as warcry does ... but a 6 turn mission often designed by turn 3 ... not for me
I think a lot of it is the emergent property of the rules yes, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Almost all games have emergent properties and strategies and that is a good thing.
@@VinceVenturella I think they can have a value, and it is kinda tied to mastery, in as much the more you learn the more you know you need to learn. I am not sure I would call this emergent by design though, I think it is another layer incidentally generated through exploitation of rules (no negative implications on that). Are they actually the purpose of the coherency rules for instance? To Scott's point though why play 10, 20, 50 games of a game that that needs a level of play to show obfuscated mechanics when you could play a game that shows you the potential but then challenges you to unlock that? Given a goal of casting a wide net.
Thing is, most people like a certain amount of structure for casual and pickup games so they don't have to have a detailed conversation with their opponents and can instead rock up to a table and get going. And the current rules that are provided for that structure are all focused, to a greater or lesser degree, on that sort of deeper play with grand strats and battle tactics.
Here's the correct answer: All the current rules for all the armies should be free online. The army books should have *no rules* in them, and should be evergreen. Make them big, pretty, and full of lore, narratives, and hobby reference (subfaction paint schemes, painted models, etc.), and battle plans/scenarios that are *not* closely tied to the specific rules of the current edition. Make the army books match on the bookshelf, like an encyclopedia, so that people will want to collect them all, even for armies they don't own, because they love the lore of AoS. If they did that, I'd (eventually) buy *all* of them, but as it is now--with each book serving as a short-term rules update, destined to become obsolete within 3 years--I buy *none* of them. All the rules are already available online, through Wahapedia, so they wouldn't be giving away anything we're not already getting for free anyway. But the way they currently churn the battletomes as time-limited rules for mostly armies I don't own or play, I have no reason to buy any of them.
I would certainly love that world, but at a company of that size, it would be hard to justify the replacement of the millions of dollars they would theoretically lose with the change. I think it could absolutely work in their favor by growing that market, but it's a tough case to make to executives.
@@VinceVenturella I realize it's an impossible case to make, given GW's predatory and risk-averse business model, but I still think they would sell at least as many books, and certainly they'd reduce their production costs by about 70%. Under my plan, each army tome could last ten years before it needed to be updated, and with them lasting like that, a lot of people would buy them all, to have the complete set. It would be very easy for all of us to put a few of the books on our Amazon wishlist for our relatives to pick up a Warhammer tome for a birthday, Father's or Mother's Day, Christmas, etc. But--as I said before--knowing that the books go dead in three years or less, a lot of us buy *none* of them instead of *all* of them. They could still sell an annual GHB with each years' battleplans, which most regular players would pick up, but it has to have *only* rules for the battlepacks it includes. It can't be a paywall to hide rules updates behind. And you're right, making all the most current rules for the game available online, for free, all the time, would help grow their customer base. Hopefully, they'll get the Combat Patrol format right, with free downloadable rules, and see that making the rules free sells more miniatures, and then apply that lesson more broadly. Anyway, Vince, thanks for raising these questions before the community, and thinking them through. Maybe some day, GW will listen to them.
So, unless I'm misreading something, according to Scott the Diablo franchise are badly designed games? I mean, if they were good, you should have still as much fun even if the dungeon layouts and enemy spawns were exactly the same every single time, right?
Well, thats a good point, it's interesting how we apply different frames and lenses to our views when exploring different mediums (tabletop vs. video game).
@@VinceVenturella While I appreciate that his points of view reflects his perception of the game and, being subjective, is an opinion that I have no business in meddling with, I still think he misses the point a little bit, when it comes to battleplans. He just should stop treating them as an addition to the game and make peace with the idea that they ARE the game.
I remember playing against Vince in a 2v2 and my Screaming Bell wiped all of my partners artillery off the board. Vince got a huge kick out of it. My friend wasn’t thrilled.
I still remember picking this game up when it first came out. I was very sad, and still am, that the Old World lore is gone. They shouldn't have done that, and just launched the game n that world. But, that first ruleset. I read and read and read it, and I could not figure out where the game was, how to play. I have not been back since because of that, and I still like fantasy figures more. I wish they'd bring back more traditional dwarves, but that initial game turned me off, and now, entering at this point is also daunting but at least there is a game there.
@@VinceVenturella we will see. Lots of rumblings, but nothing cohesive as far as I know. So much good lore. stories they dumped. Old World was so good. Looking forward to having it back.
Moving all 4+ rally to a 5+ rally is a much better fix. The new rule disincentivizes rally on low quality wounds like grots, hoppers and vulkites? But doesnt really disincentivize rallying more elite stuff like bow snakes or boingrots. Plus if they just wanted to nerf gitz & hoppers just nerf those units.
I haven't actually played AoS since a very dull demo of 1.0 in a GW store years ago. The game looks much more interesting now (and has done for a long time). I'd assumed that I wouldn't be a fan of Priority if / when I play again, but Vince's explanation as to what it achieves has really changed my view. Now I see what it does, I think I can appreciate it but also enjoy it.
Yeah, 3e is in a really great state right now. The only big changes I'd like to see for core 4e is some consolidation of the separate systems for Heroic Actions/Monstrous Rampages/Command Abilities (tracking all these things tend to be the biggest things that overwhelm new players), weapon ranges to be about fighting through certain numbers of models instead of measured distances, and the ability for Heroes to join certain units again to streamline things like Chaos Lords' retinues and the Loonboss on Cave Squig/Boingrot Bounders synergy. And, of course, a Quickstart version of the rules and casual pick-up battleplans!
For scenarios it does lack a lot of originality. Even in StarCraft, you had a scenario to resist 5 minutes to a hord of Zergs: not balanced but very fun. It’s one of the areas where 40k is better: tempest of wars cards, mission packs (including 3 or 4 players) and Boarding Action where you have 63 scenarios, some symmetrical, some not. Lots of ways to avoid standard scenarios and pre established checklist of secondary objectives
The battle tactic discussion is so interesting to me. Maybe it's just a product of cunning maneuver in the current GHB, but I can't say I echo Scott's sentiment on every BT feeling killy. I would say a standard game for me has at least 3/5 tactics scoring without any kill happening. Desecrate/Cunning + Tome Tactic. And often I can squeeze out 2 tome tactics that can be completed without scoring a kill. Granted the newer books like S2D and Slaanesh obviously have BTs that older books don't. But I personally find them to be an engaging point to the game, even if they are sometimes just a checklist item, it still adds a layer of strategy in my mind. What I think BTs should be however, are missions that your opponent has a chance to resist. I don't think they should be removed from the game, but I don't think they should be too easy or too hard. I would prefer a bigger pool of average difficulty BTs to choose from. It could potentially evolve the game to a healthier point. For example maybe you can't rely on scoring them 100% of the time, so you intentionally choose tactics you know your opponent will try to stop, but the cost of them stopping you from scoring can be leveraged for your win condition later.
Me and my friend got bored of playing matched play, we squeeze in a couple games of "Standard" AoS, but we moved onto open play, having Ruse's, varied deployments and objectives, it keeps it fresh and match up that would be very one sided become wildly different because of the variables involved.
Really enjoy the discussion and the variety covered. For me it can be hard to say the Priority Roll has very minor effects on the game when ever it's explained that you have to totally account for the threat of the double turn and/or how to capitalize on it at the same time. If something is so involved in your strategy, it has a major effect and clearly shapes a large portion of strategy. So it does feel like people try to downplay it's role in that if you plan for it's not an issue, but then discount how much you then have to plan for it. I think the better solution for the Priority is for it to occur more frequently in smaller doses, in argument that's what an Alternating Activation is. It would make it less swingy on a single point, but it of course like anything can compound and still reach similar or the same effect.
I played a tournament game one time where my KO forces shot off 3 of 4 mancrusher gargants in a turn, leaving the last with 2 wounds. My opponent rallied with 3 sixes, brought back 24 wounds. Made me sick. I’m happy for the new rally constraints.
You forgot to mention endless spells. They should be supporting the armies but GW made some way overpowered and they become almost necessary for certain armies. Some games I play feel like Harry Potter where we throw endless spells at each other for three turns and the armies dont even interact.
On the topic of killiness of the game, imagine the whole game would be toned down so you don’t need chaff. Assuming all armies are equally toned down, you'd just smash your units into each other, roll a bunch of dice and in the end both units are still there. At that point, why even do combat if you could rather just move around and score objectives? Or again, what’s the difference between feeling bad because your unit got blown up in one turn and feeling bad because you lost your unit after five turns of grinding?
Future sure idea! With the changes coming to Warhammer 40 K 10th, edition and assuming next year we get a fourth edition of AOS. What do you think fourth edition AOS looks like in terms of changes to format? Does it follow similar to 10th edition?
Riffs! There’s a name I haven’t heard in 20 years. I remember making a hawk character who did mega damage and had a version of a venom like Symbiot. The GM sent us up against 1000 vampires near Mexico border, and we wrecked the campaign in about five minutes.
Season Of War Thondia is a great book and they’re really cheap now since nobody else really liked it. I do wish more people played it. Also the Malign Sorcery battleplans could see more play too with the spells being used in gameplay as a feral threat to both players. It seems so fun but people usually just want to play the new stuff.
AoS is getting a lot of ‘from the ground up’ style videos of late from various awesome media outlets. Is interest waning in the community or is the wait for the new edition a good opportunity to build up and set out the AoS stall? May be a coincidence 🤷♂️ keep up the awesome folks. P.S Great to see Tom back 😊
Tom's point about Spikes loving battle tactics because of their consistent point scoring definitely stuck with me. For someone who lives in the moment, I wouldn't have seen that perspective.
Personally not sure on that one - because it is reliable yes but it doesn't help to differentiate good and bad players if everyone just gets them and you just make a checkmark somewhere to get 2 points. So I don't think consistently compleatable battletactics are something for Spike either because you can't really prove that you are good or better if everyone can just autocomplete them
@@skullz291 yes - but that wasn't the point made in the first place. The point was that consistent point scoring is something that "Spike" enjoys - and my point was that with how it is right now with some of the battletome tactics and autoscoring them, there is nothing for "Spike" there because it isn't about skill with a lot of the current implementation
@@kalestu_ I would say skill is more of a Johnny thing, Spike doesn't mind easy paths to victory. That's kind of his thing. If that bothers the player though, they don't actually have to use them. The same way you don't have to use an overpowered unit.
@@skullz291 again - everyone getting points because everyone just checks off a battletactic is not a path to victory Also no...most spikes that I know do not like to run over way weaker opponents and just curbstomp them - that's not the point
One of my biggest issues is the game feels too lethal now. I realize the game needs to be aggressive in order to keep the action moving, but this is turn (with Battle Tactics, Grand Strats, and Battle Regiment) makes the main mode of play to Alpha your opponent and blow them out of water by the top of turn 3. This makes the double turn more impactful and maligned, because if your opponent gets the Double, your loss is almost assured and no number of catch up mechanics will help you. If the game could be faster to play, but be able to play out all five battle rounds would make for more engaging and enjoyable experience for everyone. it also would tamp down on some the perceived NPE.
This and it has also become even more very dice dependent. If something spikes just a lil bit and the opponent gets the double turn the game is almost over. You can see it in batreps, in tournament reports and in your own games. It’s not like only noobs get punished by losing a few indicative rolls in a game. I ve been there were I ve lost every imitative roll but also have won every iniative in games. And the one losing them is just playing from behind without much of a catch up mechanic available. The damage has also just become extremely high. I love the bloodthirster of insensenate rage as an example. You can roll and do no dmg at all or kill the whole army. And this has nothing to do with tactics or skill it os hugely dependent on luck. It’s just way too much. And then the „high skilled player“ deploys in a way the 8“ mortals of this bloodthirster doesn’t kill his army…. If this low chance of dice roll even happens… wow! So impressive… Also the „skill“ in this game has become even more an idiocy of thinking about what !could! happen when xyz scenario happen and then also what happens on these scenarios with double turn for me or oppononent and what if the dice roll well or not. And your chance to react to these things is also quite low. Things like redeploy should be way better and charges also should be more reliable. Like give fast unit a redeploy of D6+3 or a charge of 2D6+3. sth like these. Because I ve seen so much games were the opponents or myself came up with the huge hammer unit. Failed the 3 or 4 inch charge and then the 400+ did nothing and died on the following turn… this should just not happen even in a dice game. It is bad design imho.
I do agree that the game is too lethal, but almost every game I've ever played has gone to turn 5, and usually isn't completely decided until turn 4 or even turn 5.
Some simple rules that lean into using the current battle round as a value for escalation could be nice. Some half-baked example of the top of my head are things like, the CP granted each round could be equal to the current battle round with the player going first getting one fewer, or use the current battle round in place of a dice roll for determining the number of mortal wounds dealt to a target.
A lot of interesting discussion Vince. I’m really on board with you and Tom re: tactics and schemes, but I’ve been struggling to articulate my thoughts. I think a show on the matter would be really interesting. Perhaps involving a presentation on how schemes could be incorporated into the game as an alternative, not necessarily because we want everyone to immediately use them, but as an illustrative point of how the concept of orthogonal secondaries could’ve better employed. I actually recently ran an 8 player game of AoS 3, with the coalition of death rules from AoS 2, The Traitor battleplan from AoS 1, a couple house rules, random realm artefacts, and individual player schemes from my pack I adapted from your Nashcon set. Somehow we finished this glorious, hilarious mess of a game in 3 hours (so much faster without tactics), and the players loved the schemes! If your interested in my set message me in the discord and I’ll send them over. The discussion at the end on the priority roll was really interesting too. Scott’s focus on “outcomes” was something I hadn’t considered before, but I did think I missed the fact the vast number of small inputs players make, which is the point you made, though I think you understated how much those inputs affect the outcomes. Perhaps in low skill vs low skill games those micro decisions won’t matter much, but games which involve at least 1 player with even a medium level of skill, they will matter and will help shape the outcomes, making the game a lot deeper than it ostensibly seems. Therefore, I don’t think players need to play a huge number of games to start recognising or appreciating these micro decisions or the deeper tactical aspects of the game. Players just need a moderate level of experience and/or a higher skilled player to guide them, and show them these things. Skill level and experience will determine how well they use them moving forwards (high skill do it without thinking, mid-low skill players will use them sometimes and other times remember after the fact - like I do all the time 😅). This is why, as with any game/sport/skill, exposure to better players is hugely influential and valuable to personal skill development. Sometimes you just need to be shown/taught something to realise it can be done. I think this experience has done that for Scott to some degree. You and Tome expertly showed him how mid-high skilled players would handle a 9” charging unit, and he immediately understood that - his horizon was broadened. Therefore I think we can be a bit more positive on how quickly new players can get over tue jump on these issues. They might not have the skills to employ them every time, but they can learn and start to recognise those opportunities fairly early on if they experience them from someone willing to talk through them. As a TO I see this all the time, and it’s why new players from small gaming groups love events so much. It’s their opportunity to learn and improve. It’s wonderful to see, and makes being a TO worthwhile. Cheers, Colonel Cabbage
I seriously don’t understand the “too many books” argument. There’s 3, 1 of which you don’t need depending on how you play. You play narrative? Core book and your army book Comp? GHB and army book. How is this too many books?!
What a bizarre conversation. Kind of ignoring the elephant in the room which is simply Games Workshop's sales practices/design style. This felt more like a conversation you'd have about a game that doesn't have a three year "rinse/repeat" life cycle made by a corporate machine. As you mentioned Battletech in the video, that's more where I'd find a conversation like this useful. It came out sounding like chefs talkng about how to perfect a McDonald's hamburger or something.
I understand that pushback, I do with they didn't have the 3 year cycle, but I also really love the game and know that a lot of people with a lot of love are working to constantly improve the game.
There are two major problems that the game has right now from an on-boarding perspective that I wish was easier to parse for new players: 1. Vince listed several terms - Hammer, Anvil, Chaff, etc. - We have even seen GW reference these sorts of terms many times in their metawatch's and such, and it boggles my mind that these are NOWHERE in the rules of the game at all. There should be a whole damn spread about these sorts of terms to help explain some of these nuances that have become a part of the game. If you are a new player that read through the GHB, you wouldn't have even an ounce of an idea of what people are talking about if they say these things. That's a problem for me when it comes to trying to help usher people into learning how to make good play and list-building choices that don't inherently cohere. 2. For how impactful the priority role is, the actual thinking around it and how to play around it should also be a whole spread in the rulebook. The priority roll is a good chunk of why I love AoS in the long term, but In my opinion, it's easily the hardest thing to explain how to play around because there are a hundred decisions I've made to minimize the impact of a priority role so that, whomever wins it, I'm fine with. How do you succinctly lay that out for a new player of the game without spouting mountains of "inside baseball" that will mean nothing to them? I love the priority roll, but boy is it impenetrable to teach without hundreds of hours of built-up context that many players who fell off the game out of frustration with it, simply don't get. I adore AoS but it can be hella hard to teach because 3/4 of what you need to know to grow in skill, simply isn't talked about in the rulebook at all.
Thanks for this video and others. Been wondering about playing AoS for awhile. The hurdles and traps are some of the things that have been worrying me. But the improvements recently to the game and these videos really help me put it into perspective.
The Rumor Engine is Tyranids, I am sure of it. Yes, my favourite army getting a new unit would be sweet, but I dont see it happening anytime soon, and Tyranids are up for new stuff with the new Edition coming up and all that. Scott seems to have a more negative outlook on finding subjective enjoyment, while not having adjusted several set screws. This is exemplified by him asking how many games he needs to play to enjoy the game *as a Spike* sometime around 3:16:20. This would be the set screw of repetition, but its only one of many. I think he does need to play bigger games, 1000 and below allows for fewer grinding matches he seems to enjoy. Similarly he might want to reconsider his army of choice. With some armies, some people just won't have fun, like I could never play Nurgle without going insane. These are two very obvious and large variables, that I am not sure he has really looked into yet. Spikes can enjoy AoS just like everyone else, they just need to find the right set screws and tighten them correctly, to have the most fun. Risk reduction is tricky, especially if you are really intolerant towards randomness, but giving up on a game before having avenues to cater towards your subjective enjoyment feels like giving up without a fight. After having written this, maybe we as a community should seek to reduce our "identification" along the lines of psychographic profiles. We run the risk of boxing ourselves in too much.
Couldn't agree more. With your last paragraph, it feels like we've crossed into 'map is not the territory' zone with the mtg profiles. They're known well enough at an abstract level that the model is becoming what it refers to rather than a shorthand for a much richer, introspective thing. I.E. 'I'm a spike and so I don't like this because I'm a spike'. Rather than 'I find this specific thing un-motivational, and so I should try these other things instead' I'm think the most productive thing for its use is to make sure we identify the mechanisms and not the player to code as Timmy/Johnny/Spike. After all that's the point of it. It's not 'I am this thing', but 'I have a tendancy to enjoy this thing'
In mobile rpg type games there is often an arrangement of some kind that states that a certain unit is weak to one type and strong against another. Does AoS or 40k have something similar?
What really, really sucks is the experience of go out and buy, build, paint loads of cool models that’s fits your narrative feel of what that particular army should look/feel like. Then get absolutely smashed over and over again. The only ‘way out’ has been to buy lots more of the ‘optimal’ unit choices and to bench most of what I originally bought. And then, when GW releases a new battle tome, the ‘optimal’ unit choices change! Then you have to go out and buy even more. But then again, I suspect that is entirely deliberate on GWs part…. Slightly disenchanted Beasts of Chaos player here. From a game design pov, stop with the trap choices units and the lack of internal balance between the different unit choices.
Long time BoC player here: BoC are great right now and you can make almost anything in the book work to some degree (not sure about Razorgors…). It’s going to depend on what outcomes you’re aiming for. You will always have to meta chase or put in insane hours on list design and practice to be at the top, but you can happily live in the 3-2 or 2-1 space with pet units and semi-regular games. That has been my bread and butter with Beasts for years - win 2-3 games because I know my army well and have moderate game experience, then lose to a hot meta army, or a much higher skill player (a lot of my friends). Good times! 👍
@@colonelcabbage thanks. I bought and painted a very ‘old world’ BoC themed list. 60 Gor, 60 Ungor, 30 Bestigor, 4 Chariots, 12 Centigor and 12 Minotaurs, plus hounds, characters, spells etc. I’ll persevere with it. Part of the problem for me is that my extended gaming group is quite competitive! Historical gaming works fine but the GW rules do lend themselves to meta chasing and cheesy list building.
The ‘Intentional Chaff’ discussion didn’t get discussed thoroughly enough. For an army like Humies, you should never have chaff. A dude with a sword shouldn’t be looked at as expendable, after all, we can eventually get him more experience and make him one of those better fighters one day. Yes, in the moment, he may need to die for his country, but if he’s intentionally there to get killed, that’s a mistake. Counterpoint 1 would be a bodyguard unit for a wizard, but that would play into the goals for the Humie army. Counterpoint 2 would be Soulblight, where the zombies are raised to intentionally be meatshields for the vampires, or in Skaven where the general has a thousand other bodies. I think victory points for killing individual units would get around that. The humie meatshield caps the other side a VP, while wiping 60 zombies is 0. Meanwhile the Wizard gives 4 VP while the Vampire is 10 VP
Well, of course we have the difference there between the player (god) view of the roles and reasons and the in world reason. In world, they may be the stalwart first line of defense, or forward skirmishers, or several other explanation, but of course to the player, they are there to die. :)
Imagine if they applied that evasion tank concept to Kruleboyz (the sneaky, evasive-but-brittle boyz)? Always seemed weird to me that they came up with such a cool and effective idea for chameleon skinks with "you have a ward in cover" and didn't apply it for the guerilla-tactics sneaky evasion army.
@@jonasandersson5838 Is that really too complex? I don't think it's really a complex mechanic at all (to use, maybe complex to master) but even if we said it was, they shouldn't be much of a "starter" army either way, they're a hugely complex and brittle castle army
first for so-so pros
😂
You know, I'm something of a so so pro myself smugheywhoa.jpeg
The professional so-so pro
BIG
😮😮😮😮
I was the other channel that responded to Miniac’s vid, and this was a great follow up to all of that! Enjoyed the convo between all of you!
Using the chess example to illustrate why a 500 points game is likely to feel bad, the pieces in a chess game are assigned point values to roughly determine who is in a better position. Pawns are worth 1, knights and bishops 3, rooks 5 and queens 9. Kings have no point value. You start a game of chess with 39 points of pieces. Imagine playing games of chess where each person could choose only 10 points worth of pieces to start the game with, and the way that would affect the game. Most people aren't going to play a lot of pawns (chaff), and they're also probably not going to play a queen (big, expensive faction leader). You're reducing the game, most of the time, to some combination of knights, bishops, and rooks with pawns filling whatever 1 or 2 points are left over, depending on choices. Trading pieces at that point feels devastating, and strategies will be constrained by the limitation of what pieces you took in and how badly they are or are not countered by the opponents choices. Even if you like it, you're not really playing "chess" at that point.
Now consider that in 10pt chess game format version of AoS, the majority of players take 1 queen and 1 pawn.
@@HeyWoah It's not rocket science though. At 500 points you should probably just be playing an Open Play format OR, if you have to play points, you have to cap how many points can be spent on a single unit - to keep the play competitive (I hate to use the word balance), OR you can't take units less than an agreed on number (i.e. monster on monster).
Learning basics of chess actually taught me how to think and play Warhammer
There is a fantastic learning chess game out for children that does something like this, where they play various iterations with reduced pieces though. The point is for children to learn how the pieces move and the basic rules. The leaning games continue on and on until kids are eventually playing with all the pieces.
I think a battle pack with rules and perhaps points for a 500 et al game makes sense for leaning and getting folks involved. No, it won’t be the same as a regular game of AOS, but it can make the barrier to getting involved (financial and knowledge) lower and more welcoming.
Like most complicated things in life, it feels easier once we understand. But having someone throw you in a pool when you can’t swim isn’t the best learning experience and doesn’t lend itself to people wanting to go swimming again.
@@querldox9300 This doesn't take into account things like summoning, recovering units, etc.
You might be thinking, "ok, well just ban those too," but that's half of how those armies are balanced. Even just the power level of certain units is point costed to 2k, not to lower points.
Open play is a meme. The lower from 2k you go, the worse and less strategic Sigmar gets. Narrative is the only mode that has the right scenarios for low points, and even it struggles.
100% into the combined warscrolls idea. Stormcast is completely set up for this, and it's desperately needed.
This is a wonderful example of how design is fractal. The new person FEELS but can't articulate problems that the in trenched are painfully aware of that are common design issues.
My Problem wtih AoS is that the core mechanic is, according to Vince definition, a bad rule. You need 3 to 4 rolls to get a result. This shows the age of zu the system Kllteam needs 2 Warcry 1. I men Gitz against Nurgle....poor Gitz, I Hope you Like rolling for nothing.....but I am 100% in on the soso-pro painter apron. Shut Up and take my money Scott!
I Liked for the So-So-Pro using a bad word
I am only at 1:50:50 in the video so forgive me if it's addressed later but I wanted to point out something that I think Warhammer has a big problem with - I think it has a severe issue with shelf life. The current 3 year cycle for editions feels very bad for everybody... new players (especially kids) that maybe don't want to drop 1k and go "all in" right off the bat, a lot of times it seems like the rules will be invalidated before some of these people even have a chance to save up and buy them. Models they saved up for may suddenly be terrible in the newest version of their faction rules. Cards and gameplay aids are almost always worthless as soon as the first FAQ comes out, which may be within days of a new faction release. Returning players (like me, who comes and goes with the game as I get busier or gain more free time) have a wall of content to chew through every time they come back to the game, sorting through what is needed or not, what has changed in a battle scroll, etc. It feels like every dollar I spend on rules is just flushing my money because it won't last. Sometimes it feels that way with models too, when they are made nigh useless with rules changes. I know this kind of aligns with a lot of points you already made, but just something I was thinking about and there is never harm in leaving a comment for the Algorithm god. :)
Getting back into AOS after a couple years the complexity has sky rocketed. Grand strategies/ battle tactics/ heroic actions/ monstrous rampages/ seasons/ Galletian champions/ faction specific artifacts and battalions which had only just been removed when I stopped playing, sure there’s more, the last few games have felt mainly like slogging through rules.
How cool would it be to have mermaid sirens for the Deepkin function kind of like the howling banshees were there fast, and have a banshee like siren wail.
GW, hear my plead the Deepkin still need crab warriors or elves in crab like armor! Don’t make me convert striking scorpion.
Need a dog whale first. Big whale with dog tail and dog head and paws. It's mentioned in one of the black library books.
I‘d love it
This was alot of fun. Good dialogue I enjoyed it alot.
-as an aside, the shared warscroll idea is awesome. I don’t think they’d ever do it either but I would be stoked to have regiments of various elves/dwarves or whatever that share the same “heavy troop” role or whatever. Anything to promote model freedom within reason
Gw will never do it, it opens up to 3d printing way too much. Elite infantry is hard to take down from etsy
Honestly there is little excuse. If you buy the book you get the digital book for the army. FAQs and balance updates should be integrated into the digital books and have it version numbered like Stormcast 3.4. For aos3 4th update.
The priority roll can definitely be played around, but I still feel it's a terrible mechanic for a few reasons :
1- It skews the desire to have the choice of going first to an extreme degree.
There's a reason why 50%+ of armies in tournaments (according to Honest Wargamer stats) are sitting at 4 drops or less. Because being the second player, unless you play a very specific army like Lumineth, is an incredibly huge advantage. Because you are immune to getting double turned, and if your opponent chooses to play like they're going to lose priority, you can punish that also, AND you get an extra CP, AND you get two heroic actions.
A common question being asked is "Well, if the priority roll is so important and random, why aren't top players losing randomly because of it." I'd really love to see some stats on that (priority roll victory/getting choice of first turn vs win rate) because clearly it's a huge factor, otherwise people wouldn't give up battalion advantages like artefacts or command points in favor of being low drops
2- The priority roll giving you the choice is a bad idea.
Because everything is in the hands of the player that wins the priority roll. If the roll determined who played (IE. you roll high, you have to go), it would be much more balanced. But as it stands, it's nothing but an incredible advantage to the player who wins it. Again, if this wasn't true, why would people invest so much effort into getting that choice when list building?
3- It's very, very bad for anything below competitive play.
Since the rule is the default, so many games at below tournament level competitiveness are decided by that roll. It's rarely the come back mechanic that people tout it to be. It most often beats down the person on the receiving end of it, because it requires very high level play to master how to play around the priority roll.
But the problem is, unless you want to house rule a core component of the game, you HAVE to play with it and it creates very negative play experiences that can, will, and do chase people away from the game, whether before they try the game or after they try it once or twice. That's not a good place for a growing game to find itself.
It's also extremely boring and disheartening to find yourself sitting through 2 turns back to back in a casual setting. You have limited interactivity available during your opponent's turn, and sitting through 20+ minutes of someone just getting to play the game is just not fun.
So while it might be a good mechanic in theory, in practice I feel like it falls short for the vast majority of non-tournament attending/high competition players.
This mechanic has always worried me as a nonAOS player with a Lizardmen army raring to go. It's obvious that you play this game taking priority roll into account, but I am concerned that too much of the game still comes down to the result of a few single die rolls to determine priority.
Here's an example of what I'm concerned about: lets say my opponent plays very aggressively, and essentially fifty-fifty's the game on winning a prior roll. If I win, I will punish the aggressive play and have a large advantage. If my opponent wins, they will be rewarded for their aggressive play, and have a large advantage. Thus, the outcome of the game comes down largely to a single die roll, and I personally feel very low agency when it comes down to the result of the game.
is this a reasonable concern for me to have?
The other reason I haven't played AOS is the cost of entry of rules.
@@peavizzle It depends a lot on who you're playing with. If you're playing with a close knit group of friends you can definitely try it out and house rule it if you have no intentions of going to a tournament.
The scenario you describe is exactly why some people, (not me) love this rule. It's essentially a decision between playing ultra defensively and sacrificing some chaff units, or playing aggressively and being rewarded. I however find that being the second player is such an incredible advantage in most games, and when you're playing at a casual level, you don't necessarily have time to re-rack and start a second game if the one you were playing ended after 2.5 turns because of a double.
Be aware that there are a lot of people that are pro-priority, and you might become one of them. I've been trying for a year and a half and it's just not for me. Every new GHB my friends and I try to play with the priority roll, then we have a few games when someone gets stomped, and we go back to traditional turns.
As for the cost of entry, let me introduce you to the wonder that is Wahapedia. All the current rules are available there, with less mistakes than the official app has! You can use Warscroll Builder to make lists, which is also free.
I hope you decide to join us, it's really a wonderful hobby. The good massively outweighs the bad, but as with any passionate group of people, have deep talks about our hobby is part of the fun.
Agree. The double turn is a built-in advantage for more experienced players to take advantage of (i.e. the 'it requires more skill' argument). It's a 'gamey' concept that throws an extra layer of randomness into a game already replete with randomness. Any rule that can effectively end your game in the 2nd or 3rd turn is simply bad design.
I'm one of those people that are on the fence about it, and I appreciate your breakdown here. I've grown to appreciate what it does regarding game tempo and planning - I just think that there are better mechanics to get those benefits without those negative-play-experience side effects you've discussed. The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game's I-go-you-go structure being divided into phases rather than turn is a great example. In that game, Priority is key for being able to control movement and engagements, but the pacing of the game feels much better and the player without priority has more options for responding, and those options stem from the state of the game board rather than needing Commands and CP, which improves the versimilitude and approachability of the game without sacrificing depth.
This video is the perfect example of how discussion/debate should be done, didn’t attack each other or there ideals. Hats off to you guys! I’m semi new to AoS and I find my self agreeing with him or seeing his points of argument but I still absolutely love this game. Last thing, maybe this game just isn’t for him and that is PERFECTLY fine, it’s not for every one
Not a 40K player but I believe there is a way you can play that with a deck of cards that contain your objectives. You draw each turn to see what you have to do. So one turn might be "hold objective point A" then next might be "kill a character". So it's like the shifts in battle result in new things that become important for you to do. I like the idea of that for AoS.
Yea, Tempest of War is amazing and AOS needs something like it for sure
spike/johnny would HATE that so bad
And gosh, I love Mordheim. It is the game that got me into GW fully.
I'm having a big hype for AOS lately, and am very hyped to get back into it, and videos like this really help to fuel the hype. That said - from the things you said you guys like - list building, factions feeling unique, and the verisimilitude aspects - I *cannot* recommend taking a peek at Malifaux enough. It seems like it would tick pretty much every box across the board.
Re: Models, I personally think the only good-looking armies are the ones that survived from Warhammer Fantasy. I don't like any of the new AoS-exclusive armies like Stormcast, Deepkin, Fyreslayers, OBR.
That's fair enough. Aesthetic taste is always deeply personal.
I started playing AOS in August 2021. For me the on ramp was battle reports. I probably watched close to 100 of them. First I watched every one featuring my army of choice, then I watched anything I could find. However I had the soft on ramp of playing two games of fantasy back in the 90's.
This is my experience to a T with Battle Reports. I even played a small 40k demo game at a local games workshop as a middleschooler in the early 00's.
I adore the fact that Space Station Zero literally says "don't be gamey" when addressing terrain interactions.
I think the Battle Tactics are such a good idea, but just like Secondary Objectives in 40k it started going a bit haywire once they introduced faction specific ones. If you don't have good faction Battle Tactics/Secondaries you're already on the backfoot and will struggle to score points, and very few armies have strong enough rules to make up for that. I love having themed missions to achieve with my armies, but it must be an absolute nightmare to even attempt to balance. I still think Malifaux handles that part the best with their Scheme system. But I think that would fall apart as well if every faction got their own ones.
I think there was a lot of talking around 'micro' gameplay issues in the video while my complaint about AoS and other GW games tends to be more macro game-philosophy focused. Lots of inconsequential dice rolls, lots of different abilities and stratagems and such that require extra rules overhead and effort but ultimately even out and provide functionally identical results. Lots of mechanical micromanaging of model positioning within units, while paradoxically broader maneuvering is rendered less consequential because of the large amount of movement/teleport/deepstrike shenanigans and a lack of unit 'screening'. Weird abstraction of retreat and rally mechanics that cause models to disappear and reappear in unintuitive ways. It's a game that feels less like it's taking place in a physical space and more in a conceptual one.
I've found that everyone has very different levels of abstraction and application of that they are willing to accept, it's just a deeply personal thing.
I feel like Scott would have loved the warmachine MK2 tournament scene.
Best discussion on priority I've heard. I finally understand why it's a NPE for me and you guys didn't just butt heads and argue if you like it or not. I'm still holding out hope they'll make it not 'feel' as impactful for the beginners or casual 'spike' players.
10/10 Waiting for the so-so pro painting tutorial from Scott.
On the topic of battle plans and battle tactics, the implementation makes the game feel more gamey. I may be showing my age and RP mindset but I prefer the game hiding the point system from me. When I play Warhammer now (40k and AoS), it feels more like work. I am not invested in the spectacle of fantasy war, I am an accountant filling out Excel sheets.
I much prefer shows like this that discuss the nature and design of the game than the faction of the moment style shows such as battletome reviews. So more of these please!
Though I’ve disagreed with you on battle tactics and faction battle tactics in the past after the discussion in this show it’s apparent we actually have a lot of common ground on them. Conceptually they are good for the game, the issue is in the execution. I would have liked to have balance mentioned as part of the discussion, the way I see it some armies have an inherent advantage to the objective game, and I think battle tactics are a great way to keep the game close against some other armies rather than just making those other armies better at killing or holding objectives.
Also, though I know giving examples is dangerous in that a poorly chosen one can undermine the point if people focus on it and miss the point being made, but they are important. Removing the requirement to provide examples or evidence opens the door to being able to suggest the impossible. It may actually be that what we want from battle tactics is actually impossible in their current form. Additionally I think it’s possible that the introduction of faction battle tactics is a symptom of the issue that the generic ones available to all armies are poorly designed.
Battle toad, Gothic? Neat premise, but I think you spell jammer wants his ideas back.
Hey, spelljammer doesn't own all fantasy space combat. ;)
Second for So-So Pros
Also Stormcast chariot list; Sigmario Kart.
I wish this was broken into sections to make responding easier! 😊
Models & their Rules: 2 models stand out for me here, Yndresta and Eltharion. I got into the game because of Eltharion and the Lumineth design aesthetic, but boy were his rules disappointing until the latest book, where he finally feels right. I got SCE because of Yndresta, she should have been a 300-400 point beat stick that terrified people running monsters, instead she is a confusing bucket of mediocre rules that the main narrative feature one needs a FAQ to work and then becomes only mildly less confusing and significantly worse. This is very much “feels bad” when getting into the game given how important the aesthetics are to the experience.
The Rest of the Video Except Prio:
I’m really excited to see how good a job they do with 10E 40K, because everything they have announced for it so far is what they need to do with 4E AoS. They need Vanguard as the on ramp version of the game, they need to update the entire game to 4E at once, they need to make the game work at 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 points etc.. Then (now in full on wish land) they need to do narrative expansion that adds new models and units to armies (which were designed but not released with launch) and gives cool scenarios to play for the first 12 months and only then, after a lot of data has been accumulated in the 2nd year release the books. This allows lore updates and meaningful rules updates to occur which addresses so, so, many of the problems.
thx guys! interesting topic. one thing I think u missed wrt on ramp of players is how big an investment AoS is, both money and time so if you don't value the hobby part, I think most ppl would not find the game attractive to invest in at all (maybe some exception if u have a lot of close friends playing). if u are willing to invest in the hobby, I don't think the rules are that much of a barrier in comparison. hence imo on ramp problem reduce to how u get ppl into the hobby for which I think they solved it with Underworlds, that game is all u need in a box and great entry to the world of warhammer but its lacking enough as a game to drag people into the larger AoS (at least that's what happened to me 😂)
THE GREAT DEBATE
1:12:43 made me chuckle
I wanted to return to Warhammer after 20 years old brake. I bought AoS book, and Cities of sigmar 2.0 army book. And I could not understand it. There were rules in the army book for units with "Keyword" and no unit in army book had this "Keyword". Also which CoS units can be together with an army? What are warscrolls, battle scrolls, core battalions, battle tactics, commands points, how do I make an army, etc etc... I was completely lost and I returned.... even unit names and roles were intuitive in WHFb, in AoS they are "fancy"... and I returned to... WHFB. I left it around 5th edition, and found out that 8th edution is pretty much the same in the broad sense as 5th (obviously rules differ a little bit).
Also when I play WHFB and I do not have army book for opponent's army, the opponent is able to give me a 10 minute explanation what are the units, special features of army etc.... I cannot imagine that with AoS, as large % of the actual rules that are applied during the game are in the army book.
Lang time 40k player, just now dabbling in AoS. I think the biggest way to fight swininess is to move away from igougo. Alternating activations I believe would balance things soooo much better.
This this this!!! I’ve been looking into Age of Sigmar and I have no idea where to begin! I’ve played Warcry and I have a so-so understanding, but AoS feels like a whole new mountain to climb and I don’t have the correct gear 😂
Is it fine?
It’s fine.
It’s fine.
It’s fine.
It’s fine.
It’s fine.
It’s fine.
It’s fine.
To have a debate you actually need two people that know what they are talking about. Miniac is just not qualified to talk bout a game system that he obviously does not really know much about. This video kind of reminds me of when I was a professor of evolutionary biology and some KU knucklehead in the administration would request for me to debate the latest popular Kansas creationist. Eventually they did stop calling me, I heard it was on account of my sarcastic replies. I like this channel (a lot !) but to be honest I didnt bother with this video because miniac has already established his poor understanding of gaming in other videos.
I get that, at the same time, a lot of what Scott was saying was coming from the perspective of what he feels as a newer player coming into the game. That is the position of a lot of players, and if we think what he is saying has value or points at some truth, it's very worth paying attention to, as others are likely experiencing the same thing.
As a German who dislikes soccer, but loves basketball i was blown away by th suspense-analogy. After more then thirty years i may finally understand why everyone and his mother love soccer in germany :D Thanks Vince!
Always happy to help. It's actually very interesting to look at the sports through that lens. For example, American Football doesn't have constant suspense, but has moments of ver high suspense when a team is approaching the end zone. Then there are moments of very high surprise when you have a hail mary pass or some incredible field goal, interception or sac.
Great conversation 👌 👏 👍 I haven't really done any hobby in almost a year. This conversation has refueled my love of this game
The battle tactic talk was on point!
It feels like a checklist every game and it makes it feel like every game is the ”same”.
Yeah I hate Battle Tactics. My DoK army has some easy ones to achieve but I genuinely hate playing them as it’s just boring and in some cases makes you auto include otherwise trash units to simply check off the tactic…
I like the way Malifaux handles it
warhammer, magic etc are like billiards or darts. at a low skill level it's all randomness but at the highest skill level it's all tactics and probabilities.
Nah in Darts and billiards you just miss. In AoS your bloodthirster just didn’t roll any 6 in 4 games in a row or your Be Lakor just didn’t get his 3+ on the enemy dragon in the enemy double turn…
I have grown to hate battle tactics and grand strategies. They're just additional rule layers the game never needed.
I would love to play AoS, the only problem is where I live game stores are nonexistent, So war gamers are less so.
Enjoyable watch as always.
I'm happy, we all can agree, that season 8 GoT was horrible.
I'm really suprised, how much of a Spike Scott actually is. Perfectly fitting the psychographic. Learned a lot. 👍
Hes very much a spike, you can see it in all things, even his painting style. :)
There sounded to be multiple attempts this episode to characterize viewpoints and/or ideas as largely being "Spike based" or "All Spikes think like this".
On WWeekly, you and Tom have gone over how the psychiographical profiles often get caricatured, which is not fair to the people who identify in those roles. Shouldn't the case also be to not view oneself completely within a profile's lens as well? It felt in this episode there was hitting into similar language used for astrology signs, when skill expression, as been said many times on the podcast, is a tremendous indicator on how people approach this game.
When the official player code specifically calls out complaining about your bad luck, it felt weird by Scott for him to place onus on being such a Spike with his gripes towards his perspective on probability.
Its a fair point, and that's why I try to say "tend to think like this" or some such softening language, but you are right that we need to be careful in painting with too broad a brush.
@@VinceVenturella For sure on the softening language, I do remember you have used that in the past. Appreciate you reading my comment, can't wait for next week's episode!!
From curiosity, does Scott know that the round 1 Priority isn't determined by a die roll but by who finishes deployment first? His video talks about how every round's priority is determined by die roll including round 1. The only reason I bring it up is because it does allow him to exert a level of control over the game and being able to potentially set the pace for the game.
Yes, he knows it's by drops.
"needing to field units to die"
"needing to put units in front of other units to prevent them from dying"
etc etc all those points sound like Strategy which is something Miniac seemed to think the game is lacking.
Calling that bad game design is like calling a banana a poor tool for self defense.
Its a strange thing, because I completely agree, it's super tactical and trading, but it's an emergent property, not something "in the rules" so that might be what he's chafing against.
@@VinceVenturella It's probably fair to say that most strategy in games is not explicitly explained in the rules.
Which video did you guys discuss the probability of attacks and the way to mitigate the randomness? Love your show !
I think we've covered in a few shows, but it's something worse digging in on.
Sorry but that's exactly how it worked in history, you put your best warriors on the frontline. Not that it matters for AoS but the argument is nil
That is not an absolute. Just off tge top of my head, the armies of the Roman Republic had their best troops at the rear.
Really great discussion, I don't think there was anything said that I disagree with, even if it is distinctly not my preference.
I think one point that tweaked my interest was the micro decision and movement aspect. A lot is made of exact positioning, something odd to me in an army scale game, and I understand its importance at least theoretically. However, a lot of the impact it seems to me is due to effect of implimenting the rules, as opposed to the wording of the rule. How much, if at all, do the you thing the implicate nature of those interactions provides that barrier to skill acquisition. As opposed to say a rule that offers and obvious advantage to employing, even if implementation may not be easy?
Also any thoughts on my perception of game design pushing towards dice rolling as soon as possible? Also games being decided by turn 2-3 in a number of occasions. Definitely a preference thing but I like the build up to the engage, and if I am setting up a large game that in theory runs 5-6 turns being done by the mid-point cheapens it. To be clear a 3 turn game is great, if you designing into as warcry does ... but a 6 turn mission often designed by turn 3 ... not for me
I think a lot of it is the emergent property of the rules yes, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Almost all games have emergent properties and strategies and that is a good thing.
@@VinceVenturella I think they can have a value, and it is kinda tied to mastery, in as much the more you learn the more you know you need to learn. I am not sure I would call this emergent by design though, I think it is another layer incidentally generated through exploitation of rules (no negative implications on that). Are they actually the purpose of the coherency rules for instance? To Scott's point though why play 10, 20, 50 games of a game that that needs a level of play to show obfuscated mechanics when you could play a game that shows you the potential but then challenges you to unlock that? Given a goal of casting a wide net.
GW makes a beer and pretzel storytelling game that people insist on playing competetivly despite the rules provided
Thing is, most people like a certain amount of structure for casual and pickup games so they don't have to have a detailed conversation with their opponents and can instead rock up to a table and get going. And the current rules that are provided for that structure are all focused, to a greater or lesser degree, on that sort of deeper play with grand strats and battle tactics.
I'm always keen to say why not both. :)
Here's the correct answer: All the current rules for all the armies should be free online. The army books should have *no rules* in them, and should be evergreen. Make them big, pretty, and full of lore, narratives, and hobby reference (subfaction paint schemes, painted models, etc.), and battle plans/scenarios that are *not* closely tied to the specific rules of the current edition. Make the army books match on the bookshelf, like an encyclopedia, so that people will want to collect them all, even for armies they don't own, because they love the lore of AoS. If they did that, I'd (eventually) buy *all* of them, but as it is now--with each book serving as a short-term rules update, destined to become obsolete within 3 years--I buy *none* of them. All the rules are already available online, through Wahapedia, so they wouldn't be giving away anything we're not already getting for free anyway. But the way they currently churn the battletomes as time-limited rules for mostly armies I don't own or play, I have no reason to buy any of them.
I would certainly love that world, but at a company of that size, it would be hard to justify the replacement of the millions of dollars they would theoretically lose with the change. I think it could absolutely work in their favor by growing that market, but it's a tough case to make to executives.
@@VinceVenturella I realize it's an impossible case to make, given GW's predatory and risk-averse business model, but I still think they would sell at least as many books, and certainly they'd reduce their production costs by about 70%. Under my plan, each army tome could last ten years before it needed to be updated, and with them lasting like that, a lot of people would buy them all, to have the complete set. It would be very easy for all of us to put a few of the books on our Amazon wishlist for our relatives to pick up a Warhammer tome for a birthday, Father's or Mother's Day, Christmas, etc. But--as I said before--knowing that the books go dead in three years or less, a lot of us buy *none* of them instead of *all* of them.
They could still sell an annual GHB with each years' battleplans, which most regular players would pick up, but it has to have *only* rules for the battlepacks it includes. It can't be a paywall to hide rules updates behind.
And you're right, making all the most current rules for the game available online, for free, all the time, would help grow their customer base. Hopefully, they'll get the Combat Patrol format right, with free downloadable rules, and see that making the rules free sells more miniatures, and then apply that lesson more broadly.
Anyway, Vince, thanks for raising these questions before the community, and thinking them through. Maybe some day, GW will listen to them.
So, unless I'm misreading something, according to Scott the Diablo franchise are badly designed games? I mean, if they were good, you should have still as much fun even if the dungeon layouts and enemy spawns were exactly the same every single time, right?
Well, thats a good point, it's interesting how we apply different frames and lenses to our views when exploring different mediums (tabletop vs. video game).
@@VinceVenturella While I appreciate that his points of view reflects his perception of the game and, being subjective, is an opinion that I have no business in meddling with, I still think he misses the point a little bit, when it comes to battleplans. He just should stop treating them as an addition to the game and make peace with the idea that they ARE the game.
I remember playing against Vince in a 2v2 and my Screaming Bell wiped all of my partners artillery off the board. Vince got a huge kick out of it. My friend wasn’t thrilled.
I still remember picking this game up when it first came out. I was very sad, and still am, that the Old World lore is gone. They shouldn't have done that, and just launched the game n that world. But, that first ruleset. I read and read and read it, and I could not figure out where the game was, how to play. I have not been back since because of that, and I still like fantasy figures more. I wish they'd bring back more traditional dwarves, but that initial game turned me off, and now, entering at this point is also daunting but at least there is a game there.
Hey, old world is not too far away. :)
@@VinceVenturella we will see. Lots of rumblings, but nothing cohesive as far as I know. So much good lore. stories they dumped. Old World was so good. Looking forward to having it back.
Moving all 4+ rally to a 5+ rally is a much better fix.
The new rule disincentivizes rally on low quality wounds like grots, hoppers and vulkites?
But doesnt really disincentivize rallying more elite stuff like bow snakes or boingrots.
Plus if they just wanted to nerf gitz & hoppers just nerf those units.
I haven't actually played AoS since a very dull demo of 1.0 in a GW store years ago. The game looks much more interesting now (and has done for a long time). I'd assumed that I wouldn't be a fan of Priority if / when I play again, but Vince's explanation as to what it achieves has really changed my view. Now I see what it does, I think I can appreciate it but also enjoy it.
Yeah, 3e is in a really great state right now. The only big changes I'd like to see for core 4e is some consolidation of the separate systems for Heroic Actions/Monstrous Rampages/Command Abilities (tracking all these things tend to be the biggest things that overwhelm new players), weapon ranges to be about fighting through certain numbers of models instead of measured distances, and the ability for Heroes to join certain units again to streamline things like Chaos Lords' retinues and the Loonboss on Cave Squig/Boingrot Bounders synergy.
And, of course, a Quickstart version of the rules and casual pick-up battleplans!
For scenarios it does lack a lot of originality. Even in StarCraft, you had a scenario to resist 5 minutes to a hord of Zergs: not balanced but very fun.
It’s one of the areas where 40k is better: tempest of wars cards, mission packs (including 3 or 4 players) and Boarding Action where you have 63 scenarios, some symmetrical, some not.
Lots of ways to avoid standard scenarios and pre established checklist of secondary objectives
The battle tactic discussion is so interesting to me. Maybe it's just a product of cunning maneuver in the current GHB, but I can't say I echo Scott's sentiment on every BT feeling killy.
I would say a standard game for me has at least 3/5 tactics scoring without any kill happening. Desecrate/Cunning + Tome Tactic. And often I can squeeze out 2 tome tactics that can be completed without scoring a kill. Granted the newer books like S2D and Slaanesh obviously have BTs that older books don't. But I personally find them to be an engaging point to the game, even if they are sometimes just a checklist item, it still adds a layer of strategy in my mind. What I think BTs should be however, are missions that your opponent has a chance to resist. I don't think they should be removed from the game, but I don't think they should be too easy or too hard. I would prefer a bigger pool of average difficulty BTs to choose from. It could potentially evolve the game to a healthier point. For example maybe you can't rely on scoring them 100% of the time, so you intentionally choose tactics you know your opponent will try to stop, but the cost of them stopping you from scoring can be leveraged for your win condition later.
Me and my friend got bored of playing matched play, we squeeze in a couple games of "Standard" AoS, but we moved onto open play, having Ruse's, varied deployments and objectives, it keeps it fresh and match up that would be very one sided become wildly different because of the variables involved.
Really enjoy the discussion and the variety covered. For me it can be hard to say the Priority Roll has very minor effects on the game when ever it's explained that you have to totally account for the threat of the double turn and/or how to capitalize on it at the same time. If something is so involved in your strategy, it has a major effect and clearly shapes a large portion of strategy. So it does feel like people try to downplay it's role in that if you plan for it's not an issue, but then discount how much you then have to plan for it.
I think the better solution for the Priority is for it to occur more frequently in smaller doses, in argument that's what an Alternating Activation is. It would make it less swingy on a single point, but it of course like anything can compound and still reach similar or the same effect.
I played a tournament game one time where my KO forces shot off 3 of 4 mancrusher gargants in a turn, leaving the last with 2 wounds. My opponent rallied with 3 sixes, brought back 24 wounds. Made me sick. I’m happy for the new rally constraints.
You forgot to mention endless spells. They should be supporting the armies but GW made some way overpowered and they become almost necessary for certain armies. Some games I play feel like Harry Potter where we throw endless spells at each other for three turns and the armies dont even interact.
On the topic of killiness of the game, imagine the whole game would be toned down so you don’t need chaff. Assuming all armies are equally toned down, you'd just smash your units into each other, roll a bunch of dice and in the end both units are still there. At that point, why even do combat if you could rather just move around and score objectives?
Or again, what’s the difference between feeling bad because your unit got blown up in one turn and feeling bad because you lost your unit after five turns of grinding?
Second comment because apparently, I can't comment enough. I love the priority roll, but I hate the matched play one drop I go first.
Future sure idea! With the changes coming to Warhammer 40 K 10th, edition and assuming next year we get a fourth edition of AOS. What do you think fourth edition AOS looks like in terms of changes to format? Does it follow similar to 10th edition?
Riffs! There’s a name I haven’t heard in 20 years. I remember making a hawk character who did mega damage and had a version of a venom like Symbiot. The GM sent us up against 1000 vampires near Mexico border, and we wrecked the campaign in about five minutes.
Season Of War Thondia is a great book and they’re really cheap now since nobody else really liked it. I do wish more people played it. Also the Malign Sorcery battleplans could see more play too with the spells being used in gameplay as a feral threat to both players. It seems so fun but people usually just want to play the new stuff.
Cant use magic for high lvl play...alot of the players have been caught cheating even hall of famers...they were so so pros. That wanted to be more
Great discussion all.
Chaff is 100% intentional. Proof? Skaven is a faction of meat shields 😂
👍👍
AoS is getting a lot of ‘from the ground up’ style videos of late from various awesome media outlets. Is interest waning in the community or is the wait for the new edition a good opportunity to build up and set out the AoS stall? May be a coincidence 🤷♂️ keep up the awesome folks.
P.S
Great to see Tom back 😊
Ah dreadfleet. The answer to an age old question.
Who would win in a fight, a cathedral or a castle?
The comparison of soccer to the priority roll is so accurate and I haven't even considered it that way before, and I love both
Tom's point about Spikes loving battle tactics because of their consistent point scoring definitely stuck with me. For someone who lives in the moment, I wouldn't have seen that perspective.
Personally not sure on that one - because it is reliable yes but it doesn't help to differentiate good and bad players if everyone just gets them and you just make a checkmark somewhere to get 2 points. So I don't think consistently compleatable battletactics are something for Spike either because you can't really prove that you are good or better if everyone can just autocomplete them
@@kalestu_ Some book tactics are BS and easy, but for two seasons now the GHB ones have been quite difficult.
@@skullz291 yes - but that wasn't the point made in the first place. The point was that consistent point scoring is something that "Spike" enjoys - and my point was that with how it is right now with some of the battletome tactics and autoscoring them, there is nothing for "Spike" there because it isn't about skill with a lot of the current implementation
@@kalestu_ I would say skill is more of a Johnny thing, Spike doesn't mind easy paths to victory. That's kind of his thing.
If that bothers the player though, they don't actually have to use them. The same way you don't have to use an overpowered unit.
@@skullz291 again - everyone getting points because everyone just checks off a battletactic is not a path to victory
Also no...most spikes that I know do not like to run over way weaker opponents and just curbstomp them - that's not the point
In terms of the luck I would think that the skill factor isn't just during game but also faction selection and army composition
One of my biggest issues is the game feels too lethal now. I realize the game needs to be aggressive in order to keep the action moving, but this is turn (with Battle Tactics, Grand Strats, and Battle Regiment) makes the main mode of play to Alpha your opponent and blow them out of water by the top of turn 3. This makes the double turn more impactful and maligned, because if your opponent gets the Double, your loss is almost assured and no number of catch up mechanics will help you.
If the game could be faster to play, but be able to play out all five battle rounds would make for more engaging and enjoyable experience for everyone. it also would tamp down on some the perceived NPE.
This and it has also become even more very dice dependent. If something spikes just a lil bit and the opponent gets the double turn the game is almost over. You can see it in batreps, in tournament reports and in your own games. It’s not like only noobs get punished by losing a few indicative rolls in a game. I ve been there were I ve lost every imitative roll but also have won every iniative in games. And the one losing them is just playing from behind without much of a catch up mechanic available.
The damage has also just become extremely high.
I love the bloodthirster of insensenate rage as an example. You can roll and do no dmg at all or kill the whole army. And this has nothing to do with tactics or skill it os hugely dependent on luck. It’s just way too much. And then the „high skilled player“ deploys in a way the 8“ mortals of this bloodthirster doesn’t kill his army…. If this low chance of dice roll even happens… wow! So impressive…
Also the „skill“ in this game has become even more an idiocy of thinking about what !could! happen when xyz scenario happen and then also what happens on these scenarios with double turn for me or oppononent and what if the dice roll well or not.
And your chance to react to these things is also quite low. Things like redeploy should be way better and charges also should be more reliable. Like give fast unit a redeploy of D6+3 or a charge of 2D6+3. sth like these. Because I ve seen so much games were the opponents or myself came up with the huge hammer unit. Failed the 3 or 4 inch charge and then the 400+ did nothing and died on the following turn… this should just not happen even in a dice game. It is bad design imho.
I do agree that the game is too lethal, but almost every game I've ever played has gone to turn 5, and usually isn't completely decided until turn 4 or even turn 5.
Some simple rules that lean into using the current battle round as a value for escalation could be nice. Some half-baked example of the top of my head are things like, the CP granted each round could be equal to the current battle round with the player going first getting one fewer, or use the current battle round in place of a dice roll for determining the number of mortal wounds dealt to a target.
Im yet to play a game but ive learnt stacks just by watching weekly
I should also add the Aos coach as well
Awesome to hear!
love it! finally someone that gives a clean look at things from a design perspective! mad props to vince
A lot of interesting discussion Vince. I’m really on board with you and Tom re: tactics and schemes, but I’ve been struggling to articulate my thoughts. I think a show on the matter would be really interesting. Perhaps involving a presentation on how schemes could be incorporated into the game as an alternative, not necessarily because we want everyone to immediately use them, but as an illustrative point of how the concept of orthogonal secondaries could’ve better employed.
I actually recently ran an 8 player game of AoS 3, with the coalition of death rules from AoS 2, The Traitor battleplan from AoS 1, a couple house rules, random realm artefacts, and individual player schemes from my pack I adapted from your Nashcon set.
Somehow we finished this glorious, hilarious mess of a game in 3 hours (so much faster without tactics), and the players loved the schemes!
If your interested in my set message me in the discord and I’ll send them over.
The discussion at the end on the priority roll was really interesting too. Scott’s focus on “outcomes” was something I hadn’t considered before, but I did think I missed the fact the vast number of small inputs players make, which is the point you made, though I think you understated how much those inputs affect the outcomes.
Perhaps in low skill vs low skill games those micro decisions won’t matter much, but games which involve at least 1 player with even a medium level of skill, they will matter and will help shape the outcomes, making the game a lot deeper than it ostensibly seems.
Therefore, I don’t think players need to play a huge number of games to start recognising or appreciating these micro decisions or the deeper tactical aspects of the game. Players just need a moderate level of experience and/or a higher skilled player to guide them, and show them these things. Skill level and experience will determine how well they use them moving forwards (high skill do it without thinking, mid-low skill players will use them sometimes and other times remember after the fact - like I do all the time 😅).
This is why, as with any game/sport/skill, exposure to better players is hugely influential and valuable to personal skill development. Sometimes you just need to be shown/taught something to realise it can be done.
I think this experience has done that for Scott to some degree. You and Tome expertly showed him how mid-high skilled players would handle a 9” charging unit, and he immediately understood that - his horizon was broadened.
Therefore I think we can be a bit more positive on how quickly new players can get over tue jump on these issues. They might not have the skills to employ them every time, but they can learn and start to recognise those opportunities fairly early on if they experience them from someone willing to talk through them. As a TO I see this all the time, and it’s why new players from small gaming groups love events so much. It’s their opportunity to learn and improve. It’s wonderful to see, and makes being a TO worthwhile.
Cheers, Colonel Cabbage
Wonderful message, sir. I’d love to see what you put together.
I chose Daisy for the exact same reason
Hi I'm Daisy!
venomthorpe tom. tyranid with long flowing arms
I seriously don’t understand the “too many books” argument. There’s 3, 1 of which you don’t need depending on how you play.
You play narrative? Core book and your army book
Comp? GHB and army book.
How is this too many books?!
As I said, 3 books is fine, I was pushing more on the supplementary materials (PDFs, White Dwarf, Half Year points updates, FAQs and so on).
What a bizarre conversation. Kind of ignoring the elephant in the room which is simply Games Workshop's sales practices/design style. This felt more like a conversation you'd have about a game that doesn't have a three year "rinse/repeat" life cycle made by a corporate machine. As you mentioned Battletech in the video, that's more where I'd find a conversation like this useful. It came out sounding like chefs talkng about how to perfect a McDonald's hamburger or something.
I understand that pushback, I do with they didn't have the 3 year cycle, but I also really love the game and know that a lot of people with a lot of love are working to constantly improve the game.
There are two major problems that the game has right now from an on-boarding perspective that I wish was easier to parse for new players:
1. Vince listed several terms - Hammer, Anvil, Chaff, etc. - We have even seen GW reference these sorts of terms many times in their metawatch's and such, and it boggles my mind that these are NOWHERE in the rules of the game at all. There should be a whole damn spread about these sorts of terms to help explain some of these nuances that have become a part of the game. If you are a new player that read through the GHB, you wouldn't have even an ounce of an idea of what people are talking about if they say these things. That's a problem for me when it comes to trying to help usher people into learning how to make good play and list-building choices that don't inherently cohere.
2. For how impactful the priority role is, the actual thinking around it and how to play around it should also be a whole spread in the rulebook. The priority roll is a good chunk of why I love AoS in the long term, but In my opinion, it's easily the hardest thing to explain how to play around because there are a hundred decisions I've made to minimize the impact of a priority role so that, whomever wins it, I'm fine with. How do you succinctly lay that out for a new player of the game without spouting mountains of "inside baseball" that will mean nothing to them? I love the priority roll, but boy is it impenetrable to teach without hundreds of hours of built-up context that many players who fell off the game out of frustration with it, simply don't get.
I adore AoS but it can be hella hard to teach because 3/4 of what you need to know to grow in skill, simply isn't talked about in the rulebook at all.
Thanks for this video and others. Been wondering about playing AoS for awhile. The hurdles and traps are some of the things that have been worrying me. But the improvements recently to the game and these videos really help me put it into perspective.
Glad I could help!
The Rumor Engine is Tyranids, I am sure of it. Yes, my favourite army getting a new unit would be sweet, but I dont see it happening anytime soon, and Tyranids are up for new stuff with the new Edition coming up and all that.
Scott seems to have a more negative outlook on finding subjective enjoyment, while not having adjusted several set screws. This is exemplified by him asking how many games he needs to play to enjoy the game *as a Spike* sometime around 3:16:20. This would be the set screw of repetition, but its only one of many. I think he does need to play bigger games, 1000 and below allows for fewer grinding matches he seems to enjoy. Similarly he might want to reconsider his army of choice. With some armies, some people just won't have fun, like I could never play Nurgle without going insane. These are two very obvious and large variables, that I am not sure he has really looked into yet. Spikes can enjoy AoS just like everyone else, they just need to find the right set screws and tighten them correctly, to have the most fun. Risk reduction is tricky, especially if you are really intolerant towards randomness, but giving up on a game before having avenues to cater towards your subjective enjoyment feels like giving up without a fight.
After having written this, maybe we as a community should seek to reduce our "identification" along the lines of psychographic profiles. We run the risk of boxing ourselves in too much.
Couldn't agree more.
With your last paragraph, it feels like we've crossed into 'map is not the territory' zone with the mtg profiles. They're known well enough at an abstract level that the model is becoming what it refers to rather than a shorthand for a much richer, introspective thing.
I.E. 'I'm a spike and so I don't like this because I'm a spike'.
Rather than
'I find this specific thing un-motivational, and so I should try these other things instead'
I'm think the most productive thing for its use is to make sure we identify the mechanisms and not the player to code as Timmy/Johnny/Spike.
After all that's the point of it. It's not 'I am this thing', but 'I have a tendancy to enjoy this thing'
In mobile rpg type games there is often an arrangement of some kind that states that a certain unit is weak to one type and strong against another. Does AoS or 40k have something similar?
In application, absolutely, though that is not stated anywhere, you have to sort of understand the interaction.
Oh and hitting like as Vince told me to. 😉😆
What really, really sucks is the experience of go out and buy, build, paint loads of cool models that’s fits your narrative feel of what that particular army should look/feel like. Then get absolutely smashed over and over again. The only ‘way out’ has been to buy lots more of the ‘optimal’ unit choices and to bench most of what I originally bought. And then, when GW releases a new battle tome, the ‘optimal’ unit choices change! Then you have to go out and buy even more. But then again, I suspect that is entirely deliberate on GWs part…. Slightly disenchanted Beasts of Chaos player here. From a game design pov, stop with the trap choices units and the lack of internal balance between the different unit choices.
Long time BoC player here: BoC are great right now and you can make almost anything in the book work to some degree (not sure about Razorgors…). It’s going to depend on what outcomes you’re aiming for. You will always have to meta chase or put in insane hours on list design and practice to be at the top, but you can happily live in the 3-2 or 2-1 space with pet units and semi-regular games. That has been my bread and butter with Beasts for years - win 2-3 games because I know my army well and have moderate game experience, then lose to a hot meta army, or a much higher skill player (a lot of my friends). Good times! 👍
@@colonelcabbage thanks. I bought and painted a very ‘old world’ BoC themed list. 60 Gor, 60 Ungor, 30 Bestigor, 4 Chariots, 12 Centigor and 12 Minotaurs, plus hounds, characters, spells etc. I’ll persevere with it. Part of the problem for me is that my extended gaming group is quite competitive! Historical gaming works fine but the GW rules do lend themselves to meta chasing and cheesy list building.
The ‘Intentional Chaff’ discussion didn’t get discussed thoroughly enough.
For an army like Humies, you should never have chaff. A dude with a sword shouldn’t be looked at as expendable, after all, we can eventually get him more experience and make him one of those better fighters one day. Yes, in the moment, he may need to die for his country, but if he’s intentionally there to get killed, that’s a mistake.
Counterpoint 1 would be a bodyguard unit for a wizard, but that would play into the goals for the Humie army.
Counterpoint 2 would be Soulblight, where the zombies are raised to intentionally be meatshields for the vampires, or in Skaven where the general has a thousand other bodies.
I think victory points for killing individual units would get around that. The humie meatshield caps the other side a VP, while wiping 60 zombies is 0. Meanwhile the Wizard gives 4 VP while the Vampire is 10 VP
Spoken like a man who has never once studied a human war.
Well, of course we have the difference there between the player (god) view of the roles and reasons and the in world reason. In world, they may be the stalwart first line of defense, or forward skirmishers, or several other explanation, but of course to the player, they are there to die. :)
And big up the so so pros!
Loved this
Imagine if they applied that evasion tank concept to Kruleboyz (the sneaky, evasive-but-brittle boyz)? Always seemed weird to me that they came up with such a cool and effective idea for chameleon skinks with "you have a ward in cover" and didn't apply it for the guerilla-tactics sneaky evasion army.
To complex for the starter army maybe?
@@jonasandersson5838 Is that really too complex? I don't think it's really a complex mechanic at all (to use, maybe complex to master) but even if we said it was, they shouldn't be much of a "starter" army either way, they're a hugely complex and brittle castle army
Great discussion, thanks Vince!
My pleasure!