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Post by Harkovast on Jul 7, 2015 16:35:44 GMT
The problem with the summoning thing is not that I am being an asshole with my demon prince cloning machine (though I am.) Its tht there is no limit so its completley up to me. My chaos lord says I can summon a unit. There is no guidance. If I summon 5 weak soldiers, I seem to be shooting myself in the foot.
If I summon 50 elite warriors, am I taking the piss?
What is the cut off point? When is it fair and when is it not? Are we supposed to negociate about it? If I have the models, can I summon 1000 guys and fill the table?
These are not finished rules.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 7, 2015 17:12:27 GMT
It depends on how you play it and who you play with, I suppose.
I'm not totally playing devil's advocate, I do think this could be fun. It is just that I also see a lot of weaknesses. How the Roll to hit/wound/save thing works doesn't totally ruin the potential of the game, but it definitely isn't as good as it could be and as a result does cause serious problems with game pacing. They should have figured out something else. I'm not going to totally dismiss the whole thing yet though.
Overall, though, I think you're right. The rules aren't finished. There are definitely house rules that will be needed as is, if you want to play, and I almost feel like they're using people to beta test and then they may change things. Especially if their bottom line suffers.
At the moment, it also seems as if it is lacking in the tactical depth. There is some, but not all that much.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 7, 2015 19:33:36 GMT
There don't seem to be any tactics (units charge each other on the first turn...I mean infantry units! I got a good roll and my orcs flew around like they had rocket boots.) The only tactics I can see would be in choosing your army, but you can't use tactics when choosing your army because there is no game balance or points value so you have to agree in advance with your opponent to make things playable.
When I am asking "How much is fair to summon? How do I decide?" that is an honest question, not a rhetoric one. If I don't summon enough and I lose I feel like a chump who holding back and letting my enemy win, if I summon too much I feel like a cheater who just used a cheap exploit.
If I play undead, summoning is what all the leaders do, so for some armies I can't just avoid these options without ruling out half the stuff the army offers.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 7, 2015 19:55:49 GMT
I see some potential for tactics. One good example of this is the different ranges that the weapons have. Spears tend to have 2 inches, swords tend to have 1. If you arrange your spears properly, you can get three rows worth of depth in your attacks while your sword wielding enemy only gets 2.
Or in a fight with characters, you can literally hide a squishier spear wielder behind a tougher sword and shield type hero.
If you charge with high elven spears, you actually lose effectiveness. If you receive a charge, you actually get an extra attack.
Where you place your heroes to grant their bonuses and abilities seems important too.
Infantry don't have to charge on the first turn, I think. You don't have to deploy right next to each other if you don't want to.
But it is lacking in things like flanking and actual formations and formation bonuses. Formation bonuses would be awesome. Enveloping an enemy with your orks would be neat. For instance.
I don't know about that summoning thing though, or how to fix it. I guess you'd have to agree with it with your opponent beforehand.
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Post by RED_NED on Jul 7, 2015 20:22:21 GMT
The game has the very bare basics of wargame strategy, because it is a barebones wargame. You obviously have certain choices and tactics during the game, but compared to most other games it is incredibly limited. You measure model to model, and ignore bases – so you overlap bases in this game as if the premium models you are using are toys. Trying to manipulate the distances to get the most models in is hardly a challenge. You measure 2" from the tip of these guys spears to see who they can attack: If you've modelled their arms lower, so their spears are forwards (like a lot of gamers did before because it looked cool) you can get as many of them into combat if you please. Before units attack, they can move 3" towards their targets, so everyone piles in into a mush, so accurate positioning in combat isnt that important. You can attack any model within range, so 1" from any sword from your model, attacking through models is what you do, so hiding people behind models doesnt really work. You can download the rules for free, use proxy models for whatever, I really urge you to try these rules out, it will help you understand how it works a lot more than just seeing it played. You can have a semblance of a basic but fun game here, but it ultimately will turn into a big pile in the middle where you just roll dice at each other until someone wins.
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Post by RED_NED on Jul 7, 2015 21:03:35 GMT
Okay, a little change of perspective. Me and Hark have been bashing the shit out of this, and I hope it doesn't come off as bashing you as well Canuovea (I'm awful at figuring out tone on the internet) that's certainly not our intent. So! Positives about Age of Shitmar *Gasp*!
1. The rules are free
Yep! This is a positive, Even though I think the rules aren't very good they are free. This is a Good Thing™ The fact they released all the warscrolls for each faction is also good, and they do have some interesting rules, even if half of them are insane in power level or comedy.
2. The Setup/Terrain
The game has special terrain you set up and its incredibly simple, and they all have a special ability. They aren't perfect and have some overly faffyness but the core concept is nice and simple. I like it.
3. Simple Magic/Hero abilities
At the start of the turn you fire off loads of spells and hero abilities. The magic spells are incredibly simple to use, and each leader gets a special ability they can use each turn. These are really flavouful, not balanced in the slightest, but give them a certain special charm. I like that each hero has their own unique effect.
4. Unit abilities
A lot of Units had their own special rule. While this may not ultimately be great because you could never tactically prepare or know the insane amount of them, in the small games it was actually pretty flavourful. Again, some were bonkers like quadrupling shots, but the overall concept was pretty neat.
5. Keywords
Each model has a bunch of keywords that do nothing, but are referenced by other units and powers. My bretonnians for instance had Nobles, and certain peasants and magic powers were stronger if near them. This was actually a really cool idea and seperated my worthy knights from the lowly scum!
6. Wounds make monsters weaker
We didnt play any big monsters, but loads of them get weaker the more damage they've taken. This is actually awesome and I think i will definitely nick this idea for other games. It makes each monster like a boss battle that goes into different stages and I could easily see certain monsters getting enraged and more dangerous as they got damaged. Cool stuff.
7. Alternating Attacks
This is a weird one. You take turns, where one player moves ALL his guys, then his opponent moves all his guys, but close combat you alternate using 1 unit at a time, not using all of them. This is interesting. Im not sure its the best thing ever, but it meant that having more units wasnt an advantage in this phase. Games usually have each phase work the same - so I move one unit, then you move one, then i move one etc. This leads to the person with more units being able to have more move activations and outmaneuver their opponent. That wasnt actually possible here. Also the altenrating combat did lead to some strategy.
I'm sure there's other stuff (other than being fairly simple to play/having basic wargame strategies) but these are things that Age of Sigmar does well that you don't see in many other games, and that is actually to be applauded.
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Post by StyxD on Jul 7, 2015 21:30:50 GMT
As someone completely foreign to wargaming, I'm... kind of surprised how you've been defending them, Canuovea. I just want to say, doing something differently just because is not praiseworthy in itself. It's not "innovation". Yet you seem to sneer at people who complain about stupid shit in the new game, since they "complain about how companies don't innovate, but as soon as they do, they proclaim doom and curse them". This seems like some lame defense GW's marketing manager might make. I have no feeling for Warhammer either way, but this just... leaves bad taste in my mouth.
But let's talk about something else. Those race names' changes. Are they for real? I've heard about them first when Imperial Guard was renamed "Astra Militarum" or something. At that point I've thought that they're just finally giving them a cute kitsch pseudo-Latin name, but apparently this was a wide trademarking operation.
But that I can at least understand, since Imperial Guard is a WH40K-original formation. But Aelfs? Orruks? They're still going to look exactly like run of the mill elves and orcs. What are they even trying to protect with this?
By the way, I was in Warsaw this weekend and saw an official GW store (as in, entire store with only GW things). Do they all have human-sized Space Marine armor on display? That was incredibly tacky. I didn't muster enough courage to enter into that mouth of madness.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 7, 2015 21:34:43 GMT
Yeah, it needs some polish. And the simple spells are wonderful in my mind. One reason I didn't want to get into Fantasy was that the spells were ridiculously confusing to me.
If it becomes a mush, then it is blah. At the same time, I think that a vanguard formation could be effective, just put your spears that point forward in the back. That way you can all attack at once and maybe force them to not do so much. I'm going to have to test this out, see how it works.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 7, 2015 23:31:06 GMT
Once guys are in combat, they can mush together, so maintaining any kind of formation is virtually impossible. Also units move super fast and have total manuverability, so trying to block their movement is very hard. In the game we played, knights ran right around my warlord in order to attack something else, because they each move as individuals and just weaved around him. The generals abilities tend to encourage you to bunch up and move in one big mass (my warlord gave orcs and extra attack, doubling the average orcs killing power if they stayed near to him!) I spread out becasue I was just trying things out and wanted to get into the spirit, but if I had bunched up and just made one big combat in the middle I would have actually done better. The game would have rewarded me more for going straight to the mosh pit mode rather than trying to manuever.
The magic system is nice and simple, I will give it that. AND I liked that wizard are only able to dispell other wizards they are close to. That makes the wizards positions relative to each other seem more important (though, like everything in the game, has potential for abuse if you sit at the back summoning or buffing so no one can stop you.)
When I was making decisions like "well I might as well pile my archers into the huge melee, after all they can still fire in close combat so they will be attacking even more!" Something had gone a bit wrong. Pile in is the almost unversal tactic for everything. There was no need to hold things back or protect other things. You just throw everything in there and hope the dice come out in your favour.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 8, 2015 0:05:08 GMT
I'll test it out with some place holders and get back to you.
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Post by Horsie on Jul 8, 2015 8:13:36 GMT
I have to pass a gaming store on my way to pick up ammunition, and occasionally they'll have something going on. Whenever they do there's always a couple of guys dressed like Space Marines.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 8, 2015 19:49:57 GMT
You...you guys aren't dressed like space marines?
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 8, 2015 20:10:04 GMT
No.
Wait, there were actual people inside those things?
Okay, so since I've been getting something like 4-5 hours sleep the past three nights, I've not got a chance to set things up to do a test run. But I'm intending to use some of my abundant Eldar guardian models to test it out.
The Control will just be two groups trying to murder each other.
First thing will be the seeing if a standard block formation is effective.
Next to test will be the effectiveness of other formations. Is pulling a "lets murder Boudicca with smartness" possible? That would be testing the Vanguard style formation, or "saw teeth" that was used to defeat that particular Celtic Terrorist. ((Yes, I'm sort of purposely exaggerating, sue me, go ahead and build a statue of the woman who burnt London to the ground in London)).
I might also try a shallow encirclement, circle or semi-circle. Is there any other one you want me to try? I could always put them in a line... that... that would be... odd.
The most interesting phase is going to be the pile in phase, which begs the question of if they'll actually be able to get all their units into combat with all my units, while also allowing me some latitude in readjusting the formation.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 8, 2015 22:17:54 GMT
If you take 10 dwarf cannons, supported by engineers, they will average about 45 wounds to enemies with a 5+ save every turn, on any enemy they can see. Its a bit less damage if you have a better save, against 4+ save units they will do about 38 damage every single turn. People have tried to rebalance the game based on number of wounds as a guide. The cannons have just 30 wounds, the engineers dont add many more, we'll call it 40 wounds total. They do more damage than that every turn. A bit worrying!
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 8, 2015 22:51:39 GMT
You could always limit/compare total wounds in categories.
So siege categories, for instance.
But this is all crap you need to do on your own. I'm sure balancing it is possible. But that is GW's job...
Still, it seems like it is about your friends and who you play with.
To be honest, I've been wondering if I could use this game to teach probability. Heh. I'm not even a math teacher.
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