AOS rules discussion: questions, suggestions...

[Calisson]

Hi.
I made this thread by duplication from existing discussions about AoS, from which I extracted relevant posts.
This thread is open only for those who want to give AoS a try.
All non-constructive comments will just be removed.
Please participate!

[Lord Drakon]

I am pretty sure there is more to come. As this was all free, the interesting stuff, the stuff we have (and are willing) to pay for will follow the next coming months I expect. Changing 30 years of warhammer needs little steps, which are huge for us, but just little parts of the progress for them (like End Times).

For the moment lets analyze the new rules / warscrolls we are given, lets come up with our own ideas how best fix the current vacuum of balance and list building and work on D.R.A.I.C.H Age of Sigmar material. Even while our rules might suck and we are under-powered instead of over-powered again, our Druchii mindset should still allow us to still kick ass as soon we realized our tactical possibilities with the new rules. After all, Druchii.net has been the centre of tactical and strategical brilliance for a long time (for example invention of MSU).

Personally I really like that the Sisters of Slaughter now come in unit of 5 ! Maybe our Assassins kick ass again instead of masters, maybe the Fleetmaster can actually do something etc. Yes I expect the current power builds to be broken down, but this give space for other builds.

[Falstaff]

Hi there,

I'm getting into AoS after I had to take off several months of WHF due to baby-break.

Immediatelly, I realized that there were no rules on how to pick an army and how army sizes are agreed upon. In this forum, I stumbled over the approach of counting wounds. I'm not sure that this will be viable for tournament play (clog field with dreadlords and sorceresses on dragons?)

So here's the approach of my local gaming store for our first tournament in August.

Each player selects 7 battlescrolls. For each game, the opponent may deny 2 battlescrolls from being used.
Max 3 warmachines
Max 2 monsters
Each battlescroll max 1
Minimum of 2 and maximum of 3 heroes (the opponent cannot deny all of your heroes but must leave you at least one)

Maximum unit size:
Formula: (wounds + attacks) * Bravery = cost/model. --> Each scroll is limited to 300 points.
If the warscroll is a heroe, he may cost 150 max (thus excluding some of the most powerful heroes).

What do you tink about this rather complicated approach? I think it has some potential and will certainly be tweaked after having been testet.

[Falstaff]

Hi there,

I'm getting into AoS after I had to take off several months of WHF due to baby-break.

Immediatelly, I realized that there were no rules on how to pick an army and how army sizes are agreed upon. In this forum, I stumbled over the approach of counting wounds. I'm not sure that this will be viable for tournament play (clog field with dreadlords and sorceresses on dragons?)

So here's the approach of my local gaming store for our first tournament in August.

Each player selects 7 battlescrolls. For each game, the opponent may deny 2 battlescrolls from being used.
Max 3 warmachines
Max 2 monsters
Each battlescroll max 1
Minimum of 2 and maximum of 3 heroes (the opponent cannot deny all of your heroes but must leave you at least one)

Maximum unit size:
Formula: (wounds + attacks) * Bravery = cost/model. --> Each scroll is limited to 300 points.
If the warscroll is a heroe, he may cost 150 max (thus excluding some of the most powerful heroes).

What do you tink about this rather complicated approach? I think it has some potential and will certainly be tweaked after having been testet.

[Diobarach]

Ok, figure I'd post this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/comments/3cy67r/point_values_for_all_age_of_sigmar_models
as it looks pretty comprehensive, a direct link (in case you have an aversion to reddit)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4wN-6BdRhC5Wm56VXhmSmliRmc/view?pli=1

[Daeron]

- Apparently, it's possible to deploy a single Scorpion, burrowed under the sand where it can't be hit. Choose sudden death scenario endure and let your opponent walk about for 6 turns.
- Arguably, some terrain features are a war scroll too. Deploying one of those gives you an indestructible army.

one side able to claim victory because it has destroyed its foe or there are no enemy models leftŽ on the field of battle.

Rules are clear, either would be instant auto-lose.

Well, actually, you can claim a sudden death (Unless the opposing player has deployed only 1 model) and through that you can claim a major victory.
It's an argument I brought up not to diss the entire game, but to indicate it didn't include the minimal ruleset required to close a few loopholes and I'm expecting those to come in the future. Perhaps the new BRB will do that.
It should be easy enough to amend this.. But that's also why I'm surprised they didn't do that for us.

On a brighter note: my starter box arrived and I'll be building and reading it over the coming days!

[Amboadine]

This is taken for Warseer, but the comp pack posted for a tourney on a GW store (and previous mentioned in a couple of threads here) facebook page looks to have been slapped down by GW Head office.

Original comp pack posted by store

1 - 12 Warscrolls
1 - 2 Hero Warscrolls
1 - 2 Monster Warscrolls
No single Warscroll may contain more than X wounds (i.e. 24)
Heroes may not be duplicated
All other Warscrolls may only be duplicated once

Current facebook comments

Quote Originally Posted by Facebook User
What happened to the comp rules etc?

Quote Originally Posted by GW Yonge and Lawrence
The game is a total blast and works fine right out of the box! None of that stuff is needed!

Just give it a go and you'll see for yourself !

Quote Originally Posted by Facebook User 2
I hope you typed that with a strait face lol

I would assume that pretty much settles the question of whether there will be official balancing rules from GW.

[Mmmmk]

So I am one of those lurkers who never quite got into WFB because it wasn't popular in my area (I played Warmachine for a few years instead) but have been really interested in Age of Sigmar and the basic ruleset that they released for it.

So I came across a leaked copy of an unreleased errata for AoS from belloflostsouls.net. I'm not sure on your forum policy here at druchii.net so I wont post the link unless someone can confirm that it's alright to do so.

The errata is designed for "competitive play" and includes many fixes for the problems that we all saw in the original rule set. There is a major rebalancing for the shooting rules, removal of the random turn order, changes to wound allocation, and, most importantly, a guideline for list-building which is based on wound total and includes restrictions as to #of heroes you can field, % of wounds which can be monsters/warmachines/heroes ect.

This errata, if it is genuine, seems to fix many of the problems that the critics of AoS have been complaining about (and rightly so in many cases). A few things that weren't addressed were summoning (which needs to be clarified at the very least) and balancing core vs elite infantry (I'd suggest a house-ruling that the last paragraph about getting "wound" discounts for units over 10 models only apply to core infantry choices).

There are also a few scenarios included that remind me a lot of Warmachine.

Anyhow, I'd recommend that you read it over if you're a fence-sitter as it has definitely convinced me to move forward with AoS. For those of you who are upset about WFB being discontinued, well, I guess this wont change your opinion much.

[The Mattler]

No single Warscroll may contain more than X wounds (i.e. 24)

Although it's a shame to see a global maximum number of units creep in, the other recommendations aren't so bad, but this one is because damage output and armour saves alter the quality of the model per wound. They should be focussing their efforts on tweaking the Warscrolls with unit size caps if they want a simpler solution. That requires more calculations than went into the unit design, though, and those calculations could be used to differentiate the units by role in the first place instead of having some choices being nigh-strictly better than others.

[Mmmmk]

Sure:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-conte ... narios.pdf

And if it is legit, I wonder why in hell they wouldn't have released it with the initial ruleset--would have saved them a lot of internet raging. Unless it's a clever marketing ploy...

[Calisson]

I'm understand that the intent of GW is not to pose any limitation.
The intent of players is to find some kind of balance.

I would suggest, then, to agree beforehand on two "information", not limits:

- Inform about the number of warscrolls intended, providing a range bracket where the minimum is half of the maximum.
Something such as "let's play 5-10 scrolls". Playing more than twice the number of scrolls brought by your opponent, or less than half, should require his approval.
If one opponent says he wishes to play 5-10 and the other one 3-6, well, either make it 5-6 or allow opponent to refuse battle.

- Inform about your intention to fight a battle of troops (mostly multi-model scrolls) or a battle of heroes (mainly single-model scrolls).
Just add the number of hero+monster+wizard+war machine you intend to deploy, and see if that makes more than half of the total number of models, when deployment will be completed.
If the total is more than half of the models, that's a hero-heavy army. If it is less, that is a troop-heavy army.

Example: Malekith is a hero, a monster and a wizard, that counts for 3. If he comes along with 5 BG, that makes 6 models. Together, they make a troop-heavy army (there are twice or more as many models as occurrences of words "hero", "wizard" and "monster").

If the troop-heavy or hero-heavy nature of the two competing armies do not match, get prior agreement for both opponents before playing.

[Elrithral]

I probably know the answer, but does Frenzied Fervour stack? Can I take multiple Hags and buff Witch attacks to 6 or 7? What about a Death Hag and Hellebron? Is that an extra 3 attacks on top of the 2 the Witches have?

[Sangfroid]

Sadly I read that as being in 14 of any death bag so wouldn't stack that doesn't stop it stacking with hellebrons ability though and a unit of witches with a cauldron & hellebron will be fearsome on the charge. How would you read hellebrons ability though do you think the unit piles in and fights then opponent chose a unit to fight then buffed unit fights again or they pile in and attack twice at once!

[Elrithral]

You could read it another way; that the unit gets to pile in AND attack twice, rather than pile in once and attack twice.....that might be stretching it, though.

I think i'd attack once, let my opponent do his thing and then at the end have another set of attacks. However, if the unit gets the ability maybe the whole thing should get the opportunity to attack twice prior to taking casualties, because if they do then some models might never have the chance to make use of an ability they've been given i.e. if you pick a unit of 10 Black Guard then all 10 have the ability, so should there be a chance of some dieing before they get to use it and if not then they should attack, attack again and then move on to your opponent?

[Sangfroid]

You know what re-reading the rules for combat selection and thinking about WHY you would add into the mechanic pile in twice as well as attack twice, I think it's designed to be your pile in attack (enemy remove casualties) then you either pile into the same enemy and attack again or if in range pile into a second target to represent the blood frenzy carrying the unit into the enemies lines.
Thoughts?

[Barking Agatha]

Sadly I read that as being in 14 of any death bag so wouldn't stack that doesn't stop it stacking with hellebrons ability though and a unit of witches with a cauldron & hellebron will be fearsome on the charge. How would you read hellebrons ability though do you think the unit piles in and fights then opponent chose a unit to fight then buffed unit fights again or they pile in and attack twice at once!

The first. You choose the affected unit, they pile in and attack. Then your opponent chooses a unit that piles in and attacks. And then (or later) you choose the affected unit again and it piles in and attacks again. It says that they can be 'chosen' to pile in and attack again. which refers to: 'The player whose turn it is picks a unit to attack with, then the opposing player must attack with a unit, and so on until all eligible units on both sides have attacked once each.' Helle just let's you choose the same unit twice. This is Hellebron's Command Ability, so she would have to be your general.

I don't know that I would use it on Witch Elves. With Witchbrew, Strength of Khaine, and a Death Hag nearby (which includes Hellebron) they already eat through most things in just one go. They might not get to attack again because they've already killed everything. Or if not, they might not get to attack again because they've all been killed -- they're beasts at attacking, but not so much at defending!

[Calisson]

Here is a link found on WarFo
http://www.louisvillewargaming.com/Files/AzyrComp.pdf
The comp system seems simple enough to work fine.

[tehnico]

So... I can buff a unit to a 1+ save with the shield spell, and rolls of one are a save, right?

[Daeron]

That seems correct. Get a 1+ save and your unit is, indeed, invulnerable to all but mortal wounds.... Or attacks with Rend. It seems easier with cover on a high save unit or character.
That said, I haven't seen anyone succeed in getting it yet, though I expect that to happen im the future. But even lesser successes are very effective. A 2+ save would require a lot of investment to break.

[Calisson]

1+ save seems interesting to allow.
It would require a lot of investment in socerers - who always may fail their spell, be dispelled...
and these sorcerers are vulnerable themselves as they cannot be part of any unit.

[Daeron]

The benefit isn't small either
The investment is big indeed, but there are ways to achieve it. Many elite units have a 4+ save. It could be some other races have a 3+ save unit. Throw them in cover for a +1 save. Now you need to have the spell only once for that 1+. The moment you need the spell twice, it becomes an investment.

As a tactic, I expect this to be easiest for a caster combat character like Malekith. With a good save, a charge into a unit with cover and casting the shield would be devastating. Of course, he doesn't get the cover until next turn. But that's not exactly a bright prospect for the opponent.

That said, I have not seen anyone do it yet on a report or on the table.

[Nightwind]

My gaming group has been testing the AoS rules a couple of times, with mixed reactions. (Using the SDK points system and "some" house rules) Anyway, it seems we can’t agree on how to read the rules for allocating wounds to multiwound models. Can the druchii.net help us?

The rule is:

After all of the attacks made by a unit have been carried out, the player commanding the target unit allocates any wounds that are inflicted to models from the unit as they see fit (the models do not have to be within range or visible to an attacking unit). When inflicting damage, if you allocate a wound to a model, you must keep on allocating wounds to that model until either it is slain, or no more wounds remain to be allocated.

Let’s look at the following example to illustrate the question. A unit of Cold One Knights is attacked by unit A, causing three wounds, and subsequently by unit B, causing one wound. My interpretation is: One CoK is removed and one takes a wound, thus there are no more wounds to be allocated from unit A. This means the wound caused by unit B can be allocated to a previously unharmed CoK.

Is this the how the rule should be interpreted, or should the wound from unit B be allocated to the CoK with one remaining wound?

[Calisson]

Let's split the rule in two parts:
(A). After all of the attacks made by a unit have been carried out, the player commanding the target unit allocates any wounds that are inflicted to models from the unit as they see fit (the models do not have to be within range or visible to an attacking unit).

(B). When inflicting damage, if you allocate a wound to a model, you must keep on allocating wounds to that model until either it is slain, or no more wounds remain to be allocated.


Let’s look at your example:

A unit of Cold One Knights is attacked by unit A, causing three wounds.
My interpretation is: One CoK is removed and one takes a wound, thus there are no more wounds to be allocated from unit A.
=> everything correct so far:
- you apply (A) for the first wound
- you understand that (B) is in force for the second wound, so you cannot apply (A); you admit that (B) is an exception to (A).
- you apply (A) for the third wound.

And subsequently it is attacked by unit B, causing one wound.
This means the wound caused by unit B can be allocated to a previously unharmed CoK.
=> No.
Here, you want to apply (A) like if (B) was no longer an exception to (A).
Why, for wound number 2, do you admit that (B) overrules (A), and for wound number 4, (B) would no longer overrule (A)?
Your rationale is probably that "After all of the attacks made by a unit have been carried out" interrups the sequence.
However, you should note that these words only apply to (A), there is no way to consider that they would apply to (B).
In fact, (B) is a permanent exception to (A), not an exception for the mere duration of a single unit's attack.

That's fortunate, because it would be a nightmare to track all wounds still running on some models but not other models.


Conclusion:
Once a model has started losing wounds, all subsequent wounds must be inflicted to that model until slain.
The wound from unit B should be allocated to the CoK with one remaining wound.
That is the very same process than in 8th edition.

-=-=-

This rule (B) has some interesting consequences on warmachines, for which one model is multiwounds and the other models are single wounds, but their disappearance limits the efficiency of the warmachine.
The owner of the warmachine has to make a decision, either to allocate wounds to servants, reducing immediately the efficiency of the machine, or to allocate them to the machine. In the latter case, the efficiency remains intact, but suddenly it will drop when the machine's last wound will vanish.

[Nightwind]

Ok, thanks for the replay. Highly appreciated! Now I finally understand the reasoning for that interpretation. I think you missed my reasoning, so I’ll give it one more try. I confess that this isn’t the biggest rule problem in AoS, but I’ve always considered rule questions an interesting intellectual challenge…

Feel free to ignore this post if you aren’t interested

The problem is that you see it as in 8th (and ignores the last part of (B)), while I see it as in 40K. The question arises because I see the second sentence as a logical while loop. In steps:

Unit A attacks
- You apply (A) for the first wound.
- You check (B) for the second wound. The model isn’t dead and there are wounds to allocate, so the wound goes to the same model.
- You check (B) for the third wound. The model is dead, so you apply (A) for the third wound.

This far we agree, but I think there is one more step to perform before moving on to the next attacking unit.

- You check (B) for the forth wound. No more wounds remain to be allocated from unit A, so the “while loop” of (B) stops having any effect.

Unit B attacks
- You apply (A) for the first wound.
- You check (B) for the second wound. There is no second wound to allocate from unit B, so the “while loop” of (B) stops having any effect.

In conclusion:
This boils down to a question about the RAW of the second sentence and how important the “or no more wounds remain to be allocated” part is.

Sorry for being way too stubborn…

[Icon hack]

Look at the big picture. Imagine what your interpretation means for units like Trolls, Putrid Blightkings or Nurglings - they would be almost impossible to kill (especially if they are greater than the minimum size). Now apply Occam's Razor here. Which do you think is more likely to be the correct interpretation? The simple interpretation A: All wounds sustained by a unit have to be applied to single model and cannot be distributed among multiple models in the unit, or the more complex interpretation B: Wounds can be distributed among multiple models creating a situation where certain armies (Chaos) have enormous advantages because there are many units with multi-wound models and some units have a combination of multi-wound models and regeneration abilities making it almost impossible to eliminate some units and creating a nightmare in recordkeeping.

I think if you take a step back and look at it that way, it's pretty clear how the rule is intended to work.