Age Of Sigmar Unofficially/Officially Tweaked Already?
July 7, 2015 by brennon
It looks like a document came through from someone at Games Workshop with some rules to help players get a better grasp of what units should be allowed onto the tabletop for Age of Sigmar. See what you think of it below...
So, this helps a lot with the idea of balance when it comes to games. I think a lot of people had twigged on this style of restriction with their games already; but it's nice to see Games Workshop trying to lay down some guidelines.
I've already had a chat with a few friends and we can see this being a good rule of thumb to work from for the time being. This seems like the perfect chance for Games Workshop to get back on social media. Weather the storm and get some chatter going with everyone.
What do you think?
"This seems like the perfect chance for Games Workshop to get back on social media. Weather the storm and get some chatter going with everyone..."
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Reactive blah, blah.
Sounds like common sense, probably they will come up with something more refined later on but i like they will stick to no-point-cost system, at least it will show other companies if is doable in practice or not and what limitations does it have.
That’s what I was thinking.
It’s nice that a global company with 2000 employees, a quarter of a billion pound turnover, and a full-time design team, got round to realising after they’d released the rules that maybe fielding duplicates of the same character wasn’t such a great idea after all. Once again, why are we getting this as a ‘leaked email’ from random person at GW, just like the random rep at the FW open day? Having been prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, I’m rapidly beginning to despair at their handling of this. It’s bush league from a small company, let… Read more »
Yeah as I mentioned above you would have thought this was something that social media would have handled really, really, really well.
Even if it wasn’t that and just a note on their What’s New Today Blog – I think that would have been better.
They should just stick an article up on their £4 million webstore explaining the design philosophy around force selection in AoS and offer this as a stop-gap suggestion for those who want some form of structure until something more official is released when the scenarios, campaigns, and tournament rules are released.
Same company that shot the legal cannon at a single mother who was trying to raise money for veterans then shut down their Facebook due to the back lash… so yeah…. they’re a company who super knows how to do stuff.
The 4 million web store is mainly because they got into bed with oracle and get gouged with the mandatory support contract and consultation fees if they want to put a button outside of the defined template…..
As for lack of social media, well they do seem to be 20 years behind the times at all times, in GW towers the battle of brit pop is about to begin and the barricades are being erected to defend themselves from the spice girls, give them 6 years and they might have a myspace account 😛
this is just my take on it but I think we are all too much in a hurry. They are restarting their warhammer battle range. week 1 (next Saturday) they will release the starter game.
The week 1 hasn’t even started that we are already saying that the game is broken. 3/4 of us haven’t even tried to play the game.
It seems normal to me that more and more updates and additional rules will appear. The fact that they haven’t release or announce them is perfectly fine with me.
You must learn to walk before you can run.
This makes me wonder why they didn’t do this at first place when they released free rules.
They want event planers to run their own events? Seems like common sense suggestions to me.
There is part of me that refuses to believe this is accurate because it looks so amateurish. I also think that the ‘balance’ system won’t work. Wounds are a poor balance mechanic
This is GW we are talking about, they have given new life to the phrase “cack-handed”
I hope it isn’t legit. I really hope it isn’t. I’d hate for this to be how GW are handling AoS.
You are more optimistic than I!
Hope is a fragile thing, I think it could be but part of me hopes this isn’t – otherwise the baby has not only gone out with the bath water but someone has laid a curler in the bath afterwards
Looks like common sense to me, shame common sense isnt that common. Personally i like the fact its so open ended and forces discussion with your opponent, for me a lot of the enjoyment with GW games went as soon as more and more people started playing them like RTS’s and less and less like my preferred way which is a social drinking game, AoS’s rules will quickly identify ‘that guy/girl’ and quickly help you to spot who is worth gaming with and who would be best avoided. For me most of the backlash seems to be from people who… Read more »
I got on with it fine, though to be fair I’m not a 40K fanboy. I got on with Rogue Trader and with Slaves to Darkness’ chaos warband system too. Age of Sigmar does tell you how to measure and what constitutes unit coherency, just like WFB did.
“but it’s nice to see Games Workshop trying to lay down some guidelines”
Erm, yeah “nice” is one word you could use for their handling of it.
I seriously doubt this is indeed from GW. It’s just a picture of a txt file print out. Any idiot on the net could’ve done it and claimed it was from them.
Exactly – I am yet to see anything that convinces me that this is for real. That said, assuming for the moment that it is somehow legitimate, it would function well enough as a stop gap measure, but that is all it would be. I still believe that we are going to see far more comprehensive rules in the future for AoS as the game develops, for game balance among many other things. The living rulebook setup GW has gone for is ideal for that type of ongoing process of expansion and rules refinement.
It could be. If a customer asked me for a printout of an email I wouldn’t just print it out with recipient and sender email addresses listed, that would be ridiculously unprofessional. I’d dump the contents somewhere and print that out instead, like in a text file.
Wel the message talks about ‘your customers’ so I think this is just a mail with suggestions from a fan.
Intriguing. I like this idea.
I liked MWG solution of assigning points coints with (wounds+attacks)xbravery with the total x2 for war machines and monsters.
I think comments about the unprofessional manner this seems to be advancing are right, but the major point is they do nothing really. This is because wounds are not equal in the game, and I havent fully studied all the warscrolls, but just a cursory glance brings this up. Some units regenerate, some don’t. I think its a skaven unit that can burrow into the ground, become invulnarable and regen lost models, various undead can as well. 1 wound of that unit is clearly not equal to one wound of a unit that cannot regenerate. That is without even talking… Read more »
Poor game good minis, nothing has changed
I’m not even convinced the minis are good.
It’s hard to know whether this is legitimate or not. It’s not exactly on GW headed paper and the wording suggests it’s a quick-fix thrown together by someone at store level to help out other shops that are having some tough questions thrown at them. If the designers themselves had written it I don’t think it would have been headed “Untitled”. If it does turn out to be genuine (maybe this is a memo paving the way for a proper game-legal update) then I think it’s a practical step by GW. I’ve no problem with a company reacting to negative… Read more »
Untitled is from printing from notepad without saving the file, hardly proof that it has come from GW, hardly proof that it hasnt, wouldnt be surpised IF it came from GW that it was from a wider ranging email probably detailing the rest of the launch so probably marked as confidential with that snippet being in the “safe” to tell customers section.
This looks like something you’d see in an internal memo, it clearly says, “For your customers” so it could simply be a short term response to the over blown internet chatter over the issue. So when people come into their GW Store to try AOS and ask about balance they can put forward this approach. It also so says it’s an example; so it’s not set in stone. If it’s even official; if it is, clearly someone thought that sharing it with online communities is a show of faith. and wants them to know that the issue will be dealt… Read more »
Because its early in the game’s life and its not really easy to tell what is going to be a good match and what isn’t. I played my first game last night and the two sides seemed reasonable, but once we got them onto the table it was clear I was vastly outmatched by my opponents force and I spent the entire game fighting a losing battle. The game was enjoyable enough, and neither of us had malicious intent going in, my opponent even apologized at about the midway point, not that it was really his fault. My point is,… Read more »
It’s entirely freeform so far, which is a radical approach. For some anarchic reason, I like that. Maybe to promote narrative play and scenarios written for games among your regular and more relaxed, non competitive friends. It seems also to allow any club or tournament scene to decide how they want force selection to run (communities are excellent at creating these things and customising as MWG have already shown). Also *maybe* it will become a living rules system/warscroll for units that can be tweaked over time without having to reprint army books now, plus they went free which was cool.… Read more »
This seems like a very funny and un Games Workshop way of releasing anything. I can’t believe they have revised their sales tactics that much that they’re releasing or publishing rules modifications on line without the usual fanfare and declaration that “THIS IS THE NEW BEST FRICKIN THING IN THE WHOLE FRICKIN WORLD?” Unless GW have seriously had a change of mindset? Perhaps the next WH40000 revision will be a free download off of the internet? or am I dreaming about that one, or perhaps they’re going back to a 1979 pricing structure? (I DOUBT IT VERY MUCH) chortle…. cough… Read more »
I doubt 40k would be free rules, just because to much money, its not like fantasy set the balance sheets on fire, if they did anything free rules in the 40k universe i would expect it to be a side game, maybe necromunda or gorkamorka something self contained like that, where you can inherit some of the 40k rules but also have enough unique mechanics to make it different enough to maintaining distinction between brands.
Wrath of Kings is a fantasy skirmish game that already has a balanced no points-based system based on ranks. It also has alternating game play and a simple, Yet effective, combat system.
*which isn’t relevant here, as the existing range – and these new models – don’t seem to be balanced in that manner 🙁
I am really surprised that they are surprised people would have a problem with no kind of point system. I didn’t even finish reading the rules before I saw that this was going to be a problem so I guess I just cant really figure out why they couldn’t see that (or didn’t care?). Maybe there has been some kind of restructuring and they are trying to focus just on doing minatures rather than games…
One theory, mine at least, (I infer this from the bottom of each Army list PDF) is that they will be releasing pre-made formations (which will supposedly be balanced) – maybe you’ll have level 1 and level 2 etc. where the higher the levels the more models.
These “Sigmar Formations” will basically be the new Battalion box sets.
The only crazy reason I can think of why the game designer ignored the model count per unit, is if they wanted the setup phase to be like a card-game bidding war. Where each player bid on the number of troops they will need to win the game:
A: I am fielding 30 clanrats
B: I see, I raise my army by 40 chaos warriors.
A: Oh ok then I am adding 30 runners
But that would require players to have a large selection of models and know the unit balance from the get go.
Internal messages in a company don’t need to be pretty. From what it looks like, this is a direction not yet meant for public viewing. They test this out in the shops and if it does well then they will most likely ratify the rules. Just because it’s GW doesn’t make this a bad message or a mishandled take on rules. Every company have such things.
I’m more disturbed by the lack of discretion and keeping internal messages internal. If I had done this with my work I would be fired.
This was sent out to retailers through trade sales last week on the 1st. Many of us asked about balancing for the first few games and this is what they sent us. It isn’t a leak, just a suggestion based on what one of the sales account managers sent out.
This is like a post release patch for a crap-tastic video game. (if its even real)
Could have added those 6 lines into the rules part, but it’s nice to see that they are listening some what to their community. Sure you can say it is a reaction, but it also goes to show that people can not get together & come up with their own guild lines. You just have to go to you tube & search Age of Sigmar & pick some ones channel or go to the forms, to hear the whinning about no point costs or I’m going to field 80 mini’s to your 50 mini’s, or I’ll bring 10 deamons or… Read more »
I just ran across something interesting over on Spikey Bits – there seems to be a rumour going around (based on a translation from a Spanish page) that the forthcoming Age of Sigmar book set to be available for preorder this Saturday will be a 264 page hardback affair which covers the events between the End Times and the AoS continuity and comes with eight new scenarios and 24 war scrolls covering the Stomcast Eternals, Khorne Bloodbound and something called the Sylvaneth, who I imagine are something to do with Wood Elves/Tree Spirits. There is also reference to this product… Read more »
Have seen the retailer sheet on this, releases on the 18th. LE is web only, and there’s a couple of “hobby products” and a character clamshell, etc., in the same time frame.
‘Sylvaneth’ is the new name for Wood Elves. If you check out the GW webstore, the armies are all now listed under their new names.
Maybe if GW wanted to show some good faith towards their loyal customers they could start by making the rulebooks and armybooks for 8th still available on their webstore and shops as opposed to making it appearas if it never existed. Perhaps even promote balancing structures like the swedish system that has seemed to work well on the US tournement circuit, a circuit that GW has so gracious refused to support for well over a decade now. In fact GW has seemed to wash their hands of any US organized play anything, gone are the days of weekend long Grand… Read more »
I know this was a rant, so I’ll take it at face value … but … – these are suggestions, and until official, the official stance is still play with what you’ve got 🙂 – Early editions of wargames, including 40k had a game master role, so suggesting there isn’t a place for them and narrative gaming overlooks a precedence for them being there in the first place 🙂 – The mustache and horse thing is meant as a joke, even if a poor one, no one expects anyone to actually use those rules… unless you turn AoS into a… Read more »
In regards to WotC, you are absolutely correct and those were some of the “hard lessons learned” over time. Why would GW be so willing to jump into to a situation that would force them to face those lessons themselves as opposed learning from the experience of others? Some of the more successful TSG companies out there got that way because they observed what GW (and others) had done right and wrong and adjusted or developed their practices by using the benefit of the other’s experience, that’s just good business sense. Pertaining to the narrative and game master elements you… Read more »
Ya, in the hard lessons learned category, I look even further back and see TSR written all over some of the bad decisions GW has made in its time. Ban the Internet – check. Sue your customers – check. Overproduce product that segments your market – check. Ignore feedback – check. Hostile to other competitors – check. Develop products into a black hole – check. List kind of goes on there too haha. Incidentally, it’s off topic, but I highly suggest listening to Auntie Lisa story hours from Lisa Stevens of Paizo if anyone ever gets a chance. As Eric… Read more »
Glad to see this is maybe a thing. Someone is listening at least. Think it’s maybe too restrictive. Maximum of 2 of the same Warscroll? Maximum of 2 heroes? Out of 12 units? They’re never selling those big plastic kits with these restrictions. There goes a lot of thematic armies. My Nuln Engineers are scrambling around trying to find a Mortar to replace one of the cannons, and all the handgunners seem to be milling about looking for something to do… 1 Hero/1 Monster per four regular Warscrolls. (You need a 5th unit to get 2 Heroes and 2 Monsters,… Read more »
“No single warscroll may contain x wounds”
Holy shit either I’m JUST that good or GW has read my thread lol 😛