The Ninth Age Rules Now Available To All For Download
May 1, 2016 by brennon
The Ninth Age have been a massive community undertaking over the past few months but it is now ready to appear on the tabletop. Your favourite Fantasy armies have been summoned to battle...
You can now download the main rules for this Fantasy Mass Battle Game over on their website HERE. As well as that they have received news that as things progress Shieldwolf Miniatures will continue to create models for use within this system.
Armies Of Ninth Age
As well as the main rules they actually worked on bringing together a whole host of army lists for you to use in your games. Elves, Dwarves, Lizardmen, Orcs, Daemons and more are all catered for.
The Undying Dynasties even get a proper full colour rulebook!
I have had a quick shifty over the rules for the Dwarves and some of the work that has gone into the main rulebook and I have to say that I am impressed by their commitment. There certainly is a LOT of detail within these pages.
Maybe we'll be able to give a better accounting of it as time progresses but I already know that it has become widely played in my area.
Have you been able to give Ninth Age a go?
"Elves, Dwarves, Lizardmen, Orcs, Daemons and more are all catered for..."
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WOW! I had no idea that this even existed! Definitely going to give it a go. I have huge, rank and file, Empire and Orc and Goblin Armies that are just dying for a fight and for me they don’t really work with the Age of Sigma look or fluff anymore.
On a quick flick through this has got me really excited. I think I’m going to get a game going this bank holiday Monday!!
Somewhere to go to get the Fantasy fix.
Played the beta a fair bit, but looking forward to the rules not changing week to week
@olly if you played WHFB 8th, you will take to it like a fish to water. Go greenskins
Yep thats what I’m getting from reading the rules. The whole 9th Age thing is making sense now……
Magic is tuned down a fair bit, no more rolling 6 dice for the win
Wonder if this will be Warhammer’s Pathfinder. Also, I wonder if the timing of this and the ‘three ways to play’ AoS is pure coincidence.
The 9th age guys always aimed for an April release for it to be usefully in the ETC. But for AoS who outside of Nottingham can say ?
I suspect it probably is a coincidence, though it’s worth bringing up for anyone wondering why GW have seemingly backtracked so quickly. This is exactly the type of the thing they were surrendering control of to the community when they launched with only open play, and the type of thing they’re trying to take back now with matched play. Time will tell whether this does prove to be Pathfinder.
My guess it is GWs reasons two fold : 1 they are trying to listen to their community again, rather than be at war with them. No company set out to fight their consumers, so there been a demand for a points system (and if they can get Heelandhammer and the guys behind the SCGT to write the bulk and else pass it to Javis, who is a gamer at heart) they will supply it so they can sell more of their products. 2 AoS need some traction with OP of some kind, and better for GW to have it… Read more »
Indeed.I think it’s a recognition on their part that they misjudged their audience, or at least a chunk of it. and were risking losing them if they didn’t do anything. I realise I’ve been referencing Pathfinder on a non-rpg site so people might not understand what I’m going on about. The very brief version is that when WotC canned D&D 3e and released 4e, they lost a chunk of their audience to another company who essentially continued on 3e.
I get your reference to Pathfinder and this may very well be the equivalent of it for the WHF that many want. The surprising thing is you would look at D&D about 2 years ago and say that Pathfinder is the nail in the coffin for that game as I never seen anyone play it. Now that 5e D&D is out it’s like they sprung back with even more of a following. I ask people, do you play Pathfinder and often its now no, they play D&D 5e. The point is, this game may take over where GW left off,… Read more »
It did briefly surpass it on the ICv2 sales charts in the dying embers of 4e when everyone was waiting for 5e, but otherwise D&D remained the leading brand. There are some important differences between this and D&D/Pathfinder which means its unlikely anything will take players away from GW the way Pathfinder did from WotC. Pathfinder was a like-for-like product to D&D but no company is going to match GW for minis production, and Paizo already had an audience for their products when 3e was canned. The main reason I raised it is the juxtaposition of this with the recent… Read more »
I did look at 9th Age and I understand why it was developed but not overly interested with games that have single figure profiles and model removal anymore
This sounds good to me. Having more options is a good thing even if KoW is fine system for fantasy mass battles.
Got a gaming week planned to try this out in July, among other things, work in progress rules looked solid as did the army books. Certainly the most like candidate for mass fantasy battle game for me.
I really hope GW’s return to mass fantasy ends up being too little too late. They seem to have either lost most of their WFB to KoW or lost them altogether. Anyone who thinks GW will do a better job than 9th Age or KoW is nuts. 9th Age is a pure game system that’s focused on tight rules and balance. KoW has 90% of the strategy of the old WFB and 90% less headaches. Any ruleset GW puts out there won’t be playtested well and will have the ultimate goal of selling miniatures. Why contend with rules that are… Read more »
I’ve had a quick look at the rules and some of the army lists, I’ve not played WFB since 4th, and I have to say it does look good.
This is really interesting and great for two reasons. Firstly, because it’s a brilliant example of what people can achieve when they set their minds to something as a community. People were fed up with something and put a load of effort into doing something about it. Secondly, because it shows GW that they can’t take their audience for granted any more. I suspect GW’s new leadership was actually in the process of realising this when AoS was launched, and it will take time for change to filter through the company – if indeed it will – but although they’re… Read more »
Although I haven’t played a mass battle game in years, I’m seriously impressed by the amount of work that’s gone into this. I’m happy to see the fantasy community now seems to have their own version of a living rule book. With Kings of War now accommodating all the former WHFB races however, I’d personally be more inclined to stick with that system.