Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

[GeoffDiGeoff]

Pretty sure you can't summon blue scribes:

The Blue Scribes are a single model. One of the Scribes, P’tarix, transcribes pages of magical sigils, halting only to stab at approaching enemies with his Sharpened Quills, while Xirat’p reads his twin’s scrawl, casting spells hither and yon. They ride a Disc of Tzeentch which attacks with its Many-fanged Mouths.
Fly
The Blue Scribes can fly.
Abilities
Frantic Scribbling: Roll a dice each time a Wizard within 18" of the Blue Scribes successfully casts a spell (whether or not it is unbound); on a 4 or more the Blue Scribes learn that spell and can attempt to
cast it in subsequent turns.
Scrolls of Sorcery: Once in each of your hero phases, the Blue Scribes can attempt to read from their Scrolls of Sorcery instead of making a casting attempt. If they do, roll a dice; on a 1, they can’t decipher the scrawls and the casting attempt automatically fails, but on a 2 or more, that spell is successfully cast and can only be unbound on a roll of a 9 or more.
MAGIC
The Blue Scribes can attempt to cast one spell in each of your own hero phases, and attempt to unbind one spell in each enemy hero phase. They know the Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield and Boon of Tzeentch spells.
BOON OF TZEENTCH
The Blue Scribes reach forth, tapping into an unseen hoard of arcane power. Boon of Tzeentch has a casting value of 4. If successfully cast, you can re-roll failed casting rolls made for Tzeentch Wizards within 18" of the Blue Scribes for the rest of the hero phase

Nothing I can see about summoning them. I think also, and I may be wrong here, GW are aiming for people to use the models they have as the actual model. So a "Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage" model can only be used as such, and not as a "Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury". So the daemon player would need to have not just one on the table, but also spares of the same type of model in reserve. Rage confers "Summon Rage" spell, and "Fury for Fury" etc. etc. I imagine people will allow proxying to a point, but the guy who rocks up with 5 bloodthirsters, loads of blue scribes etc, would just never get a game.

But I'd still say first turn is more important than ever, especially when it comes to nuking a daemon wizard or two And I'll be trying to find some more hound models to summon too, as well as getting as many branchwraith spells to summon dryads off as possible!

Maybe I'm just a frenzied optimist

[Aezeal]

Ow ok not summonign them then, herald still works though, and still a huge summonign spell per turn. And you could just start with 20 blue scribes since I've not yet found special character rules that limit them to 1 . (All my treemen are Durthu .. playing with 5 Durthu every game).

[Cernunnos]

This is where common sense comes in, somethings like obvious characters Durthu for example, are singlular and cannot be fielded multiple times, otherwise gamers are acting like cathatars and extracting urine.

[Aezeal]

This is where common sense comes in, somethings like obvious characters Durthu for example, are singlular and cannot be fielded multiple times, otherwise gamers are acting like cathatars and extracting urine.

True, and I won't do that ofcourse, I think Orion, Durthy and Sisters are quite enough anyway for a short game.

But how would a new player reading the warscroll compendium know that "a Durthu" is a special character and not just the combat variant of a Treeman Ancient .

[Cernunnos]

He has a name, or they could talk to others, read that it's a single model and not fielded in units, read websites, like here for example They won't know to begin with but after a few games they would especially if they're playing in a G.W store.

[Aezeal]

they could talk to others, see that it's a single model and not fielded in units, read websites, like here for example They won't know to begin with but after a few games they would especially if they're playing in a G.W store.

Ow I would not field my 5 Durthu's in a unit anyway.. better spread out over the table for maximum carnage . Still.. a GW shop would have to admit that there is no rule about special characters.
It should be a new line in the rule book and a new keyword in the warscrolls I'd say. Unique or special character as key word. The line: A special character can only be fielded once in each army. it would probably still fit on the 4 pages . I can only hope (though if someone was bringing lots of greaterdaemons an army of Durthu's would be the only thing that could deal with them.. he's actually pretty good in combat. I've not done the math be he could well be quite a bit stronger than a dragon.

I guess I'll have to do that next weekend. Calculate average damage output per turn to see which units are best now.

[Cernunnos]

Age of Sigmar: GW interview
http://captiongenerator.com/48861/Age-o ... -interview

With Special thanks to Bork Bork in Da Warpath.

[Joolz]

I really hope some more rules will be written for AoS army composing. I think that spending that kind of money for a (game) hobby should come with a more specific rules set that promotes everyone not just slamming down whatever they feel like in whatever manner they feel like. The rules are too flexible. They could design the rules in a 100 different ways to be more fun and balanced at the same time. And if GW don't want people to do tournaments with the models they bought, well... IT'S MINE NOW I BOUGHT IT I CAN DO WHATEVER I LIKE WITH IT! Which on a further note is exactly what GW themselves are doing with WHFB now.

It's just so unbelievably obvious that this move is for profit, and profit only. "Yeah, you can use EVERYTHING! BUY EVERYTHING!" It's just so silly. I bet they just laugh and rub their hands at us when we go Waghhh with all those expensive models on the board.

On the flipside I can still do whatever I like with my models. So I think I'll just play 8th

[Cernunnos]

I really hope some more rules will be written for AoS army composing. I think that spending that kind of money for a (game) hobby should come with a more specific rules set that promotes everyone not just slamming down whatever they feel like in whatever manner they feel like. The rules are too flexible. They could design the rules in a 100 different ways to be more fun and balanced at the same time. And if GW don't want people to do tournaments with the models they bought, well... IT'S MINE NOW I BOUGHT IT I CAN DO WHATEVER I LIKE WITH IT! Which on a further note is exactly what GW themselves are doing with WHFB now.

It's just so unbelievably obvious that this move is for profit, and profit only. "Yeah, you can use EVERYTHING! BUY EVERYTHING!" It's just so silly. I bet they just laugh and rub their hands at us when we go Waghhh with all those expensive models on the board.

On the flipside I can still do whatever I like with my models. So I think I'll just play 8th

You should watch the video link I posted Joolz

[Joolz]

Haha nice one Cernunnos ! Gave a good laugh! Measuring neckbeards in their basements

[Hyarion]

So we've seen the main rules, which, I would think are unlikely to change in the near future outside of a supplement packet (for tournaments or such). But the only army rules we've seen so far is the inclusion rules for existing armies. What new things or changes do you all hope we see when the official Stormcast Eternal rules, Bloodborne rules, and Aelf rules, etc come out?

I'm hoping for more Unit maximum sizes and more formations and more interaction between different units. Maybe taking a Wanderer Spellweaver would grant a bonus to Bretonnian Grail Knights for being in the presence of the Lady?

[thunderbow]

So, I was lucky enough to play 3 games of AoS today, and here's what I learned from them. The people agreed to limit an army to 2 characters, 3 units with lowest model count possible and one warmachine (or another unit instead) in order to test the game in a more or less fair environment. This was the first time that i experienced how stupid the removal of point values actually was. I took a stag lord, a mounted spellweaver, a unit of wildriders, a unit of wardancers and 2 units of gladeriders.
In the first game, I was up against chaos warriors (chaos lord, undivided sorcerer, chariot, chosen, 2 units of warriors). I managed to kill off one unit of warriors, take off a half of the chariot's wounds and kill the unit of chosen. My opponent was a true gentleman and mostly due to that was the game very enjoyable. He also restrained from summoning countless chaos warriors each turn on a roll of 4+. I lost the game, and at the time, I believed that I lost it due to some hasty charges, mostly with GR. I also forgot to shoot out of combat, which is now a thing. The VIPs of the game were the wildriders, which grinded the unit of warriors, the spellweaver, which kept bringing wildriders back to life, and the stag lord, who is pretty good both in close combat and in shooting. The spellweaver-specific spell levels on OP, since it regrows d3 models rather than wounds, as regrowth used to do.
The second game I played against an empire general, who brought a BSB, a witch hunter, a unit of demigryphs, 2 units of halberdiers and a steam tank. I lost this game too (and the third one, since we're at it ), but mostly due to thinking in terms of 8th edition. I deployed with a refused right flank, since my opponent left his halberdiers and the witch hunter unprotected at the far left. I deftly moved to the halberdiers' flank with wlidriders and characters, in order to start mulching through his soft flank unit by unit, the way you did in the 8th. I charged in and did quite a bit of wounds, but not wiping any unit out wholly, and then, to my horror, EVERYTHING which was near enough piled in. In his turn the stank charged backwards (which you can now do, obviously) which I completely forgot about, as well as the BSB. It wast then that I realized that the movement phase has lost its importance, that picking your fights is impossible, and that mass close combat is inevitable at some point. Which is very sad, since I loved the wood elves for their sophisticated ways of manipulating with the movement phase. Had I allocated the wounds differently and not have charged in with the spell weaver things might have been different, but oh well. I also learned that warmachine shooting was more powerful than ever, with regular to hit and wound rolls. I also learned that shooting from a safe distance in AoS was impossible- I was at 20" away from his demigryph knights, partly covered by some ruins- so that I shoot him but so that he couldn't charge me, or so i thought. Needless to say, I got charged and decimated. The lack of charge reactions was to be felt, and painfully so.
The third game was a doubles game (2 welf generals vs 2 empire generals), and as I mentioned, we lost, albeit closely. Our mistakes were indecisiveness when picking targets for shooting and deploying 2 units of wildriders, 2 spellweavers and the stag lord too far to the right, and by the time they circled the right side of the board and arrived in the opponent's flank everything else was either dead or useless, and, after all, there's no flank any more. The VIP's of the game were a unit gladeguard, who shot Kurt Helborg dead in the crucial moment.
All the games were enjoyable mostly (or only) due to having played with really nice people. The game itself boils down to massed combat, which further boils down to either number or power of models,and that has no sense whatsoever with the lack of point values. It all felt like a very, VERY watered down version of a once great game. The "hero" phase was bleak and disappointing compared to the old magic phase since it removes a very big risk managing factor (even the people who quit 8th due to "magic being op" said so). Rending proved to be very important, movement, or rather the order of charges, did not. IMHO, the game really needs a point system, and, well, content (by which I mean special rules, terrain rules, and a more exciting hero phase). I believe that after this, the majority of the local community will be switching to KoW. Hope you found this useful and sorry for the long post.

[Nicholas Nitro]

I have a question, what do you guys think about pulling slain models from the front to avoid enemy attacks?

The player can choose which of his models to allocate wounds to, and no model can attack beyond it's range.

So if, for example, one of my units takes 15 wounds(after saves) in the combat phase but my opponent's models are only in range of 10 of mine, if I take those 10 models out as causalities can I elect to ignore the remaining 5 wounds (which are no longer in range)?

For big blocks of models it might not make too much of a difference(and could possibly slow the action), but with smaller sized units I think it might add another level of complexity/defense.

[Sidewinder]

Sidewinder:
I understand you.. but it's now very hard to see if the armies are balanced even if you try.

I agree with this only because I've played point based games for some time. My first point based game was StarFleet Battles that I played decades ago; then came MIcroArmor, followed by BattleTech, Warhammer, Clan War, Void, Flames of War, Mercs, 40k, Bolt Action, and others.

I am so locked into the point based balancing act attempted by game companies to create fairness, that, yes, I cannot conceptualize how any miniature based wargame can be balanced without it. Fortunately, GW didn't hire me to design this new game.

... but I like a competative game.

And I understand you. Steel sharpens steel. To remain at the competitive level that you are currently at or the level you want to achieve, you have to play good players that have really good lists. Anyone else deadens your game. I learned this from a roommate that was very, very good at racquetball. I thought I was good until I played against him. We never played each other after that. He explained that if he doesn't play against people at his level or better, then it causes him to perform at less than his potential.
And that leads me to this, your game against the other WE player does not prove that there's no balance in AoS; it simply proves that there was a mismatch between the opponents. You read the rules and came prepared with an AoS list; your opponent didn't. Matter-of-fact, your opponent had a rather weak WHFB list. Stating AoS is not balanced because of this match would be like calling the sport of boxing unbalanced because a fight promoter arranged a fight between a heavy weight and a welterweight. Actually, since WHFB and AoS are two different games, it would be more like a fight between an MMA fighter that has a 60 pound weight advantage over a welterweight boxer and the boxer has no idea what to do when both are on the floor rather than upright.
Please arrange a game with a player that is just as good as you and that has as good as a selection of models that you do and let us know how the game went.

Sorry about the crack about gloating; it's just the way your post came across to me.

You mention they wil buy the cool models first and then add rank and file. But if they actually buy not to have models on the shelf but to have an effective army they will not buy RnF models at all. I know most here might not do that but people like me who just want to play the game there would not be much reason for that.

You're correct, if this game catches the market that GW is attempting to capture, then most of the new players will not buy the rank & file, but for the few players from this new group that is like me, they will get them for some diversity. Also, this provides something for players that already have large collections and don't want to add any more.

[Sidewinder]

Well hasn't someone all grown up!

Nope! Peter Pan FOREVER!

...when I first seen your name next to a post I was dreading reading it TBH nice to see you back

Uh, thanks, I think? But I'm back only temporarily. It takes me an incredibly long time to write a post. I write it, rewrite it several times, tweak it and tweak it until I feel that it's finished and then hit the preview button. I find mistakes. I rework the post until I finally hit the submit button. Immediately afterwards I'm hitting the edit button because I spot a mistake. I finally finish the post at about 2 or 3 in the morning. The next day after some sleep, I read replies and see that I seem to have tweaked a few noses. I reread my post and see that I was a bit brusque in expressing my opinion. So, I don't post unless I have something worthwhile to share. Well, other than that game highlights that I posted about a week ago. I couldn't help it. I've gone to a new play style with a sort of retro WE list that I've been experimenting with and I just had to post the highlights of the game.

So, what got me to crawl out of the woodwork? I wanted to see what the response was from the release of the AoS rules. Yes, AoS and WHFB are not the same game. On the bright side, you can use the same models for two different games. On the downside, WHFB is gone. Well not gone, but the story has ended. On the bright side, nothing will ever change again; WHFB is now stable. We don't have to worry about when a new rulebook will be released and we don't have to worry about how a new Empire, HE, DE, or other book will cause our book to become weaker. We don't have to grumble about having to wait forever for a new book. WHFB is as complete as it ever will be. Unfortunately for Brettonian and Beastmen players, they will never get a new book. Fortunately for Skaven and unfortunately for everyone else, they won't get a new book either. A book that tones down a lot of their stuff would have been nice.

So, what to do, what to do, what to do?
Stay calm. If you've ever thought about getting a second or third army, now's the time to get the books for them before the shelves empty. That's the last edition. You don't have to worry that a new book will come out one week later. Or, if you think a lot of others will panic and/or throw a hissy fit and put their models and books up for auction, then buy them cheap. As long as you have a BRB, two armies and their army books, you should always be able to find someone that's willing to learn to play. And of course, you can continue playing with the same people that you've always played with.

AoS is not designed for tournament play.
Stay calm. Remember when you were a kid and your buddy would start walking kind of fast, so you started walking faster and soon you were in a flat out foot race? The human race is competitive by nature. Some enterprising group will create tournament rules for AoS.

There's NO point system!!!!
Stay calm. There is no point system now. That doesn't mean there won't be one when it officially releases in a few days and even if it doesn't, that doesn't mean GW won't come up with one in the future. If not GW, then someone else will because it's hard to kick the point based system habit. But for right now, dust off all those dragon and Treemen models that you have and put them on the table and play. This is your chance to use them without having to play a 5000 point army or whatever. Once a point system has been established you will lose this opportunity. I wish I could get a game in before then. I have three old style Treemen models including a Durthu (it's very ugly), a current treemen kit still in the box, and a dragon lord model. And it would be great to put them into an AoS game before any point system is created.

And me? I'm going to give AoS a go. It looks like it'll be fun. I'm sure I'll play many games of AoS, but I'm also sure that I'm going to play way more WHFB games than AoS games. I like the big blocks of troops; I like catching someone on the flanks; I like WHFB for all the reasons 40k players don't like it. I can play End Times; I can play pre-End Times; I can play T&T. Even though GW is ending WHFB, they've provided us with a lot of materials that can produce many enjoyable games for many years.

(edited because I found mistakes and typos)

[Samoht]

And I understand you. Steel sharpens steel. To remain at the competitive level that you are currently at or the level you want to achieve, you have to play good players that have really good lists. Anyone else deadens your game. I learned this from a roommate that was very, very good at racquetball. I thought I was good until I played against him. We never played each other after that. He explained that if he doesn't play against people at his level or better, then it causes him to perform at less than his potential.

As a total aside from AoS, you need to unlearn what your roommate told you for a happier healthier life, he sounds like the typical kind of overinflated arrogant ego you can meet at, uni? Hopefully those sort of people grow up and experience some more of life's lumps and bumps before they impart too much of their wise life-lessons on too many people who'll listen. No need to try and defend him now, we all have those friends in our lives, I have some great friends whose ego's are still overinflated in their 30's, just place a thought in your mind to not pay too much attention to the words that he says and see what his great racquetball potential has grown into after a few years.

If you're struggling to see why he's so wrong I'll give you a couple of quick examples that I probably haven't thought through well, but I'm sure other better people will know of more than I. Professional sports stars, at the top their game, who are also parents, let's say tennis player Roger Federa, with your roomies mantra Roger will never play a game of tennis (the sport that he loves above all others) with his wife or kids, because they'd lessen his potential as they're clearly not at his level... Or maybe let's looks at a more obscure example, US Grand ChessMaster Marc Tyler Arnold, he won the title at the age of 20 in 1992, yet I'm sure I saw a news snippet at the time of his winning about him playing a relative (maybe his father?), but this relative was surely not his equal, so that would have spoiled his game too. Pro fighting game players also play online, so a Street Fighter champion still goes out and plays online on their Xbox when they're not attending FGC tournaments, in fact you quite often see footage of these matches pop on YouTube. They fight anyone the online hosting matches them with, they don't disconnect if they see it's a person like me who is clearly just some wally who messes around on it every now and then. I get slaughtered, the pro moves on to the next match, they aren't suddenly less good because I dragged them down into my pit of casualness.

Anyway, I've laboured my point.

AoS, the rules look too simplified so there are glaring loopholes, but from what I gather it is easier to have a quick fun game and hopefully they'll iron out the problems. Admittedly as a professional games company they should have come up with something better from the start, but perhaps this dramatic shift will reinvigorate the failing WHFB. Perhaps the intense level of competitive level play and hugely complex rules and army sizes were part of the problem?

What I really don't understand though is why they felt they needed to destroy the fabulously rich Warhammer world and background to do this? Sadly I do think it was because of their obsession with 'their' IP and that is the biggest issue the company will face, they're too obsessed with others competing with them and not just focussing on making their own stuff great. It would have been so easy to ditch the big WHFB (although even that could have been left and just had AoS as the introductory game) and just have had the AoS rules change for smaller more fluid dynamic little battles set still in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. They could have used End Times to shake things up without completely wiping the board almost in a kids tantrum style.

[Tidings]

Some additional information from GW about AoS and its future. Don't know how accurate this is, but sounds legit.

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/07/gw-answers-age-of-sigmar-questions.html

-Tidings

[Nicholas Nitro]

Nobody seemed to notice my question earlier, so I gave it a new thread.

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=28831

New game mechanics seem more promising the more I play them. Today I earned my revenge against my earlier loss(my first AOS game) to those filthy Brets.

[Coyote81]

@Thunderbow

Having played a couple games of AoS, and years of experience in 40K (which use almost the exact same movement system.), I just wanted to say that the movement phase is not dead, it's just different.

As for the mass melee, sounds like you guys like to forgo shooting, which in this type of game is rather important.

I see a lot of aspects of 40k in this game (Which a lot of people take as a negative) but to be honest, the only reason this game feels like a mosh pit is the lack of a proper mission/objective system. If there were D3+2 objective, the the armies would deploy differently and there would b a lot more thought to deployment.

[Hyarion]

Great point about claiming objectives. I'd expect that to be a major feature of the official AoS factions.

Will the old WHFB factions and the new AoS factions be compatible?

[GeoffDiGeoff]

Just played my first AoS game, in store with the GW manager. I was sigmarites and he was chaos. We played fast, as I was on my lunch break, but it was fun and full on.
My main observations:

1. The game is fun, and fast (just under an hour)
2. Round bases are nice, but I really don't see how square would be a problem, big bases mean less models in range to attack
3. Charge distances are very unreliable
4. Positioning is key, get it wrong and you'll end up eating way more attacks than you can dish out
5. The roll of each turn to see who goes first is a game changer, being able to control the flow, and who attacks first makes a huge difference
6. When there are multiple combats going on, getting the order right is crucial. Target units who haven't attacked yet, or you have a possibility of killing (i.e. whittling down a unit of chaos warriors by 5 models, is a better choice before they attack than scraping a wound or two off a chaos lord)

I made some good choices during the game, but messed up the initial movement phase which haunted me throughout. The last turn ended up with his BSB and lord vs my celebrant. I got some wounds off him but inevitably got wiped out. And in fairness, he'd had 20+ games so far, I hadn't!

Also, a side note, the plastic terrain boards are pretty, but a bit annoying listening to the dice rattling on them over and over.
The new scenery models are also pretty, will be tempted if they're not too expensive.

All in all, I'm sold. Hook, line and sinker. Looking forward to trying it out with my wood elves, and to getting my 8 year old in to the game. 8th was way too complex for him.

[Rob451]

Wood Elves have gotten the thinnest end of the wedge with AoS. No longer being able to stay out of charge/firing arcs and harass the enemy has made the 6+ saves and 1 wound of most Elf models really hurt.

Treekin are good (not as good as Ogres).
Treemen are good.
Warhawk Riders are good.
Wild Riders are OK (better than Glade Riders on a charge).
Dryads are OK.

Everything else that isn't a Hero is pretty much DOA vs most other armies.

Our shooting is poor (but then so is everybodies) but at least you can shoot into combat where Glade Guard do more damage with their bows than their daggers.

Attached is a simple calculator for Damage potential. Since what you're fighting no longer matters it got much easier to do the statistics work.

The conclusion is that almost all other armies outshine Wood Elves in the places where it actually matters (Saves and Damage Per Attack) as when you're balanced around model (or even wound) count all that matters is your opponents die more easily than yours do.

Wood Elves melt in close combat and with the faster movement speed for everybody staying out of close combat and in shooting range is almost impossible.

I will not be playing this game anymore until it gets revised massively. For example into an actual WHFB 9th edition. So never apparently.

[Cernunnos]

For me, it's never been how good my army is, what matters is how muuch I want to use my army, win lose or draw.

[Overmind]

I'm up to about ten games of AoS. I'm just not a fan. I can't quite elucidate what it is, but it isn't fun at all for me. I was never even a hugely competitive player either. Oh well...

Wonder if Kings of War is any good....

[PensivePanther]

Kings of War is pretty good! Dig around on the mantic forums and you should be able to find a beta copy of the 2nd edition rules somewhere.

I'm really liking Age of Sigmar. I think it will be a big motivator to getting my wood elfs back in working order. Sort of like how the battlescrolls give you a goal to shoot for.