Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by PensivePanther »

Certainly after 25 games you guys have a decent idea of what it takes to bring down each other's units. All this building lists based on wounds is rubbish. It might get you in the ball park but you've got to take into account units with exceptionally high defensive or offensive capabilities. Hell, you even need to look at just how good your opponent is and adjust accordingly! I've found the only matchups that are hard to predict are when you bring units with unique rules onto the field, but even they will get easier to judge over time.

It takes some experience to setup a good battle in Age of Sigmar. And I totally understand people not liking this fact. It makes it a little hard and awkward for the first few games. But I've played some exceptionally good games so far. It is possible! Play often, learn to judge your units. Find opponents who play fair and challenging. It will be fun if you let it.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Hyarion »

The lack of points (and building armies around wounds or even warscrolls) eliminates the categories of "elite armies" (like more Elf armies were), "horde armies" (like O&G, some Skaven lists, some Empire lists), and the subtle gradations in between (Dwarfs, Lizardmen, etc) which makes the game feel a bit flat and stale.

I wonder if we will start to see the introduction of "wound handicaps", where, like in golf, good players will have lower handicaps in an attempt to level the playing field.

An experienced player (John) with a handicap of +3 might play against a new member of his gaming club (Bill) with a handicap of +25. They both bring 50 wound lists, John would bring a list with 50 wounds, Bill would bring a list with 72 wounds (50+25-3) in an attempt to equalize things. Given their handicaps, their lists would be considered equal for the purposes of Sudden Death.

Edit: On further thinking, it would not likely be calculated in a similar manner to a golf handicap, because a golf handicap is meant to equalize dissimilar performance against a neutral and equal third party (the course). If a "wound handicap" were to be implemented, it would be expressed as ELO ratings and the handicap would be the generally accepted method of the difference between them (ELODifferential /25). This introduces some organizational complexity such as the need for long term storage and retreival of results, as well as maintaining a list of players and their ELO rankings. But such challenges are easily solved. More intriguing (to me at least) is whether or not to introduce decaying ELO values.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Tuladin »

I think I found this on Dakka. It seems to put some thought into points. I don't really play, I prefer the painting and converting side of the hobby, but it looks interesting.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

Tuladin wrote:I think I found this on Dakka. It seems to put some thought into points. I don't really play, I prefer the painting and converting side of the hobby, but it looks interesting.
Meh! Just when I thought the game was going to stay simple <.<
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

If this turns out to be the actual point cost algorithm, then AOS is the greatest example of trolling on earth.

Balancing a war game like this is as close to a fool's errand as they come. We could play historical games (where every model basically has they same stats) but we've already chosen the colorful world of fantasy.

So gamesworkshop releases the game without point costs, and tell everyone to just 'figure it out'. They say that they want to attract new players(duh), and spurn the competitive players by including goofy rules that involve things like instant victories and dancing. It is the ultimate 'flipping of the bird', because they know the rules can never be perfect, and they know that some players will dedicate years to exploiting those holes in order to win. It's happened every time they've rewritten the rules. They've told those ruthlessly competitive players, "hey you want to win so badly, guess what? You just did. Now get the hell out of here so everyone else can try to have fun."

Skip forward less then a month, more then enough time for the players described above to have sworn off the game, "AOS is stupid! It was made for little kids! Warhammer fantasy is dead!" At this point, those players will have likely found another hobby, possibly sold/trashed all their models, and hopefully finished crying about the issue and moved on with life.

Gamesworkshop then releases the point cost algorithm. Hahaha.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

Not sure this method of working out points cost is going to work anyway, when you start working out points for monsters it gets more complicated again and then things like artillery peices don't seem anywhere near what I'd expect.

Dwarf cannon 15 points
Dark elf repeater bolt thrower 36 points
Dark elf assassin 26 points (or 32 if including shooting weapon attacks)
Dark elf sorceress 11 points

High elf character TECLIS 25 points
Wood elf Wild Rider also 25 points

Wood elf Great Eagle 29 points

:confused:
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

Did you include the attacks and wounds of the crew in your math? What value did you use for bravery?
I'm also curious about how equipment options will work.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

Just had a look at some different examples, look above at the edited post.

Wizards are under coasted (I guess) because of the low amount of attacks

No didn't include all stats from war crews but which do you use? Also monsters have things like D6 or 2D6 attacks, seems very strange though, surely my Maths is rubbish
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

I have 6pts for the Dwarf Cannon (bravery value of 0) plus 4 points/crew (3x) for a total 18 points?
If we gave the lack of bravery a value of 10, the Cannon goes up to 21 points, plus 12 for crew, for a total of 33 points. Maybe?
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

I think I used the highest from each the cannon or the crew.

Things start to get really silly when you start to work stuff out which don't have a natural save. So for example one base of snotlings costs either 135 points or if we are including missile attacks in the maths then 210 points per base :lol:
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

I think you do include missile attacks because that goblin example only has 2 attacks if you include the bow. If the goblin takes the shield instead of the bow, I wonder if that changes the math?
Goblin with bow and slasha is = (5+4) x (1+2) / 6 = 5 points/model
Goblin with spear and shield = (5+4) x (1+1) / 6 = 3 points/model
Last edited by Nicholas Nitro on 17 Jul 2015, 02:10, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

Yeah that goblin would have been 3 points with the shield
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

I'm sure there'll be a way to assign a default value to war-machines bravery. This idea is kinda cool.

Wait a sec, if zombies don't have a save, are they 28 points each?
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Tidings »

I've already done the points using this system for 3 armies. It works pretty well as a starting point. for wizards I added a flat 20 points to the cost. Certain other changes were made in the case of war machines and monsters, as well as heroes with a lot of super powerful abilities. Will be playtesting this weekend.

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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

I don't think this is a real set of rules, apart from it taking about a million years to work out how much points a model is, as described above they just flat out don't work for certain stuff. O&G army is just one example.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

Yeah they need default values for warmachine bravery, d6 attacks, and models without saves. Special rules and magic might be self-balancing? Doesn't seem too hard to come up with something though, especially if you and your opponent both agree to it.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

That's fine if you want to go down that road but to me seems an awful lot of effort if you and an opponent are going to agree on something anyway, personally I'd rather just have a look at the models be placed on the board and agree on a fair amount each or whatever you fancy experimenting with. It's not like 8th edition had balance even with points so don't think this game should need it either.
But again it depends on what you play with your mates. I wont be shocked if this calculation to create points values is fan based, but even if it is like you said with a few tweeks and more time than I've got it could work, obviously I was just trying to find the broken units as an example why it wouldn't work... yikes, maybe I'm a troll :paranoid:
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Hyarion »

The proper term is now Troggoth.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Tidings »

If there is no save you divide by 7. My friends and I don't use many warmachines, but someone else using this system tried them at x1.5 and x2 whatever the formula gave and said that range felt pretty balanced.

I know this won't create a PERFECTLY balanced set of points, but it allows us to say " This weekend let's play 1500 points, 800 with must be heroes." We have an immediate framework for size and modes of play (extra heroes, no monsters, etc.) that lets us have fun building a list throughout the week.

AoS has a lot of upsides, namely in it's simple, casual speed of play. We're all busy these days. Doing an 8th style list takes a while. You have to look at equipment, levels for wizards, etc. This is simple and quick and in the BALLPARK of balance. We can eye ball the broken <b>[censored]</b> and adjust accordingly.

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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

Hyarion wrote:The proper term is now Troggoth.
haha

This algorithm has me curious about 'customizing' your army's battle scrolls. If we know all the math(which we don't atm), why not take a wound off of your glade-riders and lower them from 24pts/model down to 20pts/model? Or why not drop 4 wounds from the Waywatcher Lord and go from 31pts down to 20?
Maybe people will call foul, but in theory it might work.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Tropic »

I find it interesting that 8e was a point-based system that had many complaints about how GW pointed it. People online discuss how to repoint them only to disagree on how to do so from one army forum to the next. Now GW has decided to leave it to us to determine what a fair game is and the first thing we do as a community is try to get points back, only to discover that none of us agree on how to do that, either. :roll:

I think the biggest thing being missed about AoS isn't the purpose of making a fair game on the table but rather an interesting game. The idea is to storytell, to come up with a scenario and build towards it. The new book that came out highlights this. The scenarios contained therein do not anticipate both sides will be evenly matched, but they do provide means to ensure it's an interesting match for all parties involved... as long as both parties are open to achieving that end.

Real-world wars were never even. One side outnumbered the other. One side fought on ground it preferred to wage war upon. Sometimes the same side accomplished both ends and wiped out the other side entirely. These are not interesting battles. The interesting battles are the ones where each side got one advantage apiece. consider the Spartans and Persians at Thermopylae. Both sides had an advantage--Spartans had the battleground and the Persians had the numbers. We would not be watching stylized movies about such a battle if it were a Phalanx of 300 in an open field against tens of thousands. Other real world battles follow the same blueprint: outnumbered side uses the environment, weaponry or circumstance to get closer to even odds. Battles where the underdog did or nearly did prevail are the ones that are told.

So let's not worry about balancing the match. Let's focus instead on telling compelling stories. If anything, we should be designing scenarios that make the model side of it negligible. Put in objectives that negate the need to put in Sudden Death requirements. Determine how many turns are reasonable for the underdog to withhold/maintain/resist. Use terrain to complicate things, especially with the complete randomness of the Terrain Table. This is how I believe successful tournaments can be run and is perhaps how we as a community should be looking at how to make AoS work for the majority.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by frogboy »

Excellent post Tropic, you have hit the nail on the head there I think and I 100% agree with that...

:D :thumbsup:
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Jack Shrapnel »

For what it's worth, this is the comp system we've been testing out (and of course modifying as new things come up...stupid lord kroak! :crazy: )

It's not based on points... but a rough balancing that makes both sides have an encouragement to bring traditional "core" troops through the regimental comp restrictions, not spam elite/hero/monsters and deal with summoning spam.

Yes I agree 100% with tropic's post above regarding what kind of games we really should be playing - however locally we needed some boundaries for tournies so we could run them!


Composition Rules for AOS tournaments:


Armies must be composed solely of models containing keywords from either Order, Chaos, Destruction or Death factions. I.e. You cannot have units that contain the Destruction keyword with units containing the Death keyword as a part of the same army.
In other words lists are generated from each Grand Alliance:

Chaos (Beastmen, Daemons of Chaos, Skaven, Warriors of Chaos, Chaos)
Death (Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings)
Destruction (Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs & Goblins)
Order (Bretonnia, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, High Elves, Lizardmen, The Empire, Wood Elves, Stormcast Eternals)


Armies cannot exceed 125 wounds worth of models and are restricted to the following army composition:


1-4 Warscrolls with the HERO keyword
0-3 Warscrolls with WIZARD keyword (pink horrors are 2 for 1 choice in this regard)
0-3 Warscrolls with the MONSTER keyword
0-4 Warscrolls with the WARMACHINE keyword (skull cannons and ironblasters count as warmachines)

Max of 3 duplicates of any individual Warscroll.
No duplicate HERO choices. Maximum of ONE unique special character per army. Nagash, Lord Kroak and Glottkin are banned.
Max 12 Warscrolls

0-3 Sylvaneth Wyldwoods may only be taken If an Order army contains at least 50% of models with the Wanderer or Sylvaneth keywords. Sylvaneth Wyldwoods are as per the description, 2 citadel woods. If you do not have a citadel wood - 6" forest can sub in (just like the old wood elf free wood!)


***Note: A model that has both the HERO and MONSTER keywords will count as 1 HERO choice AND 1 MONSTER choice. Similarly, model that has the HERO, the WIZARD and the MONSTER keywords will count as 1 HERO choice, 1 WIZARD AND 1 MONSTER choice
.

Maximum Warscroll size is based upon regimental bonus as follows:

if a unit of one wound models has a regimental bonus, they can have up to 10 wounds over their maximum number for regimental bonus (ie: orc archers can be 30, goblins can be 40).

if a unit has no regimental bonus or has more than one wound / model the maximum wounds for the unit is 20.

Add ons to units count as part of the warscrolls and do not take up an additional warscroll from the maximum allowed. This includes the following warscrolls: warmachine crew, engineers, orc bully, skaven weapon teams - 1 per clanrat/stormvermin unit.

ERRATA:


silly special rules (such as talking to your invisible horse or your models) apply automatically. If you still choose to dance with your Masque of Slaanesh it's your choice, but it is not required to get the bonus.

Fateweaver can only choose to make a die roll to 1-6

Models must be equipped with the weapon option they have for clarity for opponents (ie: bowmen must have bows!)

measure from base to base contact. Do not overlap bases - this may wreck your opponents' nice scenic base!

Victory conditions are based on number of WOUNDS slain, not models.

Sudden death rules do not apply.

Chaos Lord's reinforcement ability is once per game and subject to the regimental comp restrictions above.


SUMMONING:

Summoned models count against you only for purposes of wounds destroyed.

A summoned unit cannot act in the turn it is summoned, other than to fight back if they are assaulted. (ie: summoned units cannot summon more units, move, charge, shoot!)

A maximum of ONE successful summoning can be achieved per game turn. You may unsuccessfully summon more than once.

All summoned units are subject to the limits of regimental comp above with respect to number of wounds per warscroll or their set summoning number on their casting description - WHICHEVER is LOWER.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Tropic »

I generally like the guidelines presented with the exception to your summoning rules. Most summoned units have to be placed more than 9" away, which means they need a very good roll to successfully charge. Few of these units have shooting attacks, and even fewer are Wizards who can cast spells the turn they arrive.

I believe a rule stating newly summoned units cannot cast spells the turn they arrive is a fair balancing rule, but to eliminate attempts to charge or shoot is too much.
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Re: Heads Exploding! Age of Sigmar Rules Released Online

Post by Merlin Elf friend »

I agree with Tropic on this, with one caveat, units shoot at an extra -1 to hit on the turn they appear due to the disorientation of appearing suddenly in the middle of a battle; good Rules Jack - well done!
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