Topic: AoS game experience and feedback

[shavixmir]

Dwarven cannons with an engineer seems like it would be insanely powerful and could tear a giant apart in short order. Hit on 4+ and with a full crew, you get 2 shots each doing D6 damage at -2 Rend; add in the engineer and you get to reroll failed to hit rolls.

Yes. But that costs 2 scrolls in a 7 scroll game.
And a giant has 16 wounds. Presumably if opposing the cannon / engineer combo, you'll send something fast at him and use your giant for other purposes...

Much like in 8th, 7th, etc.

But, yeah, there seems to be some powerful combo's.
The slayer lord general with slayers is an excellent combo... Against multi-wound units.
Against normal units, they're suddenly mediocre.

[Jomppexx]

MiniWarGaming's Steve came up with a decent point cost system, that I think might work for most armies.
To calculate the points for a unit you do the following, keep in mind it doesn't take Armour in to account.

You add together the models wounds and total attacks (W+A).
If a model has, say D6 attacks it is treated as the average of 4.
Total attacks means all melee attacks from any weapons (or your weapon choices really) and ranged attacks all in one.

Once you have your Wounds + Attacks you multiply it with the models bravery, and there you have it. The point cost for your unit of choice.

For war machines and monsters the cost is doubled.

This is by no means perfect but it's something.

[shavixmir]

MiniWarGaming's Steve came up with a decent point cost system, that I think might work for most armies.
To calculate the points for a unit you do the following, keep in mind it doesn't take Armour in to account.

You add together the models wounds and total attacks (W+A).
If a model has, say D6 attacks it is treated as the average of 4.
Total attacks means all melee attacks from any weapons (or your weapon choices really) and ranged attacks all in one.

Once you have your Wounds + Attacks you multiply it with the models bravery, and there you have it. The point cost for your unit of choice.

For war machines and monsters the cost is doubled.

This is by no means perfect but it's something.

Why do you want a points system?

[Syn Ace]

Shav, there must have been Ogre Giants on steroids: warscroll says it's only 12 wounds   

[shavixmir]

Shav, there must have been Ogre Giants on steroids: warscroll says it's only 12 wounds   

Then it was 12.
I probably remembered in correctly.

[Vauln]

Shavixmir,

Thank you for the walk through, very helpful.

[shavixmir]

Now I've had a sleep, let me add a point:
- it's a hell of a lot of dice rolling. So was 8th, but... It's a hell of a lot. For example: my thunderers at one point rolled 43 dice to hit, then a out 20 to wound...

[Dosiere]

Now I've had a sleep, let me add a point:
- it's a hell of a lot of dice rolling. So was 8th, but... It's a hell of a lot. For example: my thunderers at one point rolled 43 dice to hit, then a out 20 to wound...

I made the mistake of,putting over 200 models on the table in a game with my son. This game was the reason I used the "fight" roll mentioned in my first post.  I used either the highest or the average of to hit and to wound and essentially just made that a single to wound roll.  I gave us each a block of 50 state troops, a hero, and that was the game I gave him all the artillery.  It really was too much rolling otherwise.  If you keep it to skirmish level armies, so like 10 models max unit size, it's all good.  When we had 80 models in a single combat though.... Due to pile in by round 2 almost every model can fight as well it's a mess. 

It was this reason combined with the awkwardness of movement trays that I was shocked the Warscrolls not only allowed but encouraged 8th Ed sized units.  It sounds like most people aren't using those huge units though.

[Syn Ace]

Yeah, large armies sound like a real mess when it comes to pile in and a huge pain (no pun intended).

[StealthKnightSteg]

Release battle with the starterset..

1,5 hours of view time and chatter (and sometimes a running loo)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8geGRMr7gag

[Krokz]

Played with the starter yesterday and today. Both Battalions are fun, there is a lot of tactics but more units are needed to deepen the strategy and mitigate extreme deviations on rolls.

Clearly a lot more balanced and fun then playing AoS with 8th Warscrolls, which is just plain stupid.
IMO this AoS starter is a great start but all depends on new Warscrolls and releases.

[The Ol Perfesser]

Played my first little skirmish tonight using AoS rules and 8ed minis.

I took a General of the Empire, 3 DGKs, & 10 XBows.  My son brought an Anointed of Asuryan, 15 Phoenix Guard, & a Bolt thrower.

Empire lasted all of 4 turns!  (I wasn't trying to have a balanced game, just wanted to see how the rules worked).

Playing experience was as I imagined it would be....silly, and simple.  It was good for a laugh and time spent socializing, but there were no tactics.

From teaching my son the new rules, setting up the game and playing, it took one hour.

[StealthKnightSteg]

Played my first little skirmish tonight using AoS rules and 8ed minis.

I took a General of the Empire, 3 DGKs, & 10 XBows.  My son brought an Anointed of Asuryan, 15 Phoenix Guard, & a Bolt thrower.

Empire lasted all of 4 turns!  (I wasn't trying to have a balanced game, just wanted to see how the rules worked).

Playing experience was as I imagined it would be....silly, and simple.  It was good for a laugh and time spent socializing, but there were no tactics.

From teaching my son the new rules, setting up the game and playing, it took one hour.

But there is also no synergy in the units you took.. try out the starter box if you got the chance, you'll see how the synergy can work and with that also the tactical posibilities.

[StealthKnightSteg]

So I had a run through of all the scenarios's (except the last one) from the starter box with my buddy (Ratman, Ronald)
Basically it gives a run through of all the units and how they work, and then coming together for a nice battle.

First scenario: Lord Celestant vs Korgorath and Bloodstoker, we did both sides to get a feel of the game.
This first scenario has really only one outcome unless your dice rolling is really crap. Win for the Lord Celestant.

From this point on I played Eternals only and Ronald played Chaos.
Second scenario it was the 3 winged Prosecutors against 2x10 Bloodreavers. This one was actually pretty balanced, I was hoping to get some more Hammer throwing into the party but Ronald made a long charge pretty fast. With dice rolling it could have gone either way, being stuck in combat I wasn't able to avoid the 2nd group to come into combat also.

Third scenario, 3 Retributors and the Lord Relictor trying to fend off 5 Blood Warriors and 20 Bloodreavers in 3 waves of 3 Combat rounds.
Retributors offense is awesome especially with you land those 6's on the to hit rolls, defensively they lack a bit besides the 3 wounds. Blood Warriors are nasty, even if you kill them they still lash out in combat, the succesfull save ability is a nice perk.
I lost my 3 Retributors in the first wave already, and with sheer luck and use of scenery to avoid being surrounded I was able to keep my Lord Relictor alive at the end of the third wave (with some succesful Healing Storms). Nice character but I don't have the feeling he can do much. Healing Storm on 2 or 3 wound models is not really usefull, either the models are slain or still on full health. Better use for it on higher wound models.

Fourth scenario, about the same but now defending the middle. With 1 unit of 5 Liberators set up in the celestial realm. Chaos added the bloodsecrator. That Totem dude is one nasty piece of a thing.. it synergizes really well with the bloodreavers making them hit really, really, really hard.. instead of 1 attack each and 2 of the champion, they had 3 attacks each and the champion 4. I used my Liberators correctly I think taking that Bloodsecrator out of action as soon as he was left behind (can't move due to planting that totem). But I still was overwhelmed and ended up having less models in the middle then Ronald.

Fifth and last scenario we played was both armies in full stength from the box. We setup like in the 2nd example from the rulesheet. And I only placed the Lord Relictor and the Retributors on my side the rest was waiting in the celestial realm.
So I waited to see his movement and then in my turn I jumped down from the heavens behind his lines. Tying to take out his Blood Warriors with my Prosecutors and their missile hammers (if they would not be in combat when destroyed they won't go ballistic on me was my idea). Getting the Lord in behind some heroes tying to get some wounds on them by the stormbreath, which worked a bit..
1 unit of Liberators tying to aid the Lord in combat soon with the heroes (+1 to hit if model is 5 wounds or higher) and the other trying to aid the Retributors on getting the bloodreavers.
So the idea was nice, but the execution less so.. I failed ALL my charges, flying hammers did didly squad. And in his turn he turned everything around towards my lord and 1 unit of liberators, his Khorne Lord landed 1 wound on my Lord Celestus with its axe.. and rolled a 5.. bye bye Lord Celestant, well things went down hill rather fast after that, making it to battle round 6 but got destroyed there.

All in all a fun gaming session, but it made it also clear that you need some good planning and tactics to work to get the best out of it.. Taking out that bloodsecrator is priority number one!

[Dosiere]

Anyone else noticing that combat is a real grind?  The games I've played have taken a lot longer than I thought they would.  Everything goes fast except for the combat phases, where there seems to be way too much dice rolling and units stick around for many turns unless you just absolutely overwhelm one with a much superior force.  The problem is it's actually pretty hard to put wounds on models.  Between the to hit roll, to wound roll, and then the saves units just don't lose models all that quickly. 

We play with small units, like 5-10 models, and I can see that if you had larger units able to push out more wounds they would crumble much faster due to battleshock tests. The problem with that is large units are a pain to use in both the movement phase and pile in.  It's like a catch 22. 

This is with mostly Empire models though maybe the actual AoS models and rules go a bit faster.

[StealthKnightSteg]

Stormcast are hard to kill, nice saves overall and multi wound models and (if you can keep him alive unlike I did) the command of the Celestant also keeps you from being drained of battleshock casualties, but those bloodreavers.. if they go down they go down fast!

[Baron von Klatz]

I've actually have been thinking we should try to create house rules for a mass battle scenario. (I've no doubt GW will put out such rules in the future once all the races are revealed.)

My thought for AoS mass battles are:

- only 10 or less models in a unit can pile in.

- 10 and above must remained ranked.

- hitting a formation in the flank  doubles battle shock casualties.

- hitting a formation in the rear quadruples the battle shock casualties.

- only units of 10 or less can shoot into or out of combat.

[Edit]- the direction a formation moves is counted as to which direction it is facing.

-If a formation does not move it's models have fortified themselves and thus have no flanks or rear.

I think those rules might make a interesting battle but that's just my thoughts.

Also, I'm pretty sure the future factions will be more fined-tuned for the game rather than the legacy armies are. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next.

[Midaski]

I thought 'flanks' and 'rear' didn't exist anymore as all models had 360 LoS

[Baron von Klatz]

I thought 'flanks' and 'rear' didn't exist anymore as all models had 360 LoS

Good point, I'll edit in a ruling to that effect.