It’s been a long time. Over a year and a half since I last posted here. Those astute readers will notice that the time I stopped lines up almost perfectly with Games Workshop’s release of Age of Sigmar.
I’m not going to hate on Age of Sigmar here. It’s not the place. Suffice it to say, I tried it and the game was not for me.
Living in South Australia now (as opposed to Tasmania, where I was living when I started the hobby), I have fewer friends who play. Only two good friends, in fact, and neither of them are that invested. One bought an army, started building it and found he wasn’t enjoying it. The other has boat loads of models at various stages of completion, like most of us, but hasn’t been engaged with the hobby for a long time. I could pester them both into a game now and again but my passion was lost after the initial release of Age of Sigmar.
In the first couple of months after the release, I saw, like most people would have in their local area, a community divided. “We can still play 8th.”, “Let’s give Age of Sigmar a go.”, “I’m f***ing done with this.”, “Why don’t we try Kings of War?” were all things that I heard. Without (m)any people to play with, I was happy enough to pack my models away and possibly revisit them if I caught the bug again.
Cue Total War: Warhammer. I’d never played a Total War game. I’d played the demo of Total War: Warhammer at PAX Aus in 2015 but it didn’t really inspire me. It was kind of fun but I wasn’t super invested in Dwarfs or Goblins and it just had the combat component. The controls felt clunky and confusing compared to a traditional RTS and the idea of only having four factions on release seemed lame. Even so, I popped it on my Steam wish list. A couple of months ago I got a notification that it was on sale. I looked at some of the reviews. They were largely positive (apart from the attitudes towards DLC) and I knew that one of my friends loved the game to bits. I decided to pick it up. To give you an indication of how I felt about it; I played 20 hours in a weekend.
I started (and finished) the Dwarf campaign. The game was much more entertaining than I’d originally expected. It’s a stunning looking game – it runs poorly for what it is but my computer is up to the task. You can choose not to fight the battles, which is nice when it’s going to be one sided and quick. However, fighting the battles is really fun when it’s close. It really feels like two separate games and, to some extent, you can play as much of each as you like.
This short foray back into The Old World sparked my interest again. I had a quick poke around the Cancon 2017 Tournament Listings and looked at what was being played. I saw:
- Warhammer: Age of Sigmar
- Kings of War
- Fantasy – The 9th Age
- Warhammer: 8.5
- WargamingForFun – Unfortunately all but dead and gone.
- OnceBitten360 – Moved to The 9th Age
- miniwargaming – Still playing 8th edition but some fan content of The 9th Age on their website.
- All multipart models have a combined profile. This includes ridden monsters, war machines etc. This drastically helps to simplify the game and points costs are adjusted accordingly.
- Measurements are made to unit “boundary rectangles”.
- Leadership modifier orders are explicit. Unmodified Leadership has been removed from the game.
- Army Categories are army specific. Every army has Characters/Core/Special but then there are for your army. e.g. Peacekeepers, Elder Service and Ancient Allies for Highborn Elves. Some units count towards multiple categories. This is a great way of keeping some of the more powerful units in check. Another “knob” to turn for game balance.
- Unit counts and sizes have minimums and maximums. Points per model for larger units are not always the same as the initial points. Another way to keep problem strategies in check.
- The start of the game sequence is very clear. In addition, you can deploy multiple units at once and when finished, you get +X to your roll for first where X is the number of units not yet deployed by your opponent.
- Characters and Command are treated equally for the purposes of requiring to be in the front rank.
- No double-flee. If two units flee from you, you can elect to charge either target.
- <25% Fleeing requires half leadership – not snake eyes. In fact, there is no automatic pass of a Leadership test on double ‘1’s. In any circumstance.
- The Magic Phase has been toned down significantly. Many more spells are focussed on tipping the balance in combats, rather than blowing up units.
- Paths of magic may have 0 spells, Attribute spells and/or Trait spells.
- 0 spells are like signatures from 8th. Can be substituted for.
- Attribute spells are like the Lore Attribute from 8th but act as a separate spell that may cast the Attribute Spell automatically each time it successfully casts a non-Attribute Spell from the same Path. These may not be dispelled.
- Trait spells are spells that every Wizard that has that Path of Magic knows.
- The order of the Magic Phase is very clear. How to cast a spell, when things must be announced etc.
- You are only allowed 5 dice at maximum to cast a spell. Double ‘6’s require you to roll one of your remaining dice and add it to the cast. If the spell is not dispelled, a miscast occurs. The extent of the miscast is not as random as before. Instead it scales with the number of magic dice used. It is far less damaging when you roll two dice and get two ‘6’s.
- Lost Focus no longer means that you are unable to cast but instead that you lose your spell casting modifiers for the turn.
- Line of Sight is calculated based on intervening terrain and units and their heights. This is quite clear in the rulebook with many examples. (infantry = standard, cavalry = large, monsters = gigantic etc.)
- Attacks from Rank & File models can be directed against Rank & File models nearly all of the time. (No character blocking).
- Always Strikes First and Always Strikes Last are removed. Impact Hits are I10, Stomps and Great Weapons are I0. Elves get other abilities to account for losing ASF.
- Some mundane weapons have changed slightly. Spears have Armour Piercing (1) and gain Lethal Strike (Killing Blow) against cavalry.
- Parry makes units harder to hit (An unmodified To Hit Roll can never be better than 4+). You no longer gain a ward save.
- Bonus Combat Res for Flank and Rear charges having at lest one full rank.
- You do not have to move models for challenges. Also, attacks can be made for overkill even if the opponent dies at an earlier initiative step. (e.g. ridden monster)
- Command behaves differently.
- Musicians allow swift reform without a Leadership test. In addition they impose -1 Ld for enemy march tests.
- Champion is always +1 attack. There are no other characteristic changes. In addition, a champion means charge roll always counts as at least a ‘4’.
- All Warmachines behave differently to 8th. Artillery Dice and scatter dice are not used. Artillery uses ballistic skill and most kinds misfire on a natural roll of a ‘1’.
- Games are 20-0 system with +3/-3 points associated with a secondry objective.
- You gain Half VP for fleeing or <25% wounds remaining units. This is cumulative. A fleeing unit below 25% is worth full VP. Note this is wounds, not models and so also counts for wounds on characters and monsters.
- There are VP bonus for General & BSB only. Not other standards.