Hello all!
Rawdogger here to talk about the Frontline Gaming’s upcoming Age of Sigmar league beginning mid-October and running through to the new year.
This will be limited to those in our Martinez, CA location and will serve as a fluid test run for a possible ITC formatted system in 2016. When I say fluid test run I mean that we will be starting the league with some defined guidelines and rule tweaks but will be evolving these as new issues come up and are discussed with the participants. We will also be testing out missions that will keep the games from becoming massive scrums in the middle of the board, as most games tend to become. We’ve even noticed that most scenarios in the books still have opponent elimination as the overall victory conditions for the games and that is something we want to stay away from. So while this will be a league limited to those in the bay area, we will make our custom scenarios public to encourage more playtesting. I am definitely aware of some of the other comp systems currently in place (Azyr Comp etc) but I feel that those systems are changing up the game a bit too drastically and or assigning point costs to units. I’m not really feeling the point system and think wound count works pretty well and I truly believe that all units available to players can have SOME roll to play in an army and while one wound might not equal another all units have their own unique abilities that they can bring to the table. We will also not be banning any models or units straight off, though I have already heard some grumblings about Nagash and the Glotkin. I would prefer not having any units banned from an organized play system but we will see how things work out during playtesting.
Here is a rundown on the proposed rules as well as some of the changes being made for the league.
100 total wounds per player
This seems to be the sweet spot for Age of Sigmar. The games tend to take around an hour and a half to two hours and I would classify it as around 1500 points in comparison to Warhammer 40k. I would recommend playing on a 6×4 table for this sized game though a 4×4 play space will work as well.
Warscroll and Keyword Info
Keyword Limitations
2x Heroes
2x Wizard or Priests (or anything that casts spells)
2x Monsters
2x War Machines
Models that have multiples of these keywords take up a slot for each, i.e. Nagash would take up one of your Hero, Monster, and Wizard allowances.
Warscroll Limitations
At this time I do not believe we need to set caps on unit sizes as there will be both benefits and drawbacks to taking large units using our scenarios. I also do not feel it is necessary to cap the amount of warscrolls a player can take, though that may change after some play testing. There are several comp systems that assign a value to each warscroll but the goal here is not to complicate the game too much.
Changes and additions to the 4 page ruleset.
Distances will be measured from base to base.
This can be abused but that would be the exception and not the rule. I understand why GW listed measuring from the model instead of the base, but it just doesn’t work out.
Initiative will only be rolled for once at the start of the game, after deployment has been completed.
Everyone who has come into the shop during our Age of Sigmar night has breathed a sigh of relief on this. Nothing worse than having your opponent have a devastating bottom of a Battle Round and then get to go first to set up a new round of charges at the top of the next. Too much random for it’s own good so that had to go.
Terrain can be placed however players wish though there should not be more than one piece in each 2×2 section of the battle space. Mysterious Landscapes will remain unchanged.
Mysterious Landscapes can really help out armies that might be outclassed without the buffs. It might also hurt them. Random but could balance the game between two out of balance opponents.
Generals must have the Hero keyword. If your general does not have a command ability they have the Inspiring Presence command ability.
Probably already obvious to most people but there would always be someone trying to make a Spearman their general for some reason.
Command abilities may only be used once per battle.
We feel that is the way it was supposed to work but without clarification from GW we had to rule it that way.
No Sudden Death Victory, since our custom scenarios will make winning achievable for any build.
Sudden Death is cool but in a game system that will already have multiple scoring methods it’s not really needed in our league.
Models must stay within 2” of other models in their unit. At the beginning of your movement phase you must move in a way that brings all models in the same unit within 2” of each other.
2″ gives you a little bit of freedom with your movement.
Models may not shoot with ranged weapons while engaged in combat and may not target units that are engaged in combat.
Again, something obvious but not explicitly stated by GW. Shooting into combat doesn’t make sense nor does shooting your bow and arrow as someone is slashing at you with an ax.
Any models in cover will get the cover save.
This just makes sense to us. Why would the guy in the middle of the forest not get a cover save because Carl is being an ass and standing outside of it?
Any Wizard on the table may attempt to unbind a spell but do so at a -1 if they are further than 18” from the enemy wizard casting the spell.
An actual changing of the rules, this will help to tone down the Wizards sitting back and summoning all game.
Summoned units may not summon additional units. Only units that begin the game in the player’s army may be summoned during the battle.
Most of the complaints for Age of Sigmar so far has been GW’s complete lack of explaining how summoning works. Obviously we can’t have summoned units summoning units that then summon more units. GW would love you to buy enough models to do that but ain’t nobody have time for those shenanigans.
Heroes may allocate wounds to friendly models within 3” of themselves on a d6 roll of 3+
Another addition to the rules. There should be a way for hero models to throw a lowly archer in the way of a cannonball because why not. As some of the missions will be kill point based there should be some way to protect your lone heroes from getting annihilated too easily.
So as you can see we haven’t changed THAT much, and the changes we did make seem to make the players in our area have a little more fun during organized play and even with pickup games. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all pans out and am even putting together a 100 wound force of Warriors of Chaos for the league. Let me know what you think of the proposed rules changes and additions in the comments.
Will there be any special missions or is it kill ’em all?
Since we will be playtesting for a possible ITC style tournament system there will most likely be 6 missions with the majority being objective based and others being kill-point based.
Do I have to pretend like Im riding a horse?
Yes
sweet guys. I’m digging this system
Do I have to toast the Lady to use my meme rules?
Yes
The reason I don’t see wounds working is that all wounds are not equal, y would I ever take Saurus warriors over temple guard, or y take skaven slaves over storm vermin, I like azyr comp for giving a reason to use someone the lesser units, but agree pointing these units is difficult. Wounds is not the way to go cause all u will see is the stronger units on the board, I played a list recently with lords of change summoning framers, 2 warp cannon and nothing but stormvermin putting out 35-40 mortal wounds a turn at range
Yes, that’s correct, but I also feel that every unit brings different abilities to the tabletop. Will we be seeing more Temple Guard than Saurus on the tabletop, yes most likely. But we aren’t going full competitive here, just a way to organize play.
Cool – Good call on Initiative, going first and then going last is not fun! Looking forward to this!
Just an idea that we use as part of our Kingston Comp system is the idea of regimental bonus being part of the equation, and therefore the reason why you would field the “lesser” troops. It also balances out unit vs. unit pretty well in playtesting.
so if you’re interested in trying it out, we use:
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.
(ie: ogres can be 5 models max. stormcast liberators can be 10)
The build rules are ok, but there are far too many unnecessary rules changes and additions to the rules.
Shooting is now penalised too much, units only get one shot off before they get in combat as it is, making it pointless in taking them as they are inferior to melee troops. Your Sigmer crossbows might not even get a shot in with their short range!
You need to screen them! They really should be used to take out pesky heroes and monsters. We will be having multiple objective scenarios where ranged units will serve a purpose in sitting back and shooting. Time will tell!
Love that you guys are taking the initiative and doing this I will be play testing whatever I can to help with feedback.
So in regards to the changes to cover saves could I have a line of soldiers outside of cover with a line of soldiers directly behind them within cover all apart of the same unit and when receiving wounds from a unit engaged in melee allocate them to the soldiers in cover not in the melee in order to take advantage of cover?
Also I think another thing that would be good to do is to actually make your own 4 or 3 page rule set written out with the changes inside it to make things more clear and easily accessible for people. With how small the rules are it would be ideal for most comps to literally just make full altered rules printouts instead of having a set of rules and a set of references to the changes they have made to said rules.
I wouldn’t mind a future where I pull out a binder full of different rules packs agree with my opponent what comp we are playing and pull out a small rule set with mission pack and play. It would make the game endlessly more interesting and take away so many disputes and issues and it would make the comp feel so much more official and legit. Something about holding a complete rules re write in your hands feels better to me.
That’s actually an excellent idea.
My question is what about pink horrors since they count as wizards? can i only take two units of them?
What about skaven packmasters for the Moulder Clawpack? it requires six of them but they are heroes, does that eliminate that battalion from being used?
I understand it if you cant bring the skaven formation due to that but the pink horrors are a common troop and to have them count against your wizard count really destroys any kind of tzeentch daemon theme army 🙁
Oh one more question!
How will you be handling allies? My group does it a few different ways but we normally say grand factions destruction and death can ally with anyone but chaos and order cannot ally with each other. Either that or keep it all in a grand faction for convinience.
Nagash’s problem is really summoning. If you count him as a hero, monster and wizard choice and tone down summoning he is still awesome but your opponent will like you more. We usually only let you summon models that actually started on the table on the first turn and don’t let you exceed your starting unit count. So stuff has to die in order to regrow them. We also don’t allow summoned units to hold objectives. I’m interested seeing what you end up with. We have a pretty decent community starting here in Sacramento.
I’m glad to see the game catching on!
As for scenarios out of the books. What’s wrong with Watchtower, the Ritual, Breakthrough, Sudden Assault, Storm the Walls, Spellbreaker, Battle against time, Kill the beast, War of storms?
If you make your own will they also have unique command abilities for each side?
A final question. Will you be using any of the Time of War rules?
I agree with, and appreciate, what you doing. However, if you are developing for ITC I think you should look at this comp system: http://ageofwargamers.blogspot.com/ .
It has already had a ton of work put into it. It has developed scenarios to use in the game and I believe has already done some of the testing you are about to start.
It would be nice to eliminate points, but in practice it just doesn’t work.
These guys have put a ton of work into balancing, and developing this system with tons of feedback from players. I believe it is the best resource out there for Age of Sigmar currently.