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.