This week we didn’t have a topic but we go over some of the comments left on our last video about rules. Also we are looking for guests so tournament organizers, winners, hobbyists and etc send us an email and let us know if you want to be on the show.
Featuring:
Reece “Achilles” Robbins
Jason “The Duck” Butler
And Edited by
Mariana “God of Neccesary Audio Cuts” Vera
Oh and in case you were wondering what you missed it was essentially this meme.
Think you guys will ever go over something like “Things I’d wished I’d known when I started.” I always find those helpful for avoiding those pitfalls that might not be obvious when picking up a new system.
Excellent idea! Yeah, we can totally do that.
That would be a cool episode. Also yes I was mentioned!
HOW DARE YOU!!! I’m protected by the anonymity of TEH INTERNETS! I listened to the whole thing, Jean is doing well and I’m digging up more nerdy onesies whenever possible.
Anyhow, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who disagreed with you, haha. 😉
Here’s the thing about the double turns. If you remove it, a shooting army is guaranteed two full turns of shooting before getting into combat. If you keep it, there is a chance that (at best) they get one turn. Here’s how that works:
If you’re playing a melee army, you can hold back out of range until you go second during a round (melee armies want few warscrolls, use battalions so you have fewer drops, and give your opponent first turn on round 1). Your opponent will be out of range with most of their ranged attacks (most shooting is 20″ or less), and will have to advance up the board if they want to shoot at all, or just stand there. During your turn, your melee units can move up and run (fast melee units are extra helpful for this). From there, your opponent only has a 50/50 chance of being able to shoot (for the first time with most of their army) before you engage them.
That’s the basic tactic of avoiding shooting for melee armies during the early game. Obviously it’s totally different with Sylvaneth, magma tunneling dwarfs, and Stormcast teleporting units, but that’s the fun of those armies.
I think the other rules were covered well in the comments, mortal wounds make units with 2+ re-rollable saves a non-issue, plus there are lots of units to mitigate them with special saves. Shooting into combat is fine, especially since shooting units have been pointed appropriately.
Totally agree that measuring should be base to base, and it would be awesome if base sizes were somewhat standardized (even a conversion chart to make it easy: old 20mm square go to 25mm round, old 25mm square go to 32mm round, etc), something like the size they come on, or one step larger (because some of us still like making epic heroes, and it would allow some flexibility for units that fit better on a step larger, like Minotaurs going on 50mm round instead of 40mm). Really the most important base size is 25mm, because a 1″ reach model can reach over it, after that, reach and base size don’t matter as much (yes a 2″ reach can swing over a 50mm base, but it’s less common of an issue). Maybe at the very least a limit of what is allowed to be on 25mm and leave it open from there? If it came on an old 20mm base, or is currently packaged on a 25mm round, then it can be on a 25mm round, otherwise, nope.
Keep up the good work. 😛
Regarding the basing, it’s definitely a touchy issue though because some people don’t want to re-base their models, but at the same time, there is a real, game mechanic reason to stay on the smaller squares (especially 25mm).
I think though, if you’re going to be playing AoS on a competitive level, you’re going to need to step it up and play with the appropriate gear. You can play football with your friends, but if you want to do it even semi-competitively, you need the right gear. You can square-base with your friends, but if you’re going to compete, it’s time to upgrade.
Maybe FLG should post a how-to rebase square models onto round, though this has also been extensively covered by Mengel Miniatures and others ( http://www.mengelminiatures.com/2015/07/tutorial-rebasing-your-fantasy-models.html )
Yeah, learning some of these tricks for gaming the initiative is what we want to learn in order to help get the information out there to others as it is a very contentious issue from what we’ve gathered. As stated, we have groups of people saying they may not come to the LVO because of it! haha.
I haven’t been able to play as much lately which is why I am behind the curve on some of these more advanced tactics but we want to pick them up to share with the community.
Yeah, I honestly bet shooting would be massive in their meta. Melee wants to game the initiative and without that option they struggle. The great thing about melee armies is that if you can take second initiative on the first turn, it’s impossible for the opposing army to get a double turn before you. So if you play melee, play for the double and take a warscroll battalion if possible (FAQ says they can be deployed as a single drop).
I am so excited for next week’s episode because Dispossessed and Ironweld Arsenal are what I am bringing to the LVO. I have been a Dwarf fan since the beginning, even having an army from warhammer fantasy. So all my guys are on round bases and love playing them.
Awesome! We’re looking forward to the discussion, too!
Squeed a little bit when you read out my dumb internet name was in the gym so got a few odd looks 😛
The blocking random initiative on one turn thing we use isn’t so much a house rule ‘fix’ as it is a way to try and teach new players how to deal with it without 100% foisting a daunting mechanic on them (as we have a pretty big mix of skill levels) from the off, if we were to have a tournament for example we wouldn’t use it.
Don’t get me wrong, if I was given complete reign over AoS 2nd ed (gods help us all…) I would lessen random initiative a bit, but I’d rather have it than not.
Hey there, I was wondering how do you think you guys will rule the way zombie merging will work at the LVO??? Diffrent folks read this differently, and it’s weird i can’t really practise my list as i can’t get a since of how i should play it.
As for the topic from last time. I like double turn. It gets rid of the auto win for going first that could happen; such as 40k where some games you just get purely shot off the board the first turn. I site that Admech Vs Tau game you guys played a while back with incontrol. Double turn could also see you removed, but at least there’s some game to play before such a thing could happen.
Mortal wounds. I like how available they are. Kinda get you passed the whole super invisible type of issues.
I do think it would be cool if shooting was penalized for being charged as it would add a tacktical advantage. Though i think the shooting units now would need abit of a discount
So I haven’t done many tournies yet, but I’ve been playing quite a bit and reading/watching as much AoS tactica as possible in preparation for ITC events.
The thing about double turns is that it’s going to be more available to some builds over others. You can only get a double turn if you go second in a turn, so deploying quicker and getting the pick of turns means you can pick going second and get a double turn without your opponent getting a chance for one. Low model count armies, especially those that run lots of Behemoths, can deploy super fast and “race” for getting the pick. You can do it similarly with Battalions.
Building low unit count armies means you get to play distances during deployment and then have a 50% chance at getting the double go. So I will be interested in seeing if the meta really pushes those armies or people more end up building armies that are more resistant to getting doubled on.
Once in game, though, low unit count is a detriment for missions. Which is why Battalions are extremely strong, since you get the deployment bonus but also get multiple units. Ironfist, Kunnin Rukk, and Skyborne will be in many top lists, imo.
Good points and we’re still learning, too!
I was very disappointed to hear your thoughts about fundamentally changing the mechanics of the game in your latest two episodes. You have encountered problems but your solution isn’t how do I change the way I play or build lists – instead you’ve jumped straight to ‘GW dont know what they are doing, lets change the core rule set!’
You have said on the cast that you have talked to Rob Symes and other UK players about how they cope with the issues, but you don’t seem to have implemented them into your army lists. As competitive tournament players that seems odd. In the UK we started off with small unit count armies with big monsters, but this was very quickly countered. Players realised that 95% of monsters are pretty poor and do not work as the main battle line units of your army – they become weak very quickly and lose effectiveness, they cannot claim objectives and are generally a point sink that could be better spent on other units. Obviously there are exceptions.
The game has evolved into a units based game where large numbers of cheap troops (destruction or blood bound), highly resilient troops (Stormcast), or armies with unique deployment rules (Flesh Eater Courts and Chaos with Skaven) are the ones that are dominating currently. They can mitigate the double turn by either powering through it, or even by not being on the table. You can also stagger how you advance, so if you get double turned your opponent has cheaper screening units to get through, thus holding him up, but at the same time you keep hard hitting troops with longer movement range, such as flying troops, cavalry, or a unit backed up by a spell caster such as Sayle that allows you to push past the screen and attack if the opponent doesn’t get the double turn and you go first. You can create gaps within your lines that you can go through, but your opponent can’t by exploiting the 3″ rule.
Shooting in AoS is generally short range and not that powerful. Most shooting lacks rend and also range. Cannons do not do a great deal of damage. a D6 mortal wound shot is horrendous against a Treelord for example, but against two units of 20 Blood Reavers it really isn’t that much of an issue. Glade Guard hit on 4’s, Wound on 4’s, so 10 of them probably won’t even cause a wound against Saurus Warriors or Stormcast Retributors – if you take them in 30’s to exploit the +1 to hit then you are investing too much in a battling troop that only has an effective 26″ range and that can get taken out in a turn by a well constructed Blood Bound list or Ghoul Patrol FEC army. More than likely though your opponent just ignores them for most of the game. Again there are exceptions (Judicators and Kurnoth Hunters spring to mind currently), but again in the UK shooting armies don’t win events.
Also if you look at our tournament results who wins events? Russ Veal, Jack Armstrong, Ben Johnson, Curry, Wildman – these guys dominated in 7th Ed WFB, 8th, and now AoS. Do you think they always get the double turn? Do they always lose against armies that can shoot them in and out of combat….
The core rules are not the problem in AoS – the problem rules are in wordings and war scroll interactions which actually provide a negative play experience (teleporting into combat, the Engine Coven formation, not allowing your opponent to deploy onto the tabletop in certain scenarios).
I’m enjoying your Podcast a lot, but it seems to me that you are over reacting somewhat here. Look at some of the UK event winning lists and you’l start to see how to avoid or mitigate and counter the problems you have. Read the excellent article in the November WD written by Ben Johnson for some tips as well. Play more events! You’ll very quickly discover the problems with the lists you run and start to see how to play aginast shooting and the double turn effectively. Good luck and enjoy the journey!
Hey Steve, these are just our personal opinions on the subjects. There are no plans to change anything with the core rules for AoS.
How in the blazes does everyone get from the cast that we’re talking about changing anything, lol? We said multiple times that we weren’t changing anything, haha.
Glad you’re enjoying the cast but sheesh, I said at least three times that it was just talk not a plan to change anything.
Thanks for the feedback on playing the game and getting more experience though, too true. I had a chance to hang out with and chat with Rob quite a bit and he certainly did know so much more about the game than we did, it was cool to talk to him.
I know you aren’t changing the rules for the LVO, which is sensible, but, and this may just be the impression I (and others…?) have got from your cast, it does give the impression that you were keen on making these changes later. I listened to the latest Rolling Bad Podcast (excellent podcast) and I think they had got the same impression as I did.
Its great to follow your journey through AoS at the moment. Why not ask Ben and Mark on from our Podcast (not me! I have no clue about army lists and tactics!) to come on. They could give you a really good UK perspective.
Regarding the rolling for initiative. Our store is doing a path to glory campaign and on the first day I got crushed in one game. Now granted it is a smaller base game but he had two wizards and I had mine wizards. He kept getting the first turn and would cast all his spells and then move back out of range. So on my turn I couldn’t cast the spells since you move after the hero phase.
Now I lost badly because of this but in hindsight I realised if I just camped my objective and then make a last ditch push for his objectives I would have been much better off. My mistake was constantly moving forward hoping I’d get to cast before he could move away.
So while it does cause some brutal one sided games if played incorrectly. I believe if you take a step back and think about how you can negate their advantage, then it is fine. Though it would have caused a boring game of neither side wanting to attack. Though this is where hard hitting fast units become a must in objective based games I feel.
As a side note, StarCraft best lore. 40k just a rip off :p