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Let's Talk About Age of Sigmar
- Michael Barnes
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I'll do a picture of the whole gang soon.
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- Michael Barnes
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So I put in what I thought was a really lowball offer ($150, it's $210 retail) on a box on Ebay and they accepted. Goddamighty.
And then, I had emailed Dan over the weekend because I tried to get one of the Sylvaneth Start Collecting boxes he was doing on the Crazy Sale for $42 (that's like $43 off retail)...they sold out. But they hooked me up with one, so I repaid the favor by buying the Seraphon Start Collecting too.
ARRRRRRRRRGH. Now I've got TWO new armies to work on...but the Seraphon were kind of my first pick and those two boxes alone are I think almost 2000 points. BIG dinos, I love it.
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Looking forward to the review.
In smaller, AoS news...I've decided that my Silver Tower party needs a fimir in honor of the original HeroQuest. I _really_ dig the new forgeworld Fimirach Nobel model. I mean, really like it. Maybe my favorite GW model in a decade.
He comes on a 50mm base though. Seems big. Looking around I was pointed to the following image.
Yeah, these new fimirachs are pretty big. Almost as big as a troll or ogre. Will probably take custom rules to make him viable...but maybe there's a character in the app I can repurpose?
I also came across this independent company, Troll Outpost, who produced a Fimir Noble not too long ago. Unfortunately, it seems this company is out of business and the mini no longer available.
The hope was this second mini would be more reasonably priced...but it looks like I need to go to ForgeWorld...
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Overall, it was a lot of goofy combat with brief glimpses of more interesting stuff behind the scenes. The Stormcast all seem to be wary of or afraid of dying and being reforged. That could be interesting if they chose to focus on that part instead of lots and lots of fighting.
Ratings:
1st novella: 2/10
2nd novella: 5/10
3rd novella: 4/10
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fortressat.com/forum/20-table-top-miniat...gmar?start=60#236059
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EDIT: I very much enjoy Black Library fiction, so it is not me coming in with blinders on the quality I can expect from GW fiction. All of the writers so far have written far better material that I have enjoyed in other collections/novels.
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- Michael Barnes
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I've played a few games now, 1000 point-ish. It is the best miniatures game that GW has ever published. Which is to say that the rules themselves are really pretty boring and not interesting at all in terms of mechanics. Because there really aren't any mechanics at all, unlike board games. It's almost like the rules of football or something. There is nothing interesting or spectacular about them. But they are also sort of universal, supremely intuitive, and 100% back to basics. They also avoid a lot of the clutter of past GW rule sets, obviously since they are only four pages. It is not as sophisticated or modern as Infinity or something like that. It's just a plain ol' miniatures game that isn't that far removed from Little Wars, really.
But where it gets interesting, deep and compelling is in the warscrolls. It plays out almost like a CCG, with combinations, support and synergies REALLY played up. There are clear differences between unit types, specializations, advantages, and disadvantages. And you want to leverage all of this- along with the basic rules of movement, positioning, terrain, and combat - to your best ability. I suppose that is all not any different than any miniatures game, but the Warhammer fluff, visual design and "everything to 11 with blood, fire and skulls exploding everywhere" tone make it come to life. The rules just kind of politely step to the back to let all of the really good stuff take the main stage.
Bloodbound and Stormcast play TOTALLY different. Stormcast are kind of tanky all-arounders but they have no native wizards. They are slow but a unit of Liberators is a brick wall. Two units of Liberators is a bulldozer. Bloodbound are melee combat specialists designed to RUN into your face and destroy you. Once they are in range and piling in, they are just KILLERS. It's hard to say which of the armies I have is the better one, they both definitely have strengths and weaknesses and I'm still learning them. At first I thought that Bloodbound having NO ranged and NO magic (they hate sorcery like proper barbarians) would be a handicap but it wasn't- their big charges and hand-to-hand skills more than made up for the lack. And I haven't even used the Mighty Skullcrushers or Skullreapers yet.
Special powers and weapons tend to be huge, which is really fun. Like the special Judicator bow that does like D6 mortal wounds. In one game it pretty much fricasseed an entire unit of Bloodreavers. But those same Bloodreavers, under the inspiration of a Bloodsecrator and the ability of a Mighty Lord of Khorne suddenly become BRUTAL murderers.
I have played with my six year old son and he handled it OK with help on the abilities. But I had to change the names of all of the Bloodbound stuff. So everything "blood" became "battle". So we had "battle warriors" and "battle reavers".
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Michael Barnes wrote: But where it gets interesting, deep and compelling is in the warscrolls. It plays out almost like a CCG, with combinations, support and synergies REALLY played up. There are clear differences between unit types, specializations, advantages, and disadvantages. And you want to leverage all of this- along with the basic rules of movement, positioning, terrain, and combat - to your best ability. I suppose that is all not any different than any miniatures game, but the Warhammer fluff, visual design and "everything to 11 with blood, fire and skulls exploding everywhere" tone make it come to life. The rules just kind of politely step to the back to let all of the really good stuff take the main stage.
So it's becoming like Warmahordes (which is a negative thing for me)?
How would it play with the content of Storm of Sigmar only (5 sigmarites vs 8 bloodbounds)?
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- Michael Barnes
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I think the little starter box will be fun...obviously it's just a taster but you can get a feel for it and then use those models to help fill out some units.
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They practically have neal equal stats. How can the Liberators be a brick walls and Blood Warriors fierce warrior?
They have the same wounds, save, movement rate, bravery, and when Warblade is exactly the same stats as Goreaxe.
Two differences: With shields the Liberators are practically 3+ save and the Warriors can attempt to make counter attacks. There some other special rules, but do you really think they make any differences?
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- Michael Barnes
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Yes, Liberators and Blood Warriors are quite similar, especially along the stat lines. And as you noted, the Liberators get the reroll on 1s if they have the shields, Blood Warriors get that nasty counterattack. Those make a big difference in play. But what REALLY makes a difference is when you start adding and stacking the abilities from leaders such as the Bloodsecrator, the Mighty Lord of Khorne and so forth. So those Blood Warriors may be in the bubble with those guys or subject to a command ability that suddenly grants them a much longer charge, bravery buffs, extra attacks, or all of the above. THAT'S when you start to see not just unit differences, but factional differences.
Take the Lord Castellant for example. He's got a lantern that can fry Chaos units (mortals take one mortal wound, Daemons take D3) but you can also shine it on a unit of Liberators. They get +1 on their saves on top of their shields AND you heal on a save roll of six. This makes the Liberators pretty hard to take down because they are blocking, buffed, and regenerating.
The Bloodsecrator give everything within 18" +1 to all attack rolls AND they don't take battleshock. So this makes weaker units like Bloodreavers more dangerous...and when they've got extra attacks from the Lord of Khorne...yikes.
But then you roll up Stormcast Decimators up to them and they get an attack PER MODEL that is in range.
One of the neat things about the design is how there are these little +1 bumps here and there that in aggregate turn into this big ol' nasty effects. You look at the stat lines and you see a lot of the same numbers - +3 to hit, +4 wound or vice versa...maybe -1 rend...but all of that along with two or three abilities gives a lot of flavor and differentiation.
I guess my Seraphon army is now a "thing:
24 Skinks
24 Saurus Warriors
16 Saurus Knights
1 Stegadon
1 Engine of the Gods
1 Scar Veteran on Carnosaur
1 Troglodon
3 Ripperdactyls/Terradons (can't decide!)
1 Skink Star-Priest
Need a Slann to round it all out...maybe a Bastiladon since I want this to be a big dinos army. Probably need to get a hold of some Salamanders/Razordons.
Or the Forge World Dread Saurian...
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- Michael Barnes
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Stormcast
Bloodbound
Ironjawz (only one with contents: 10 Brutes, 3 Gore Gruntas, 1 Aleguzzler Gargant, 1 Megaboss on foot, 1 Shaman)
Sylvaneth
40K is:
Deathwatch
Space Wolves
Mechanicus
Tau
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