"If AoS wasn't GW would there be any interest?" Topic

Something I couldn't help wondering, as I perused the many pages of threads at DakkaDakka and elsewhere on "how to fix AoS", "how to balance AoS", along with many different suggested point systems was:

Taken purely on their on merits are these rules actually worth considering?

If, as a thought experiment, Age of Sigmar had been published by a minor figure manufacturer then how would these rules as written rate?

Personally, I think they're not a bad beta version -- but suspect that if they'd been sent to someone like Osprey for publishing under their Wargames imprint they would have been rejected as incomplete (perhaps sent back to the designer for more work).

Is this a case of "sunk costs" influencing behaviour and decision making? As in, I've spent years buying things from GW and have a significant mental investment in their products and fluff, and despite them having just discarded all that history there is a desire to somehow avert that loss by retaining a "relationship" with the company.

Or is this a case of GW being the "only game in town" for a lot of people? For whatever reason they don't feel they can just look for a different rule-set for Fantasy?

The rules are poorly written, vague and badly organized (scores of special rules buried in poorly organized "war scrolls"). They are also tedious to play.

So if AoS wasn't a GW product, no real publisher would publish it. It is, at best, amateurish. GW should be ashamed.

The models are rather nice, too bad the rules either suck or are silly.

The whole 'setting' makes use of existing models is a crock that wont last more than a year I think. Thousands of years since the End Times and in another dimension Bretonnian knights are still pushing around their peasants. Yeah right. Might as well make up some war scrolls for Bolt Action Germans to join in the fray. Makes as much sense.

Sorry – to answer your question – I doubt anyone would take the rules seriously as a skirmish game if it didn't come from GW.

I wouldn't set up Osprey as the paradigm of rules publishing!

I saw the humongous boxed set in a store yesterday.
Those are the most god-awful ugly miniatures I have ever seen. Probably well sculpted but UGLY.

Agree w/ Winston! The minis are just crap. If they weren't GW, they wouldn't even get a mention…

I have read and printed out the rules and can think of no real way to play the game except for maybe with a child. Maybe you are babysitting a nephew on a Saturday so you throw some minis on the table to amuse him.

There are so many holes in the system it can only work if you essentially do it yourself. It seems to be the flimsiest framework and the rest has to come from you.

And the gold super men style does not interest me at all.

Good question. I think that people would be interested in the radical rules, and would flatly reject the model prices. It would quickly become very niche. It still may.

I wouldn't set up Osprey as the paradigm of rules publishing!

Well that could be but their rules are far cheaper and they have been quite busy putting them out.

Oh and I bet that they are also far cleaner set of rules than what GW is putting out these days.

Two things. I liked Warhammer because it was a mass battles game. I liked the background material in Warhammer. AoS has neither of these. With two large painted armies I'm firmly stuck in the old world.

AoS could be a nice game, but not in its current state. It's a painful read right now and looks like it will be very hard to get balanced games. You would be better off playing Hordes, much better developed set of rules right now.

- Mike

Simple question in the OP, simple answer for me. No.

Yes. Pretty much all rules systems, even the most obscure draw some interest, but as the OP suggests, it is getting more interest that the rules themselves merit because it is GW.

Why I don't really know. As Mr. Graves suggests in his post, it could be "only game in town" for a lot of people.

Some anecdotal evidence from my experience. My start in minis gaming was in 25mm Napoleonics. As such it is impossible to have a propritary "company rules" policy like GW attempts to enforce, this "our rules and our minis EXCLUSIVELY." However, a number of my friends (many of whom are younger than I) started gaming through W40K and imbibed the GW mentaility. I've noticed a certain mental inflexibility when it comes to changing rules sets, even despite a growing dislike of GW.

It goes roughly like this.
Friend: I hate the changes in WHFB 8th ed. I like how Kings of War plays, but I don't want to have to buy and build a new army.
Me: Your Empire army could be played as Kingdoms of Men or as Basildon. Even with Basildon, you'd only have to add a couple of units of angels.
Friend: But it's an EMPIRE army, not a Basildon army. They're GW figures not Mantic figures.

At that point I give up. That same conversation has been had with any previous edition of both 40K or WHFB. So I suggest we go back a few editions to an edition they like and still own. The reply is we can't, because it is not the current edition.

Perhaps this is just a local problem, where the younger mini gamers have been thoroughly brainwashed by GW, but at least that's my experience.

Oh, and yes, several of my friends have bought the new AoS box, after selling off their 40K and WHFB armies and saying "Never again." It's like being an alcoholic … you never stop being an alcoholic and you are always subject to temptation. And I've done it too. While I did not sell my armies or say, "Never again", I did stop playing or buying GW games/product for about five years. Then I fell off the wagon when they released new Necron models in 2013. Spent $500 USD (probably $600 USD by now with the edition change) on a new Necron army.

@BillyFish, I was using Osprey as an example because they put out quite a few smaller / niche rule sets such as Hong Kong kung fu rules or Steampunk skirmish rules (along with being the publishers for larger rulesets such as Bolt Action and Field of Glory).

If the sets they put out aren't always awesome (which I think is what you're suggesting) then the example actually works better -- what might an editor at a publishing house like that make of AoS? (Do you think it would make the cut to be published on its own merits?)

@Ancestral Hamster: Yes, I was thinking where the only players are dedicated to GW, or where the local gaming location might be a GW store.

Historicals, like the Napoleonics you played, are an interesting contrast to fantasy – not only are the rules unlikely to be figure company specific, but the army has a "reality" outside of any one ruleset or fluff-set. These troops existed. You can research their weapons, tactics, uniforms, etc, etc, and even if you have them organized and based for one ruleset if that goes, or a better one arrives the army can be reused, and the new rules aren't likely to not support or disallow the British from having 9 pounder guns at Waterloo because, well they had them.

Fantasy armies being tied to a fictional setting can be somewhat re-purposed as you suggest – a GW Empire army can become a Mantic Kingdoms of Men one (my wife has been considering doing exactly that with hers) but it's still rather a wrench, the army is being divorced from its original background, and some, perhaps even many units may not be easily transferred – does Kingdoms of Men accommodate a steam-tank for example? (It does if you make up stats for it, but then will your next opponent agree?)

No.

Christopher

I would be curious for these reasons which are unusual for many rulesets:

- armies composition of "bring whatever models you want to bring". I would want to see how that worked and try to infer how balanced games could still be had.

- 4 pages of rules. Promising to be short and concise. Worth a look. Of course in this case that's 4 pages of rules and 30 pages per army of unit-specific rules, but still interesting.

- free to download. No wasted costs if I don't like the rules after reading them.

- no charts for conducting combat. Always interesting to see how a system handles troops of different statlines without resorting to a reference table.

All the above said, I'm sure there are rulesets in the market with some of the above curious features that I have not looked at, so let me admit to the following:

- new ruleset compatible with my current models from existing game publisher whose game systems already represent a big investment for me.

@Mortimer Graves: Regarding historical miniatures, the point I was trying to make is that, as anything historical is public domain, a propritary sales model like that pioneered by GW and now used by others is not feasible. While the publishers of Flames of War and Bolt Action would prefer that you buy and use their figures and vehicles exclusively, they cannot stop you from using another manufacturer's product. This may lend itself to a more flexible mentality on the part of the consumer. One is used to buying a set of rules and then the minis one chooses as opposed to having the choice of minis forced on you by the rules publisher.

As for re-purposing fantasy/scifi miniatures. Yes, I see what you mean, and am in a similar situation with my WHFB Lizardman army. At the moment KoW has no equivalent of Lizardmen, while they do have Dark Elf and Undead equivalents. The loss of background does not bother me that much.

As I understand it the Battlefront folk actually tried this a few years back (at least for official tournaments); started talking about "the FOW hobby" as though it was something separate from wargaming and insisting that only their models be used.

I wasn't following the furor closely but I don't think it went down well with the punters… which pretty much goes to prove your point. :)

We'll have to convince Mantic they need to add a "Reptilia" army. My wife would be keen (yes, she has one of those armies too… and high elves, wood elves, dwarves, Egyptian undead, and jungle goblins). :)

To answer the original post I would think it would get attention if it was published by well-liked or known rules publisher they would probably rate as that a beta rules on the other hand if they came from an unknown publisher it would probably be discarded is woefully incomplete

As to some of the other point brought up I've always found it very amusing to hear people complain about not being able to use nonofficial miniatures in official games I've never believed that many people actually played sponsored Warhammer tournaments sponsored by games workshop.The rest of us have always used whatever we wanted.
For me and many others I know the whole point to science-fiction and fantasy games is the imagination involved or you can use anything you want to be anything you want it to be as long as everybody understands what you're trying to represent.
I'll be damned if I want to let a manufacturer tell me I can't play with my toys. That whole concept so ludicrous to me it doesn't really actually compute .I got out of historical's because I got tired of the nitpicking over armor angles,penetration values,and other analyst arguments over Minuscule details.so go ahead and tell me my orcs have the wrong skin color so I can have a hearty laugh ! ;D