I've had the chance to play a few games using the Starter Set and get a real feel for it. One of the things I've noticed online is that a lot of people are tearing apart the rules for their simplicity. I've seen many people say all strategy and tactics are gone, that every game will result in two armies moving at each other and rolling some dice.
My guess is that a lot of these "reports" came from people who didn't actually play the game, but made assumptions after playing more complicated wargames and then looking at these rules. I can say, after a few games, even simple match-ups can have layers of tactics and strategy.
As I've mentioned before, I've had some wargame experience. I played several 40K games (on a friendly level) for a few years and tried out a bunch more. I've played skirmish level games, vehicle games, mech games, and am willing to at least play a demo game of anything you put in front of me. My opponents, my sister and a friend of her, have never touched a wargame before we began playing.
The end result? I got a text while my sister was at work the day after we played saying, "Damn, I really like that game."
So is it just piling in and rolling some dice? Is there no thinking to be had, no tactics to deploy? I can say confidently that it's not the case. As even someone who has never played before started seeing how they can use the rules to get various advantages and tactics to win a battle.
We played a few of the starter scenarios from the set as well as a basic battle of line up two sides and have them go at it. The scenarios in the book worked as tutorials, adding more rules and advanced mechanics as you moved forward, they were helpful for the new comers. But we quickly realized the rules are easy to grasp and were ready to move onto a straight fight.
They played together as the Eternals and I played the Goretide. After we got through a few rounds to get a sense of the rules, the pace began to flow quickly and within the first game we had a handle on the rules enough that we weren't constantly double checking things.
First off, if you're going to play, get the Age of Sigmar app, it makes things much easier. Not only do you have a copy of the rules on your phone/tablet, but you have every Warscroll they release and you can tag the ones in your army to show up on a separate page for ease of reference. You don't have to print out a bunch of scrolls and have them scattered about a table or pass a book back and forth, they're all right there. That made play go much quicker.
I can say there are deeper tactics than just run right at each other. For instance, in the second book scenario, the Eternals play as their Prosecutors attempting to get to a Realmgate while avoiding two 10 model units of Bloodreavers. It's basically getting the Prosecutors to the other side of the table and holding their for one turn and they only have 5 turns to do it in. Right away my sister realized her faster Prosecutors could dance around the reavers, tossing their hammers during the shoot phase and only moving into melee when she thought she had a serious chance to wipe them out in one turn. She could have moved directly into me, but instead she skirted the edges of the gamefield, making the reavers chase.
I've read about the horrors of rolling for initiative each turn as well, stating how one side can go twice over and over again and ruin the other player's fun. While this can happen, people forget that the rules say the dice winner chooses who goes first. There were times when we played that letting the opponent go first was advantageous. For instance, when the armies are far away, it may be better to let your opponent move first so that you have control during charges on your turn after they move in.
Picking who attacks first (and who to attack when multiple enemies were within range) was also critical. Since during close combat, both sides get to attack each turn, the player who's turn it is starts a delicate balance game of choosing where to begin the fights. Deciding if you want to risk lucky rolls to take down a big model before he can counterattack or just whittle down a mob so they have less attacks leaving the big guy alive can turn the tide of an entire battle. Most of the pauses in the action were during this phase as both sides weighed in their options and had to adjust those options on the fly as the results of each attack played out. And those pauses were tense ones, not boring ones that disrupted the flow of game play.
The use of that game specific strategies happened every time. Since the core rules themselves are quite easy to grasp and not too complicated, you instead focus more on what your models abilities are on your warscrolls. You're playing to the strengths of your units, not the strengths of the generic rules. Whether it's the smart use of movement to duck out of line of sight, or a timely use of a Command Ability that saves an army from a bad Battleshock roll. You are looking at the battle unfolding and checking it against what each unit can do. Even early games and the one with the most models in it never devolved to just mobs of units crashing into each other. Instead each side picked their targets carefully or maneuvered units in ways that gave them an advantage.
The tension of every wargame, the side where all players lean over the table as a critical die roll is cast, is fully present. Knowing that the right combination of successes can end the game and either cursing when you come up short or letting out a loud cheer when those 5s and 6s come up will never get old no matter how often you play.
Like I stated early, my sister and her friend had never touched a wargame, but they immediately understood the importance of uses the right unit in the right situation. It plays out a lot like chess closer than you may imagine. In fact, chess itself doesn't have a lot of rules and the strength of your game comes from knowing each piece's movement and how to use them best against what your opponent decides to do. And no one has criticized chess for being too simple.
I did find a few oddities in the rules. Being able to use missile weapons and also charge into melee comes across as odd compared to most games. It makes those with good charges and missile attacks (like the Prosecutors) particularly deadly. I still think it needs to work out cover and climbing rules a little better than their current incarnations as well. Cover is just cover if everyone in the unit is touching terrain and climbing is fine no matter what the object, those are weird to me.
I'm sure I can come up with some good house rules for them as I've already done so with two other aspects of the rules I wanted to change some:
1. If you attempt a Charge and fail, you move half the distance of the charge and stop. If within 3" of an opponent, you cannot declare an attack on them, however, your opponent can decide to pile in and attack, allowing you to attack back as per normal rules.
This made the charge a little more risky, as a failed charge that gets too close means the opponent can get the first attack in automatically or, if he chooses to wait, basically guarantee a successful charge against you the next round. This made us hesitate charging at the far edges of the charge range and added a risk/reward if we felt like we wanted to try it.
2. Battleshock failures doesn't instantly eliminate models, instead, the left over result of the failure is the number of units that turns and runs (like a proper route). Immediately after failing the test, the number of units that would be eliminated by the core rules instead turn and flee towards their starting table edge. You immediately make a run check and move them in that direction. Fleeing units will try to leave the battlefield on their side in as much of a straight line as possible. They avoid any enemy units (though enemy units can choose to charge or attack them) and continue to make a run action towards the edge on that unit's Movement Phase. The units are considered lost (they ran away) if they move past the edge of the battlefield. During each Battleshock Phase, roll a D6 and add the number of units fleeing (larger panicked crowds are harder to get back under control after all), if the result is under their Bravery, they stop fleeing, if it is over they continue to move away during each Movement Phase. If a unit stops fleeing from a successful check, they must attempt to regroup with their unit, running towards them until they are back into unit coherency. If their unit has been destroyed or all remaining models are fleeing, they may act as the original unit and play on as normal.
This just adds a fun little layer to models running away (and dare I say, realism). You have a chance for them to pull themselves together and rejoin the fray or be picked off by passing enemies for sport (helpful if a model gets a bonus for slaying units as fleeing units are usually small in number).
Both of these didn't really change the fundamentals of the core rules, just added a few small layers. I wouldn't say the changes were made to fix "broken rules," just to enhance the play experience.
At the end of the day, everyone had fun. There was cheering and victory dances, the classic lean into the table for dice results, and much tactical and strategic play. Don't just read about people's first impressions or panic cries, play the game. Try a few battles with an open mind and delve deep into each units abilities, not just the simple 4-pages of rules. There is layer and depth here that isn't visible during a read through, it's much more organic and needs to be played to be seen. Try it out and then develop an opinion, maybe it'll surprise you.
"Damn, I really like that game."
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