Age of Sigmar

[Tom]

All in the week before the Kings of War v2 rules come out. Talk about free publicity, Mantic must be over the damned moon.

[Darkson (Simon)]

Yeah, I think if GW were trying to get one over on Mantic it's backfired a bit.

[Darkson (Simon)]

https://countofaverland.files.wordpress ... arison.jpg

[Mike]

Now that is the proper size of a spacemarine.

[MoodyGit (Gary)]

It also means they can re do the rhinos/land raiders in the new scale.

[Ronq]

What is that? That thing looks hideous!

[Darkson (Simon)]

Now, now, now Sven, GW make the greatest miniatures in the world, they told us so.

[nobby]

It's a space marine SVen, they are pretty crap tbh. The thing on the left is a sigmarite warrior or something. I really like it.

[Darkson (Simon)]

The short version:

BACKGROUND

If you remember the 'Storm of Chaos' campaign, forget that. Time was wound back, and that never happened. I'm quite serious about that- it simply never happened.

At the end of 8th edition, Games Workshop released a series of 'End Times' books, in which Chaos (led by Archaon) invaded the world (aka the Storm of Chaos, Mk II).

There's lots of politics, alliances, etc. and plenty of just straight stupid crap. Nagash is back, Tyrion dies, Tyrion comes back to life, Ulthuan sinks, Tilea, Estalia, Bretonnia and the Empire are all wiped out- or at least every major city is. Many, many major characters die- including Orion, Ariel, the Lady of the Lake, the king of Bretonnia, Teclis, and basically every single 'minor' character (and yes, many gods die too). The Dark Elves, High Elves and Wood Elves all ally, becoming one friendly bunch all under the rulership of Malekith, while living in Athel Loren. If you're even vaguely aware of the Elven history that one really hurts the head.

This could have been very cool and climactic, but they completely Games Workshoped it, and turned it into a massive, rage-inducing clusterfrick. Multiple books were released- rule books and fluff books- that were filled with contradictions. Many major characters died 'off screen', being just a part of a footnote in some message bearer's lines, and things like that. Many races had almost no showing- for example, Dwarfs basically never left their holds. Lizardmen flew off into space before things got too hot (not kidding), and Bretonnia was simply everyone's punching bag- they did nothing but die. Khemri was also wiped out by Nagash, single handedly. He then took all of the undead from Nehekhara and the rest of the old world to go fight Chaos.

There was one example of an elf, who was turned into a vampire. She was later redeemed by an Elven god. Tyrion then killed her for being a vampire. Why? The author of the book where she died simply hadn't read the earlier book where she was redeemed. There was no communication among authors, and it showed horribly.

The 8 winds of magic were bound into 8 mortals (or semi-mortals), to try and fight the Chaos Gods. This changes a bit as characters die, but from memory the 8 characters are: Nagash, Tyrion (after he's brought back to life), Teclis, the Everqueen, Malekith (elves were very over-represented), Karl Franz, Grimgor Ironhide and Balthazar Gelt- an ex-Grand Theogenist of the Empire.

The very end to this nonsense is that another warp gate was found in the Empire, opened by Archaon, and the entire world was destroyed. Again, not kidding. Everything. Dies.

The most brilliant part of all of this: It's stated at the end, that with their victory, the Chaos Gods lose interest and turn their backs on what was the world. That's a real sense of achievement for both sides there, when the victor doesn't even care.

NOW

Though not all details are known, Age of Sigmar is set in a new world. Don't know where it came from, but it's basically a chaos-covered daemon world. Somehow the 8 winds of magic survived, and those who were tied to them come back to life as gods of these little bubble-realms. Karl Franz is Sigmar now. Now those forces are sallying out, trying to kill Chaos and claim more territory. No idea why really- there doesn't seem to be an end goal yet (they can probably never beat Chaos).

RULES

On the positive side, the Age of Sigmar rules, and updates to use all current models in the game, are free. They'll be up on the GW site this Saturday.

The negative side- everything else.

The rules are a 4 page pamphlet. The holes are gapingly obvious and horrible. Even two people who want to play a proper game are going to encounter bits they struggle with. Issue #1 is that there is no balancing system, at all. No points, no force limits- it literally tells you to place as many models as you want, of whatever type you want (mix and match armies freely), until you want to stop or your deployment zone is full.

Tactics and strategy seem to be lost altogether- there's no flanking, no charge bonuses- nothing at all to encourage careful manouvering. Models have 4 stats- Movement, Bravery, Armour, and Wounds (2 or more wounds is now common). Weapons have stats as well- Attacks, To-hit, to-wound (both of these are set values, regardless of opponent), Rend (a penalty to the enemy's save) and Damage (multiple-wound weapons are also now common).

Models are now all on round bases- not that it matters. Bases are irrelevant, as all measurements are made to and from the models themselves. Any part of the model- so you can kill a pikeman by attacking the tip of his pike.

Models are also much larger- one 'new race', commonly called 'Sigmarines', are basically angels of Sigmar. They are space marines, in almost all ways- including looks. They stand about as high as an Ogre.

One of the big aims is to make things copywrightable. Forget anything that looks like Bretonnia or the Empire- they're too historical. All new models will look 'unique', and over-the-top. Names have also changed- No more Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Dwarves- now they are 'Orroks', 'Grots', Aelfs' and 'Steamhead Duardins' (yep, poor Dwarves).



In short, did you like Warhammer Fantasy Battles?
Too bad. It's dead, and its ashes have been desecrated by this monstrosity that's barely even playable.

I think that goes in the "not a fan" pile.

[Darkson (Simon)]

@Geep - I have to admit that if I didnt know better I would assume that your synopsis was a parody. I had to read it twice because my brain kept filling in the inconsistencies that were there but not accepted. For example, I got to the end of th ebit about Elves and wondered where the Dark Elves were left now, then went back and read, and as a fan of the Dark Elves in.... 7th edition (?) I couldnt believe it. That throws out their entire character in a footnote.

Rumours of what was in the End Times books leaked way before they came out, and no one believed it
There's all sorts of brilliantly rage inducing things. I'm a Wood Elf/ Orc player mainly, and my opponent likes Bretonnians. Main things I hated were:
Bretonnia is being ripped apart. Skaven, Beastmen and Undead have laid waste to all major cities bar one or two. The king is missing, presumed dead. Suddenly, in Bretonnia's hour of need, the Green Knight appears and reveals himself to be Gilles le Breton (founder of Bretonnia, kept alive by the Lady of the Lake). He then does nothing. The Bretonnians do nothing. He just sits on his backside and Bretonnia dies.

The Lady of the Lake poisons Ariel, the Wood Elf demi-god. Ariel dies, not having lifted a finger in the climactic end-of-world events. Orion (another demi-god, Ariel's partner) gets angry and heads over to Ulthuan, where he is killed by Tyrion. In return, he managed to give Tyrion a scratch (yay... that's fearsome...).

The Lady of the Lake reveals herself as Lilith, the Elven goddess. She decides to let Bretonnia know that she actually created the entire realm, and shaped its ways, purely to be a barrier protecting Athel Loren. She has no actual care for the humans, and abandons them once the elves start to move out.

Morgianna Le Fey, the handmaiden of the Lady of the Lake, is kidnapped by Drycha (Wood Elf dryad), sold to a von Carstein, and turned into a vampire. She's then killed by Arkhan to help summon Nagash. The Lady of the Lake probably could have saved her, but doesn't feel any need to.

Teclis hatches a plan to have Tyrion's daughter kidnapped, and she is also sacrificed in order to summon Nagash.

The unification of all of the elves is pretty much comical in its horror. Malekith uproots ALL dark elves to invade Ulthuan, as a massive Chaos horde is about to take out all of Naggaroth. Seeing no hope, Tyrion draws the sword of Khaine, and so becomes cursed. He starts killing everything.
The Everqueen and Teclis decide to abandon him, and go cozy up to Malekith, declaring Malekith Phoenix King. Morathi decides to get in on the nonsense, and goes to join Tyrion in destroying everything. Malekith eventually makes it to the Flame of Asuryan, and we learn a fun 'fact'- Malekith was always supposed to be Phoenix King. The entire decline of the elves was Asuryan's curse for Malekith not being the Phoenix King. The whole 'horrible burning death' thing that Malekith endured when he was first crowned Phoenix King was just Asuryan's 'test'- by saving his own life he doomed the elves.
The Everqueen heads to Athel Loren, gathers up the Wood Elves, and brings them over to fight for Malekith- because hey, why not, their leader-gods just died, so who else will they listen to?
In the big inter-elf fight, some Elves become their gods (not just aspects of them), and this is how all of the Elven gods die.
Ulthuan sinks, all remaining elves declare that they had a good time but that they'll stop killing each other now, and they get magically teleported to Athel Loren (literally magically teleported). Athel Loren doesn't seem to care at all about all of these intruders.
Tyrion died, but is resurrected with no real harm done- except that Khaine (who Tyrion became) is dead forever.
Malekith and the Everqueen then get married, Tyrion and all the elves live happily ever after (until the world does some exploding).

There is some potential for excellently written story in the above- it doesn't happen. The plots are bad and get jerked back and forth by various authors, and the writing is often just sloppy. I tended to find myself wanting the characters to die because they were being so damn stupid.

And, the Lizardmen.... went.... into space? Really?

Yep, turns out the pyramids were actually space ships, or some such nonsense. And as is well known in Lizardmen background, when the great wars against Chaos are on, the Lizardmen- the fighting force of the Old Ones that have played a pivotal (if often unknown) role against Chaos... flee.

More specific boxed game details- The rules (all 4 pages of them) will be free online. A conversion sheet for every current model goes free online too (that's all happening this Saturday). From now on, a model's rules will only be in its box- there are no more books. Buy what boxes you want- that's your army. No limits at all.
Despite this, the boxed game is still 100 Euros, $200AU or whatever currencies lie between.

Fairly reliable sources say that this is GW's last stab at Fantasy, and that if it fails they'll probably cut all Fantasy ties.

Yep, pretty sure not a fan.