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A Casual’s View – Age of Sigmar a Dream Come True?

By Rob Baer | July 21st, 2015 | Categories: Age of Sigmar, Miniature Wargaming Editorials

age of sigmar box art

Come see what one very casual player has to say about the new Age of Sigmar, playing tabletop wargaming, and having fun in this age of WAAC gaming.

Via Spikey Bits Reader Bojan

I have been trying to get my voice herd regarding AOS, but for someone who is not native English speaker and not a good public speaker in general I sometimes have problems getting my point across. This article will be slightly long but there are some points I would like to make regarding AOS and how for me this is the way all miniatures battle game should be played, without the over-complicated rules and strange float charts you need to know in order to play the game.

MY perspective is mostly from someone who didn’t get any game of FB and 40K ever and only has read he rules and watched battle reports on YouTube. Also I am a big historical aficionado and even went to university to become a Historian. And I am also an avid Magic the Gathering player.

So let’s get started, this will be long and rambling.

Games Workshop’s Dream

At the beginning on the bashing side of AOS, I mostly didn’t like the story and the explanation on what happen to the Old World, but reading through the rules for AOS I have found that the simplified rules actually make a better interpretation of rank and file combat that the original rules.

Here is why, and this is a strictly historical/realistic interpretation on how combat with blocks of infantry worked in ages passed:
If we look at the Roman style of combat, the unit of infantry (100 strong) always shown its front rank to the enemy, and if flanked (charged by a cavalry in the flank or rear) thy always reformed on the spot to present the front rank to the enemy, something I don’t remember being ever in the rules (and I could be wrong regarding the reformation of ranks before the charge). Editor’s note you could but it was rather difficult to pull off.
If we go on to the way a unit of Roman infantry moved, they rarely wheel around, the entire concept of wheeling a block of soldiers around a single point is more of a parade drill than an actual combat one, and even on the battlefield they quickly reformed the ranks of the unit to again present the front to the enemy.
For instance a unit of pikemen never wheeled, thy stopped turned ninety degrees and marched in that direction, stopped turned again and marched, making a zig-zag pattern, also every side of a pikemen unit is its front.

age of sigmar stormcast models

I can go on and on but the point is, with the simplification of the movement rules and the game now allows better tactics in my opinion, you don’t need to outmanoeuvre an enemy with your infantry when you are in a battle line comprised of multiple units, you only need to present it with a wall upon which he will brake like waves on a cliff. That is the job for the cavalry, and the rules change gives them a better role on the battlefield.

This is what I see in the new charging rules. Since bases don’t mater any more and the pile in happens at the start of combat you again remove some completely ridiculous abstraction of melee combat, if we look historically or better still the Total War series, a block of infantry will always try to encircle the opponent, thy will extend there battle line to a point you can technically encircle the entire enemy army (Battle of Cannae now you can recreate it in Warhammer).
You can also build a giant shield wall like the Romans that had a tactic that involved forming a shield wall that slowly grind the enemy down, in this formation the front rank changed every 20 minutes
This could have been a explained in the old Fantasy rules by the way the models where removed as casualties but this brings a abstraction of how long the combat takes place, and the impression I got was that combat where over as soon as thy started, here is an example:  “We are a group of 10 empire swordsman we engaged into combat with another group of 10 empire swordsman, we lost Billy, Timmy and Jonny, they lost Fred, Zed and Ned, we liked Timmy so we run away.”

ageofsigmarmural
To me this was aggravating, I could have a unit of 100 guys of which only 10 could attack and then lost the combat because of casualties, so I lost the chance to have almost all of my block to fight the enemy, only because I failed a dice role when I lost 5% of the unit … that is Bull S***.  Now since every model can attack as long as it is within a certain distance the problem with not having enough attacks with my giant mob of soldiers is non existent, it also favours big units, so you can bring more attacks to bare.

I want to bring up something none of the rules addressed, that is the dreaded frontal charge a unit of spears with cavalry, something that historically was only done when the enemy forced the charge, while in Warhammer I can charge a group of 100 spear-man with my group of 20 knights and win. My problem with this concept is that the unit of knights is charging into a forest of sharp pointy things, no matter how badass you knights are, half of them should die before thy make contact with the enemy.

But this was probably removed from the original design document for the first edition in order to have a “fair” gaming system. Since the spears are made of wood and sometimes long, the wood also can be flexible, would love to see some knight getting his armour entangled in a spear and because of the forces involved he pole volts over the unit and face plants on the ground at the other side.

fantasy walpaper

Before I ramble on into oblivion, the AOS system is great, it’s simplicity can and is deceiving, if you put your head into it you can easily add small rules to facilitate combat with giant blocks of infantry, the tactics are still there, and I would love to see what the future holds.
Personally I would love if GW would invigorate 40k also, that game needs some revitalization, adding the war scrolls and simplifying some of the more obtuse rules would make the game more accessible, if not lowering the prohibitive price of the models.

cardboard crak

I also hope this wasn’t a ramble on my part. As a MTG player I understand the need for simplicity, in MTG you have to ways to play, the competitive and the casual, the first is full of meta, knowledge of what every card dose, the ban lists and so on, the casual well can only be described with yesterdays issue of Card board crack. For me both FB and 40K never had this distinction and AOS fixes one of them.
Sometimes I want to play a game and have fun.

With Regards, Bojan

Truer words may have never been spoken. 

About the Author: Rob Baer

Virginia Restless, Miniature Painter & Cat Dad. I blame LEGOs. There was something about those little-colored blocks that started it all... Twitter @catdaddymbg