Looking to invest in the General’s Handbook 2017 but want to get a sneak-peek first? Read on to get the deets on the newest AoS addition!
Alright kids! School is in session, so let’s do a quick book report. This time on the General’s Handbook 2017 and my personal likes, dislikes, etc.
The Likes:
- Point tweaks: I love that they went through all the armies and tweaked a lot of the point values for units. As much as I loved the first General’s Handbook, some of the point values were off, so it’s nice to see that they are going to try and balance the game every year.
- Massive Regiments: This is a personal favorite as it encourages to use a big chunk of core troops. You do not have to which is still nice but, giving some discounted points is huge but it really adds to the army feel of the game when there is a massive regiment of 30+ plus models.
- Allies: I love that you can add some models to the army that don’t need the key word, but you can still have the alliance ability. This is great so that if you see a model that is cool but not part of your main force, there is a chance you can add it to the army under allies. This works great with the monsters of chaos for the chaos factions, or a Celestant-Prime with any of the order factions.
- More Rules of One: This is a no brainer; the turn roll is so important that there should be no modifiers or anything beyond luck associated with it. Same with the artifacts being unique, as that just makes sense that only one of something that magical exists.
- Ways to Play: Having more battleplans, realm rules, siege rules, etc. is always a plus. It allows you to play the game in new ways that can otherwise go stale.
- Allegiances: Special rules for the allegiances is awesome and it gives every army a unique twist in how they are played. This is great in that it makes for more interesting games when you play against different armies.
The Dislikes:
- Forgotten Alliances: I like the alliances and the new abilities but there is a lot in here with no special rules and that contain maybe one or two units. Either flesh them out with more troops or attach them to other larger alliances so that they can have special rules and still be used. For example, Lion’s Ranges have two units in their alliance. Why not just combine them with Free Peoples or Phoenix temple or something so that they are usable? Then there are alliances with lots of units with no special rules like Swifthawk Agents: while you can lump them into the order alliance, you have to have enough models for their own special rules.
- Dropped Warscrolls: Dropping older warscrolls from the book is not great as a ton of models have just been NERFed via the PDF warscroll update, and it is honestly kind of is a letdown for people with older models.
- It was the same with battalions! Sure, update their point costs but don’t remove them entirely! Some people spent a lot of money to get that exact army made up, only for it to be taken away.
The Disappointed:
- Realms: Giving us some special rules for fighting in the realms is cool…But they are limited! I would have liked to see an entire page dedicated to special spells, rules, etc. for each realm. Or changes the terrain types for each realm…. Just so much they could have done, instead they kept it basic. Such a missed opportunity.
- No New Spells: Would have been nice to see some bonus spells for the new allegiances, as most the armies with newer books have them.
- No Mixed Battalions: The allies let you add some spice to your army, but I want to see battalions of mixed alliances. For example, the old Spire of Dawn battalion “Guardians of the Dawnspire” gives a single Archmage and a unit of Swordmasters the Swifthawk Agents keyword. That allowed you to bring in eldritch council models outside the 400 from allies. Now think if you had that with Wanders and Fyreslayers, or Slaves of Darkness with specific daemon units. It would just be a cool way to mix up armies.
- No New Rules: I personally think shooting while in combat should only be allowed against the unit they are in combat with, in addition to some minor rule tweaks…
Hope For The Future:
- Point Balance: I hope they continue to do this every year, as it helps balance out the game from year to year.
- Realms: Flesh out the realms and give us new and interesting terrain features for each realm. They literally blew up the old world to start fresh with unlimited options, so it is time to start digging into the realms a bit more than a paragraph here and a map there.
- Rules: Tweak shooting and possibly bring in some of the 40k rules that seem to make for a better game. Not too much though as part of AoS charm is the 4 pages of rules, we don’t need them getting crazy.
- Mixed armies: Mix up the armies so that there can be more interesting matched play armies (see No Mixed Battalions)
- Ways to Play: Continue releasing new battleplans for all the ways to play. By having different scenarios it keeps the game fresh even when you’re fighting with the same armies.
Overall it is a solid addition to Age of Sigmar, one that is probably needed every year to update and balance the game. The way I look at it is that this is the rule book you will need to get every July / August to play in tournaments or matched play games. It also helps that GW has kept the price tag at $35 and not something crazy like $80-$100!
What do you think? Are you going to invest in the General’s Handbook 2017? Let us know in the comments below!
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About the Author: Travis Perkins
An avid homebrewer and Detroit sports fan (yes even the Lions). I am new to the world of wargamming and very much enjoying the journey. If you have any suggestions or comments feel free to comment on the article or email me at perki116@msu.edu
