Which of these new rules teasers will affect your gameplay? We break down the 9 big changes to Age of Sigmar 2.0, rules-wise that have been previewed up to now from Games Workshop.
I have compiled all of the more general announcements that will affect the core game (basically not individual factions that would be a lot of writing) and give my two cents on them.
With GW not announcing the release date yet though, they could still add more changes, but I imagine most of the major rule changes have been announced by now. So without further ado lets dive in.
9 BIG Changes To Age of Sigmar So Far
Summoning:
One of the biggest changes is the addition of summoning rules and that they do not cost any reinforcement points. Every “summoning” army will have a mechanic built into the army where they can summon entire units at no point cost. This is a tough one for me in that summoning was close to useless in the previous version but giving some armies free models can be a slippery slope.
If someone finds some sort of loophole that lets them summons a crazy number of models easily, then that army is going to be hard to beat. Even top-tier lists will struggle against fighting someone who is bringing double the amount of points that the battle is set at. On the other hand, if they get it right it can become a cool mechanic for summoning armies and makes summoning more interesting.
Changes to the Magic System:
This is another big change to overall gameplay in Age of Sigmar in that magic, in general, is getting an overhaul.
- First: you have a 30-inch range when trying to unbind spells, so that it allows you to affect gameplay even when they are casting deep within their own territory.
- Second: you have changes to Arcane Bolt and Mystic Shield making them slightly less effective. Arcane Bolt only does a single mortal wound (D3 on 10+), while Mystic Shield lets you reroll save rolls of 1 now. This is needed as low casting cost spells, they were a little too powerful before.
- Third: you have endless spells, where you can summon a spell that lasts beyond one turn and it can move around the battlefield. The kick is that both wizards can control the endless spells and their movement so will make for some interesting wizard duels.
- Fourth: GW has released a couple of realm spells that are available to all wizards when a battle takes place in a specific realm. For me these changes basically make having at least one wizard (or someone that can unbind) in your army, even if you must pull from allies to bring one in. There are just too many spells now that can really change the tide of battle with a single cast, so you need to have some skin in the game.
Changes to Command Abilities:
Another one of the big changes is how command abilities work along with GW introducing a couple new ones that all generals receive. Along with Inspiring Presence generals now get At the Double (run roll for a unit within 12 is a 6) and Forward to Victory (lets you re-roll a charge roll within 12). The kicker is that all command abilities now cost a single Command Point.
You generate 1 Command Point per turn along with starting the game with an additional Command Point for every battalion you take. Along with that, you can also spend 50 points before the battle to start with an additional Command Point.
I really like this in that it makes taking battalions more worthwhile (I think in the current version they are overpriced) and it lets you use command abilities on all your heroes instead of being pigeonholed into just selecting a general. This is going to lead to some interesting combos, and it will also be a decision maker in that do you save them up and go all out or spread them out over the game.
Shooting:
There are two big changes coming to the shooting phase in this version that completely reworks how it is done.
- First: is that if your unit has an enemy unit within 3 inches of them they cannot shoot at any other unit unless it is within 3 inches.
- Second: is that hero models (that are not monsters) within 3 inches of a unit containing 3 or more models subtract 1 from all shooting attacks against them. These are both great in that it makes the movement stat much more important for getting across the battlefield and tying up shooting units. Also, it helps to protect hero models from getting sniped that are required for an army to function well like flesh eater courts.
Priority Roll:
The change on this one is that when you do a priority roll for the next turn if you roll a tie the player who went first in the previous round gets to choose. This will reduce the odds of getting a double turn a little bit but won’t affect gameplay much outside of that.
Magic Items and Spells:
There is going to be a ton more magic items and spells available to players of all armies, and while some are alliance or allegiance specific there will be much more available to everyone. Some will also be specific to whichever realm the battle is taking place in. This is a nice touch and will help add some variety to your games, especially for those players that do not have battle tomes for their armies.
Realms:
The new edition seems to be combining the idea of narrative battle with matches play by adding in some realm specific abilities. It would not surprise me either (and I kind of hope this happens) of replacing the mystical terrain rules with over arcing rules that span the entire battlefield depending on what realm it is in.
It would also not surprise me if there are pitched battleplans that take place in specific realms. Along with that we are getting a slew of maps, and interesting bits about daily life in the mortal realms, so this will be a great way for GW to start fleshing out the setting beyond “it’s big and scary”.
Point Changes:
GW is releasing a new generals handbook with more point changes, they have announced some armies will be getting reductions, some increases, and some staying the same. I like the yearly release of the general’s handbook as it means GW is continuing to try and balance the game, while keeping the price relatively low at 1 book a year.
Armies:
We have seen the new Nighthaunt models and Stormcast chamber and they revealed that they are getting battle tomes soon after the release of the new version. Along with that they are redoing a lot of the older battle tomes that are a couple of years old to go with the newer version.
This is good as the older battle tomes are pretty much just lore and short stories and really do not have much in them add uniqueness to your army. I hope they take it a step further and start to combine some of the older models into single armies as well so that you can choose some of the allegiances that were pretty much unusable in matched play (Like Swifthawk Agents).
That is a sum of everything GW has released so far regarding the new version coming out sometime in June. Obviously, it doesn’t go into detail about each army, but most are seeing some sort of update to bring them into the current rule system. The new models look cool and the game seems like it is adding some complexity without adding too many rules so overall, I am excited for the changes.
I especially look forward to seeing how the magic, command abilities, and shooting changes the way lists are being built right now. Finally, I hope they really dig into the different realms and make them a part of the game, maybe with a random chart or something. They could even replace the terrain rules with an overarching “realm rule” and I would be ok with that.
Get the lowdown on more AoS, & Shadespire Breakdowns
