Is AoS 3rd Edition any good?

[aktr]

Hi,

I'm just wondering if any one has any opinions on has done a review on AoS 3rd edition, is it a good game?

I've found plenty of online "reviews" but all the do is compare 3rd to 2nd and the differences between the 2

I've only had a few games of AoS 1st edition and maybe one of 2nd and they weren't particularly enjoyable games but I suspect that's because the person teaching me the rules was more concerned with winning rather then teaching me the rules. There just seemed to be loads of "Gotcha moments as I fell into one trap after another"

so I had mostly written AoS off but I see a shiny new box has come out and those Orcs do look very nice.

so what do you think, is AoS 3rd edition a decent game or not?

Cheers

[Chief Lackey Rich]

I can't answer if you'd like it or not, it's too subjective a question.  From my POV as a mild WFB fan who was severely disappointed with 1st ed AoS and unimpressed with 2nd, this edition is markedly less dumbed down that the earlier editions and offers far more decision points each turn without seeming to slow play down too much.  They put some work into this edition, and there are quite  a few innovations and some fairly radical changes - which explains the news coverage of it emphasizing the differences between 2nd and 3rd.

OTOH, it is still very much a victory point accumulation game rather than any kind of simulation. 

EDOT:  I stand partly corrected, after playing some more and watching a lot more play vids, VP accumulation is not always the primary route to victory.  The scenarios define how you win, and encourage different approaches as well as sometimes offering sudden death conditions that invalidate "slow approach" VP gains, task execution, etc.  It's surprisingly varied and fairly deep, and a very non-traditional approach for defining win states for a minis game.

Even here in the early stages players are commenting on the fact that you're not really incentivized for fighting as opposed to staying focused on doing whatever thing your shifting objectives call for each turn - some of which do, to be fair, call for singling out some specific enemy target and killing it, so it's not all friendly camping games.  Army construction has a whole slew of odd restrictions and the majority of your troop units are likely to be small things with 5-10 models in them (some real scuts reach 20), with a few reinforced to 2-3 times that size.  The mechanics heavily push for using more heroic characters, magic, and large monsters than ever before.  Actually reminds me a bit of the worst days of Herohammer (4th and 5th edition WFB, IIRC) in design philosophy.

So - if you want a game that sees you pushing around mostly small units of troops in support of powerful single models as they try to accomplish a laundry list of battlefield goals to earn VP, that's what this is.  Almost every model or unit has special rules to remember and use, the individual armies have their own layer of further perks and quirks, and there are some core rules that give further abilities to certain model types (eg heroes, wizards, and monsters) and even to some army-specific terrain.  None of it's all that complicated in isolation, but it all adds up to something that's got more complexity than the 1st edition every did.  Whether there's depth as well as complexity is subjective.

I don't plan on building an army for the game, but I'll be willing to push around other folks' models if and when in-store gaming opens up again.  There are few enough AoS players locally that the ones that do exist will often loan out forces just to get a game in, and while I don't love what I've experienced of the game so far I'm curious enough to dabble at playing it further.  There will undoubtedly be a steady flow of new revised army books for the edition, and those will change how it plays so much that the core rules will be partially eclipsed over time.

EDIT:  That said, some of the models are gorgeous, and they're surprisingly cheap (about $4 each) in the core box - and there are plenty of other rules sets out there that you could manage to use them with, as well as use for roleplaying games.  I have friends who play the Ganesha Games rules entirely with GW figs, and another who uses his Skaven for Frostgrave.

[sir_shvantselot]

I’ve played it once with Ogors who are thankfully simple. I second everything Chief Lackey says. Very insightful. Though I did play against some very big units which are still hard to cut through. It is too complicated for me with so many rules for every model specific to one of multiple phases per turn. I need a cheat sheet setting out what to do in each turn. I just have too many GW models collected over the years not to give it a go. Would prefer something like Age of Magic Saga but there’s no real constituency for that. Though having bought dominion to support the FLGS I certainly have the models.

[Mr. White]

Why not just use your AoS models for Dragon Rampant?

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Why not just use your AoS models for Dragon Rampant?

Or Hordes of the Things, or Fantasy Rules!, or Armies of Arcana, etc, etc.  Plenty of game systems out there that offer DIY army & unit design to some degree or another if you're looking for an excuse to buy some pretty GW sculpts.  They'd be more generally useful if the scale creep issue wasn't so bad (I'm guessing GW thinks 28mm = 35mm at this point, if they think about it at all) but scale is fluid on the less human stuff that makes up most of the AoS range these days.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

I can't answer if you'd like it or not, it's too subjective a question.  From my POV as a mild WFB fan who was severely disappointed with 1st ed AoS and unimpressed with 2nd, this edition is markedly less dumbed down that the earlier editions and offers far more decision points each turn without seeming to slow play down too much.  They put some work into this edition, and there are quite  a few innovations and some fairly radical changes - which explains the news coverage of it emphasizing the differences between 2nd and 3rd.

OTOH, it is still very much a victory point accumulation game rather than any kind of simulation.  Even here in the early stages players are commenting on the fact that you're not really incentivized for fighting as opposed to staying focused on doing whatever thing your shifting objectives call for each turn - some of which do, to be fair, call for singling out some specific enemy target and killing it, so it's not all friendly camping games.  Army construction has a whole slew of odd restrictions and the majority of your troop units are likely to be small things with 5-10 models in them (some real scuts reach 20), with a few reinforced to 2-3 times that size.  The mechanics heavily push for using more heroic characters, magic, and large monsters than ever before.  Actually reminds me a bit of the worst days of Herohammer (4th and 5th edition WFB, IIRC) in design philosophy.

So - if you want a game that sees you pushing around mostly small units of troops in support of powerful single models as they try to accomplish a laundry list of battlefield goals to earn VP, that's what this is.  Almost every model or unit has special rules to remember and use, the individual armies have their own layer of further perks and quirks, and there are some core rules that give further abilities to certain model types (eg heroes, wizards, and monsters) and even to some army-specific terrain.  None of it's all that complicated in isolation, but it all adds up to something that's got more complexity than the 1st edition every did.  Whether there's depth as well as complexity is subjective.

I don't plan on building an army for the game, but I'll be willing to push around other folks' models if and when in-store gaming opens up again.  There are few enough AoS players locally that the ones that do exist will often loan out forces just to get a game in, and while I don't love what I've experienced of the game so far I'm curious enough to dabble at playing it further.  There will undoubtedly be a steady flow of new revised army books for the edition, and those will change how it plays so much that the core rules will be partially eclipsed over time.

EDIT:  That said, some of the models are gorgeous, and they're surprisingly cheap (about $4 each) in the core box - and there are plenty of other rules sets out there that you could manage to use them with, as well as use for roleplaying games.  I have friends who play the Ganesha Games rules entirely with GW figs, and another who uses his Skaven for Frostgrave.

This was a helpful assessment, thanks for taking the time to write it out. I've been wondering about getting into it myself but am pretty leery of the game still being decided in the army building "phase".

[Chief Lackey Rich]

This was a helpful assessment, thanks for taking the time to write it out. I've been wondering about getting into it myself but am pretty leery of the game still being decided in the army building "phase".

It appears to me that army construction is less of a "trump" than it has been, although it's still clearly influential - but I can't think of a game where you have army selection choices (ie things that aren't Chess or Checkers) where that isn't true.  The emphasis on selecting and executing a different battle plan (eg kill the enemy general, take an objective, etc,) each game turn to maximize VPs makes adaptive gameplay pretty vital.  The scenarios are also more varied in defining how you win.  One may have holding all the table objectives as a sudden death condition while "most battle plans executed" are second-tier for winning and total VP are the final tie-breaker while.  Others may shuffle that tier order, introduce entirely new conditions, or disregard some conditions altogether.  It's not a simulation of anything at all, but it's much deeper as an abstract game with varied routes to victory than earlier editions (or even moist minis games, period).

Bit like playing a popular modern Eurogame design where no one approach to winning will work all the time, only you're pushing around GW figs instead of placing meeples or trading sheep for wood or whatever, if that makes any sense.

[Gibby]

GW's main game rules now, with the command/ability points, combos and victory point hunting make them feel more like a sports arena or videogame type experience than a narrative battle/encounter. Nothing wrong with that if that's your thing, and clearly it's a lot of people's thing, but I've found that they're not for me. As others have said though, plenty of other rules to use those excellent minis with, many of which could be used to capture the mythic fantasy feel of the AoS setting if that's what you wanted.

So, to sound more specifically on topic... AoS 3rd is probably very good or very not so good, depending on what style of game you want.

[Pictors Studio]

I played my first game yesterday.

If you are playing the matched rules it is probably pretty much as Chief Lackey Rich describes.  That is what we did yesterday and there were these quirky rules regarding differing objectives each turn.  I wasn't a fan.  I'm doing a demo at the store and will run it with those rules to show people what has changed.

However, we usually play narrative games with the rules and I find them to be quite fun.  The big change for us will be the coherency rules which force units into lines or squares rather than amorphous blobs like they used to be. 

Since we tend to use a lot of odd scenery in our games it is quite likely that this change will either force a change in our tactics or see us ignoring it under different circumstances (like when doing boarding actions between ships or whatever.)

[Gibby]

The big change for us will be the coherency rules which force units into lines or squares rather than amorphous blobs like they used to be. 

Interesting! That does sound like an improvement.

[Pictors Studio]

It is and it isn't. 

The downside will be that units of more than 5 models are going to have a difficult time crossing over terrain where they have to move in single file.  So it somewhat limits your battlefield terrain options if you are going to follow the rules.

If you had a single person bridge or a narrow path over a mountain side according to the rules a unit of 5 or more models would not be able to cross it and stay in coherency. 

Obviously in situations like that we will be ignoring those rules and probably most people who play to the letter of the rules don't set up terrain like that most of the time so it won't be an issue often.

But one of the best things about AoS was how liberating it was in terms of terrain.  How you could really field some fantastic battlefields. 

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Confess I hadn't considered anything but what GW calls "matched play" when commenting above.  Narrative or "historical" scenario play isn't a thing around here and I can't say much about either.

I'd think the terrain and unit coherence rules clash could be resolved by declaring a global rule that any terrain within (say) 1" of a unit be treated as a model in that unit for purposes of coherence.  That way you can form your march column on a narrow trail, spread your unit around the perimeter of a patch of area terrain you want to blockade without entering, or even move through a field full of those "timeworn ruin" pieces that GW sells - which could otherwise easily be just as impassable as those narrow rails.

The garrison rules have some oddities of their own but the abstractions they involve seem to be okay as long as you follow the suggested limits on setting up terrain - ie, not close enough to other terrain or objectives that a garrison can be claiming an objective from the comfort of their walls.

The fact that any army with a monster (or a spellcaster, if playing Ghur where any hero can potentially do monstrous rampage stuff) can now "break" terrain and turn off its rules for the game also changes up the game a lot and might need tweaking in narrative play. 

[aktr]

Thanks everyone
I managed to pick up the Orc half of the new starter set at a really good price so I've bought them and will give AoS a try, if I don't like it I'll use them for Saga: Age of Magic or see if I can persuade someone to play dragon rampant