The Ninth Age: is it improving?

[Leftblank]

[https://amsterdamwar.game.blog/2022/05/22/the-ninth-age-fantasy-battles-is-it-improving/]

Fan-made The Ninth Age was presented as the spiritual successor of WHFB 8th edition. The project developed army books and a quick play version but is still overly complex. Read the full blog.

[lethallee61]

My gaming mates tried to get me interested in 9th Age (I used to play WHFB) but the plethora of special rules for each army put me off.

Funnily enough - they have now all converted to the Warhammer Army Project, apparently a far more balanced and accessible game. Local support for WAP is so high, they’ve just held a tournament with about 30 players.

[Kelly_]

Really well-structured article, and it was good to see hard numbers to back up your points.  Anecdotally, I do not think I have heard anyone mention Ninth Age on any podcasts I listen to in at least the past few years, but the impression I got was that it had more traction in continental Europe starting out than the US or UK.

Also, I never would have made the connection on DBA+, a great read!

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Tried really hard to get into Ninth Age. Failed due to the complexity. It's playable and comprehensible, it just requires too much a lift in terms of 'time spent learning the rules' as opposed to 'time spent playing'. I'm sure that will appeal to some players, but these days, there are simpler rulesets that offer equally tactical and strategic challenges, IMO.

Having said that, if you have a good community who are good fun to play with, what rulesets you play with are secondary (again, IMHO).

[Daeothar]

I first heard of 9th Age at Poldercon, quite a few years ago. The two guys running the game were really enthousiastic about it and tried to rope me in. At the time, I was quite on the fence in regards to fantasy battle rules after the demise of the Old World.

Basically I also was a bit miffed about the loss of the Lap Around rule for my Hobgoblin Sneaky Gits (as far back as the Savage Hordes expansion already) and was looking for a WHFB alternative with a good player base (that also allowed my Gits to stab opposing blocks in the back again).

I tried Kings of War, and while it was a pretty streamlined experience, it also felt too generic; all armies kind of felt the same to me. So that demo game of 9th Age had me interested (still no lap-around though), but when checking it out, it was pretty clear it was not for me either.

The forum was the major reason. Man, that was toxic, and I pretty quickly decided that this was not the community for me. I mean; if I wanted vitriol, arguments, resentment, personal attacks, unfairness, burn-outs etc, I would just spend more time at the office...

And this pretty much matches the experiences voiced in the blog post. The system has its merits, but the whole circus around it has made it a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit; outdated and not going anywhere.

I am a bit of grognard myself; I mentioned my precious Chaos Dwarf special rules, but from the beginning, I've argued that if I like those rules so much, why not stick with the original that apparently worked so well?

Which basically is the whole Oldhammer thing I suppose?

Thank you for the article; it was a really good read and a very good insight in the rise and decline of a doomed enterprise (and in extension, the failings of corporate systems).

It also serves as a warning to not pursue this game anymore. There are now plenty of alternatives available; it's just a matter of finding one that strikes a chord with more than one player in the local environment...

[Diablo Jon]

The last edition of WFB I played was 6th. I never been  a very competitive gamer and never overly enjoyed competitive pick up games or tournaments. The best Warhammer for me was always the narrative stuff like Terror of the Lichemaster or Bloodbath at Orc's Drift.

 As the years went on (and to be be honest a recent foray into modern 40k hasn't  changed my opinion) it's felt like GW and the fan base were pushing the tournament side of Warhammer which meant constant need for balance and rules amendments. Constant bitching about how this army was unfair or this army can't win. It just turned me off.

I still love Oldhammer but 9th age came way to late for me GW had already killed off my love for more modern versions of Warhammer. Much rather just play 2nd edition (or 3rd edition) instead.

[Red Kop]

Within my gaming group 9th Age has been our go to for mass battle fantasy games since the death of Warhammer 8th edition and within the group our milage of the ruleset varies - some of us like it, others not so much and if I'm honest I have never really been keen on it... something about it leaves me cold...

We're a pretty laid bunch group of guys - we get together a handful of times a year and play to have fun rather than focus on a serious, win at all cost approach but I don't think these rules really work to provide the ideal gaming experience for me...

Far too complicated, the rules aren't fun, they are written and presented as lawyer speak, dry language, horrible presentation of rules which come across as too bloated and convoluted...

I think your blog post raises a lot of good valid points. All I can say for myself is that when you don't get a lot of opportunities to play games, you want to enjoy the few opportunities you do get.

And 9th Age hasn't been enjoyable for me for a long, long time. Lord knows Warhammer wasn't perfect but I never enjoyed playing fantasy games as much as I did during Warhammer 6th... Just the memories of some of those games are still remembered, talked and laughed about now... Can't pull out anything like that from any games of 9th Age...

Just all so meh...

[powerfrog99]

My gaming mates tried to get me interested in 9th Age (I used to play WHFB) but the plethora of special rules for each army put me off.

Funnily enough - they have now all converted to the Warhammer Army Project, apparently a far more balanced and accessible game. Local support for WAP is so high, they’ve just held a tournament with about 30 players.

That‘s Exactly what happened in our group as well. We are still playing once a week and WHAP is our winner 👍

[Leftblank]

I tried to post in their forum but the blog and my account were deleted again. However they might reconsider, the Exec Board member I contacted is friendly, but they haven't lifted the ban

I'm not involved in their movement, , I'm just a neutral observer, wargame dad.Bans feel simplistic.

[Davout]

Great article. I've downloaded the rules and didn't like what I saw. The barrier to entry was to high. Within my group I'm usually the one pushing and teaching a new rule set and 9th Age was to crunchy to wrap my head around or teach easily. We're all busy dads so we can only get together once a week at night and I'll be honest, our brain power is pretty depleted usually. We preffer games like Dragon Rampant that are easy to teach and learn and provide a fun game in about 90 minutes.

[NotifyGrout]

EDIT: Posted way too soon, lost some thoughts.

As mentioned in the column, Warhammer Renaissance is essentially a fan-adjustment of the 4th Edition WFB. They have a group on Facebook including rules downloads (free since it's a fan project). I've browsed the group- it's far more positive than what I've seen from T9A.

Kings of War, Mighty Armies, and HotT are about as complex as I want to get for rank and flank (and I still get hung up on HotT rules sometimes). If it wasn't for Kings of War I would never have tried the genre at all. Probably going to give Oathmark a go at some point.

KoW is great, but it's almost exclusively tournament-focused now. I'd gladly play casually but no one seems to anymore, especially since our local scene recently lost its biggest casual play booster