Friday, 7 August 2015

Age of Sigmar Points System

Points work rather less well on skirmish games than most so designers often use a 'slot' system, which is about as effective way of any of getting a balanced game. Using slots rather than raw points smooths out variations.

You can set up one for Age of Sigmar fairly easily.

Try this:

Players should set a maximum number of slots available to armies before playing.

A unit occupies a slot or slots whatever number of models that represents.
Units may not 'share' a slot .

Calculate the number of slots required by each of your units using the following formula which is applied to the average model in each unit:

No. of Slots = ((No. of Wounds + No. of attacks) x no. of models in the unit)/10

Round the result up or down using the normal maths rule (1.5 = 2, 1.49 = 1), except that 0.49 or less is still one slot.

So a five man unit of Celestial Liberators =  ((2 + 2)5)/10 = 2.0 = Two slots

Lord-Celestant = ((7 + 6)1/10 = 1.3 = One slot

The Armies in the AOS Starter Set are costed as follows:

Lord-Celestant 1 slot, Lord-Relictor 1 slot, Prosecutors 2 slots, Retributors 2 slots, Liberators 2 slots, Liberators 2 slots:
Army Size: Ten Slots


Lord of Khorne 1 Slot, Bloodsecrator 1 Slot, Bloodstoker 1 Slot, Khogorath 2 slots, Blood Warriors 2 slots, Blood Reavers 4 slots.
Army Size: Eleven Slots

Note that (i) where a models attacks decrease with damage then use the starting number of attacks. If a model has variable attacks, say 2D6, then take the average for the calculation, i.e. 7.

Deathrattle Horde
Wight King 1 Slot, Five Black Nights 3 slots, Five Grave Guard 2 Slots, Three units of ten skeleton warrior 2 Slots each.
Army Size Twelve Slots.

This is quick and dirty. It is easily gameable by messing around with the number of models in a unit, and big killing machines like Nagash are still overpowered, but it is better than nothing.

PS: anyone know what an asterisk instead of a number means on a stat line?

11 comments:

  1. The asterisk is a reference to either a stat table (like for attacks or wound rolls) or another special rule in the warscroll. I hope that helps!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why did you bother? The game is terrible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought the same, but after a couple of games I have found it great fun and tactical, which is all you need from a wargame. Why is it terrible?

      Delete
    2. I doubt it is terrible. I also doubt it is particularly tactical due to the lack of choice in unit activities.

      Delete
    3. There is actually a lot of choice due to units not being confined to fixed movement trays. The game as a whole requires a fair amount of thought for each unit, you can't just line up and wade in, there is more to the game than that.

      Delete
    4. The guys at my club tried to play it and thought it was a joke. To be polite the word 'silly' was used an awful lot. My friends club tried to play and gave up half way through. To be honest I am not a fan of GW. There are better games and products out there. Cheaper as well. I think GW will be in a lot more financial trouble because of this.

      Delete
  3. It is also not really a skirmish game. Games with units of 10+ models as a common minimum choice are not skirmish. It might have skirmish style individual model movement. I bet if you put back in ranked up movement things it would probably play as a very fast battle game.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True, you could play as a battle game but you would lose some of the tactics choices and would need to add combat mods such as flank charges to make up for it.

      Delete
  4. Back on subject :) System looks like a neat simple idea, but I'd like to add that after ply experience you could round either way rather than just mathematically.

    I've played several games now and the sides are pretty even but the Khogorath has always been a let down, possibly due to hero buffs not affecting him as good as other units, so I would round his points down to 1, this would also then make the boxed army set equal points.

    ReplyDelete