9th Age What are you the most excited about concerning the new book?

[Pinktaco]

Originally the members of this forum came up with a list of proposed changes for the new book. They were rather conservative and I supported that idea - it's often better to go slow instead of making drastic changes.
The book contains a mix of "drastic" changes and just minor changes. Don't worry though, only the Troglodon, disciplines and magic items got an overhaul. Still though this feel like the update you'd expect if this was the 9th edition update, but the committee have been given permission to add sacred spawnings so obviously that changes things. Also unlike GW the committee have tried hard to make every unit be viable and to allow for more viable lists than just one (skink cloud). Needless to say the changes in the new book are probably to be considered less conservative than what we originally had in mind, but then again I firmly believe we got book with almost no duds (playtest will tell).

So I'm curious what you're the most excited about? I'm looking forward to the reactions from people and hopefully people will like it.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Kroxigor hero!!!


I'm still fearful of how the Slann will turn out.... fingers crossed!

 

[Pinktaco]

Slann will be fine.

 

[Trociu]

I'm excited about monster mash, which, as you said should be more competitive with 9th age. So many cool models in the same battle!

 

[Rettile]

i'm very curious about the Slann and i think that a kroxy hero is a nice add (even if i was hoping for relic priests), but i'm interested in the whole book. I'd like to read it over and over again and playtest it deeply, hoping to find a balanced game with many possibilities
But i have a question: will army books change with time and playtest or they'll stay the way they are? I mean, will we see a 10th age? or 9.5th age? or just improvements and corrections to the 9th age if some things need improvements and corrections?

On a side note, i'm sincerely surprised: i was expecting something like a referendum to finally get a Coatl since many people want that guy. Just to be clear, I'd love it too but i think that fixing existing units, bringing back marks and the overall job are already enough. Let's hope it will be great game we all want, need and deserve after the GW's middle finger we've got

 

[Pinktaco]

We'll see updates in the future, but I'm not entirely sure how they'll be done. I could imagine that in maybe two years time they'll want to add units to each army, however since this is all free and online it's easy to fix each unit in the game based on feedback. Once the current book is open to the public they'll beta test it for 6 months or so. After that I think they want to add Special Characters.

There have been some talk about world wide campaigns and stuff like that so the possibilities are endless and I don't think the Executive Board is entirely sure how the future will look. They're rather busy at the moment

Concerning the Coatl it was briefly mentioned and apparently there is actual GW artwork of a Coatl being ridden by a Saurus. Maybe we can have @Phatmotha-phucka create something for us? Another monstrous cavalry option with Coatls :3

 

[Haemoglobin]

Definitely love the cannon balancing + monster changes. Good to have a choice between a stronger yet less defensive Carnosaur and a less strong but more defensive Carnosaur. Also loving the PF remake, rerolling 1s to hit is so nice. I usually only roll 1s and 6s

 

[n810]

So, how do the power levels look across all armies ?
did the strong just get stronger ?
or did things actually get balanced as a whole ?

 

[Pinktaco]

That's hard to say. I haven't seen the other new books yet. The Temporary Armies nerfed some of the nasties (skullcrushers, frost phoenix, banner of world dragon, deamon prince and mark of tzeenzth etc) and tried to make other units more viable.

Inevitablely people will feel that the overall power have risen for some armies. For instance a lot of our units used to not be considered viable and thus people mostly used skink clouds. What happens when people will start to see other units and they don't know how to deal with them? I'm guessing the initial reaction will be that they feel some things are overpowered, until they learn how to deal with them.

That's just my opinion though.

**EDIT**

Oh, yeah.. the only thing I do know about the new books is that High Elfs have decided to remove the Fight in extra Rank special rule. I found it to be good, but that's their issue. From the looks of it, it have been replaced with something that makes them more mobile and not more hitty.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

On a side note, i'm sincerely surprised: i was expecting something like a referendum to finally get a Coatl since many people want that guy.

I'd love to see a Coatl, but not as much as the Krox hero.


@Pinktaco : any chance of the ridden monsters rules changing? I'd hate to see a Scar-vet that is both cheaper AND more powerful than an Oldblood.

 

[Pinktaco]

I can't speak for any changes of the BRB since it's not something I'm being informed of, unfortunately. Current internal playtests have shown the T-Rex to be good. I honestly didn't expect that and truthfully more games and more feedback is needed. With that said I know you have a beef with the rule in itself and I think it's something we all just have to live with. I wouldn't say I'm s fan myself, but if both Tyrannosaurus becomes viable I'd definitely appreciate it.

 

[Pinktaco]

I'd just like to say something regarding the entirety of our army. I've always regarded it as very versatile with certain drawbacks. Unfortunately though our previous army book wasn't entirely balanced, however a lot of units were nearly there and so I also thought our book as one of the books with the better internal balance compared to so many other books. Regardless of that most competitive builds revolved around skink clouds and naturally the rest of the community followed suit in some manner.

So the one thing you'll probably feel when you see the new book, is that you'll likely be a bit overwhelmed at first. There are still a few kinks in regard to internal balance, but it's come a hell of a long way with the new book and one thing in particular you'll notice is the amount of viable options. These options aren't actually new, they're just old options changed or or,fixed into something better. Other units just received a slight push and so they got that.

Our army have always have s tremendous amount of options, but they were locked away for various reasons. Now that the doors have been opened it'll be interesting to see which one you'll pick.

Our core have become much more interesting. Obviously introducing sacred spawnings helped a lot in that regard, but other measures have been taken as well. Monster themed armies will be much more viable, saurus heavy, skink only, magic heavy, you name it. All the things we've previously prided ourself of being able to do are now finally much more viable and I can't wait to try it all out.

In fact I believe some other players might grow a bit jealous on us. The bretonnnia and dwarfen army will always be kinds restricted because of the nature of their army, the same can be said about warriors of chaos. I'm not only curious to see your reception of the book, but especially also outsiders. I can easily imagine some people wrinkling their nose at us, but we'll see how it goes.

Obviously the above is all with the current draft in mind, but as I've said previously we've already had the current draft approved with two of the Rules Team members so I think only minor things will be changed.

 

[Mr Phat]

Concerning the Coatl it was briefly mentioned and apparently there is actual GW artwork of a Coatl being ridden by a Saurus. Maybe we can have @Phatmotha-phucka create something for us? Another monstrous cavalry option with Coatls :3

I would lie if I said I haven't been working on something...but it was before I had any Idea what I was doing, so the sculpt have to be scrapped due to stretched and torn mesh..
If Ninth comes through and want me to be a model provider, it will be done.

About the artwork though, the Coatl is ridden by a Skink

 

[tom ndege]

I guess the 9th age is the perfect opportunity for getting some custom models into the game... Such things like phat's stalkers or a coatl or some other ideas around here...
If the system is successful and established itself as a played and liked system it could be an option to hire some guys who sculpt models for the game... Or keep just giving out rules and people just make their own models by converting other companies' models or building them from the scratch...

 

[Pinktaco]

I would lie if I said I haven't been working on something...but it was before I had any Idea what I was doing, so the sculpt have to be scrapped due to stretched and torn mesh..
If Ninth comes through and want me to be a model provider, it will be done.

About the artwork though, the Coatl is ridden by a Skink

Oh, true. I just had a second look and it's a skink XD

 

[Pinktaco]

I guess the 9th age is the perfect opportunity for getting some custom models into the game... Such things like phat's stalkers or a coatl or some other ideas around here...
If the system is successful and established itself as a played and liked system it could be an option to hire some guys who sculpt models for the game... Or keep just giving out rules and people just make their own models by converting other companies' models or building them from the scratch...

Mr Phat is already in contact with T9A and to my understanding there are others as well. I think a lot of people are using T9A as an opportunity to get their models out to a lot of people so we'll likely see many new things down the road

 

[tom ndege]

Good one.