Age of Fantasy Preview and much more... (Patreon)

Hello,

This might be a fairly huge update, so brace yourselves.

Age of Fantasy Rulebook

We have finally managed to get all the illustrations together and the first preview is available in the secret folder right now. Once again we had Brandon Gillam from Runehammer help us out with that, and the illustrations came out amazing!

At its core Age of Fantasy and Grimdark Future run on the same engine, so outside of some changes to examples and illustrations you will find that the rules are mostly the same here. The most significant difference you will find is that the Suppression rules have been replaced with the Fatigue rules, which suit the melee-centric gameplay of Age of Fantasy better.

General Rulebooks Polish

Since the first preview we showed last week things have also moved along quite a bit in terms of polish thanks to the feedback from our community, so we fixed a lot of grammatical errors and clarified the wording here and there. You can find an updated version of the Grimdark Future rulebook in the secret folder now too.

Core Rules Preview

Additionally as we update the overall look of our rulebooks we will also update the look of all our other files. This will start with the updating of the core rules for Grimdark Future, GF:Firefight, Age of Fantasy, AoF:Regiments and AoF:Skirmish. You can find previews of what that will look like in the future in the secret folder.

Unfortunately we have come across one big issue: as we improve the look and layout of our files, we are having a hard time keeping things as compact as they were. For the core rules this means that all the game rules are now on one page, whilst all the special rules are now on another page. We know some people will complain that this is more like one-sheet-rules now, but until we don't find a better solution this is all we have.

Army Books

This brings me to the next point: the army books. Keeping things compact for the army books has proven extremely challenging and so for now we have stopped working on those in order to focus on updating the rest of the files. We will pick them up again soon enough and will try to show you some previews, but honestly we have kind of come at a standstill where we don't know if it's worth it to keep pursuing the current style.

Point Calculation System

In good news however we are going to be completely re-working the look and layout of the point calculation system so that it's easier and more appealing to use. We will also be expanding on the unit creation guidelines in order to give players a more robust idea of how to use them effectively and make their armies consistent with the official ones.

Core Rules Update

Whilst we are very excited to update the rulebooks for all of you Patrons we are also going to update a couple of other things that are available to everyone.

The first thing is the core rules, which are getting some important updates with version 2.3 that will change the game in subtle ways that could have a big impact in your games.

Whilst you can find a full change log below, there are a few things that I would like to explain a bit further so you can understand our reasoning better.

Morale tests are being clarified in that you only check a unit's tough value for wounds taken if the unit has a single model. This means that if a Tough(3) hero joins a unit with 10 models you still have to take a morale test once 6 models are killed and not once 7 models have been killed. The reason for this clarification: keeping things simple.

In order to balance things out a little however now if a hero joins a unit then morale tests are taken using the hero's quality value.  We have gone and looked at the point cost of a bunch of heroes and units and have come to the conclusion that we can make this simple change without throwing off the balance of the game, so we are doing it to keep things thematic.

Next up is Ambush. We had a closer look at the point cost benefit of Ambush and came to the conclusion that it's currently overpriced for what it does. Right now melee units are basically paying to not fight for at least 2 turns and potentially get shot in the face, which is not cool. Instead of lowering the cost we decided to lower the minimum distance from enemies to 9" instead, which should help out melee armies a little.

We also decided to change the Transport rule allowing units to charge out of transports, because it was unfair that shooty units could exit and shoot but fighty units couldn't exit and fight. This should also hopefully make transports a little more relevant and feel less like a waste of points for what essentially becomes an expensive turret once units have disembarked.

In a kind of related fashion we decided to re-work Scout a little, simply to make it feel more unique and in theme with it's name. Overall no big change here.

Rending. This change was actually planned for a future larger balance update but we felt like it needed to be added already now to help out players a little. Currently the Regeneration rule is great because it's an extra save that can't be modified and we want to keep it that way. However we also want to give units a chance to fight back, so now when you roll a 6 from Rending the hit can only be blocked on 6+ and it also ignores Regeneration. A small change that can make a big difference with the right rolls.

Here the full changes:

- Morale Tests: clarified that tough value is used only for single model units when determining if the unit must take a morale test from suffering wounds

- Ambush: minimum distance from enemies is now over 9" instead of over 12"

- Hero: units now use the hero's quality value for morale tests

- Indirect: shooting units now get -1 to hit instead of treating the target as in cover

- Rending: rolls of 6 can only be blocked on 6+ and ignore regeneration

- Scout: after all other units have deployed the unit may move by 12" in any direction

- Transport: units may now use any action to disembark but move only by up to 6"

Army Updates

Here again a lot of smaller updates but a few big ones that I think need to be addressed so you understand what is going on a little better.

We have re-visited the Veteran Infantry special rule and have come to the conclusion that it's currently severely underpriced. Honestly I'm not sure how this happened, because looking at the numbers again things simply don't add up. Anyway we went back and changed their cost, so expect to pay a bit more to get those sweet 2+ to hit rolls.

For those of you that have been paying attention to all the Daemon updates, we are happy to let you know that more is coming. Overall we feel that Daemons never really got the love they deserve, so we've been slowly adding more units and upgrades to them to make them feel like a fully fleshed out army. The upcoming release will see all Daemon units have an increased Defense value as well as the release of a couple of more heavy-hitting units. We think that these changes plus the update to Ambush should give them a much more even playing field against shooty armies.

Here the full changes:

Grimdark Future

Battle Brothers

- Fixed point cost of Advanced Tactics, Veteran Infantry and Veteran Walker

Prime Brothers

- Re-worked weapon upgrades for all heroes

Havoc Brothers

- Fixed point cost of Veteran Infantry

Wormhole Daemons

- New units: Daemon Champions and Crab Walkers

- Increased the Defense value of all units

- Re-worked Pink, Blue and Yellow Warriors

Age of Fantasy

Eternal Wardens

- Added a new Great Gryph mount for the Arcane Lord

Goblins

- New units: Giant Cave-Beast and Pair of Giant Cave-Beasts

- The Boss and Cave Boss can now mount on a Pair of Giant Cave-Beasts

- Cave-Beast Herds can now be upgraded with Herders

- Cave-Beast Riders may now use Hand Weapons or Spears

Havoc Warriors

- Fixed point cost of Mutated Warriors in Skirmish

Ratmen

- Warlocks can now take Rocket Launchers

Rift Daemons

- New units: Daemon Champions and Crab Walkers

- Increased the Defense value of all units

- Re-worked Pink, Blue and Yellow Warriors

Undead

- New unit: Supreme Skeleton Lord

- Skeleton Kings can now be Wizards and can be mounted on Abyssal Beasts

- Re-worked upgrades for the Ghost Knight

Wood Elves

- Re-worked upgrades for the Revenant Elder

Conclusion

Oh boy this really did turn out to be a huge update... hope you enjoyed it, my fingers are tired now so I'll go get some rest. :)

Cheers,

Gaetano