Games Workshop Crosses The Streams With 40K vs AoS Match-ups At US Open Finale
Umm, what? Yes – you read that correctly. Games Workshop had some cross-game play at the US Open Finale in Grapevine.
So the Warhammer Community has another great article on the current meta of 40k based on the data they have gathered. That’s all well and good. It’s great for folks who want to debate about win rates and going first vs going second. It also makes a good case for set terrain for tournaments. However, what really jumped out at us was something that was casually mentioned towards the end of the article.
“In another great example of sportsmanship, four of our players – two from the Warhammer Age of Sigmar side of the event and two from Warhammer 40,000 – decided to use their armies against each other in a cross-format experiment!
The four players in question had lost their initial competitive matches and decided to see how Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar rules played against one another. Slight modifications, like assigning Toughness to Warhammer Age of Sigmar units, were made, and it turns out that Imperial Knights versus Sons of Behemat is just as bloody as you would expect!”
Uhhhh…WHAT?! We have so many questions. First and foremost, this is something you’d expect to see done by a couple of friends goofing off during a gaming night or weekend. I wouldn’t expect this to happen at an Official Games Workshop “tournament” much less the freakin’ US Open Finals. On one hand that’s pretty cool! I’d legit like to see how they did that (more on this point below). On the other hand, it’s the Grand Finale of your US Roadshow series! These were some of the best players in the country for both systems and you had them play a round of cross-gaming exhibition matches.
Again, I think that’s kind of cool…but I don’t know if that’s what these players had in mind for the Grand Finale. I hope the sense of confusion mixed with amazement and appreciation for the spectacle is coming across. That was a bold move by GW’s part.
My next question is “can we get a list of those slight modifications, please?” I’m intrigued if nothing else! GW already mentioned one thing they would have needed to change:
“…like assigning Toughness to Warhammer Age of Sigmar units…”
There had to be a ton of other concessions made to get these two rulesets to function. At the core of both systems, there is a LOT of overlap. In fact, just looking at the stat-lines of two of the units, you can see that the basics are still there. The aforementioned Toughness stat is gone and so are the Strength stats – but in AoS it’s just a flat to hit and to wound roll instead of the Strength vs Toughness chart. It’s not that far of a logical leap from there. There is some suspension of disbelief on how a grot would wound a Knight on a 4+…but that’s not the point.
While there is a lot of overlap you’d start to run into some issues when the non-overlapping mechanics started to pop-up. How are we determining turn order? Is it rolled at the start of the game a la 40k? Or are we rolling for priority every turn a la AoS? What about Command Point generation? Psychic Powers vs Magic? Endless Spells? What about cover saves and line of sight rules? Do 40k units get to strike first when they charge or are we alternating activations like in AoS during combat? Do monsters still get to do all their monster stuff during both charge phases? What about damage? How is that applied to target units? Would a lascannon shot that does D6 damage only kill a single model in an AoS army while a multi-damage hit from a Giant smash through a unit of primaris marines? And what about scoring? Who’s missions did they use?
Cross-format play? What’s the big deal? We’ve been doing it for years!
We could go on. But I think you get the point. We are confused but also very interested in seeing how GW managed to smash-up their two rulesets. I would actually like to know so I can play a game of this myself! Depending on how the rules worked I don’t know how unbalanced the game would actually be. Plus, GW already has an army that plays in both system with Chaos Daemons. I’m sure with a lot of work you could extrapolate out the stats from there to the other armies.
This was a great experiment and it’s something players have often wondered if it could be done. The core rules are close enough, but it’s all the extra stuff that really gets in the way. I think they could make the games systems 100% compatible if they wanted to put the work into it. That said, I don’t know if that’s such a great idea for the two game systems. They are distinct and different games and making them 100% compatible might end up doing more harm than good. It could end up taking away what’s special from each and watering them both down into a bland experience.
While it might be a fun experiment for a weekend game and while I’d give it a go myself, I don’t think it would end up working out in the end. The games are already both VERY big in terms of rules. Now try to imagine balancing both games vs each other. That’s a huge undertaking. Let’s leave it at “a fun experiment”…for now.
I still want to see the rules for this mash-up.
