The 9th Age year in review

It's good to see that they decided to change their release schedule to just 2.0 rather than all the iterations in between. I hope that helps maintain interest for some of their player base.

I think unfortunately the 9th Age has passed their peak and the maximum they can do now is to preserve the dwindling fanbase. With the revival of Warhammer Fantasy thanks to Totalwar Warhammer and the successful self-reinvention of Age of Sismar and 40k, all the inaugural momentum of the 9th age has definitely gone.

I really love what they did with the core rules. I love the way they reimagined the weapons and like that they clearly described what to do when complex situations arise and think that's a great big + in their favor.

It all falls apart though in the magic phase and the individual army books. Reading through their and other forums it just seems that in their search for "balance" all they've done is trade one form of netlist for another. Getting rid of templates because you can't quantify the results, (I understand that people who didn't play 8th may not have access to those templates, but a quick internet search/flgs visit to the 40k section and you've got them) not to mention ditching insane courage and other small fun similar rules because it spikes the statistics was asinine and just further enforces that it was made with tournament mindsets and that the fun and randomness of garagehammer was secondary.

Not to mention it does nothing for campaign play, storm of magic, triumph and treachery, or siege.

Of course some of this may have changed, but I've since stopped following them as closely as I used to. (when it was still 8th edition+)

Yeah, to begin with, I was all for THE PLAYER COMMUNITY re-writing the books so that it worked for every army, but they simply changed too much. It quickly became less and less about tweaking a good rule set so that the FEW messed up rules could work, to creating a whole new game. I'm not interested in a whole new game. You want to make Empire Spearmen worth taking? Fine. But you don't have to change absolutely everything.

I think they even had KB against cavalry (spears), but not sure. 1.1 and such was great. Once they moved away and like knoffles said removed almost all "random" elements, it became something I didn't want to be a part of.