Is Age of Sigmar loosing it's appeal

Let me start with this statement:

Everything I've written down here is purely my own personal opinion.  It is in no way representative to what others might think, but is just a personal opinion based on what I experienced myself and saw at my local games club.

The short answer: yes

The long answer: bear with me...

When I got back to wargaming past april, Age of Sigmar was still rather new and I decided to leap right back in because
a) I still had, though in tatters, my old Empire army
b) before my break from the hobby some 5 years ago it was the most popular fantasy game over at the club.
c) it had a big battle event coming up in august, so I might restore at the least 1000 points to participate.

Now, let`s have a look at why I am loosing my appeal to the game, and then I don`t mean just because the General's Handbook 2017 with it`s allies rules made the force I fielded back then illegal now, as not all Order forces can band together anymore in points based games.  I recuperated that already and can field the same size army with pure Empire anyways in the meantime.

No the problem for me is more one of on the one hand playability and on the other visuality

Playability

I always loved Warhammer.  It was the fantasy game of all those historical battles you see at the club, with ranks (or blocks if you prefer) of infantry and cavalry.  Manouevring in the game was key, as you wanted to get into optimal charge arcs (sides, or even back arcs for max effect) while preventing the opponent to do the same to you.
If your gunline was charged, bar a miracle, the line would crumble.  The Oblique Line (look it up, it`s ancient) was a thing in the game if you managed to pull it off correctly (which, without wanting to sound arrogant, I frequently did).

That`s all gone.  Age of Sigmar is now, in essence, a large skirmish game, with blobs of troops all over the place.  Sure, people rank them up on trays at times for sheer handiness during play, but the models see, fire and charge all over the place.  Gone is the element of tactical movement, and it, again from observation, dwindled down to hit them the fastest with the mostest.  Which for a more defensive and tactical player like myself, is all blegh compared to those "rush in and hit" types.

It is also for this reason I see, not only at the club but on sites like T3 as well, the strong representation of The 9th Age, which is basically a fanmade continuation / evolution of the old Warhammer rulestyle.

I so far played in two games, both multiplay, and to be honest after the big battle, I haven`t seen anyone of my group plunk down a fantasy army in the meantime.  Warhammer 40k, which used AoS as a guide, is far better made and the nature of the scifi battling lends itself more to this type of gaming.  Because everything shoots and everything hits, but the 40k armies are more tailored to one or the other side, while the AoS ones can do as good a job in any department, be it by brute force or pure horde style.

There ARE already rumours that AoS will return to the old "blocked" style of play, and if so, I`m glad I didn`t jump on the round base bandwagon, but until then, it really doesn`t have a draw to me.

Visibility

The same point as I touched upon above.  There was something majestic about a table of lined regiments, with all their banners and closed ranks.  Sure, there was the occassional skirmish unit running in between (heck, even Wood Elves, the skirmish army supreme, had ranks of Glade Guard and Archers), but the armies looked, well, historical.

Now, you just seem to get two large blobs of models on each table side, with some big ass MF in the middle, who happens to mostly be your special character general on big nasty beast.  Nothing wrong with that bloke "an sich" though, Warhammer has always been a balance between a strong hero doing heroics (resulting in some editions becoming known as Herohammer) or versions where they where to totally screwed on their own, but for me that is fine.

You are telling a story, and at times succesful, at others abysmal failures heroic shannanigans of a character are part of about every fantasy novel ever written.  Yes, I`m looking at you Boromir...

And there is just the thing, it just doesn`t look like a WARgame, but as a large SKIRMISH game. 

Personally

And those are the reasons I`ve got a fastly dwindling intrest in the game.  Sure, I`ll be present, working hours permitting, at the next years big battle.  But I am in doubt wether to bother and paint more on my Empire army for the moment.

I am personally more inclined to field by then 4k of Slaaneshi daemons, because they can be crossused with my Emperor's Children in Warhammer 40k.  That way, the investment both in money and time, would have more use as they would see the battlefield more frequently then any Empire unit I`d paint right now.  Because the way I feel about the game, they would only see daylight come august, with one or two rule refresher battles and then the main course.

I am going to ponder some more on this matter over the coming months, but I doubt the Empire force will have a long remaining career once the Slaaneshi force surpasses it in points values though...

Even though Slaanesh is a threatened species in AoS, but more on that in a future opinion piece.