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With army major characters like draigo becoming lords of war (that looks like a trend that will continue) is it okay to bring LoW in friendly games? Should you expect people to object?

jakl277 wrote:
With army major characters like draigo becoming lords of war (that looks like a trend that will continue) is it okay to bring LoW in friendly games?

Maybe

Should you expect people to object?

Yes

It is ok to bring a LoW in friendly games, and you should expect people to object.

When I started out, people would get mad when you brought a named character, insulted you of being WAAC, told you that you were ruining their game and that they were never meant for small games below 2000 points.

Then a couple of years later, GW added allies and people would get mad when you brought allies, insulted you of being WAAC, told you that you were ruining their game and that they were never meant for small games below 2000 points.

Today, people get mad when you bring a LoW, insult you of being WAAC, tell you that you are ruining their game and that they were never meant for small games of 2000 points or less.

Warhammer never changes

Our FLGS rules that below 2000 pts, you can bring LOW, but no superheavies.

houserule of course, but a sensible one IMO.

Granted it does invalidate codex-knights, but no-one currently plays them in any case where I play.

Jidmah, you forgot Flyers

People will always find something to complain about.
Personally I don't really mind Super-heavies as long as it fits the size of the game.
I have this "25%-rule", which isn't really a rule but how I feel about it: LoW's shouldn't cost more than 25% of your entire army.
So for 2000-games a unit of 550 is fine.
For 1500 that sets the limit at 375.

jakl277 wrote:
With army major characters like draigo becoming lords of war (that looks like a trend that will continue) is it okay to bring LoW in friendly games? Should you expect people to object?

Hi there!

First off, I won't rehash 8 pages of back and forth on LoW right here.
However, you should decide what kind of game you want to play and look for like minded people. Some people don't like any LoW, some only like the characters or some other small set, and some say they're all good. If you and your opponent can't agree, shake his hand anyway and find someone that wants to play your game.

Kangodo wrote:
Jidmah, you forgot Flyers

People will always find something to complain about.
Personally I don't really mind Super-heavies as long as it fits the size of the game.
I have this "25%-rule", which isn't really a rule but how I feel about it: LoW's shouldn't cost more than 25% of your entire army.
So for 2000-games a unit of 550 is fine.
For 1500 that sets the limit at 375.

Yeah, I had flyers in there first, but when I thought about it, the whining about allies was a lot more than about fliers (which was mostly limited to crossaints of doom, helldrake and vendettas).

Those percentage based values are completely arbitrary. When you have a good look at most LoW, they are massively overcosted for what they do. In fact, the stompa is so expensive for it's mediocre combat ability, the big gun, the gattler and the hand full of one-shot missiles, it pretty much makes you lose the game the second you deploy it. Spend those 810 points on an allied detachment full of LRBT and you have vastly superior firepower which is a lot harder to kill.

There are two levels to tackle LoWs unbalancing your games:
1) Ban the trinity, T-Ctan, Revenant and the turbo-laser Warhound. Most super-heavies aren't even remotely of their power-level, let alone of the power-level of regular units using the same amount of points.
2) Ban all ranged D weapons and large, high-strength, low-AP ignore cover blasts. Some tournaments went his route, and while I disagree with the reasoning, I can understand it. Personally, I don't see a huge difference between the current installment of D weapons and things like force-weapons or the ork's 'eadwompa.

Outright banning all of them, banning them based on their cost or out of other arbitrary reasons is simply randomly taking away parts of the game. Reminds of a tournament I went to, just to be informed that the organizers had reviewed my list and decided to ban battlewagons because they thought that having that many AV14 vehicles was too good. Monolith, leman russ and landraider were allowed though.

FWIW I still think allies, fliers and expensive superheavies are stupid in standard <=2000pt games, but at no point in time have a I called people WAAC for using them... that's just Jidmah exaggerating.

I think using a 25% rule works well for what I want to achieve. I might even say 20% on any single model, but I think too many people will bitch that they can't bring their action figures

I didn't ban anything It's just how I feel about them.
My opponent is fine to take a Stompa is he wants to and I will play against him.
But if every game includes a Stompa, I will ask him to try something else.
It's not really the strength of LoW's I have an issue with, but more the "Hey, this game is now about this model!" that I dislike.
In before deathstars: Yes, I would also ask them to play games without those, and also if they spam the same stuff every time.

In areas like mine we don't have the luxury of playing with whoever we want.
It's mostly the same couple of people and we really need to play different lists to keep things interesting.

 Jidmah wrote:
It is ok to bring a LoW in friendly games, and you should expect people to object.

When I started out, people would get mad when you brought a named character, insulted you of being WAAC, told you that you were ruining their game and that they were never meant for small games below 2000 points.

Then a couple of years later, GW added allies and people would get mad when you brought allies, insulted you of being WAAC, told you that you were ruining their game and that they were never meant for small games below 2000 points.

Today, people get mad when you bring a LoW, insult you of being WAAC, tell you that you are ruining their game and that they were never meant for small games of 2000 points or less.

Warhammer never changes

Are you me because that's pretty much what I saw too.

To the OP: yes on both counts with the level of complaining being g determined by your local meta and how big/national tournament oriented it is (as if it's oriented towards following the rules of large scale tourneys then the gnashing of teeth will be greater than smaller tournies and more casual metas).

@AllSeeingSink: Of course it was hyperbole, but people are putting forth the same argument against LoW as they were doing years ago for name characters.
I remember a gamer giving a guy at the store a lengthy talk about how he was not playing the game right because he had Calgar in a 1250 point army. He was going on about how he would never show up in such an unimportant a skirmish, that he was way to powerful for such small army and that he would warp the game by making everything revolve around him. If you remember Calgar from the 5th edition codex, you probably remember how he was absolutely not worth his points back then. His opponent still threw a fit.

@Kangodo: Sure, that's great. Many players, especially veterans, outright refuse anyone with a super-heavy model, without even considering what model they are refusing and if the reasons they are refusing it for even apply to it.
I usually ask those people if they would rather play against tripple landraider lists instead. Those also revolve around nothing but taking down those three big metal bawkses. Ironically most would rather play against tripple landraiders than against a single kill-blasta tank (ork AV13 super-heavy with a high rate of fire S6 main gun - probably one of the worst LoW you could field).


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 ClockworkZion wrote:

Are you me because that's pretty much what I saw too.

I'm fairly sure that I am me.

I tend not to give people lectures on why they shouldn't be using something (at least not in person, the internet is another matter) I'm not really sure why having the same argument against named characters as LoW would in any way invalidate the argument.

But my argument for named characters does tend to be different to my argument for expensive LoW models. expensive LoW's my main argument is I don't like games which revolve around single models, which is what tends to happen when you have half your points tied up in one. Most named characters aren't that expensive or powerful.

But having started 40k in 2nd edition and WHFB in 5th edition, both systems my gaming mates all agreed that we'd avoid named characters for various reasons. Most of those gaming mates have quit now (of the initial group none still play 40k). I'd still be happy if named characters were a "ask your opponent's permission". Back in the day, we mostly just used the named character models as our own made up characters. The only ones that ever got in to our games was Bertrand the Brigand and his merry band and Jules le Jongleur

With Ghaz, Logan and Draigo, they're basically up-scaled HQs. As far as I'm concerned, LOW are out for friendly, non-apoc games, but these 3 are just HQs in all but name.

I think you are gimping yourself taking a LoW in a small game (under 2k)

But if someone has the REAL model i would never complain about them using it. (i think anyone who refuses to play against someone who took the hours upon hours to make a nice LoW, is really being discourteous)

Of course we play 3k games standard so its never a problem. We allow everything that has rules (no fan/net army books)

The 25% rule is a fw rule for heresy and it works well for that setting.

As for lords of war

Azrael
Calgar
Vect
Creed
Phoenix lords and eldrad
Abbadon
Dante

Expect all of them to be lords of war

Dante.. Dante?
When we have models like Mephiston and Sanguinor you really expect Dante to become a LoW?

Kangodo wrote:
Dante.. Dante?
When we have models like Mephiston and Sanguinor you really expect Dante to become a LoW?

So far of the two chapter master characters presented in a 7th edition codex 2 have been Lords of War.

Or one could argue that in the last three codices the biggest and most expensive beatstick became a Lord of War
Blood Angels are 'unique' in this because their Chapter Master isn't the most expensive and kick-ass model in their army.

Kangodo wrote:
Or one could argue that in the last three codices the biggest and most expensive beatstick became a Lord of War
Blood Angels are 'unique' in this because their Chapter Master isn't the most expensive and kick-ass model in their army.

an entirely valid point, we'll have to wait and see I guess. Blood Angels might be an intreasting codex for that reason alone

BrianDavion wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
Or one could argue that in the last three codices the biggest and most expensive beatstick became a Lord of War
Blood Angels are 'unique' in this because their Chapter Master isn't the most expensive and kick-ass model in their army.

an entirely valid point, we'll have to wait and see I guess. Blood Angels might be an intreasting codex for that reason alone

Well Bjorn could have been a LoW as well, but it went to Logan instead (and Bjorn could actually be the most expensive unit in the old Codex if he bought a Lascannon).

 Formosa wrote:
The 25% rule is a fw rule for heresy and it works well for that setting.

As for lords of war

Azrael
Calgar
Vect
Creed
Phoenix lords and eldrad
Abbadon
Dante

Expect all of them to be lords of war

I would suggest this would be a more accurate list

St Celestine (at 20% rise in cost because screw the SoB)
Creed
The Sanguinior (unless Dante gets a personal Stormtalon)
Fateweaver, Skarbrand, Kugath and maybe a Slaaneshi GD like N'kari
Abaddon
Azrael
Vect
The Avatar
Draigo
The Stormlord or some new SC like the Silent King or a named TranC'tan
Ghazkull Thraka
Calgar
Logan Grimnar
The Swarmlord
Aun'va, Farsight or Shadowsun.

 Jidmah wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Are you me because that's pretty much what I saw too.

I'm fairly sure that I am me.

Oh good. I didn't think we needed more "me"s running around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
With Ghaz, Logan and Draigo, they're basically up-scaled HQs. As far as I'm concerned, LOW are out for friendly, non-apoc games, but these 3 are just HQs in all but name.

Well name, and what slot you take them in. I imagine we'll get a lot more of them in the future too (perhaps Eldrad or the Avatar for Eldar for instance).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kangodo wrote:
Or one could argue that in the last three codices the biggest and most expensive beatstick became a Lord of War
Blood Angels are 'unique' in this because their Chapter Master isn't the most expensive and kick-ass model in their army.

For now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deadshot wrote:

I would suggest this would be a more accurate list

St Celestine (at 20% rise in cost because screw the SoB)

If she gets another point increase then she better be able to come back more than once a game like she used to. She's fairly balanced in cost and utility, anymore and she'll actually be in desperate need of a buff.

Again I really dont understand the complaints in regards to LoW, they really are not as bad as people make them out to be and bottom line you PLAY WITH WHAT YOU WANT TO PLAY. I understand some people may not like playing against it but guess what, if you love the model for its look, fluff, ect. then bring it to every game. People will always find a reason to complain but bottom line you play with what you want to play, even LoW because guess what wether they like it or not its LEGAL to bring a LoW to any game. Many people fail to mention the benefits you get for not bringing a LoW and the fact that in small point games if someone brings a 500+ unit he is often at a disadvantage rather then an advantage. So I would say yes, play him if you want to, you are not a WAAC player or TFG, some people just refuse to adapt and demand others should play their brand of 40k, you play with what you want to.