Sgt. Cortez wrote: I think a lot of it comes down to the problems because of Corona. They simply should not have started 9th edition when they didn't have the proper production capacities. The Indomitus Set was already a bad start, the App is still a mess and the Codizes we see are actually nice but with how slowly they are coming out we still can't see the whole picture. Their FAQ system seems to have broken down completely, the points decisions are still strange and CA has become totally useless outside of the tournament scene. I really hope GW tries to solve these problems when Corona is over and not force 10th edition on us in 2 years when half the factions got their 9th edition Codex. The foundations of 9th are actually good, better than in 8th and far better than in 6th or 7th which I don't miss one bit. GW just has to get their things together again.
I think Corona, and its result of the tournament scene practically shutting down, has really shown that GW doesn't have a clue of what happens outside their office. Without the usual big tournaments supplying GW with data to balance off of they are just throwing some darts at a board.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
I'm torn. Aos seems to have better pricing and design, but I don't care for any faction (at least any that are actually supported). I love bonesplitterz but they have 2 kits that aren't heros. Now Gruel-Boyz came along and have more kits than ironjawz and bonesplitterz put together.
Compared to where 40k was when I quit at the end of 7th? Positive. Sure, there's power creep and buff-overload, but it's a far better state than things were then, so it's improving at least.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
The models look amazing and some of the factions are really nice but the fact that GW seems to double down on the Double Turn for yet another edition means you won't find me anywhere near an AoS game anytime soon.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
Not convinced that AoS is actually doing that much better. Tho will be interesting to see what 3e edition bring.
But having watched a few tournament streams I think the single biggest turnoff is the amount of games I see decided by someone getting a double turn.
A single dice roll in turn 2 or 3 should not decide the outcome of the game on a consistent basis.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
...So long as the things that are driving you away from 40k aren't awful faction balance, nonexistent support for older minis, a wildly inconsistent release schedule, the Space Marines getting hugely more content than anyone else, scale creep, big centerpiece HQ models, the prices, or the complete lack of customizability, anyway.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
"i'm sure this other lifestyle game by the same company won't go down the same route!"
When you play GW you learn to capitalize on the high points and slide around the low ones. That can mean shifting to another play type, a different warhammer, or a different company entirely. The thing is, GW does not remain popular because their games make everyone miserable. While their low points tend to be lower, their high points tend to be higher, and when Warhammer is going well it REALLY goes well.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
...So long as the things that are driving you away from 40k aren't awful faction balance, nonexistent support for older minis, a wildly inconsistent release schedule, the Space Marines getting hugely more content than anyone else, scale creep, big centerpiece HQ models, the prices, or the complete lack of customizability, anyway.
No one is saying those problems don't exist (well bar the Marine comparison, obviously) but it is not binary where the problems exist at a certain level or do not and never in between. I know, I know, most individuals lose their already limited ability to process nuance when they go online but I can hope to reach the minority who retain it
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
"i'm sure this other lifestyle game by the same company won't go down the same route!"
When you play GW you learn to capitalize on the high points and slide around the low ones. That can mean shifting to another play type, a different warhammer, or a different company entirely. The thing is, GW does not remain popular because their games make everyone miserable. While their low points tend to be lower, their high points tend to be higher, and when Warhammer is going well it REALLY goes well.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
...So long as the things that are driving you away from 40k aren't awful faction balance, nonexistent support for older minis, a wildly inconsistent release schedule, the Space Marines getting hugely more content than anyone else, scale creep, big centerpiece HQ models, the prices, or the complete lack of customizability, anyway.
No one is saying those problems don't exist (well bar the Marine comparison, obviously) but it is not binary where the problems exist at a certain level or do not and never in between. I know, I know, most individuals lose their already limited ability to process nuance when they go online but I can hope to reach the minority who retain it
Warhammer survives largely on inertia. There are more warhammer players, therefor its easier to find games of warhammer and hard to start up another game.
Doesn't matter how good the competition is when those who want to switch over can't find opponents to play with.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
...So long as the things that are driving you away from 40k aren't awful faction balance, nonexistent support for older minis, a wildly inconsistent release schedule, the Space Marines getting hugely more content than anyone else, scale creep, big centerpiece HQ models, the prices, or the complete lack of customizability, anyway.
No one is saying those problems don't exist (well bar the Marine comparison, obviously) but it is not binary where the problems exist at a certain level or do not and never in between. I know, I know, most individuals lose their already limited ability to process nuance when they go online but I can hope to reach the minority who retain it
What, the Stormcast don't have as much content as the rest of the game put together?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
Just a friendly reminder to everyone that you can play an older edition or games from other companies.
May I recommend Grimdark Future if you want to play alternating-activation beer-and-pretzels 40K using your - or anyone else's - existing minis, or Infinity if you want a mind-boggling tactical challenge with actual depth instead of just the illusion of it?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
Just a friendly reminder to everyone that you can play an older edition or games from other companies.
May I recommend Grimdark Future if you want to play alternating-activation beer-and-pretzels 40K using your - or anyone else's - existing minis, or Infinity if you want a mind-boggling tactical challenge with actual depth instead of just the illusion of it?
In all my time of playing Infinity, I have neither seen nor heard of any actual depth beyond what 40K offers. I've heard N4 has changed crits, but it's really hard to say a game has depth when you can literally do everything right (needing 18 to hit, enemy needs 2s) and 2 of your opponent's 3 ARO shots crit, cancelling your shots and removing any chance of your 11 ARM mattering. Such tactical nuance! Mind-boggling!
Or 2 Jotums in cover being killed by a ariadnan line troops' shotgun in 6 of their own (to be absolutely clear, the Jotums') orders.
At least when a grot kills a Knight in 40k it's in the grots' own turn.
edit: The entirety of Infinity's tactical depth for the years I played it was "fireteam HMG go brrr" and "skirmisher with template go brrr". You'd also get the special treat of "MSV + smoke go brrr" almost every game. Which absolutely sucked as a TAG/HI player.
Rihgu wrote: ...it's really hard to say a game has depth when you can literally do everything right (needing 18 to hit, enemy needs 2s) and 2 of your opponent's 3 ARO shots crit, cancelling your shots and removing any chance of your 11 ARM mattering. Such tactical nuance! Mind-boggling!...
Which is a criticism that applies to any game that includes any RNG. Games of Sigmar turn on the double-turn roll. Games of 40k can easily be won or lost on one charge roll. I can get land-screwed in MTG and have no chance to play. Does the existence of RNG remove any chance of tactical nuance to you?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rihgu wrote: ...edit: The entirety of Infinity's tactical depth for the years I played it was "fireteam HMG go brrr" and "skirmisher with template go brrr". You'd also get the special treat of "MSV + smoke go brrr" almost every game. Which absolutely sucked as a TAG/HI player.
If you stand in front of the fireteam HMG and try to face-to-face it, sure. If you haven't set up to counter the skirmisher, sure. If you have no MSVs of your own, sure. Infinity is very easy to play badly and get screwed because you encountered a tactic you weren't prepared for, because unlike almost any other wargame you can't spam one answer to all problems and brute-force your way through bad matchups.
Rihgu wrote: ...it's really hard to say a game has depth when you can literally do everything right (needing 18 to hit, enemy needs 2s) and 2 of your opponent's 3 ARO shots crit, cancelling your shots and removing any chance of your 11 ARM mattering. Such tactical nuance! Mind-boggling!...
Which is a criticism that applies to any game that includes any RNG. Games of Sigmar turn on the double-turn roll. Games of 40k can easily be won or lost on one charge roll. I can get land-screwed in MTG and have no chance to play. Does the existence of RNG remove any chance of tactical nuance to you?
No. Infinity would be fairly close to it if the RNG didn't swing so wildly. A heavy infantry with better skill, +3 range band, in cover with camo shooting at an exposed target with worse skill and out of their range bandand no notable defenses except maybe some ARM turning into the heavy infantry dying because of the dice is just an incredible affront to the nature of anything resembling tactics. I can set up fairly close to *the optimal situation* according to the game mechanics barring the very rare situations where you can just completely negate your opponent's chance to react and it can still be the absolute worst outcome for me? Okay, sure, tactical depth. Take away the existence of crits, make it so in that situation I roll 3 1s and they roll a 2 and my attack is stopped, that's fine. Let me roll my armor saves, in cover with TAG or HI armor, I should be fine. They roll a 2 and my 17 is negated, and I take damage I can't negate? No, that's not tactical depth, that's just rolling dice. That's equally as bad as the double turn mechanic in AoS in my eyes. There's other things about N3 beyond just crits, but that's the worst offender. Again, I've heard N4 has toned down crits (I don't know to what extent) but haven't tried it since N4 came out and sold all of my stuff anyways.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rihgu wrote: ...edit: The entirety of Infinity's tactical depth for the years I played it was "fireteam HMG go brrr" and "skirmisher with template go brrr". You'd also get the special treat of "MSV + smoke go brrr" almost every game. Which absolutely sucked as a TAG/HI player.
If you stand in front of the fireteam HMG and try to face-to-face it, sure. If you haven't set up to counter the skirmisher, sure. If you have no MSVs of your own, sure. Infinity is very easy to play badly and get screwed because you encountered a tactic you weren't prepared for, because unlike almost any other wargame you can't spam one answer to all problems and brute-force your way through bad matchups.
Yes, I'm doing the worst possible things at all times. That was my problem! I just kept trying to face-to-face fireteams! For years! I just kept encountering tactics I wasn't prepared for.
It's very bad faith to imply that I somehow, in years of playing, just kept FtFing fireteams and never set up to counter skirmishers, and just kept playing badly and getting surprised.
The entire time I was playing, list-building threads and Interplanetario lists were fairly cookie cutter. You need your fireteam, you need your warbands, you need 1 of each specialist, and if you're not Onyx or PanO, your smoke + MSV. Also, you need to hit 16-18 orders (this I know has been cut down in N4, too). Also, don't EVER bring TAGs. Even during the TAG-themed season where to score max points you needed to bring TAGs!
Anyways, to end on a positive note, despite all my misgivings above, I will say that those unhappy with the state of 40K and looking for a game which
1) has focus on smaller scale engagements
2) is well supported competitively
I will recommend Infinity. If you're looking for tactical nuance or depth, I can't recommend it. I will admit that it perhaps has more than 40K, but I won't say it's that much deeper. On table choices (true choices, that is. You have nearly infinite bad choices, of course) are fairly limited and there's a huge focus on list-building and bringing a tool box.
If you're looking to continue to use your 40K minis and play in that universe, I also cannot recommend Infinity.
Manchild 1984 wrote: Negative - obvious codex power creep
- too many buffs/extra rules/offensive stratagems
game needs balance and defensive strats only
Just want to echo this, these are the two big problems with the same right now IMO. Base rules system is fine, but the codex creep is depressing and terrible for the game, and the stupid amount of rules you have to memorize creates the illusion of depth when it isn't actually there, while also promoting gotcha moments for those without the time to learn the infinite subtle variations on the same thing which can cost you games if you misunderstand them even slightly.
They've traded actual depth for fake depth caused by bloat.
Like so many things that GW does, their ideals are fantastic, but the execution of said ideas leaves so much to be desired.
Stratagems are a fantastic example of that: an abstracted and limited strategic resource available to each player that they can expend for additional strategic assets.
The problem comes with the actual strats themselves, using them for things like fighting twice, or for the use of equipment during games (like smoke launchers).
There are too many of them, and some of them are too specific or weirdly arbitrary in their application (like Transhuman only affecting Primaris). Worse, some of them exist simply to make units viable, such as so many of the new strats from the PA books - they were clearly a way of patching units without rewriting their data sheets (come to think of it, the entire PA series was about patching 40K before 9th).
The equipment ones are the worst though, as they're the ones that make the lease sense. All my vehicles have smoke launchers, so why do I need to expend a strategic resource to use them? And why am I limited to one per turn?
"Sorry Sergeant Dolphinius, we can't use our smoke launchers at the moment as Rhino 237-A is using theirs! Guess we just have to die!"
If Smoke Launchers was a strat used prior to the game ie. spend 3 CP and all <Chapter> Vehicles gain "Smoke Launchers", then that would make more sense to me.
I agree that stratagems are cool in concept, and I think there are a decent number that really improve the game. The humble command point reroll comes to mind.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: I think a lot of it comes down to the problems because of Corona. They simply should not have started 9th edition when they didn't have the proper production capacities. The Indomitus Set was already a bad start, the App is still a mess and the Codizes we see are actually nice but with how slowly they are coming out we still can't see the whole picture. Their FAQ system seems to have broken down completely, the points decisions are still strange and CA has become totally useless outside of the tournament scene. I really hope GW tries to solve these problems when Corona is over and not force 10th edition on us in 2 years when half the factions got their 9th edition Codex. The foundations of 9th are actually good, better than in 8th and far better than in 6th or 7th which I don't miss one bit. GW just has to get their things together again.
I think Corona, and its result of the tournament scene practically shutting down, has really shown that GW doesn't have a clue of what happens outside their office. Without the usual big tournaments supplying GW with data to balance off of they are just throwing some darts at a board.
So basically they are doing what GW usually does ?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
I appreciate the sentiment in this statement. However, it gives me cold comfort to leave this system, to join that system, which only exists because they screwed up royal and then burned to the ground the system before it. Doesn't leave me with a whole lot of confidence.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
Erm...no?
If your friend says that he no longer enjoys Monopoly, that he realised that it is outdated, player decisions are irrelevant, there's too much randomness and the gameplay is tedious is boring, you don't tell them that there may be a good alternative in Monopoly:Star Wars or (more aptly) Monopoly: Junior.
No. You introduce them to Concordia, Power Grid, Agricola, Puerto Rico and then you show them Brass, Barrage, Food Chain Magnate and 18XXs.
Finally you both rejoice how your friend's taste in economic boardgames has matured.
I was quite excited for strategems at the start of 8th. They were a little extra spice, nudging a roll with a reroll was great, for example.
But hoh boy has it spiralled out of control since those times.
It seems GW as a whole has learnt from that, games that introduced 'strategems' later did so on a far more limited basis.
They're also dialling back the strats in 9th, but I think they're reluctant to tone stuff down too much so it's just a baby step.
Part of 40k's problem is that the focus is on selling the churn of new rules rather making quality rules.
It's large enough the game sells on sheer mass alone.
That's why everything new is the bestest and coolest thing ever.
GW knows people want to buy cool rules, they don't want to pay for a book that cuts back on cool rules, even if people would be overall better for it.
It's like eating that tub of icecream, sure I need to lose weight but that's a distant concern in the grand scheme of things.
I feel the same way about DnD, a constant churn of newer, cooler, rules is how you make money off of an industry giant.
40k is in a much better state than AOS anyway, regardless of any problems 9th has.
Even with the power differential between codexes, 9th still feels like it has a cohesive vision behind it. The last 4 battletomes for AOS have felt like they've been designed for 4 different game systems. And the less said about the shoddy design work and proofreading of some of the new units in BR Kragnos the better.
People undoubtedly feel the same about certain interactions things in 40k - but I feel the commitment required to play AoS is far too great to get double-turned and lose. In 40k most of the "gotchas" are down to inexperience.
Presumably there are ways to mitigate someone going twice in succession, but I'm unclear what they are. Especially when the game discourages you from being extremely cagey (or at least it did, not sure what current missions look like.)
They've traded actual depth for fake depth caused by bloat.
To be fair 40k has been light on depth for many years. It is a complicated game with all the list building and combo faff, but not complex in the strategies and tactics used. Which is actually ideal for its targeted age market. A bunch of adults saying it isn't as fun as when they were 12 are perhaps missing the point.
Now GW aren't doing the adult games they used to (WFB was aimed at a slightly old gamer for much of its history, and Warmaster and Epic are more like the more adult wargames out there), but they do have other games you can play that are more about the game than the list, and of course there are many better game systems you can use your models in.
For a giggle try 'what a tanker' with your Leman Russ and predators!
I'm feeling better about it that I was maybe six months ago, when it felt like 9th was a half-ready edition. Couldn't have happened at a better time though as I wasn't able to play any games anyway.
Now the Codex hose seems to be ramping back up to blasting out at a pretty decent rate, I feel like the whole thing is quite rapidly starting to feel less half-baked.
My only real reservation about 9th is just *how much* rules stuff there is going on, stacked atop the core rules. I like to hop from painting project to painting project but it seems like there's so much to keep track of in terms of individual faction rules that it's not really feasible to hop between armies to play games without spending half your time leafing through the book. Like, I was thinking about putting together a little AdMech army but everything I've seen/heard about the rules seems *terrifyingly* confusing.
Nazrak wrote: I'm feeling better about it that I was maybe six months ago, when it felt like 9th was a half-ready edition. Couldn't have happened at a better time though as I wasn't able to play any games anyway.
Now the Codex hose seems to be ramping back up to blasting out at a pretty decent rate, I feel like the whole thing is quite rapidly starting to feel less half-baked.
My only real reservation about 9th is just *how much* rules stuff there is going on, stacked atop the core rules. I like to hop from painting project to painting project but it seems like there's so much to keep track of in terms of individual faction rules that it's not really feasible to hop between armies to play games without spending half your time leafing through the book. Like, I was thinking about putting together a little AdMech army but everything I've seen/heard about the rules seems *terrifyingly* confusing.
My most recent game was against new admech, and it honestly wasn't as insane as I thought it was going to be. The new 'Doctrinas" take the place of canticles on the units that get them and are generally simpler, and mostly the style of the army is just 'each big unit has some kind of techpriest hanging out nearby tossing out some kind of boost to that unit'.
Comparative to keeping track of what the actual AP stat of every weapon ends up being due to doctrines and the effects of super-doctrines, I find admech easier to figure out as an opponent than 3.0 marines.
They've traded actual depth for fake depth caused by bloat.
That's GW design philosophy in a nutshell. All width and no depth.
Ech. It works and people like it unfortunatly. Look at how popular Skyrim and Fallout 3/4 are compared their previous, deeper games. People like it for whatever reason.
They've traded actual depth for fake depth caused by bloat.
That's GW design philosophy in a nutshell. All width and no depth.
Ech. It works and people like it unfortunatly. Look at how popular Skyrim and Fallout 3/4 are compared their previous, deeper games. People like it for whatever reason.
For the very same reason as with 40k, the new models look much better and therefore attract a wider audiance that just want their games/movies/whatever to look good and nothing else
Absolutely. People want stuff that looks good; games don't have the appeal of shiny, beautiful miniatures, otherwise we'd all be playing games with chits.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that AoS is happy to accept refugees!
Just a friendly reminder to everyone that you can play an older edition or games from other companies.
May I recommend Grimdark Future if you want to play alternating-activation beer-and-pretzels 40K using your - or anyone else's - existing minis, or Infinity if you want a mind-boggling tactical challenge with actual depth instead of just the illusion of it?
I'd rather give up gaming completely than play a game with Alternate Activation.
I just went back to playing 3rd Edition and I've never been happier.
In many ways I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than sit through 45 minutes of having my opponent walk all over me with nothing to do as is standard for a 40k game.
ImhoAA:
- it is too much bookkeeping (tokens to remember which unit did what, ...)
- it slows the game down (with IGOUGO you plan during your opponent's turn and act quickly when it's your turn)
- it doesn't work well with amounts of units that are different in size (I activate one unit, a 5 pts infantry squad, and then you activate a 600 pts knight)
- it doesn't work well with very different amounts of units (5 units in a knights army vs 25 in a guard army)
- wouldn' fix much because IGOUGO is not the reason for a lack of balance in 40K. Power creep and poor playtesting are the main reasons for that
The entirety of Infinity's tactical depth for the years I played it was "fireteam HMG go brrr" and "skirmisher with template go brrr". You'd also get the special treat of "MSV + smoke go brrr" almost every game. Which absolutely sucked as a TAG/HI player.
Hey Rihgu, not gonna derail this thread with a deep reply, but rest assured Infinity has changed for the better since the days of N3. HI and TAGs are strong as hell now, fireteam sectorials are often out of favour vs flex vanilla lists, hacking has been streamlined and is way more relevant, crits are still powerful but now punish LI disproportionately compared to heavy armour, every army's had a balance pass and generally the game feels tight as hell. Just saying.
Aenar wrote: ImhoAA:
- it is too much bookkeeping (tokens to remember which unit did what, ...)
- it slows the game down (with IGOUGO you plan during your opponent's turn and act quickly when it's your turn)
- it doesn't work well with amounts of units that are different in size (I activate one unit, a 5 pts infantry squad, and then you activate a 600 pts knight)
- it doesn't work well with very different amounts of units (5 units in a knights army vs 25 in a guard army)
bookeeping is actually less than with phases and alternating turns, yet no one uses tokes to mark which units moved/shoot/charged
the time a player needs to think about his next step is nothing any game system can change, yet it is how often you need to touch your models and the amount of dice rolling that slows games down
the other 2 points are not a problem at all, at least of the designer of the game knew what he was doing, so yes if GW would make a game with AA they would screw it up
- wouldn' fix much because IGOUGO is not the reason for a lack of balance in 40K. Power creep and poor playtesting are the main reasons for that
AA is not meant to fix anything but the player downtime and Alpha Strike
there are other solutions to this but the one that fits a modern SciFi game best is AA, that GW does not play their own game is a problem that can not be fixed by writing different rules but only by not using rules from GW
Nurglitch wrote:Absolutely. People want stuff that looks good; games don't have the appeal of shiny, beautiful miniatures, otherwise we'd all be playing games with chits.
I buy the models to paint, the fact that I can also play a game with them is an added bonus.
I've played many games with just chits, would they have been better if the had cool models to go along with...hell yeah!
Aenar wrote: ImhoAA:
- it is too much bookkeeping (tokens to remember which unit did what, ...)
- it slows the game down (with IGOUGO you plan during your opponent's turn and act quickly when it's your turn)
- it doesn't work well with amounts of units that are different in size (I activate one unit, a 5 pts infantry squad, and then you activate a 600 pts knight)
- it doesn't work well with very different amounts of units (5 units in a knights army vs 25 in a guard army)
bookeeping is actually less than with phases and alternating turns, yet no one uses tokes to mark which units moved/shoot/charged
the time a player needs to think about his next step is nothing any game system can change, yet it is how often you need to touch your models and the amount of dice rolling that slows games down
the other 2 points are not a problem at all, at least of the designer of the game knew what he was doing, so yes if GW would make a game with AA they would screw it up
- wouldn' fix much because IGOUGO is not the reason for a lack of balance in 40K. Power creep and poor playtesting are the main reasons for that
AA is not meant to fix anything but the player downtime and Alpha Strike
there are other solutions to this but the one that fits a modern SciFi game best is AA, that GW does not play their own game is a problem that can not be fixed by writing different rules but only by not using rules from GW
Dude. Most GW games are alternating activations nowadays in one form or another with exception being their two flagships. Titanicus, Necromunda, Aeronautica, Middle-Earth, Apocalypse...
To Aenar's points about unit disparity: why not use a version that works, then? Straight one to one activation isn't the only way to do it. You could activate single units, detachments of multiple units, designated squadrons, commanders that activate units around them, divvy up activation points for chosen parts of your army, randomize their acting order, use alternating phases... there's plenty of design space beyond straight chess moves.
Aenar wrote: ImhoAA:
- it is too much bookkeeping (tokens to remember which unit did what, ...)
- it slows the game down (with IGOUGO you plan during your opponent's turn and act quickly when it's your turn)
- it doesn't work well with amounts of units that are different in size (I activate one unit, a 5 pts infantry squad, and then you activate a 600 pts knight)
- it doesn't work well with very different amounts of units (5 units in a knights army vs 25 in a guard army)
- wouldn' fix much because IGOUGO is not the reason for a lack of balance in 40K. Power creep and poor playtesting are the main reasons for that
Quick side-point - if you play other games you see different solutions to the above. Marking units is the most common, just like how I mark units in the fire phase in big 40k games.
The favourite of a lot of systems is to have randomised activation (deck of cards, chits out of hat for either units or sides etc.) with games having comparable decision time, but in practice games taking slightly longer.
But this ties into your last point, a lot of it is the feel you want and the other mechanics. 40k suffers from IGOUGO when games get big and alpha strike/firepower gets high. In games with lower lethality it is far less of a problem. As ever these design decisions are linked to other factors and currently GW seem to be in patching mode not systematic overview.
Dude. Most GW games are alternating activations nowadays in one form or another with exception being their two flagships. Titanicus, Necromunda, Aeronautica, Middle-Earth, Apocalypse...
To Aenar's points about unit disparity: why not use a version that works, then? Straight one to one activation isn't the only way to do it. You could activate single units, detachments of multiple units, designated squadrons, commanders that activate units around them, divvy up activation points for chosen parts of your army, randomize their acting order, use alternating phases... there's plenty of design space beyond straight chess moves.
And you can bet that if GW were to re write an entire edition to fit it, which would require indexs, massive rules changes etc, it would take two to three editions to implement, and you would a game just as balanced as 8th or 9th is. Maybe less. 9+year experimentation just to get more or less the same, doesn't sound like fun. And saying that "only" the flag ships aren't AA, and all the other games are, is like saying that in europe Football is somehow on the same level as curling or long distance or biathlon. Comparing to w40k or even AoS, something like Aeronautica doesn't even exist. And if there are people that like it, they are probably playing x-wing anyway.
Dude. Most GW games are alternating activations nowadays in one form or another with exception being their two flagships. Titanicus, Necromunda, Aeronautica, Middle-Earth, Apocalypse....
and most games with exceptions to the flagships are better balanced, have more diverse factions, more viable builds etc
so it would come down that those games written by freelancers that are just hired to write rules and than leave make better games than the 2 main studios do
in the end it does not matter what are the pros or cons to the specific system, but that the it will be a bad implementation of a good idea in the flagship games anyway
The reason for that is freelancers need good rules to be successful.
40k doesn't, it just needs to carry the torch that has grown to such prominence over 30-40 years.
It honestly doesn't matter how 40k's rules stack up to other games, many players get defensive and even genuinely angry if faced with the suggestion of playing another game.
Nurglitch wrote:Absolutely. People want stuff that looks good; games don't have the appeal of shiny, beautiful miniatures, otherwise we'd all be playing games with chits.
I buy the models to paint, the fact that I can also play a game with them is an added bonus.
I've played many games with just chits, would they have been better if the had cool models to go along with...hell yeah!
Yes, and that's the secret sauce to GW's success. Instead of just selling games, or models, they sell a game with models, so they can sell you twice as much. But it's not just additive; the game is based on army-building (buying the same toy over and over) where people have incentive to buy the same product over and over. But I'd say that the people buying just for the models out-number the people buying just for the game, and possibly the people buying both to paint/build and to play. I still enjoy the models and the books and maybe that'll keep me around until I feel better about the game.
kirotheavenger wrote: The reason for that is freelancers need good rules to be successful.
40k doesn't, it just needs to carry the torch that has grown to such prominence over 30-40 years.
It honestly doesn't matter how 40k's rules stack up to other games, many players get defensive and even genuinely angry if faced with the suggestion of playing another game.
This. 40k is carried by its IP and miniatures. People will always find a way to make the game work, no matter its actual state or relative quality.
Honestly my feelings towards 9th are mostly positive but only as long as I stay away from the more competitive community. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with competitive, just that the amount of salt that comes out of that corner of the community has dragged down my enjoyment in the past.
Sometimes ignorance of how the game can be broken and the rage that generates is bliss.
kirotheavenger wrote: The reason for that is freelancers need good rules to be successful.
40k doesn't, it just needs to carry the torch that has grown to such prominence over 30-40 years.
It honestly doesn't matter how 40k's rules stack up to other games, many players get defensive and even genuinely angry if faced with the suggestion of playing another game.
This. 40k is carried by its IP and miniatures. People will always find a way to make the game work, no matter its actual state or relative quality.
The exodus of players during 7th edition would seem to suggest otherwise.
There is a point where rules become bad enough that people simply quit.
ClockworkZion wrote: Honestly my feelings towards 9th are mostly positive but only as long as I stay away from the more competitive community. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with competitive, just that the amount of salt that comes out of that corner of the community has dragged down my enjoyment in the past.
Sometimes ignorance of how the game can be broken and the rage that generates is bliss.
This is something I have learning about any kind of game.
When I play for fun a new game with my friends I'll avoid looking at any kind of forum or tactica advice like the plague. Because the most fun anyone has in a game is when both you and your friends know literally nothing about it, are learning together and making a mess of everything.
Galas wrote: When I play for fun a new game with my friends I'll avoid looking at any kind of forum or tactica advice like the plague. Because the most fun anyone has in a game is when both you and your friends know literally nothing about it, are learning together and making a mess of everything.
My group did that for 8th, I think if we'd let someone solve the meta for us the game would have gotten stale pretty quickly with how imbalanced the indexes were.
The exodus of players during 7th edition would seem to suggest otherwise.
There is a point where rules become bad enough that people simply quit.
Wasn't this how WFB died? Long streaks of no updades, gigantic entry barrier with single units being made out of 4 boxs or more, and unbalanced that big that some armies weren't worth to be played outside of heavy comp settings?
But I'd say that the people buying just for the models out-number the people buying just for the game, and possibly the people buying both to paint/build and to play. I still enjoy the models and the books and maybe that'll keep me around until I feel better about the game.
I can't imagine someone spending 800$+ on a w40k army to never play it. And if people exist that have such money there are better looking models and armies that cost less then those in w40k. And even if there were people that just bought armies to have them and do nothing with them, they would never generate as much income as those who have to buy 15 centurions and 3 new walkers because it is THE way to play their factions, only to be forced to rebuy the army or buy another army 6 to 9 months later.
I can't imagine someone spending 800$+ on a w40k army to never play it. And if people exist that have such money there are better looking models and armies that cost less then those in w40k. And even if there were people that just bought armies to have them and do nothing with them, they would never generate as much income as those who have to buy 15 centurions and 3 new walkers because it is THE way to play their factions, only to be forced to rebuy the army or buy another army 6 to 9 months later.
You don't need to be rich to collect minis.
Some people's hobbies are to collect or paint minis, not to actually play the game.
"better looking models" is purely subjective.
The number of purely casual players greatly outnumbers the number of competitive players that chase the best army.
I can't imagine someone spending 800$+ on a w40k army to never play it. And if people exist that have such money there are better looking models and armies that cost less then those in w40k. And even if there were people that just bought armies to have them and do nothing with them, they would never generate as much income as those who have to buy 15 centurions and 3 new walkers because it is THE way to play their factions, only to be forced to rebuy the army or buy another army 6 to 9 months later.
I mean, you'd be wrong, people who just buy and paint models absolutely exist.
They generally don't make whole armies - often they're buying the big "spectacle" models that gw has been doing more and more lately. GW has stated that they are a gigantic fraction of their overall sales.
People who already own 2000+ points of stuff, like most of the people on this forum, are generally the lowest priority for gw from a sales perspective.
Aenar wrote:ImhoAA:
- it is too much bookkeeping (tokens to remember which unit did what, ...)
- it slows the game down (with IGOUGO you plan during your opponent's turn and act quickly when it's your turn)
- it doesn't work well with amounts of units that are different in size (I activate one unit, a 5 pts infantry squad, and then you activate a 600 pts knight)
- it doesn't work well with very different amounts of units (5 units in a knights army vs 25 in a guard army)
- wouldn' fix much because IGOUGO is not the reason for a lack of balance in 40K. Power creep and poor playtesting are the main reasons for that
As somebody who plays DUST 1947 regularly that is an alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic that is also scale with 40K i can say from experience that you are wrong on every single point.
1.there is no bookeeping
2.the game is actually faster
3.unit size is irrelevant
4.different army wide unit size also doesn't matter
5.it fixes alpha strikes and keeps both players actively playing even when it is not their activation.
6.bonus-the rules are much better written and balanced than current 40K.-Andy Chambers is just a better game designer than anybody currently working on GW.s flagship game
I mean, you'd be wrong, people who just buy and paint models absolutely exist.
They generally don't make whole armies - often they're buying the big "spectacle" models that gw has been doing more and more lately. GW has stated that they are a gigantic fraction of their overall sales.
People who already own 2000+ points of stuff, like most of the people on this forum, are generally the lowest priority for gw from a sales perspective.
If they don't buy whole armies, then they are less important to GW then people who actually buy models to play the game. The number of people, and the income they generate, for GW, that buy single units for what ever reasons they has to be lower then what is generated by people who have to buy or rebuy 2000pts to start playing the game. And yeah I did come to the conclusion, not so long ago, that GW does not seem to care much about people that have already bought an army.
The exodus of players during 7th edition would seem to suggest otherwise.
There is a point where rules become bad enough that people simply quit.
Wasn't this how WFB died? Long streaks of no updades, gigantic entry barrier with single units being made out of 4 boxs or more, and unbalanced that big that some armies weren't worth to be played outside of heavy comp settings?...
WHFB died because GW decided they wanted to be able to charge 40k prices for basic infantry ($50/10 models, up from $25/10 models), and then they either by accident or design wrote an edition where huge core infantry blocks were the only playable units (cannons made monsters/HI unplayable, the horde rule made cavalry unplayable, so all that was left was hundred-model blocks grinding together in the middle of the table) and the game ran 100% on who managed to get a big spell off first when the magic phase was carefully mathematically calibrated so on average rolls nobody would successfully cast anything. It was a slow build-up of bad decisions, "no we need to burn this down and make fantasy Space Marines" didn't just come out of the blue.
Aenar wrote:ImhoAA:
- it is too much bookkeeping (tokens to remember which unit did what, ...)
- it slows the game down (with IGOUGO you plan during your opponent's turn and act quickly when it's your turn)
- it doesn't work well with amounts of units that are different in size (I activate one unit, a 5 pts infantry squad, and then you activate a 600 pts knight)
- it doesn't work well with very different amounts of units (5 units in a knights army vs 25 in a guard army)
- wouldn' fix much because IGOUGO is not the reason for a lack of balance in 40K. Power creep and poor playtesting are the main reasons for that
As somebody who plays DUST 1947 regularly that is an alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic that is also scale with 40K i can say from experience that you are wrong on every single point.
1.there is no bookeeping
2.the game is actually faster
3.unit size is irrelevant
4.different army wide unit size also doesn't matter
5.it fixes alpha strikes and keeps both players actively playing even when it is not their activation.
6.bonus-the rules are much better written and balanced than current 40K.-Andy Chambers is just a better game designer than anybody currently working on GW.s flagship game
As someone who plays Bolt Action/K47 (another alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic on 40k scale built by an ex-GW designer) I can say from experience that the game is perfectly playable, but the people who shout about how 40k should embrace alternating activations would hate its guts, because you fundamentally can't do alternating activations with units doing 5-7 things a turn without causing horrendous bookkeeping issues, so the big chunk of the playerbase that insists everything in the game needs to be able to do everything at full effectiveness every turn would be screaming their heads off about not being able to shoot/charge in the same turn.
As someone who plays Bolt Action/K47 (another alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic on 40k scale built by an ex-GW designer) I can say from experience that the game is perfectly playable, but the people who shout about how 40k should embrace alternating activations would hate its guts, because you fundamentally can't do alternating activations with units doing 5-7 things a turn without causing horrendous bookkeeping issues, so the big chunk of the playerbase that insists everything in the game needs to be able to do everything at full effectiveness every turn would be screaming their heads off about not being able to shoot/charge in the same turn.
Agree. AA works just fine. The screaming & ranting that'd result if 40k were to ever adopt AA though? That'd be glorious.
addnid wrote: Well, since 40k will NEVER become AA, I guess we will never know, will we ?
Don't underestimate GW - they're more than capable of adding AA against the wishes of the players while butchering the implementation so badly that even its most ardent defenders won't be able to stomach it.
Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.
I can't imagine someone spending 800$+ on a w40k army to never play it. And if people exist that have such money there are better looking models and armies that cost less then those in w40k. And even if there were people that just bought armies to have them and do nothing with them, they would never generate as much income as those who have to buy 15 centurions and 3 new walkers because it is THE way to play their factions, only to be forced to rebuy the army or buy another army 6 to 9 months later.
You don't need to be rich to collect minis.
Some people's hobbies are to collect or paint minis, not to actually play the game.
"better looking models" is purely subjective.
The number of purely casual players greatly outnumbers the number of competitive players that chase the best army.
Speaking of WFB the community had been in decline for a while before 8th ed came along and really crapped the bed with the horde rules. I remember there being a large grognard component online who constantly insulted 40k as being the "dumber" game just because you didn't have to wheel units or worry about unit facings on anything that wasn't a tank. Plus as GW kept dropping points the community didn't lower the points they were playing at to make the game more friendly to newer players.
I'm not absolving GW for what they did wrong, but the community did itself no favors either. It only grew worse (at least online) as the active player base began to fall in 8th which did not help new players who thought about joining a community that had grown increasingly elist (again, at least online).
Kirby brushing off all problems with WFB as "it's fine we sell models not games" didn't help either.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
the_scotsman wrote: Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.
So gw would just do that.
Sounds like that guy should be named Audey Murphy or something if he's doing that much by himself every turn.
In many ways I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than sit through 45 minutes of having my opponent walk all over me with nothing to do as is standard for a 40k game.
IMO a dislike for AA is only half the picture, if that. It is the portrayal of AA as a magic bullet to fix all the problems that people resent. Such suggestions also often come with an implied (or outright) statement that igougo is inherently bad, which just further rubs people the wrong way.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
addnid wrote: Well, since 40k will NEVER become AA, I guess we will never know, will we ?
You could devise your own system or seek the experience of those who have.
In many ways I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than sit through 45 minutes of having my opponent walk all over me with nothing to do as is standard for a 40k game.
IMO a dislike for AA is only half the picture, if that. It is the portrayal of AA as a magic bullet to fix all the problems that people resent. Such suggestions also often come with an implied (or outright) statement that igougo is inherently bad, which just further rubs people the wrong way.
Dark Gods, should I have just not said Grimdark Future was AA? Has SlayerFan annoyed enough people that AA is a pejorative on DakkaDakka?
Seriously, though, AA or no, GDF is pretty good 40k-lite, and plays a lot faster. I've ended games with enough energy to be excited about victory, which is more than I can say about all but one of my 9th games.
If 40k adopted AA I hope it'd take some.of it's own notes from Apoc and adopt the wounds mechanic from it so that units could still act if they were wounded until the end of the game turn when casualties were resolved, and that it'd even the playing field between first and second activation more.
My personal opinion on the state of the game is that I think 9th core rules are the best set they have made (I loved 8th and 9th is just 8th but with more refinement). The basic game is much easier to teach new players than 3-7, the new models coming out are almost always great looking, and games play much faster than previous editions. But my favorite thing about it is I think it is better balanced then previous editions (although I will admit I have not played against the two newest books).
I say that with a cavet. It is much better balanced than previous editions, when everyone involved is not building the most competitive "best" lists from the codex. For casual or even semi-competitive games (good list but not spamming only best units type thing) the armies seem to be much better balanced. In previous editions, you could take a casual list for something like 6th edition Eldar and absolutely curb stop even competitive lists from armies like CSM. 8th and 9th seem like if both sides are not going super competitive, you usually have a pretty good game, especially if there isn't heavy spamming of units. At the tournament level are there broken lists? Sure are. But that has always existed in 40k. And other than maybe the Iron Hands debacle, I don't think I have seen anything in 8th or 9th that is nearly as bad as 5th edition IG leaf blower lists, 5th edition grey knights, 6th edition necron flyer spam, 7th edition Eldar bike lists, and I could probably give you a bunch more (5th edition White Dwarf modified Flamers of Tzeentch were probably the most broken unit to every exist). I left during 7th because of how bad the rules were and 8th brought me back in and I am really glad. So personally I think 40k is in a good state.
Also anyone who lived though the "it takes 5 years to get a new codex, FAQs like once every 3 years, point adjustments never" knows how quick the 8th and 9th updates really are. In previous editions much of the really bad stuff would exist in the meta for years. So that alone is a huge improvement. This is just my point of view.
ClockworkZion wrote: If 40k adopted AA I hope it'd take some.of it's own notes from Apoc and adopt the wounds mechanic from it so that units could still act if they were wounded until the end of the game turn when casualties were resolved, and that it'd even the playing field between first and second activation more.
That might happen. But I'm curious:
One of the things that people complain about all the time is the lack of tactical decision making that's left in the game that ISN'T strats (because for some reason, people don't consider picking which strat to use when a tactical decision- something that always confuses me).
It feels like the system you describe is one which removes target priority as a strategic consideration.
Granted, I haven't used the Apocalypse rule set, though I'm sure it'd be fun. Maybe someone can explain how target priority is still a thing in a game where you don't have to pick which target is bigger threat (often at an opportunity cost) because nothing dies until the end of the round anyway.
ClockworkZion wrote: If 40k adopted AA I hope it'd take some.of it's own notes from Apoc and adopt the wounds mechanic from it so that units could still act if they were wounded until the end of the game turn when casualties were resolved, and that it'd even the playing field between first and second activation more.
That might happen. But I'm curious:
One of the things that people complain about all the time is the lack of tactical decision making that's left in the game that ISN'T strats (because for some reason, people don't consider picking which strat to use when a tactical decision- something that always confuses me).
It feels like the system you describe is one which removes target priority as a strategic consideration.
Granted, I haven't used the Apocalypse rule set, though I'm sure it'd be fun. Maybe someone can explain how target priority is still a thing in a game where you don't have to pick which target is bigger threat (often at an opportunity cost) because nothing dies until the end of the round anyway.
It both does and doesn't. Basically during the Action Phase (where both players take turns activating all their units) units accumilate damage and the more damage the more likely they are to be destroyed. So you still want to focus on units you want destroyed, but you can't prevent them from activating before they get removed from the table as the entire turn is playing out at the same time.
Basically it abstracts time differently than regular 40k and you still want to focus on target priority but you don't find out if they're removed right away or not.
Apoc uses a different save system though that might need to be implimented to make it work with the Apoc phases.
As someone who plays Bolt Action/K47 (another alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic on 40k scale built by an ex-GW designer) I can say from experience that the game is perfectly playable, but the people who shout about how 40k should embrace alternating activations would hate its guts, because you fundamentally can't do alternating activations with units doing 5-7 things a turn without causing horrendous bookkeeping issues, so the big chunk of the playerbase that insists everything in the game needs to be able to do everything at full effectiveness every turn would be screaming their heads off about not being able to shoot/charge in the same turn.
DUST solves this problem by giving every unit 2 actions that can be combined in any order-move/shoot, shoot/move, move/move again(run), shoot/shoot again(twin link weapons), move/melee combat attack, or any combination of the above with a unit special action like spetznaz having camouflage as a skill. still some other units like dedicated CC units gain the "charge" special skill that allows them a hidden 3rd action to swing in close combat if they use both move actions to get into B2B with an enemy. quite reasonable considering most of those units do not have a shooting weapon to begin with. It should also be noted that once a unit activates for the turn it has used up all its actions until the next turn so you can't just keep spamming one mini/unit through the entire player turn.
VladimirHerzog wrote:
You don't need to be rich to collect minis.
Some people's hobbies are to collect or paint minis, not to actually play the game.
"better looking models" is purely subjective.
The number of purely casual players greatly outnumbers the number of competitive players that chase the best army.
Yeah I know the not being rich part. But we are talking here about income created, not what ever someone who has a hobby budget of 10$ per month can buy stuff for w40k. People that play the game buy more stuff, and can be made to buy more of the expensive stuff. As I said. There aren't many painters that buy 15 centurions just because they like to paint stuff. On the other hand there was a ton of RG players that did buy them, to have a functional list in 8th ed. And few months later, not a single centurion pops up in peoples lists.
Also the idea that , what ever a casual player suppose to be, do not buy based on efficiency is at best only partially true. I have yet too see mass foo DE lists being posts or space marine armies with 30 scouts, because someone likes the models, posted in any list section.
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of WFB the community had been in decline for a while before 8th ed came along and really crapped the bed with the horde rules. I remember there being a large grognard component online who constantly insulted 40k as being the "dumber" game just because you didn't have to wheel units or worry about unit facings on anything that wasn't a tank. Plus as GW kept dropping points the community didn't lower the points they were playing at to make the game more friendly to newer players.
I'm not absolving GW for what they did wrong, but the community did itself no favors either. It only grew worse (at least online) as the active player base began to fall in 8th which did not help new players who thought about joining a community that had grown increasingly elist (again, at least online).
Kirby brushing off all problems with WFB as "it's fine we sell models not games" didn't help either.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
the_scotsman wrote: Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.
So gw would just do that.
Sounds like that guy should be named Audey Murphy or something if he's doing that much by himself every turn.
Mostly, what I would just advise anyone frustrated with the quality of GW's rules to do is head on down to a con that has a lot of historical gaming, and play a few game systems touted as 'the best, most historical, most revolutionary game system EVARRR' by senile beardy weirdos.
My friend and I have a long tradition of heading up to VT for a con with my dad who has always been a "unopened star trek action figures on the wall" old school gamer, and we have a tradition of picking one of the days to get absolutely hammered and trying to find the worst conceivable historical game system to play.
So far the top contenders are that WW1 game, which we can't really rate as the worst because everyone at the table was just cackling and laughing and having a phenomenal time, and a roman game system where it was like
-infantry move 12"
-cavalry move 16"
-bows shoot 4"
-attack dice were by model, so an infantry legionnaire base with 10 guys on it got 10 dice, while a unit of elephants with 2 models got 2 dice
Oh, and a WW2 system that was phenomenal simply because 'Roll to spot the target' was like the first step in the attack process, but there were ZERO modifiers for range or whether the target was in or out of cover, so we had antitank guns 2" away from enemy tanks completely out in the open routinely failing to see them.
Oh, yeah, wargaming geezers who think game design stopped evolving after Kriegspiel (and those who dare to tamper with "roll dice to see what happens and then consult some tables" philosophy break some kind of a taboo) are indeed a thing
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of WFB the community had been in decline for a while before 8th ed came along and really crapped the bed with the horde rules. I remember there being a large grognard component online who constantly insulted 40k as being the "dumber" game just because you didn't have to wheel units or worry about unit facings on anything that wasn't a tank. Plus as GW kept dropping points the community didn't lower the points they were playing at to make the game more friendly to newer players.
I'm not absolving GW for what they did wrong, but the community did itself no favors either. It only grew worse (at least online) as the active player base began to fall in 8th which did not help new players who thought about joining a community that had grown increasingly elist (again, at least online).
Kirby brushing off all problems with WFB as "it's fine we sell models not games" didn't help either.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
the_scotsman wrote: Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.
So gw would just do that.
Sounds like that guy should be named Audey Murphy or something if he's doing that much by himself every turn.
Mostly, what I would just advise anyone frustrated with the quality of GW's rules to do is head on down to a con that has a lot of historical gaming, and play a few game systems touted as 'the best, most historical, most revolutionary game system EVARRR' by senile beardy weirdos.
My friend and I have a long tradition of heading up to VT for a con with my dad who has always been a "unopened star trek action figures on the wall" old school gamer, and we have a tradition of picking one of the days to get absolutely hammered and trying to find the worst conceivable historical game system to play.
So far the top contenders are that WW1 game, which we can't really rate as the worst because everyone at the table was just cackling and laughing and having a phenomenal time, and a roman game system where it was like
-infantry move 12"
-cavalry move 16"
-bows shoot 4"
-attack dice were by model, so an infantry legionnaire base with 10 guys on it got 10 dice, while a unit of elephants with 2 models got 2 dice
Oh, and a WW2 system that was phenomenal simply because 'Roll to spot the target' was like the first step in the attack process, but there were ZERO modifiers for range or whether the target was in or out of cover, so we had antitank guns 2" away from enemy tanks completely out in the open routinely failing to see them.
I am not really surprised honestly. A lot of historical games have weird biases too where they make certain armies better based on public perception of how good something is (largely thanks to Hollywood exposure) rather than trying to be historical accuracy. I don't even want to guess the number of games that made their Spartans like those in 300 after that movie came out.
Cyel wrote: Oh, yeah, wargaming geezers who think game design stopped evolving after Kriegspiel (and those who dare to tamper with "roll dice to see what happens and then consult some tables" philosophy break some kind of a taboo) are indeed a thing
The worst though are the ones who expect a historical scenario to play out exactly how it went in real life.
Ages ago, in our early college days, a buddy & I were in such a game at a con. It was an American Civil War game. Beautiful & accurate terrain. FANTASTIC looking minis. 100% accurate historical.
The rules were explained & weren't terrible.
So play began & my buddy & I immediately deviated from the historical script. After all, we knew how the actual battle had gone (:() & what with 150 years of hindsight should've/could've been done....
Plus we could SEE how the enemy models were deployed.
Boy did that not go over well.
Apparently the only variance these guys found acceptable was the amount of casualties the dice would yield THIS time, following the historical script.
This was not a fun game.
And it turned out to be tediously slow.....
Meanwhile? About 50ft away there was a game of giant mechs blowing the crap out of each other on a table full of simplistic terrain. And people dropped in/out every hour.
So, after our 3rd turn (about 4 hours of play, nowhere near finishing the game, & receiving constant crap for deviating from history), we bid the ACW guys farewell & jumped into a giant Battle-Tech game.
And had alot more fun.
I was excited about 8th edition! Finally the cumbersome mechanics could be redone, the balance done properly and the bloat reset.
The next edition would fix everything!
It became clear quite quickly once the new codexes started coming out that GW had never intended to balance any Warhammer. The bloat was a result of the churn and power creep that they use to sell more models.
Making a good game was not an objective or even a value.
It was always going to be waitng for the next edition/codex/FAQ to improve things and always being dissapointed when it came.
Which is fine. GW may do with thier product whatever they wish and are a public company; so are legally obligated to deliver return on investment.
I don't have to buy it if I don't like it though and I do not intend to buy or play anything form GW ever again.
There are companies and game designers who do value making a good game. There are more great games than I have time to play without GW.
It became clear quite quickly once the new codexes started coming out that GW had never intended to balance any Warhammer. The bloat was a result of the churn and power creep that they use to sell more models.
Making a good game was not an objective or even a value.
It was always going to be waitng for the next edition/codex/FAQ to improve things and always being dissapointed when it came.
I think an actual GW designer fills in better on this than I could (I don't have the exact timecode on hand but around halfway the video he talks about balance in the game):
I feel like the designers do shoot for balance and fun but are also working with a top down development system where they're trying to match rules to the models and the lorr surrounding those models instead of starting bottom up and writing the rules first and having the model team make something that fits the rules instead.
40k began its life as an RPG and honestly a lot of the game seems to be built more around telling stories about cool things that happened (for example I had an Exorcist get immobilized in 5th edition and after waaay too many 6++ Shield of Faith saves passed my opponent managed to shoot the storm bolter off too) than being a crunchy experiance where we all go 9th dimensional chess galaxy brain on each other.
Now there has been an upswing in competetive play that has lead to a shift to tightening the rules and playtesting rules but it's clear that GW still writes rules that "feel right" for the things they're attached to over ones that make sense for crunchy game play.
I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.
I feel like the designers do shoot for balance and fun but are also working with a top down development system where they're trying to match rules to the models and the lorr surrounding those models instead of starting bottom up and writing the rules first and having the model team make something that fits the rules instead.
Pretty much every wargame uses a combination of top down and bottom up design. Most of them manage to have passable balance though.
40k began its life as an RPG and honestly a lot of the game seems to be built more around telling stories about cool things that happened (for example I had an Exorcist get immobilized in 5th edition and after waaay too many 6++ Shield of Faith saves passed my opponent managed to shoot the storm bolter off too) than being a crunchy experiance where we all go 9th dimensional chess galaxy brain on each other.
Games do not have to be crunchy for balance. Crazy rolls happen in any game with dice.
While I prefer well balanced games; games with passable balance that might struggle if taken too seriously are also fun (eg: Gaslands).
GW games are not even on that level though. It's so abysmal that I have tabled people with no effort with a list that I didn't think was hard.
Now there has been an upswing in competetive play that has lead to a shift to tightening the rules and playtesting rules but it's clear that GW still writes rules that "feel right" for the things they're attached to over ones that make sense for crunchy game play.
Not good enough.
If they wanted to even a little they could do far better. I know because other (much smaller) companies do AND they have cool units that "feel right".
I haven't even touched on how ridiculously expensive Warhammer (both) is. For that kind of money I expect the best possible, not frustration and disappointment.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.
It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.
Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.
And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.
I feel like the designers do shoot for balance and fun but are also working with a top down development system where they're trying to match rules to the models and the lorr surrounding those models instead of starting bottom up and writing the rules first and having the model team make something that fits the rules instead.
Pretty much every wargame uses a combination of top down and bottom up design. Most of them manage to have passable balance though.
GW has gone on record many times stating that they write rules based on what the design team produces. There was a Jervis Johnson article in a White Dwarf that talked about giving a model the ability to fly because he had a winged belt buckle that could be magical as an example.
40k began its life as an RPG and honestly a lot of the game seems to be built more around telling stories about cool things that happened (for example I had an Exorcist get immobilized in 5th edition and after waaay too many 6++ Shield of Faith saves passed my opponent managed to shoot the storm bolter off too) than being a crunchy experiance where we all go 9th dimensional chess galaxy brain on each other.
Games do not have to be crunchy for balance. Crazy rolls happen in any game with dice.
While I prefer well balanced games; games with passable balance that might struggle if taken too seriously are also fun (eg: Gaslands).
GW games are not even on that level though. It's so abysmal that I have tabled people with no effort with a list that I didn't think was hard.
I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.
Now there has been an upswing in competetive play that has lead to a shift to tightening the rules and playtesting rules but it's clear that GW still writes rules that "feel right" for the things they're attached to over ones that make sense for crunchy game play.
Not good enough.
If they wanted to even a little they could do far better. I know because other (much smaller) companies do AND they have cool units that "feel right".
I assume you're not responding with the assumption that I'm saying the rules are as good as they should be, because I'm not. I'm just trying to present a literal "state of the game and how it's developed based on information we know." No matter how good a game is, it could always be better.
I haven't even touched on how ridiculously expensive Warhammer (both) is. For that kind of money I expect the best possible, not frustration and disappointment.
I agree that something needs to be done about the cost, but then again I also argue something needs to be done about wages in general since price is outpacing wage increases far too regularly. I feel like this is a problem from two sides of the same mess, but I don't want to get into an economics debate so I'll just say "yes, it needs to be more afforable" and leave it at that.
I didn't want to deal with quote tagging, so responses are yellow.
ClockworkZion wrote: I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.
yes GW rules do well when players are experienced enough to know what works and what does not and also have certain knowledge about the what the other player is going to place on the table
this has nothing to do with competitive games/rules but with players knowing to ignore the background when choosing their army and and knowing what they are up against
also the casual environment does not work well if both players have no clue about how strong some of the units are, just bring it what they think is a well rounded army list (by the fluff provided in the books) and don't tell the opponent what faction and type of list they are going to play because this is not needed for a well rounded list
and than one gets stomped
casual games for just having fun needs better rules and balance than tournaments
because tournament players don't care if a faction has only 1 unit that is worth taking or if there is only 1 faction that can win the event, if they want to win the event they play that faction
tournaments don't care of the rules are not tight, balance between factions is off etc. if needed they add a tournament FAQ and if everyone turns up with the exact same list and the exact same battle ready paint job, no one cares
yet the casual player who just uses units were he likes the fluff or the look, needs good balance having no chance to win the game by taking what you like and spending hours to build/paint and you are told to just by the "right" stuff the next time, is not a fun casual experience
I don't know were this comes from, but casual play needs the good rules and balance
tournaments find their way to play a game, no matter how bad the rules are written or how much the balance is off, in the worst case, tournaments make their own version of the game to keep things going, were the casual player just stops playing it
this is what we have seen during 6th/7th of 40k and late 7th/8th Warhammer Fantasy
casual players don't care about balance as long as the game is fun, yet if the balance is too much off the game stops being fun
hence why GW tries to make the outcome of the game as random as possible, so everyone in a casual environment can win the game with a random event no matter how bad the balance is
problem is just that when "winning" is not the point if the game was fun or not but the gameplay it self, no matter the outcome, and this is were GW games are getting worse again and the designers don't understand why (because they just never played their own game)
ClockworkZion wrote: I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.
In 8th pre-PA I would have agreed with you as my group are almost all casuals. I still go to games of 40k my group has because it's nice to be social but I've yet to see them play a game where they enjoy the GAME rather than the social interaction. Every game I've seen the player whose turn it is is noticeably having less fun than the players who is getting to talk to their friends. What actually killed the game for me was that I realised that I don't remember the last time both I and my opponent enjoyed the game. Usually someone would have the advantage at the end of the first round and the losing player would go through the motions of putting up a fight while the opponent rolled dice to see what order the loser put his stuff away in.
yes GW rules do well when players are experienced enough to know what works and what does not and also have certain knowledge about the what the other player is going to place on the table
this has nothing to do with competitive games/rules but with players knowing to ignore the background when choosing their army and and knowing what they are up againstalso the casual environment does not work well if both players have no clue about how strong some of the units are, just bring it what they think is a well rounded army list (by the fluff provided in the books) and don't tell the opponent what faction and type of list they are going to play because this is not needed for a well rounded list
and than one gets stomped
But it is not always the case. The real problems are , I think, only with armies that can't really make a flexible 50/50 lists. Stuff like harlequins where the list writes itself, because of how few units the faction has and how optimised, or unoptimised if we considerd 8th ed, happens less often. So a new player very much can build a close tournament level army without even trying. Same thing happens when the options really hit you on the head with how good or how bad they are. It really didn't take a genius or checking other lists, to know that for a long time in 8th scouts were the preferable troop choice for marines or that dark reapers are really good if you play Inari. At the same time if you looked at the GK techmarine cost and stats, even without knowing any rules, you knew that the NDK GM is better. In fact you knew that he was better then any other character, and only later one you learned that Draigo ain't so bad either.
ClockworkZion wrote: It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.
Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.
And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.
If we were talking a few minor things that need tweaking or a few typos then what you're saying would probably be acceptable. My beloved Mantic Games makes those kind of mistakes and have reasons like that. Everyone makes mistakes.
The rules and balance for 40k is a fething gak show though. Excuses like those don't cut it for how bad of a job they do with rules.
These are professionals working for a large corporate company; yet indy game designers and small companies manage better.
If GW wanted to they could, but they don't.
It's so abysmal that I have tabled people with no effort with a list that I didn't think was hard.
I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.
I suppose that I could have been clearer. My point was that it is not passable even for casual games.
I tabled someone when I thought I was bringing a fair list. It was not fun for either of us or even the people who stopped by our table.
He lost a game horribly for no other reason than that his Chaos Space Marines codex was that far behind my 6th edition daemon codex; while we were playing 7th edition.
Games of AoS with no points were more balanced than any other Warhammer games I have played!
They kept with the same business practices and design decisions that led to that with 8th, which is why I sold all my GW and moved on to better games from other companies.
Everything I hear about 9th edition 40k (and 3rd edition AoS) suggests that this has not changed and GW never intend to change it.
I am curious, do you play any wargames that are not GW games?
If yes, how does the balance compare?
ClockworkZion wrote: It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.
Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.
And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.
If we were talking a few minor things that need tweaking or a few typos then what you're saying would probably be acceptable. My beloved Mantic Games makes those kind of mistakes and have reasons like that. Everyone makes mistakes.
The rules and balance for 40k is a fething gak show though. Excuses like those don't cut it for how bad of a job they do with rules.
These are professionals working for a large corporate company; yet indy game designers and small companies manage better.
If GW wanted to they could, but they don't.
I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.
It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.
Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.
And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.
To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.
Worth noting that this is much different than the ever-present conspiracy theory of 'GW intentionally makes new stuff OP to sell models!!!1' which has had no basis in reality for years at the least (I heard of some shenanigans like that happening back in 40k 7th with the wraithknight?). Instead it is simply GW accepting that the balance is bad and feeling the situation offers enough advantages to warrant keeping things as such.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.
The most egregious imbalances rarely come from some subtle nuance or obscure combo, they come from eradicators being 40 points a model.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.
The most egregious imbalances rarely come from some subtle nuance or obscure combo, they come from eradicators being 40 points a model.
In view of codex creep, GW wants loyal Marines to be alive and kicking.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.
I'm going to say the studio is at fault for letting things like Marines get to the point that they have more datasheets than whole other factions do, but I've also witnessed the rather venomous push back to the idea that GW needs to prune the game.
And it's not a Warmachine clone. Christ the hyperbole is getting out of control in this thread.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.
It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.
Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.
And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.
To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.
Worth noting that this is much different than the ever-present conspiracy theory of 'GW intentionally makes new stuff OP to sell models!!!1' which has had no basis in reality for years at the least (I heard of some shenanigans like that happening back in 40k 7th with the wraithknight?). Instead it is simply GW accepting that the balance is bad and feeling the situation offers enough advantages to warrant keeping things as such.
You aren't designing the rules the same way GW is. As I've mentioned they go "top down". Rules are written almost entirely to fit the look of the model and the lore blurbs they've written. They've started taking some bottom up feedback from playtesters and the competetive community but the design priorities of the competetive community are different so you're going to end up with different results. And even the best written game can have flaws that are obvious to a third party.
But frankly I'm just going to go back to lurking again. It's clear that people have decided that no matter what information is presented about the complexities of game design or how GW actually approaches it that they'll just keep pushing a narrative that GW "doesn't care" or that the game is somehow an unplayable mess despite being the most successful edition to date.
Then again, some of the people comparing it to 7th lately are coming off as employing the ol' Grognard classic of "old good, new bad" so maybe I shouldn't be shocked.
By now GW is taking ideas from other systems, but with the problem that they don't know why the specific rule is there in the first place and always go over the top with "having a crazy idea every 2 minutes that are implementing into the next Codex"
and all those things why GW rules are like they are, are reasons but not excuses
Playtester not getting the final rules to test, this is a reason why the rules are bad but not an excuse that you cannot do better
Rules written according to the fluff of a new designed model, no matter if this is what the army needs or if it takes over the role from another unit, or ot is just bad compared to what the faction already has
by this point we are not even talking about game design any more
You aren't designing the rules the same way GW is. As I've mentioned they go "top down". Rules are written almost entirely to fit the look of the model and the lore blurbs they've written.
And once again the question becomes 'whose fault is that?'
There is no requirement that they work out rules in the worst and most obnoxious way possible. It's a choice that they make and one they are rightly getting criticised for.
ClockworkZion wrote:
I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
Why is that though?
From 8th edition the core rules are not terribly complex (a good thing IMObtw). GW then heaps a load of stuff that seems like a good idea on top for each codex, but without any apparent consideration to how it compares to existing rules or how it might interact. In an attempt to give an illusion of depth from simply sheer quantity of special rules and meaningless choices (it`s often obvious which the best one is).
It is entirely possible (and has been done many times) to have a system in place within which units can be designed with maybe one or two unique special rules per army.
ClockworkZion wrote:Then again, some of the people comparing it to 7th lately are coming off as employing the ol' Grognard classic of "old good, new bad" so maybe I shouldn't be shocked.
That is ridiculous.The core rules are certainly better, it's what GW does with them that is atrocious.
Me: "I genuinely do believe the devs have good intentions'
ClockworkZion: "keep pushing the narrative that GW 'doesn't care'"
The hypocrisy in complaining about a lack of depth in people's viewpoints...
@Complexities of rules design. I am not talking about the rules I am talking about the points. Literally taking a battletome as written and massively improving the balance without touching any rules. But if we want to go into rules being written to fit the narrative they are bad at that too. Best displayed by the Death Guard, whose resilience against small arms fire is represented by a rule that does literally the exact opposite. But that is far from the only rule that flies directly against the fluff of what the unit is supposed to do.
NinthMusketeer wrote: To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.
Yes, you could balance the game better IF THAT WAS ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO. Any of us could.
Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month (because remember, that was the original design schedule- Brexit, Covid and shipping shenanigans aside, we'd have 4 more dexes out by now). Could you also do it so that people who play in all 3 ways are happy? Could you do it so that it works reasonably well for 4 sizes of game? Could you also do it so that people who have been playing for 30 years recognize the nostalgia cues that have kept them in the game so long without simultaneously alienating new players who don't recognize the history? Could you also coordinate that with a realtime story based campaign? Could you also do it in such a way that it supports a new series of novels that influence and are influenced by your range and release schedule?
Oh, and could you do it while making sure that the return for share holders not only remains constant, but actually continues to grow?
Because GW has, to a varying degree pulled off ALL of that. Yes, it means that not one of these dozen priorities is as perfectly executed as it could be if it were the sole focus of one's attention. But it means we have all of these things happening at the same time. For many players, some of these other priorities ARE more important than perfect balance.
@Complexities of rules design. I am not talking about the rules I am talking about the points. Literally taking a battletome as written and massively improving the balance without touching any rules. But if we want to go into rules being written to fit the narrative they are bad at that too. Best displayed by the Death Guard, whose resilience against small arms fire is represented by a rule that does literally the exact opposite. But that is far from the only rule that flies directly against the fluff of what the unit is supposed to do.
Sorry to have it look like I'm piling on after you clarified your position Ninth. Consider my statement to be directed to @complexity of rules design in general as well, as it is clear that your original intent was to speak only to the points. Cheers!
PenitentJake wrote: Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month
well if you want to have a balanced game, the basic codex design is already done shortly after you have finished the core
otherwise trying to balance stuff is pointless if you make the first books to work against stuff that will be outdated soon
and because making new models needs some time too, the design team should know what is coming up during that edtion and take that into account when doing the design
VladimirHerzog wrote:
You don't need to be rich to collect minis.
Some people's hobbies are to collect or paint minis, not to actually play the game.
"better looking models" is purely subjective.
The number of purely casual players greatly outnumbers the number of competitive players that chase the best army.
Yeah I know the not being rich part. But we are talking here about income created, not what ever someone who has a hobby budget of 10$ per month can buy stuff for w40k. People that play the game buy more stuff, and can be made to buy more of the expensive stuff. As I said. There aren't many painters that buy 15 centurions just because they like to paint stuff. On the other hand there was a ton of RG players that did buy them, to have a functional list in 8th ed. And few months later, not a single centurion pops up in peoples lists.
Also the idea that , what ever a casual player suppose to be, do not buy based on efficiency is at best only partially true. I have yet too see mass foo DE lists being posts or space marine armies with 30 scouts, because someone likes the models, posted in any list section.
You have a very skewed perception of what the consumer base is.
for every "competitive" player that goes to stores and chases the meta, theres at least 10 casual ones that dont play in stores and dont participate on the forums. These are the ones making most of GW's money because they often buy new boxes instead of scouring ebay for deals.
NinthMusketeer wrote: To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.
Yes, you could balance the game better IF THAT WAS ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO. Any of us could.
Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month (because remember, that was the original design schedule- Brexit, Covid and shipping shenanigans aside, we'd have 4 more dexes out by now). Could you also do it so that people who play in all 3 ways are happy? Could you do it so that it works reasonably well for 4 sizes of game? Could you also do it so that people who have been playing for 30 years recognize the nostalgia cues that have kept them in the game so long without simultaneously alienating new players who don't recognize the history? Could you also coordinate that with a realtime story based campaign? Could you also do it in such a way that it supports a new series of novels that influence and are influenced by your range and release schedule?
Oh, and could you do it while making sure that the return for share holders not only remains constant, but actually continues to grow?
Because GW has, to a varying degree pulled off ALL of that. Yes, it means that not one of these dozen priorities is as perfectly executed as it could be if it were the sole focus of one's attention. But it means we have all of these things happening at the same time. For many players, some of these other priorities ARE more important than perfect balance.
Good point. If NinthMuskateer was a team of several people who were paid and spent a full time work day working on said rules. Don't pull that false equivalence crap. You know full well GW are fully capable of producing competant rules. They're the biggest tabletop game producer in the world by a very large margin and literal single people produce much better rule sets than they do.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.
I'm going to say the studio is at fault for letting things like Marines get to the point that they have more datasheets than whole other factions do, but I've also witnessed the rather venomous push back to the idea that GW needs to prune the game.
And it's not a Warmachine clone. Christ the hyperbole is getting out of control in this thread...
So it's the community's fault that GW's approach to game design is to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat until the game gets out of control and they need to burn it down and start over with a new foundation on which to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat?
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.
Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.
I'm going to say the studio is at fault for letting things like Marines get to the point that they have more datasheets than whole other factions do, but I've also witnessed the rather venomous push back to the idea that GW needs to prune the game.
And it's not a Warmachine clone. Christ the hyperbole is getting out of control in this thread...
So it's the community's fault that GW's approach to game design is to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat until the game gets out of control and they need to burn it down and start over with a new foundation on which to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat?
Never said it was the community's fault (well not entirely). The general community's resistance to change, even if it's for the better, is well known to anyone who spends more than 5 minutes around others. GW is well aware of this and tries to not rock 40k's boat too much.
NinthMusketeer wrote: To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.
Yes, you could balance the game better IF THAT WAS ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO. Any of us could.
Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month (because remember, that was the original design schedule- Brexit, Covid and shipping shenanigans aside, we'd have 4 more dexes out by now). Could you also do it so that people who play in all 3 ways are happy? Could you do it so that it works reasonably well for 4 sizes of game? Could you also do it so that people who have been playing for 30 years recognize the nostalgia cues that have kept them in the game so long without simultaneously alienating new players who don't recognize the history? Could you also coordinate that with a realtime story based campaign? Could you also do it in such a way that it supports a new series of novels that influence and are influenced by your range and release schedule?
Oh, and could you do it while making sure that the return for share holders not only remains constant, but actually continues to grow?
Because GW has, to a varying degree pulled off ALL of that. Yes, it means that not one of these dozen priorities is as perfectly executed as it could be if it were the sole focus of one's attention. But it means we have all of these things happening at the same time. For many players, some of these other priorities ARE more important than perfect balance.
Good point. If NinthMuskateer was a team of several people who were paid and spent a full time work day working on said rules. Don't pull that false equivalence crap. You know full well GW are fully capable of producing competant rules. They're the biggest tabletop game producer in the world by a very large margin and literal single people produce much better rule sets than they do.
It was a misunderstanding; he thought I was claiming I could do all that myself when I was actually talking about just the point costs. If I HAD been making that claim his response would not have been unreasonable. But no one was acting in bad faith here, it was just some good ole miscommunication.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...Never said it was the community's fault (well not entirely). The general community's resistance to change, even if it's for the better, is well known to anyone who spends more than 5 minutes around others. GW is well aware of this and tries to not rock 40k's boat too much.
And yet they rock the boat more than any other game developer I've ever followed. I'd argue GW is a wildly successful scientific experiment proving that gamers are way less resistant to change than the popular perception insists, given that their wild swings in design direction result in a fractured community of angry people shouting at each other about which edition was the best rather than causing everyone to give up and leave because they changed the game once.
1. I actually feel bad whether i win or lose. Either because ive been absolutely shafted in the first two turns, or vice versa.
2. Theres a quite clear and distinct divide between the "competitive" players and the "casual" players. Both wanting or needing different things and taking the game in opposite directions. GW listens to one of these camps as their voice is deafening.
3. Codexes being released with gaps of potentially 2-3 years is not acceptable, not even debatable. Especially as the game really relies on balancing to have any semblance of fairness. They should all be released AT THE SAME TIME, left for a long period of time to garner feedback, and then updated.
4. CPs/Strats/Objectives/Secondaries/Rerolls/Aura Buffs/Wombo Combos have just muddied the waters of what should be a simple battle of minds between the players, where it should be about battlefield awareness and your units specific traits and abilities, not generic gotcha cards and meta builds.
5. Costs of models too damn high.
6. Order in which GW prioritize anything is baffling. My friends have Tau, Chaos, Nids and Guard...all left in the dust.
7. There seems to be no pattern in what unit gets what. By that i mean FNP's, Invulns, -s to hit etc. They just seem spread out to anyone at random for no real reason.
I could keep going but theres no point. Id either get told to go play something else entirely, play an older edition, get good, or make my own rules (which i did and posted here but of course that got blasted too because reasons). Shame because Warhammer 40K is definitely my favourite fantasy thing to follow. The boardgame just sucks so much, as do GWs practices.
EDIT: Oh, I will end by saying everyones experiences differ based on their groups and metas etc. For me, none of my friends will stray from playing Matched 9th because they "dont want to have to learn another ruleset". People will just gravitate to the easiest method. Nothing I can really do about that.
Good point. If NinthMuskateer was a team of several people who were paid and spent a full time work day working on said rules. Don't pull that false equivalence crap. You know full well GW are fully capable of producing competant rules. They're the biggest tabletop game producer in the world by a very large margin and literal single people produce much better rule sets than they do.
Ninth and I are cool, because we figured out our communication break.
But the point is that all of us are talking about the slice of the game that most concerns us. Most Dakkanauts lean competitive, which I'm cool with, but frankly I personally don't care about. You, Sim, as I know from previous conversations, aren't particularly concerned with Crusade, and might be likely to scrap it entirely in order to do your one man overhaul of the rules. Similarly, I've read the posts of Dakkanauts who just love that Open War deck, and they might be content to let us both burn.
In other conversations, folks have suggested that minimizing the number of factions or subfactions is the key to reducing bloat, and there is a lot of truth to that. I mean, the only Space Marines I'm interested in are the ones who function as Chambers Militant for the Inquisition, so if I wanted to reduce bloat, bye bye every Space Marine that isn't Deathwatch or Greyknights. The game I came up with would absolutely be less bloated, but it would kill the company in a week, right?
People have suggested games like Dust or X-Wing are better. From a certain perspective, they almost certainly are. And I'm sure I'd have fun playing them, and I might even have so much fun that I play more of them than 40k for a month, or even a year. I'd sing their praises, recognizing them for what they are- great games that I can play quickly and easily and have fun playing. But I'd always come back to 40k, and specifically 9th, because a game with a) 15+ factions b) with a minimum of five subfactions each, c) rules and d) plastic models for all of them and e) a progression system that f) links with at least 4 game sizes to encourage and support escalation is incredibly important to me. I personally rank all six of the things I listed as more important to me than balance. I fully recognize that I am a minority in this, especially on Dakka, but there are others with similar tastes, and there are still other groups with different priorities than yours or mine.
So yes, you can definitely find games that are better than 40k in the way that you want them to be better. If you can find one that does my six priorities better, please tell me what it is, but I don't think you can. And if any one of us thinks we can improve whatever it is that we most want to improve without making it worse for someone with different priorities, feel free to shout out.
What makes 40k so successful and gives it that broad player base is a combination of factors; inertia IS certainly a part of it, as is its effective distribution system (effective, that is, when the world isn't falling apart), and the strength of its IP; I'd be a fool to deny any of that. But it's also true that the fact that it caters to such a broad spectrum of interests and does so much more as a system than any one of us is likely to want or use is also a part of that success.
It isn't the best at doing any of the things it does, but it does all of them well enough that it attracts a huge number of people and it keeps many of us for decades. Suggestions that any of us can improve the game as a whole without compromising any of the various forms of play supported by the game, or any of the factions or subfactions within it seem to me to be unrealistic. This isn't to say that there might not be some of us who could... I've got to admit that's at least possible, otherwise I'm guilty of just as much bias as some of the other arguments I've read on Dakka (and no, I'm not referring to any one specific person here, so please don't take offense). But I do think it's far, far more complicated when we try to improve the game for all perspectives, rather than merely trying to improve it from our own.
If you take any of those games that you feel are better and you give them the same size team and the same resources that GW has, maybe they could do all of this better. But ask yourself, would you then like the game? If there were 15 + factions in Dust with 5 sub factions each, even if it ran more smoothly than 40k, would you like it? And again, though I'm replying to you, Sim, this question is for all the folks who are discontent. Because I get that feeling that what some of you like about those other is their lack of 15 + factions with 5 subfactions each, and that any game that included that, no matter how elegant or well designed might not be as enjoyable to you as a game with just five and no subfactions at all.
And if that's the case, that's totally cool- it takes all kinds, and I'm glad you still have dust and X-Wing so that you can all still find happiness or at least contentment. But it should be as clear to you as it is to me that no solution that I propose to the "problem of 40K" will ever make you happy as it is to me that no solution you propose could ever make me happy. This doesn't make any of us bad people, nor does it give any of us a good reason to attack each other. But maybe we'd all be a little more tolerant of different perspectives (myself included) if we finally just admitted that any change we might propose has the potential to break the game for someone else, and that as it is, it does whatever it is we like well enough that we haven't entirely abandoned it to the degree that we're willing to walk away from the forum, even if some of us have walked away from the game.
And to those of you who are discontent enough that you have walked away from the game, first off, I admire your conviction. When I suggest to you that you might be happier also walking away from a forum specifically dedicated to said game, I'm only doing so because I believe it might genuinely make you happier. Dakka is super cool that way because it probably has a forum for the game you DO like- it's not a dedicated 40k site. Talking about things I like tends to make me happier than talking about things I don't like.
I happen to like 40k in it's current state, which is why I keep coming back- talking about a thing I like, even when the conversation requires me to defend it against those who don't generally makes me happy. If tenth drops and they kill Crusade, you'll probably never hear from me again because I will hate the game and talking about it will no longer make me happy. I'll continue to play 9th with whoever wants to play it- many in my circle will, but I'm not likely to write about it here.
It's kind of fascinating to see the response to fan-made rules. GW is the worst, except for everyone else that has a crack at it!
Edit: In relation to that, a quote from someone on Twitter (attribution irrelevant): 'there was this one tumblr post that proposed that the reason why fictional media that’s considered average in quality consistently performs well with fandoms spaces is that people like projecting their ideas onto a concept they can improve,' and this reminds me very much of 40k in amongst other (bigger, more popular) fandoms.
SemperMortis 798472 11137137 wrote:For the first time in a long while I am rather hopeful. GW seems to be moving in a more customer oriented direction. Responding to criticism and errors in the game markedly faster than in previous editions. GW seems to have realized they overloaded the market with new Marine kits and has moved towards a more balanced approach, Orkz getting new kits, Necrons, SOB, Mech. Its honestly a golden age in comparison to 5-7th.
Ah yeah how customer oriented they are. People tell them for a year that they are late with updating various marines to the same statline, and their anwsers to this is, that because they have a 3 months delay and they need the big sellers out with new kits, at all costs, instead of puting out the books that should be out right now, they would rather update factions who are already doing fine or great in the game. Litteral golden age, when you have to wait for an update that could be writen by a clerk in lets say 3 days, if they said clerk was really lazy and took a lot of breaks, and the text had to be proof read and accepted by 2 different tiers of managment.
You might be too young to remember how bad it used to be, but getting a yearly FAQ and an errata is....basically unheard of by GW. Christ we used to go years without getting updated rules for anything, Orkz went 2 entire editions without getting a codex, sisters went 4 I believe. So again, compared to that, this is a golden age.
I'm negative on the game side of things, lore wise however I think Black Library has being really strong in its turnout although understandably they've struggled with delivery throughout the pandemic.
What I don't understand about GW is why they decided to release a new edition in the middle of a pandemic whilst the Psychic Awakening wasn't complete and then advertise it as the most fine tuned and balanced edition to date. This context coupled with the lack of communication and honesty from GW makes it a struggle to be positive.
It's not like GW needed a new edition to make more money, their performance in the last 18 months has being phenomenal just based on model sales.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW doesn't have any excuses to fall back on for their piss-poor rules.
They're a company that's been doing this for decades, yet has not learnt a thing.
Oh they have learned, they know now that no matter what they do people will still buy their models/books -raise the prices absurdly high..yep still selling lets raise them some more/-design severe codex creep and rules/faction favoritism...yep people are still buying
IP inertia is keeping them going, at least until they price almost everybody out of the hobby.
aphyon wrote: Oh they have learned, they know now that no matter what they do people will still buy their models/books -raise the prices absurdly high..yep still selling lets raise them some more/-design severe codex creep and rules/faction favoritism...yep people are still buying
If that was the case there would be no bad units as everything would be continuously getting more and more powerful as they push to increase sales.
The (repeated) mistakes they make with writing rules don't speak to a company that has a firm grasp on creating a game.
aphyon wrote: Oh they have learned, they know now that no matter what they do people will still buy their models/books -raise the prices absurdly high..yep still selling lets raise them some more/-design severe codex creep and rules/faction favoritism...yep people are still buying
If that was the case there would be no bad units as everything would be continuously getting more and more powerful as they push to increase sales.
The (repeated) mistakes they make with writing rules don't speak to a company that has a firm grasp on creating a game.
I would think it’s just a large group of management with no idea what they are really doing with the game, and a dev team that’s left picking up and making a bunch of there whims work somehow on a tight deadline.
If a faction desperately needs something to really work, it seems they have to wait for some inspiration somewhere else in the company. As it feels they cannot even use minis that would work from other parts of the game to supplement a faction in the chance that they may get minis of there own to fill the position.
You have a very skewed perception of what the consumer base is.
for every "competitive" player that goes to stores and chases the meta, theres at least 10 casual ones that dont play in stores and dont participate on the forums. These are the ones making most of GW's money because they often buy new boxes instead of scouring ebay for deals.
Okey, but then we are starting to talk about a group no one sees, and now one can check if it exists and how it exists, because as you said it they are not on any forums. And saying that is 10times as large is then taken based on what? When I say that a lot of RG players bought centurions, I can give arguments for it. All around the worlds people started posting armies with centurions in their armies end of 8th. When IH, and marines in general, started running chaplain dreads, I can do the same. When someone like you says, and I am not saying you are wrong, that there is 10 times as many people who just buy random models, painted them and play at home, where is the proof of that?
People say that w40k became more gamy and tournament focused under ther 8th rule set. Now I don't know how the game looked before, as I did not play back then. But even if it s partially true. GW blew up sales wise when that became a thing. Meaning that at least some of sales have to be generated by the game being more about efficiency and that kind of playing the game.
A quick note on balance, player expectation and the outcome...
You can't balance 40k. There are too many minor variables. In a 2000 point game players want a choice of 5 point pistols on characters. Balanced games have far fewer choices because most are meaningless.
Combine that with lack of manoeuvre and traditional wargame tactics; and instead the reliance on CPs and stratagems for that sort of depth, and you have something that will always balance poorly.
NinthMusketeer wrote: To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.
Yes, you could balance the game better IF THAT WAS ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO. Any of us could.
Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month...
It's pretty simple, set a balance point leading up to a CA release, hold that standard until the next CA is released. Don't release an overcharged codex like Drukhari in 9th, AM in 8th, Necrons in 7th, GK in 5th... in the middle of an edition/CA cycle. Casual players don't just have to know how to balance their games, they also have to learn armies, keep up with other hobbies and have a day-job to pay for their plastic crack addiction. Stop white-knighting GW, there is no good reason why they are releasing stuff as stupid as they have released with Drukhari and AdMech or why they've left Tau and CSM to gather dust when it wouldn't take a world of effort to give them a little love.
As a narrative player, and therefore in the same camp as P-Jake, I can safely say I don't like where 40k is at all for narrative play.
40k is "outcome focused" at its core - i.e., if 4 lascannons shoot at a Leman Russ, it is probably dead. The order they're fired in doesn't really matter, nor does the damage the tank takes on the way. This is "about right" for the outcome of an engagement between 4 Lascannons and the Russ, and so it's fine.
Narrative play (I would argue) is process focused. Suddenly, of those 4, it starts to matter. You can see how awful this is in Crusade right now: consider the following example.
The Eldar player has the Titanslayer agenda, and uses three Fire Prisms to engage a Baneblade tank using the cooperative engagement capability of their vehicles (linked fire).
The Baneblade dies and explodes. BOOM! So, who gets the XP?
Ah, yes, the one who fired the last shot, whether it was a shuricannon that did one wound or the main gun. The three tanks are cooperating and working together to bring down a larger foe, but only one can get the XP, because only one can kill it. In the timing in reality, though, not only did they shoot it literally simultaneously but they even shot it with the same shell laser blast.
Crusade's XP system is process focused ("give the XP to the unit that killed the enemy") while 40k is outcome focused ("eh, it's about right that this many battlecannons should kill that Titan").
Here's why this is bad: This causes EXTREMELY warping behavior by people that want a specific unit to get narrative XP rewards, and that behavior is completely non-narrative. A player could, for example, charge with several units of Khorne Berzerkers. But we want to guarantee Kharn Jr. gets the XP points, so we'll charge with one and Kharn Jr. but not the others, and even though one could fight twice we won't let them because we need Kharn Jr. to strike. If a Space Marine Judicator (for example) makes Kharn Jr. strike last, it can actually be disappointing (because the Zerkers have to kill the enemy and 'steal' the XP from Kharn Jr. first).
Another example is my Keepers of Secrets, who behave very erratically indeed in my efforts to do "XP management" during a game - some move away from the enemy to make space for the one behind to charge, like the enemy unit is some kind of buffet but you have to let the person behind you go before you can return for seconds. Or the way my psychic powers go - or even whether I choose to re-roll hits if a unit "can" reroll hits in the fight phase. If I want the enemy to survive so another unit can get XP, I won't even reroll the hits. What's the narrative there? My super-jealous, extra-ambitious, violence-obsessed, excessively-murderous gigantic daemonbeast pulled its punches so that a slightly less experienced gigantic daemonbeast could have the sensation of doing that last wound to the Baneblade?
You have a very skewed perception of what the consumer base is.
for every "competitive" player that goes to stores and chases the meta, theres at least 10 casual ones that dont play in stores and dont participate on the forums. These are the ones making most of GW's money because they often buy new boxes instead of scouring ebay for deals.
Okey, but then we are starting to talk about a group no one sees, and now one can check if it exists and how it exists, because as you said it they are not on any forums. And saying that is 10times as large is then taken based on what? When I say that a lot of RG players bought centurions, I can give arguments for it. All around the worlds people started posting armies with centurions in their armies end of 8th. When IH, and marines in general, started running chaplain dreads, I can do the same. When someone like you says, and I am not saying you are wrong, that there is 10 times as many people who just buy random models, painted them and play at home, where is the proof of that?
People say that w40k became more gamy and tournament focused under ther 8th rule set. Now I don't know how the game looked before, as I did not play back then. But even if it s partially true. GW blew up sales wise when that became a thing. Meaning that at least some of sales have to be generated by the game being more about efficiency and that kind of playing the game.
I just need to talk to the owners of the multiple stores i've visited. They all say the same thing : most of their sales come from people that don't show up in store to play.
And thats for MTG, 40k and AoS. Its still anecdotal but i'm sure its reflected even more with stores that have an online shop.
just split the exp between all the units that participated. youre allowed to houserule stuff like that
And if my opponent disagrees? This has implications for every game of Crusade I play in the future, remember. Or if they collectively earned 2xp on 3 vehicles?
My critique is that GW's narrative rules are bad for narrative play. Saying "well you don't have to use those rules" doesn't refute that point in the slightest. If anything, it is simple agreement with my argument.
I reckon based on your previous posts, Unit, that this will not be a viable "solution" but I'm going to toss it out there.
You can semi-remedy this by making one of the Fire Prisms involved but that did not get the killing blow your Marked for Greatness unit. This way they get XP
Alternatively, you can backfill the narrative by saying the Fire Prism pilot (commander? I don't know the situation inside of Eldar tanks) that dealt the killing blow is the one who gave the command/coordinated the group attack, and he gains the XP as a representation of that heat-of-the-moment commandering.
As a narrative player, and therefore in the same camp as P-Jake, I can safely say I don't like where 40k is at all for narrative play.
40k is "outcome focused" at its core - i.e., if 4 lascannons shoot at a Leman Russ, it is probably dead. The order they're fired in doesn't really matter, nor does the damage the tank takes on the way. This is "about right" for the outcome of an engagement between 4 Lascannons and the Russ, and so it's fine.
Narrative play (I would argue) is process focused. Suddenly, of those 4, it starts to matter. You can see how awful this is in Crusade right now: consider the following example.
The Eldar player has the Titanslayer agenda, and uses three Fire Prisms to engage a Baneblade tank using the cooperative engagement capability of their vehicles (linked fire).
The Baneblade dies and explodes. BOOM! So, who gets the XP?
Ah, yes, the one who fired the last shot, whether it was a shuricannon that did one wound or the main gun. The three tanks are cooperating and working together to bring down a larger foe, but only one can get the XP, because only one can kill it. In the timing in reality, though, not only did they shoot it literally simultaneously but they even shot it with the same shell laser blast.
Crusade's XP system is process focused ("give the XP to the unit that killed the enemy") while 40k is outcome focused ("eh, it's about right that this many battlecannons should kill that Titan").
Here's why this is bad:
This causes EXTREMELY warping behavior by people that want a specific unit to get narrative XP rewards, and that behavior is completely non-narrative. A player could, for example, charge with several units of Khorne Berzerkers. But we want to guarantee Kharn Jr. gets the XP points, so we'll charge with one and Kharn Jr. but not the others, and even though one could fight twice we won't let them because we need Kharn Jr. to strike. If a Space Marine Judicator (for example) makes Kharn Jr. strike last, it can actually be disappointing (because the Zerkers have to kill the enemy and 'steal' the XP from Kharn Jr. first).
Another example is my Keepers of Secrets, who behave very erratically indeed in my efforts to do "XP management" during a game - some move away from the enemy to make space for the one behind to charge, like the enemy unit is some kind of buffet but you have to let the person behind you go before you can return for seconds. Or the way my psychic powers go - or even whether I choose to re-roll hits if a unit "can" reroll hits in the fight phase. If I want the enemy to survive so another unit can get XP, I won't even reroll the hits. What's the narrative there? My super-jealous, extra-ambitious, violence-obsessed, excessively-murderous gigantic daemonbeast pulled its punches so that a slightly less experienced gigantic daemonbeast could have the sensation of doing that last wound to the Baneblade?
I do agree with Unit; I'm just not sure how to solve the problem.
If you expand the experience scale to go 1 - 500, you could divide the total XP gain by all the units that contribute to the Agenda..
But then you run into a book keeping nightmare in a system that already requires a fair bit of it. And you run into the problem of people soloing in order to exploit the increased reward that would be required to offset the mechanic of XP for all contributors.
Without doing this, few units would ever receive a whole number of XP.
There's also the issue that you'd have the whole army level together, or at least closer to it, and that cuts down on the glory factor for individual units- similar to the way some people think every player getting a trophy diminishes sports.
Having some experienced units and some green units fighting on the table together is a great story hook too; experience sharing among units wouldn't necessarily eliminate this- green new units would still join as the supply limit grew, but I do think it would narrow the spectrum of experience in an army, which just doesn't give as much story potential.
Unit is not wrong here, I'm just not sure how to address the issue, and I feel GW's solution is an acceptable level of abstraction. I am sure it's possible to develop something that achieve Unit's ideal- it would be a heck of a game, and I'd totally buy in. But I think it would require a fair amount of detail to avoid the pitfalls, and they would probably have to make it a product line of it's own rather than a "Way to Play" option in the BRB and regular Codices.
There would be advantages- needing a Crusade BRB would have given them a place to drop ALL of the bespoke Crusade content day one, which would also contribute to decluttering dexes. I suspect Unit wouldn't mind this as a solution; I wouldn't either really; I would have started growing a Living Saint a year ago! Imagine what she would be now!
And if they do a reboot for 10th (uggghhh- edition churn is my least favourite aspect of any game), this might be a way to improve the Crusade component, assuming they decide to keep it.
I just need to talk to the owners of the multiple stores i've visited. They all say the same thing : most of their sales come from people that don't show up in store to play.
And thats for MTG, 40k and AoS. Its still anecdotal but i'm sure its reflected even more with stores that have an online shop.
I can imagine this with MtG. People technicaly run events at stores, but they are just registered as store events, in reality they happen in KFCs or McDonnalds where there is enough space to have events every weekend. And I guess the difference between countries where people do play at stores, and those where people play at homes are going to be big.
I just need to talk to the owners of the multiple stores i've visited. They all say the same thing : most of their sales come from people that don't show up in store to play.
And thats for MTG, 40k and AoS. Its still anecdotal but i'm sure its reflected even more with stores that have an online shop.
I can imagine this with MtG. People technicaly run events at stores, but they are just registered as store events, in reality they happen in KFCs or McDonnalds where there is enough space to have events every weekend.
I've never seen that before, but when I was big into MTG I was in a bigger city that has a store focused almost entirely on MTG that holds events.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW doesn't have any excuses to fall back on for their piss-poor rules.
They're a company that's been doing this for decades, yet has not learnt a thing.
Can you honestly state right in this moment that they've learned nothing?
GW got by on fun rules, awesome models, and engaging fluff. Balance really wasn't on the radar and not until the past ~8 years have we been so tuned into the game. Fantasy was my jam and that was barely balanced ( though more than 40K ), but I enjoyed it anyway. I honestly looked down on most 40K players back then as "passing WAAC gamers". Yes, I know.
The company finally changed hands 6 years ago and turning a massive ship like this takes a ton of time.
Daedalus81 wrote: Can you honestly state right in this moment that they've learned nothing?
They've learnt how to spin, twist and sometimes just outright lie (to us and themselves) about their "best rules ever!".
Daedalus81 wrote: GW got by on fun rules, awesome models, and engaging fluff. Balance really wasn't on the radar and not until the past ~8 years have we been so tuned into the game. Fantasy was my jam and that was barely balanced ( though more than 40K ), but I enjoyed it anyway. I honestly looked down on most 40K players back then as "passing WAAC gamers". Yes, I know.
That seems more a 'you' thing than anything else.
Daedalus81 wrote: The company finally changed hands 6 years ago and turning a massive ship like this takes a ton of time.
So when do we see signs of that? They're still writing terrible rules. They're still increasing the prices with every release. They do have a Facebook page now, and at least openly don't treat their customers as a necessary evil, so I guess that makes up for it.
You have to understand just how bad Games Workshop truly was during 6th-8th edition 40k. The organisation had lost all pretence of being a strategic war game and was just looking to pump out expensive models to collectors. The time and energy (capital cost) of investing in designing rules for the tabletop was clearly treated with disdain by the C-suite.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW doesn't have any excuses to fall back on for their piss-poor rules.
They're a company that's been doing this for decades, yet has not learnt a thing.
Can you honestly state right in this moment that they've learned nothing?
GW got by on fun rules, awesome models, and engaging fluff. Balance really wasn't on the radar and not until the past ~8 years have we been so tuned into the game. Fantasy was my jam and that was barely balanced ( though more than 40K ), but I enjoyed it anyway. I honestly looked down on most 40K players back then as "passing WAAC gamers". Yes, I know.
The company finally changed hands 6 years ago and turning a massive ship like this takes a ton of time.
The company didn't 'change hands.' They played a very short round of musical chairs in the boardroom. COO (Roundtree) became CEO and CEO (Kirby) became a 'Non Executive Chairman.'
Roundtree has been with GW for almost 25 years now. As Chief Operating Officer, he'd been a part of most of Kirby's decisions.
You've been taken in by some shiny name placards and glitter.
Gregor Samsa wrote: You have to understand just how bad Games Workshop truly was during 6th-8th edition 40k. The organisation had lost all pretence of being a strategic war game and was just looking to pump out expensive models to collectors. The time and energy (capital cost) of investing in designing rules for the tabletop was clearly treated with disdain by the C-suite.
It started even earlier than that. I'd say at least 8th edition WFB was showing warning signs of where the company was heading in Kirby's hands. The company lost a lot of it's original devs in the mid 00's as well and of the long time devs we have left only Cruddace seems to be working on 40k these days while all the other long term names are working AoS or other games (Vetock is doing Lord of the Rings IIRC).
That isn't to make excuses for the team (I'm still staying out of that fight at this point) just to help lay out some background information for those who don't know.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW doesn't have any excuses to fall back on for their piss-poor rules.
They're a company that's been doing this for decades, yet has not learnt a thing.
Can you honestly state right in this moment that they've learned nothing?
GW got by on fun rules, awesome models, and engaging fluff. Balance really wasn't on the radar and not until the past ~8 years have we been so tuned into the game. Fantasy was my jam and that was barely balanced ( though more than 40K ), but I enjoyed it anyway. I honestly looked down on most 40K players back then as "passing WAAC gamers". Yes, I know.
The company finally changed hands 6 years ago and turning a massive ship like this takes a ton of time.
The company didn't 'change hands.' They played a very short round of musical chairs in the boardroom. COO (Roundtree) became CEO and CEO (Kirby) became a 'Non Executive Chairman.'
Roundtree has been with GW for almost 25 years now. As Chief Operating Officer, he'd been a part of most of Kirby's decisions.
You've been taken in by some shiny name placards and glitter.
With them changing positions (and Kirby not holding two positions anymore like he'd done in the past) there has been a marked shift in the company's direction. We've been seeing more box sets that are cheaper than individual kits as well, but there has been a marked increase in FOMO over the last couple years and new kits getting more expensive to maintain a profit margin that could easilly be maintained by not taking massive bonuses at the executive level. I'd be more understanding of the prices if they were paying the employees more, but considering GW doesn't seem to be raising wages with the increased profits we can see that at the end of the day the board is still the board, even if they don't outright hate the customers anymore.
Gregor Samsa wrote: You have to understand just how bad Games Workshop truly was during 6th-8th edition 40k. The organisation had lost all pretence of being a strategic war game and was just looking to pump out expensive models to collectors. The time and energy (capital cost) of investing in designing rules for the tabletop was clearly treated with disdain by the C-suite.
I've been around since the tail end of 1st Ed 40k. I know what they're like.
I absolutely hate crusade, I think it was perfectly the wrong thing to do. What narrative play didn't need was more rules to turn the game into a semi-RPG, i.e. the Dungeons and Dragons treatment. It ends up doing the exact opposite of creating narratively compelling games, by encouraging power games to min-max the options and make ridiculous decisions, exactly as you see in Dungeons and Dragons and in any other RPG system that emphasizes rules and dice-rolling over creating a strong narrative.
Crusade ends up just being Fantasy 40k League, with all the same nonsensicality to it.
yukishiro1 wrote: I absolutely hate crusade, I think it was perfectly the wrong thing to do. What narrative play didn't need was more rules to turn the game into a semi-RPG, i.e. the Dungeons and Dragons treatment. It ends up doing the exact opposite of creating narratively compelling games, by encouraging power games to min-max the options and make ridiculous decisions, exactly as you see in Dungeons and Dragons and in any other RPG system that emphasizes rules and dice-rolling over creating a strong narrative.
Crusade ends up just being Fantasy 40k League, with all the same nonsensicality to it.
I disagree as one of the things that Narrative needed was a tools for its sandbox. I know everyone says that the narrative community doesn't need help, but what Crusade does is make narrative more accessible to more people. People who may not like everything matched play has to offer for example.
I won't say it was done perfectly (should have been rules laid out for using points for example) but it's a solid concept that a lot of people love and is opening up narrative to a wider audience who enjoy the game but don't want to play the more tournament focused side of it.
yukishiro1 wrote: I absolutely hate crusade, I think it was perfectly the wrong thing to do. What narrative play didn't need was more rules to turn the game into a semi-RPG, i.e. the Dungeons and Dragons treatment. It ends up doing the exact opposite of creating narratively compelling games, by encouraging power games to min-max the options and make ridiculous decisions, exactly as you see in Dungeons and Dragons and in any other RPG system that emphasizes rules and dice-rolling over creating a strong narrative.
Crusade ends up just being Fantasy 40k League, with all the same nonsensicality to it.
I disagree as one of the things that Narrative needed was a tools for its sandbox. I know everyone says that the narrative community doesn't need help, but what Crusade does is make narrative more accessible to more people. People who may not like everything matched play has to offer for example.
I won't say it was done perfectly (should have been rules laid out for using points for example) but it's a solid concept that a lot of people love and is opening up narrative to a wider audience who enjoy the game but don't want to play the more tournament focused side of it.
Progression for the sake of progression does not a narrative make.
The decisions you make for your units should never be about gaining XP. They should be the most appropriate for the situation at hand.
I have as much interest in Crusade rules as I do in matched play rules. GW didn't need to bolt on more rules to foster narrative play. Didn't ask for them and didn't need them. But some felt the need to XP TO THE MAX(TM) D&D style and whelp here we go...
yukishiro1 wrote: I absolutely hate crusade, I think it was perfectly the wrong thing to do. What narrative play didn't need was more rules to turn the game into a semi-RPG, i.e. the Dungeons and Dragons treatment. It ends up doing the exact opposite of creating narratively compelling games, by encouraging power games to min-max the options and make ridiculous decisions, exactly as you see in Dungeons and Dragons and in any other RPG system that emphasizes rules and dice-rolling over creating a strong narrative.
Crusade ends up just being Fantasy 40k League, with all the same nonsensicality to it.
I disagree as one of the things that Narrative needed was a tools for its sandbox. I know everyone says that the narrative community doesn't need help, but what Crusade does is make narrative more accessible to more people. People who may not like everything matched play has to offer for example.
I won't say it was done perfectly (should have been rules laid out for using points for example) but it's a solid concept that a lot of people love and is opening up narrative to a wider audience who enjoy the game but don't want to play the more tournament focused side of it.
Progression for the sake of progression does not a narrative make.
The decisions you make for your units should never be about gaining XP. They should be the most appropriate for the situation at hand.
I have as much interest in Crusade rules as I do in matched play rules. GW didn't need to bolt on more rules to foster narrative play. Didn't ask for them and didn't need them. But some felt the need to XP TO THE MAX(TM) D&D style and whelp here we go...
Like I said, it's not perfect, but for the first narrative system we've ever officially gotten? It's not bad and it's a good basis to work from if you're doing something narrative but didn't know how to capture the feeling of your characters and units growing over the course of a campaign.
The system existed before and it didn't need reasons to exploit it.
But you get to pimp out units...but only to a point then.
move on to next and reset. Same type of BS "regular" 40k had devolved into. Newest hotness(i.e. crusade rules for those new models).
It's literally more book-keeping and complexity than playing a GT Mission.
I'm going to agree to disagree on this. I've found many people do better with some kind of framework to work from than GW say "you can do what you want with the rules". Maybe it's not more accessible for you, but from what I've seen it's opened more people up to narrative play since it gives them something to work with.
Kind of the difference between getting people together to play D&D versus being handed paper and pencil and being told to write your own fantasy RPG from scratch is how I've seen it.
ClockworkZion wrote:
It started even earlier than that. I'd say at least 8th edition WFB was showing warning signs of where the company was heading in Kirby's hands. The company lost a lot of it's original devs in the mid 00's as well and of the long time devs we have left only Cruddace seems to be working on 40k these days while all the other long term names are working AoS or other games (Vetock is doing Lord of the Rings IIRC).
That isn't to make excuses for the team (I'm still staying out of that fight at this point) just to help lay out some background information for those who don't know.
All i need to say to that-game design lead for GW from 1990-2004 Andy Chambers.
He gave us among other things-
2nd, 3rd, 4th, and laid the groundwork for 5th ed 40K that came out the year he left.
.4th, 5th and 6th ed WHFB .necromunda
.epic 40K .gorka morka
,battlefleet gothic
And then he left the company, lets say some of us have noticed the difference so yeah gotta agree on this point.
yukishiro1 wrote:I absolutely hate crusade, I think it was perfectly the wrong thing to do. What narrative play didn't need was more rules to turn the game into a semi-RPG, i.e. the Dungeons and Dragons treatment. It ends up doing the exact opposite of creating narratively compelling games, by encouraging power games to min-max the options and make ridiculous decisions, exactly as you see in Dungeons and Dragons and in any other RPG system that emphasizes rules and dice-rolling over creating a strong narrative.
Crusade ends up just being Fantasy 40k League, with all the same nonsensicality to it.
Very true the old kill team campaign progression rules that were a grand total of 2 pages
.a wound chart with 2d6 percentile from 2-66 that gave character to each member of the team that they carried forward in future games
.a skills and experience progression set of rules with caps for stats and wargear as well as special skills.
The book keeping was very minimal, easy to follow and made sense. one of my favorites wounds was impressive scars (battle wound) gives a perminent +1 to LD stat to that model one time only (cannot be gained again) quite appropriate when of of our dark eldar players rolled that result.
It's literally more book-keeping and complexity than playing a GT Mission.
I'm going to agree to disagree on this. I've found many people do better with some kind of framework to work from than GW say "you can do what you want with the rules". Maybe it's not more accessible for you, but from what I've seen it's opened more people up to narrative play since it gives them something to work with.
Kind of the difference between getting people together to play D&D versus being handed paper and pencil and being told to write your own fantasy RPG from scratch is how I've seen it.
Then do it like classic battletech does it. they have a book of core rules, and an entire book of optional rules that player groups can pick and choose from. it gives both framework and freedom at the same time.
Voss wrote: The company didn't 'change hands.' They played a very short round of musical chairs in the boardroom. COO (Roundtree) became CEO and CEO (Kirby) became a 'Non Executive Chairman.'
Roundtree has been with GW for almost 25 years now. As Chief Operating Officer, he'd been a part of most of Kirby's decisions.
You've been taken in by some shiny name placards and glitter.
one of the designers once said in an interview that it was not the change from Kirby to Roundtree, but that with that change, the middle managment was replaced as well, and this was the big turning point that allowed them to support the game again (FAQ/Errata)
Kind of the difference between getting people together to play D&D versus being handed paper and pencil and being told to write your own fantasy RPG from scratch is how I've seen it.
no, it is like taking a premade D&D adventure with pre-made characters vs making your own D&D characters and adventure
you don't need to write the rules from scratch because those are already there and Crusade is nice for those who have never done something like this before
the same way the premade D&D characters/adventures are nice for those who have never played P&P and don't want to spend the first night to create characters
It's literally more book-keeping and complexity than playing a GT Mission.
I'm going to agree to disagree on this. I've found many people do better with some kind of framework to work from than GW say "you can do what you want with the rules". Maybe it's not more accessible for you, but from what I've seen it's opened more people up to narrative play since it gives them something to work with.
Kind of the difference between getting people together to play D&D versus being handed paper and pencil and being told to write your own fantasy RPG from scratch is how I've seen it.
The do it like classic battletech does it. they have a book of core rules, and an entire book of optional rules that player groups can pick and choose from. it gives both framework and freedom at the same time.
I'd be okay with a separate Crusade supplement book like the GT pack, sure. Look, I'm not saying what we have is perfect. I freely admit it's flawed and needs work, I'm just saying it's not a bad framework, it just needs to be refined further and I hope GW is going to update it to make it better. More narrative support in the campaign books (like a sequence of games to play in a row with an escalation element to each game with there being different rewards for the winner and loser of each game) would be good too.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Racerguy180 wrote: The thing is zero imagination, it's like they need to be told how to have fun and tell a story at the same time.
Some people get decision paralysis when given too much freedom. It's why some people don't enjoy games like Minecraft, but give them an open world game like Grand Theft Auto or Breath of the Wild and they dive right in. I'm not saying everyone has to like it, but let's not take potshots at people who enjoy different things.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
KingmanHighborn wrote: And GW's seeming hate of people converting and bitz buy/sell/swapping is disappointing.
It's more that GW hates opening themselves up to another Chapterhouse incident. There are better ways to handle it, but GW does business like it's still 1980.
It's not potshots, it's a fundamental skill that just isn't available or anything.
I get that paralysis by analysis is a thing but when you have; stats, lore & models it pretty much writes itself.
Independent thought is a foreign concept, apparently.
Or even tangential, tertiary or otherwise.
If the only way for you to form a narrative is if GW tells you how, fine. But don't go acting like it's something miraculous they've come out with for 9th and hadn't existed since 40k was a thing.
Racerguy180 wrote: It's not potshots, it's a fundamental skill that just isn't available or anything.
I get that paralysis by analysis is a thing but when you have; stats, lore & models it pretty much writes itself.
Independent thought is a foreign concept, apparently.
Or even tangential, tertiary or otherwise.
If the only way for you to form a narrative is if GW tells you how, fine. But don't go acting like it's something miraculous they've come out with for 9th.
No, this is definitely potshots. Look, some people aren't great at being handed a blank piece of paper and being told to write a story. Having someone do a lot of the leg work for them makes it possible for them to have fun and there is nothing wrong with that.
If it was as fundamental as you say then homebrew and narrative would be bigger than it was before, but a lot of people don't like to leave the sandbox that the game creators make. Just because you do doesn't make it as fundamental as breathing.
EDIT:
If the only way for you to form a narrative is if GW tells you how, fine. But don't go acting like it's something miraculous they've come out with for 9th and hadn't existed since 40k was a thing.
I don't know what post you're reading but that's not what I've been saying. I've said it's good but flawed. Not great, not perfect and definitely not miraculous, just good. It functions and it can be a fun time with the right people. I've repeated several times that I think it's flawed as well and have even said I would be more than happy if they updated it to be better, or reworked the system entirely if it was an improvement. But I don't think it's the burning trash heap some people seem to think it is (honestly if bookkeeping is the thing that makes it unfun for you I can already tell you're not a person who takes notes when playing an RPG and that's fine but let's not pretend that keeping track of things should make or break a system).
No, this is definitely potshots. Look, some people aren't great at being handed a blank piece of paper and being told to write a story. Having someone do a lot of the leg work for them makes it possible for them to have fun and there is nothing wrong with that.
If it was as fundamental as you say then homebrew and narrative would be bigger than it was before, but a lot of people don't like to leave the sandbox that the game creators make. Just because you do doesn't make it as fundamental as breathing.
It's not being handed a blank sheet of paper, it's more like mad-libs(fill in the blank when you already have:
A)army rules
B)basic lore of faction/opponent
C)the available units(both sides)
That is literally all you need to make a narrative.
If it was here is a model and make your own game/rules then I'd understand. But with basic 40k, 75% of it is already done for you, do you really need 100%?
If yes then matched play would like to say hi.
Well yeah, because the assumption is that if the codex is writen well, then a 100% pre build army is going to be good an efficient. And an army which is only 75% pre build by the designers would have to be really broken, if it were to be able to beat out armies that are design to work as a whole at 100% of models.
Doesn't even matter if you play narrative or matched play, because in the end the army has to work within the given set of rules. An army that has bad crusade rules or bad unit progression, is going to be just as bad and unfun to play, as a bad regular army played under matched play rules.
Karol wrote: Well yeah, because the assumption is that if the codex is writen well, then a 100% pre build army is going to be good an efficient. And an army which is only 75% pre build by the designers would have to be really broken, if it were to be able to beat out armies that are design to work as a whole at 100% of models.
I don't think you understand what I'm saying.
The percentages weren't relating to power or effectiveness(not point of narrative), but to how much of the narrative equation is done for you.
I'm quite sure we could play a narrative game where both would have fun.
Okey, but that is entering the realm of ,when to people agree, are friends and have limitless collections of models, they can write and agree on any set of rules to be good. In reality it doesn't matter which kind of rule set one uses. If one army has good crusade rule on top of good table top rules, then potential for fun is bigger. It is simple as that.
Lets say, for some reason, someone decides that they want to play an imperial fist termintor army. It is horrible and neither the crusade, not the regular marine and factions rules support such a game play. One can write 20 pages of lore how cool the army list is, and would sitll would not be as fun as someone who just runs a regular DE or SoB crusade army.
And effectivness is the point of everything. If someone builds an army X, lets say they want to play a ork army with just bikes. And the ork game play for bikes is horrible. The it will be horrible no matter, if one plays open, narrative or matched play.
Karol wrote: Okey, but that is entering the realm of ,when to people agree, are friends and have limitless collections of models, they can write and agree on any set of rules to be good. In reality it doesn't matter which kind of rule set one uses. If one army has good crusade rule on top of good table top rules, then potential for fun is bigger. It is simple as that.
Lets say, for some reason, someone decides that they want to play an imperial fist termintor army. It is horrible and neither the crusade, not the regular marine and factions rules support such a game play. One can write 20 pages of lore how cool the army list is, and would sitll would not be as fun as someone who just runs a regular DE or SoB crusade army.
And effectivness is the point of everything. If someone builds an army X, lets say they want to play a ork army with just bikes. And the ork game play for bikes is horrible. The it will be horrible no matter, if one plays open, narrative or matched play.
challenge accepted
You're missing the entire point of narrative & viewing it completely from a "I need to win to have fun" viewpoint.
I've played many games of my 20ish Salamanders vs endless waves of grunts & boys(only had 60 of each). Very narrative.
Played against Knights with only troops, very narrative.
Against magnus with no psyker of own and no way to stop him steamrolling me. Very narrative.
It is not a question of winning. If someone picks an army around lets say termintors, then they want to use termintors, and by use this means that the termintors have to do something durning the game. The I deployed my army, and then my opponent destroyed me option, is just as bad, as I had to sit down with my opponent and we had to deconstruct his army, so he wouldn't destroy me too fast.
If you pick, as in the examples I used, IF termintor armies or orks biker builds, you are already not playing to win.
What you describe is no longer a game, but something that is going around in ones head and not withing a preset set of rules on the table. In fact in a situation you describe someone may claim that something like music or talking with the opponent durning game is just as important as the game. Heck someone could claim that the armies being painted, even ignoring the fully painted rules, is just as important as the game rule set.
Karol wrote: Okey, but that is entering the realm of ,when to people agree, are friends and have limitless collections of models, they can write and agree on any set of rules to be good. In reality it doesn't matter which kind of rule set one uses. If one army has good crusade rule on top of good table top rules, then potential for fun is bigger. It is simple as that.
Lets say, for some reason, someone decides that they want to play an imperial fist termintor army. It is horrible and neither the crusade, not the regular marine and factions rules support such a game play. One can write 20 pages of lore how cool the army list is, and would sitll would not be as fun as someone who just runs a regular DE or SoB crusade army.
And effectivness is the point of everything. If someone builds an army X, lets say they want to play a ork army with just bikes. And the ork game play for bikes is horrible. The it will be horrible no matter, if one plays open, narrative or matched play.
Efficiency and effectiveness isn't the point if everything. Theme, concept and imagery matter too. You are too hyper focused on the competitive manifestation of the game.
This is why relative power as opposed to absolute power and relative list building, as opposed to list-building-for-advantage is an important component of these types of games and the people that enjoy them.
As yoy say, when you have friends and can agree on how to approach it; this is an important factor, do put some more EXP into friend making and less EXP into codex breaking.
There is no relative power. A list either works or it doesn't. If a list is unable to score objectives or gives up 3 secondaries more or less for free, then it is bad, no matter under what kind of rule set one plays under. When someone decides to play an IF terminator army, they are no longer part of a competition. It is like having a 2 years disadventage in the youngblood division.
Ah and I don't make friends, because people don't like me and fined me wierd, from what I have been told. But thank you for the advice. Still I am not sure what it has to do with the fact that under a narrative system, an army that does not work, has a lower chance of being fun to play WITHIN the narrative set of rules.
And for stuff like theme, concept and imagery, to stand in for game play and rules, the game has to litterally move from the table to your head. At this point one can claim that anything can be part of it or be fun. Good weather outside? game was fun. Spend time with people you don't dislike and had some vodka&kebab after it? game was fun.
Daedalus81 wrote: The company finally changed hands 6 years ago and turning a massive ship like this takes a ton of time.
So when do we see signs of that? They're still writing terrible rules. They're still increasing the prices with every release. They do have a Facebook page now, and at least openly don't treat their customers as a necessary evil, so I guess that makes up for it.
Yeah, except on facebook if you pose slightly critical questions like why R&H went legends or why we got in essence 3 years of primaris after primaris and only recently have a break from that nonsense, you will get your comment deleted
KingmanHighborn wrote: And GW's seeming hate of people converting and bitz buy/sell/swapping is disappointing.
It's more that GW hates opening themselves up to another Chapterhouse incident. There are better ways to handle it, but GW does business like it's still 1980.
Maybe, but GW of 80's, would have loved Chapterhouse and been happy they existed. Cause back in the day, even at the turn of the millennium, they were as much about the 'hobby' as the 'company'. I mean you had troll magazine, kitbashing guides, rules that 'supported and encouraged' kitbashing, and guides on making your own terrain rather than buying a box of something premade. And models were multipose, lots of weapon and gear choices, etc.
Nowadays they want units to only have the options they come with default in the box, and models/characters/etc., that you had to make on your own are now either deleted or put into Legends, which makes them pretty much deleted anyway.
Karol wrote: There is no relative power. A list either works or it doesn't. If a list is unable to score objectives or gives up 3 secondaries more or less for free, then it is bad, no matter under what kind of rule set one plays under. When someone decides to play an IF terminator army, they are no longer part of a competition. It is like having a 2 years disadventage in the youngblood division.
Ah and I don't make friends, because people don't like me and fined me wierd, from what I have been told. But thank you for the advice. Still I am not sure what it has to do with the fact that under a narrative system, an army that does not work, has a lower chance of being fun to play WITHIN the narrative set of rules.
And for stuff like theme, concept and imagery, to stand in for game play and rules, the game has to litterally move from the table to your head. At this point one can claim that anything can be part of it or be fun. Good weather outside? game was fun. Spend time with people you don't dislike and had some vodka&kebab after it? game was fun.
It is like being cut off from reality.
That last bit is where your "wierdness" disables you to experience it Karol. That's not your fault but in a way for us normals it's like we read a good book, we immerse ourselves, maybee even give charachters looks in our internal imagination.
The same for a narrative game, in which the later allows for that imersion. It's not the game and it's outcome that matters anymore but the immersion you can achieve, hence why losing or winning becomes secondary too a good narrative match or indeed campaign. Basically the game becomes an instrument for story telling.
However you are indeed correct if an army just doesn't work, rules wise, because it's that bad or that good (normally in narrative the balance needs to be fethed even more than regular 40k for that to happen) then yes that can break immersion. But it is less of an issue in narrative normally, except when it gets too bad, like late 7th where you had in essence for a casual match already about 30min-1h discussion as to what to field to not make the match a forgone conclusion...
KingmanHighborn wrote: And GW's seeming hate of people converting and bitz buy/sell/swapping is disappointing.
It's more that GW hates opening themselves up to another Chapterhouse incident. There are better ways to handle it, but GW does business like it's still 1980.
Maybe, but GW of 80's, would have loved Chapterhouse and been happy they existed. Cause back in the day, even at the turn of the millennium, they were as much about the 'hobby' as the 'company'. I mean you had troll magazine, kitbashing guides, rules that 'supported and encouraged' kitbashing, and guides on making your own terrain rather than buying a box of something premade. And models were multipose, lots of weapon and gear choices, etc.
Nowadays they want units to only have the options they come with default in the box, and models/characters/etc., that you had to make on your own are now either deleted or put into Legends, which makes them pretty much deleted anyway.
This, also, legends ruleset is so laughably badly designed, especially for a last hurray, that the factions within it feel even more pale then many of them did during 8th.
Karol wrote: Okey, but that is entering the realm of ,when to people agree, are friends and have limitless collections of models, they can write and agree on any set of rules to be good. In reality it doesn't matter which kind of rule set one uses. If one army has good crusade rule on top of good table top rules, then potential for fun is bigger. It is simple as that.
Lets say, for some reason, someone decides that they want to play an imperial fist termintor army. It is horrible and neither the crusade, not the regular marine and factions rules support such a game play. One can write 20 pages of lore how cool the army list is, and would sitll would not be as fun as someone who just runs a regular DE or SoB crusade army.
And effectivness is the point of everything. If someone builds an army X, lets say they want to play a ork army with just bikes. And the ork game play for bikes is horrible. The it will be horrible no matter, if one plays open, narrative or matched play.
challenge accepted
You're missing the entire point of narrative & viewing it completely from a "I need to win to have fun" viewpoint.
I've played many games of my 20ish Salamanders vs endless waves of grunts & boys(only had 60 of each). Very narrative.
Played against Knights with only troops, very narrative.
Against magnus with no psyker of own and no way to stop him steamrolling me. Very narrative.
I'm with Karol on this. GWs Crusade system isn't predicated on a "here is a scenario that tells a story". Its based on "you can have games and level people up and create a story". The idea behind Crusade system is emergent storytelling but under the assumption that everyone is on an equal footing and taking balanced armies. You're expected to take a regular army then play normal games and whack a few extra stats onto things at the end. But what if the armies are so unbalanced that one player becomes a runaway winner in terms of XP gained? Its a rich get richer situation and the poor person will never have fun.
And like I said what you detail is is procedural gameplay. The stage is set and the only variable are the actors and how it plays out. Sure you can have an army with a desperate last stand and inevitable defeat but from my understanding that isn't the Crusade rules, thats the Open rules and I think even in the Open scenarios that feature stuff like that there is still a way for the player designed to lose to "win".
KingmanHighborn wrote: And GW's seeming hate of people converting and bitz buy/sell/swapping is disappointing.
It's more that GW hates opening themselves up to another Chapterhouse incident. There are better ways to handle it, but GW does business like it's still 1980.
Maybe, but GW of 80's, would have loved Chapterhouse and been happy they existed. Cause back in the day, even at the turn of the millennium, they were as much about the 'hobby' as the 'company'. I mean you had troll magazine, kitbashing guides, rules that 'supported and encouraged' kitbashing, and guides on making your own terrain rather than buying a box of something premade. And models were multipose, lots of weapon and gear choices, etc.
Nowadays they want units to only have the options they come with default in the box, and models/characters/etc., that you had to make on your own are now either deleted or put into Legends, which makes them pretty much deleted anyway.
I didn't mean GW of the 80s. Think Microsoft of the 80s, or another big business from that era.
The fundamental problem with Crusade is that it is in the narrative section of the rulebook, but isn't narrative.
Narrative games tell stories (think Skyrim) - they typically include some form of "Progression" as a mechanic, but the Progression isn't the point. The point is to save Nirn, to defeat Alduin World-Eater. The point of the Dragonborn DLC is to meet the first Dragonborn and his eclectic master Hermaeus Mora, Demon of Fate. The point is to determine if your player-insert character will betray the Skald in search of power or glory - or will save and protect them, and make a powerful enemy in the process.
I don't play Skyrim to fill myself with the excitement of leveling my Sneak and Archery to 100.
Similarly, Crusade is more like "Call of Duty." There's progression, and you unlock things, but the actual meat of the gameplay is just a random battle. You drop in, die fifteen times (and kill 60, if you're good ), nothing really important happens, and you win or lose but whatever, at least you unlocked the Holy Hand Grenade. Maybe next time you can get the Gravedigger shovel with exploding sixes auto-kill assassinations or the Body Armor of 5+ Feel No Pain.
I don't play Call of Duty's pvp progression system for the narrative. Similarly, I can't play Crusade for the narrative - because there isn't one. "Play a Random Battle. Get XP. Buy Unlocks." Now, there's at least a bit of narrative in the Agenda system - a bit. That part I'll grant. Being able to choose your own objectives is pretty narrati-
There is no relative power. A list either works or it doesn't. If a list is unable to score objectives or gives up 3 secondaries more or less for free, then it is bad, no matter under what kind of rule set one plays under. When someone decides to play an IF terminator army, they are no longer part of a competition. It is like having a 2 years disadvantage in the youngblood division.
I know from your posts you play in a shark tank and have no problem throwing kids into the pit to be mauled by people twice their size. Not everywhere is like that. Of course there’s relative power. You have S-tier lists, A-tier lists all the way through to D-tier lists. You can have as much fun Matching 2 D-tier lists of equal power against each other as you can with more powerful lists. The key is relative balance. Look at Scottish football. Its terrible. Its frantic and rough. And that’s just the weather, the game quality is nearly as bad! And yet it’s a very ‘local’ passion; most scots don’t care what happens in the big leagues (like the premier league in England, the budesleague in Germany or what have you), they’re far more interested in the local game and their ‘crap’ teams; and a game between 2 ‘crap’ teams (well, crap by the standards south of the border) still evokes all the passions of the fans, and is enjoyed by huge numbers of people. Scotland has one of thr highest turnouts for football games as a proportion of the population in the world, apparently. So yeah, ‘bad’ is relative.
Someone turns up, or proposes a game with an uncompetitive IF terminator armour or whatever, I don’t see it as ‘easy prey’ or the player as someone to be stomped. I don’t dismiss them as not being part of the competition. To me, matching that list is an intriguing and interesting challenge, far more so than ‘build the most hyper-efficient list possible’ – the latter isnt ‘expert’ level gaming nor is it the ultimate expression of a game, any twelve year old with a basic understanding of math and simple probability can break a codex. The people in the community, at least to me, are more important than any one game against someone or a cheap win at their expense. The social fabric is what connects us. And I’m far from the only person that thinks this way.
Ah and I don't make friends, because people don't like me and fined me wierd, from what I have been told. But thank you for the advice. Still I am not sure what it has to do with the fact that under a narrative system, an army that does not work, has a lower chance of being fun to play WITHIN the narrative set of rules.
Then that’s something you need to work on Karol, for your own sake in life, and not just gaming. I’ve known folks with autism, played against quite a few (even dated the awesome older sister of one for a while) and despite their ‘struggles’ with the social side of things for want of a better word, they were perfectly reasonable guys and they generally worked at it, and got on with it and with a bit of work and life experience, things got easier, and they found their place in the group and in life.
As to what friends have to do with it, that should be obvious. Friends work together. If there’s a problem, in my experience people tend to be happy to work something out. ‘the rules’ are not an angry god that cannot be questioned or reasoned with or a religion that cannot be deviated from. Work-arounds, homebrewing and collaboration have been a part of this hobby decades before ‘gw write terrible rules’ was a corner stone of this side of the hobby. They’re a part of life, full stop. Its understood some work is required at our end, especially if you want to enjoy this hobby in the long-term.
And for stuff like theme, concept and imagery, to stand in for game play and rules, the game has to litterally move from the table to your head. At this point one can claim that anything can be part of it or be fun. Good weather outside? game was fun. Spend time with people you don't dislike and had some vodka&kebab after it? game was fun.
It is like being cut off from reality.
Its not being cut off from reality. That’s just you being rude. Imagination harder. To use the meme; 'forge the narrative!'.
And yes? Its called ‘the theatre of the mind’. Good weather? Considering where I live, absolutely crucial to turning an OK day to a great one! Good people? Absolutely critical to ‘having a good time’. Vodka/whiskey/beer and food? Absolutely critical. It’s the other side of the coin to rolling dice. All those things contribute to ‘a good time’. I'll have all of those things. ‘the game’ itself is just dice rolls and is utterly meaningless on its own. Mechanics are fine, but they are ‘dry’ and kind of ‘boring’ on their own. Its like listening to paint dry. It’s the feelings and actions and cinematic moments those dice rolls represent and evoke and bring to life in our minds, and the people we spent our time with that makes it great.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The fundamental problem with Crusade is that it is in the narrative section of the rulebook, but isn't narrative.
Narrative games tell stories (think Skyrim) - they typically include some form of "Progression" as a mechanic, but the Progression isn't the point. The point is to save Nirn, to defeat Alduin World-Eater. The point of the Dragonborn DLC is to meet the first Dragonborn and his eclectic master Hermaeus Mora, Demon of Fate. The point is to determine if your player-insert character will betray the Skald in search of power or glory - or will save and protect them, and make a powerful enemy in the process.
I don't play Skyrim to fill myself with the excitement of leveling my Sneak and Archery to 100.
Similarly, Crusade is more like "Call of Duty." There's progression, and you unlock things, but the actual meat of the gameplay is just a random battle. You drop in, die fifteen times (and kill 60, if you're good ), nothing really important happens, and you win or lose but whatever, at least you unlocked the Holy Hand Grenade. Maybe next time you can get the Gravedigger shovel with exploding sixes auto-kill assassinations or the Body Armor of 5+ Feel No Pain.
I don't play Call of Duty's pvp progression system for the narrative. Similarly, I can't play Crusade for the narrative - because there isn't one. "Play a Random Battle. Get XP. Buy Unlocks." Now, there's at least a bit of narrative in the Agenda system - a bit. That part I'll grant. Being able to choose your own objectives is pretty narrati-
-oh wait you can do that in Matched Play.
It's a Narrative system (much like how D&D is a system), but they need to support it with missions and stories to give people some pre-made narratives to run through.
Daedalus81 wrote: Can you honestly state right in this moment that they've learned nothing?
They've learnt how to spin, twist and sometimes just outright lie (to us and themselves) about their "best rules ever!".
Daedalus81 wrote: GW got by on fun rules, awesome models, and engaging fluff. Balance really wasn't on the radar and not until the past ~8 years have we been so tuned into the game. Fantasy was my jam and that was barely balanced ( though more than 40K ), but I enjoyed it anyway. I honestly looked down on most 40K players back then as "passing WAAC gamers". Yes, I know.
That seems more a 'you' thing than anything else.
Daedalus81 wrote: The company finally changed hands 6 years ago and turning a massive ship like this takes a ton of time.
So when do we see signs of that? They're still writing terrible rules. They're still increasing the prices with every release. They do have a Facebook page now, and at least openly don't treat their customers as a necessary evil, so I guess that makes up for it.
I feel like it is pretty disingenuous to state that this is not more technically sound rules writing or that the 40KBRB didn't improve in quality:
Or that ignoring the diverse meta to focus on the exception of 9th edition releases ( DE and possibly AdMech ) to say they're not putting books on a more level playing field.
And even if you want to still focus on that then ignoring that they made some pretty good and decisive changes to deal with the issue.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The fundamental problem with Crusade is that it is in the narrative section of the rulebook, but isn't narrative.
Narrative games tell stories (think Skyrim) - they typically include some form of "Progression" as a mechanic, but the Progression isn't the point. The point is to save Nirn, to defeat Alduin World-Eater. The point of the Dragonborn DLC is to meet the first Dragonborn and his eclectic master Hermaeus Mora, Demon of Fate. The point is to determine if your player-insert character will betray the Skald in search of power or glory - or will save and protect them, and make a powerful enemy in the process.
I don't play Skyrim to fill myself with the excitement of leveling my Sneak and Archery to 100.
Similarly, Crusade is more like "Call of Duty." There's progression, and you unlock things, but the actual meat of the gameplay is just a random battle. You drop in, die fifteen times (and kill 60, if you're good ), nothing really important happens, and you win or lose but whatever, at least you unlocked the Holy Hand Grenade. Maybe next time you can get the Gravedigger shovel with exploding sixes auto-kill assassinations or the Body Armor of 5+ Feel No Pain.
I don't play Call of Duty's pvp progression system for the narrative. Similarly, I can't play Crusade for the narrative - because there isn't one. "Play a Random Battle. Get XP. Buy Unlocks." Now, there's at least a bit of narrative in the Agenda system - a bit. That part I'll grant. Being able to choose your own objectives is pretty narrati-
-oh wait you can do that in Matched Play.
Have you looked at the campaign from the book of rust? I think it might fit your ideas of what a narrative should look like much better than generic crusade missions.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The fundamental problem with Crusade is that it is in the narrative section of the rulebook, but isn't narrative.
Narrative games tell stories (think Skyrim) - they typically include some form of "Progression" as a mechanic, but the Progression isn't the point. The point is to save Nirn, to defeat Alduin World-Eater. The point of the Dragonborn DLC is to meet the first Dragonborn and his eclectic master Hermaeus Mora, Demon of Fate. The point is to determine if your player-insert character will betray the Skald in search of power or glory - or will save and protect them, and make a powerful enemy in the process.
I don't play Skyrim to fill myself with the excitement of leveling my Sneak and Archery to 100.
Similarly, Crusade is more like "Call of Duty." There's progression, and you unlock things, but the actual meat of the gameplay is just a random battle. You drop in, die fifteen times (and kill 60, if you're good ), nothing really important happens, and you win or lose but whatever, at least you unlocked the Holy Hand Grenade. Maybe next time you can get the Gravedigger shovel with exploding sixes auto-kill assassinations or the Body Armor of 5+ Feel No Pain.
I don't play Call of Duty's pvp progression system for the narrative. Similarly, I can't play Crusade for the narrative - because there isn't one. "Play a Random Battle. Get XP. Buy Unlocks." Now, there's at least a bit of narrative in the Agenda system - a bit. That part I'll grant. Being able to choose your own objectives is pretty narrati-
-oh wait you can do that in Matched Play.
I've had a lot of time to think about your point of view since our first clash, and I've really come to respect your comments, because it is clear that you are a narrative player who cares about narrative. So rather than respond in a way that looks like it's cutting you down or getting antagonistic, I figured maybe just some questions for further input may facilitate more effective discussion.
- Do you think that bespoke agendas in codices provide story hooks?
- Space Marines went first, and I didn't pay as much attention to them as a non-Marine type guy*, but do you feel things like the Territory system in Codex DE, the Archeotech hunter system in Codex AM and the Living Saint System in codex SoB add story hooks?
- I think personally that Plague Purge comes up short as a Crusade resource- I was disappointed at how little there was aside from the Missions themselves, but I did like Beyond the Veil- though I found the WD Flashpoint content to be important to really complete Beyond the Veil); did any of these resources help you create stories?
- I found the Book of Rust to have better content for a Crusade player than Plague Purge, which I personally found to be problematic; it does include guidelines for an actual campaign system, as opposed to the BRB's "Open Crusade" which I agree is pretty much just pure progression system and not much besides; did this resource help you build a story?
My perspective here is that Crusade isn't to be found in the BRB alone- it is the Crusade core... the generic stuff meant to tide people over til the bespoke content comes. Said bespoke content being contained in dexes has an advantage (no extra cost- you need the dex to play the army, so you do get their Crusade content "free"), but that it also comes with a pitfall (you are deprived of the stuff you really want in a Crusade until your dex drops).
Jidmah wrote:Have you looked at the campaign from the book of rust? I think it might fit your ideas of what a narrative should look like much better than generic crusade missions.
I have not looked at the Book of Rust, because pre-written campaigns like that have always existed. If I am forced to buy pre-written campaign books to have narrative play, then Crusade isn't any more special than any other edition. There were pre-written Campaign books in 3rd and 4th too, and there always will be. Crusade isn't new and innovative - heck, even the idea of campaign progression was in the core rules for 4th. It isn't special, it isn't revolutionary, and it isn't even really that good.
I'll just do what I've always done and write my own campaigns, in which case Crusade helps only by adding progression systems for players.
Most Importantly, it makes the "special" part of Crusade irrelevant. The cool part was that you could play Any Opponent and use the narrative for your army. You could play against competitive players, you could play against casual players, you could play against other narrative players. That's how Crusade was sold, was built, and what made it "special" compared to earlier editions. Oh, but you're using a Campaign Book? Nah, pass. Just like asking to play one of the special missions from Codex: Armageddon in 3rd, or a Planetstrike narrative game in 5th.
PenitentJake wrote: I've had a lot of time to think about your point of view since our first clash, and I've really come to respect your comments, because it is clear that you are a narrative player who cares about narrative. So rather than respond in a way that looks like it's cutting you down or getting antagonistic, I figured maybe just some questions for further input may facilitate more effective discussion.
- Do you think that bespoke agendas in codices provide story hooks?
I think they could but it isn't how they're typically used. I've played against the unique SM agendas, and my opponents have all typically picked them to get their favored character/unit MOAR XP rather than actually following a narrative. The Old Grudges AM Warlord Trait I've seen used more narratively, but again, it's just a normal core rule, not Crusade content.
- Space Marines went first, and I didn't pay as much attention to them as a non-Marine type guy*, but do you feel things like the Territory system in Codex DE, the Archeotech hunter system in Codex AM and the Living Saint System in codex SoB add story hooks?
I do... as long as you care about that. What if your Archon is not concerned with Territory and instead is a pirate raider who lives on a space station in the Void? What if your AM Archmagos is an Ordinator or Reductor Magos and doesn't really pursue archaeotech, instead focusing on perfecting the art and weaponry of war? And the Living Saint system is about a single character - what if I wanted my entire army to have a narrative? Can they all be Living Saints? (Admittedly I havent' seen the Sisters codex, so maybe they can!).
Regardless, those seem fairly reductive. They're story hooks, but story hooks for only a single army, typically tied to only a single facet of an army's lore (e.g. "all Mechanicum adepts are archaeotech hunters, Myrmidons and Ordinators and Reductor don't exist " - GW).
- I think personally that Plague Purge comes up short as a Crusade resource- I was disappointed at how little there was aside from the Missions themselves, but I did like Beyond the Veil- though I found the WD Flashpoint content to be important to really complete Beyond the Veil); did any of these resources help you create stories?
No. They were just more progression systems. "Get X Piercing the Veil points to unlock your Level 2 Relic-of-Badassery, complete with Hello Kitty reskin!!1!"
- I found the Book of Rust to have better content for a Crusade player than Plague Purge, which I personally found to be problematic; it does include guidelines for an actual campaign system, as opposed to the BRB's "Open Crusade" which I agree is pretty much just pure progression system and not much besides; did this resource help you build a story?
It probably would, but it's no different nor better than the campaign resources available in any number of other editions before. Or other games. Crusade is not uniquely narrative and neither is 9th Edition, if extra campaign supplements whose most memorable trait is how they broke the competitive scene is the way that narrative play will be facilitated in 9th.
My perspective here is that Crusade isn't to be found in the BRB alone- it is the Crusade core... the generic stuff meant to tide people over til the bespoke content comes. Said bespoke content being contained in dexes has an advantage (no extra cost- you need the dex to play the army, so you do get their Crusade content "free"), but that it also comes with a pitfall (you are deprived of the stuff you really want in a Crusade until your dex drops).
Again, your mileage may vary.
I agree, but the bespoke content is disappointing. It's typically just one mechanic for an army - "Assemble your territory in Commoragh!" - without really any consideration given to the wider lore of the faction. If I was a DE pirate player and someone invited me to Crusade, I'd probably feel a bit uneasy trying to cram my narrative together with the narrative rules provided for my army. My "exiled-from-Commoragh Pirate Lord is.. building territory in Commoragh? nice." ------- Furthermore, and this is a wholly separate quibble: I feel the Crusade rules are "special snowflake-y". Which in some ways is good (everyone wants their character to be special) but in many way is bad (if everyone is super extra special, no one is). How many Living Saints will see the galaxy once the Sororitas codex drops? A hundred? A thousand? How many gangs are there in Commoragh fighting over the city to assemble territory? etc. etc.
My Sororitas are not looking forwards to the Living Saint system, because it devalues the narrative ... value... of being a Living Saint. Celestine, Saint Sabbat, Macharius - they were all exceptional. There have been less than a hand's worth of Living Saints in the galactic past. The only other one I can think of is Euphrati Keeler - for four.
With the crusade system and smart XP management, I bet I could get a Sororitas character to Living Saint status in 10 battles. You can already reach the "legendary" rank for Crusade in like 11 games.
Everything you say about Crusade comes across less as "I don't like this!" and more "This is wrong, and no one should use it!".
I mean, you just told me that fun is subjective, and to me Crusade is no different to the progression system in Necromunda, something that I find quite fun.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Everything you say about Crusade comes across less as "I don't like this!" and more "This is wrong, and no one should use it!".
I mean, you just told me that fun is subjective, and to me Crusade is no different to the progression system in Necromunda, something that I find quite fun.
I didn't say "no one should use it". I did say "no one should praise it". Because it isn't different than the narrative rules 40k has made in the past for other editions, complete with progression for random charts to roll on to gain units buffs.
Necromunda's campaign system is very different to Crusade's, even if it includes a similar progression system. Having a progression system is neither more nor less narrative than not having one.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Everything you say about Crusade comes across less as "I don't like this!" and more "This is wrong, and no one should use it!".
I mean, you just told me that fun is subjective, and to me Crusade is no different to the progression system in Necromunda, something that I find quite fun.
I was flipping through the 3rd ed rulebook trying to find a specific mission (I didn't find it, I was looking for a version of Meat Grinder that put the defender in the middle of the table but got the edition wrong) and found a progression system there and I suspect that Crusade likely took a lot of it's DNA from that system.
EDIT: For example the honors your units can gain are D6 roll based:
I'll just do what I've always done and write my own campaigns, in which case Crusade helps only by adding progression systems for players.
I think it's important that you can do this, and that it may be a part of the design. In DnD, and WoD, I never used modules because I preferred to make my own. I like the fact that we CAN use just the progression element, and I think the designers actually considered that. So from my perspective, this isn't a weakness, though I agree it isn't exactly a feature either.
PenitentJake wrote:
- Do you think that bespoke agendas in codices provide story hooks?
I think they could but it isn't how they're typically used. I've played against the unique SM agendas, and my opponents have all typically picked them to get their favored character/unit MOAR XP rather than actually following a narrative.
Excellent point with which I agree. Not a failure of the system, nor of GW though? Perhaps?
The Old Grudges AM Warlord Trait I've seen used more narratively, but again, it's just a normal core rule, not Crusade content.
Super cool, and it reveals my own ignorance; I often talk about having played since '89... Which is true, but what's also true is that the Sisters 6th ed WD Dex + the lack of GSC led me to skip 6 and 7th. If it's a WL trait, kinda cool that it could probably be slotted back in.
- Space Marines went first, and I didn't pay as much attention to them as a non-Marine type guy*, but do you feel things like the Territory system in Codex DE, the Archeotech hunter system in Codex AM and the Living Saint System in codex SoB add story hooks?
I do... as long as you care about that. What if your Archon is not concerned with Territory and instead is a pirate raider who lives on a space station in the Void? What if your AM Archmagos is an Ordinator or Reductor Magos and doesn't really pursue archaeotech, instead focusing on perfecting the art and weaponry of war? And the Living Saint system is about a single character - what if I wanted my entire army to have a narrative? Can they all be Living Saints? (Admittedly I havent' seen the Sisters codex, so maybe they can!).
Another great point, and I think this goes back to the first about a system that allows people to add and create as well as using it is already there. Given the territory model for DE, for example, it does become easier to create territories outside of Commorragh because you have an exemplar. Granted, they could do more to support that creativity for sure- like once all the dexes are out, I wouldn't be surprised if they release a Crusade game master book; some of it would be copy paste of the BRB + all bespoke dex content in a single book, but it could additionally include detailed sector and system maps and additional tools for the creative campaign builder. I wouldn't be surprised if it's already in development. It would also future proof Crusade against edition churn.
Regardless, those seem fairly reductive. They're story hooks, but story hooks for only a single army, typically tied to only a single facet of an army's lore (e.g. "all Mechanicum adepts are archaeotech hunters, Myrmidons and Ordinators and Reductor don't exist " - GW).
Since there's bespoke content in every dex, it isn't a single army- it is every army, we just don't have them all yet. I take your point about additional subfactions, but I see only two solutions, both of which are bad:
1: add enough crusade content for each subfaction to every dex, increasing the page count and likely price as a result
2: producing a dex and a separate Crusade book for each faction, which would suck because a Crusader would need both
- I think personally that Plague Purge comes up short as a Crusade resource- I was disappointed at how little there was aside from the Missions themselves, but I did like Beyond the Veil- though I found the WD Flashpoint content to be important to really complete Beyond the Veil); did any of these resources help you create stories?
No. They were just more progression systems. "Get X Piercing the Veil points to unlock your Level 2 Relic-of-Badassery, complete with Hello Kitty reskin!!1!"
Totally fair, and I'm with you. I liked it because it combined so well with the Flashpoint stuff in WD, but then if that WD content had been included in the mission pack INSTEAD of WD, it would have been better for both of us.
My perspective here is that Crusade isn't to be found in the BRB alone- it is the Crusade core... the generic stuff meant to tide people over til the bespoke content comes. Said bespoke content being contained in dexes has an advantage (no extra cost- you need the dex to play the army, so you do get their Crusade content "free"), but that it also comes with a pitfall (you are deprived of the stuff you really want in a Crusade until your dex drops).
Again, your mileage may vary.
I agree, but the bespoke content is disappointing. It's typically just one mechanic for an army - "Assemble your territory in Commoragh!" - without really any consideration given to the wider lore of the faction.
Oh, I'm not sure I'd agree here; Territories impact almost every unit in the game; your Ascendant Lord doesn't have to be an Archon- Succubai and Haemonculai can too. And they capture territories, but the territories that they control impact specific units in the army. In addition to the rules for capturing territory, and for how held territory affects other units in the army, there are also special requisitions that modify uses and acquisitions of territory.
If I was a DE pirate player and someone invited me to Crusade, I'd probably feel a bit uneasy trying to cram my narrative together with the narrative rules provided for my army. My "exiled-from-Commoragh Pirate Lord is.. building territory in Commoragh? nice."
The story here, typically is: I went on a realspace raid against you, and used the agenda which represents taking your casualties alive as slaves to be sold back in Commorragh so I can buy territory. You don't need to, and never will, know which territory I buy... But maybe the next time I'm ready to raid you again, my Hellions will have an extra battle honour, because the territory I bought with your slaves was gang territory, which helped me increase the resources and power of the Hellions who agree to work with me. When Crusades clash, the narrative style of the resulting story is not Omniscient- it's limited first person. You don't always get to know how you impacted my story, and I don't always get to know how impacted yours, but each of us did impact the other.
Furthermore, and this is a wholly separate quibble: I feel the Crusade rules are "special snowflake-y". Which in some ways is good (everyone wants their character to be special) but in many way is bad (if everyone is super extra special, no one is). How many Living Saints will see the galaxy once the Sororitas codex drops? A hundred? A thousand? How many gangs are there in Commoragh fighting over the city to assemble territory? etc. etc.
One Living Saint per army, max. A saint potentia can be any sororitas character. On another board in a sisters subforum, I think we've got one who is going to use a Dogmata and another who might use a repentia superior- so not all Living saints are alike; stacking battle honours on top further distinguishes one from another.
My Sororitas are not looking forwards to the Living Saint system, because it devalues the narrative ... value... of being a Living Saint. Celestine, Saint Sabbat, Macharius - they were all exceptional. There have been less than a hand's worth of Living Saints in the galactic past. The only other one I can think of is Euphrati Keeler - for four.
All six matriarchs of the sororitas were sainted- Katherine and Dominica in their lifetimes for sure; the percentage of saints among non-Sororitas is low. Among the Soroitas? Not so low. Even those of our sisters who don't become saints do perform Miracles as a part of their regular duties. No other faction can make the same claim. The performance of Miracles is one of the criteria for sainthood.
With the crusade system and smart XP management, I bet I could get a Sororitas character to Living Saint status in 10 battles. You can already reach the "legendary" rank for Crusade in like 11 games.
I don't think you could get to saint in eleven battles, but if you did, you'd be one of the guys we were complaining about earlier who uses Agendas to level specific characters without concern for story. To create a saint, you complete five trials, and each trial is a multigame process. They only preview one trial. The other thing to keep in mind is that if this was possible, and you did it, there would be an opportunity cost; so get your living saint in ten games? Maybe. But if so, the rest of your army would be lucky to reach battle hardened.
Anyway, thanks for the detailed response. I think all of your comments, even where disagree were interesting, and thanks for putting in the time. I'm aware that this isn't a Crusade specific thread, so for those of you who have again indulged my verbosity, thanks for your patience. And Unit, if you want to follow up without further derailment of a general thread, feel free to DM me.
Excellent point with which I agree. Not a failure of the system, nor of GW though? Perhaps?
If any system entices specific actions, it is very much the systems problem. If in a division something that, I think, is called taking the knee in english, is allowed you are very soon going to see it happen a lot. Systems are gamed, and the number of people that makes stuff harder for themselfs, just to make it harder for themselfs is rather low. And this goes way beyond a game like w40k.
I'll take it to PMs Jake, but I don't have much to say. We seem to generally agree. I guess what I wanted was guidelines, rather than new rules, (or rather rules about writing rules) but I can go into PMs.
As for players vs system: I think a well-designed system will encourage specific behaviors. If a system is encouraging counter-productive behaviors, then the people exploiting the system might share some fault, but the system itself is not innocent and should be improved.
The problem with Crusade is that by being primarily about rules, it encourages rules-centric behavior. The Crusade system doesn't stop you from developing your own narrative and playing according to it, but it doesn't help you do that, either, and in fact it actually makes it harder to do that, because it instead emphasizes a bunch of in-game bonuses that it sets out for you as carrots that you have to actively disregard in some cases in order to tell the story you want to tell.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with Crusade is that by being primarily about rules, it encourages rules-centric behavior. The Crusade system doesn't stop you from developing your own narrative and playing according to it, but it doesn't help you do that, either, and in fact it actually makes it harder to do that, because it instead emphasizes a bunch of in-game bonuses that it sets out for you as carrots that you have to actively disregard in some cases in order to tell the story you want to tell.
How much of that is a Crusade problem and how much of that is a 9th problem? I don't know how true this is broadly but in my local community nobody's managed to make Crusade take off because the people who enjoy 9th are tournament players who don't care about narrative play when they could be practicing the tournament missions, and the people who might find a narrative campaign interesting have all quit 40k because of 9th and are playing other things.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with Crusade is that by being primarily about rules, it encourages rules-centric behavior. The Crusade system doesn't stop you from developing your own narrative and playing according to it, but it doesn't help you do that, either, and in fact it actually makes it harder to do that, because it instead emphasizes a bunch of in-game bonuses that it sets out for you as carrots that you have to actively disregard in some cases in order to tell the story you want to tell.
I can agree with this (hence my complaint for instance that they need points built in). The game needs some limiters to be added in to encourage less gaming of the system.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with Crusade is that by being primarily about rules, it encourages rules-centric behavior. The Crusade system doesn't stop you from developing your own narrative and playing according to it, but it doesn't help you do that, either, and in fact it actually makes it harder to do that, because it instead emphasizes a bunch of in-game bonuses that it sets out for you as carrots that you have to actively disregard in some cases in order to tell the story you want to tell.
I can agree with this (hence my complaint for instance that they need points built in). The game needs some limiters to be added in to encourage less gaming of the system.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with Crusade is that by being primarily about rules, it encourages rules-centric behavior. The Crusade system doesn't stop you from developing your own narrative and playing according to it, but it doesn't help you do that, either, and in fact it actually makes it harder to do that, because it instead emphasizes a bunch of in-game bonuses that it sets out for you as carrots that you have to actively disregard in some cases in order to tell the story you want to tell.
I can agree with this (hence my complaint for instance that they need points built in). The game needs some limiters to be added in to encourage less gaming of the system.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with Crusade is that by being primarily about rules, it encourages rules-centric behavior. The Crusade system doesn't stop you from developing your own narrative and playing according to it, but it doesn't help you do that, either, and in fact it actually makes it harder to do that, because it instead emphasizes a bunch of in-game bonuses that it sets out for you as carrots that you have to actively disregard in some cases in order to tell the story you want to tell.
How much of that is a Crusade problem and how much of that is a 9th problem? I don't know how true this is broadly but in my local community nobody's managed to make Crusade take off because the people who enjoy 9th are tournament players who don't care about narrative play when they could be practicing the tournament missions, and the people who might find a narrative campaign interesting have all quit 40k because of 9th and are playing other things.
In my local area we've got a healthy mix of casual, narrative and competitive players and even then Crusade hasn't really taken off because it is:
1) More complex than playing a normal game of 40K
and
2) Isn't actually all that narrative. It certainly doesn't provide a good framework for that sort of stuff. The Charadon campaign stuff has been a little bit more interesting for the narrative folks but the pricepoint vs amount of content is a severe barrier.
I'm starting to wonder if people are getting angry at an apple for having the temerity to not be an orange.
Bosskelot wrote: Isn't actually all that narrative. It certainly doesn't provide a good framework for that sort of stuff.
Shouldn't you be the one doing the narrative? Crusade is a progression system for narrative play, but not narrative itself.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I'll just do what I've always done and write my own campaigns, in which case Crusade helps only by adding progression systems for players.
I'm also pretty certain that if GW had written a campaign structure (rather than just a campaign progression system) we'd still have people going "I don't need more rules for my narrative campaign! This isn't narrative play!!!".
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm starting to wonder if people are getting angry at an apple for having the temerity to not be an orange.
In which case, if I understand correctly, the problem may be that it was pretty heavily marketed as an apple.
Where did they say it would write your stories for you?
First, I did bugger up that analogy, and should have said it was heavily marketed as an orange, but I see the point wasn't lost.
But with their marketing? They - and everyone caught up in the heady hype of 9th before a seemingly endless parade of Space Marines stepping on a human face ground that enthusiasm into the asphalt - all but said it'd make you immune to gravity and give you a handjob/fingerblast.
Most marketing's like that though, but me point is that it can be a source of disappointment and thus resentment, thus explaining why there may exist annoyance with the apple.
It does some stuff and doesn't do other stuff but none of that matters because it's a narrative game mode and the whole point of narrative is to houserule the hell out of everything so you can tell the story you want to tell and relying on GW to do that for you is silly.
Let me clarify my stance here. I despise 9th edition, but Crusade isn't really in my top 20 reasons. It's not great, and definitely something that can exacerbate some of 40K's worst structural playability issues, but being so optional it's not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things and doesn't significantly factor into why I rate 9th 40k so low.
Regarding Crusade, I don't mind it existing but I do find it extremely frustrating when stuff that used to be standard wargear instead gets locked behind Crusade.
For example:
- Archons used to be able to buy Combat Drugs as standard. Now they only way to access them is through Crusade.
- Archons used to be able to buy Soul Traps as standard. Now they only way to access them is through Crusade.
- Archons used to be able to choose between Shadowfields and Clone Fields. Now they only way to access clone Fields is through Crusade.
etc.
If they want to make new wargear specifically for Crusade, fine. But don't just take stuff that already exists and make it Crusade-only.
But GW already did that in the past. They changed a lot of basic gear options to be one per turn stratagems. So it isn't even that suprising for the game as whole.
1) Finally, there are stakes! A character can die. Admittedly, it's only the Saint Potentia, and it's a boon rather than a bust, but that's fluffy for Sisters. Too bad other armies still have immortal units.
2) The article says it'd be about 10 games (2 per trial) to get your sister from "regular joe" to Living Saint, so I was almost bang on the money.
I think the Agendas can be cool, they give you something to work on between games.
Although I find the execution a bit flat. My Blood Angels ones is stuff like "kill a bunch of stuff in melee" k, I do that anyways. Or "Have a Sanguinary Priest running to every objective marker doing nothing else all game". K, I get what they're going for but it feels weird to be rummaging around random areas of the battlefield exclusively in the middle of an intense battle, whilst also slitting my own throat gamewise as I lose a pretty expensive character for almost no benefit.
So if those agendas were fine tuned, I think that'd be rad.
I'd also like to do away with all the xp and relics and stuff. 40k already struggles with so much minor stat buff bloat piling on more is the last thing it needs.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with Crusade is that by being primarily about rules, it encourages rules-centric behavior. The Crusade system doesn't stop you from developing your own narrative and playing according to it, but it doesn't help you do that, either, and in fact it actually makes it harder to do that, because it instead emphasizes a bunch of in-game bonuses that it sets out for you as carrots that you have to actively disregard in some cases in order to tell the story you want to tell.
How much of that is a Crusade problem and how much of that is a 9th problem? I don't know how true this is broadly but in my local community nobody's managed to make Crusade take off because the people who enjoy 9th are tournament players who don't care about narrative play when they could be practicing the tournament missions, and the people who might find a narrative campaign interesting have all quit 40k because of 9th and are playing other things.
It's definitely in large part a Crusade problem imo. My group does a bit of every play style but enjoys a solid narrative game/campaign more than anything and we've not enjoyed Crusade at all. We like the idea of it, and there are some really cool elements in some of the books (Space Marine characters becoming Dreadnaughts, "design your own virus" for DG, etc), but that system is just all about book keeping and rules tracking. It's cumbersome as hell to play and it really bogs down if yo try to push those games past 50PL.
WintersSEO did a review of it when it first came out and pretty much slagged it. Our group kind of eye-rolled the review because he came off a bit like a grognard, but, come to find out, everything that was true for him ended up being true for us as well. I think where they really went "wrong" (purely subjective here obviously as many groups really like the system) was trying to make a system that worked whether your opponent was "playing crusade" or not. That's why the focus is on the things its on.
kirotheavenger wrote: I think the Agendas can be cool, they give you something to work on between games.
Although I find the execution a bit flat. My Blood Angels ones is stuff like "kill a bunch of stuff in melee" k, I do that anyways. Or "Have a Sanguinary Priest running to every objective marker doing nothing else all game". K, I get what they're going for but it feels weird to be rummaging around random areas of the battlefield exclusively in the middle of an intense battle, whilst also slitting my own throat gamewise as I lose a pretty expensive character for almost no benefit.
So if those agendas were fine tuned, I think that'd be rad.
I'd also like to do away with all the xp and relics and stuff. 40k already struggles with so much minor stat buff bloat piling on more is the last thing it needs.
You know you could write a story to explain it. Like maybe he's looking for peices on Sanguinius' spear, or maybe there are fallen brothers there and he's collecting the geneseed.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah but rules are supposed to help tell the story. If I have to make the narrative to justify the rules, that is backwards.
The rules should be informed by the narrative, not the other way around.
The rules gave you objectives on the table and you ran a character to those objectives which means he's running around for something. It's on you to decide what he's running around to those objectives for, not for the game to explain every single thing you're doing. It's a toolbox, not a GM in a box.
That basically is the justification given by the agenda, he's searching for hints and artifacts that might lead to a cure to the Black Rage.
But why is he exclusively doing it in the middle of a major battle? Can't he help see off the foul xenos, then have a rummage through the rubbish bin in the ensuing peace?
That's the point, it doesn't feel like a logical objective to me. It feels like jumping through arbitrary hoops.
kirotheavenger wrote: That basically is the justification given by the agenda, he's searching for hints and artifacts that might lead to a cure to the Black Rage.
But why is he exclusively doing it in the middle of a major battle? Can't he help see off the foul xenos, then have a rummage through the rubbish bin in the ensuing peace?
That's the point, it doesn't feel like a logical objective to me. It feels like jumping through arbitrary hoops.
In a universe driven by narrative causality? Maybe he's trying to secure the things he needs to prevent their possible destruction by the hands of the enemy. Or they're incredibly fragile so could be easily broken or destroyed by combat.
kirotheavenger wrote: That basically is the justification given by the agenda, he's searching for hints and artifacts that might lead to a cure to the Black Rage.
But why is he exclusively doing it in the middle of a major battle? Can't he help see off the foul xenos, then have a rummage through the rubbish bin in the ensuing peace?
That's the point, it doesn't feel like a logical objective to me. It feels like jumping through arbitrary hoops.
In a universe driven by narrative causality? Maybe he's trying to secure the things he needs to prevent their possible destruction by the hands of the enemy. Or they're incredibly fragile so could be easily broken or destroyed by combat.
Both of those things are reasons NOT to dig them up until after the enemy is already gone.
And my point is that it's a dumb agenda narratively. Yes, it isn't a GM in a bottle, but it also just isn't really narrative at all. It doesn't make sense narratively. So you could never take it, but then it's just wasted space to have published in the first place.
I will say that I think Marines may have suffered a bit from going first- I see a lot of depth in in Crusade content for Drukhari, Admech and Sisters that does seem to be lacking for marines.
Deathwatch, which are the only Marines I currently play, don't have the same sense of long term goals that other factions do; this may be due to what marines are- eternal, ever ready soldiers made only for war.
But Deathwatch could have had long term extermination mechanics built in- I'd like to have seen a bit more stuff to reflect the eclectic nature of "Vets from other Chapters" or some chapter tithe mechanics mentioned explicitly. There is some of this in there, mind you, but nothing like the glory of "Conquer Commorragh", "Build the ultimate Machine" or "Sainthood and Repentance."
One of the ideas I've mentioned elsewhere is sliding the experience scale to slow the approach of the "Endgame"; I do this myself as a player- it seems like the pace on becoming a Living Saint IS going to be fairly fast; for me, I already knew it would be slower than it will for most, because my candidate is going to start as a rank and file dominion- she won't even be eligible to be chosen as a Saint potentia when my Crusade begins.
But just like in DnD, I put in the work.
You can play DnD in such a way that it is literally a series of fights to get you to level 20. Nobody blames D&D for this possibility, and nobody is upset that it is up to players and DMs to ensure that there is more than just a series of fights.
The comparison to DnD aptly illustrates the problems with Crusade, though.
The DnD rules emphasize collaborative storytelling. They mandate a GM who is telling the story, and provide mechanics for interactions that are non-combat related.
Every combat encounter is "framed" by non-combat stuff. How much you see of the combat area is defined by what gear you have and the lighting conditions (dim light to 40 ft, bright light to 20 ft, for example). How many allies you have with you is determined by your diplomacy checks with the guard at the last town. The ammunition you have for your bows/crossbows is determined by how much you brought plus the amount expended in the last encounter. Your spell selection is split between combat and non-combat spells, and some of each may have been spent in your last encounter, etc. etc.
The framework for a Crusade game is: "Your armies are both here for the Relic. FIGHT! The winner gets a free relic."
Everything else is either handled by the core rules or totally absent.
Part of this is due to the core rules and how crappy they are at letting models do anything other than murder each other. As soon as someone says "GO" both armies are basically murderizing each other, so there's little incentive to carefully manage the narrative escalation or even try to figure out why these armies might be fighting.
I get that I can do all that myself, but I could always do all that myself whether Crusade existed or not. And DND gives me the tools to handle narrative situations and combat situations well. It gives me narrative reasons to put my sword away and punch the other guy, it gives me narrative reasons to conserve spell slots or ammunition, it gives me narrative reasons to avoid the fight entirely (while still gaining the XP/progression points). It gives me narrative reasons to scout the space ahead of time, or to ensure I've brought utility items such as torches/lamps or potions, etc. It gives me narrative reasons and mechanics for bringing an allied character whether NPCs or a player, and even gives me guidance on how command-and-control works with them (which is more than 40k does, ironically).
You can play DnD in such a way that it is literally a series of fights to get you to level 20. Nobody blames D&D for this possibility, and nobody is upset that it is up to players and DMs to ensure that there is more than just a series of fights.
Well, it was one of the biggest criticisms of 4th edition D&D, that there was basically combat time and nothing else; and rules presumed a static world where nothing happened if your PCs weren't there to witness it, so the idea that 'nobody blames the ruleset (or designers)' is... pretty wrong.
Fun anecdote in this regard from a live play experience at a Con... One of the WotC devs (Chris Perkins, if I remember) was running a session, and the party came upon a door they couldn't open. The group tried various tools, strength checks and then spells and clever combinations of spells (cold and fire, iirc) to get through the door and were met with a flat 'No, spells don't do that (environmental effects) and it's just immune to damage.' So they had to move on.
The Wizards folks never quite picked up on why the group was irritated and the audience was muttering. But it was because they ripped all the verisimilitude out of the game and reduced it to series of fights to level 20. It was a bad return to the very early days of the game, where it was just a squad tactics game and you either read Gygax's mind or you didn't get anywhere.
You can play DnD in such a way that it is literally a series of fights to get you to level 20. Nobody blames D&D for this possibility, and nobody is upset that it is up to players and DMs to ensure that there is more than just a series of fights...
I absolutely blame D&D for being two hundred pages of ways to kill people and one page of skills in case you want to do something other than murder-hobo your way through level-appropriate combat encounters until you hit level 20.
Racerguy180 wrote: DnD now is a joke. I'd rather play streetfighter if the only thing I wanted to do was beat stuff up.
Glad I've skipped out on DnD since AD&D.
It's always been an issue with role playing games. I know someone whose adopted the Gensys system to other settings (Star Wars, D&D, Dark Heresy, Shadowrun) and swears by it for making the game more narrative focused than crunchy stat focused.
I don't really see how you'd ever have any rule system that people who want to munchkin on won't munchkin on.
Its a similar issue with Crusade. If people are going to approach it mechanically, its going to play out mechanically. The idea that if GW had fewer/looser campaign rules it would somehow free the imaginations of people who want that doesn't make much sense. If they have that imagination, nothing is stopping them. Narratively you can do whatever you like - you just need a bunch of players who are all on the same page.
Its like asking why D&D doesn't have 50 pages of rules on "how to have a chat in a pub". Players should probably be able to manage that one without undue disagreement.
And DND gives me the tools to handle narrative situations and combat situations well. It gives me narrative reasons to put my sword away and punch the other guy, it gives me narrative reasons to conserve spell slots or ammunition, it gives me narrative reasons to avoid the fight entirely (while still gaining the XP/progression points). It gives me narrative reasons to scout the space ahead of time, or to ensure I've brought utility items such as torches/lamps or potions, etc. It gives me narrative reasons and mechanics for bringing an allied character whether NPCs or a player, and even gives me guidance on how command-and-control works with them (which is more than 40k does, ironically).
Do you know of any wargame that does handle this aspect (to any capacity)?
Mostly because my partner asked the other day why there isn't anything for that in Age of Sigmar (non-violently solving the battle through diplomacy, doing non-battle things) and I couldn't think of anything besides "well, it's a wargame, meant to model war"
I remember Fireforge's Deus Vult game had rules for "scouting" which was a little pre-battle rock-paper-scissors thing but that's about as close as I've seen.
Is there a wargame that you know of where you can non-combatively resolve a battle, or do something besides kill eachother (within the framework of the given rules)?
I don't fault regular 40k for being just a wargame.
Indeed, I wouldn't even fault Crusade if it was advertised (and consequently handled) as just a progression system to use within a wider narrative.
But that's not what crusade is. Crusade advertises itself specifically as a narrative system in its own right, designed such that you can even play narrative games vs people that aren't in Crusade (don't, it's terrible, Crusade is OP).
Maybe other factions are different, but I dont feel like Crusade gives me much narrative. It presents silly and arbitrary hoops that throw extra relics, abilities, and bonuses at me that don't really make much sense.
And DND gives me the tools to handle narrative situations and combat situations well. It gives me narrative reasons to put my sword away and punch the other guy, it gives me narrative reasons to conserve spell slots or ammunition, it gives me narrative reasons to avoid the fight entirely (while still gaining the XP/progression points). It gives me narrative reasons to scout the space ahead of time, or to ensure I've brought utility items such as torches/lamps or potions, etc. It gives me narrative reasons and mechanics for bringing an allied character whether NPCs or a player, and even gives me guidance on how command-and-control works with them (which is more than 40k does, ironically).
Do you know of any wargame that does handle this aspect (to any capacity)?
Mostly because my partner asked the other day why there isn't anything for that in Age of Sigmar (non-violently solving the battle through diplomacy, doing non-battle things) and I couldn't think of anything besides "well, it's a wargame, meant to model war"
I remember Fireforge's Deus Vult game had rules for "scouting" which was a little pre-battle rock-paper-scissors thing but that's about as close as I've seen.
Is there a wargame that you know of where you can non-combatively resolve a battle, or do something besides kill eachother (within the framework of the given rules)?
Yes!
Chain of Command's campaign system does eventually force the players to fight (of course it does, it is a PVP wargame) but for any given "battle round" the player who has the initiative can:
1) wait for reinforcements
2) choose a map to attack (on the hub and spoke territory system)
3) reconfigure support (send the tank platoon home and call forwards the mortar platoon)
4) dig in
Etc.
The non-initiative player can:
1) if attacked, fight a battle on the map
2) if attacked, concede the map without fighting (e.g. losses will be too high)
3) if not attacked, counter attack
4) if not attacked, reconfigure support
Etc.
Furthermore, during the execution of the game, the C2 rules make it so that bringing on your entire army is actually a DETRIMENT if you don't have the C2 assets to control them. So sometimes leaving your tank support behind/off the board to go forwards with infantry is actually the better choice. In other words, putting away your battleaxe to use your fists is sometimes good.
In campaigns with allies (e.g. France 1940), there are indeed rules for diplomacy checks to see the quality and type of support your force is given by your allied nation.
These diplomacy checks are influenced by the disposition tracks, which are three lines of 'disposition' that the men around you feel in the campaign:
1) the morale of your men (affects their performance / starting morale in battle and can be adjusted by skipping or declining battle)
2) the morale of yourself (as a leader of your force in the setting, more reflective of pressure on your character. If your morale drops too low, that is one way to lose a campaign)
3) the morale of your Commanding Officer, who approves or disapproves of your choices and affects the support from allies and other units accordingly.
So for any given battle, the pressures to decline battle and retreat (or not attack in the first place) must be weighed against the pressures to attack/hold your ground, and indeed sometimes it is advantageous to not fight a battle at all for both players during that campaign turn.
I believe crusade is hamstrung by the fact it needs(apparently) to work vs non-crusade as well.
We were planning a crusade(type) campaign and the first thing the more tourney focused players wanted to know was how to max out their relics,agendas, etc...the more narrative of us saw that and said nope.
So our group(which ranges from me to the opposite) decided just to ditch it and continue to play the way we've been doing campaigns for years, which everyone already agrees on.
Maybe if GW actually works a campaign system to go along with it and they mesh together(crusade+campaign), we'll revisit it.
Also, losses of men and equipment persist between games, which can sometimes force a pause in battle as both sides try to get replacements forward before the next attack.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Also, losses of men and equipment persist between games, which can sometimes force a pause in battle as both sides try to get replacements forward before the next attack.
I believe GW went with the Battle Scars instead of permanent loss of units to prevent a "rich get richer" situation you can see occur in games like Mordheim.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Also, losses of men and equipment persist between games, which can sometimes force a pause in battle as both sides try to get replacements forward before the next attack.
I believe GW went with the Battle Scars instead of permanent loss of units to prevent a "rich get richer" situation you can see occur in games like Mordheim.
There typically isn't a rich get richer in CoC because your units don't get much for victory beyond progress towards winning the campaign. The poor can decline battle and trade space for time while they get reinforcements - unless their back is to the wall...
Unit1126PLL wrote: Also, losses of men and equipment persist between games, which can sometimes force a pause in battle as both sides try to get replacements forward before the next attack.
I believe GW went with the Battle Scars instead of permanent loss of units to prevent a "rich get richer" situation you can see occur in games like Mordheim.
There typically isn't a rich get richer in CoC because your units don't get much for victory beyond progress towards winning the campaign. The poor can decline battle and trade space for time while they get reinforcements - unless their back is to the wall...
shockingly telling people they shouldn't play for a week because they lost the week before is very unpopular with players.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Also, losses of men and equipment persist between games, which can sometimes force a pause in battle as both sides try to get replacements forward before the next attack.
I believe GW went with the Battle Scars instead of permanent loss of units to prevent a "rich get richer" situation you can see occur in games like Mordheim.
There typically isn't a rich get richer in CoC because your units don't get much for victory beyond progress towards winning the campaign. The poor can decline battle and trade space for time while they get reinforcements - unless their back is to the wall...
shockingly telling people they shouldn't play for a week because they lost the week before is very unpopular with players.
Campaign turns aren't always a week. They are just the way the campaign counts time.
If you lose Turn 2 on Week 2, you can retreat Turn 3 on Week 3, move the attacker's chit up on the map, roll for replacements/reinforcements, then play Turn 4, still on Week 3. No requirement to sync the turns up to weeks.
Now, the campaigns typically aren't multiplayer, though when they are you will have to play your Turn 3 game on Week 3, to stay synched, but you also have your teammates to lend you support if your force is particularly savaged or badly off.
You know, you guys are right: I shouldn't say no one complains about D&D when I don't spend hours on D&D forums to see whether or not that's true. I have a great DM and great players and that is what allows me to enjoy 5th ed; I totally prefer 3.5. Glad to know that other people dislike 5th as a system. I retract previous statement: obviously no one is complaining about D&D in a 40k forum.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The comparison to DnD aptly illustrates the problems with Crusade, though.
The DnD rules emphasize collaborative storytelling. They mandate a GM who is telling the story, and provide mechanics for interactions that are non-combat related.
This will be harder to do in a game which is not an RPG, although I'll argue later that there are plenty of non-combat options available for Crusaders too. I did read your other post about chain of command, and the campaign system does offer non-combat actions, which is kind of cool. However, I can deconstruct that the same way you deconstruct Crusade. You say "Crusade isn't narrative at all- it's a progression system" I can say "It sounds to me like CoC isn't narrative at all- it's just a campaign system."
Crusade does not include rules for a campaign system in the BRB. This is not to say it does not include rules for a campaign system- you can find them in the first WD Pariah Flashpoint, and a different set in the BoR- one which encourages, though does not mandate a GM by the way. It is clear after all the debate we've had back and forth on this that your primary problem with Crusade is that it doesn't include a forced campaign system as part of it's core rules. I see this as a strength, not a weakness, because I can choose to use either of the campaign systems that have been produced so far, or I can use a map based system if that's what I and the other players want, or a ladder system, or a tree system.
You might have wanted a campaign system, or multiple campaign systems to be in the BRB; me too. I'm sorry they aren't, but complaining that they are in other books is like complaining there's no treasure in D&D because it isn't in the PH or that there are no monster encounters in the game because they only appear in the MM and not the PH or DMG.
Similarly, the fact that the campaign systems work equally well for Crusade, Matched or Open is not a legitimate indictment of either the campaign rules or any of the ways to play. If anything, it's a value-add for versatility.
Every combat encounter is "framed" by non-combat stuff.
This is only true if the GM chooses to include non-combat encounters, which is not mandated by the game. And even if the GM includes these encounters, they still won't occur unless the players choose to engage them. That was my point.
How much you see of the combat area is defined by what gear you have and the lighting conditions (dim light to 40 ft, bright light to 20 ft, for example). How many allies you have with you is determined by your diplomacy checks with the guard at the last town. The ammunition you have for your bows/crossbows is determined by how much you brought plus the amount expended in the last encounter. Your spell selection is split between combat and non-combat spells, and some of each may have been spent in your last encounter, etc. etc.
How large a battlefield I play on, as well as how many agendas my army can pursue are determined by how many resources the commander has chosen to devote to securing reinforcement (supply limit) vs. how many they've chosen to allocate to other requisitions- a choice which is a non combat action. (This was the piece in the post you selectively quoted where I explained how the synergy between the core game size mechanics and supply limit are greather than the sum of their parts). The ammunition that I use depends on how many resources a given unit chooses to allocate to upgrading it's weapons vs. acquiring additional skills- another non combat decision. In fact, for both DE and Mechanicus, this is even more complex, because it is affected by my previous efforts at securing territory or collecting components. The Agenda that I choose to pursue during battle can also be a non combat action; currently, my favourites are defiling the sites that are important to my enemies in order to fill them with fear (a DE Agenda) and invoking the Miraculous power of the Emperor (an SoB Agenda).
Just because you choose not to acknowledge or engage with these things (a valid choice BTW) does not mean they do not exist.
The framework for a Crusade game is: "Your armies are both here for the Relic. FIGHT! The winner gets a free relic."
Nope. Not even close.
The unit that achieves the agenda (which may not be a combat action as described above) might choose to claim a relic, or increase their psychic potency, or learn a new skill, and this can happen whether or not they win the battle. What's more, if the commander has chosen to secure enough reinforcements, different units can achieve different agendas and make different choices if they succeed. To further complicate the issue, these are only short term goals- they can also choose to make progress toward longer term goals, such as pursuing sainthood or redemption, or collecting components for later use, or inventing new diseases, or acquiring Territories.
Depending upon the battle (which players can choose or generate randomly as a stand alone game or as part of a larger campaign), there may be additional benefits to the army as whole based on whether they win or lose.
This can be done inside or outside of a campaign framework (or a combination of both) based on the needs of the player.
Part of this is due to the core rules and how crappy they are at letting models do anything other than murder each other. As soon as someone says "GO" both armies are basically murderizing each other, so there's little incentive to carefully manage the narrative escalation or even try to figure out why these armies might be fighting.
Objective based play, and the addition of "actions" to the core mechanics changed this; Crusade went even further by a) decoupling Agendas from victory conditions in order to empower players to choose "fluffier" options and b) providing long term goals which can only be achieved over multiple games, and often come at opportunity costs to either winning or skilling up other units. I know that you choose not to pursue these long term goals because they don't fit your story, but you can't pretend they aren't there because you choose not to engage them.
it gives me narrative reasons to conserve spell slots or ammunition,
Like how using special issue ammunition for a squad without the datacard ability costs 2 cp unless you devote resources to acquiring it so that it comes at the opportunity cost of other skill acquisitions or how psychic action Agendas prevent you from using combat abilities?
it gives me narrative reasons to avoid the fight entirely (while still gaining the XP/progression points).
Harder in a miniature game than an RPG, but an army that chose only action based non-combat Agendas could opt to hide (in some cases- often, even non-coms require engagement with objectives, but not always) in order to pursue other goals.
or to ensure I've brought utility items such as torches/lamps or potions, etc.
In the core crusade rules, there's a requisition to change a unit's load out or to respec a psyker's powers; there are battle honours that allow equipment strats to be used at reduced CP costs, and admech are ALL about designing equipment over multiple games.
It gives me narrative reasons and mechanics for bringing an allied character whether NPCs or a player, and even gives me guidance on how command-and-control works with them (which is more than 40k does, ironically).
Like attaching an Imperial Agent such as an Inquisitor, or bringing an allied detachment? This latter is way cooler now that it comes at opportunity costs- like if sisters are playing a mission where they deploy across a short board edge and they are worried because they don't have many options for long range firepower, they can bring an IG artillery spearhead, but they won't be able to use Miracle dice if they do- and yet the commander may still deem that long range fire support to be worth the trade.
As for the command and control piece, command is represented by command points, and bringing additional detachments limits command points, cutting down on other battlefield options. Command is also represented by auras, which are more complicated in multifaction detachments since IG auras won't help sisters and vice versa; additional command and control is represented by requisitions that upgrade HQ's to master level.
Just because some of these rules also apply to matched does not diminish the fact that they are a part of playing Crusade. Would it make you feel better if all the matched play rules which also apply to the Crusade system were reprinted in the Crusade section of the BRB? Because you seem to spend a lot of time writing about how poor Crusade is because the rules that do the things you claim can't be done are in a different section of the book.
I've acknowledged that Crusade isn't perfect; that it could use more content. I've acknowledged that I would actually really like a campaigner's handbook designed specifically for Crusade that expanded the game, and if we're lucky, something of the sort may be on the way- Crusade rules appearing in White Dwarf for the first time this month is a huge step in that direction.
So I've really done my part to meet you half way.
The next time Crusade comes up, please don't pretend that relic acquisition is the only goal of the game after I've spent pages of type explaining the differences between battle victory, unit advancement and long term narrative goals, and how these things exist in a state of dynamic tension where any one often comes at the expense of others.
Tyel wrote: I don't really see how you'd ever have any rule system that people who want to munchkin on won't munchkin on...
Construct the game such that by "munchkining" people are engaging with the basic premise of the game. In wargames that usually means "balance the game well enough that you can play 'fluffy' lists and still participate." In RPGs give people mechanical advantage for roleplaying (e.g. WoD/Exalted) and people will get engaged in the roleplaying.
Tyel wrote: I don't really see how you'd ever have any rule system that people who want to munchkin on won't munchkin on...
Construct the game such that by "munchkining" people are engaging with the basic premise of the game. In wargames that usually means "balance the game well enough that you can play 'fluffy' lists and still participate." In RPGs give people mechanical advantage for roleplaying (e.g. WoD/Exalted) and people will get engaged in the roleplaying.
Good game design is acknowledging how your players are going to interact with your systems. If mechanics reward anti-social, broken, or negative experiences players will engage in them that way even if it's unintended or bad for the game as a whole. By acknowledging the meta gamer, and putting in mechanics that can curtail that, or transfer that energy in a different way, you can foster a better playing experience for everyone involved in the game.
Arguably real world warfare is munchkin by default - never fight fair, always use the best stuff.
It's only ever limited by cost and availability and deployment practicality.
The problem as I see it, is that a codex doesn't provide you a standing army to draw units from, and thus a hard limit on how many of each you can take.
If a marine codex allowed you to draw only from a battle company, you'd only be able to take 2 assault squads.
You could have auxiliary rules where you can draw from the reserve companies as well, but they wouldn't be a part of the standard order of battle and wouldn't integrate as well (there'd be special rules obvs).
Being free to make your doods, shouldn't allow you to ignore the in-universe practical limitations on what you can deploy.
The rule of 3 is a very dull and unsubtle way of enforcing something like this, but that actually allows something like a marine force to have more then the number of devestator or assault units than a battle company actually has....
Hellebore wrote: Arguably real world warfare is munchkin by default - never fight fair, always use the best stuff.
It's only ever limited by cost and availability and deployment practicality.
The problem as I see it, is that a codex doesn't provide you a standing army to draw units from, and thus a hard limit on how many of each you can take.
If a marine codex allowed you to draw only from a battle company, you'd only be able to take 2 assault squads.
You could have auxiliary rules where you can draw from the reserve companies as well, but they wouldn't be a part of the standard order of battle and wouldn't integrate as well (there'd be special rules obvs).
Being free to make your doods, shouldn't allow you to ignore the in-universe practical limitations on what you can deploy.
The rule of 3 is a very dull and unsubtle way of enforcing something like this, but that actually allows something like a marine force to have more then the number of devestator or assault units than a battle company actually has....
The problem with the rule of 3 is that it was limiting in a way that made no sense. I could take 9 leman russ battle tanks, and a tank commander to get 10 leman russes, but couldn't take a 40 man platoon of veterans.
All the whilst people were engaging in crazy soup armies where space wolves and dark angles could be buddies, and soup power combos could still be maximized.
Indeed, I wouldn't even fault Crusade if it was advertised (and consequently handled) as just a progression system to use within a wider narrative.
But that's not what crusade is. Crusade advertises itself specifically as a narrative system in its own right, designed such that you can even play narrative games vs people that aren't in Crusade (don't, it's terrible, Crusade is OP).
Maybe other factions are different, but I dont feel like Crusade gives me much narrative. It presents silly and arbitrary hoops that throw extra relics, abilities, and bonuses at me that don't really make much sense.
What if to GW design team the narrative in Crusade way of playing is the different mechanics?
Tyel wrote: I don't really see how you'd ever have any rule system that people who want to munchkin on won't munchkin on...
Construct the game such that by "munchkining" people are engaging with the basic premise of the game. In wargames that usually means "balance the game well enough that you can play 'fluffy' lists and still participate." In RPGs give people mechanical advantage for roleplaying (e.g. WoD/Exalted) and people will get engaged in the roleplaying.
I'm not familiar with WoD or Exalted, could you possibly elaborate on how they give mechanical advantages for roleplaying?
Tyel wrote: I don't really see how you'd ever have any rule system that people who want to munchkin on won't munchkin on...
Construct the game such that by "munchkining" people are engaging with the basic premise of the game. In wargames that usually means "balance the game well enough that you can play 'fluffy' lists and still participate." In RPGs give people mechanical advantage for roleplaying (e.g. WoD/Exalted) and people will get engaged in the roleplaying.
I'm not familiar with WoD or Exalted, could you possibly elaborate on how they give mechanical advantages for roleplaying?
Being RPGs, WoD and exalted are a bit different from a wargame. But the basic mechanic would be bonus dice for describing and doing something cool within the narrative.
Rather than the D&D style of attack, you would say “I try and push the dagger though the gap in the armor of his neck” or something and a GM rewards you with extra dice. Exalted combat goes even further with it, but it would be hard to go into that depth for this discussion and keep it relevant I think.
But you can get up to a extra 5 dice which is significantly large in Wod and enough to kill a human in the game with just that roll if you are lucky.
I remember playing a one-shot of a game like that... it was pretty horrible because the people who power-game their character sheets can also power-game that mechanic. Nothing great about listening to someone describing hitting someone else with a sword for 15 minutes for the fourth time in one fight.
You can't force the munchkin out of people, you can only communicate with them or agree that you don't play the same way and split ways.
The next best thing 40k can do is making the best armies that come out of a book actually look like armies in the background - and for most of the 9th edition codices that worked out quite well.
The next best thing 40k can do is making the best armies that come out of a book actually look like armies in the background - and for most of the 9th edition codices that worked out quite well.
What are you smoking, that hasn't been true since 5th ed or earlier. if anything 9th makes them less like the background and more generic.
look at the white scars
9th ed they get to move/advance and still charge... super lore based?
compared to
3rd/4th
special rules-
.born in the saddle
.bike squadrons
.mounted veterans
.counter attack
.flankers
.hit&run
.power lances (nobody else could use them at the time)
Mounted requirements for all units not on bike or with jump packs, bans on slow moving units like dreadnoughts, dev squads etc.. attack bike squads moved to heavy support etc...
Have you actually read the rules and abilities for White Scars? They have most of that still, and you no longer need certain characters to unlock stuff like an all bike army.
Only things off that list they lost were power lances and mounted vets. Both of which have more to do with the Chapterhouse lawsuit tham 9th ed.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and we lost FOC moves for everyone but CSM but that is less important in this edition with how FOC works.
The next best thing 40k can do is making the best armies that come out of a book actually look like armies in the background - and for most of the 9th edition codices that worked out quite well.
What are you smoking, that hasn't been true since 5th ed or earlier. if anything 9th makes them less like the background and more generic.
look at the white scars
9th ed they get to move/advance and still charge... super lore based?
compared to
3rd/4th
special rules-
.born in the saddle
.bike squadrons
.mounted veterans
.counter attack
.flankers
.hit&run
.power lances (nobody else could use them at the time)
Mounted requirements for all units not on bike or with jump packs, bans on slow moving units like dreadnoughts, dev squads etc.. attack bike squads moved to heavy support etc...
TBH that version of white scars was not the white scars of the fluff but the flanderised version of white scars. 9th white scars are much more fluff oriented.
And I'll agree with what he said. 9th codices play MUCH more like the fluff of each faction and book.
Galas wrote: ...9th codices play MUCH more like the fluff of each faction and book.
The Deathwatch fluff is that all their advanced equipment and training make them mathematically equivalent to just taking no Chapter Tactics?
It’s very faction dependent, some are very open and anything can be fluffy and lots of options, and others are left struggling to do the same with a pure lack of options.
Inconsistent rules and universe building has been 40k big flaw for a long, long time. And it just filter though each edition as no one atGW has any incentive to fix it, and now even less so.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jidmah wrote: I remember playing a one-shot of a game like that... it was pretty horrible because the people who power-game their character sheets can also power-game that mechanic. Nothing great about listening to someone describing hitting someone else with a sword for 15 minutes for the fourth time in one fight.
You can't force the munchkin out of people, you can only communicate with them or agree that you don't play the same way and split ways.
The next best thing 40k can do is making the best armies that come out of a book actually look like armies in the background - and for most of the 9th edition codices that worked out quite well.
Being it’s an entirely GM run mechanic they could stop them at anytime or not reward points. And 15 minutes to describe an attack is yea, maybe you just play with a bad group.
Could even be that you where not getting into the story itself and are not really a compatible player in the group. I can imagine a full scenario for an attack playing out with a 15 minutes interval several times.
But ultimately it’s different as a player driven mechanic so not entirely workable for a wargame without a GM.
Fixed it up since the last bit read a bit mean when not intended >.<
Didn't have them in 1-3 for sure. Don't think we had them 4-5, but could be wrong- might have been a supplement.
Didn't play in 6th or 7th at all, so I genuinely don't know.
I think I remember a big bully-hurrah in 8th because it was the first time they got their own Codex. Like I said though' maybe supplements.
The thing that makes Death Watch play like their fluff (IMHO) is that it is possible for every non vehicle, non character unit to have Obsec by virtue of Kill Teams, whether those units are Elite, Fast Attack or Heavy Support.
And while only the Proteus teams have easy access to SIA, ANY unit CAN access it by strat and characters can access it via relic. And if you play Crusade, there's a Battle Honour for units that makes the strat free.
If you combine the chapter tactic with Specialisms, it changes the reroll 1's from the chapter tactic to straight rerolls. And if you play Crusade, characters can benefit from specialisms (thereby getting full rerolls as well if memory serves), and you grant XP bonuses to the Kill Teams that share those specialism to represent the mentorship of the senior officers.
As with everything in 9th, if you analyze just one piece of any dex in isolation from all the other moving parts, it will look like less than what you get once that piece is on the table in its natural habitat.
Edit: The alien specific strats stack with the chapter tactic and specialisms too.
ClockworkZion wrote:Have you actually read the rules and abilities for White Scars? They have most of that still, and you no longer need certain characters to unlock stuff like an all bike army.
Only things off that list they lost were power lances and mounted vets. Both of which have more to do with the Chapterhouse lawsuit tham 9th ed.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and we lost FOC moves for everyone but CSM but that is less important in this edition with how FOC works.
Yes i have and it is a joke compared to what they once were, and character unlocks were a 5th ed thing the WS themed army i listed is in index astartes 1 for 3rd edition
On that point i am waiting to see this all bike primaris army where the 10 man strong bike units are troops choices and not fast attack/outrider detachments The WS lists i have seen in 9th are running things the WS would never field in the lore because they have to in 9th to make them viable.
There in lies the big rub, previously the thematic lore based army lists both fell in line with how the army was supposed to operate and also was viable.
Galas wrote:.
And I'll agree with what he said. 9th codices play MUCH more like the fluff of each faction and book.
Tell that to any chaos player who ever had a 3.5 codex or a black templar player with a 4th edition codex, or certain eldar craftworld armies in those editions etc....
The mechanics of 9th and the lack of the single unified FOC are only part of the problem but they add to the generic nature of the "fluff" rules in 9th edition. that mostly focuses on buffs and debuffs to hit or damage instead of things these armies would naturally do in lore.
aphyon wrote: On that point i am waiting to see this all bike primaris army where the 10 man strong bike units are troops choices and not fast attack/outrider detachments
Put the goal post down. Your complaint was a lack of all bike armies. I pointed out that you can still have them. You don't get to then go "but I need them as troops too!"
aphyon wrote: On that point i am waiting to see this all bike primaris army where the 10 man strong bike units are troops choices and not fast attack/outrider detachments
Put the goal post down. Your complaint was a lack of all bike armies. I pointed out that you can still have them. You don't get to then go "but I need them as troops too!"
Okay, then. Just to make your life slightly harder, can I go "I'd really like to see huge White Scars bike wads with native Obsec" since it's not my 'goalpost' that was 'moved?'
aphyon wrote: On that point i am waiting to see this all bike primaris army where the 10 man strong bike units are troops choices and not fast attack/outrider detachments
Put the goal post down. Your complaint was a lack of all bike armies. I pointed out that you can still have them. You don't get to then go "but I need them as troops too!"
Okay, then. Just to make your life slightly harder, can I go "I'd really like to see huge White Scars bike wads with native Obsec" since it's not my 'goalpost' that was 'moved?'
You can have that. Go play 5th edition.
Seriously, I'm just going to start reading this kind of stuff off in the dumbest owo sounding voice I can imagine because it's all "oh I'm totally owning you with facts and logic!" while ignoring that there are only two units in the whole game who turn into troops in specific situations (Berserkers and Noise Marines). Crying that you can't make Obsec White Scars anymore is just looking for an excuse to be mad about something.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Isn't White Scars being all bikes all the time a Flanderisation of the White Scars?
I mean, they're a Codex Chapter, right?
Codex chapter specializing in hit and run tactics and savaging the enemy tribes. Known for mechanized and bike tactics (and rarely using Dreadnoughts). People just love that flanderized version of them only on bikes.
3rd Edition Chapter Approved (White Dwarf list for DW Kill Teams, same as most SM Chapters got), 6th Edition Inquisition Codex, 7th Edition Deathwatch Codex
same as Dark Angels and Blood Angels, but the first have a "secret" and the 2nd a "defect", so WS fit into the "Codex Chapter but different enough for not being just White Ultra Marines although UM should be able to do exactly the same on the table according to fluff"
ClockworkZion wrote: Seriously, I'm just going to start reading this kind of stuff off in the dumbest owo sounding voice I can imagine because it's all "oh I'm totally owning you with facts and logic!" while ignoring that there are only two units in the whole game who turn into troops in specific situations (Berserkers and Noise Marines). Crying that you can't make Obsec White Scars anymore is just looking for an excuse to be mad about something.
First, screw you, because I do an adorable OwO voice.
Second, you mistake my intentions - I was being a dick to you mostly because I kind of hate 'moving goalposts' as a substitute for an argument. Not every minor problem with it has to be the reason to dislike 9th when there are so many much more foundational reasons to do so.
ClockworkZion wrote: Seriously, I'm just going to start reading this kind of stuff off in the dumbest owo sounding voice I can imagine because it's all "oh I'm totally owning you with facts and logic!" while ignoring that there are only two units in the whole game who turn into troops in specific situations (Berserkers and Noise Marines). Crying that you can't make Obsec White Scars anymore is just looking for an excuse to be mad about something.
First, screw you, because I do an adorable OwO voice.
Second, you mistake my intentions - I was being a dick to you mostly because I kind of hate 'moving goalposts' as a substitute for an argument. Not every minor problem with it has to be the reason to dislike 9th when there are so many much more foundational reasons to do so.
It was completely a moving goal post argument though. When you go "well sure I can have an all bike army, but it doesn't count because I can't have an all bike obsec army" that's not a rebuttal to the point, it's shifting the goal post to force me or someone else to meet new criteria in order to prove a point. Besides, how do you objective secure a point on a bike anyways? Do donuts around it?
Seriously, I'm just going to start reading this kind of stuff off in the dumbest owo sounding voice I can imagine because it's all "oh I'm totally owning you with facts and logic!" while ignoring that there are only two units in the whole game who turn into troops in specific situations (Berserkers and Noise Marines). Crying that you can't make Obsec White Scars anymore is just looking for an excuse to be mad about something.
If that is the case, then why shouldn't people who want to play a WS army not want to WS bikers be troops. DW can take 5 man outridder units that are troops, just by virtue of how their squads can be set up.
I understand something not being or not suppose to be a thing, if there are no examples in it , in the entire game. But both historically and rules wise now, such things can happen. And it is really not that hard to do either. Just put something like this under the starting section of the WS book "If the warlord in a White Scar detachment is mounted on a bike or an outrider bike, outridder and bikers in this detachment can be taken in the troop slot":
GW has moved away from shuffling codexes around for balance. You may not like it but your bikers already get so many buffs that taking an Outrider of bikes is still very good even if they don't have Obsec. We're really getting into "first world problems" levels of complaining when you start griping that your bike Marines don't get obsec.
Why can't they be better if in a WS army? DA blade guard are better, for no extra points I think, just by virtue of being in a DA army.
Same way a SW player can ask why if his wolf priests are both chaplains and apothecaries, can't they take the Apothecary upgrade for them.
And it is not a first problem, if someone wants to play a WS army made with bikers. Sure WS are one of the best marine armies, but they are build around swarms of infantry AND no transports, because marine transports are bad. Which makes WS not really play like WS.
If I play the GK brother hood that deploys the most termintor armours, and has both its Grandmaster and 20 member deployed in guardian suits. Then if for some reason an army made out of serivitors and power armoured GK is good, does not help me enjoy the game better.
DE players like to play with their fast moving stuff, DA and DG players got the stuff they like to use in their books, why shouldn't WS player that like bikes get what they like? And that is before stupid limitations on outridders, just because GW only has the ETB kit right now, so outside of DW you can take bigger squads then 3 or give them any upgrades, when at the same time the primaris chaplain on an outrider bike exists, meaning there are no lore problems with the sgt of a outrider unit having a power fist or a neo volkite pistol, or have 3+ members in the squad, like lets say blade guard or eradictors, whose only difference is that they have a regular box alongside an ETB option.
If there is enough people who want it, then why shouldn't BA be the jump pack faction and the WS the biker faction.
No one seems to have a problem with 1ksons or GK being the magic marines. Or DA having their DW and RW. eldar have a faction or sub faction, what ever one wants to call it, that litterally takes the model from other eldar factions and gives them extra rules.
Because they want the rules to reflect the fluff*. Blood Angels aren't the "Jump Pack Chapter" any more than White Scars aren't the "Bike Chapter". Like it or lump it, they're both Codex Chapters. They have variations, but they're not like the Wolves, who are decidedly not a Codex Chapter.
Apropos...
Karol wrote: Same way a SW player can ask why if his wolf priests are both chaplains and apothecaries, can't they take the Apothecary upgrade for them.
Well that one is easy to answer: GW wanted to give all Marines a singular central list, but forgot that the Woofs are the least like regular Marines of all the non-Grey Knight loyalist Chapters. Unlike Blood Angels or Dark Angels, who are just a little bit different, Space Wolves are completely different with mainly vehicles being their only parallels. But, off they went, trying to make a square peg fit a round hole. And their method of approach was the same way they approach changes to the rules - with a sledgehammer. End result, the weird nonsense you mentioned (and beyond).
*Before you laugh, always remember that GW's concepts are fantastic. It's their implementation that always leaves us shaking our heads in abject disbelief.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because they want the rules to reflect the fluff*. Blood Angels aren't the "Jump Pack Chapter" any more than White Scars aren't the "Bike Chapter". Like it or lump it, they're both Codex Chapters. They have variations, but they're not like the Wolves, who are decidedly not a Codex Chapter.
Yet at the same time, it does not explain why something like better bladeguard exists for DA. Plus lore has zero to do with how factions function or what rules they have on the tablet top. If they did, then I want my 600 combat servitors being teleported in on to enemy lines pre game in melee range or Guardian Suits termintor power armour or the 4 hour long non stop lance strike performed before planet drop guided by warp seers and loaded warheads that targets the opponents soul as much as his body. Or failing that the blessed ammo every GK has in his bolter, to be on without the use of a stratagem.
In game WS seem to be the biker faction, so this makes them the biker faction. Giving people options to game play the system is more important then some lore boundry of tactical companies don't have that many RAS units. And it is even a weaker argument when the boundry exists only, so GW could force people to buy different models and not play with the army they want.
Karol wrote: Why can't they be better if in a WS army? DA blade guard are better, for no extra points I think, just by virtue of being in a DA army.
Same way a SW player can ask why if his wolf priests are both chaplains and apothecaries, can't they take the Apothecary upgrade for them.
Because WS aren't only about bikes and such a reductive take on the faction ignores how it's rules synergize with the other units at its disposal?
Or because we don't need to give every friggin rule to every friggin unit just because that's how it used to work.
Talk about moving the goalposts they are not the bike factions. they are the MOUNTED faction, the FAST faction their fighting style is literally based on mongol cavalry.
They want all their units mounted in transports they don't want to go slow, they HATE dreadnoughts. they may be "codex compliant" about as much as the dark angels are. enough to get by while keeping their preferred style of combat. could they defend a bastion? of course. will they? probably not. during the siege of Terra they left Dorn up on the battlements and took the battle to the enemy via bikes, speeders, jump packs and battle brothers in rhinos and predators.
They have access to all the same units as any other codex compliant chapter they just choose to use them differently(or not at all).
In game WS seem to be the biker faction, so this makes them the biker faction
Slight caveat Karol. the ravenwing is a bike themed army that focuses on shooting. the white scars have more of a close combat tactical focus in the lore when it comes to their bike forces.
I'm wondering if there will be a round two of Marine supplements.
If GW have plans for this to be a longer edition- and given the amount of attention to ways to play, there's a chance- a second round of SM supplements AFTER all the dexes are out, with a few chapter specific primaris models isn't a terrible idea. Better than stuff people would complain is DLC, better than a marine 2.0 dex.
After those supplement, another campaign cycle; all the factions which received many models in the first wave would get a single kit; all the factions which received a single model in the first wave could get a few kits in the second. If the campaign books are kept "Nice to Have" instead of "Need to Have", this cycle could even be repeated a third time. Technically, it could go on indefinitely, but that's a pipe dream.
Also, we got a vs box Q1, and GK vs. Ksons was supposed to be Q2; I'm curious to see whether there will be another in Q3 and another in Q4. In the second campaign cycle, 8 new factions get package deals via VS boxes.
You could also switch up the contents of CP boxes every Campaign Cycle. There are ways to make a persistent edition equally profitable as edition churn. It's one of the things I had about the Covid/ Brexit/ Shipping crisis tripple whammy; without it, I think the pattern and the plan would be a lot clearer to more people.
And it would let some of the SM players who feel their chapters need attention to get it.
Karol wrote: Plus lore has zero to do with how factions function or what rules they have on the tablet top.
GW makes models, writes the lore about those models and then writes rules to match the models and lore, so it does matter, even if you can find edge cases that don't make sense.
The game has been overrun by tourney-hammer design which hinders experimentation and stifles creativity for an unachievable ideology called "balance".
The mission design is downright pathetic. They're so bland. There's no creativity behind them. It's a broken record repeating the same game over and over and over.
the_scotsman wrote: Right, not like the creative mission design from fourth thru seventh where the mission design was:
1) 4 objectives around the board, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
2) 1 objective in each DZ, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
3) whoever kills more units at the end of the game wins
Yes but you see, at least any deployment zone could be used with any mission! And you would, you would roll to see which deployment type you used (and if you ever rolled the diagonal one you'd re-roll, until you got either short or long)
the_scotsman wrote: Right, not like the creative mission design from fourth thru seventh where the mission design was:
1) 4 objectives around the board, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
2) 1 objective in each DZ, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
3) whoever kills more units at the end of the game wins
Yes but you see, at least any deployment zone could be used with any mission! And you would, you would roll to see which deployment type you used (and if you ever rolled the diagonal one you'd re-roll, until you got either short or long)
Every day I become more convinced that the nostalgia crowd is just nostalgic for playing in a group that would aim their creativity at designing missions, where the goal was to create as close and even a battle as possible, and now they play the game by making lists where the goal is the most powerful list possible and they do nothing to alter any of the rules, have bad games and get mad.
The game has been overrun by tourney-hammer design which hinders experimentation and stifles creativity for an unachievable ideology called "balance".
The mission design is downright pathetic. They're so bland. There's no creativity behind them. It's a broken record repeating the same game over and over and over.
This feels like the most overt "it changed so it sucks" take I've seen.
The biggest change to missions was making them less kill focused which arguably fits the lore better since territory control, resource gain/denial, and resource recovery are the reason 40k has so many ground wars instead of just glassing the enemy from orbit.
And anything you play over and over again is going to feel repetetive. That's how repetition works.
The game has been overrun by tourney-hammer design which hinders experimentation and stifles creativity for an unachievable ideology called "balance".
The mission design is downright pathetic. They're so bland. There's no creativity behind them. It's a broken record repeating the same game over and over and over.
This feels like the most overt "it changed so it sucks" take I've seen.
The biggest change to missions was making them less kill focused which arguably fits the lore better since territory control, resource gain/denial, and resource recovery are the reason 40k has so many ground wars instead of just glassing the enemy from orbit.
And anything you play over and over again is going to feel repetetive. That's how repetition works.
I don't think that's necessarily fair. Older editions did have a lot more "tactical depth" (for 40k anyway, simulation fans need not @me) than the current edition, and 8th and 9th DO have a lot of CCG style in-game power ups and combos that feel a bit "arcade-like" for lack of a better term that I can see not being appealing to some. Additionally, the missions for 9th are based on actual tournament style systems, so if you don't like that kind of play, I can see not feeling positive towards the edition. Sure, at that point it's on you to work out what style to play instead, and the tools are there for that, but I don't see that post as being as bad as you feel it was.
Every day I become more convinced that the nostalgia crowd is just nostalgic for playing in a group that would aim their creativity at designing missions, where the goal was to create as close and even a battle as possible, and now they play the game by making lists where the goal is the most powerful list possible and they do nothing to alter any of the rules, have bad games and get mad.
this is one reason why I still see 5th as the best, it was the last Edition were a community made environment worked well, our own FAQ/Errata that was accepted by all Clubs/Stores/Event around, Missions/Scenarios and Victory points and restrictions that cut down stuff that was overpowered (eg something like the previous Iron Hands) and no one had a problem with that
already with 6th and 7th people were less open to changes because the new formations are "cool & fluffy" so cannot be cut, or allowing everyone to have AA weapons because Flyers are too weak anyway.
and with 8th we got the "GW cares" and now we pay for the balance changes that were once "open source" and should not be needed in the first place
Automatically Appended Next Post:
oni wrote: And the tourney-hammer crowd will continue to do what it do... keep chasing the balance dragon.
the tourney crowed does not care about balance, they chase the meta and just play the list/faction that is the flavor of the month to win the events
The game has been overrun by tourney-hammer design which hinders experimentation and stifles creativity for an unachievable ideology called "balance".
The mission design is downright pathetic. They're so bland. There's no creativity behind them. It's a broken record repeating the same game over and over and over.
This feels like the most overt "it changed so it sucks" take I've seen.
The biggest change to missions was making them less kill focused which arguably fits the lore better since territory control, resource gain/denial, and resource recovery are the reason 40k has so many ground wars instead of just glassing the enemy from orbit.
And anything you play over and over again is going to feel repetetive. That's how repetition works.
Nah. I like the 9th edition core rules. And I applaud the changes to detachments and command points - I think they really nailed it.
I hate the missions. They're uninspired and one dimensional. And the missions are the heart & soul of the game because they dictate how to play.
the_scotsman wrote: Right, not like the creative mission design from fourth thru seventh where the mission design was:
1) 4 objectives around the board, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
2) 1 objective in each DZ, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
3) whoever kills more units at the end of the game wins
Yes but you see, at least any deployment zone could be used with any mission! And you would, you would roll to see which deployment type you used (and if you ever rolled the diagonal one you'd re-roll, until you got either short or long)
Every day I become more convinced that the nostalgia crowd is just nostalgic for playing in a group that would aim their creativity at designing missions, where the goal was to create as close and even a battle as possible, and now they play the game by making lists where the goal is the most powerful list possible and they do nothing to alter any of the rules, have bad games and get mad.
I remember in 5th playing what was effectively a pickup game with a friend where we decided, based on the terrain we had, that a certain part of the board had a weird psychic anomaly happening. My opponent's Dark Eldar wanted to see it happen because lol why not, and my Grey Knights wanted to shut it down because Emperor's Tarot yadda yadda bad Daemons.
We quickly discovered that a mission where a raider full of incubi needed to merely move and unleash on some hapless GK defending a location is not very well balanced but hey it was a fun half hour.
Queue playing a Narrative Campaign in 8th with the same friend who railed against the custom mission I had designed (basically get the explorator in a freshly-activated Necron tomb and get it back to the table edge while tomb defense systems attacked your units + the enemy also wanted said explorator) because it was unbalanced.
The game has been overrun by tourney-hammer design which hinders experimentation and stifles creativity for an unachievable ideology called "balance".
The mission design is downright pathetic. They're so bland. There's no creativity behind them. It's a broken record repeating the same game over and over and over.
This feels like the most overt "it changed so it sucks" take I've seen.
The biggest change to missions was making them less kill focused which arguably fits the lore better since territory control, resource gain/denial, and resource recovery are the reason 40k has so many ground wars instead of just glassing the enemy from orbit.
And anything you play over and over again is going to feel repetetive. That's how repetition works.
I don't think that's necessarily fair. Older editions did have a lot more "tactical depth" (for 40k anyway, simulation fans need not @me) than the current edition, and 8th and 9th DO have a lot of CCG style in-game power ups and combos that feel a bit "arcade-like" for lack of a better term that I can see not being appealing to some. Additionally, the missions for 9th are based on actual tournament style systems, so if you don't like that kind of play, I can see not feeling positive towards the edition. Sure, at that point it's on you to work out what style to play instead, and the tools are there for that, but I don't see that post as being as bad as you feel it was.
I never said anything about tactical depth. I was talking about narrative depth.
The game has been overrun by tourney-hammer design which hinders experimentation and stifles creativity for an unachievable ideology called "balance".
Possibly true of Matched play, which is one third of what GW gave you, yet is strangely the only thing anyone cares about, despite the fact that another third of what GW gave you would solve many of the problems.
oni wrote: Negative.
The mission design is downright pathetic. They're so bland. There's no creativity behind them. It's a broken record repeating the same game over and over and over.
Because Missions are only part of the game, since neither secondaries nor agendas are contained in the mission rules. I won't speak about secondaries specifically as I don't play matched and others can do it more intelligently than I, but most agendas in dexes are interesting and fluffy, and many involve battlefield actions and some are completely de-coupled from and exist in dynamic tension with objectives.
The game has been overrun by tourney-hammer design which hinders experimentation and stifles creativity for an unachievable ideology called "balance".
The mission design is downright pathetic. They're so bland. There's no creativity behind them. It's a broken record repeating the same game over and over and over.
This feels like the most overt "it changed so it sucks" take I've seen.
The biggest change to missions was making them less kill focused which arguably fits the lore better since territory control, resource gain/denial, and resource recovery are the reason 40k has so many ground wars instead of just glassing the enemy from orbit.
And anything you play over and over again is going to feel repetetive. That's how repetition works.
I don't think that's necessarily fair. Older editions did have a lot more "tactical depth" (for 40k anyway, simulation fans need not @me) than the current edition, and 8th and 9th DO have a lot of CCG style in-game power ups and combos that feel a bit "arcade-like" for lack of a better term that I can see not being appealing to some. Additionally, the missions for 9th are based on actual tournament style systems, so if you don't like that kind of play, I can see not feeling positive towards the edition. Sure, at that point it's on you to work out what style to play instead, and the tools are there for that, but I don't see that post as being as bad as you feel it was.
I never said anything about tactical depth. I was talking about narrative depth.
I don't see anything about "narrative" depth in your post. It seemed aimed at tactics but fair enough if I misunderstood you. It still feels a bit harsh. The post you were responding to wasn't one of those "RAAAARGH! One unit in my army changed ever so slightly and now my army is invalidated, so feth GW" kind of posts. Seemed like a reasonable take to me.
9th edition missions are boring. They accomplish what they try but are repetitive and boring.
But no warhammer game has had ever any "fun" mission, at least not the ones used in any kind of competitive or tournament play.
I remember fantasy, editions and editions of just pitched battles and to kill each other. And TBH in a game like that, it was appropiate. But still, became quite repetitive.
Galas wrote: 9th edition missions are boring. They accomplish what they try but are repetitive and boring.
But no warhammer game has had ever any "fun" mission, at least not the ones used in any kind of competitive or tournament play.
I remember fantash, editions and editions of just pitched battles and to kill each other. And TBH in a game like that, it was appropiate. But still, became quite repetitive.
I feel like the missions aren't the problem, it's the repetition that kills the fun.
Galas wrote: 9th edition missions are boring. They accomplish what they try but are repetitive and boring.
But no warhammer game has had ever any "fun" mission, at least not the ones used in any kind of competitive or tournament play.
I remember fantash, editions and editions of just pitched battles and to kill each other. And TBH in a game like that, it was appropiate. But still, became quite repetitive.
I feel like the missions aren't the problem, it's the repetition that kills the fun.
Well, the missions are designed with competitive play in mind, and competitive players like consistent win conditions. So, you get repetition.
Galas wrote: 9th edition missions are boring. They accomplish what they try but are repetitive and boring.
But no warhammer game has had ever any "fun" mission, at least not the ones used in any kind of competitive or tournament play.
I remember fantash, editions and editions of just pitched battles and to kill each other. And TBH in a game like that, it was appropiate. But still, became quite repetitive.
I feel like the missions aren't the problem, it's the repetition that kills the fun.
Well, the missions are designed with competitive play in mind, and competitive players like consistent win conditions. So, you get repetition.
I won't disagree with that. I'm just saying that the base game getting played to death is more the issue than the design of the missions.
Which reminds me, did Plague War or Book of Rust add narrative missions? I have yet to look at those books.
the_scotsman wrote: Right, not like the creative mission design from fourth thru seventh where the mission design was:
1) 4 objectives around the board, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
2) 1 objective in each DZ, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
3) whoever kills more units at the end of the game wins
Yes but you see, at least any deployment zone could be used with any mission! And you would, you would roll to see which deployment type you used (and if you ever rolled the diagonal one you'd re-roll, until you got either short or long)
Every day I become more convinced that the nostalgia crowd is just nostalgic for playing in a group that would aim their creativity at designing missions, where the goal was to create as close and even a battle as possible, and now they play the game by making lists where the goal is the most powerful list possible and they do nothing to alter any of the rules, have bad games and get mad.
This is a weird post because its implying that the older players changed, rather than the focus of the newer players changing to a more static rules set because its what convenient. Theres more FLGSs around now, meaning more games with strangers which is why you'd want the convenience of a static rule set whereas nostalgial players generally played with friends at each others houses (or Garagehammer), which made it easy to agree and play house rules.
The thing about the current mission pack is that they're one dimensional. Everyone will always select the same secondary objectives that their army is best suited to achieve. And because you can always select the same Secondary Objectives every time, you can evaluate and formulate during army construction to better accomplish them. Hence why so many people say that the game is won during the "list building phase". There is no mechanic to force the players to consider a victory condition that hasn't been premeditated.
I like the 8th edition missions the best. Particularly the Eternal War and Maelstrom of War missions. And they were all getting refined and very good towards the end of 8th's life cycle via Chapter Approved.
A primary reason why the 8th edition missions are great is that you did not know what the victory condition would be going into the game. This forced players to consider ALL options and assemble an army that was more diversified. Another reason the 8th edition Eternal War missions are great is that both players are working towards a common victory condition. With the 9th edition missions the game feels disjointed because you're each working towards different goals. This can really cut down on counter play. The 9th edition missions actually remove critical thinking and tactical depth from the game because the armies become somewhat autonomous; always working to achieve the same objectives each and every time.
Another reason the 8th edition Eternal War missions are great is that both players are working towards a common victory condition.
With the 9th edition missions the game feels disjointed because you're each working towards different goals. This can really cut down on counter play. The 9th edition missions actually remove critical thinking and tactical depth from the game because the armies become somewhat autonomous; always working to achieve the same objectives each and every time.
Hard disagree. Asymmetric objectives do the exact opposite in general, they promote counterplay that isn't simply "try harder to achieve your main goal". When both players shoot for the same goal, you just have to do that thing better than the other side. With asymmetry, you have to think about achieving yours and also partitioning some forces to harry and disrupt the other guy from achieving theirs. Tension between these factors allows for interesting play. 40k doesn't do that in any particularily commendable fashion, but that isn't really the objectives' fault.
I do agree with your point about the less predictable missions being preferable, though. Loved the later CA's of 8th.
the_scotsman wrote: Right, not like the creative mission design from fourth thru seventh where the mission design was:
1) 4 objectives around the board, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
2) 1 objective in each DZ, whoever holds more at the end of the game wins
3) whoever kills more units at the end of the game wins
Yes but you see, at least any deployment zone could be used with any mission! And you would, you would roll to see which deployment type you used (and if you ever rolled the diagonal one you'd re-roll, until you got either short or long)
Every day I become more convinced that the nostalgia crowd is just nostalgic for playing in a group that would aim their creativity at designing missions, where the goal was to create as close and even a battle as possible, and now they play the game by making lists where the goal is the most powerful list possible and they do nothing to alter any of the rules, have bad games and get mad.
This is a weird post because its implying that the older players changed, rather than the focus of the newer players changing to a more static rules set because its what convenient. Theres more FLGSs around now, meaning more games with strangers which is why you'd want the convenience of a static rule set whereas nostalgial players generally played with friends at each others houses (or Garagehammer), which made it easy to agree and play house rules.
Mostly what im accusing the nostalgia crowd of is going to pickup games at a store and having a bad time when what they used to do was play a small group of friends.
Why not play with a small group of likeminded folks?
I think that it is interesting that only 40% are positive on the game, according to this poll at this time. Dakka has some reputation, but the people here all are here because they love or loved something... I was brought in by people who loved what they were doing and wouldn’t have stayed if 60% of the fans I met were nostalgic for better days or suspicious of bloat in the form of supplement spam or gamey weirdness. Likeminded folks. That is the majority, if also counting the neutral “meh” voters. Nah, I might have stayed into Man o War, but skipped 40k if that were the atmosphere.
Which reminds me, did Plague War or Book of Rust add narrative
missions? I have yet to look at those books.
The 3 Missions in the BoR are fairly narrative in nature, but there are only 3. There are also some ideas and suggestions about how to fit them into the provided campaign structure (these parts are very vague and loose; it's obvious they did this because they didn't want to trap players into a my-way or the highway campaign system, but I felt they should have offered more guidance). Strangely, there is more Crusade content in the BoR than there is in Plague Purge, which was billed as a Crusade Mission pack. Beyond the veil was far better than Plague Purge, but even it was a bit light.
I find the WD Flashpoints to actually be one of the better sources for Narrative content. Each includes three theatres of war- these aren't missions- they modify missions. But there's also a narrative overview of multiple battles in each Theatre. There's also usually a short story, and they throw in a few relics as prizes. When you combine these with the BoR, you get a really fulsome campaign.
I was sure I started a thread where I laid out a full 30 game campaign arc for Charadon combining missions with theatres and the campaign system, but I can't find it anywhere. There are a near infinite number of combinations- no two BoR campaigns will ever be the same if you actually use all the content. But as other's have pointed out, the weakness is that if you only use a single source, you don't really get the whole thing.
The 9th missions are too similar to one another, it's not even so much just the having six as that all six are just basic variations on the exact same theme (maybe two themes, at a bit stretch). They really blew an opportunity by just recycling them with literally no changes for the new CA book.
The next big step in improving 40k mission design is finding some way to make missions at least slightly dynamic and/or variable, so that playing the same mission with the same armies isn't exactly the same every time.
yukishiro1 wrote: The 9th missions are too similar to one another, it's not even so much just the having six as that all six are just basic variations on the exact same theme (maybe two themes, at a bit stretch). They really blew an opportunity by just recycling them with literally no changes for the new CA book.
The next big step in improving 40k mission design is finding some way to make missions at least slightly dynamic and/or variable, so that playing the same mission with the same armies isn't exactly the same every time.
Welcome to competitive play!
And I'm not even being snarky there. For competitive to find balance it has to blanch variance out of it in favor of skill. Best way to do that is to make the missions a lot less variable.
yukishiro1 wrote: The 9th missions are too similar to one another, it's not even so much just the having six as that all six are just basic variations on the exact same theme (maybe two themes, at a bit stretch). They really blew an opportunity by just recycling them with literally no changes for the new CA book.
The next big step in improving 40k mission design is finding some way to make missions at least slightly dynamic and/or variable, so that playing the same mission with the same armies isn't exactly the same every time.
Welcome to competitive play!
And I'm not even being snarky there. For competitive to find balance it has to blanch variance out of it in favor of skill. Best way to do that is to make the missions a lot less variable.
Yes, but some might consider that boring, or, "repetitive".
the_scotsman wrote: Right, not like the creative mission design from fourth thru seventh where the mission design was:
And you left out 8th, which had tons of missions, with the CA books adding lots more with some very cool victory conditions.
Then there's 9th, with its variation on 4-8 objectives, and totally symmetrical combat.
Eh. When GW decided to get more "creative" with the 8e missions they did things like making a king of the hill objective that turned Invulnerable saves off if you got anywhere near it. I'm all for more variance in mission design, but I don't think 8e is a great example to hold up here.
Really, terrain should be creating enough variance in the basic missions.
I think it’s a huge 40k issue here with that.
Enabling them to put effort into some really good alternative missions as well.
But I also think the competitive scene is one of the worst around for player driven content. They seem intent to strangle any fun out of the missions sometimes.
And tournament packs and missions are part of game design.
yukishiro1 wrote: The 9th missions are too similar to one another, it's not even so much just the having six as that all six are just basic variations on the exact same theme (maybe two themes, at a bit stretch). They really blew an opportunity by just recycling them with literally no changes for the new CA book.
The next big step in improving 40k mission design is finding some way to make missions at least slightly dynamic and/or variable, so that playing the same mission with the same armies isn't exactly the same every time.
Welcome to competitive play!
And I'm not even being snarky there. For competitive to find balance it has to blanch variance out of it in favor of skill. Best way to do that is to make the missions a lot less variable.
Yes, but some might consider that boring, or, "repetitive".
Which has been my point. It's a side effect of GW pushing matched play to be the more competitive play experience. I asked about the missions for the campaign supplements because I'm hoping they put the more interesting missions there. Like the old Meatgrinder that put the defender in the middle for a set number of turns and gave the attacker a lower number of points but infinitely respawning units.
yukishiro1 wrote: The 9th missions are too similar to one another, it's not even so much just the having six as that all six are just basic variations on the exact same theme (maybe two themes, at a bit stretch). They really blew an opportunity by just recycling them with literally no changes for the new CA book.
The next big step in improving 40k mission design is finding some way to make missions at least slightly dynamic and/or variable, so that playing the same mission with the same armies isn't exactly the same every time.
Welcome to competitive play!
And I'm not even being snarky there. For competitive to find balance it has to blanch variance out of it in favor of skill. Best way to do that is to make the missions a lot less variable.
No, that's absolutely not how competitive play works. If that were true, we'd have only one mission, because that is the easiest to balance. Competitive play is certainly about balance, but it's also about variety, because ability to cope with different situations is a test of skill just as much as ability to execute perfectly on an unchanging set of victory conditions is a test of skill. The game wouldn't be better competitively with only one mission, it would be worse.
yukishiro1 wrote: The 9th missions are too similar to one another, it's not even so much just the having six as that all six are just basic variations on the exact same theme (maybe two themes, at a bit stretch). They really blew an opportunity by just recycling them with literally no changes for the new CA book.
The next big step in improving 40k mission design is finding some way to make missions at least slightly dynamic and/or variable, so that playing the same mission with the same armies isn't exactly the same every time.
Welcome to competitive play!
And I'm not even being snarky there. For competitive to find balance it has to blanch variance out of it in favor of skill. Best way to do that is to make the missions a lot less variable.
No, that's absolutely not how competitive play works. If that were true, we'd have only one mission, because that is the most balanced of all. Competitive play is certainly about balance, but it's also about variety, because ability to cope with different situations is a test of skill just as much as ability to executive perfectly on an unchanging set of victory conditions is a test of skill.
I think the only reason they tried to have a variety of missions is because we don't have one play style across all armies, so a variety gives a fairer shake across the board.
yukishiro1 wrote: ...if you just keep going with that thought a bit further...
Point is that the missions are less randomly generated than the old ones because it evens the playing field. They more than likely worked with Reese and the ITC people to try and pick a good mix of missions that are balanced between both players but give a reasonable amount of variety for different playstyles to make the game more skill focused but not driving it down one particular play style.
That said, it's repetive when you boil down the game to so few mission types and then play them over and over with no change to deployment zones.
