WarMill wrote: Been following this thread with interest and since everyone else is piling in, figured I might as well .
I think this game is exactly what I want and I'll explain why, but whether I'd be able to find anyone else to play it with me remains to be seen.
[...]
So what's the conclusion if you bothered reading all that? AoS may just be the casual relaxing hobby I've been missing, and if it's an absolute anathema to competitive players that's ok by me because I'm not one of them. Sweet models, easy access, no hefty rules to lug about, just rock up and plonk some models down. That'll do nicely.
Now feel free to call me a casual scrub idiot
I'm the same! Ultra casual player, with not much time for massive complicated battles or money for large 200+ model armies. AoS looks built for me. Just paint up my models, pop them in a case and take them down for a fun game in the afternoon. This game caters nicely to our crowd.
Although I think they should release a "Warhammer Legacy" rulebook as a final hurrah for WHFB that integrates the full End Times rules (without needing to buy all 5 books) as an optional mode of play for those who want to play the hardcore game. If they kept the square bases and round bases in each product, and keep the rulebook on the shelf, WHFB gamers can continue playing forever.
I am with you on this, for me this is ideal. I can buy/paint two armies that I enjoy the look of and then my wife (who has never played any tabletop games but wants to casually) can sit down for an hour at night after the kids are asleep and have a game or do the same thing with mates over beers. Once my kids get old enough I can sit down with them and have a game without to much complication.
What will make or break this game is if there is nothing else. This game alone wont sell the big models or move enough boxes to support the production lines, this game is a great way to introduce new people and get them having fun but after they have 50 to 100 models they will stop buying as they dont need more stuff to play or they want a bigger army experience and go elsewhere. The sales rep who supposedly said no more rules I believe was referring to Age of Sigmar not any other game and I think that there will be an expansion of sorts or a new game to support the mass battle/complex system similar to the old WHFB. A number of rumour mongers have said 9th is coming (whether its called 9th or something else I dont know) including Harry as recently as a week or so ago so I still believe that is coming.
Disagree with me all you like, I will wait until the end of this Fantasy release block (until Sept/Oct I heard) and if things aren't clearer by then I will walk away if I am not happy with it.
Who said mutually exclusive? I said if someone cares more about winning or losing than they do about having a good time. Attempting to win the game is fine. But can you not see any value in playing as well as you can against the odds?
I think your definition is very subjective and limiting. As I mentioned before, historic games are very narrative in nature yet players do very much care if they win or lose the battle. What's the point in playing a game if you know that you're going to lose or win before you even begin?
Because the end result is not the entire enjoyment of the game? Besides which, nothing is ever set in stone. Just because the game is balanced in favour of one side over the other does not necessarily mean that side will win.
By definition a game with two opposing sides is a competitive game. If this were completely a narrative game, two players would be working together toward a common goal, cooperative. Games like this exist but even these games have a winner or loser. If there's not competitive component, there is literally no point to have rules or a game, just plop your models on the table and move them around, removing models when you feel the need. Story-time but with toy soldiers; kind of how I used to play with green army men when I was 5 years old.
I suppose many of the posters on this forum have just as hard a time understanding how you perceive the game as you do in understanding that all games are competitive.
While I don't condone GW actions GW is a British company not an American company so yes they should set the policy (no matter how poor/ridiculous they are) and have the main HQ n home ground.
It's not quite that simple. Stuff that works in one country doesn't necessarily work in another. The US market is very different to the UK, and trying to run it the same as the UK is pretty much doomed to fail .
Exactly this.
Go back a decade. I was playing a game of WFB with the head of Trade Sales, (still get in games, he just isn't at GW anymore), and he was complaining about the UK staff not getting it. He told me that the US, in particular US independent stores were the most profitable part of GW that year. But since the UK has a pitiful amount of FLGS, and hundreds of GW stores, the UK doesn't take independent stores seriously. They also arent as large a store as we have in the US, and don't run the leagues, tournaments, and other activities we have here that drive sales. They certainly don't seek our opinion on anything. They don't even listen to their US employees.
Get a beer or two into on of the US guys and you'll find out they hate the Disinformation policies and crappy marketing as much as US retailers do. And the UK policies are frustrating to them because they can't do their jobs.
Norsed wrote: No. Caring about winning and being a narrative player are mutually exclusive. What the person in question actually brought up, not so much.
So very wrong on so many levels. You can care about narrative AND winning simultaneously.
I build lists for a variety of games based on what I want to see on the table that fits the story I want to tell. Back in 3rd 40k when Terminators didn't have an invulnerable save, I still fielded them because they were a unit I liked and it fit with the narrative I had for my Marine Chapter. When I build WW2 armies or Fantasy forces I try to have the story of that army worked out and build around that idea. As an example, my VC army was lead by a Blood Dragon Vampire (back when bloodlines existed) and thus didn't include Zombies because the general didn't want "peasant scum" in his ranks and there were scads of Grave Guard in the list instead. This is a HUGE downside on the table, because zombies are great tarpits, and GG chew up points. Lacking bats/wolves made the army very slow, etc.
Now, even with that "sub-optimal" makeup, if I put it on the table I'm trying my best to win no matter how unlikely that outcome is going to be. My opponent didn't sign up to help my write a novel; he came to play a game. If we can tell a story about the game afterwards that's fine, but I'm not going to insult another gamer by flitting about and making intentionally bad moves because "it's in character that he got distracted by a shiny quarter." Even if I know he's gotten me beat by the list he put on the table before the first move is made, you still TRY to win. Never give an opponent less than your best effort, even if you're completely outclassed.
I have a feeling that within the wargaming community, 'competitive' has become such a loaded word that it only seems to refer to 'WAACTFGs' for some people.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
Norsed wrote:If a player cares about winning then they are, by definition, not a narrative player. And that was the point I was trying to make.
Emphasis mine.
No. Caring about winning and being a narrative player are mutually exclusive. What you actually brought up, not so much.
Just so we're clear, I didn't bring up anything. I simply answered your question. There is nothing mutually exclusive about wanting to win a game and being a narrative player. I can show up to a game mimicking the Second Battle for Armageddon with the worst Ork list imaginable (and I do make terrible lists full of bad units that I love) and still want to win. The two things have literally nothing to do with each other.
Personally I would disagree, I guess we both have different views on what makes a narrative player. However, the bit where mutually exclusive came up was not in reference to narrative gamers at the time.
Define "narrative player" for me then (or redefine if you've explained and I missed it). Examples would be helpful. I know that sounds snarky, but it is an honest request.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
Wow, if that's true then this IS the worst rules system ever.
Wouldn't that yeti tactical narrative battle be 10 times better if you could count the disparity between forces? You can still make your narrative battle in a balanced system and as a bonus you have an information for that douche narrative player (and I met and played a few) who makes an unbalanced scenario and then acts like it's his wits alone that provided him victory. Same time I'd have a game that is not a group therapy session for sensible people but one where superior strategy and tactics lead to victory.
It might be, but points systems are rarely accurate enough. Better to take a look at the stats and get an approximation.
How is that douche of a narrative player any different to the douche of a WAAC player (and I met and played a few) who brings the beardiest list imaginable taking full advantage of GW's wonky and unworkable points system and his knowledge of his opponents forces to create an unbeatable monster of an army and then acts like his strategy and tactics are superior? Protip - if a player is crowing victory they aren't a narrative player. Or indeed someone I'd care to play with. It's about how you play, not whether you win or lose.
Didn't you call someone's valid opinion silly and imply that only complete dicks have problem with such a ruleset? Double standards ftw.
No. I called someone's statement of "want to play any army? Hope your opponent will not counter it by just playing his army." silly. Because it is. It's a completely nonsensical statement.
And I implied that if someone brings 30 bloodthirsters to fight with 10 spearmen, that person is indeed a dick. Nothing to do with whether you like this ruleset or not.
1. It's better to look at stats and get an approximation for you maybe. Do you expect a fresh group of gamers to do that? Not everyone plays historicals on regular basis and have tons of games played hence points. Without them, for said group the game will be exercise in futility
I think people expected something more than typical GW balance, especialy if the ruleset is simplified, what's the point of total reboot if it keeps one of the most glaring issues of old. Which is ironic to 11 btw if the no balance thing turns out to be true.
In a balanced ruleset you would have much better chances to win through superior tactics with the guy you described. That's the point.
Not sure what is wrong with playing to win. I too am happier when I lose but made some brilliant maneuver than when I just win by the numbers but win as an ultimate objective is a key for a game to be a mind test I expect.
2. I get that statement.
And if GW didnt write that atrocius rules (assuming the no balance thing is true), we wouldnt even talk about this absurd blodthirsters example. It's easy I guess to write a crap game and expect players to take responsibility to make it work, sure rules are supposedly free now but it's named warhammer, shouldnt they be ashamed to publish a a straight play what you want simpleton under the name?
JohnnyHell wrote: Nonsense. Adversity is the thrust of most narratives. You can absolutely tell a story whilst not cooperating to tell it. Weird post.
Did you actually read the post I was responding to? The poster believes that anyone who is playing to win is not a narrative player; I was attempting to understand his thinking within the context of that statement.
I don't think there's anything wrong with being casual or competitive, and if both players are the same fun is had. Where issues arise is when you have a competitive person playing a casual person because both want something different from the game and neither is going to get it. I think a lot of the reason GW is so polarizing is because both types of player could lay claim to their way being the right way. Given no other requirement for a game than bring a 2000pt army, the netlisting WAAC gamer has exactly the same claim to the moral high ground as the player who insists that you can't bring 3 cannons because the fluff clearly states that army only had access to 2 cannons from the foundries of Who-gives-a-damn, and because GW simply has such a huge reach compared to other games these conflicts are going to happen a lot more often than smaller games that market themselves to a specific type of gamer.
GW has been pretty open in past years about moving away from the competitive scene, and AoS does seem to be GW's effort to tilt their marketing in favour of casual or narrative gaming.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
Wow, if that's true then this IS the worst rules system ever.
Call BS on this since GW hasn't supported or even admitted that tournaments exist in years...
Who said mutually exclusive? I said if someone cares more about winning or losing than they do about having a good time. Attempting to win the game is fine. But can you not see any value in playing as well as you can against the odds?
I think your definition is very subjective and limiting. As I mentioned before, historic games are very narrative in nature yet players do very much care if they win or lose the battle. What's the point in playing a game if you know that you're going to lose or win before you even begin?
Because the end result is not the entire enjoyment of the game? Besides which, nothing is ever set in stone. Just because the game is balanced in favour of one side over the other does not necessarily mean that side will win.
By definition a game with two opposing sides is a competitive game. If this were completely a narrative game, two players would be working together toward a common goal, cooperative. Games like this exist but even these games have a winner or loser. If there's not competitive component, there is literally no point to have rules or a game, just plop your models on the table and move them around, removing models when you feel the need. Story-time but with toy soldiers; kind of how I used to play with green army men when I was 5 years old.
I suppose many of the posters on this forum have just as hard a time understanding how you perceive the game as you do in understanding that all games are competitive.
Of course it has a competitive element, it's a game about war. But it's an element that shouldn't take over the whole experience. My problem is with the concept of balance. Balance is impossible, even with a points system. And imbalance is an inherent element of war. The enemy might be more powerful than you, or weaker. Strategy involves taking that into account and trying to do the best you can with what you have in the right place at the right time. If you don't win against a superior force, so be it, you tried your best.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
WarMill wrote: I don't think there's anything wrong with being casual or competitive, and if both players are the same fun is had. Where issues arise is when you have a competitive person playing a casual person because both want something different from the game and neither is going to get it. I think a lot of the reason GW is so polarizing is because both types of player could lay claim to their way being the right way. Given no other requirement for a game than bring a 2000pt army, the netlisting WAAC gamer has exactly the same claim to the moral high ground as the player who insists that you can't bring 3 cannons because the fluff clearly states that army only had access to 2 cannons from the foundries of Who-gives-a-damn, and because GW simply has such a huge reach compared to other games these conflicts are going to happen a lot more often than smaller games that market themselves to a specific type of gamer.
GW has been pretty open in past years about moving away from the competitive scene, and AoS does seem to be GW's effort to tilt their marketing in favour of casual or narrative gaming.
Well said but to make matters worse, there are layers of complexity to these people. A casual player, I consider myself one, may still like to win a game against an opponent and want a balanced rule-set so when he does play, he's not wasting valuable, limited game time working out a gentleman's agreement.
I agree that there is no right or wrong here but I also strongly agree that a tight rule-set benefits all players equally regardless of their expectations.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
And yet, this is something that people in regards to 40k have mentioned as a solution as it would probably be cheaper than the constant codex churn. If the fee is $5 a month for point values that's a codex a year out of people and keeps the overall cost for the player down but increases overall sales as more people participate.
That being said I'm not sure how the hell that would work without actual set values in the system itself but I'm not a tech guy. Also sounds to far out of the box for GW (though this whole release seems to have been out of the box). Meh, we'll see.
Who said mutually exclusive? I said if someone cares more about winning or losing than they do about having a good time. Attempting to win the game is fine. But can you not see any value in playing as well as you can against the odds?
I think your definition is very subjective and limiting. As I mentioned before, historic games are very narrative in nature yet players do very much care if they win or lose the battle. What's the point in playing a game if you know that you're going to lose or win before you even begin?
I've hosted a ton of historical narrative games at my shop. We'll spend a day setting up a 6 foot x 30 foot table and play "A bridge too Far" with 10 players over two days, or a D-day landing or romans vs celts.
And every single person playing from 16 -65 wants to win.
Who said mutually exclusive? I said if someone cares more about winning or losing than they do about having a good time. Attempting to win the game is fine. But can you not see any value in playing as well as you can against the odds?
I think your definition is very subjective and limiting. As I mentioned before, historic games are very narrative in nature yet players do very much care if they win or lose the battle. What's the point in playing a game if you know that you're going to lose or win before you even begin?
Because the end result is not the entire enjoyment of the game? Besides which, nothing is ever set in stone. Just because the game is balanced in favour of one side over the other does not necessarily mean that side will win.
By definition a game with two opposing sides is a competitive game. If this were completely a narrative game, two players would be working together toward a common goal, cooperative. Games like this exist but even these games have a winner or loser. If there's not competitive component, there is literally no point to have rules or a game, just plop your models on the table and move them around, removing models when you feel the need. Story-time but with toy soldiers; kind of how I used to play with green army men when I was 5 years old.
I suppose many of the posters on this forum have just as hard a time understanding how you perceive the game as you do in understanding that all games are competitive.
Of course it has a competitive element, it's a game about war. But it's an element that shouldn't take over the whole experience. My problem is with the concept of balance. Balance is impossible, even with a points system. And imbalance is an inherent element of war. The enemy might be more powerful than you, or weaker. Strategy involves taking that into account and trying to do the best you can with what you have in the right place at the right time. If you don't win against a superior force, so be it, you tried your best.
It's a warGAME first, warSTORY second. You can play like that but stop pushing it on others.
Of course it has a competitive element, it's a game about war. But it's an element that shouldn't take over the whole experience. My problem is with the concept of balance. Balance is impossible, even with a points system. And imbalance is an inherent element of war. The enemy might be more powerful than you, or weaker. Strategy involves taking that into account and trying to do the best you can with what you have in the right place at the right time. If you don't win against a superior force, so be it, you tried your best.
Again, you're describing historical wargaming to a tee because we're talking about a game here, not actual war; I've never been able to look at GW miniatures and suspend disbelief enough to envision these sometimes silly looking figures actually fighting on a field of battle.
I suppose that we'll differ here, and that's fine, because I think that once you determine that you have zero chance of winning a game, there's little point in continuing to play. I've played games where my opponent got a powerful spell off, for example, and I lost a large portion of my army; in my mind it was much better to pull everything off the table at that point and run another game. That said, I have little time to game and would derive more enjoyment from a match in which both sides are more evenly matched so that there is at least a reason to continue.
Oh absolutely, I just used extremes to illustrate a point. Nothing wrong with being either type of player, myself I tend heavily towards casual so I wouldn't waste my or the other player's time if they want a balls-out competitive game, what would be the point? My favourite games have always been the most closely fought, and I think my chances of getting that kind of game are higher if the game we're playing already favours 'my' type of player.
I just reckon that with the way AoS is looking if someone wants a game there's going to be a higher chance that they'll tend towards the casual end of the spectrum
@ nudibranch
yeah probably past the point of relevance as far as this thread goes.
Who said mutually exclusive? I said if someone cares more about winning or losing than they do about having a good time. Attempting to win the game is fine. But can you not see any value in playing as well as you can against the odds?
I think your definition is very subjective and limiting. As I mentioned before, historic games are very narrative in nature yet players do very much care if they win or lose the battle. What's the point in playing a game if you know that you're going to lose or win before you even begin?
I've hosted a ton of historical narrative games at my shop. We'll spend a day setting up a 6 foot x 30 foot table and play "A bridge too Far" with 10 players over two days, or a D-day landing or romans vs celts.
And every single person playing from 16 -65 wants to win.
I was trying to see things his way and historicals were the only thing that I could remotely fathom where winning wouldn't be as strong a motivator for enjoyment as the multitude of other games. Is there a better example? I suppose Munchkin comes close but there's a winner there....uh, cards against humanity? Deck-building games? No, all of these have winners and losers. I don't know, maybe I just don't get it.
Norsed wrote: And if you are playing with someone who spams 30 bloodthirsters at your 10 spearmen, well then I suggest you find someone else to play with.
What? You've never heard the Legend of the Ten Spearmen? Once upon a time there were ten spearmen out on patrol and out of nowhere they were ambushed by thirty bloodthirsters! The ten spearmen fought gallantly but alas they all died pretty much instantly.
Now I spent quite a sum of money on these 30 bloodthirsters and as a narrative gamer you are honor bound to help me reenact the spearmen's heroic last stand so get out your spearmen and let's play!
Norsed wrote: No. Caring about winning and being a narrative player are mutually exclusive. What the person in question actually brought up, not so much.
So very wrong on so many levels. You can care about narrative AND winning simultaneously.
I build lists for a variety of games based on what I want to see on the table that fits the story I want to tell. Back in 3rd 40k when Terminators didn't have an invulnerable save, I still fielded them because they were a unit I liked and it fit with the narrative I had for my Marine Chapter. When I build WW2 armies or Fantasy forces I try to have the story of that army worked out and build around that idea. As an example, my VC army was lead by a Blood Dragon Vampire (back when bloodlines existed) and thus didn't include Zombies because the general didn't want "peasant scum" in his ranks and there were scads of Grave Guard in the list instead. This is a HUGE downside on the table, because zombies are great tarpits, and GG chew up points. Lacking bats/wolves made the army very slow, etc.
Now, even with that "sub-optimal" makeup, if I put it on the table I'm trying my best to win no matter how unlikely that outcome is going to be. My opponent didn't sign up to help my write a novel; he came to play a game. If we can tell a story about the game afterwards that's fine, but I'm not going to insult another gamer by flitting about and making intentionally bad moves because "it's in character that he got distracted by a shiny quarter." Even if I know he's gotten me beat by the list he put on the table before the first move is made, you still TRY to win. Never give an opponent less than your best effort, even if you're completely outclassed.
See, that's not what I'd call narrative gaming. Not that I'm saying you're having badwrongfun or playing wrong, but I would call that competitive gaming albeit with an army that has narrative elements. To me, narrative gaming involves all players involved in the game signing up to enjoy a story enfolding on the tabletop in front of them - it helps if you have a referee and a great scenario with all sorts of unknown elements but even two player games can be narrative. "it's in character that he got distracted by a shiny quarter." is, of course, silly. But ideally the characters should have character and therefore be able to played in character. And if every character has got their own secret objective, all the better. Does this sound like roleplaying? Why, yes, it does a little. All of the key concepts for roleplaying games developed from wargames. This is not a new thing - it is a very old thing and how many more people played until tournaments became the main driving force behind wargaming.
I was trying to see things his way and historicals were the only thing that I could remotely fathom where winning wouldn't be as strong a motivator for enjoyment as the multitude of other games. Is there a better example? I suppose Munchkin comes close but there's a winner there....uh, cards against humanity? Deck-building games? No, all of these have winners and losers. I don't know, maybe I just don't get it.
There is nothing TO get. He's just confused. I would much rather play a scenario driven, unbalanced, narrative game (eg Skirmish Sangin) than an equal points "who is the "best" player" slug fest. That doesnt mean I don't want to win. Of COURSE I want to win. I'm a human being, thats what we're designed to want.
What he is getting confused about is wanting to win regardless of the cost to your opponents enjoyment (the very core of WAAC). I want to win almost every game I play (except games Im teaching to someone) but I want them to have fun too.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
That's actually horribly interesting to me.
The whole "no points" crap bothered me the most because it was so intrinsically stupid from GW's point of view. It will sell less games, make less money.
That they might have some scheme to like this actually makes some sense.
Define "narrative player" for me then (or redefine if you've explained and I missed it). Examples would be helpful. I know that sounds snarky, but it is an honest request.
Who said mutually exclusive? I said if someone cares more about winning or losing than they do about having a good time. Attempting to win the game is fine. But can you not see any value in playing as well as you can against the odds?
I think your definition is very subjective and limiting. As I mentioned before, historic games are very narrative in nature yet players do very much care if they win or lose the battle. What's the point in playing a game if you know that you're going to lose or win before you even begin?
I've hosted a ton of historical narrative games at my shop. We'll spend a day setting up a 6 foot x 30 foot table and play "A bridge too Far" with 10 players over two days, or a D-day landing or romans vs celts.
And every single person playing from 16 -65 wants to win.
Just because you're playing a historical game does not mean you're playing a narrative game to me.
While I don't condone GW actions GW is a British company not an American company so yes they should set the policy (no matter how poor/ridiculous they are) and have the main HQ n home ground.
It's not quite that simple. Stuff that works in one country doesn't necessarily work in another. The US market is very different to the UK, and trying to run it the same as the UK is pretty much doomed to fail .
Exactly this.
Go back a decade. I was playing a game of WFB with the head of Trade Sales, (still get in games, he just isn't at GW anymore), and he was complaining about the UK staff not getting it. He told me that the US, in particular US independent stores were the most profitable part of GW that year. But since the UK has a pitiful amount of FLGS, and hundreds of GW stores, the UK doesn't take independent stores seriously. They also arent as large a store as we have in the US, and don't run the leagues, tournaments, and other activities we have here that drive sales. They certainly don't seek our opinion on anything. They don't even listen to their US employees.
Get a beer or two into on of the US guys and you'll find out they hate the Disinformation policies and crappy marketing as much as US retailers do. And the UK policies are frustrating to them because they can't do their jobs.
So because the US is bigger and better then everyone you think the US should call the shots. As far as we know they listen to the US branch and make decisions on that and their in this mess because they listened to the US. Your info is from a decade ago, is it still relevant today?
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's a warGAME first, warSTORY second. You can play like that but stop pushing it on others.
Hey, all I did was say that it was possible that GW was trying to move Warhammer to a more narrative, scenario based stance where balance is not quite so important (that's probably a couple of pages back now). Then people start telling me how that's a bad thing and that winning is most definitely the point of playing with toy soldiers and have tried to bring up historical precedents for why balance is not everything. That's fine, you can have your opinion. But that doesn't make mine any less relevant.
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's a warGAME first, warSTORY second. You can play like that but stop pushing it on others.
Hey, all I did was say that it was possible that GW was trying to move Warhammer to a more narrative, scenario based stance where balance is not quite so important (that's probably a couple of pages back now). Then people start telling me how that's a bad thing and that winning is most definitely the point of playing with toy soldiers and have tried to bring up historical precedents for why balance is not everything. That's fine, you can have your opinion. But that doesn't make mine any less relevant.
What people are saying is that a solid, balanced system does not detract from casual or narrative play, but instead enhances it, .
There's a difference between casual gaming and having no standards. Just because you don't want to make a list that is intended to be able to stand up to a tournament doesn't mean that you aren't best served by a solid rule set.
You know, a dynamic, well maintained weighting system is a very cool solution to the inefficiency of the current point system.
Points work well with few entries that are relatively close to each other in terms of power level and complexity. The more they diverge, the more all potential combinations of effects, unit counts and intrinsic game mechanics distort the value of a single point. A single Riptide might be worth X points, but three Riptides are worth more than three times X.
Thing is, I'm not sure if I trust GW to be able to maintain that kind of intricate web of dependencies well enough to be worth me being slaved to an online app that can cut off my ability to game at any time.
Of course it has a competitive element, it's a game about war. But it's an element that shouldn't take over the whole experience. My problem is with the concept of balance. Balance is impossible, even with a points system. And imbalance is an inherent element of war. The enemy might be more powerful than you, or weaker. Strategy involves taking that into account and trying to do the best you can with what you have in the right place at the right time. If you don't win against a superior force, so be it, you tried your best.
Again, you're describing historical wargaming to a tee because we're talking about a game here, not actual war; I've never been able to look at GW miniatures and suspend disbelief enough to envision these sometimes silly looking figures actually fighting on a field of battle.
I suppose that we'll differ here, and that's fine, because I think that once you determine that you have zero chance of winning a game, there's little point in continuing to play. I've played games where my opponent got a powerful spell off, for example, and I lost a large portion of my army; in my mind it was much better to pull everything off the table at that point and run another game. That said, I have little time to game and would derive more enjoyment from a match in which both sides are more evenly matched so that there is at least a reason to continue.
Yeah, I guess we'll always differ there, but that's okay. I still think there is enjoyment to be had in playing a loss as best you can.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
Fascinating. It does go some way to explaining the whole no points/lack of proper army composition construction thing so far.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
Trolls gonna troll. I expect a lot of this kind of thing to pop up shortly from little gaks who smell an opportunity to drive a lot of concerned gamers up the wall.
Norsed wrote: And if you are playing with someone who spams 30 bloodthirsters at your 10 spearmen, well then I suggest you find someone else to play with.
What? You've never heard the Legend of the Ten Spearmen? Once upon a time there were ten spearmen out on patrol and out of nowhere they were ambushed by thirty bloodthirsters! The ten spearmen fought gallantly but alas they all died pretty much instantly.
Now I spent quite a sum of money on these 30 bloodthirsters and as a narrative gamer you are honor bound to help me reenact the spearmen's heroic last stand so get out your spearmen and let's play!
The Legend of Ten Spearmen lol.
That's not only funny but also a great example of how arbitrary it all get when you don't have clear, properly thought out rules.
I also realised how much time it would take to explain to the wife why I'm laughing. This is a serious nerdfest I guess.
UKS wrote: Hello! This is my first post on dakkadakka. Best way to describe me is a non gamer. (Last was Necromunda back in the mid/late nineties) I'm dipping my toe in the oldhammer world and loving it.
This game is obviously aimed at Children. And that isn't a bad thing. Many legacy hobbies like wargaming are struggling with a shrinking and ageing audience. You must have fresh blood to survive. Look at baseball cards, comics, etc, and how they are dead or dying. You do need to appeal to that audience.
Destroying the fluff though is a silly act. Again, I can understand defending your IP and distilling it into something unique… But these are all subtle acts done over time by successful companies. Change is generally successful when done in small frequent wins - Not in big cataclysm leaps. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Big change will cause big backlash. Continuity is something that holds people in product spaces they may otherwise leave. Apples Walled garden is a great example. What GW are doing here is giving everyone a perfect jumping off point and damaging one of their key offerings.
Age of Sigmar is New Coke. It may have rigorous Product management thought behind it - But the way its introduced will cause massive backlash.
....errr....what?
I may be insanely biased about Comic Books because i own two of the larger shops in the US, but I'm also sort of tied to the industry. One only has to look at the 30 or so comic book inspired movies coming out to see where their popularity is going. Comics are hardly dying. The format is just changing. We don't sell 100% periodicals (floppies, 32page scs, however you think of it). The stories are online, on DVD collections, and a massive inventory of trade paperbacks. The amount of comic related products is massive: clothing, posters, toys, movies, tv series.
Walking Dead alone brought in a huge chunk of new readers, as did Watchmen, Avengers, and GotG. Groot alone is a pop culture icon and budding religious cult
As to AOS being for children, I agree. They made a game that's dead simple to play. However.....once the two 10 year olds are past the starter scenarios, i have no idea how to get them to keep playing. Telling Little Timmy and Little Joey to just put all their models on the table and "have fun" isn't going to work really well. Kids games are all about the rules, not about lack of rules.
Norsed wrote: And if you are playing with someone who spams 30 bloodthirsters at your 10 spearmen, well then I suggest you find someone else to play with.
What? You've never heard the Legend of the Ten Spearmen? Once upon a time there were ten spearmen out on patrol and out of nowhere they were ambushed by thirty bloodthirsters! The ten spearmen fought gallantly but alas they all died pretty much instantly.
Now I spent quite a sum of money on these 30 bloodthirsters and as a narrative gamer you are honor bound to help me reenact the spearmen's heroic last stand so get out your spearmen and let's play!
Not honour bound at all. But if you put it that way, that could actually be quite fun. Especially with multiple players, secret objectives and the like.
Well, I read the rules last night, as I'm sure everyone here has.
My favorites:
(everyone's already discussed the "measure from the closest point of the model" absurdity, but it's still SOO GOOOD that I have to reference it again)
The terrain rules - _all_ terrain has some sort of effect (cursed, inspiring, etc). Terrain movement rules basically non-existent. There are 0-3 pieces of terrain per 2' square. So lots of forests and buildings killing your models outright because they all have a stupid effect.
The movement rules - walk: Move in inches; run: Move in inches + d6; charge: 2d6. What the fu? The flying dudes have a special rule for 3d6 charge, but the cavalry hero does not. Yup, he plods along as slow as the ground pounders.
Charge: you have to complete the charge - aka be within 0.5" for a successful charge. Then models in the unit can move 3" to get close. But then models within 3" of an enemy can strike. Again, what the fu? GW better sell Warmachine style rulers with 3"x0.5" dimensions
Setup: continue setting up until you _run out of space_, utterly hilarious, my favorite quote in the rules
Anyone notice the included Sigmarite army immediately gets Sudden Death due to the number of models?
This is the worst ruleset I have read in 20 years of miniatures gaming. The miniatures look cool at least, and there are dozens of other game systems out there that are better deserving of being played than this garbage. It's like two drunk morons scribbled out a ruleset on a napkin at a bar/pub after someone described miniatures wargaming to them.
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's a warGAME first, warSTORY second. You can play like that but stop pushing it on others.
Hey, all I did was say that it was possible that GW was trying to move Warhammer to a more narrative, scenario based stance where balance is not quite so important (that's probably a couple of pages back now). Then people start telling me how that's a bad thing and that winning is most definitely the point of playing with toy soldiers and have tried to bring up historical precedents for why balance is not everything. That's fine, you can have your opinion. But that doesn't make mine any less relevant.
What people are saying is that a solid, balanced system does not detract from casual or narrative play, but instead enhances it, .
And I would say - not necesarily. But I would also say that expecting balance from any GW product is overly optimistic.
Now, as to this online points calculator pay by the month rumor......
-I'm actually hoping for it because it's better than no points system.
-I could actually play games with it.
-I can run leagues and tournaments.
The cost is minimal....because each of us will have a buddy who has an account and can look up points for us. And someone will easily just retro engineer the system. It's just math, no matter what algorithm they use, we have all the data points and can reconstruct it. People will have cheat sheets out that give an idea of the values.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Sure you guys can teach them all that lifting own models or effortless winning for a sake of a simplistic story of a 100000th made up battle is fun and all power to you but is that wargaming really? Sounds like warcuddling tbh.
REAL wargaming is a MANLY affair, full of badassery. FETH YEAH!
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's a warGAME first, warSTORY second. You can play like that but stop pushing it on others.
Hey, all I did was say that it was possible that GW was trying to move Warhammer to a more narrative, scenario based stance where balance is not quite so important (that's probably a couple of pages back now). Then people start telling me how that's a bad thing and that winning is most definitely the point of playing with toy soldiers and have tried to bring up historical precedents for why balance is not everything. That's fine, you can have your opinion. But that doesn't make mine any less relevant.
The point is, you can play your game in a balanced system, I will have a hard time playing mine in a narrative, scenario based one. You defend the latter when in fact the alternative wouldnt hurt you at all, not to mention GW loves you for your generosity.
See I like scenarios from time to time, assuming there's some way to win. Withstand an attack heavily outnumbered for given number of turns, kill a centerpiece model with a guerilla force etc but from my experience, those are rarely balanced and require switching sides to determine the winner. And if you don't have a winner, it's often hard to say whether your tactics were actualy good or not. Sure I have an eye for that but it's still a guess, especialy that, as mr. Swastakovey said,it's harder in varied fantasy games.
Define "narrative player" for me then (or redefine if you've explained and I missed it). Examples would be helpful. I know that sounds snarky, but it is an honest request.
Who said mutually exclusive? I said if someone cares more about winning or losing than they do about having a good time. Attempting to win the game is fine. But can you not see any value in playing as well as you can against the odds?
I think your definition is very subjective and limiting. As I mentioned before, historic games are very narrative in nature yet players do very much care if they win or lose the battle. What's the point in playing a game if you know that you're going to lose or win before you even begin?
I've hosted a ton of historical narrative games at my shop. We'll spend a day setting up a 6 foot x 30 foot table and play "A bridge too Far" with 10 players over two days, or a D-day landing or romans vs celts.
And every single person playing from 16 -65 wants to win.
Just because you're playing a historical game does not mean you're playing a narrative game to me.
Ah, awesome fallacy mate. So by your definition of "Narrative", if i play anything that wasn't exactly what you think is narrative, by game wasn't "narrative".
Tell me, WTF do you think setting up a huge table with the force orgs used from a battle, no points, giving people the objectives based on a story line set up for the game?
nudibranch wrote: I have a feeling that within the wargaming community, 'competitive' has become such a loaded word that it only seems to refer to 'WAACTFGs' for some people.
Quite possibly. That's certainly how I respond to the word competitive. Perhaps that is wrong of me.
On the other hand, the wargaming community now seems to think that narrative gaming is about making a story up about your army you've built for a tournament, explaining why the shoebox you've brought is actually a tank, or that it's about 'group therapy' or 'cuddling'.
While I don't condone GW actions GW is a British company not an American company so yes they should set the policy (no matter how poor/ridiculous they are) and have the main HQ n home ground.
It's not quite that simple. Stuff that works in one country doesn't necessarily work in another. The US market is very different to the UK, and trying to run it the same as the UK is pretty much doomed to fail .
Exactly this.
Go back a decade. I was playing a game of WFB with the head of Trade Sales, (still get in games, he just isn't at GW anymore), and he was complaining about the UK staff not getting it. He told me that the US, in particular US independent stores were the most profitable part of GW that year. But since the UK has a pitiful amount of FLGS, and hundreds of GW stores, the UK doesn't take independent stores seriously. They also arent as large a store as we have in the US, and don't run the leagues, tournaments, and other activities we have here that drive sales. They certainly don't seek our opinion on anything. They don't even listen to their US employees.
Get a beer or two into on of the US guys and you'll find out they hate the Disinformation policies and crappy marketing as much as US retailers do. And the UK policies are frustrating to them because they can't do their jobs.
So because the US is bigger and better then everyone you think the US should call the shots. As far as we know they listen to the US branch and make decisions on that and their in this mess because they listened to the US. Your info is from a decade ago, is it still relevant today?
Dude, you're reading way too much into what he stated. The US and UK are two very different markets when it comes to GW's games. The UK is full of GW stores but the US is reliant on FLGS and LGS because there are barely any GW stores here.
Mikhaila is a FLGS owner with stores in Philadelphia. There's about 2 million people in that metro area, 1 GW store, over 2 dozen independent stores. Mikhaila's stores literally have a bigger market presence than GW's store and he's been gaming, running stores and selling GW products for decades. Independent stores are not the same as GW stores. If GW wants to be successful and profitable in the US they need the independent stores to carry, promote and sell their products. Independent retailers are essential partners when it comes to the success of GW games in the US and Mikhaila is just lamenting the fact that GW's corporate offices in Nottingham seem to be willfully ignorant of the realities of that symbiotic relationship. Consequently GW policies that are put forth from Nottingham for use in the US aren't tailored to fit the realities of the US market and help independent retailers successfully sell GW products.
Since Mikhaila still has a bigger retail presence in the Philadelphia market than GW and is still selling and promoting their products and dealing with GW reps on a regular ongoing basis his info is still relevant.
The whole ugly American being arrogant and condescending is a fabricated straw man on your part and that stereotype has not been evidenced in the discussion you reference.
Plumbumbarum wrote: Sure you guys can teach them all that lifting own models or effortless winning for a sake of a simplistic story of a 100000th made up battle is fun and all power to you but is that wargaming really? Sounds like warcuddling tbh.
REAL wargaming is a MANLY affair, full of badassery. FETH YEAH!
WHERE DO YOU LIVE? I'LL MAKE YOU EAT YOUR OWN OVAL BASES.
It's not actualy and making it even cuddlier doesnt help tbh.
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's a warGAME first, warSTORY second. You can play like that but stop pushing it on others.
Hey, all I did was say that it was possible that GW was trying to move Warhammer to a more narrative, scenario based stance where balance is not quite so important (that's probably a couple of pages back now). Then people start telling me how that's a bad thing and that winning is most definitely the point of playing with toy soldiers and have tried to bring up historical precedents for why balance is not everything. That's fine, you can have your opinion. But that doesn't make mine any less relevant.
The point is, you can play your game in a balanced system, I will have a hard time playing mine in a narrative, scenario based one. You defend the latter when in fact the alternative wouldnt hurt you at all, not to mention GW loves you for your generosity.
Indeed. It's far easier to write a scenario like Norsed wants out of a points based system where you can just ignore all the army building rules and points than it is to do the reverse.
Ah, awesome fallacy mate. So by your definition of "Narrative", if i play anything that wasn't exactly what you think is narrative, by game wasn't "narrative".
Tell me, WTF do you think setting up a huge table with the force orgs used from a battle, no points, giving people the objectives based on a story line set up for the game?
You're trolling at this point.
No mate, I'm not. Did you mention any of that before? No, you did not. Sounds like a narrative game to me.
I said:
"Just because you're playing a historical game does not mean you're playing a narrative game to me."
"Just because" <-- see that bit? It means that historical does not automatically mean narrative, which a lot of people on this board do seem to think...
Was there a story involved? Was everyone in the game involved in that story? Why, yes they were. Therefore: narrative game.
Plumbumbarum wrote: It's a warGAME first, warSTORY second. You can play like that but stop pushing it on others.
Hey, all I did was say that it was possible that GW was trying to move Warhammer to a more narrative, scenario based stance where balance is not quite so important (that's probably a couple of pages back now). Then people start telling me how that's a bad thing and that winning is most definitely the point of playing with toy soldiers and have tried to bring up historical precedents for why balance is not everything. That's fine, you can have your opinion. But that doesn't make mine any less relevant.
The point is, you can play your game in a balanced system, I will have a hard time playing mine in a narrative, scenario based one. You defend the latter when in fact the alternative wouldnt hurt you at all, not to mention GW loves you for your generosity.
Indeed. It's far easier to write a scenario like Norsed wants out of a points based system where you can just ignore all the army building rules and points than it is to do the reverse.
It is so much easier to make an imbalanced game out of a balanced one than vice versa. It's easy to strip all the points costs and FoC out of a well crafted system, but it's difficult to add all that to a poorly made one.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
If that's true, I look forward to pirating the crap out of it when it is inevitably cracked and uploaded within a couple of weeks. Assuming this is accurate, it seems GWstill haven't managed to figure out how the internet works.
While I don't condone GW actions GW is a British company not an American company so yes they should set the policy (no matter how poor/ridiculous they are) and have the main HQ n home ground.
It's not quite that simple. Stuff that works in one country doesn't necessarily work in another. The US market is very different to the UK, and trying to run it the same as the UK is pretty much doomed to fail .
Exactly this.
Go back a decade. I was playing a game of WFB with the head of Trade Sales, (still get in games, he just isn't at GW anymore), and he was complaining about the UK staff not getting it. He told me that the US, in particular US independent stores were the most profitable part of GW that year. But since the UK has a pitiful amount of FLGS, and hundreds of GW stores, the UK doesn't take independent stores seriously. They also arent as large a store as we have in the US, and don't run the leagues, tournaments, and other activities we have here that drive sales. They certainly don't seek our opinion on anything. They don't even listen to their US employees.
Get a beer or two into on of the US guys and you'll find out they hate the Disinformation policies and crappy marketing as much as US retailers do. And the UK policies are frustrating to them because they can't do their jobs.
So because the US is bigger and better then everyone you think the US should call the shots. As far as we know they listen to the US branch and make decisions on that and their in this mess because they listened to the US. Your info is from a decade ago, is it still relevant today?
Nope, that's something you said, not I. But others have answered you more elequently than I would.
Ah, awesome fallacy mate. So by your definition of "Narrative", if i play anything that wasn't exactly what you think is narrative, by game wasn't "narrative".
Tell me, WTF do you think setting up a huge table with the force orgs used from a battle, no points, giving people the objectives based on a story line set up for the game?
You're trolling at this point.
No mate, I'm not. Did you mention any of that before? No, you did not. Sounds like a narrative game to me.
I said:
"Just because you're playing a historical game does not mean you're playing a narrative game to me."
"Just because" <-- see that bit? It means that historical does not automatically mean narrative, which a lot of people on this board do seem to think...
Was there a story involved? Was everyone in the game involved in that story? Why, yes they were. Therefore: narrative game.
Ok, now I'm really confused. I'm trying to understand your argument but you just contradicted yourself.
Was there a story involved? Was everyone in the game involved in that story? Why, yes they were. Therefore: narrative game.
This is literally every historical game invented because the battles have happened and stories of what happened are known. Of course all the players are involved.
At this point the only thing that I can think of is that you're talking about D&D now where there would be a completely fabricated story.
OH, I get it. I heard that the GW design team originally made 40K and WHFB as a kind of D&D-esque storytelling mechanism; I think this is what you're talking about.
Ah, awesome fallacy mate. So by your definition of "Narrative", if i play anything that wasn't exactly what you think is narrative, by game wasn't "narrative".
Tell me, WTF do you think setting up a huge table with the force orgs used from a battle, no points, giving people the objectives based on a story line set up for the game?
You're trolling at this point.
No mate, I'm not. Did you mention any of that before? No, you did not. Sounds like a narrative game to me.
I said:
"Just because you're playing a historical game does not mean you're playing a narrative game to me."
"Just because" <-- see that bit? It means that historical does not automatically mean narrative, which a lot of people on this board do seem to think...
Was there a story involved? Was everyone in the game involved in that story? Why, yes they were. Therefore: narrative game.
Strange....you don't know what "a bridge too far" references? It's a story (narrative) about something that happened in world war 2. I think that's the major bit of information in the post. You've heard of WW2, right?
I guess just waiting for more people than a few to play one match of the game before jumping to conclusions is too much to ask for some users.
I'm literally seeing people who have decided the game is bad based on one user saying so who hasn't even played the game, or has played one match of it and just quickly browsed trough the rules ONCE.
Such an unbelievably idiotic way to go about anything really, but yeah, we can't all be sensible.
agnosto wrote: This is literally every historical game invented because the battles have happened and stories of what happened are known. Of course all the players are involved.
Pretty sure not every game involving late Republic legionaries has to be Gergovia. I don't consider narrative to be an inherent characteristic of historical games.
Weighing in slightly on this online database calculator - genuinely can't see that rumour being true.
The original rumour states it's one guy doing the input of the data, now presumably this would be the new models/army and the existing armies as the info we have so far does seem to point to relative support for the old armies in so much as, no new models coming your way but they'll be usable.
If any of you have ever played Football (Soccer) Manager it's a database driven game. The stats alone for one professional top division side would be a tear inducing spreadsheet. For example, every senior player will have around 30-40 visible and variable stats and then a number of other hidden attributes that impact on the play. Multiplty that by around 30 on average senior players, then the under 21 squads and then the junior squad and on average you're looking at 60 odd unique player profiles.
Now they're static in the respect that they all have the same attribute fields, it's just the values per player would change. With your AoS and Warhammer armies you're looking at every troop, HQ and vehicle type needing to be inputted for each army and then there will always be variables:
The rumoured AoS based idea would only have visible stat lines but presumably you'd need:
- Full profiles so movement, wounds, leadership etc etc.
- Front loaded weapon stats
- Then the potential to interchange weapon configurations
- Then the potential to add magic items (I guess?)
It's certainly something I think could be done but you're talking about building something gargantuan - I doubt they'll apply the resources needed to do this.
Could be wrong obviously but I just can't see it working without some major resources i.e. cash being thrown at it.
Norsed wrote: And if you are playing with someone who spams 30 bloodthirsters at your 10 spearmen, well then I suggest you find someone else to play with.
What? You've never heard the Legend of the Ten Spearmen? Once upon a time there were ten spearmen out on patrol and out of nowhere they were ambushed by thirty bloodthirsters! The ten spearmen fought gallantly but alas they all died pretty much instantly.
Now I spent quite a sum of money on these 30 bloodthirsters and as a narrative gamer you are honor bound to help me reenact the spearmen's heroic last stand so get out your spearmen and let's play!
Ok, now I'm really confused. I'm trying to understand your argument but you just contradicted yourself.
Was there a story involved? Was everyone in the game involved in that story? Why, yes they were. Therefore: narrative game.
This is literally every historical game invented because the battles have happened and stories of what happened are known. Of course all the players are involved.
At this point the only thing that I can think of is that you're talking about D&D now where there would be a completely fabricated story.
OH, I get it. I heard that the GW design team originally made 40K and WHFB as a kind of D&D-esque storytelling mechanism; I think this is what you're talking about.
There is no contradiction. Most 'historical' wargames these days are not played as refights of historical battles. Field of Glory, Flames of War, DBA and DBM, and most other commercially available systems mostly cater to the "pick up and play" crowd, with no scenario beyond a straight up fight. So no, those battles have not happened, and no the players in question are not involved in a story.
On the latter point, you aren't exactly correct, but meh close enough.
Narrative wargames of the style I'm talking about did not come from D&D - D&D came from narrative wargames. Tony Bath's Hyboria campaign, Braunstein, and the way in which many traditional club wargames were played was the precursor to Fantasy Wargaming.
Norsed wrote: Quite possibly. That's certainly how I respond to the word competitive. Perhaps that is wrong of me.
It kinda is. There's a difference between being a more competitive player and just being a douchebag. "WAAC" generally refers to the latter, and a WAAC attitude isn't just about wanting to win really bad like some people believe, it includes really poor behavior like lying, cheating, bending and breaking the rules, in some cases even bullying or intimidating your opponent, literally doing anything it takes to win the game, and generally being unsportsmanlike in every way imaginable.
People hear the word "competitive" and immediately imagine the player I described above, when a "proper" competitive gamer is going to try their best to win, but does it without breaking the rules and being generally friendly and pleasant to play with.
Norsed wrote: And I would say - not necesarily. But I would also say that expecting balance from any GW product is overly optimistic.
I don't think any of us are stupid enough to expect balance from GW anymore...but we kinda deserve balance for the price we're paying for this crap.
Whether it's caused a backlash or not can't be judged by the foaming mouths on here.it'll be on the balance books I'm afraid.
Errr. My job is organisational change and new product development. I work with (and lead change) in companies far bigger than GW. When I talk about big actions and reactions - This is not a chicken little comment (I don't play so don't mind either way) but a statement on what generally happens in product transformation programmes. They are making (avoiding comment on content) some classically recognisable change errors with this launch. It sounds like (I don't know as have not been following 40K this century) that I did something similar to 40K at some point?
Personally, I would have made the IP lift and shift at a different time to a new rule set.
While I don't condone GW actions GW is a British company not an American company so yes they should set the policy (no matter how poor/ridiculous they are) and have the main HQ n home ground.
It's not quite that simple. Stuff that works in one country doesn't necessarily work in another. The US market is very different to the UK, and trying to run it the same as the UK is pretty much doomed to fail .
Exactly this.
Go back a decade. I was playing a game of WFB with the head of Trade Sales, (still get in games, he just isn't at GW anymore), and he was complaining about the UK staff not getting it. He told me that the US, in particular US independent stores were the most profitable part of GW that year. But since the UK has a pitiful amount of FLGS, and hundreds of GW stores, the UK doesn't take independent stores seriously. They also arent as large a store as we have in the US, and don't run the leagues, tournaments, and other activities we have here that drive sales. They certainly don't seek our opinion on anything. They don't even listen to their US employees.
Get a beer or two into on of the US guys and you'll find out they hate the Disinformation policies and crappy marketing as much as US retailers do. And the UK policies are frustrating to them because they can't do their jobs.
So because the US is bigger and better then everyone you think the US should call the shots. As far as we know they listen to the US branch and make decisions on that and their in this mess because they listened to the US. Your info is from a decade ago, is it still relevant today?
Dude, you're reading way too much into what he stated. The US and UK are two very different markets when it comes to GW's games. The UK is full of GW stores but the US is reliant on FLGS and LGS because there are barely any GW stores here.
Mikhaila is a FLGS owner with stores in Philadelphia. There's about 2 million people in that metro area, 1 GW store, over 2 dozen independent stores. Mikhaila's stores literally have a bigger market presence than GW's store and he's been gaming, running stores and selling GW products for decades. Independent stores are not the same as GW stores. If GW wants to be successful and profitable in the US they need the independent stores to carry, promote and sell their products. Independent retailers are essential partners when it comes to the success of GW games in the US and Mikhaila is just lamenting the fact that GW's corporate offices in Nottingham seem to be willfully ignorant of the realities of that symbiotic relationship. Consequently GW policies that are put forth from Nottingham for use in the US aren't tailored to fit the realities of the US market and help independent retailers successfully sell GW products.
Since Mikhaila still has a bigger retail presence in the Philadelphia market than GW and is still selling and promoting their products and dealing with GW reps on a regular ongoing basis his info is still relevant.
The whole ugly American being arrogant and condescending is a fabricated straw man on your part and that stereotype has not been evidenced in the discussion you reference.
Also in terms of landmass Russia and Canada are actually bigger than America so they're not actually bigger than everyone.
Having been in a USA FLGS in Florida I found it much more relaxing than going into my local GW at times. Plus great air conditioning
Anyway I was just interjecting to say that despite not contributing much here I've read a lot and find Mikhaila's information fascinating and highly informative and as someone who has been reduced to facepalming at some of GW's business calls (don't get me started on the Horus Heresy book series) I think it's fair comment to say that GW seems to have a far too inward looking approach rather than adjusting their business practises appropriately for different markets.
I have to go down to my flgs soon and see what he is going to do about this.
I know for a fact that he will be upset about this. He loves Fantasy. He does not like 40k at all even though there are a ton of 40k players in our flgs. He is most likely going to keep playing 8th edition because this AoS is too simplified, and I really hope he sticks with it because the community that is there is really good and the people like 8th edition alot.
Fantasy doesn't keep his store open, I think he keeps it open through Magic the Gathering and a combination of x-wing, boardgames and then the GW stuff.
Small store that's been around a while so I'm sure it'll stay around but I'm wondering what he will do with this new set.
Mikhaila you own two big stores from what I can geuss?
How much do you rely on GW products to run your store? By the sounds of it your pretty diversified in products you sell, games and leagues you run etc.
Runic wrote: I guess just waiting for more people than a few to play one match of the game before jumping to conclusions is too much to ask for some users.
I'm literally seeing people who have decided the game is bad based on one user saying so who hasn't even played the game, or has played one match of it and just quickly browsed trough the rules ONCE.
Such an unbelievably idiotic way to go about anything really, but yeah, we can't all be sensible.
not everyone is doing that. from what we know about the game that is 100% solid( i.e. the white dwarf leaks) the game is pretty much garbage. I for one was really excited for this game. After seeing the leaked images of the models I even told my local shop to put me down for 2, then I saw the rules. I still haven't seen ALL of them and will make my final decision after that but as of right now, im out. My money will be going to games like FOW or bolt action and taking my whfb to KOW or playing 8th.
I will give this game a good look through and I will play it but until I see something worthwhile I will not spend a penny on it or waste any time other then testing out the rules.
Norsed wrote: Quite possibly. That's certainly how I respond to the word competitive. Perhaps that is wrong of me.
It kinda is. There's a difference between being a more competitive player and just being a douchebag. "WAAC" generally refers to the latter, and a WAAC attitude isn't just about wanting to win really bad like some people believe, it includes really poor behavior like lying, cheating, bending and breaking the rules, in some cases even bullying or intimidating your opponent, literally doing anything it takes to win the game, and generally being unsportsmanlike in every way imaginable.
People hear the word "competitive" and immediately imagine the player I described above, when a "proper" competitive gamer is going to try their best to win, but does it without breaking the rules and being generally friendly and pleasant to play with.
Norsed wrote: And I would say - not necesarily. But I would also say that expecting balance from any GW product is overly optimistic.
I don't think any of us are stupid enough to expect balance from GW anymore...but we kinda deserve balance for the price we're paying for this crap.
Yeah, they charge a premium for the models for this game, I think that expecting a balanced game is reasonable. The game we've been shown so far is horribly imbalanced. Those sudden death objectives don't do anything to stop me from fielding an army of 10,000 goblins as one giant unit and just crushing things. Sure, it would be expensive, but MSRP should not be the balancing factor.
Weaknesses :
- 2D6 charges without any bonus for the units actual speed !
- Possibility for player One the play two (three or more) consecutive turns if he wins initiative at the beginning of each round.
- Pure annihilation without any scenarios. (except for Sudden Death triggers and the like)
VERY BAD:
- The list is built during deployment. Players deploy one unit alternatively. Many units can have an Unlimited of models. «Mister Suitcases» with all the units (and multiple copies) will have a double advantage. 1) More choice. 2) See what the other player puts on the table and respond with the perfect counter unit with just the right number of troops. Limiting the number of models on the table will not prevent these avantages. Unlimited spamming possible if a unit is broken. Which leads to an arms race. Thus more profit for GW.
Once again GW uses randomized rules to determine results of strategic decisions during play. Its one of the main things that drove me away from their games. This game is not for me. If I feel the need to play medieval wars with multiple units I'll play a game of SAGA.
This game is for kids (8-12) who drop by a GW stores. The idea is probably to rebuilt a base of players from the ground up. And repeat the pattern of the last 30 years with a new cohort of players. GW gambles that low entry price, simple rules and pure annihilation will appeal the young players. They can always add scenarios and advanced rules later on. STOP / REWIND / REPLAY.
I may be insanely biased about Comic Books because i own two of the larger shops in the US, but I'm also sort of tied to the industry. One only has to look at the 30 or so comic book inspired movies coming out to see where their popularity is going. Comics are hardly dying. The format is just changing. We don't sell 100% periodicals (floppies, 32page scs, however you think of it). The stories are online, on DVD collections, and a massive inventory of trade paperbacks. The amount of comic related products is massive: clothing, posters, toys, movies, tv series.
Walking Dead alone brought in a huge chunk of new readers, as did Watchmen, Avengers, and GotG. Groot alone is a pop culture icon and budding religious cult
As to AOS being for children, I agree. They made a game that's dead simple to play. However.....once the two 10 year olds are past the starter scenarios, i have no idea how to get them to keep playing. Telling Little Timmy and Little Joey to just put all their models on the table and "have fun" isn't going to work really well. Kids games are all about the rules, not about lack of rules.
Yes, the popularity is going up in the Superhero genre. How awesome are these movies!
That is different to comics. As a shop owner, you know this. Comic shops are closing all over the world. They are sold far less on the newsstand in Europe and I believe hardly at all in the US. Compared to the golden ages when they sold 100,000s of copies a month. IIRC over a million for X-Men 1 and Spider-Man 1? Comics as a genre are, by any measure, (sales, units, profit) dying. How much of your sales are actually comics and how much are the associated IP used in different product streams? I recall when comic stores were all back issues and the latest hottest releases. Now my local store (used to be 4 in our city, now just one) is 85% non comic.
The Marvel IP is incredibly powerful and will last a long time. The DC IP has many great un-mined opportunities. Whether that is in the traditional delivery format? Probably not. As you have said, the format changes have helped. But still, there is a downturn of sales compared to every decade before us.
The funny thing is, (and to bring it back on track) GWs IP was (whilst derivative) very powerful. They have probably broken that. Those of you talking about Narrative games over "gaming" games…. They have potentially devastated their narrative as well. So we end up with a game with a weaker IP (though more legally secure) and a weaker game.
The funny thing is, (and to bring it back on track) GWs IP was (whilst derivative) very powerful. They have probably broken that. Those of you talking about Narrative games over "gaming" games…. They have potentially devastated their narrative as well. So we end up with a game with a weaker IP (though more legally secure) and a weaker game.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
That's actually horribly interesting to me.
The whole "no points" crap bothered me the most because it was so intrinsically stupid from GW's point of view. It will sell less games, make less money.
That they might have some scheme to like this actually makes some sense.
So to play a balanced game, you'll have to buy the models and unlock the "balance" with a monthly fee? Lol, the four page core rules are free but it's like a bad MMO where they cut out a bunch of the needed things and put them behind a paywall. That horrible french canadian company tried mandatory online enabled gaming and failed. WOTC/D&D/Gleemax tried to put the rules online and failed. Microsoft tried online mandatory checkin for things that shouldn't have had it and failed. I guess if this rumor is true then it is now GW's turn. And, yes, I realize that you can play a badly balanced game without the monthly fee in this rumor but I also don't think it escapes GW that a random pickup game between strangers will lead to a defacto "are subscribed so we can balance the armies?" pregame question.
Runic wrote: I guess just waiting for more people than a few to play one match of the game before jumping to conclusions is too much to ask for some users.
I'm literally seeing people who have decided the game is bad based on one user saying so who hasn't even played the game, or has played one match of it and just quickly browsed trough the rules ONCE.
Such an unbelievably idiotic way to go about anything really, but yeah, we can't all be sensible.
Okay guys, you heard Runic, lock the thread. No one's allowed to have an opinion about AoS until we see the whole god-damned thing, even if most of the content from the box has been leaked already.
Runic wrote: I guess just waiting for more people than a few to play one match of the game before jumping to conclusions is too much to ask for some users.
I'm literally seeing people who have decided the game is bad based on one user saying so who hasn't even played the game, or has played one match of it and just quickly browsed trough the rules ONCE.
Such an unbelievably idiotic way to go about anything really, but yeah, we can't all be sensible.
I agree with the sentiment of this, but if a car has no engine, I don't need to get behind the wheel to know it won't work.
The same principal is at work here. We have people on dakka who have been running FLGS for years, tournament organisers, and of course, people who have played hundreds of games of Fantasy, in their life time.
The rules have been leaked, and people, using their vast experience, have judged the game to be found wanting.
It's not a knee jerk reaction. A minority of GW haters will always be guilty of this, but many people wanted to give AOS a chance, and based on the evidence, have found it lacking.
Norsed wrote: To me, narrative gaming involves all players involved in the game signing up to enjoy a story enfolding on the tabletop in front of them - it helps if you have a referee and a great scenario with all sorts of unknown elements but even two player games can be narrative. "it's in character that he got distracted by a shiny quarter." is, of course, silly. But ideally the characters should have character and therefore be able to played in character. And if every character has got their own secret objective, all the better. Does this sound like roleplaying? Why, yes, it does a little. All of the key concepts for roleplaying games developed from wargames. This is not a new thing - it is a very old thing and how many more people played until tournaments became the main driving force behind wargaming.
By this definition, not a single wargame available today is narrative. Why even bother with a system or rolls if there is a story that is supposed to unfold? After all, what is the point of my archer trying to shoot a dude if that dude HAS to survive to go into the next "scene" or somesuch. That's not wargaming, that's storytelling.
No points limits. No restrictions on army buildings. Dumbed down rules. Measuring from the model (so modelling for advantage just came back into the fore in a HUGE way). Shooting into combat. Terrain basically doesn't matter. Have to be on terrain (not behind it) to get benefits... counter-intuitive much?
I don't have to keep paying to use something I already... oh why am I even bothering? You knew exactly what I meant...
overtyrant wrote: So because the US is bigger and better then everyone you think the US should call the shots. As far as we know they listen to the US branch and make decisions on that and their in this mess because they listened to the US. Your info is from a decade ago, is it still relevant today?
That's not even slightly what he said.
The simple fact is that the UK and US are different types of markets, with different demographics and even just simple geography making one marketing strategy not applicable to the other. GW takes the UK "high street" approach and tries to apply it everywhere, but that doesn't work in a country as vast as the US.
Runic wrote: I guess just waiting for more people than a few to play one match of the game before jumping to conclusions is too much to ask for some users.
I'm literally seeing people who have decided the game is bad based on one user saying so who hasn't even played the game, or has played one match of it and just quickly browsed trough the rules ONCE.
Such an unbelievably idiotic way to go about anything really, but yeah, we can't all be sensible.
I agree with the sentiment of this, but if a car has no engine, I don't need to get behind the wheel to know it won't work.
The same principal is at work here. We have people on dakka who have been running FLGS for years, tournament organisers, and of course, people who have played hundreds of games of Fantasy, in their life time.
The rules have been leaked, and people, using their vast experience, have judged the game to be found wanting.
It's not a knee jerk reaction. A minority of GW haters will always be guilty of this, but many people wanted to give AOS a chance, and based on the evidence, have found it lacking.
This. I have been playing GW products since about 1990. 25 years of experience has provided me the insight to understand how the written rules (or lack there of,) translates onto the table top.
Norsed wrote: To me, narrative gaming involves all players involved in the game signing up to enjoy a story enfolding on the tabletop in front of them - it helps if you have a referee and a great scenario with all sorts of unknown elements but even two player games can be narrative. "it's in character that he got distracted by a shiny quarter." is, of course, silly. But ideally the characters should have character and therefore be able to played in character. And if every character has got their own secret objective, all the better. Does this sound like roleplaying? Why, yes, it does a little. All of the key concepts for roleplaying games developed from wargames. This is not a new thing - it is a very old thing and how many more people played until tournaments became the main driving force behind wargaming.
By this definition, not a single wargame available today is narrative. Why even bother with a system or rolls if there is a story that is supposed to unfold? After all, what is the point of my archer trying to shoot a dude if that dude HAS to survive to go into the next "scene" or somesuch. That's not wargaming, that's storytelling.
I don't think you really understand... The story is created by the players, through the actions of their characters, and the results of those actions. There's no "scenes" that have to unfold in a certain way. Have you ever played a roleplaying game? There are dice involved in that yes? Apply those same concepts to a wargame. That is a narrative game. Something that has been happening for decades.
And no, you're right, there aren't many wargames that cater specifically to that style of play now. There used to be, indeed the earliest editions of Warhammer catered specifically for it. These days, it mostly seems to have been overtaken by the fast-play style of game.
H.B.M.C. wrote: No points limits. No restrictions on army buildings. Dumbed down rules. Measuring from the model (so modelling for advantage just came back into the fore in a HUGE way). Shooting into combat. Terrain basically doesn't matter. Have to be on terrain (not behind it) to get benefits... counter-intuitive much?
This is laughable.
You're in (bad?) luck! A secondary rumor says that they'll fix some of that... for a monthly fee.
I don't think you really understand... The story is created by the players, through the actions of their characters, and the results of those actions. There's no "scenes" that have to unfold in a certain way. Have you ever played a roleplaying game? There are dice involved in that yes? Apply those same concepts to a wargame. That is a narrative game. Something that has been happening for decades.
And no, you're right, there aren't many wargames that cater specifically to that style of play now. There used to be, indeed the earliest editions of Warhammer catered specifically for it. These days, it mostly seems to have been overtaken by the fast-play style of game.
The difference is that I call what you've described a role-playing game. Because that's what it is, not a wargame. I set up miniatures and stuff for my RPGs all the time. I bought sand huts for a game of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, for a fight (that didn't materialize because my clever players talked their way through/out of it) that would have taken place on Tatooine. There are also most definitely "scenes" that take place in RPGs.
Honestly, it sounds like you've redefined both terms at this point and are wondering why no one agrees with you.
Need to re-read those rules tonight and check if this is true.
It's true. The rules are very clear that bases don't matter, players measure from model to model. Those two models are more than 0.5" apart even though they are in base to base contact. The rules also state that it's ok to put models on top of the bases of other models (which strikes me as impractical due to how some scenic bases are constructed and can have destructive effects on bases) which needs to happen to get the actual models within 0.5" to avoid the situation shown in the picture. According to the rules the Chaos Warrior model should be moved forward and its base should be placed on top of the Ogre's base to get the models within 0.5" of each other. It certainly seems like a problematic rule but that's the way GW wrote it.
I cant see myself enjoying this game sadly, I mean I hardly care for winning, I just like to make fluffy cool looking lists that fit the army fluff. Looks like I wont be doing that with Age of Sigmar since I will just be choosing what I need to counter my opponent there and then.
I really love the models and the story seems interesting since it seems to be ever evolving so I will still buy the set and maybe the novel but cant see myself playing a game, unless of course all our problems are solved.
Im still saying the Prosecutors are gonna make one badass minotaur captain, guess its an excuse to start that chapter.
I haven't read the leaked rules yet, but I've read a fair bit of comments on them.
Right now, I'll probably play a couple games of this. The games will be very small- things like a Hero or two, and maybe 5-10 Core or Elites models to play a very small, skirmish game. I really want to try my 10 Empire Spearmen against a Greater Deamon of Khorne just to see how badly the game will play. If anything, I'll buy a model or two from armies I don't play just to throw them on the table to play a game. If that is the intention of AoS, then good job GW! You hooked me. I've always wanted to play Vampire Counts, but I never wanted to have to paint so many Skeletons, or Zombies, or Ghouls. I just wanted to field a Vampire on an Undead Dragon. I always wanted to try a unit of Troll Slayers, but not the rest of a Dwarven army. I'd love to play a game with a unit of Pegusas Knights, but didn't want to use the rest of the Empire models. Basically, there has always been 1-2 models/units I've wanted to use in a game without the rest of the army.
Well, now is my chance.
This is very much a skirmish game, and I can't see myself ever playing a game with the size of armies I would in 8th edition.
Actually, a living document online that has a monthly charge, like Xbox Live, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Depends on their cost. If it's $5 a month...that's $60 a year. If it's all inclusive on the rules, that means you get EVERY "army book" plus the rules and all point costs for $60/year. That's actually fantastic. Split it among a group of friends, and everyone gets access to the points. There are no surprises on rules or reasons to not know what something does. By GW standards, it's actually a brilliant choice. I'm happy to grump at their decisions when wrongdoings happen. But this online living document to avoid piracy is actually a good thing. Now, if it's $5/month for EACH army book, that's BS.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I don't have to keep paying to use something I already... oh why am I even bothering? You knew exactly what I meant...
No need for exasperation, I'm not here to fight you.
GW has been churning out content that invalidates previous releases at a staggering rate. While it's technically true that your 5th edition Lizardmen army book is as usable today as it was a decade ago, you're still forced to buy the new one to keep playing. I'd wager that, for the vast majority of gamers, only the latest version of the product holds relevance. It's not even like GW invented forced obsolescence anyway.
I'm not particularly thrilled by the idea of a subscription fee, or being forced to always be online to play a game, but it would at the very least be an honest admission on GW's part on how they treat their rules supplements.
Honestly, I still think GW is purposely holding back. They probably didn't even give their sales reps the full story because khorne forbid someone leaks something, that wasn't designed purposely to be leaked to spread false info. So we can all be like "Oh, so that's how it works" on saturday.
I wish GW would stop pretending to be Apple, but that's never going to change under the current regime. But I guess it's working, we're all taking about it, so there's a buzz.. I guess bad buzzing is still buzzing, so that makes it good.
I'm still being cautiously optimistic and hoping for the best
H.B.M.C. wrote: I don't have to keep paying to use something I already... oh why am I even bothering? You knew exactly what I meant...
No need for exasperation, I'm not here to fight you.
GW has been churning out content that invalidates previous releases at a staggering rate. While it's technically true that your 5th edition Lizardmen army book is as usable today as it was a decade ago, you're still forced to buy the new one to keep playing. I'd wager that, for the vast majority of gamers, only the latest version of the product holds relevance. It's not even like GW invented forced obsolescence anyway.
I'm not particularly thrilled by the idea of a subscription fee, or being forced to always be online to play a game, but it's at the very least an honest admission on GW's part on how they treat their rules supplements.
There's a big step between forced obsolescence and a subscription model. Forced obsolescence you can decide at any point you don't want to keep paying, you retain all your books, everything you paid money for you still own, if a year later you want to play a game and the rules have been replaced you can still just pull out your old rules and play it.
From the rumour it sounds more like you'll only have access if you are paying the fee.
It's not hard to see why people would be less inclined to get on board with that.
JohnnyHell wrote: And lo, they didst descend into semantics. War was fought but not a single D6 was thrown.
And therein lieth the failing in great Games Workshoppe's plan.
They didst create war from nothing, with no ruleset, and it doth occupy their player base admirably.
And thus it came to pass that not a single dollar, pound, or Euro was ever spent on the miniatures from thee Citadelle again.
Wordhammer: Age Of Semantics was verily a smash hit.
For the record, the Semantics Phase was pretty bad in 7E, while largely nonexistent in 8E, at least in my experience playing at a pretty high level. The killer for 8E initially was the Competitive Terrain Placement Phase, but once we dropped the Candyland terrain that fell away significantly ...
Necros wrote: Honestly, I still think GW is purposely holding back. They probably didn't even give their sales reps the full story because khorne forbid someone leaks something, that wasn't designed purposely to be leaked to spread false info. So we can all be like "Oh, so that's how it works" on saturday.
I wish GW would stop pretending to be Apple, but that's never going to change under the current regime. But I guess it's working, we're all taking about it, so there's a buzz.. I guess bad buzzing is still buzzing, so that makes it good.
I'm still being cautiously optimistic and hoping for the best
Yeah, it's even more silly when the rumors for this release (including the sigmarines) were leaked six months ago!
The paid monthly sub has fail written all over it. I subscribe for a month get all the points for my stuff and just cancel the subscription. Job done no cost to me. GW wont do that. Plus say I didn't cancel all that I then need to do is put the points online and no one else needs to subscribe. Sorry but this pay monthly thing is pure BS
Necros wrote: I wish GW would stop pretending to be Apple, but that's never going to change under the current regime. But I guess it's working, we're all taking about it, so there's a buzz.. I guess bad buzzing is still buzzing, so that makes it good.
I don't think it's working. If they'd actually released some damned info I think there'd be much more buzz, at least IMO. A handful of people griping about the game on the internet isn't really meaningful buzz.
Runic wrote: I guess just waiting for more people than a few to play one match of the game before jumping to conclusions is too much to ask for some users.
I'm literally seeing people who have decided the game is bad based on one user saying so who hasn't even played the game, or has played one match of it and just quickly browsed trough the rules ONCE.
Such an unbelievably idiotic way to go about anything really, but yeah, we can't all be sensible.
I agree with the sentiment of this, but if a car has no engine, I don't need to get behind the wheel to know it won't work.
The same principal is at work here. We have people on dakka who have been running FLGS for years, tournament organisers, and of course, people who have played hundreds of games of Fantasy, in their life time.
The rules have been leaked, and people, using their vast experience, have judged the game to be found wanting.
It's not a knee jerk reaction. A minority of GW haters will always be guilty of this, but many people wanted to give AOS a chance, and based on the evidence, have found it lacking.
Just playing devil's advocate, Dakka (for all its vast experience) also declared allies completely inappropriate for competitive 40K at the advent of 6th edition. Hell, there was also conversation about how Aegis lines would likely have to be houseruled to only be deployed in loops, etc. Ah, those broken, broken Aegis lines.
But with some playtesting, it didn't take long for opinions to shift. 40K may have jumped the shark to some degree in the time and edition since, but in retrospect there were many TAME changes in the transition from 5th to 6th that even experienced gamers kinda freaked out about unnecessarily at the time.
This is obviously a completely different ruleset than 8th, which implies much greater change...but also that we lack a foundation of experience with the new ruleset to truly understand it yet. I don't think anyone can deny that there are some headscratching aspects to AoS. But some patience is needed IMO, especially since we don't and can't know if GW has plans or ideas for AoS going forward.
Of course, any request for patience in modern society will almost certainly be denied.
The difference is that I call what you've described a role-playing game. Because that's what it is, not a wargame. I set up miniatures and stuff for my RPGs all the time. I bought sand huts for a game of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, for a fight (that didn't materialize because my clever players talked their way through/out of it) that would have taken place on Tatooine. There are also most definitely "scenes" that take place in RPGs.
Honestly, it sounds like you've redefined both terms at this point and are wondering why no one agrees with you.
No, what I have described is how many wargames used to be played before fast-play stepped in. It is true that roleplaying games developed from this style of wargaming. However, I mentioned rpg in this particular context to help you understand that having a story doesn't mean you don't roll dice or play a game.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
As an aside, this is from sens16 on Warseer, who has no rumor history before this. All the salt.
The single best part of this release has been watching pretre's rumor tracker just massacring rumor posters. Full-on obliteration. It's been quite glorious
I suspect the other book that comes with the box will have some linked scenarios that specify game size and objectives. This is based on the rules mentioning things like reserves, and getting a bonus for winning the previous battle. Those references don't make much sense with only the four page rules, but they make a little more sense if there is a campaign of linked scenarios in the other book that uses reserves in some of them.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I suspect the other book that comes with the box will have some linked scenarios that specify game size and objectives. This is based on the rules mentioning things like reserves, and getting a bonus for winning the previous battle. Those references don't make much sense with only the four page rules, but they make a little more sense if there is a campaign of linked scenarios in the other book that uses reserves in some of them.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I suspect the other book that comes with the box will have some linked scenarios that specify game size and objectives. This is based on the rules mentioning things like reserves, and getting a bonus for winning the previous battle. Those references don't make much sense with only the four page rules, but they make a little more sense if there is a campaign of linked scenarios in the other book that uses reserves in some of them.
Does that mean that we'd have to use those scenarios for any game we played though? And we'd only be able to use the forces in the scenario..? We'd only be able to play campaigns..? That doesn't make it sound any better to me...
Accolade wrote: The single best part of this release has been watching pretre's rumor tracker just massacring rumor posters. Full-on obliteration. It's been quite glorious
9th edition has been a popular clickbait for mongers.
Accolade wrote: The single best part of this release has been watching pretre's rumor tracker just massacring rumor posters. Full-on obliteration. It's been quite glorious
9th edition has been a popular clickbait for mongers.
yeah i bet im on there and thats perfectly fine i shouldnt listen to morons.
Motograter wrote: The paid monthly sub has fail written all over it. I subscribe for a month get all the points for my stuff and just cancel the subscription. Job done no cost to me. GW wont do that. Plus say I didn't cancel all that I then need to do is put the points online and no one else needs to subscribe. Sorry but this pay monthly thing is pure BS
You know its fine if you get content like Pizaro do with books and such, but just an army builder yeah they can shove it
Saying games can be as big or as small as you want but then have scenarios be the only way of playing means games cant really be as big/small as you want.
Just playing devil's advocate, Dakka (for all its vast experience) also declared allies completely inappropriate for competitive 40K at the advent of 6th edition. Hell, there was also conversation about how Aegis lines would likely have to be houseruled to only be deployed in loops, etc. Ah, those broken, broken Aegis lines
I hear you, gorgon, but wasn't it the case that tournament organisers and people like Yakface had to do a major salvage job to correct 40k's flaws and make it ready for the tournament scene?
I keep using the car analogy, but if I buy a brand new car, I don't expect the salesman to tell me that' I'll have to replace the radiator, or fix the transmission or buy my own steering wheel!
There are tons of companies, with a fraction of GW's budget, who make tight rule sets year after year.
Just playing devil's advocate, Dakka (for all its vast experience) also declared allies completely inappropriate for competitive 40K at the advent of 6th edition. Hell, there was also conversation about how Aegis lines would likely have to be houseruled to only be deployed in loops, etc. Ah, those broken, broken Aegis lines
I hear you, gorgon, but wasn't it the case that tournament organisers and people like Yakface had to do a major salvage job to correct 40k's flaws and make it ready for the tournament scene?
I keep using the car analogy, but if I buy a brand new car, I don't expect the salesman to tell me that' I'll have to replace the radiator, or fix the transmission or buy my own steering wheel!
There are tons of companies, with a fraction of GW's budget, who make tight rule sets year after year.
The monthly subscription would actually work, and DAMN well too!
Why?
1. Access to all rules, all the time, with all updates to ALL models all the time.
2. The ONLY OFFICIAL way to take part in GW-sanctioned tournaments. For some, this may not be an issue (the OFFICIAL part), but if you want to play in a GW store? Or an Independant Retailer receiving incentives to BE official?
3. You can create a Global Campaign / Tournament Circuit that is universally accepted as ON PAR.
4. GW gets a monthly revenue stream was mentioned before, but this makes it MORE likely from a business perspective. Old Beards like me will actually give them money now instead of just using old models...
5. By going ONLINE, you de-personalize the scoring and judging aspects that each store needs to deal with. No bias.
As a fan, this makes a TON of sense... and I will applaud them if it comes true.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I suspect the other book that comes with the box will have some linked scenarios that specify game size and objectives. This is based on the rules mentioning things like reserves, and getting a bonus for winning the previous battle. Those references don't make much sense with only the four page rules, but they make a little more sense if there is a campaign of linked scenarios in the other book that uses reserves in some of them.
Does that mean that we'd have to use those scenarios for any game we played though? And we'd only be able to use the forces in the scenario..? We'd only be able to play campaigns..? That doesn't make it sound any better to me...
Yeah, except for two things:
1) You can make your own scenarios, as wargamers have been doing since time immemorial.
2) We don't know how the scenarios are constructed - they might be very open.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I suspect the other book that comes with the box will have some linked scenarios that specify game size and objectives. This is based on the rules mentioning things like reserves, and getting a bonus for winning the previous battle. Those references don't make much sense with only the four page rules, but they make a little more sense if there is a campaign of linked scenarios in the other book that uses reserves in some of them.
Does that mean that we'd have to use those scenarios for any game we played though? And we'd only be able to use the forces in the scenario..? We'd only be able to play campaigns..? That doesn't make it sound any better to me...
Yeah, except for two things:
1) You can make your own scenarios, as wargamers have been doing since time immemorial.
2) We don't know how the scenarios are constructed - they might be very open.
Works well for club play but helps not at all for pick-up games. "See, I've made this scenario where you bring 3 models and I bring 300, it's totally going to be fun (for me)."
Did I imagine it, or did I read a post a few pages back about how users had signed up today on BOLS and posted exclusively in the AoS thread defending it? In a "almost too convenient to be much other than an effort at damage control" sort of way?
War Room (from Privateer Press) is most definitely not free, and quite pricey if you want all the factions... however there are free alternatives like Forward Kommander.
migooo wrote: yeah i bet im on there and thats perfectly fine i shouldnt listen to morons.
Did you post something? Because I don't have anything for you.
I was told there would be like 4-5 books with rules in. I twas told one was a BRB its not , its just army things.
Did you post it?
earlier yeah, but maybe it got lost in this mess however im very willing to take credit for misinformation and im sorry for not checking beforehand.
i genininely feel bad considering what we found out after i was told this.
Don't feel bad: I got misinformation as well from one contact who had info that Age of Sigmar was a boardgame. And that information came DIRECTLY from his GW Rep. It happens.
However, my correct info came directly from somebody who works for GW as well. So...some people will provide real info, some provide fake info to get you to buy into whatever they can. I already told my friend who has a store to only buy whatever people preorder, plus one copy for the shelf and/or store, based on what Mikhaila said he's doing.
Just playing devil's advocate, Dakka (for all its vast experience) also declared allies completely inappropriate for competitive 40K at the advent of 6th edition. Hell, there was also conversation about how Aegis lines would likely have to be houseruled to only be deployed in loops, etc. Ah, those broken, broken Aegis lines
I hear you, gorgon, but wasn't it the case that tournament organisers and people like Yakface had to do a major salvage job to correct 40k's flaws and make it ready for the tournament scene?
I keep using the car analogy, but if I buy a brand new car, I don't expect the salesman to tell me that' I'll have to replace the radiator, or fix the transmission or buy my own steering wheel!
There are tons of companies, with a fraction of GW's budget, who make tight rule sets year after year.
Why can't GW do this?
I think it comes down to their "hire for attitude" mindset.
It's the same problem they had with the CHS court case- hiring incompetent lawyers who said yes to every bogus claim of ownership GW's overlords wanted to level, and when it came time to go up to litigation, they failed spectacularly. But not not without establishing this mindset of mind-boggling attempts to build copyright through lore change, all of which have done nothing to solidify their claims. It seems that they just choose to ignore reality with some sort of internal narrative.
I think that if management doesn't get the response they want from their designers, then they're out the door. It's the same thing with the game- I'm sure folks at GW have made the case that building the game into something that is well put-together would take a lot of work, but they're instructed to not do those sorts of things, and I'm guessing it's either kowtow to that or leave the company. And after they leave, they're just replaced with bobbleheads as the new design staff. .
Just playing devil's advocate, Dakka (for all its vast experience) also declared allies completely inappropriate for competitive 40K at the advent of 6th edition. Hell, there was also conversation about how Aegis lines would likely have to be houseruled to only be deployed in loops, etc. Ah, those broken, broken Aegis lines
I hear you, gorgon, but wasn't it the case that tournament organisers and people like Yakface had to do a major salvage job to correct 40k's flaws and make it ready for the tournament scene?
I keep using the car analogy, but if I buy a brand new car, I don't expect the salesman to tell me that' I'll have to replace the radiator, or fix the transmission or buy my own steering wheel!
Not to mention for a long time allies DID break the game. Tau-dar was a serious metagame issue for a long time. You either played it, or built a force to counter it.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
This is positively, unquestionably, the worst idea I have ever heard.
If true, 100% of my interest is now lost. I absolutely refuse to pay a subscription to play a game; period, no exceptions!
Should this idea ever translate to 40K it's a guarantee I'll quit. I'll quit without even giving it a second thought - this whole concept terrifies me.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I suspect the other book that comes with the box will have some linked scenarios that specify game size and objectives. This is based on the rules mentioning things like reserves, and getting a bonus for winning the previous battle. Those references don't make much sense with only the four page rules, but they make a little more sense if there is a campaign of linked scenarios in the other book that uses reserves in some of them.
Does that mean that we'd have to use those scenarios for any game we played though? And we'd only be able to use the forces in the scenario..? We'd only be able to play campaigns..? That doesn't make it sound any better to me...
Yeah, except for two things:
1) You can make your own scenarios, as wargamers have been doing since time immemorial.
2) We don't know how the scenarios are constructed - they might be very open.
Works well for club play but helps not at all for pick-up games. "See, I've made this scenario where you bring 3 models and I bring 300, it's totally going to be fun (for me)."
Of course it won't work for pick up games, unless you trust your opponent. It's not meant to! But as I say, the scenarios could be quite open for all we know. Or there could be guidelines for creating scenarios available. Or a Forces of Fantasy/Ravening Hordes/Warhammer Armies style supplement as it was in the old days (i.e. point free core game with heavy emphasis on narrative games and scenarios, with points systems turning up in a supplement for tournament players). We don't know yet! I think it's fairly certain that AoS will never use a points system - but that doesn't mean there won't be something else in place.
Wow, I haven't checked the veracity of this new monthly subscription charge rumour, but it really looks like GW are determined to repeat every mistake of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons plus some extra mistakes of their own if it is true.
1. Change the aestethics and the background fairly dramatically
2. Change the rules to an entirely new paradigm
3. Try to charge a subscription per month for rules content
I mean, at least 4th was a reasonably internally balanced rules set, even if it did become wonky at higher levels. AoS does not appear to even have that going for it.
RiTides wrote: War Room (from Privateer Press) is most definitely not free, and quite pricey if you want all the factions... however there are free alternatives like Forward Kommander.
It's also completely optional though. I love Warroom, but you don't need to buy it to play. Also it's a one time payment and that's it, no subscription.
RiTides wrote: War Room (from Privateer Press) is most definitely not free, and quite pricey if you want all the factions... however there are free alternatives like Forward Kommander.
But generally if you stick to your own army you're paying £5. It's not a major expense unless you really want all the factions. PP at least seem to make their output increasingly concrete while GW decide to get vaguer and vaguer with every release.
Da Boss wrote: Wow, I haven't checked the veracity of this new monthly subscription charge rumour, but it really looks like GW are determined to repeat every mistake of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons plus some extra mistakes of their own if it is true.
1. Change the aestethics and the background fairly dramatically
2. Change the rules to an entirely new paradigm
3. Try to charge a subscription per month for rules content
I mean, at least 4th was a reasonably internally balanced rules set, even if it did become wonky at higher levels. AoS does not appear to even have that going for it.
4th ed D&D was a train wreck from the start. They saw Pizaro and thought we can do that but Failed abysmally.
Im only glad this will last 5 years if that with GWs recent oh lets change everything every year attitude.
Then again im only interested in what i use to make other stuff with now anyway.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I suspect the other book that comes with the box will have some linked scenarios that specify game size and objectives. This is based on the rules mentioning things like reserves, and getting a bonus for winning the previous battle. Those references don't make much sense with only the four page rules, but they make a little more sense if there is a campaign of linked scenarios in the other book that uses reserves in some of them.
Does that mean that we'd have to use those scenarios for any game we played though? And we'd only be able to use the forces in the scenario..? We'd only be able to play campaigns..? That doesn't make it sound any better to me...
Yeah, except for two things:
1) You can make your own scenarios, as wargamers have been doing since time immemorial.
2) We don't know how the scenarios are constructed - they might be very open.
1. We can make our own scenarios based on what? How do you build two balanced forces? There are pretty much 0 guidelines.
2. We don't even know that there are scenarios. There is pretty much 0 evidence for their existence beyond "if fate intervenes" (which could mean anything) when talking about units not making into deployment.
RiTides wrote: War Room (from Privateer Press) is most definitely not free, and quite pricey if you want all the factions... however there are free alternatives like Forward Kommander.
It's also completely optional though. I love Warroom, but you don't need to buy it to play. Also it's a one time payment and that's it, no subscription.
Rork wrote: But generally if you stick to your own army you're paying £5. It's not a major expense unless you really want all the factions. PP at least seem to make their output increasingly concrete while GW decide to get vaguer and vaguer with every release.
Both good points on War Room, and I've been meaning to get it... just felt a little wrong with how much it costs if I want to be able to see my opponent's rules, too. Just buying my own faction is a good idea... I think I'll do that
A monthly subscription for GW's sounds a lot worse, but also very salty... and perhaps just wishlisting that they will somehow add balance / point values when right now they're saying there are absolutely none needed.
RiTides wrote: Both good points on War Room, and I've been meaning to get it... just felt a little wrong with how much it costs if I want to be able to see my opponents rules, too. Just buying my own faction is a good idea... I think I'll do that tonight
I have all the factions on it, I just got one a month for a few months really. Works out a bit more expensive than the bundle but it's like one less magazine or something a month, I'm not sorry I got them haha.
But yeah the subscription does sound a bit like grasping at some last hope for points or a balancing system but this is GW so who knows!
Motograter wrote: The paid monthly sub has fail written all over it. I subscribe for a month get all the points for my stuff and just cancel the subscription. Job done no cost to me. GW wont do that. Plus say I didn't cancel all that I then need to do is put the points online and no one else needs to subscribe. Sorry but this pay monthly thing is pure BS
While I agree with the last part if this rumor is true, the first part isn't necessarily correct. If the end result of calculating the "points" for balance is to result in a series of battle or victory conditions to "even out" the forces, they don't have to tell you squat actually. For instance, if your army is 10% "better" than the other guys, he gets an extra objective X to score for points. If your army is 20% "more", he gets a +1 to certain rolls on top of the extra objective. The TO's would enter in the armies and get the extra conditions for each game.
The other thing they could do is simply to give you the final value only of the whole army and/or institute a sliding scale for more of the same unit (a bloodthirster is Y pts but 2 bloodthirsters are 1.85xY pts). You could feasibly make individual armies of a single unit/warscroll/whatever to figure it out for each model in each army... which is borked as soon as they change something behind the scenes for "balance" or simply to mess with folks like you or you buy an additional model (meaning you'd have to get another month's subscription). It all depends on just how much control they want over the information.
Both of the above are simply conjecture to point out that subscribing for one month isn't the perfect solution it sounds like initially because we don't have really any of the details.
1. We can make our own scenarios based on what? How do you build two balanced forces? There are pretty much 0 guidelines.
2. We don't even know that there are scenarios. There is pretty much 0 evidence for their existence beyond "if fate intervenes" (which could mean anything) when talking about units not making into deployment.
The same way historical wargamers and oldhammer players do it. Look at the stats and guess. It won't be perfectly balanced, but neither will points. I'm not saying it's an ideal solution for everyone, but that's how people have done it before and will do it again. Besides, we don't know for certain yet that there won't be any guidelines.
No, we don't know for certain there are scenarios. There might not be. This particular part of the discussion is concerned with "if there are scenarios and they're the assumed way to play, what do we do if we don't want to play the supplied scenarios".
RiTides wrote: Both good points on War Room, and I've been meaning to get it... just felt a little wrong with how much it costs if I want to be able to see my opponents rules, too. Just buying my own faction is a good idea... I think I'll do that tonight
I have all the factions on it, I just got one a month for a few months really. Works out a bit more expensive than the bundle but it's like one less magazine or something a month, I'm not sorry I got them haha.
But yeah the subscription does sound a bit like grasping at some last hope for points or a balancing system but this is GW so who knows!
you know if they had a funding option for armies and gamesthat you actually wanted to see you know like nippon or SoB or necromunda 3.0 id be fine with that ( like KS) but this nope
One rule conundrum seems to be the part about measuring from "the model". It's interesting that people seem to assume that "the model" and "the base" are different things. From what I can see the rules don't make this distinction. Read the rules and think that you do all measurements from the base; that makes sense.
And, if it's NOT supposed to mean "base", why have reach values for weapons?
gorgon wrote: Just playing devil's advocate, Dakka (for all its vast experience) also declared allies completely inappropriate for competitive 40K at the advent of 6th edition. Hell, there was also conversation about how Aegis lines would likely have to be houseruled to only be deployed in loops, etc. Ah, those broken, broken Aegis lines.
What, are you kidding? Allies were bad for the game, and still are. Hell, especially now, with IoM and Eldar armies being the only ones that can really take advantage of them.
Are you forgetting Taudar, too? The most-hated army build for months, made possible because of allies, and if I'm not mistaken it usually included an aegis line, too, just to annoy people further.
gorgon wrote: But with some playtesting, it didn't take long for opinions to shift. 40K may have jumped the shark to some degree in the time and edition since, but in retrospect there were many TAME changes in the transition from 5th to 6th that even experienced gamers kinda freaked out about unnecessarily at the time.
I don't think people shifted their opinions much, rather the ones that didn't leave decided to just shut up and deal with it if they wanted to keep playing the game at all. And it's not like all these guys running popular events are just going to up and quit, either, they'll make it work if they need to.
And yeah, those changes look tame now, after all the flying rodent gak insane stuff GW's been doing since then, but don't downplay it as if it wasn't really a big deal and everyone overreacted to nothing because it really did screw up the game. And it kept getting WORSE!
gorgon wrote: I don't think anyone can deny that there are some headscratching aspects to AoS. But some patience is needed IMO, especially since we don't and can't know if GW has plans or ideas for AoS going forward.
Of course, any request for patience in modern society will almost certainly be denied.
I'm starting to think the only thing that would appease you guys demanding "patience" is complete and utter silence until the big day. In which case, as I've been saying, we should stop pretending that this is a discussion and just lock it already so that no one can post their opinions. Really, whether positive OR negative, any opinion formed at this point is equally senseless because you simply have no fething clue how everything will play out until the release. If we're not allowed to talk about what we've seen, direct scans of the rules/scrolls, etc., then there's really nothing to talk about here. At all. For anyone.
But of course everyone's allowed to fawn over the models and praise GW for a game they know no more about than us "negative Nancies" do, but who are the ones that get called out for posting their opinions and told they need to stop, even though there's no rule against it? Every single time?
unmercifulconker wrote: One of the main aims for this revamp is to make the game more accessible, kids (parents) cant afford to buy 100+ skeletons and stuff.
Charges monthly for list building.
Well we don't know for sure that they actually are, but yeah, that would be like the cherry on top of this gak sundae for sure.
I don't mind helpful apps if they're not required to play the game. An army-building app is a cool idea. But intentionally leaving out points costs so you have to buy the app in order to play the game? Sounds really dickish even for GW, but I could see it happening. Because it's GW.
Anyway, I guess it is possible that the warscrolls will have points on them, and it's just the ones in the box that don't, assuming there are indeed scenarios in there that pretty much tell you what to play with like past starters. But then if you want to use the models in the box I assume you would need to have another set of scrolls for them, so you'd still have to get the "right" ones from GW's site then? What would the point be in putting scrolls in the box without points and then making ones later for the same models with all the same content on them that do have points, why not just put the ones with the points on them in there and tell the player "This is the unit's point cost, just ignore this for the time being" and have that be that? Won't that be kinda confusing for new players, too, thinking they already have what they need for their new faction and then finding out later they need new scrolls because they can't actually use those due to the lack of point costs?
pinkmarine wrote: One rule conundrum seems to be the part about measuring from "the model". It's interesting that people seem to assume that "the model" and "the base" are different things. From what I can see the rules don't make this distinction. Read the rules and think that you do all measurements from the base; that makes sense.
And, if it's NOT supposed to mean "base", why have reach values for weapons?
There's an "experienced player" assumption lurking here ...
Rules page 1 under "Warscrolls and Units". Last sentence. Bases exist purely to make your model stand up.
Sorry, it's under "Tools of War". Last sentence of the first paragraph.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Really, the whole "bases don't matter" is basically just the worst band-aid ever for the transition they wanted to make. They couldn't come up with a way to reconcile square bases vs round bases so they just said "frell it" and ignore bases all together.
Just playing devil's advocate, Dakka (for all its vast experience) also declared allies completely inappropriate for competitive 40K at the advent of 6th edition. Hell, there was also conversation about how Aegis lines would likely have to be houseruled to only be deployed in loops, etc. Ah, those broken, broken Aegis lines
I hear you, gorgon, but wasn't it the case that tournament organisers and people like Yakface had to do a major salvage job to correct 40k's flaws and make it ready for the tournament scene?
I keep using the car analogy, but if I buy a brand new car, I don't expect the salesman to tell me that' I'll have to replace the radiator, or fix the transmission or buy my own steering wheel!
There are tons of companies, with a fraction of GW's budget, who make tight rule sets year after year.
Why can't GW do this?
and do open beta tests.
No TO has "fixed" 40K. They each run what they want based on their own individual preferences. And the trend has undeniably been toward more allowance and not more restriction.
Open beta tests? As a nod to the fans and PR move, sure. As a means for actually improving the game...no. Can you imagine what the noise-to-signal ratio would be for that? It'd be like reopening the Eye of Terror.
I think just perusing current forums and generally listening to the buzz would accomplish the same thing as an open beta, without all the hassle. Then do closed beta testing with good players in whom you have confidence in their ability to deliver valuable, pertinent feedback.
I don't think GW's old playtesting formula was ever broken. My understanding was that even when playtesters felt strongly about something, the designers didn't always agree. And to be fair, the playtesters might not have been privy to the entire picture, nor any constraints that the designer(s) had to deal with.
IMO, the core 7th edition ruleset is quite strong. Others may disagree with that, but from my viewpoint most frustrations seem to be related to army construction -- multiple detachments, formations, etc. -- and the power level of a codex or two.
pinkmarine wrote: One rule conundrum seems to be the part about measuring from "the model". It's interesting that people seem to assume that "the model" and "the base" are different things. From what I can see the rules don't make this distinction. Read the rules and think that you do all measurements from the base; that makes sense.
And, if it's NOT supposed to mean "base", why have reach values for weapons?
There's an "experienced player" assumption lurking here ...
Rules page 1 under "Warscrolls and Units". Last sentence. Bases exist purely to make your model stand up.
Sorry, it's under "Tools of War". Last sentence of the first paragraph.
Ah, Please don't bypass the language filter like this. Reds8n ! Now that IS seriously weird. Thx for pointing it out (I'll blame reading it on my phone ...)
No problemo. Even with the rules being only 4 pages I've missed stuff. Like the enemy player picking your assassination target for Sudden Death. I thought the player with the least models chose it, but nope, the player with more does.
Sidstyler wrote: I'm starting to think the only thing that would appease you guys demanding "patience" is complete and utter silence until the big day.
So what valuable insights and conversation from you am I trying to "silence," bud?
Open beta tests? As a nod to the fans and PR move, sure. As a means for actually improving the game...no. Can you imagine what the noise-to-signal ratio would be for that? It'd be like reopening the Eye of Terror.
You mean the one Privateer Press had in their Fieldtest which actually improved the game by.. you know .. alot?
...on the other hand, perhaps you could see it as making a point of actually playing with toy soldiers, rules wise? I mean, Warmahordes is actually more conveniently played with 30 mm wide and 1,75" high cylinders ...
I guess it works ok as long as all play along and don't try to be aholes.
Sidstyler wrote: What, are you kidding? Allies were bad for the game, and still are. Hell, especially now, with IoM and Eldar armies being the only ones that can really take advantage of them.
Are you forgetting Taudar, too? The most-hated army build for months, made possible because of allies, and if I'm not mistaken it usually included an aegis line, too, just to annoy people further.
That's all soooooo 6th edition of you. Try and keep up.
Yep, the rules specifically say that bases are not part of the model and don't count for measurement. From a practical viewpoint, this is an incredibly terrible idea.
Open beta tests? As a nod to the fans and PR move, sure. As a means for actually improving the game...no. Can you imagine what the noise-to-signal ratio would be for that? It'd be like reopening the Eye of Terror.
You mean the one Privateer Press had in their Fieldtest which actually improved the game by.. you know .. alot?
I think any decent game designer could flick through the comments of an open beta and realise which ones are actually real issues and which ones are noise. You don't expect every comment to be gold, or even every 10th comment, but the real issues will rise to the surface.
TheWaspinator wrote: Yep, the rules specifically say that bases are not part of the model and don't count for measurement. From a practical viewpoint, this is an incredibly terrible idea.
If I were a WYSIWYGWAAC beardy rules-lawyery type, I would base all of my models on 60mm+ so other models couldn't come with 1".
TheWaspinator wrote: Yep, the rules specifically say that bases are not part of the model and don't count for measurement. From a practical viewpoint, this is an incredibly terrible idea.
Yeah, I agree there. It's just so much easier to go by base. The only reason I can see for this is because they wanted to make sure it didn't matter how your figures were based. Which I can sort of get behind. Means potentially more interesting formations, and the return of the open order/closed order difference (battlefield control vs concentration of force).
TheWaspinator wrote: Yep, the rules specifically say that bases are not part of the model and don't count for measurement. From a practical viewpoint, this is an incredibly terrible idea.
If I were a WYSIWYGWAAC beardy rules-lawyery type, I would base all of my models on 60mm+ so other models couldn't come with 1".
TheWaspinator wrote: Yep, the rules specifically say that bases are not part of the model and don't count for measurement. From a practical viewpoint, this is an incredibly terrible idea.
If I were a WYSIWYGWAAC beardy rules-lawyery type, I would base all of my models on 60mm+ so other models couldn't come with 1".
Except that other figures are allowed to move onto your bases now apparently!
TheWaspinator wrote: Yep, the rules specifically say that bases are not part of the model and don't count for measurement. From a practical viewpoint, this is an incredibly terrible idea.
If I were a WYSIWYGWAAC beardy rules-lawyery type, I would base all of my models on 60mm+ so other models couldn't come with 1".
Doesn't work, since your base doesn't matter for any measurements so I just walk on top of it. Doesn't that sound fun?
TheWaspinator wrote: Yep, the rules specifically say that bases are not part of the model and don't count for measurement. From a practical viewpoint, this is an incredibly terrible idea.
If I were a WYSIWYGWAAC beardy rules-lawyery type, I would base all of my models on 60mm+ so other models couldn't come with 1".
Yep, and get your models damaged when I just move mine on top of yours
Where do you guys play that people have zero social manners and would put their models bases on top of other peoples bases? You all fixate on the dumbest things.
Chopxsticks wrote: Where do you guys play that people have zero social manners and would put their models bases on top of other peoples bases? You all fixate on the dumbest things.
The same place where people are WAAC beardy rules lawyer types who make their bases too large for you to charge them without moving your model on top of theirs?
Ghaz wrote: Haven't been keeping up with this thread, so it may have already been mentioned but GW has pulled all of the WHFBFAQs from the Rules Errata Page.
Im surprised they even remembered they HAD a errata page.
I am actually quite interested in how this turns out because after all new stuff is coming out and that is pretty exciting, just curious on the direction they'll take.
Chopxsticks wrote: Where do you guys play that people have zero social manners and would put their models bases on top of other peoples bases? You all fixate on the dumbest things.
Need to re-read those rules tonight and check if this is true.
It's true. The rules are very clear that bases don't matter, players measure from model to model. Those two models are more than 0.5" apart even though they are in base to base contact. The rules also state that it's ok to put models on top of the bases of other models (which strikes me as impractical due to how some scenic bases are constructed and can have destructive effects on bases) which needs to happen to get the actual models within 0.5" to avoid the situation shown in the picture. According to the rules the Chaos Warrior model should be moved forward and its base should be placed on top of the Ogre's base to get the models within 0.5" of each other. It certainly seems like a problematic rule but that's the way GW wrote it.
Chopxsticks wrote: Where do you guys play that people have zero social manners and would put their models bases on top of other peoples bases? You all fixate on the dumbest things.
The same place where people are WAAC beardy rules lawyer types who make their bases too large for you to charge them without moving your model on top of theirs?
Chaos spikes all over that base.. no models gonna stand up on that sucka!
Weaknesses :
- 2D6 charges without any bonus for the units actual speed !
- Possibility for player One the play two (three or more) consecutive turns if he wins initiative at the beginning of each round.
- Pure annihilation without any scenarios. (except for Sudden Death triggers and the like)
VERY BAD:
- The list is built during deployment. Players deploy one unit alternatively. Many units can have an Unlimited of models. «Mister Suitcases» with all the units (and multiple copies) will have a double advantage. 1) More choice. 2) See what the other player puts on the table and respond with the perfect counter unit with just the right number of troops. Limiting the number of models on the table will not prevent these avantages. Unlimited spamming possible if a unit is broken. Which leads to an arms race. Thus more profit for GW.
Once again GW uses randomized rules to determine results of strategic decisions during play. Its one of the main things that drove me away from their games. This game is not for me. If I feel the need to play medieval wars with multiple units I'll play a game of SAGA.
This game is for kids (8-12) who drop by a GW stores. The idea is probably to rebuilt a base of players from the ground up. And repeat the pattern of the last 30 years with a new cohort of players. GW gambles that low entry price, simple rules and pure annihilation will appeal the young players. They can always add scenarios and advanced rules later on. STOP / REWIND / REPLAY.
2D6 charges without accounting for movement are already in 40k, and it's works fine. Faster units tend to be way closer to their target after movement and so don't need to roll as high as a slower unit. Also like in 40k, there may be special rules allowing some units to reroll charge dice.
Chopxsticks wrote: Where do you guys play that people have zero social manners and would put their models bases on top of other peoples bases? You all fixate on the dumbest things.
Chopxsticks wrote: Where do you guys play that people have zero social manners and would put their models bases on top of other peoples bases? You all fixate on the dumbest things.
The same place where people are WAAC beardy rules lawyer types who make their bases too large for you to charge them without moving your model on top of theirs?
Chaos spikes all over that base.. no models gonna stand up on that sucka!
10 points warsrolls to the first to model bases with stilts
This base argument seems like such a non issue.. If you base your model on a large base its gonna keep your melee unit out of combat just as well as keeping other models out of melee with it. Why are you all dwelling so much on these things? GW has a long history of not writing clear rules
Chopxsticks wrote: Where do you guys play that people have zero social manners and would put their models bases on top of other peoples bases? You all fixate on the dumbest things.
The same place where people are WAAC beardy rules lawyer types who make their bases too large for you to charge them without moving your model on top of theirs?
Chaos spikes all over that base.. no models gonna stand up on that sucka!
10 points warsrolls to the first to model bases with stilts
LOL, the whole army will be based on display plinths! Plinths covered in Chaos spikes. It's all the rage
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
So, I'm supposed to believe that the same GW who cannot be bothered to figure out points costs in any reasonably accurate manner now is going to be able to determine them for this system?
IF they had wanted to implement something like this, it would have been trivially easy to do so through their website. You could have the same army books you have now, but with the points costs removed from unit entries, and compiled in the back on a single page, accompanied by a URL telling you that updated points costs would be maintained on the GW website. You could go to the website and download a points cost PDF for your army and print it out on a single sheet. Points costs could be updated as frequently as desired, and TO would be able to access them just as easily as anyone else.
To borrow a phrase from Scalia, the whole thing is just 'jiggery-pokery' to obfuscate their incompetence (or disinterest) in balancing the game, and to leech more money for less effort out of your wallet. Plus, an app sounds modern and cool, while a pdf is soooo outdated
I don't post often but here goes. Apologies if someone has already speculated about this, I've only skimmed most of the last 40 pages. Regarding the balance issue it is possible GW will use those Keyword things to limit Greater Demon, etc. spam.
For instance, let's say you're in a tournament limited to five warscrolls and let's use the popular example of Player 1 brings five units of goblins and Player 2 brings five Bloodthirsters. We haven't seen the scroll for them yet but it might contain a keyword like:
Greater Instability - A unit with this keyword must roll 6+ on a die at the start of the turn. Failure means it is unstable. A unit that is unstable cannot move fight or charge and, although it remains on the board it counts as being destroyed for that 1/3 outnumbering thing. You can try and get it stable next turn.
But Zhru, that's insane. No one will be able to use greater demons at all with a rule like that. I hate you and wish you were dead.
Yes, but let's say there's another keyword that goes like this:
Reality Anchor - The player may subtract 1 from all his instability rolls for each scroll with this keyword on the board.
So what kind of unit has a keyword like this? Well I'm imagining a weedy, pasty unit of cultists with about the same stats as goblins. Think of rules like this as the "tax" units from the MFD (aka Decurion) lists in the newer 40k codices.
But Zhru, what about dragons or Nagash or stegadons or that new dude on the demigryph thing. You know for someone on the internet you aren't very smart.
I don't have all the answers and I don't even know that GW intends to do even this. I'm just saying it may be possible to have something like balance in a system like this.
I have an friend that works a at small web development company in the EU. His company was contracted to develop a website which maintained a database of input values to determine a team or in this case armies value. He thought this was for an online football "soccer for us in North America" fantasy league. He didn't know anything about GW or their business. GW apparently supplied the unit values this week with names and he A and B together.
So each month we players will pay a fee to use GW's army builder. Model points will not be available the army value will determined by an algorithm using the GW's weightings.
This allows GW to control their information and stop online sharing of their product illegally. It also allows the company to change the game if they notice balance issues more rapidly.
During tournaments organizers will have to authenticate each person that signs up to verify that they have a valid subscription.
This explains why rules will now be free while creating a monthly revenue stream for GW.
So, I'm supposed to believe that the same GW who cannot be bothered to figure out points costs in any reasonably accurate manner now is going to be able to determine them for this system?
IF they had wanted to implement something like this, it would have been trivially easy to do so through their website. You could have the same army books you have now, but with the points costs removed from unit entries, and compiled in the back on a single page, accompanied by a URL telling you that updated points costs would be maintained on the GW website. You could go to the website and download a points cost PDF for your army and print it out on a single sheet. Points costs could be updated as frequently as desired, and TO would be able to access them just as easily as anyone else.
To borrow a phrase from Scalia, the whole thing is just 'jiggery-pokery' to obfuscate their incompetence (or disinterest) in balancing the game, and to leech more money for less effort out of your wallet. Plus, an app sounds modern and cool, while a pdf is soooo outdated
I won't pretend I have any experience with databases but... well, unless it extracts game results from thin air, that weighing algorythm needs to be fed data in order to work. Something that sounds easy and natural for a videogame, like uploading player performance data to an online database, could become an exasperating chore when it comes to a tabletop game. Are we supposed to believe that TOs and/or players will spend hours after each tournament manually feeding the AoS app with detailed breakdowns of each and every game played like Amazon Mechanical Turks?
There's some faulty reasoning behind that rumor. Either GW's has finally lost its marbles or that "pay-for-balance app" rumor is utter bull.
Also, we already know what the balancing mechanisms for AoS are: Alternating deployment and victory conditions.
timetowaste85 wrote: Actually, a living document online that has a monthly charge, like Xbox Live, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Depends on their cost. If it's $5 a month...that's $60 a year. If it's all inclusive on the rules, that means you get EVERY "army book" plus the rules and all point costs for $60/year. That's actually fantastic. Split it among a group of friends, and everyone gets access to the points. There are no surprises on rules or reasons to not know what something does. By GW standards, it's actually a brilliant choice. I'm happy to grump at their decisions when wrongdoings happen. But this online living document to avoid piracy is actually a good thing. Now, if it's $5/month for EACH army book, that's BS.
Except it won't prevent piracy, because preventing piracy is impossible(the end-user has to get the data in the clear at some point, so there's always a way into the "system" for a cracker to exploit), all you can do is make piracy more difficult, and typically the only way to do that is to make things more inconvenient for legitimate users usually in ways that people using the inevitable cracked copy don't have to deal with. GW might be able to keep their little online castle secure for a few weeks or months, but someone will crack it eventually even if only to prove it can be done, and then it'll go up on the usual places for anyone to access and use.
And online living documents have a disadvantage from a consumer perspective that's inherent, regardless of what other ultimately futile measures GW take to try and stop piracy; loss of control. As certain river cruise fans are so keen to point out; GW can't come to your house and tear up your books, they're yours, so if you hate the direction GW is taking the game you can just keep playing 8th, or go back and play any other edition you own. So what happens to AoS subscribers(assuming this rumour is accurate) in a couple of years time when GW decide it's not living up to their expectations and kills it off? At least with the LRBs for the Specialist Games they were PDF documents that could be saved to your own storage media and re-uploaded on other sites once GW took them down from theirs, this has no such failsafe, so if GW take it down without releasing the source code to the community it's gone for good. What if AoS does well enough for them to push forward, but not well enough for them to stick with the current plan, and you hate whatever new direction they choose to take the rules in? Like it or lump it, apparently, since an online-only GW-managed tool isn't going to let you keep an old version of the rules, they'll just replace what you have access to with the new ones and there's nothing you can do about it - no more "I'll just stick with 8th".
Now, if the tool is actually software, it works offline as well as on, or it lets you take backup copies of everything it contains to your own computer that's somewhat mitigated, but it also means that if the intent was to prevent piracy it's even more pointless.
I'll have to see what the actual word is on this, because it's the fine print that will determine whether this is a reasonable service or a naked attempt to wrest control and agency away from players by denying them the rights associated with actually owning the rules.
The more I see this the more I wince at how terrible this is all looking. I regret selling my Lizardmen...but would have regretted losing my house even more. Had to pay rent somehow...
But now I see this...
Ew. I think I'll stick to 40k. Seems like we're getting silly grand alliances and renames across the board.
Seraphon? Really? Really? MAGIC BUBBLE SPACE LIZARDS
Still not a huge fan of the basing mess either.
Ah well, least it means if I decide to buy some GW stuff for use in roleplaying...I get convenient round bases for them.
Honest question: I haven't played every tabletop war/skirmish game out there. Is there any other game that doesn't measure from bases or some other uniform spot?
Well not surprising and at least they didnt get squatted.
I know they basically decided to bro-fist chaos in Thanquol, but it still feels wrong. Skaven have never really differentiated between the kinds of man-things. There's just man-things, dwarf-things, elf-things and other-things.
I wanna know why some races have different names if there is an explanation. Like 40k is shown from the Imperials perspective, maybe this is how Sigmar interprets the races and calls the Lizardmen Seraphon or the Orks Orruks? Little things like that would bug me especially if they change the fluff to make it seem like they were always called Seraphon.
Also I maintain the "IT'S COOL GUYS BASES DON'T MATTER!' is the biggest PoS cop-out ever. They wanted to change bases but knew the backlash for making everyone rebase would kill their game, so instead just "lol ignore guise!"
RacerX wrote: Assuming they NEED to do on the fly, non stop weighting.
Why?
Update the algorithm as they see fit but do as an update.
Who cares if every single battle/combat is logged as an input.
It wouldn't need to be non-stop, but the only way to generate a reliable weighting system like that is to feed it a lot of real world data to allow it to assign weights to the system or model. So you would want a big bank of playtest data at least to feed it. Once that has been done, it would only need to be recalibrated if there were major changes to the system like the introduction of a new army.
There's no point in having an algorithm like that if you're going to update it by hand. It defeats the purpose of using data handling to assign your weights.
streamdragon wrote: Also I maintain the "IT'S COOL GUYS BASES DON'T MATTER!' is the biggest PoS cop-out ever. They wanted to change bases but knew the backlash for making everyone rebase would kill their game, so instead just "lol ignore guise!"
Lazy. Just plain lazy.
The worst part is because ultimately it is just to save money and now we have this silly rule because of it.
unmercifulconker wrote: I wanna know why some races have different names if there is an explanation. Like 40k is shown from the Imperials perspective, maybe this is how Sigmar interprets the races and calls the Lizardmen Seraphon or the Orks Orruks? Little things like that would bug me especially if they change the fluff to make it seem like they were always called Seraphon.
So GW can copyright the IP instead of using generic names like "orks" or "lizardmen", most likely.
unmercifulconker wrote: I wanna know why some races have different names if there is an explanation. Like 40k is shown from the Imperials perspective, maybe this is how Sigmar interprets the races and calls the Lizardmen Seraphon or the Orks Orruks? Little things like that would bug me especially if they change the fluff to make it seem like they were always called Seraphon.
So GW can copyright the IP instead of using generic names like "orks" or "lizardmen", most likely.
Not copyright, trademark. And that's still a bloody stupid idea, because it means retreating from the tried and tested IP in favour of new IP with zero established fanbase.
gorgon wrote: I don't think GW's old playtesting formula was ever broken. My understanding was that even when playtesters felt strongly about something, the designers didn't always agree. And to be fair, the playtesters might not have been privy to the entire picture, nor any constraints that the designer(s) had to deal with.
Supposedly those old playtesting groups warned them about Nidzilla being a thing in the 4th edition Tyranid codex, but they had a new plastic carnifex to sell so nothing changed.
So I guess I can see why they moved away from that if that's actually true. They never really gave a gak anyway, the rules are made to sell product...sometimes, anyway.
Sidstyler wrote: I'm starting to think the only thing that would appease you guys demanding "patience" is complete and utter silence until the big day.
So what valuable insights and conversation from you am I trying to "silence," bud?
What valuable insights are there in "Cool models!" and "omg so excited!"?
I'm not fething kidding myself or anything, I don't have any "valuable insight" but I don't see why I shouldn't be able to participate just because I'm not part of the "Everything is fine!" crowd.
Sidstyler wrote: What, are you kidding? Allies were bad for the game, and still are. Hell, especially now, with IoM and Eldar armies being the only ones that can really take advantage of them.
Are you forgetting Taudar, too? The most-hated army build for months, made possible because of allies, and if I'm not mistaken it usually included an aegis line, too, just to annoy people further.
That's all soooooo 6th edition of you. Try and keep up.
Yes, 6th edition. That's what you were talking about, wasn't it? 6th is when allies, fortifications, and all that crap started (and when we starting losing our gak, which is what you were referencing). You were saying that shortly into 6th "opinions shifted" and allies, random charges, and all the other changes people whined about previously were accepted, except they never really were. The most broken armies of the time abused the allies system and that's exactly what everyone was afraid of.
...speaking of fear...oh dear. Steamhead dwarden, seraphon, orruks, ogors...
Orruks? Orruks And ogors, seriously? "Let's just switch this letter here, add a couple more letters there, done! Now it's protectable IP! COPYRIGHT 2015 GAMES WORKSHOP DON'T STEAL!"
Gotta give them credit for seraphon I guess, that one looks like they actually thought about it for a bit. Although...kinda odd because "seraph" instantly puts the image of angels and the divine in my head, not lizards. But whatever, at least it's not freaking "lyzeerds" or something stupid like literally every other name they came up with.
Da Boss wrote: Renaming everything to make it copyright protectable. Sigh.
I've avoided this thread or talking on it for fear of not liking what I would say or at least realizing what was deep in my head. However seeing these new pictures of the round bases, use of war scrolls - honestly I can just reserve my dwarves for only 8th edition and move on. It's not like I haven't moved on from games workshop already (downsized my 40k to one large company of marines, sold all my fantasy except my dwarves). I mostly play Spartan games with a nice large crowd of people (firestorm armada being the most popular, followed by planet fall or dystopian) or wrath of kings - which doesn't have a point per model but it's fairly balanced (I guess warhammer is emulating that).
It sucks but I really don't want to play a game that is 40k light - I liked the regiments, the formations, the positioning.... Without it it becomes mordhiem for dummies.
Bah whatever though - let games workshop sink itself. I got a massive amount of other fun games to keeps occupied as they keep growing
unmercifulconker wrote: I wanna know why some races have different names if there is an explanation. Like 40k is shown from the Imperials perspective, maybe this is how Sigmar interprets the races and calls the Lizardmen Seraphon or the Orks Orruks? Little things like that would bug me especially if they change the fluff to make it seem like they were always called Seraphon.
So GW can copyright the IP instead of using generic names like "orks" or "lizardmen", most likely.
Which is also hilariously ineffective, since it's utterly trivial to have your website selling your third-party "Orc Heavy Boyz, suitable for use as Orruk Grooblesnawks in GW's Age of Sigmar"(an entirely legitimate use of GW's trademarks, as the Chapterhouse case established) show up right at the top of a google search when someone types in "Orruk Grooblesnawks" or "Age of Sigmar Orruks" etc etc.
RacerX wrote: Assuming they NEED to do on the fly, non stop weighting.
Why?
Update the algorithm as they see fit but do as an update.
Who cares if every single battle/combat is logged as an input.
It wouldn't need to be non-stop, but the only way to generate a reliable weighting system like that is to feed it a lot of real world data to allow it to assign weights to the system or model. So you would want a big bank of playtest data at least to feed it. Once that has been done, it would only need to be recalibrated if there were major changes to the system like the introduction of a new army.
There's no point in having an algorithm like that if you're going to update it by hand. It defeats the purpose of using data handling to assign your weights.
All you need is "big picture" inputs. Like, does Chaos nerf Orruks 95% of the time, yet Orruks crush Elfiseses 75% of the time. You can matrix the results and create a weighting that you apply. Just becomes a nifty math excercise, but doesn't care about Nurgle Plguebearers results versus everything, and vice-versa. It isn't science after all, just a semi-intelligent adjustment mechanism to create some balance.
Ah well, it is probably moot anyway... but interesting to consider. :-)
unmercifulconker wrote: I wanna know why some races have different names if there is an explanation. Like 40k is shown from the Imperials perspective, maybe this is how Sigmar interprets the races and calls the Lizardmen Seraphon or the Orks Orruks? Little things like that would bug me especially if they change the fluff to make it seem like they were always called Seraphon.
So GW can copyright the IP instead of using generic names like "orks" or "lizardmen", most likely.
Which is just so so SO fething stupid! Third party companies can just make kits that say "compatible with Seraphon/Lizards/Orruks" and there isn't a damn thing GW can do about it.
Seriously, at this point I'm starting to think some people at GW are truly delusional.
So composition is dropped in favour of premade warband lists that detail the number and name of units? But then each unit warscroll contains "a unit of X can be made of any number of models"...? So you have a fixed unit composition, but there's no limit to the size of these units? Missing a piece here.
Vetril wrote: So composition is dropped in favour of premade warband lists that detail the number and name of units? But then each unit warscroll contains "a unit of X can be made of any number of models"...? So you have a fixed unit composition, but there's no limit to the size of these units? Missing a piece here.
You play 40k? It's a formation bonus for taking certain units. I.e. deploy these and they get X special rule.
Yodhrin wrote:
Which is also hilariously ineffective, since it's utterly trivial to have your website selling your third-party "Orc Heavy Boyz, suitable for use as Orruk Grooblesnawks in GW's Age of Sigmar"(an entirely legitimate use of GW's trademarks, as the Chapterhouse case established) show up right at the top of a google search when someone types in "Orruk Grooblesnawks" or "Age of Sigmar Orruks" etc etc.
Seriously though, "Bloodsecrator"?
I didn't say it was a good plan, just that it is the most likely reason for why they felt the need to change the name. Chapterhouse lawsuit scared the pants off of GW in the worst way.
Not just "Bloodsecrator", but "Bloodstoker". so bad.
XT-1984 wrote: Of course if they had been called Seraphon all this time and were about to be changed to Lizardmen you would think that sounded stupid too.
After a while you'll forget silly details like these.
And the Battalion sheet gives hope to the idea of a balanced system with a Force Organisation Chart of sorts.
So thats the defense of this? "Don't worry, you'll forget about it some day"?
It's not what the names were changed to, it's that they were changed in the first place. And for what- so GW can pretend it invented all of these concepts out of thing air? Is that all this comes down to? Because it's not protecting their IP any better, so I have to assume it's all just to prove a point between Kirby and his Krony Krew.
It really is getting harder and harder to see the Simarites as anything other than Fantasy Space Marines.
lightning hammers.
They're a "brotherhood", too. Does anyone seriously want to keep denying that GW is trying really hard to recreate the look and feel of Space Marines in Fantasy now, or are we still supposedly out of our minds? =\
streamdragon wrote: Holy crap i just look at the unit names for the Khorne warband.
Bloodsecrator?
Oh my god, are you kidding me? I swear to God they're doing this on purpose, either that or they let someone's kids name all this gak.
Dryaktylus wrote: So the Slayers don't find their salvation in a honourable death against mighty foes but in hoarding gold? Well, it's dwarven style too, but...
"Red Slayers" might not be referring to the Dwarf Slayers but rather Dark Elves.
It really is getting harder and harder to see the Simarites as anything other than Fantasy Space Marines.
That's obvious. The question is really: Was it worth them trying?
To which it's all opinion (like me disliking Tau as it's aimed at younger people like my brother; anime; ugh).
I think GW will see significant sales of Sigmarines for people to use as true-scale Space Marines. Still pretty sad though, seeing WHFB slaved off as a subsidiary for Space Marine bitz.
Vetril wrote: Me and a friend are picking up a box anyway. Worst case he will use the sigmarines as sanguinary guard and I will use the chaos warriors for Mordheim.
I probably will as well in the end. Depening on FLGS price. This is too bizarre to at least not try out.
ShaneTB wrote: Orruks is terrible name. And suitably Orc(k)ish. Wish they hadn't changed it but it fits in my mind (that being the 40k Waarrgggh mindset).
It sounds almost acceptable because it's still basically ripped off from Tolkien with a bit of trademarkable change. Orruks is what Orks were called by the Elves, err, I mean the Piddlewinks.
Vetril wrote: Me and a friend are picking up a box anyway. Worst case he will use the sigmarines as sanguinary guard and I will use the chaos warriors for Mordheim.
At least buy your box off of eBay, if you must get one.
Dryaktylus wrote: So the Slayers don't find their salvation in a honourable death against mighty foes but in hoarding gold? Well, it's dwarven style too, but...
"Red Slayers" might not be referring to the Dwarf Slayers but rather Dark Elves.
Dark Elves should be covered under "Aelfs". Red Slayers might be generic humans (imperials, bretonnia, kislev, dogs of wars, you name it), now counting as... Dogs of war.
Vetril wrote: Me and a friend are picking up a box anyway. Worst case he will use the sigmarines as sanguinary guard and I will use the chaos warriors for Mordheim.
At least buy your box off of eBay, if you must get one.
Dryaktylus wrote: So the Slayers don't find their salvation in a honourable death against mighty foes but in hoarding gold? Well, it's dwarven style too, but...
"Red Slayers" might not be referring to the Dwarf Slayers but rather Dark Elves.
Vetril wrote: Me and a friend are picking up a box anyway. Worst case he will use the sigmarines as sanguinary guard and I will use the chaos warriors for Mordheim.
At least buy your box off of eBay, if you must get one.
At least buy your box from your FLGS, who probably had to buy 80+ of them. Then at least somebody wins a little bit!
Peter Serafinowicz as the Seraphon jester. +2 bravey to all units within 18" of his jokes. Turns into Brian Butterfield for a turn on a 5+. All enemy units then can't move from laughter within 18".
Dryaktylus wrote: So the Slayers don't find their salvation in a honourable death against mighty foes but in hoarding gold? Well, it's dwarven style too, but...
"Red Slayers" might not be referring to the Dwarf Slayers but rather Dark Elves.
Dark Elves work for money?
Mengil's Manhide Manflayers were a DoW regiment for a loooooooooooong time.
Vetril wrote: Me and a friend are picking up a box anyway. Worst case he will use the sigmarines as sanguinary guard and I will use the chaos warriors for Mordheim.
At least buy your box off of eBay, if you must get one.
At least buy your box from your FLGS, who probably had to buy 80+ of them. Then at least somebody wins a little bit!
- Salvage
That works as well, I just never think of it because I don't have one.
Dryaktylus wrote: So the Slayers don't find their salvation in a honourable death against mighty foes but in hoarding gold? Well, it's dwarven style too, but...
"Red Slayers" might not be referring to the Dwarf Slayers but rather Dark Elves.
Dark Elves work for money?
Mengil's Manhide Manflayers were a DoW regiment for a loooooooooooong time.
Yeah, I think there may be an attempt to paint Dark Elves more as jerk-ass elves, but not inherently evil. That way they don't get dumped into the Chaos slot.
streamdragon wrote: Honest question: I haven't played every tabletop war/skirmish game out there. Is there any other game that doesn't measure from bases or some other uniform spot?
Battlefleet Gothic.. I dunno.. I think there are a few others but I cannot remember them off the top of my head.
Actually, speaking of Nigmos, these new names do sort of stack up with what that Sina person was saying. The dwarf one seems similar to me, though I am too much of a bum to go and check.
*long sigh*
I'm probably just too old and jaded to ever be able to accept all this stuff.
Dryaktylus wrote: So the Slayers don't find their salvation in a honourable death against mighty foes but in hoarding gold? Well, it's dwarven style too, but...
"Red Slayers" might not be referring to the Dwarf Slayers but rather Dark Elves.
Red Slayers are humans & mix mercenaries, empire....
Battlefleet Gothic measured from the STEM of the flying stand, so that really isn't discounting the base.
Can't think of anything not using base edge...
.
