The subject says it all. Looking at nearly every comp/net list of late, and getting the "How could you not take Celestine?" question waaay too often at the FLGS, this has been bugging me lately and I was wondering what everyone thought.
Also put in a third option that has been thrown around in the past as well.
Update:
Per this poll 80% of dakka think soup lists are inappropriate for normal everyday game play, I guess my contention when I created this post is this; Most competitive players I have met at GTs, Friendly Games, and Local Tournies love this game more than most. The stigma of the WAAC players is misplaced generally, but if the game system we love conflicts with a fluffy aspect of the ruleset, it's a simple matter to exclude it. We've done this in the past, it was not that big of a deal. If us "competitive" players hate the WAAC stigma, continuing to abuse FLUFF based special characters without limitation in competitive play directly counters that stigma we hate.
Update 2.0
Closing the Poll Down, I think everyone has said their peace, it looks like it's slightly over 50% that want something to change. Thanks for the good discussion, quit taking the Saint and Primarchs in all your lists you evil WAAC players.
You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
Xenomancers wrote: You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
^ This - Special characters need to be balanced, that is all. Everyone takes Celestine because her rules were written like gak and she's way undercosted/overpowered. There are numerous workable solutions to this that don't involve saying someone can't field SCs
"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.
I think this problem will resolve itself as more Codexes get more characters. Yes, the current characters limit playstyles in competitive games, but if you're into the tourney scene, then you sign up for going up against the most broken stuff anyway.
The sweeping ban is, as it always has been, using a chainsaw to perform surgery. Does it cut out the bad part? Sure, but it also destroys and rips out everything within a large radius of it.
I understand the impulse, it feels good to give a big ban. It makes you feel like you're *accomplishing* something. But the bottom line is that SCs are a complex problem, and it takes whole system rebalancing and work to fix it, not just "ha ha I banned things!"
Yeah, the problem here seems to be limited to a handful of characters. Nothing about any of them seems inherently unbalance-able; they're just undercosted. A minimum point limit seems like a particularly weird fix because some of them, like Azrael and Guilliman, get better the more points you have to spend on other things.
Xenomancers wrote: You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
Most of the special characters are large force multiplier in addition to being tough as nails. GW is not going to make them less playable.
The sweeping ban is, as it always has been, using a chainsaw to perform surgery. Does it cut out the bad part? Sure, but it also destroys and rips out everything within a large radius of it.
I understand the impulse, it feels good to give a big ban. It makes you feel like you're *accomplishing* something. But the bottom line is that SCs are a complex problem, and it takes whole system rebalancing and work to fix it, not just "ha ha I banned things!"
What I'm proposing was how 40k existed until sometime in fifth edition, so a lot of us do not view it as a chainsaw, just as a method to force people to think outside the box.
"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.
“It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude."
I play Ynnari so I currently have a vested interested in that not happening because I can't play my army without a SC.
Excellent point, which is why I really don't like the idea of banning but making things at least harder to field. (A Primarch AND the Emperors Angel in every imperium army? Come on guys, that's lazy.)
The reason why people always want to ban things is that GW started fixing things by FAQs like 2 months ago, so thinking about fixes was pointless. Even now it is, but it is nice to guess what they will do.
So before 8th, banning things was the better option because nobody could complain about how the nerf was too hard/not hard enough.
Xenomancers wrote: You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
Most of the special characters are large force multiplier in addition to being tough as nails. GW is not going to make them less playable.
The sweeping ban is, as it always has been, using a chainsaw to perform surgery. Does it cut out the bad part? Sure, but it also destroys and rips out everything within a large radius of it.
I understand the impulse, it feels good to give a big ban. It makes you feel like you're *accomplishing* something. But the bottom line is that SCs are a complex problem, and it takes whole system rebalancing and work to fix it, not just "ha ha I banned things!"
What I'm proposing was how 40k existed until sometime in fifth edition, so a lot of us do not view it as a chainsaw, just as a method to force people to think outside the box.
"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.
“It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude."
I play Ynnari so I currently have a vested interested in that not happening because I can't play my army without a SC.
Excellent point, which is why I really don't like the idea of banning but making things at least harder to field. (A Primarch AND the Emperors Angel in every imperium army? Come on guys, that's lazy.)
A lot of that is more a problem with the "allies' system than it is with special characters. If Imperium wasn't a sprawling faction covering half the game it wouldn't be an issue. I understand the "fluff" aspect of things but for matched play I kind of feel like all armies should be a single "sub-faction", with the possible exception of things like assassins, Custodes, Sisters of silence, and inquisition. If that were the case you would only see Celestine in sisters armies, and Primarchs in their own subfaction (Magnus only in 1ksons, RG in Ultra Marines, Etc) It is just much easier to balance a game when there are less things that interact with each other. Is RG quite as good if he cannot take a conscript screen? You still might see these characters in every x-faction army, but at least it would be a bit restricted.
So, I have two problems with anything that looks like a ban.
First, some are pretty reliant on unique characters for variety. Sisters have Canonesses and Celestine. Get rid of Celestine and they've only got Canonesses. The rest of Ministorum literally has no generic HQ, though it's not like anyone wants to use Jacobus anyway. Ynnari now absolutely require a special character in order to be used at all. And lots of others are quickly going to run out of choices. Even a fairly well-supported army like Craftworld Eldar has only 4 unique kinds of generic HQ (Autarch, Farseer, Warlock, Spiritseer), and one of those is pretty niche. Dark Eldar only have 3. Likewise Orks and Tau.
Second, very few unique characters have rules that only belong on a unique character. I've heard people complain about not liking seeing Eldrad on so many tables, because he ought to be rare, and I've never really understood this. Just pretend that he's a particularly capable Farseer. Nobody thinks that the rules perfectly capture the fluff; there's easily enough slop there to say that this particular Hammerhead squadron leader is particularly capable despite not being named "Longstrike".
I would like to see a minimum % brought in to take a special character, a tax for all intents and purposes, so no ... I dont know, calgar or something, unless your army is 50% ultramarines. Its easier than ever to make a deathstar, which this Ed was supposed to stop lol
I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.
Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.
Morkphoiz wrote: I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.
Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.
Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.
Morkphoiz wrote: I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.
Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.
Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.
Yes please. That'd be awesome! I'm mainly a guard player and I hate how bland our HQs are. I also hate the fact that Inquisitors, some of the greatest heroes of mankind, able to order the death of planets are pretty much useless weaklings with not many customization Options.
I don't know what is stopping people from using the rules of special characters like Commander Dante of the Blood Angels to represent his own Chapter Master of a Blood Angel Sucessor.
Or using Abbaddon rules to represent a custom Chaos Space Marine Warlord. You just need a terminator guy with a powerclaw and a Daemonic Sword, and WYSIWYG. Then you are no more facing Abbadon, just a custom dude that uses his rules, so no problem ,no?
Because I don't know if people don't want to play against special characters or agains't their rules. To me, the name attached to a datasheet means nothing.
Characters should not be banned, but they definitely needs a bit of rebalancing. It is boring to see every imperial army be a soup with Celestine, Roboute or both. The problem is not the inclusion of named characters, it is more that there are some characters out there that are auto-includes, simply because they are extremely good for their points. Special characters can often add a bit of flavour and variety to a list. But when the characters are auto-includes, then variety suffers instead, because every other army will bring them.
It really is the same thing with the Forgeworld debate. Banning FW is a bad option that is only considered because of the shoddy rules made by FW. Ideally FW would get their act together and make some updates, or GW could roll FW into their main model line and codices.
So banning should be last resort, but I will freely admit that it IS kind of ridiculous to see Celestine charging Celestine on the tabletop.
Use of special characters in competitive play is at least...5 or 6 on the list of things that need to be looked at for a balanced competitive game, and by far one of the smallest aspects.
If they ever fix the wound/point ratio issues, how massively OP heavy weapons are, the fact that 9 wounds is the tankiest a character can possibly be, super weak troop choices that are required to fill out lists, massive point and kit imbalances between factions. Special characters are real low on the list, and if you fix the above things and actually aim for a game that is balanced around point costs vs abilities then special characters arnt much of an issue anymore.
Galas wrote: "Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.
This. The only thing that makes a special character a "special character" is that they'r e a 0-1 choice. Mechanically, the only difference between a "special" unit and a "generic" unit is that the special one can't be spammed. And most people aren't complaining about SC's being limited to one per army.
So with that in mind, let's recognize that we aren't really talking about special characters as a whole or the "one per army" rule. We're talking about Roboute, Celestine, and whatever other named character happened to give us a bad time at the last tournament.
Roboute, Celestine, and a few other units (including generic units like conscripts) deserve to be looked at, maybe ammended, and possibly banned if there's absolutely no way to fix them (for some reason).
Baharroth, Drazhar, Dante, Helbrecht, and Kharn are not breaking the game.
I quite like SCs and I think a ban would be a mistake. I certainly don't play them all the time, but i often take them in my Deathwing and Ravenwing armies for instance.
I understand somebody not wanting to take them because of their own aesthetic viewpoint, but I do not understand why people want to impose their list style on others. Be the list the you want to play.
Morkphoiz wrote: I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.
Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.
Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.
That comes with codexes. Only generic characters can take artifacts and pick their warlord trait (named characters have one assigned to them).
Xenomancers wrote: You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
Oh feth that. Guillamen needs 100 Celestine needs like 10-40 tops. She's a T3 model, if you can't deal with her it's because YOU suck and that's IT.
Morkphoiz wrote: I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.
Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.
Yep. Because when dark eldar ambushed a Blood Angels base, Dante watched the raiding force and went, "Nah man. That's only like, 4 raiders and some wyches. I'm just going to sit here and watch my brothers get murdered because I only fight in epic battles."
And we all remember that time Yarrick's column got hit by a measley 1500 points worth of orks, so he proudly sat there while the tank bustas blew up his ride.
I get what you're going for, Morkpholz, but SCs don't stop fighting or existing just because there aren't enough enemies around. Well.. Draigo does, but he's a special case. Calgar hops in a rhino with a squad of his buddies and starts heading to the front lines. On his way, enemy infiltrators ambush him. Does Calgar just refuse to fight? Of course not. And some of us think it could be fun to play out that ambush.
Morkphoiz wrote: I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.
Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.
Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.
That comes with codexes. Only generic characters can take artifacts and pick their warlord trait (named characters have one assigned to them).
Which artefact lets me field the Avatar or Drazhar?
Morkphoiz wrote: I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.
Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.
Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.
That comes with codexes. Only generic characters can take artifacts and pick their warlord trait (named characters have one assigned to them).
More than just relics. Look at Inquisitors-look how BORING they are.
I say yes, but this is because I'm from a time where Special Characters were more like promo-items; fun, narrative based side characters that weren't really meant to be used in armies proper (remember where they specifically required your opponent's permission to be used?). Late 4th edition's habit of promoting them to mainstream units is always something that didn't sit right with me. Special Characters should be like the Un-sets of MTG; fun, hilarious side items that aren't meant for the game proper.
Galas wrote: "Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.
From the last FW discussion, believe it was made clear that most of the 'anti-FW' crowd's perspective (of which I'm a part) was that FW will be fine if, and only if, FW actually releases FAQs/Erratas that try and balance things (not the typo/omitted entry FAQ that we've currently got on hand) and that until FW does so or makes an effort like 'mainstream GW' is at doing so they should be banned from competitive play.
For these special characters, for the most part the problem ones are mainstream GW so it mostly becomes a question of what to do until if/when they get maybe/possibly balanced by GW in their upcoming codices (for the likes of Celestine) or in the upcoming Chapter Approved book (in the case of Guilliman).
I don't know that banning them is the solution, but to be honest I'd rather see hearty restrictions put in place on the Faction Soup we see in tournament play. Something like only 20% of your army's points can be spent on a non-specific faction keyword (e.g., if you play Raven Guard than only 20% could be Imperial) - that was something I saw mentioned in a previous discussion, anyway. But I think reducing the Faction Soup aspect would go a way to quashing special character spam of the undesirable sort (such as every Imperial list basically needing to have Celestine, Guilliman, etc).
I think, for quite some time now...40K has been designed around special characters. They're no longer just special characters in the back of the codex with good stats (remember: auras, buffs, and nonsense didn't exist back several editions).
Now they're far too important to the army...and I think they're designed that way. I do think it's a little lame. I don't think I would play an army which was predicated on using "synergy" related to special characters.
Galas wrote: I don't know what is stopping people from using the rules of special characters like Commander Dante of the Blood Angels to represent his own Chapter Master of a Blood Angel Sucessor.
Or using Abbaddon rules to represent a custom Chaos Space Marine Warlord. You just need a terminator guy with a powerclaw and a Daemonic Sword, and WYSIWYG. Then you are no more facing Abbadon, just a custom dude that uses his rules, so no problem ,no?
Because I don't know if people don't want to play against special characters or agains't their rules. To me, the name attached to a datasheet means nothing.
This is exactly what I do. Regular characters without Relics are just silly boring. I'm gonna be building a host of characters without using the official models. I like the rules for Lias and Asterion as much as I like my idea for the White Scars/Alpha Legion Biker Captain/Lord using a Storm/Combi-Bolter and Teeth Of Terra/Blade Of The Hydra.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: I just got a worthwhile Lucius, like I am going to advocate for banning him!
This is definitely the first edition where he didn't feel like total garbage.
The fact that special characters are, in fact, special shouldn't be shocking. Plus, those aren't the broken units getting spammed in competitive play. It's commissar number 157 and Malefic Lords, etc.
Trying to limit competitive play doesn't fix what you're trying to fix - it just makes a new unit the top dog. Lowering the power levels just caters to the people who don't want to bring the most competitive things to a tournament. I can respect that, but don't think that you should win every game if you have that attitude.
Xenomancers wrote: You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
Oh feth that. Guillamen needs 100 Celestine needs like 10-40 tops. She's a T3 model, if you can't deal with her it's because YOU suck and that's IT.
Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?
I do think SCs are pointed oddly, but that's all subjective to play and further testing. I can without a doubt say that Swarmlord is not worth 300 points at this current time. Get him into combat and he's pretty scary, but walking up the board requires another unit to take damage off him, or you need a Tyrannocyte to throw an expensive, synaptic lynchpin/brick out in the open to hopefully make a charge (or automake a charge, but that means he's alone after your opponents next movement phase.)
Carnikang wrote: Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?
I mean... Yes?
12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.
Carnikang wrote: Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?
I mean... Yes?
12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.
And you then resurrect one of the Gemini and charge.
Carnikang wrote: Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?
I mean... Yes?
12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.
And you then resurrect one of the Gemini and charge.
Yes. Dealing 2 hits, 1.something wounds, probably 1 unsaved, kill the Geminae, and Celestine swings with 6 attacks, 5 hit, 1.67 wound, 1.39 go through and you take about 3 damage.
Or you take more than JUST one Exocrine for shooting and one-round her. She comes back, most likely, but then you can one-round her again.
Celestine is good, I won't deny that. But she's also 250 points for someone who's not that durable. (150 without Geminae.)
Galas wrote: I don't know what is stopping people from using the rules of special characters like Commander Dante of the Blood Angels to represent his own Chapter Master of a Blood Angel Sucessor.
Or using Abbaddon rules to represent a custom Chaos Space Marine Warlord. You just need a terminator guy with a powerclaw and a Daemonic Sword, and WYSIWYG. Then you are no more facing Abbadon, just a custom dude that uses his rules, so no problem ,no?
Because I don't know if people don't want to play against special characters or agains't their rules. To me, the name attached to a datasheet means nothing.
Yes, thats what I do too. Works great with most SCs but not all. You just cannot justify a guy with guilliman rules or a girl with celestine rules for example.
I especially hate these two. Its like you add NPCs to your army.
Carnikang wrote: Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?
I mean... Yes?
12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.
I was poking fun at Erjak. We had that scenario. Celestine was a powerhouse that game.
Carnikang wrote: Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?
I mean... Yes?
12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.
I was poking fun at Erjak. We had that scenario. Celestine was a powerhouse that game.
Oh, sure. Yeah, sometimes dice don't go your way, and a good unit can become unstoppable. But equally, it's technically possible for 11 bolter shots to kill Celestine entirely.
Why would you ban something when the game has ingrained balancing tools? Change the stats, powers or points to balance something.
Special characters often have very cool rules that are fun to play with, if you don't want to run that character, just run your own character as that special character, I do it all the time for my fluff stuffs
I do get tired of seeing 8 different chaos armies all led by the same 1 eyed turkey instead of a rainbow of personalized lords and princes, but special characters have become too intrinsically tied to the functionality of their sub factions to remove whole. For instance, are pox walkers really even worth fielding without typhus? Flash gitz and badrukk? Build diversity would be decimated just to cut out a few problem characters.
This is meant to be the consistently updated edition, just balance their points right or eratta broken abilities. And maybe in future editions take a step back from the trend of making HQs a bunch of aura mules and putting over half the unique auras on named characters.
My suggestion regarding special characters in competitive play is this:
If both armies have the same special character, both players roll a die. The one who scored lowest removes his/her special character from play and game continues.
There shouldn't be any complaints against this, game is full of random rng effects, so having one more a player can easily avoid should be just fine.
I only allow Queens to be used in Chess with prior consent. They are waaay too OP in a game where the majority of players are fielding armies that are largely composed of Pawns.
I mean seriously, how am I supposed to counter a piece that can move in any direction as far as it wants to go?
Some special characters are way too point efficient for what they do. Their mechanics aren't what break the game, it's their point value being too low. The easiest fix would be to increase their point value for some of the worse offenders, Celestine, Gulliman, etc.
A minimum point requirement doesn't actually seem like a real solution. Most people are regularly playing just one size of game, at least semi-competitively. Lots of the people complaining about Guilliman and Celestine are playing 2k games, so presumably you're wanting to set the minimum point requirement above 2k. But that's essentially a ban because very few people are playing games above 2k. Or you set it at like 1500 and that's essentially not doing anything for most semi-competitive games.
Dionysodorus wrote: A minimum point requirement doesn't actually seem like a real solution. Most people are regularly playing just one size of game, at least semi-competitively. Lots of the people complaining about Guilliman and Celestine are playing 2k games, so presumably you're wanting to set the minimum point requirement above 2k. But that's essentially a ban because very few people are playing games above 2k. Or you set it at like 1500 and that's essentially not doing anything for most semi-competitive games.
But it would account for a lower point cost by requiring a buy-in just to bring them in.
Prior to the Blue Period Craftworld Eldar and Dark Angels codex in 4th Edition, Special Characters required permission AND an army point size in order to be used.
Army sizes have been more determined by what tournament organizers think a good number of people will bring, than limiting Special Characters. Now, tournaments may set up their point lists in order to restrict certain Characters. But half the reason GW removed the limitation was because no one was buying the models.
Xenomancers wrote: You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
+40? +100?
I think Celestine is fair, and Gulliman is probably fair too.
More to the point:
At 150, Celestine alone is appropriate. I'd place her in the upper-middle of her bracket in terms of efficiency. She naturally has 14 wounds.
At 200, Celestine with 1 Gemini gains ~10 wounds., about 45% increase
At 250, Celestine with 2 Gemini gains another 2 wounds. a further 9% improvement
Something to keep in mind is the fact that once wounded, all further wounds must be allocated to her even if she has her Gemini.
Celestine is mostly a beatstick. Her AoF is used on herself, 90% of the time, either to move or to heal. She would be able to give it to someone else, but she's too expensive not to heal herself if accompanied by Gemini, because if she doesn't then you're not getting anywhere near the value of the Gemini. Her aura is at best situationally beneficial, but mostly pointless.
For 150 points, she's somewhat better than a 133 point Manticore. For 200 points, she's about as good as a Preadator at being a beatstick, but is tougher. For 250 she's more resilient than but far less killy than Pask.
Guilliman is 360 points, IIRC Obviously, you're not buying him to be a beatstick. His physical stats aren't crap, but I wouldn't pay 360 for them, buy a Knight instead.
So, you're taking him for the buff aura, which is insanely good, but at what point does it become more efficient than its cost? Let's assume he's buffing Leviathan Dreadnoughts and Razorbacks. He improves damage output by about 55%. If we assume about 33% of the cost of a unit is for it's firepower, on the assumption that a Razorback's 80 points for the tank and 35-50 for the gun is the model for all units, which isn't entirely true, but is a fair assumption, then his presences increases the value of surrounding units by about 16%.
So, assuming that he himself does nothing, he needs to be supporting about 15 Razorbacks, or 7 Leviathan Dreadnoughts.
His physical beatstick stats:
In shooting, he's pretty bad. In shooting, he's about an Assault Cannon and a half,
In melee, he's pretty good. Both options are good, but most of the time he's going to use the Emperor's Sword.
Resiliency wise, he's pretty good, but mostly because of the character protection. Once exposed to fire, he doesn't hold up that well to plasma, melta, and lascannons, from experience facing him.
His physical stats are definitely worse than a Leviathan Dreadnought; but not by too much, and a Leviathan is a good unit, so I can say that he's about 250-300 in physical characteristics.
Therefore, he has to buff about 3 Razorbacks or 2 Leviathans to be performing at-cost, not including the fact that he can't really use his melee weapon all that well while babysitting gun platforms. [His melee attack does protect them though, by deterring potential chargers, so there's that.
So, here's the way I see it:
Celestine is fair at 150 and 250, and marginally undercosted at 200. This makes sense, because the first Gemini is actually worth about 75 points while the second is worth about 25, but they're valued at 50 ea.
Guilliman is fair if supporting about 3 friendly heavy-hitting units. I think this is okay. It's not hard for him to support 2-4 friends for the duration of the game, but going more than that means you're either already winning [and therefore free to move as you will and have a lot of surviving units] or you've packed yourself in a tight bubble and are going to get outmaneuvered.
Dionysodorus wrote: A minimum point requirement doesn't actually seem like a real solution. Most people are regularly playing just one size of game, at least semi-competitively. Lots of the people complaining about Guilliman and Celestine are playing 2k games, so presumably you're wanting to set the minimum point requirement above 2k. But that's essentially a ban because very few people are playing games above 2k. Or you set it at like 1500 and that's essentially not doing anything for most semi-competitive games.
But it would account for a lower point cost by requiring a buy-in just to bring them in.
Prior to the Blue Period Craftworld Eldar and Dark Angels codex in 4th Edition, Special Characters required permission AND an army point size in order to be used.
Army sizes have been more determined by what tournament organizers think a good number of people will bring, than limiting Special Characters. Now, tournaments may set up their point lists in order to restrict certain Characters. But half the reason GW removed the limitation was because no one was buying the models.
Okay, but this doesn't actually seem like it's a response to my post. Guilliman, Celestine, and so on are problems even at 2k. And that's where lots of people are playing, especially if we're mostly worried about semi-competitive environments where list-building rules are most important for a good game. Furthermore, it's pretty impractical to start playing games at 2.5k or higher -- those just take a lot longer. So if you set the minimum point limit above 2k, what you're really doing is banning them from any sort of semi-competitive game. Which of course you could do, but it's just really weird to pretend that that's not what you're doing. You're clearly very close to "only with your opponent's permission" land at that point.
I'm generally on board with the idea that a portion of your army needs to BE that army for you to take special characters. I feel like the percentage should vary from character to character though, and probably go even as low as 0% for a few. Cypher comes to mind.
Characters only have one thing that makes them OP and then a conditional secondary reason:
- Not applying enough points for capability. - When they have an aura or special ability that significantly impacts a host of models and so the "value" of what he provides varies wildly on what unit he is supporting.
- Guiliman with devastators and Razorbacks with AC's, Dante and flyers, Commissar and conscripts.
It is kinda the same thing we faced before with 6th and 7th of mixing and matching characters with units to augment them more than what was possibly "intended".
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daedalus wrote: I'm generally on board with the idea that a portion of your army needs to BE that army for you to take special characters. I feel like the percentage should vary from character to character though, and probably go even as low as 0% for a few. Cypher comes to mind.
I think that is on the nose.
I run mainly a BTSM army but I keep looking at that Guiliman model I have and wanting to have some Ultrasmurfs to go with him.
(Great point about Cypher too, who is part of that kit. I always liked him.)
To make it less number crunchy and more fluffy, maybe each special character needs a "must include x of y" to more closely tailor it.
For the purposes of this conversation, y can be a keyword, force org selection, or specific unit, i.e: "To get Celestine you must include at least 3 units of some sort of Soritas or whatever they call sisters of battle nowadays." , "In order to get Yarrick, you must include at least 3 AM troops of some sort (not that this is hard or expensive)" and so on.
"Must be X% <faction>" at least stops Celestine from showing up everywhere, but it doesn't seem to do much to address the underlying problem. It's not like the problem with Celestine is that she synergizes really well with other Imperium units. And It's not clear to me that it does much for Guilliman at all unless you're going to go all the way and just say that you must have a 100% UM army; Guilliman already wants to be in an army with lots of UMs for him to buff.
I think Celestine is fair, and Gulliman is probably fair too.
I don't think this methodology makes any sense at all. You're comparing Celestine to units that work completely differently, and then with Guilliman I really have no idea where you're pulling numbers from. Guilliman's worth a 55% increase in firepower only in the worst-case scenario, when the unit he's buffing is wounding on a 2+. He's more commonly worth about a 78% increase in firepower, when you're wounding on a 3+. He's especially valuable when you don't have a better target for a heavy bolter or assault cannon than a tank, where he boosts output by 122%. You "assume about 33% of the cost of a unit is for its firepower", and you say that this is reasonable because about 1/3 of what you pay for a Razorback is for its weapon options, but it simply doesn't follow that you can separate a unit's defense from its offense in this way. I mean, think about it. It follows that a Predator body is somehow by itself worth 90 points. So now imagine you could just take a Predator with no guns at all. Would anyone actually do this? Of course not. Much of what you're paying for with units' bodies is the fact that those bodies can take weapons. A useful rule of thumb is that the square root of the product of offense and defense is proportional to how valuable a unit is. If you double a unit's firepower, probably it's worth about 40% more points. You can break this -- fragile units tend to benefit more from getting more durable, for example -- but it's pretty good for small changes. So Guilliman's aura is probably about twice as good as you're valuing it at, being worth about 33% of the cost of anything he's buffing.
Of course, Guilliman also more than doubles Overwatch output and provides 3 CP. You also weirdly pick some very short-ranged units so that you can then say that he can only buff so many things or else he'll just get outmaneuvered, but his buff also works on things that can shoot much farther like lascannons and heavy bolters. Before the flyer nerf, we saw Guilliman alongside a bunch of Stormravens, where he would charge forward trying to keep them in range as long as possible. Currently he works really well with, yes, Razorbacks, but also various kinds of shooty Dreadnoughts, Devastators, and a few flyers.
But, regardless, it seems like just a bad approach in general to rely on some pretty assumption-heavy mathhammer to try to show that characters that show up in all sorts of competitive lists are not a problem. Empirically, they seem to be a problem. Celestine is everywhere. Guilliman is less ubiquitous but this appears to mostly be because Guard has some stupidly powerful units that outshine even UMs buffed by Guilliman, and Guilliman doesn't synergize well here.
Xenomancers wrote: You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.
+40? +100?
I think Celestine is fair, and Gulliman is probably fair too.
More to the point:
At 150, Celestine alone is appropriate. I'd place her in the upper-middle of her bracket in terms of efficiency. She naturally has 14 wounds.
At 200, Celestine with 1 Gemini gains ~10 wounds., about 45% increase
At 250, Celestine with 2 Gemini gains another 2 wounds. a further 9% improvement
Something to keep in mind is the fact that once wounded, all further wounds must be allocated to her even if she has her Gemini.
Celestine is mostly a beatstick. Her AoF is used on herself, 90% of the time, either to move or to heal. She would be able to give it to someone else, but she's too expensive not to heal herself if accompanied by Gemini, because if she doesn't then you're not getting anywhere near the value of the Gemini. Her aura is at best situationally beneficial, but mostly pointless.
For 150 points, she's somewhat better than a 133 point Manticore. For 200 points, she's about as good as a Preadator at being a beatstick, but is tougher. For 250 she's more resilient than but far less killy than Pask.
Guilliman is 360 points, IIRC Obviously, you're not buying him to be a beatstick. His physical stats aren't crap, but I wouldn't pay 360 for them, buy a Knight instead.
So, you're taking him for the buff aura, which is insanely good, but at what point does it become more efficient than its cost? Let's assume he's buffing Leviathan Dreadnoughts and Razorbacks. He improves damage output by about 55%. If we assume about 33% of the cost of a unit is for it's firepower, on the assumption that a Razorback's 80 points for the tank and 35-50 for the gun is the model for all units, which isn't entirely true, but is a fair assumption, then his presences increases the value of surrounding units by about 16%.
So, assuming that he himself does nothing, he needs to be supporting about 15 Razorbacks, or 7 Leviathan Dreadnoughts.
His physical beatstick stats:
In shooting, he's pretty bad. In shooting, he's about an Assault Cannon and a half,
In melee, he's pretty good. Both options are good, but most of the time he's going to use the Emperor's Sword.
Resiliency wise, he's pretty good, but mostly because of the character protection. Once exposed to fire, he doesn't hold up that well to plasma, melta, and lascannons, from experience facing him.
His physical stats are definitely worse than a Leviathan Dreadnought; but not by too much, and a Leviathan is a good unit, so I can say that he's about 250-300 in physical characteristics.
Therefore, he has to buff about 3 Razorbacks or 2 Leviathans to be performing at-cost, not including the fact that he can't really use his melee weapon all that well while babysitting gun platforms. [His melee attack does protect them though, by deterring potential chargers, so there's that.
So, here's the way I see it:
Celestine is fair at 150 and 250, and marginally undercosted at 200. This makes sense, because the first Gemini is actually worth about 75 points while the second is worth about 25, but they're valued at 50 ea.
Guilliman is fair if supporting about 3 friendly heavy-hitting units. I think this is okay. It's not hard for him to support 2-4 friends for the duration of the game, but going more than that means you're either already winning [and therefore free to move as you will and have a lot of surviving units] or you've packed yourself in a tight bubble and are going to get outmaneuvered.
I think you are really under rating the value of the character rule on these models. If they are about as good as some unit in stats that is not a character then they are quite a bit superior to that model in terms of durability and thus overall performance.
Celestine isn't 100 points undercosted (I think she should be around 200 base given her stats and abilities), but she is way better than most 150 point HQ choices in the game given her durability and offensive ability.
Lets look at these 2 compared to say the best Ork character in Ghazghkull
He is 215 points.
So 65 more than Celestine, same saves, 8 wounds (so 6 less than Celestine if you include both her lives, 9 if she buys 1 Superior to be 200 points), she can also heal with acts of faith Ghaz is higher toughness, most anti-infantry guns wound him on 5s. Shooting, Celestine is better with hear heavy flamer, than Ghaz with his 5+ to hit Twin big shoota (hits better more, better ap, worse range, but she is fast), she is way more than twice as fast. Melee She has +1 attack but wounds most things on 3s, vs him wounding most on 2s. His attacks are 3 damage instead of 2 (depends on what they fight whether this actually matters but it is a point in his column). I would say that they seem about equal to me overall, with Ghaz a little better against big targets, but acts of faith put Celestine over the top I think since she can act twice in a single turn.
Looking at Guilliamn - He has same armor save better invul, 1 additional wound, with the potential of an additional D6 wounds. Better in shooting, better in melee (more attacks better weapons, he has Ghaz's claw + a sword which is better.), he is faster and gives way better buffs (which he also benefits from, so basically he will always hit and wound in melee.) and you get +3 CP for having him. He is probably closer to costed correctly than Celestine, I would put him maybe at 380.
The problem is and always will be that the GW point system is always designed poorly and is always chalk full of loop holes and underpointed units that break the game.
Dionysodorus wrote: "Must be X% <faction>" at least stops Celestine from showing up everywhere, but it doesn't seem to do much to address the underlying problem. It's not like the problem with Celestine is that she synergizes really well with other Imperium units. And It's not clear to me that it does much for Guilliman at all unless you're going to go all the way and just say that you must have a 100% UM army; Guilliman already wants to be in an army with lots of UMs for him to buff.
I think Celestine is fair, and Gulliman is probably fair too.
I don't think this methodology makes any sense at all. You're comparing Celestine to units that work completely differently, and then with Guilliman I really have no idea where you're pulling numbers from. Guilliman's worth a 55% increase in firepower only in the worst-case scenario, when the unit he's buffing is wounding on a 2+. He's more commonly worth about a 78% increase in firepower, when you're wounding on a 3+. He's especially valuable when you don't have a better target for a heavy bolter or assault cannon than a tank, where he boosts output by 122%. You "assume about 33% of the cost of a unit is for its firepower", and you say that this is reasonable because about 1/3 of what you pay for a Razorback is for its weapon options, but it simply doesn't follow that you can separate a unit's defense from its offense in this way. I mean, think about it. It follows that a Predator body is somehow by itself worth 90 points. So now imagine you could just take a Predator with no guns at all. Would anyone actually do this? Of course not. Much of what you're paying for with units' bodies is the fact that those bodies can take weapons. A useful rule of thumb is that the square root of the product of offense and defense is proportional to how valuable a unit is. If you double a unit's firepower, probably it's worth about 40% more points. You can break this -- fragile units tend to benefit more from getting more durable, for example -- but it's pretty good for small changes. So Guilliman's aura is probably about twice as good as you're valuing it at, being worth about 33% of the cost of anything he's buffing.
Of course, Guilliman also more than doubles Overwatch output and provides 3 CP. You also weirdly pick some very short-ranged units so that you can then say that he can only buff so many things or else he'll just get outmaneuvered, but his buff also works on things that can shoot much farther like lascannons and heavy bolters. Before the flyer nerf, we saw Guilliman alongside a bunch of Stormravens, where he would charge forward trying to keep them in range as long as possible. Currently he works really well with, yes, Razorbacks, but also various kinds of shooty Dreadnoughts, Devastators, and a few flyers.
But, regardless, it seems like just a bad approach in general to rely on some pretty assumption-heavy mathhammer to try to show that characters that show up in all sorts of competitive lists are not a problem. Empirically, they seem to be a problem.
Guillians aura is only about 15% better than a reroll captain and a LT can do for about half his cost. Your argument pretty much falls apart right there. Nether are special characters and nether is expensive. If you have an issue with force multipliers you are playing the wrong game IMO. This game is all about force multiplication. You also have to take into account that ultra marines have the worst chapter tactic - It's very easy to go a whole game without ever using it. Where as Salamanders/ Imperial fists get straight up damage amplification and white scars make a whole new list of units viable and Raven gaurd get a huge defensive benefit. Unless ofc you think marines are OP...considering they are one of the weakest armies in the game - yet again - relying on imperial soup to be viable.
Guillians aura is only about 15% better than a reroll captain and a LT can do for about half his cost. Your argument pretty much falls apart right there. Nether are special characters and nether is expensive. If you have an issue with force multipliers you are playing the wrong game IMO. This game is all about force multiplication. You also have to take into account that ultra marines have the worst chapter tactic - It's very easy to go a whole game without ever using it. Where as Salamanders/ Imperial fists get straight up damage amplification and white scars make a whole new list of units viable and Raven gaurd get a huge defensive benefit. Unless ofc you think marines are OP...considering they are one of the weakest armies in the game - yet again - relying on imperial soup to be viable.
I honestly have no idea what part of my argument you think this is a response to. As far as I can tell it supports the point I was making, except for your weird use of "15%". I'm not quite sure what you mean here, maybe that he re-rolls an extra 15% of hit rolls an extra 15% of wound rolls if you're hitting and wounding on a 3+ already. But of course what this really means is that his aura is about twice as good as the combined effect of the Captain and Lieutenant (though it will often be better). Katherine concluded that Guilliman's aura was worth less than 100 points. 2 Captains and 2 Lieutenants would come out to 268 points, and you would much rather have Guilliman's body than those 4 bodies.
Whether Marines are OP or not in general seems irrelevant here. I mean, I'm not arguing that special characters should be banned right now. I'm arguing that they should be appropriately pointed. Presumably this will happen, if it happens, in a rebalancing sweep where other units also get their points looked at. If Marines are right now only good because of Guilliman, maybe they should see some changes so that they can be good without Guilliman. Unfortunately, I think soup is here to stay and so all Imperium armies need to be balanced while keeping in mind their potential for souping. As it happens, I've argued elsewhere on this board that several core Marine units are pretty bad, and that in particular the standard tactical Marine is over-costed. But I don't see that it's productive to get into that here.
Dionysodorus wrote: "Must be X% <faction>" at least stops Celestine from showing up everywhere, but it doesn't seem to do much to address the underlying problem. It's not like the problem with Celestine is that she synergizes really well with other Imperium units. And It's not clear to me that it does much for Guilliman at all unless you're going to go all the way and just say that you must have a 100% UM army; Guilliman already wants to be in an army with lots of UMs for him to buff.
I think Celestine is fair, and Gulliman is probably fair too.
I don't think this methodology makes any sense at all. You're comparing Celestine to units that work completely differently, and then with Guilliman I really have no idea where you're pulling numbers from. Guilliman's worth a 55% increase in firepower only in the worst-case scenario, when the unit he's buffing is wounding on a 2+. He's more commonly worth about a 78% increase in firepower, when you're wounding on a 3+. He's especially valuable when you don't have a better target for a heavy bolter or assault cannon than a tank, where he boosts output by 122%. You "assume about 33% of the cost of a unit is for its firepower", and you say that this is reasonable because about 1/3 of what you pay for a Razorback is for its weapon options, but it simply doesn't follow that you can separate a unit's defense from its offense in this way. I mean, think about it. It follows that a Predator body is somehow by itself worth 90 points. So now imagine you could just take a Predator with no guns at all. Would anyone actually do this? Of course not. Much of what you're paying for with units' bodies is the fact that those bodies can take weapons. A useful rule of thumb is that the square root of the product of offense and defense is proportional to how valuable a unit is. If you double a unit's firepower, probably it's worth about 40% more points. You can break this -- fragile units tend to benefit more from getting more durable, for example -- but it's pretty good for small changes. So Guilliman's aura is probably about twice as good as you're valuing it at, being worth about 33% of the cost of anything he's buffing.
Of course, Guilliman also more than doubles Overwatch output and provides 3 CP. You also weirdly pick some very short-ranged units so that you can then say that he can only buff so many things or else he'll just get outmaneuvered, but his buff also works on things that can shoot much farther like lascannons and heavy bolters. Before the flyer nerf, we saw Guilliman alongside a bunch of Stormravens, where he would charge forward trying to keep them in range as long as possible. Currently he works really well with, yes, Razorbacks, but also various kinds of shooty Dreadnoughts, Devastators, and a few flyers.
But, regardless, it seems like just a bad approach in general to rely on some pretty assumption-heavy mathhammer to try to show that characters that show up in all sorts of competitive lists are not a problem. Empirically, they seem to be a problem.
Guillians aura is only about 15% better than a reroll captain and a LT can do for about half his cost. Your argument pretty much falls apart right there. Nether are special characters and nether is expensive. If you have an issue with force multipliers you are playing the wrong game IMO. This game is all about force multiplication. You also have to take into account that ultra marines have the worst chapter tactic - It's very easy to go a whole game without ever using it. Where as Salamanders/ Imperial fists get straight up damage amplification and white scars make a whole new list of units viable and Raven gaurd get a huge defensive benefit. Unless ofc you think marines are OP...considering they are one of the weakest armies in the game - yet again - relying on imperial soup to be viable.
I mean how much better depends on what you are shooting with and at. If I am wounding something on a 4+ with my attacks, then it is a pretty big improvement. But if we grant that captain + LT is close (a little worse) and they cost what ~150 points for just re-rolls (no other buff that RG hands out) and basically have no other value (they suck in combat, unless you are adding points to them), we can establish that RG is easily worth 200 points just for his stat line so 180ish for buffs seems like it would be fair.
Guillians aura is only about 15% better than a reroll captain and a LT can do for about half his cost. Your argument pretty much falls apart right there. Nether are special characters and nether is expensive. If you have an issue with force multipliers you are playing the wrong game IMO. This game is all about force multiplication. You also have to take into account that ultra marines have the worst chapter tactic - It's very easy to go a whole game without ever using it. Where as Salamanders/ Imperial fists get straight up damage amplification and white scars make a whole new list of units viable and Raven gaurd get a huge defensive benefit. Unless ofc you think marines are OP...considering they are one of the weakest armies in the game - yet again - relying on imperial soup to be viable.
I honestly have no idea what part of my argument you think this is a response to. As far as I can tell it supports the point I was making, except for your weird use of "15%". I'm not quite sure what you mean here, maybe that he converts an extra 15% of hit rolls into hits and an extra 15% of wound rolls into wounds if you're hitting and wounding on a 3+ already. But of course what this really means is that his aura is about twice as good as the combined effect of the Captain and Lieutenant (though it will often be better). Katherine concluded that Guilliman's aura was worth less than 100 points. 2 Captains and 2 Lieutenants would come out to 268 points, and you would much rather have Guilliman's body than those 4 bodies.
Whether Marines are OP or not in general seems irrelevant here. I mean, I'm not arguing that special characters should be banned right now. I'm arguing that they should be appropriately pointed. Presumably this will happen, if it happens, in a rebalancing sweep where other units also get their points looked at. If Marines are right now only good because of Guilliman, maybe they should see some changes so that they can be good without Guilliman. Unfortunately, I think soup is here to stay and so all Imperium armies need to be balanced while keeping in mind their potential for souping. As it happens, I've argued elsewhere on this board that several core Marine units are pretty bad, and that in particular the standard tactical Marine is over-costed. But I don't see that it's productive to get into that here.
Agree a lot here, Soup makes things bad for basically every imperial faction as a stand alone, because unless all their power comes from synergy that doesn't allow for souping, then the imperium essentially needs to be balanced as its own army, otherwise it will always be more powerful than the other single factions.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: I would be on board with requiring your army to actually be Sisters to use Celestine, Space Marines to use Guilliman, etc.
Make the characters of a faction available IFF that faction is the largest faction in your army.
Personally I would like all army benefits to be only usable if all factions of your army came from the same sub-faction. Detachment just isn't very restrictive.
daedalus wrote: To make it less number crunchy and more fluffy, maybe each special character needs a "must include x of y" to more closely tailor it.
For the purposes of this conversation, y can be a keyword, force org selection, or specific unit, i.e: "To get Celestine you must include at least 3 units of some sort of Soritas or whatever they call sisters of battle nowadays." , "In order to get Yarrick, you must include at least 3 AM troops of some sort (not that this is hard or expensive)" and so on.
Those numbers are low for things like Rowboat, but the idea is solid.
Dionysodorus wrote:"Must be X% <faction>" at least stops Celestine from showing up everywhere, but it doesn't seem to do much to address the underlying problem. It's not like the problem with Celestine is that she synergizes really well with other Imperium units. And It's not clear to me that it does much for Guilliman at all unless you're going to go all the way and just say that you must have a 100% UM army; Guilliman already wants to be in an army with lots of UMs for him to buff.
That's good. If I can wishlist for my army a bit, I think that if Canonii got the ability to equip a Jump Pack, you'd see Celestine drop from a lot of our lists overnight. A Jump Pack is something like 20 points. Just giving a Canoness a Jump Pack for 65 points total instantly makes having one of them an auto-take, before you bring Celestine, because now all your tanks and Dominions are re-rolling 1's to-hit, and she can still take almost as powerful, if not more powerful, offensive loadouts. Celestine moves to your #2 choice, but you still don't want a 2nd Canoness, because without an Act of Faith they're still too slow.
If you gave Canonii an extra Act of Faith [replace re-rolls] and a Jump Pack, they're Celestine -1, and they'll be fieldable and desirable. Because they can equip for ranged combat, they don't need it for themselves after the first turn, and they can then give the buff to friendly Dominions, Seraphim, or who-else-knows-what.
Anyway, the character protection is pretty powerful, but Celestine doesn't really benefit from it, because she's almost always in CQC, where it doesn't apply. Celestine is strong, no doubt, and is optimally run with 1 Gemini.
As I said, with 0 Gemini, she's pretty much on the power curve, with 1 Gemini she's definitely considerably above it, and with 2 she's back to being on it. It's so obvious that the first gemini is leagues better than the second, so I'm not sure why they cost the same.
You're right. Guilliman's aura is about 75% offensive effectiveness, not 50% offensive power.
However, I do asset that he's buffing units that are 33% gun:
A Lasback is 38% gun-by-cost.
A Leviathan Dreadnought is 33% gun-by-cost.
Plasma troops are about 50% gun-by-cost.
Breng77 wrote:
I think you are really under rating the value of the character rule on these models. If they are about as good as some unit in stats that is not a character then they are quite a bit superior to that model in terms of durability and thus overall performance.
Celestine isn't 100 points undercosted (I think she should be around 200 base given her stats and abilities), but she is way better than most 150 point HQ choices in the game given her durability and offensive ability.
Lets look at these 2 compared to say the best Ork character in Ghazghkull
He is 215 points.
So 65 more than Celestine, same saves, 8 wounds (so 6 less than Celestine if you include both her lives, 9 if she buys 1 Superior to be 200 points), she can also heal with acts of faith Ghaz is higher toughness, most anti-infantry guns wound him on 5s. Shooting, Celestine is better with hear heavy flamer, than Ghaz with his 5+ to hit Twin big shoota (hits better more, better ap, worse range, but she is fast), she is way more than twice as fast. Melee She has +1 attack but wounds most things on 3s, vs him wounding most on 2s. His attacks are 3 damage instead of 2 (depends on what they fight whether this actually matters but it is a point in his column). I would say that they seem about equal to me overall, with Ghaz a little better against big targets, but acts of faith put Celestine over the top I think since she can act twice in a single turn.
Looking at Guilliamn - He has same armor save better invul, 1 additional wound, with the potential of an additional D6 wounds. Better in shooting, better in melee (more attacks better weapons, he has Ghaz's claw + a sword which is better.), he is faster and gives way better buffs (which he also benefits from, so basically he will always hit and wound in melee.) and you get +3 CP for having him. He is probably closer to costed correctly than Celestine, I would put him maybe at 380.
Celestine is a giant beatstick, Ghazskull as a kickass aura and is a giant beatstick.
Ghazskull without his +1 attack and charge-after-advancing field isn't worth anywhere near 215 points. I'd actually question if he's worth 215 with his aura, since he's kind of overpriced, I think.
Celestine has for support abilities:
1: An Act of Faith, except she uses it herself 95% of the time. This is actually quite good, because she'd be pretty bad otherwise, but it's still generally a personal ability.
2: +1 to Shield of Faith saves. It only works against Plasma, Lascannons, and Melta, and even then it's minor at best.
Most importantly, for the Sisters, Celestine is fast. Our whole army is fast, so our HQ's need to be fast. Canonii aren't, and block Vanguard, and add deployment drops, so it's a choice between a beatstick HQ that requires no support and contributes positively and can at least shore up our melee deficiency, or a HQ that cost points, does nothing positive, and is an active detriment to our army in almost all situations.
Notably, Celestine's aura benefits Guard far more than it benefits Sisters, and Celestine is self-supporting. Guilliman has to have Ultramarines with him to operate at anywhere near his 360 point cost, and Ghazskull needs some boyz, but Celestine doesn't need any Sisters. Seraphim are good thematic bodyguards, but Celestine is just fine running around on her own, because her only function is as a beatstick.
SO.. b.c they are abused in a few OP lists (slightly under costed but nothing honestly to bad) you want to ban them even before all the codex's are out to see if they are even still viable, while at the same time GW has already stated they will nerf what needs to be nerfed.
Question.... are you just trolling? or trying to start an argument?
Amishprn86 wrote: SO.. b.c they are abused in a few OP lists (slightly under costed but nothing honestly to bad) you want to ban them even before all the codex's are out to see if they are even still viable, while at the same time GW has already stated they will nerf what needs to be nerfed.
Question.... are you just trolling? or trying to start an argument?
Amishprn86 wrote: SO.. b.c they are abused in a few OP lists (slightly under costed but nothing honestly to bad) you want to ban them even before all the codex's are out to see if they are even still viable, while at the same time GW has already stated they will nerf what needs to be nerfed.
Question.... are you just trolling? or trying to start an argument?
Well, G-Man's Codex is out and he wasn't nerfed.
He didn't need one.
I've played against him and his UM, and he was good, but not OP-good.
Celestine may get a change, since she's frequently run outside of Sisters, but I think GW has her configured that way so that people will use her without having to be Sisters players. Of course, I think this approach is terrible, but that's a whole different matter entirely.
Amishprn86 wrote: SO.. b.c they are abused in a few OP lists (slightly under costed but nothing honestly to bad) you want to ban them even before all the codex's are out to see if they are even still viable, while at the same time GW has already stated they will nerf what needs to be nerfed.
Question.... are you just trolling? or trying to start an argument?
Well, G-Man's Codex is out and he wasn't nerfed.
There's going to be yearly updates to address imbalances after the codex's are out.
You're right. Guilliman's aura is about 75% offensive effectiveness, not 50% offensive power.
However, I do asset that he's buffing units that are 33% gun:
A Lasback is 38% gun-by-cost.
A Leviathan Dreadnought is 33% gun-by-cost.
Plasma troops are about 50% gun-by-cost.
What I'm saying though is that this just doesn't make sense as a way to think about the value of a buff. The division of point costs between base bodies and weapons is simply not a good representation of how many points you're paying for defense vs offense. As I pointed out, absolutely nobody would take a naked Predator, if that were an option. Paying 90 points for the Predator's body is only ever justifiable because that body can carry some guns, and you're ignoring this offensive capability when you totally ignore those 90 points when adding up what Guilliman is effectively buffing. Offense and defense just aren't separable like this. That's why I suggested the more useful measure of taking the square root of the improvement. If Guilliman buffs something's offense to 1.78x while leaving its defense untouched, this is as if he's increasing the unit's budget by a factor of ~sqrt(1.78)=1.33x.
You can see that this is reasonable by asking what happens if you have huge armies of identical units firing at each other simultaneously, just as a toy model. If I have 1000 Marines exchanging fire with 1000 Marines at 24", then each army is going to take down about 11% of the other each volley. Now suppose that one side has Guilliman's buff applied, so that they get 2x as many wounds (re-rolling a 3+ and then a 4+). How many Guilliman-buffed Marines do you need to fight 1000 unbuffed Marines to a draw? I'm not sure how you personally would go about trying to figure this out -- your method of looking at the gun costs seems to break for things with free guns. But my way is to say that the square root of 2 is 1.41, and so I'd say that about 1000/sqrt(2) = 707 Guilliman-buffed Marines are a fair fight for 1000 unbuffed Marines. And, sure enough, if they're exchanging fire simultaneously then both armies are going to whittle each other down at the same rate, about 16% of their strength each volley. It seems fair to say that the buff was worth the cost of 293 Marines, or 41% of the cost of the 707 being used.
Edit: But yes, I would absolutely love to see a sort of generic Living Saint HQ. I still think that even if you could only take her in Sisters armies and Sisters had a couple more reasonable HQ choices, Celestine would still be basically an auto-take in most Sisters lists, but they're rare enough in general that this wouldn't bother me; GW would just need to balance around the availability of Celestine.
You're right. Guilliman's aura is about 75% offensive effectiveness, not 50% offensive power.
However, I do asset that he's buffing units that are 33% gun:
A Lasback is 38% gun-by-cost.
A Leviathan Dreadnought is 33% gun-by-cost.
Plasma troops are about 50% gun-by-cost.
What I'm saying though is that this just doesn't make sense as a way to think about the value of a buff. The division of point costs between base bodies and weapons is simply not a good representation of how many points you're paying for defense vs offense. As I pointed out, absolutely nobody would take a naked Predator, if that were an option. Paying 90 points for the Predator's body is only ever justifiable because that body can carry some guns, and you're ignoring this offensive capability when you totally ignore those 90 points when adding up what Guilliman is effectively buffing. Offense and defense just aren't separable like this. That's why I suggested the more useful measure of taking the square root of the improvement. If Guilliman buffs something's offense to 1.78x while leaving its defense untouched, this is as if he's increasing the unit's budget by a factor of ~sqrt(1.78)=1.33x.
You can see that this is reasonable by asking what happens if you have huge armies of identical units firing at each other simultaneously, just as a toy model. If I have 1000 Marines exchanging fire with 1000 Marines at 24", then each army is going to take down about 11% of the other each volley. Now suppose that one side has Guilliman's buff applied, so that they get 2x as many wounds (re-rolling a 3+ and then a 4+). How many Guilliman-buffed Marines do you need to fight 1000 unbuffed Marines to a draw? I'm not sure how you personally would go about trying to figure this out -- your method of looking at the gun costs seems to break for things with free guns. But my way is to say that the square root of 2 is 1.41, and so I'd say that about 1000/sqrt(2) = 707 Guilliman-buffed Marines are a fair fight for 1000 unbuffed Marines. And, sure enough, if they're exchanging fire simultaneously then both armies are going to whittle each other down at the same rate, about 16% of their strength each volley. It seems fair to say that the buff was worth the cost of 293 Marines, or 41% of the cost of the 707 being used.
Edit: But yes, I would absolutely love to see a sort of generic Living Saint HQ. I still think that even if you could only take her in Sisters armies and Sisters had a couple more reasonable HQ choices, Celestine would still be basically an auto-take in most Sisters lists, but they're rare enough in general that this wouldn't bother me; GW would just need to balance around the availability of Celestine.
Sure, squares work, and get that Guilliman needs to support 1 or 2 gun platforms to be about worth his cost, I think.
I don't think we need a non-unique Living Saint. Saints are rare and each is unique, and living ones are even rarer. Celestine is a Living Saint because she has died and returned from the dead [several times].
However, I do thing we need a tactical way to fill the function, as it were. To this end, adding "Jump Pack" to the available upgrades to a Canoness would solve the primary problem, and exchanging her re-rolls ability for granting an Act of Faith would make her tactically identical to Celestine, while keeping Celestine miraculous.
I really just think a lot could be fixed by just giving Canonii Jump Packs. They used to have them, and I see no reason they lost them, particularly because both Genevieve and Eleanore were Canonii before becoming the Geminae Superia, and they have jump packs, so jump-pack Canonii are clearly a canonical thing.
Notably, a single Canoness as-is with a Jump Pack would be considerably more powerful than Celestine. She would have better gun options, would move just as fast using the army's natural Act of Faith, and would grant an aura of re-roll's of to-hit rolls of 1 to units within 6". Re-rolling the missed Meltaguns, and missed fire from the tanks, is very powerful. All things considered, making her distribute Acts of Faith would be weaker than having her distribute re-rolls, assuming you only have 1 Canoness.
However, our Jump Pack units need and Act of Faith each in order to be viable. Seraphim have 6" range, so they need to be able to travel at least 19" in turn on. A Canoness would need to be able to travel at least 13" in order to get within hypothetical combi-melta range, or 17" to get within combi-flamer range. The reason for this is that Dominions have a 22"-27" move range and have weapons with twice the range of Seraphim. With an Act of Faith, Seraphim can compete with Dominions for a place in the list, but with only 12" of move they have no value. The same applies to a Jump Canoness.
Canonii, and characters as a whole, not interfering with Vanguard would actually be the most powerful buff. Then, they could join the Dominions in their transports, thus not counting as a drop on deployment, and still grant their buffs and always be with the troops they intend to buff they they arrive.
doktor_g wrote: How about using likelihood of wounds caused for comparison?
I'm not sure what you mean. It's easy to work out how much of an offensive buff Guilliman is providing in different situations. For hitting and wounding on a 3+, he's increasing average output by about 78%. The question is: how many points is this buff worth when applied to a given unit? Obviously the buffed unit is not worth 78% more; if you just took 78% more models you would enjoy the same increase in offense alongside an equal increase in defense. What I'm proposing is that we should assign the buff a value such that what used to be fair fights are still fair fights.
It strikes me that Special Characters should always be allowed in Competitive play, but that Narrative play would be where you might restrict their use.
After all, in Narrative play is where the argument that Guilliman doesn't fight every battle the Ultramarines are in and Pask isn't part of every IG Regiment actually has merit.
For competitive play, it's just that "oh, X-unit is kinda above the power curve," in which case it's function should be evaluated and adjusted, rather than banned.
So, in that vein, of course they should be allowed in competitive play. There's really not be much point to them otherwise.
I don't really like using named characters, but field them as random dude "x" sometimes. I find it silly that Abaddon would be with my small (in a grand scheme) ~2k point army. Primarchs even more so. I could not possibly fool myself that Mortarion is "Bob the defiled".
I don't mind them because they are OP/UP though. Would love to play a 5k DG game with Mortarion.
I think SC needs balancing via points adjustments, but this is competitive play we're talking about. This is were power gaming lives, so I don't see the issue.
This is like banning cards in MTG standard because EVERYONE is using them.
This issue is, once a codex is out, its in print, so you can only hope for an FAQ, if it ever happens. I do think GW playtest, but they want to sell models, so they undercost them so everyone will buy the new hotness to roflstomp other players.
Either join the power gaming club, or devise some form of extreme anti-meta army to counter what you're seeing and force meta change. Competitive play exists for the extremes of the hobby to play. Are there some ridiculous things that crop up? God yes, the assassin abuse is one of the most broken things i've ever seen in a game system, but do GW care? God no, the sales from assassins alone probably account for a greater revenue stream then the Primaris marines.
For the record, I have never used a SC, nor will I ever use one. I consider it a point of pride if I beat someone using a SC using my generics
The poll is "Should competitive play remove special characters again?". Fairly easy question to answer ( I voted No ) yet the discussion has fixated on just two certain characters again. So I think a better question would be "Are certain characters over used in competitive play? and how to better balance their usage?" Personally I think some characters should have double keyword limits e.g. Roboute Gulliman should only be taken in detachments with <Imperium> and <Ultramarine> keywords.
Rolsheen wrote: The poll is "Should competitive play remove special characters again?". Fairly easy question to answer ( I voted No ) yet the discussion has fixated on just two certain characters again. So I think a better question would be "Are certain characters over used in competitive play? and how to better balance their usage?" Personally I think some characters should have double keyword limits e.g. Roboute Gulliman should only be taken in detachments with <Imperium> and <Ultramarine> keywords.
This is pretty trivial since unless you're bringing him and just 2 Knights he's probably in a detachment all by himself.
Dunno about the others but I voted to remove them because they take away from the generic characters.
Even if they were completely balanced, it still raises the issue of "why not take *special character* instead of a *generic character* in *x-list*".
Special Characters will always come with special rules that buff others in ways generic characters can't, or have special Weapons that generic characters don't have access to. If these are completely, point for point, balanced against generic characters, there is still no reason to take a comparative generic character over a special character since the special one just flat out has options the generic one doesn't.
For example, in any situation, Typhus is better than a Lord of Contagion simply because Typhus buffs Poxwalkers. Even if they are both perfectly balanced for their points and effects, you'd still want Typhus over a Lord of Contagion simply because the latter flat out cannot buff Poxwalkers in that way.
This is kinda why I think they would be better suited to just being in Narrative Play, as in a pure number-crunching scenario they will always either be objectively better than their generic counterparts (even if completely balanced) or be objectively worse (overcosted to compensate for cheaper characters). Narrative, at least, is more broad and loose, so characters would be less of an impact.
Failing that, I would instead recommend that their special abilities be turned into a set of Character traits (different from Warlord traits so you can still have multiple characters in a list. These would obviously cost points) while their wargear become Relics; this way if you wanna field a special character, he is simply represented by a specific combination of Character Traits and Relic Wargear, which other generic characters can take if you simply do not wish to have this special character.
(In the Typhus Example, they could turn him into "The Destroyer Hive" relic and "Poxmaster" Trait, with the Manreaper being a generic one since it's so common. Any lord of Contagion can thus take those items, you could represent the actual Typhus with both, or run your own generic Lord of Contagion with both without having to call it typhus.)
For example, in any situation, Typhus is better than a Lord of Contagion simply because Typhus buffs Poxwalkers. Even if they are both perfectly balanced for their points and effects, you'd still want Typhus over a Lord of Contagion simply because the latter flat out cannot buff Poxwalkers in that way.
I mean, unless you aren't bringing many Poxwalkers. Right? Like, yes, if special characters with special rules are balanced, then you will want to bring them if your list will benefit a lot from their rules, and you won't want to bring them if your list won't benefit a lot from their rules. I don't see the problem. That's how every unit works.
It's not really true that the special characters have "options" that the generic ones don't. They typically don't have options at all. They have particular rules that they presumably pay for whether you want them to or not. If they're balanced, then you should sometimes want to pay extra for those rules and sometimes not. The problem with Typhus was that he was just clearly a better, cheaper LoC -- he had the Poxwalker buff and psychic powers, and cost less. Now he costs more, so maybe Death Guard lists that bring lots of Plague Marines instead of Poxwalkers won't find him very appealing (though being able to cast 2 psychic powers a turn is probably worth his extra points in almost every case regardless -- he's still under-costed relative to LoCs).
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: Dunno about the others but I voted to remove them because they take away from the generic characters.
Even if they were completely balanced, it still raises the issue of "why not take *special character* instead of a *generic character* in *x-list*".
Special Characters will always come with special rules that buff others in ways generic characters can't, or have special Weapons that generic characters don't have access to. If these are completely, point for point, balanced against generic characters, there is still no reason to take a comparative generic character over a special character since the special one just flat out has options the generic one doesn't.
For example, in any situation, Typhus is better than a Lord of Contagion simply because Typhus buffs Poxwalkers. Even if they are both perfectly balanced for their points and effects, you'd still want Typhus over a Lord of Contagion simply because the latter flat out cannot buff Poxwalkers in that way.
This is kinda why I think they would be better suited to just being in Narrative Play, as in a pure number-crunching scenario they will always either be objectively better than their generic counterparts (even if completely balanced) or be objectively worse (overcosted to compensate for cheaper characters). Narrative, at least, is more broad and loose, so characters would be less of an impact.
Failing that, I would instead recommend that their special abilities be turned into a set of Character traits (different from Warlord traits so you can still have multiple characters in a list. These would obviously cost points) while their wargear become Relics; this way if you wanna field a special character, he is simply represented by a specific combination of Character Traits and Relic Wargear, which other generic characters can take if you simply do not wish to have this special character.
(In the Typhus Example, they could turn him into "The Destroyer Hive" relic and "Poxmaster" Trait, with the Manreaper being a generic one since it's so common. Any lord of Contagion can thus take those items, you could represent the actual Typhus with both, or run your own generic Lord of Contagion with both without having to call it typhus.)
That's the precisely opposite logic of what I thought.
I figured that, in competitive play, it doesn't really matter that I'm the Cadian 9125th Armored and Pask is from Cadian 423rd Armored. I mean, it's not any more lore breaking than having the Order of the Argent Shroud fight against the Ultramarines. As an addendum, the "fun with Keywords" of having all my things use the CATACHAN keyword despite being the Cadian 9125th Armored so that they can be buffed by Harker confuses people.
In narrative play, it makes sense that you wouldn't want Special Characters, because my narrative battle is about the Cadian 9125th Armored's battle against the Tyranids, not about the Cadian 423rd Armored.
I do think it's important for a Special Character's role to be able to be met my non-special characters, because otherwise strategies aren't scalable to multiple game sizes. This game already has a fairly major problem with scalability, Special Characters don't really help.
For example, in any situation, Typhus is better than a Lord of Contagion simply because Typhus buffs Poxwalkers. Even if they are both perfectly balanced for their points and effects, you'd still want Typhus over a Lord of Contagion simply because the latter flat out cannot buff Poxwalkers in that way.
I mean, unless you aren't bringing many Poxwalkers. Right? Like, yes, if special characters with special rules are balanced, then you will want to bring them if your list will benefit a lot from their rules, and you won't want to bring them if your list won't benefit a lot from their rules. I don't see the problem. That's how every unit works.
It's not really true that the special characters have "options" that the generic ones don't. They typically don't have options at all. They have particular rules that they presumably pay for whether you want them to or not. If they're balanced, then you should sometimes want to pay extra for those rules and sometimes not. The problem with Typhus was that he was just clearly a better, cheaper LoC -- he had the Poxwalker buff and psychic powers, and cost less. Now he costs more, so maybe Death Guard lists that bring lots of Plague Marines instead of Poxwalkers won't find him very appealing (though being able to cast 2 psychic powers a turn is probably worth his extra points in almost every case regardless -- he's still under-costed relative to LoCs).
The problem is that Special Characters also have locked wargear, discouraging people from actually customizing their stuff (although this has now become a problem with the newer generic characters too, but that's another issue that I wanna tackle). Typhus will always be armed with the same Manreaper, Destroyer Hive, and special abilities; there's no real reason to make variations on that. This may have been more evident in the last few editions; back in 6th the only way to get zombies was to run Typhus or Necrosis; there was no other option for this. Similarly, in 5th edition The Duke (I can never spell his name) was basically mandatory for Cabal lists because no generic character provided the buffs he had, and many admitted that the only reason the Duke was in their lists was for the buffs. In both cases some really interesting stuff weren't seen a lot on the tabletop simply because people couldn't afford to bring them AND the special character.
Basically my feelings towards not having special characters is because i think their items and special rules shouldn't be unique to them alone in a competitive setting.
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: Dunno about the others but I voted to remove them because they take away from the generic characters.
Even if they were completely balanced, it still raises the issue of "why not take *special character* instead of a *generic character* in *x-list*".
Special Characters will always come with special rules that buff others in ways generic characters can't, or have special Weapons that generic characters don't have access to. If these are completely, point for point, balanced against generic characters, there is still no reason to take a comparative generic character over a special character since the special one just flat out has options the generic one doesn't.
For example, in any situation, Typhus is better than a Lord of Contagion simply because Typhus buffs Poxwalkers. Even if they are both perfectly balanced for their points and effects, you'd still want Typhus over a Lord of Contagion simply because the latter flat out cannot buff Poxwalkers in that way.
This is kinda why I think they would be better suited to just being in Narrative Play, as in a pure number-crunching scenario they will always either be objectively better than their generic counterparts (even if completely balanced) or be objectively worse (overcosted to compensate for cheaper characters). Narrative, at least, is more broad and loose, so characters would be less of an impact.
Failing that, I would instead recommend that their special abilities be turned into a set of Character traits (different from Warlord traits so you can still have multiple characters in a list. These would obviously cost points) while their wargear become Relics; this way if you wanna field a special character, he is simply represented by a specific combination of Character Traits and Relic Wargear, which other generic characters can take if you simply do not wish to have this special character.
(In the Typhus Example, they could turn him into "The Destroyer Hive" relic and "Poxmaster" Trait, with the Manreaper being a generic one since it's so common. Any lord of Contagion can thus take those items, you could represent the actual Typhus with both, or run your own generic Lord of Contagion with both without having to call it typhus.)
Generic characters get more choice in Warlord traits, can get relics, and are typically cheaper. There is several reasons right there.
The current landscape is better than before (where some people took special characters purely for warlord traits sometimes) but I still think those options should be available to generic characters.
On the flip side, is there any downside to removing these rules and wargear's exclusivity from Characters and throwing them into buyable traits, relics and warlord traits? In this theoretical model, a Special Character built to be like it is now would not have an increased cost for them; in fact they'd remain completely identical. But another unit can pay a price to gain a copy of their rules (for example, say Kharn's axe is now a relic that can be taken if Kharn himself isn't in the army).
Couple pages late, but Celestine would be absolutely fine for her cost if she was limited to Ministorum armies only. That or if there was a weaker version for a generic HQ for them.
Edit: The same goes with Guilliman. Limit him to his stupid Ultrabros and keep him out of other lists where he doesn't belong. They said they wanted to remove deathstars which, by their definition, most often occured by mixing factions and armies and made for a snowballing effect of power.
Well...why can you mix armies of the Imperium so easily still? The codices should fix a lot of that issue. Hopefully people will be swayed toward pure armies instead of the mix and match that we have right now.
Rolsheen wrote: The poll is "Should competitive play remove special characters again?". Fairly easy question to answer ( I voted No ) yet the discussion has fixated on just two certain characters again. So I think a better question would be "Are certain characters over used in competitive play? and how to better balance their usage?" Personally I think some characters should have double keyword limits e.g. Roboute Gulliman should only be taken in detachments with <Imperium> and <Ultramarine> keywords.
This is pretty trivial since unless you're bringing him and just 2 Knights he's probably in a detachment all by himself.
maybe they should make (Primarchs & such) a specific detachment with -x command points? that way you don't get their aura stuff and extra cp for discounted points.
Galas wrote: "Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.
Charistoph wrote: Keeping the Faction keywords limited is a strong case for it.
After all, if the only Faction Key Word that Guillaman had was <Chapter: Ultramarines>, would he be considered so powerful?
As much as I hate that they brought a loyalist Primarch back, that makes no sense at all. He is the Lord Commander of the Imperium, of course he should be able to lead any Imperial army.
I don't use special characters as a personal rule. I do very much like armies themed around them and do not like that some armies are simply so much weaker without them. This thread has some very good points both for and against.
I tend to think that, from a lore perspective, special characters are horrible. They make the setting look smaller, they take away from "your dudes" and they undermine anything that happens in a game, because lore wise they've done much greater things.
On the other hand from a game mechanical perspective I can definetly see the appeal in using them. Many special characters have fun special rules, and at the end of the day games are all about having fun. Old sly marbo for instance was highlarious, as where many of the old SM special Captains. Giving the army all kinds of unique gameplay opportunities.
I tend to think that tournament should not put a ban on special characters. In a tournament you play to win and the game will never be perfectly balanced. In a local friendly setting however special characters can easily dominate play because many build their armies with fluff in mind. Therefore it's more up to everyone to not be "that guy" and have their opponents conceit. I don't think a tighter "faction keyword" system would solve things, neither would just a point increase. Personally I'd love to see special rules in a pool that could be taken by generic characters, much like the warlord traits. The only diffrence is that it would be on par with the rules SC get. This way my dudes get the same treatment as your dudes while the SC could retain their iconic wargear and such. I think it would help to mostly balance the problem, even though people would still complain about SC:s stronger stats. Give us the rules without the characters. Give us generic HQ that are more intresting to invest time in and model up.
Charistoph wrote: Keeping the Faction keywords limited is a strong case for it.
After all, if the only Faction Key Word that Guillaman had was <Chapter: Ultramarines>, would he be considered so powerful?
As much as I hate that they brought a loyalist Primarch back, that makes no sense at all. He is the Lord Commander of the Imperium, of course he should be able to lead any Imperial army.
1) That doesn't actually answer the question.
2) When he goes in to battle, are there not going to be at least a significant portion of Ultramarines (or descendants) with him?
He would still be OP; boosting a full parking lot marine vehicles and some devastators is plenty powerful. But as the suggestion is absurd to begin with, it is pointless to speculate further.
2) When he goes in to battle, are there not going to be at least a significant portion of Ultramarines (or descendants) with him?
Not necessarily. Guilliman's base of operations is not on Macragge, it's on Terra. It is more likely that he'd be accompanied by some Custodes.
I like special characters in the game, but I don't feel that they should be the default choice for a lot of armies. There seems to be very little choice between things like Commander Pinpoint, Mephiston, Dante, Rowboat Girlyman, Magnus and other characters.
They just provide so much utility to the army for their price that a lot of times it is a no-brainer wether you take them or a generic/two generics based off of how much the named character costs.
I question the premise of this thread, given the arguments on both sides. This is degenerating into an spat about points costs and no one has given a good reason for or against removing special characters. There are some interesting ideas around rules going around, but nothing that makes me think competitive play needs to be adjusted one way or the other.
Yes, some special characters are probably undercosted. But they all cost a lot of points, usually about a quarter or a third of an army. It's not like they are autowin options, I see people losing games with Magnus, Gulliman, Celestine, and others all the time.
In all honesty, the units that have a bigger impact on games are cheap troops choices, especially conscripts. 40k goes up to 7 turns, if someone takes 120 conscripts that's a huge number of wounds to have to dish out, most of the firepower of an opponent's army will be soaked up for a couple turns dealing with them. And they have the ability to return fire, it's not like they are paper tigers.
When you combine that kind of force with a Gulliman or a Celestine, the mechanics of the game work against your opponent. There's not enough time to dish out all the wounds necessary before having to take on a special character, and your forces are going to be diminished by the time they get there. It seems to me that's the real issue.
Someone brought up the idea that a certain percentage of the underlying force needs to represent the faction of the special character. That would be fine, except we have keywords and formations specifically designed for HQs and Lords of War. Given that there are only so many options available to fill these slots in each faction, it would probably make it impossible to take certain special characters were this rule to be adopted.
So, while that rule might work with a Gulliman or a Celestine, it probably works against Orks and maybe even Daemons and would create other complications for players. It would probably be making the whole situation worse.
So there's not a good reason to ban them, forcing some faction choices would probably make the problem worse, and the mechanics of the game offer other kinds of advantages based on wounds versus shot output.
The special character most of my opponents worry about is Abaddon, who I bring to every game. His buffs, special rules around damage, and close combat capabilities make him a beast on the table. I usually position him around some Noise Marines for the rerolls to hit and just go to town on opponents. This combination has worked well for me and could almost be called OP - along with DttFE, I've used it to drop multiple 40 man conscript squads along with Gulliman in a single game (dying Noise Marines are Chaos' snipers.) And I'm about to start bringing Malefic Lords for Smite spam on top of that, and maybe some Earthshaker batteries just to screw with my opponents.
The point of all this: there are other imbalances in the game which likely have a bigger impact on competitive play. They do not involve special characters, at least not the big ones. If you want to fix them, fix the points, but don't try banning them or forcing people to select certain forces as part of their army. Rules changes are likely going to make the problem worse when you consider the armies that DON'T have a special character right now, who already face an uphill battle taking on these characters.
He would still be OP; boosting a full parking lot marine vehicles and some devastators is plenty powerful. But as the suggestion is absurd to begin with, it is pointless to speculate further.
Why is it absurd? It is how Marine Special Characters have been operating since Chapter Tactics have existed.
2) When he goes in to battle, are there not going to be at least a significant portion of Ultramarines (or descendants) with him?
Not necessarily. Guilliman's base of operations is not on Macragge, it's on Terra. It is more likely that he'd be accompanied by some Custodes.
Not the point. Even when he was running around after Battle for Terra, he was still escorted by his Ultramarines, not Custodes. And far more likely to be having the sons of Macragge then the sons of Fenris, Baal, or Dorn.
Why is it absurd? It is how Marine Special Characters have been operating since Chapter Tactics have existed.
It is absurd to limit the Lord Commander of the Imperium to one tiny specific subgroup of armies of the Imperium. It is literally his job to be the leader of the combined forces of the Imperium of Man.
Why is it absurd? It is how Marine Special Characters have been operating since Chapter Tactics have existed.
It is absurd to limit the Lord Commander of the Imperium to one tiny specific subgroup of armies of the Imperium. It is literally his job to be the leader of the combined forces of the Imperium of Man.
And? When he hits the actual field of battle, he is going to do so with a cadre of his Ultramarines (probably Primaris), because everyone else goes to sleep, crying, because they are not an Ultramarine, right?
There are far more absurd plot holes in army creation than that little problem.
Why is it absurd? It is how Marine Special Characters have been operating since Chapter Tactics have existed.
It is absurd to limit the Lord Commander of the Imperium to one tiny specific subgroup of armies of the Imperium. It is literally his job to be the leader of the combined forces of the Imperium of Man.
If you're that bothered by the lore of it you can easily make a lore reason for him to not lead your group....
I'm failing to see a problem here - at least, nothing more than the symptoms of a problem.
Tournament play is about power gaming. That's the play style - play to the meta, buy what you need to win everytime it changes.
Narrative play is about the fluff, and playing an interesting scenario with your mates. If you don't want to use a SC, then don't - it's as easy as that.
If you're after entertaining games of well balanced 40k, then why are you in the tournament scene? Head down to the FLGS and have a ripper of a game with any one of the other guys down there thinking the same thing. So long as they're not 'that guy,' you'll be fine.
I tend to not bring SC myself, because I'm more interested in the fluff aspect of it. For that matter, I run Poxwalkers, LOCs AND no Typhus in sight (I mean sure I'm going to buy Morty, but I mean, look at that face).
This whole problem seems to boil down to more of an issue with the tournament scene, where players are buying armies designed to win tournaments, as opposed to buying armies that look good, play well, and make sense in the fluff.
Yeah, you guys are obviously not taking this even remotely seriously. There are better ways to fix Guilliman, the easiest one is obviously to just increase the point cost, slightly more difficult one is to nerf his aura.
SexierThanYou13 wrote: I'm failing to see a problem here - at least, nothing more than the symptoms of a problem.
Tournament play is about power gaming. That's the play style - play to the meta, buy what you need to win everytime it changes.
Narrative play is about the fluff, and playing an interesting scenario with your mates. If you don't want to use a SC, then don't - it's as easy as that.
If you're after entertaining games of well balanced 40k, then why are you in the tournament scene? Head down to the FLGS and have a ripper of a game with any one of the other guys down there thinking the same thing. So long as they're not 'that guy,' you'll be fine.
I tend to not bring SC myself, because I'm more interested in the fluff aspect of it. For that matter, I run Poxwalkers, LOCs AND no Typhus in sight (I mean sure I'm going to buy Morty, but I mean, look at that face).
This whole problem seems to boil down to more of an issue with the tournament scene, where players are buying armies designed to win tournaments, as opposed to buying armies that look good, play well, and make sense in the fluff.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about what most people go to tournaments for. IME most people are there to play games against new opponents, get in 3+ good games in a day/weekend, and have fun. There are a bunch of people that like to compete that don't want to meta chase, but just want to refine their lists and throw down in serious games. People like that want balanced match-ups.
The question that needs to be asked is: Would the removal of special characters have an impactful effect on the lists that would be popular in such tournaments?
Charistoph wrote: Keeping the Faction keywords limited is a strong case for it.
After all, if the only Faction Key Word that Guillaman had was <Chapter: Ultramarines>, would he be considered so powerful?
He is still very powerful but you have to commit to your army being blue.
For true competitive players, if the rules require pink with purple pokadots, that is what they will do.
I have a huge army of BT's and I have the Guiliman model and I am trying to convince myself to make a side army of the Ultramarines for the very reason I assume they will go the "Ultramarines" keyword only.
Darsath wrote: The question that needs to be asked is: Would the removal of special characters have an impactful effect on the lists that would be popular in such tournaments?
Probably not all that much honestly, they would just get replaced with non-special analogs with much the same effect. That said these analogs would make the lists slightly less powerful in most cases.
Crimson wrote: Yeah, you guys are obviously not taking this even remotely seriously. There are better ways to fix Guilliman, the easiest one is obviously to just increase the point cost, slightly more difficult one is to nerf his aura.
Specifically to what?
The trick is limiting what units get to use his aura.
The keyword "ultramarines" would be helpful for what army he can be part of, "infantry" for the aura could help limit any Razorback AC shenanigans so then devastators is what remains.
Some people kept saying his aura could be used for aircraft but I think that is an opportunity thing only, most weapons are too short range so going into hover would be bad.
Being very careful on what units auras are applied to is key, that is largely what made 6th and 7th strange since we were mixing ultramarine librarians with AM/IG conscripts.
It is hard to apply a proper points cost to a unit with auras since you would have to account for how much of a multiplier you gave to units.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It is funny, this exercise reminds me of failure mode removal or production line bottlenecks: as you remove your top problem, it is immediately replaced by the next worst one: it never ends.
Competitive players are just that: they will find the best the rules will allow.
The trick is balancing out any items that are drastically better than any other alternative and making it less so.
Similar when you are faced with similar threats in an army and no particular one is a target priority.
mmzero252 wrote: Couple pages late, but Celestine would be absolutely fine for her cost if she was limited to Ministorum armies only. That or if there was a weaker version for a generic HQ for them.
This is true. Unfortunately, GW clearly intends her to be used with Guard, because they specifically added rules to let her buff Guard armies.
Because raisins.
It's dumb and stupid, but that's the design that GW intentionally and specifically added to Celestine for this last version of her.
mmzero252 wrote: Couple pages late, but Celestine would be absolutely fine for her cost if she was limited to Ministorum armies only. That or if there was a weaker version for a generic HQ for them.
This is true. Unfortunately, GW clearly intends her to be used with Guard, because they specifically added rules to let her buff Guard armies.
Because raisins.
It's dumb and stupid,[b] but that's the design that GW intentionally and specifically added to Celestine for this last version of her.
mmzero252 wrote: Couple pages late, but Celestine would be absolutely fine for her cost if she was limited to Ministorum armies only. That or if there was a weaker version for a generic HQ for them.
Edit: The same goes with Guilliman. Limit him to his stupid Ultrabros and keep him out of other lists where he doesn't belong. They said they wanted to remove deathstars which, by their definition, most often occured by mixing factions and armies and made for a snowballing effect of power.
Well...why can you mix armies of the Imperium so easily still? The codices should fix a lot of that issue. Hopefully people will be swayed toward pure armies instead of the mix and match that we have right now.
I whole-heartily agree. The soup nonsense is really tarnishing a good 8th ed.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It is funny, this exercise reminds me of failure mode removal or production line bottlenecks: as you remove your top problem, it is immediately replaced by the next worst one: it never ends.
Competitive players are just that: they will find the best the rules will allow.
The trick is balancing out any items that are drastically better than any other alternative and making it less so.
Similar when you are faced with similar threats in an army and no particular one is a target priority.
Except that in industry you weigh the cost of doing so before you keep removing bottle necks.
If your final solution is you are left with a bunch of HQ choices that are all really good, then you have an HQ problem compared to other units, which is the game dynamic most of us want. (Characters SHOULD be really good.)
The issue with special characters is they are inherently fluffy. They should be broken and powerful, because in fluff terms they have a HUGE impact on the universe as a whole. They should be fun to use, and powerful, not balanced and boring. But these types of things do not belong in competitive settings. I should not be penalized because the Saint is too good not to take, of course she is too good not to take, she's the freaking Saint.
You have competing ideologies from a game standpoint, they should not be mixed imo.
There are two legitimate reasons to not use unique characters in non-narrative games:
Having two players with the same PRIMARCH (with the same one-of-a-kind 'emperor's sword,' for example) is .. unequivocally silly. There's no way around that.
The simple fact that unique characters have lore and back story implies they should not have their fate decided in a random game of 40k.
Allow me to interject the thoughts of someone who has literally played one game of 40K ever.
The original reason I was interested in 40K was that I could build my own original force exactly how I wanted it, and it would be entirely unique. No other army I would encounter would be like it.
That being said, I never wanted to use special characters because that would mean my character and your character would look the same. Aesthetically I just never wanted to see that.
For the most part I have no problem with two people playing the same unique character against each other because you can easily say that your special character is just some other guy who behaves like that special character on the battlefield. Paint them up in a unique way and there you go. No problem.
Rowboat does present a different issue, though. He is the only active loyal Primarch, so saying your model is just some oversized chapter master and not actually Gillyman is a bit more of a stretch.
More to the point, if someone wants to run special characters then by all means I think they should be able to do it; however, if someone doesn't like the idea of special characters they shouldn't be at a substantial disadvantage just because they want to take generic HQs versus those special characters.
I don't play Space Marines and I don't have their codex, but I feel like taking a generic captain and lieutenant should allow me to get similar buffs as taking say Roboute. Now if Robooty is higher toughness and better in close combat that is fine as long as the points reflect that.
The only specific thing I have heard about from the Space Marine codex that I don't like that has to do with Mr. Primarch is that he gives you +3 command points just for taking him; whereas, if I want a generic Chapter Master I would have to pay three command points. That is a six point swing. I really don't feel like that is taken into enough context with regards to the point values.
Anyway, the bottom line is it comes down to point balance. If the points are balanced well then you won't see every army running the same special characters because there would be other choices in the codex or index that produce similar effects for similar points costs. From what I have read it does not seem that this is the case for several special characters across different armies.
In summary, run what you want, but let's see points balancing so if someone doesn't want to run a special character they don't have to do it if they want to be competitive. Set it up so we can all play the style of army we want and still have fun and be competitive.
Thanks for reading this venty, long, rambling post!
jaxor1983 wrote: There are two legitimate reasons to not use unique characters in non-narrative games:
Having two players with the same PRIMARCH (with the same one-of-a-kind 'emperor's sword,' for example) is .. unequivocally silly. There's no way around that.
The simple fact that unique characters have lore and back story implies they should not have their fate decided in a random game of 40k.
Both of those reasons are fluff/narrative reasons.
In a non-narrative game how is either of these a problem?
sfshilo wrote: If your final solution is you are left with a bunch of HQ choices that are all really good, then you have an HQ problem compared to other units, which is the game dynamic most of us want. (Characters SHOULD be really good.)
The issue with special characters is they are inherently fluffy. They should be broken and powerfu[/b][/u]l, because in fluff terms they have a HUGE impact on the universe as a whole. They should be fun to use, and powerful, ]not balanced and boring. But these types of things do not belong in competitive settings. I should not be penalized because the Saint is too good not to take, of course she is too good not to take, she's the freaking Saint.
You have competing ideologies from a game standpoint, they should not be mixed imo.
I still do not see why characters should be removed from competitive play, it is just one more element of the whole and you can only have one. It is like the argument for removing the Queen from chess.
She is vastly more OP than a pawn.
The only way this starts getting ugly is you get to pick your mix of chess pieces: a ton of rooks or maybe knights?
Plus, some armies may not have as good a "queen" as other ones.
We still fall within a bit of a rock-paper-scissors thing depending on what each of us has picked for our army.
I honestly think with or without characters, competitive play will find a silly way to table people.
Might as well be ridiculous with some character center pieces than a bunch of pawns.
mmzero252 wrote: Couple pages late, but Celestine would be absolutely fine for her cost if she was limited to Ministorum armies only. That or if there was a weaker version for a generic HQ for them.
Edit: The same goes with Guilliman. Limit him to his stupid Ultrabros and keep him out of other lists where he doesn't belong. They said they wanted to remove deathstars which, by their definition, most often occured by mixing factions and armies and made for a snowballing effect of power.
Well...why can you mix armies of the Imperium so easily still? The codices should fix a lot of that issue. Hopefully people will be swayed toward pure armies instead of the mix and match that we have right now.
I whole-heartily agree. The soup nonsense is really tarnishing a good 8th ed.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It is funny, this exercise reminds me of failure mode removal or production line bottlenecks: as you remove your top problem, it is immediately replaced by the next worst one: it never ends.
Competitive players are just that: they will find the best the rules will allow.
The trick is balancing out any items that are drastically better than any other alternative and making it less so.
Similar when you are faced with similar threats in an army and no particular one is a target priority.
Except that in industry you weigh the cost of doing so before you keep removing bottle necks.
If your final solution is you are left with a bunch of HQ choices that are all really good, then you have an HQ problem compared to other units, which is the game dynamic most of us want. (Characters SHOULD be really good.)
The issue with special characters is they are inherently fluffy. They should be broken and powerful, because in fluff terms they have a HUGE impact on the universe as a whole. They should be fun to use, and powerful, not balanced and boring. But these types of things do not belong in competitive settings. I should not be penalized because the Saint is too good not to take, of course she is too good not to take, she's the freaking Saint.
You have competing ideologies from a game standpoint, they should not be mixed imo.
The issue is that these characters should not be optimal in every single build. Especially imperium characters. I have no problem if Celestine is too good to pass up for sisters (specific sister buffs etc) I have issues when she is too good to pass up for every imperial army. For instance if she did not get Acts of faith unless she were in a sisters detachment (not counting aux support), then she would still be a great choice for sisters, but might be only decent for say Imperial Guard, or Marines. Personally I would like to see her not be optimal in every sisters build, but given their lack of options it is what it is.
Except that in industry you weigh the cost of doing so before you keep removing bottle necks.
If your final solution is you are left with a bunch of HQ choices that are all really good, then you have an HQ problem compared to other units, which is the game dynamic most of us want. (Characters SHOULD be really good.)
The issue with special characters is they are inherently fluffy. They should be broken and powerful, because in fluff terms they have a HUGE impact on the universe as a whole. They should be fun to use, and powerful, not balanced and boring. But these types of things do not belong in competitive settings. I should not be penalized because the Saint is too good not to take, of course she is too good not to take, she's the freaking Saint.
You have competing ideologies from a game standpoint, they should not be mixed imo.
The issue is that these characters should not be optimal in every single build. Especially imperium characters. I have no problem if Celestine is too good to pass up for sisters (specific sister buffs etc) I have issues when she is too good to pass up for every imperial army. For instance if she did not get Acts of faith unless she were in a sisters detachment (not counting aux support), then she would still be a great choice for sisters, but might be only decent for say Imperial Guard, or Marines. Personally I would like to see her not be optimal in every sisters build, but given their lack of options it is what it is.
So, Saint Celestine is in the only optimal build for Sisters because she's one of two choices, and the other choice is worse than the slot being empty. That's an internal problem, though.
I do think that non-Sisters armies should be penalized for having Saint Celestine in their army, and non-Ultramarines penalized for having Guilliman, and so on. The current rules for alliance basically take any semblance of balance and throw it out the window, and I don't think that Chapter Tactics quite offset the power of picking and choosing the optimal collection of units with the Imperial Keyword.
The Keyword-based faction system sort of works, but not very well, because I cal easily make my tanks CADIAN and my artillery and infantry CATACHAN to make sure I have the right buffs all around, and that's before I ally in things from other factions.
In the late 90s / early 00s, the ethos was very much that special characters ought to be limited to narrative games.
Leaving the philosophical debate to one side, the fundamental issue with SCs in a game like 40k is that by definition SCs will have unique abilities and attributes. In 40k's uneven balance this results in SCs who are no brainers and there will be little reason to opt for the generic version of said character's class.
Which I suppose is no different from any other OP unit but it seems to stick in the craw more when you see the same named characters popping up every game; "haven't I killed this f***er 78 times already?!".
Enigma of the Absolute wrote: In the late 90s / early 00s, the ethos was very much that special characters ought to be limited to narrative games.
Leaving the philosophical debate to one side, the fundamental issue with SCs in a game like 40k is that by definition SCs will have unique abilities and attributes. In 40k's uneven balance this results in SCs who are no brainers and there will be little reason to opt for the generic version of said character's class.
Which I suppose is no different from any other OP unit but it seems to stick in the craw more when you see the same named characters popping up every game; "haven't I killed this f***er 78 times already?!".
Again, I think that's kind of weird.
Doesn't it make the least sense for them to be present in narrative games, and the most sense for them to be present in competitive games? Can someone explain this logic to me?
I see the rationale that SC's have unique abilities, and that affects strategy, but given how may people seem the believe that each unit brought in my army should be one-of-a-kind anyway, and decry the bringing of multiple identical units as "spam"...
Enigma of the Absolute wrote: In the late 90s / early 00s, the ethos was very much that special characters ought to be limited to narrative games.
Leaving the philosophical debate to one side, the fundamental issue with SCs in a game like 40k is that by definition SCs will have unique abilities and attributes. In 40k's uneven balance this results in SCs who are no brainers and there will be little reason to opt for the generic version of said character's class.
Which I suppose is no different from any other OP unit but it seems to stick in the craw more when you see the same named characters popping up every game; "haven't I killed this f***er 78 times already?!".
Again, I think that's kind of weird.
Doesn't it make the least sense for them to be present in narrative games, and the most sense for them to be present in competitive games? Can someone explain this logic to me?
When I was more active it seemed to be commonly accepted that a narrative game involved the players taking the time to write a backstory for the events of the battle or perhaps an entire story driven campaign. The special character would form an integral part of said backstory, essentially justifying their presence. Granted, this was before GW started talking about "forging narratives" and the like. I understand that some people now use the term "narrative" to refer to any play that isn't strictly competitive...which is something I would simply call standard play.
Ghorgul wrote: My suggestion regarding special characters in competitive play is this:
If both armies have the same special character, both players roll a die. The one who scored lowest removes his/her special character from play and game continues.
There shouldn't be any complaints against this, game is full of random rng effects, so having one more a player can easily avoid should be just fine.
Pure nonsense. So now I'm down an HQ along with all the points I just spent? This isn't MTG with the Legend rule.
Enigma of the Absolute wrote: In the late 90s / early 00s, the ethos was very much that special characters ought to be limited to narrative games.
Leaving the philosophical debate to one side, the fundamental issue with SCs in a game like 40k is that by definition SCs will have unique abilities and attributes. In 40k's uneven balance this results in SCs who are no brainers and there will be little reason to opt for the generic version of said character's class.
Which I suppose is no different from any other OP unit but it seems to stick in the craw more when you see the same named characters popping up every game; "haven't I killed this f***er 78 times already?!".
Again, I think that's kind of weird.
Doesn't it make the least sense for them to be present in narrative games, and the most sense for them to be present in competitive games? Can someone explain this logic to me?
I see the rationale that SC's have unique abilities, and that affects strategy, but given how may people seem the believe that each unit brought in my army should be one-of-a-kind anyway, and decry the bringing of multiple identical units as "spam"...
One reason is that the competition is no longer between the players and their tactics but between the so called builds and becomes how much op cheese they can fit in a broken system sandwich.
Narrative here means what it is supposed to mean. When you start stacking buffmanders in so called competitive lists, then competitive no longer means what it is supposed to mean. Might as well weigh the wallets of either opponent and declare the winner beforehand.
Guilliman is indeed good, and I like his model, but I doubt I'll put him on the table much because he simply doesn't fit in with the rest of my army.
The army is basically the Ultramarines First Company, so terminators, veterans and dreadnoughts. Calgar (terminator or otherwise) fits in nicely, as do terminator and jump pack Librarians and Chaplains, but Guilliman not so much.
Because each model is relatively expensive there's a smaller number to benefit from his buffs, and of course his high cost means an even smaller army.
One reason is that the competition is no longer between the players and their tactics but between the so called builds and becomes how much op cheese they can fit in a broken system sandwich.
Rubbish.
If that was the case then you'd be talking about banning or fixing a couple of overly powerful SCs.
Most SCs aren't any kind of balance problem.
Even if you did that or completely banned SCs then competition would still feature the most powerful army lists possible. That you think that taking a powerful army in a competitive event is some kind of problem betrays some thoroughly warped thinking.
Enigma of the Absolute wrote: In the late 90s / early 00s, the ethos was very much that special characters ought to be limited to narrative games.
Leaving the philosophical debate to one side, the fundamental issue with SCs in a game like 40k is that by definition SCs will have unique abilities and attributes. In 40k's uneven balance this results in SCs who are no brainers and there will be little reason to opt for the generic version of said character's class.
Which I suppose is no different from any other OP unit but it seems to stick in the craw more when you see the same named characters popping up every game; "haven't I killed this f***er 78 times already?!".
Again, I think that's kind of weird.
Doesn't it make the least sense for them to be present in narrative games, and the most sense for them to be present in competitive games? Can someone explain this logic to me?
I see the rationale that SC's have unique abilities, and that affects strategy, but given how may people seem the believe that each unit brought in my army should be one-of-a-kind anyway, and decry the bringing of multiple identical units as "spam"...
One reason is that the competition is no longer between the players and their tactics but between the so called builds and becomes how much op cheese they can fit in a broken system sandwich.
Narrative here means what it is supposed to mean. When you start stacking buffmanders in so called competitive lists, then competitive no longer means what it is supposed to mean. Might as well weigh the wallets of either opponent and declare the winner beforehand.
To me, competitive means playing to win at all levels and with all resources at my disposal, within the pre-defined parameters of the competition. To this end, having a special character seems logical, especially if they provide a useful effect for my army.
Narrative means playing a game that's about the story unfolding on the tabletop between our armies in their struggle for victory. To this end, because Pask isn't part of the Cadian 9125th Armored Regiment, it doesn't make sense for him to be present. I don't really play this way, but I can see it's appeal.
I do believe your claim regarding it not being about players and their tactics is false. It is very much about players and their strategy and tactics. First off, list building governs what tactical and strategic options you'll have when you play; second, just having those options isn't enough to win, you have to use them optimally to secure victory.
I'm also not sure how buffs and their employment isn't tactical. They're very gamey and artificial, but that doesn't make them not tactical.
One reason is that the competition is no longer between the players and their tactics but between the so called builds and becomes how much op cheese they can fit in a broken system sandwich.
Rubbish.
If that was the case then you'd be talking about banning or fixing a couple of overly powerful SCs.
Most SCs aren't any kind of balance problem.
Even if you did that or completely banned SCs then competition would still feature the most powerful army lists possible. That you think that taking a powerful army in a competitive event is some kind of problem betrays some thoroughly warped thinking.
Yea bud.
I am insane for not feeling the same as you do about list building vs wargaming as a hobby.
Return to sportsmanship scoring and painting modeling and conversions as important parts of scoring, counting against commissioned painted armies where possible IMHO.
Retool the mindset. Remove the collectible card gae metality and sure you get powerful army lists but the game becomesmuc more than how may rare cards you can stuff in your deck and ten play the odds with...
Here's my biggest problem with named characters, as they currently exist:
Their powers can sometimes be far and away better than anything else available, and there's no way to use those abilities without sticking to a stock, boring, build.
Like, so compare Marneus Calgar to a similarly built Chapter Master.
The closest equivalent built to Marneus is a Space Marine Captain in Terminator Armor. That's about 60 points shy of Calgar, but in exchange, Calgar basically has the effects of three relics and the Chapter Master upgrade all built in, +1 Wound, and +1 attack. (For record: The damage reduction of the Shield Eternal, the RoF, Ap, and Damage from the Primarch's Wrath, and the lack of a to-hit penalty from the Fist of Vengeance.) If you were allowed to build an equivalent Chapter Master, he would need a third arm, two Warlord Traits, and 6 Command Points to get the Chapter Master bonus and all the relics needed. (His build would also be marginally better, but that's not super relevant.)
In practice, Calgar makes any other Terminator Captain obselete, because for about 60pts you're getting FIVE more command points and a much better build overall.
Or with Orks, take Ghazkull Thraka.
Or let any Sisters of Battle player talk your ear off about how much better Celestine is than a Canonness.
Characters should be strong and fluffy, but they shouldn't render 'nameless' alternatives obselete. It should be a variant that is unique but not better, rather than a straight upgrade. (Or, if it is a straight upgrade, that should be reflected in more ways than just a small bump in cost, or a large bump that just isn't large enough.)
One reason is that the competition is no longer between the players and their tactics but between the so called builds and becomes how much op cheese they can fit in a broken system sandwich.
Rubbish.
If that was the case then you'd be talking about banning or fixing a couple of overly powerful SCs.
Most SCs aren't any kind of balance problem.
Even if you did that or completely banned SCs then competition would still feature the most powerful army lists possible. That you think that taking a powerful army in a competitive event is some kind of problem betrays some thoroughly warped thinking.
Yea bud.
I am insane for not feeling the same as you do about list building vs wargaming as a hobby.
Return to sportsmanship scoring and painting modeling and conversions as important parts of scoring, counting against commissioned painted armies where possible IMHO.
Retool the mindset. Remove the collectible card gae metality and sure you get powerful army lists but the game becomesmuc more than how may rare cards you can stuff in your deck and ten play the odds with...
How exactly is that an argument for banning all SCs and not just the couple of OP ones?
Special characters should not be a necessity for any army to be competitive, but a lot of stock has recently been placed on them to make an army strong enough to play.
Waaaghpower wrote: Here's my biggest problem with named characters, as they currently exist:
Their powers can sometimes be far and away better than anything else available, and there's no way to use those abilities without sticking to a stock, boring, build.
Like, so compare Marneus Calgar to a similarly built Chapter Master.
The closest equivalent built to Marneus is a Space Marine Captain in Terminator Armor. That's about 60 points shy of Calgar, but in exchange, Calgar basically has the effects of three relics and the Chapter Master upgrade all built in, +1 Wound, and +1 attack. (For record: The damage reduction of the Shield Eternal, the RoF, Ap, and Damage from the Primarch's Wrath, and the lack of a to-hit penalty from the Fist of Vengeance.) If you were allowed to build an equivalent Chapter Master, he would need a third arm, two Warlord Traits, and 6 Command Points to get the Chapter Master bonus and all the relics needed. (His build would also be marginally better, but that's not super relevant.)
In practice, Calgar makes any other Terminator Captain obselete, because for about 60pts you're getting FIVE more command points and a much better build overall.
Or with Orks, take Ghazkull Thraka.
Or let any Sisters of Battle player talk your ear off about how much better Celestine is than a Canonness.
Characters should be strong and fluffy, but they shouldn't render 'nameless' alternatives obselete. It should be a variant that is unique but not better, rather than a straight upgrade. (Or, if it is a straight upgrade, that should be reflected in more ways than just a small bump in cost, or a large bump that just isn't large enough.)
Agreed. How the Chapter Masters handled in the current codex is particularly blatant example of this problem. There even isn't an option to get a Chapter Master using points without using special characters, some of which grant command points while the generic one costs three of them. Any chapter without special character Chapter Master is already at serious disadvantage there.
Enigma of the Absolute wrote: In the late 90s / early 00s, the ethos was very much that special characters ought to be limited to narrative games.
Leaving the philosophical debate to one side, the fundamental issue with SCs in a game like 40k is that by definition SCs will have unique abilities and attributes. In 40k's uneven balance this results in SCs who are no brainers and there will be little reason to opt for the generic version of said character's class.
Which I suppose is no different from any other OP unit but it seems to stick in the craw more when you see the same named characters popping up every game; "haven't I killed this f***er 78 times already?!".
Again, I think that's kind of weird.
Doesn't it make the least sense for them to be present in narrative games, and the most sense for them to be present in competitive games? Can someone explain this logic to me?
I see the rationale that SC's have unique abilities, and that affects strategy, but given how may people seem the believe that each unit brought in my army should be one-of-a-kind anyway, and decry the bringing of multiple identical units as "spam"...
One reason is that the competition is no longer between the players and their tactics but between the so called builds and becomes how much op cheese they can fit in a broken system sandwich.
Narrative here means what it is supposed to mean. When you start stacking buffmanders in so called competitive lists, then competitive no longer means what it is supposed to mean. Might as well weigh the wallets of either opponent and declare the winner beforehand.
If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Enigma of the Absolute wrote: In the late 90s / early 00s, the ethos was very much that special characters ought to be limited to narrative games.
Leaving the philosophical debate to one side, the fundamental issue with SCs in a game like 40k is that by definition SCs will have unique abilities and attributes. In 40k's uneven balance this results in SCs who are no brainers and there will be little reason to opt for the generic version of said character's class.
Which I suppose is no different from any other OP unit but it seems to stick in the craw more when you see the same named characters popping up every game; "haven't I killed this f***er 78 times already?!".
Again, I think that's kind of weird.
Doesn't it make the least sense for them to be present in narrative games, and the most sense for them to be present in competitive games? Can someone explain this logic to me?
I see the rationale that SC's have unique abilities, and that affects strategy, but given how may people seem the believe that each unit brought in my army should be one-of-a-kind anyway, and decry the bringing of multiple identical units as "spam"...
One reason is that the competition is no longer between the players and their tactics but between the so called builds and becomes how much op cheese they can fit in a broken system sandwich.
Narrative here means what it is supposed to mean. When you start stacking buffmanders in so called competitive lists, then competitive no longer means what it is supposed to mean. Might as well weigh the wallets of either opponent and declare the winner beforehand.
If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
It was not that many editions ago that SC's were with opponents permission only. What 4th ed? My age is showing a bit right now as well as my bad memory.
Waaaghpower basically hit the nail on the head with his post. The problem with SC's is that many of them are *way* under costed or on the flip side their non SC equivalents are way over costed. The Lord Smurf himself and Her Royal Flying Resurrection are the prime offenders currently but there are plenty of other smaller ones that are not as blatant but obviously better choices than many alternatives.
I don't think you need to ban SC's but if they are going to be allowed GW really needs to step up their game as far as pointing both them and their non SC alternatives correctly.
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Waaaghpower wrote: Here's my biggest problem with named characters, as they currently exist:
Their powers can sometimes be far and away better than anything else available, and there's no way to use those abilities without sticking to a stock, boring, build.
Like, so compare Marneus Calgar to a similarly built Chapter Master.
The closest equivalent built to Marneus is a Space Marine Captain in Terminator Armor. That's about 60 points shy of Calgar, but in exchange, Calgar basically has the effects of three relics and the Chapter Master upgrade all built in, +1 Wound, and +1 attack. (For record: The damage reduction of the Shield Eternal, the RoF, Ap, and Damage from the Primarch's Wrath, and the lack of a to-hit penalty from the Fist of Vengeance.) If you were allowed to build an equivalent Chapter Master, he would need a third arm, two Warlord Traits, and 6 Command Points to get the Chapter Master bonus and all the relics needed. (His build would also be marginally better, but that's not super relevant.)
In practice, Calgar makes any other Terminator Captain obselete, because for about 60pts you're getting FIVE more command points and a much better build overall.
Or with Orks, take Ghazkull Thraka.
Or let any Sisters of Battle player talk your ear off about how much better Celestine is than a Canonness.
Characters should be strong and fluffy, but they shouldn't render 'nameless' alternatives obselete. It should be a variant that is unique but not better, rather than a straight upgrade. (Or, if it is a straight upgrade, that should be reflected in more ways than just a small bump in cost, or a large bump that just isn't large enough.)
Agreed. How the Chapter Masters handled in the current codex is particularly blatant example of this problem. There even isn't an option to get a Chapter Master using points without using special characters, some of which grant command points while the generic one costs three of them. Any chapter without special character Chapter Master is already at serious disadvantage there.
Like, I don't mind spending Command Points for my Chapter Master. In larger games, the benefits can absolutely be worth it. (They'd be MORE worth it if the way re-rolls worked wasn't ridiculous, and a Thunder Hammer or Power Fist on my CM would allow for re-rolls on the 2s as well as the 1s, but that's aside the point.) But it means if I'm not playing with a named character, I'm at a disadvantage against anyone who's using one.
Which... Gives me an idea.
To everyone in the thread: As a way of balancing things. What if bringing Named Characters just cost Command Points, same as bringing Relics or upgrading to a Chapter Master? You can have your supercharged snowflake character who provides all kinds of extra buffs and abilities, but you're going to have to pay for him - You used all of your leadership abilities to get them on the battlefield, so you have less time for the actual game.
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Sure it should be how the game works to an extent. IMO "fluffy" lists/balanced lists should be viable. Further there should be no units that are must have choices, or never take options. This obviously isn't the case and never has been. Making bad lists should be more about the combination of units you take than the taking of any specific units. As for the grey area it depends on why you are trying to do. If you are trying to win large GTs I think there is very little grey area, if you just want to have good games, compete and win as often as you lose the area is very large.
Waaaghpower wrote: Here's my biggest problem with named characters, as they currently exist:
Their powers can sometimes be far and away better than anything else available, and there's no way to use those abilities without sticking to a stock, boring, build.
Like, so compare Marneus Calgar to a similarly built Chapter Master.
The closest equivalent built to Marneus is a Space Marine Captain in Terminator Armor. That's about 60 points shy of Calgar, but in exchange, Calgar basically has the effects of three relics and the Chapter Master upgrade all built in, +1 Wound, and +1 attack. (For record: The damage reduction of the Shield Eternal, the RoF, Ap, and Damage from the Primarch's Wrath, and the lack of a to-hit penalty from the Fist of Vengeance.) If you were allowed to build an equivalent Chapter Master, he would need a third arm, two Warlord Traits, and 6 Command Points to get the Chapter Master bonus and all the relics needed. (His build would also be marginally better, but that's not super relevant.)
In practice, Calgar makes any other Terminator Captain obselete, because for about 60pts you're getting FIVE more command points and a much better build overall.
Or with Orks, take Ghazkull Thraka.
Or let any Sisters of Battle player talk your ear off about how much better Celestine is than a Canonness.
Characters should be strong and fluffy, but they shouldn't render 'nameless' alternatives obselete. It should be a variant that is unique but not better, rather than a straight upgrade. (Or, if it is a straight upgrade, that should be reflected in more ways than just a small bump in cost, or a large bump that just isn't large enough.)
Agreed. How the Chapter Masters handled in the current codex is particularly blatant example of this problem. There even isn't an option to get a Chapter Master using points without using special characters, some of which grant command points while the generic one costs three of them. Any chapter without special character Chapter Master is already at serious disadvantage there.
Like, I don't mind spending Command Points for my Chapter Master. In larger games, the benefits can absolutely be worth it. (They'd be MORE worth it if the way re-rolls worked wasn't ridiculous, and a Thunder Hammer or Power Fist on my CM would allow for re-rolls on the 2s as well as the 1s, but that's aside the point.) But it means if I'm not playing with a named character, I'm at a disadvantage against anyone who's using one.
Which... Gives me an idea.
To everyone in the thread: As a way of balancing things. What if bringing Named Characters just cost Command Points, same as bringing Relics or upgrading to a Chapter Master? You can have your supercharged snowflake character who provides all kinds of extra buffs and abilities, but you're going to have to pay for him - You used all of your leadership abilities to get them on the battlefield, so you have less time for the actual game.
I think that would be hard to balance given how few CP most armies have. I mean if you went the CP route, do all special characters have the same CP tax? Even if they are not super powerful? If so what tax? Almost any reasonable tax for the lower end characters is ignored by things like RG. I think the better solution is just points costing those characters appropriately
Waaaghpower wrote: Here's my biggest problem with named characters, as they currently exist:
Their powers can sometimes be far and away better than anything else available, and there's no way to use those abilities without sticking to a stock, boring, build.
Like, so compare Marneus Calgar to a similarly built Chapter Master.
The closest equivalent built to Marneus is a Space Marine Captain in Terminator Armor. That's about 60 points shy of Calgar, but in exchange, Calgar basically has the effects of three relics and the Chapter Master upgrade all built in, +1 Wound, and +1 attack. (For record: The damage reduction of the Shield Eternal, the RoF, Ap, and Damage from the Primarch's Wrath, and the lack of a to-hit penalty from the Fist of Vengeance.) If you were allowed to build an equivalent Chapter Master, he would need a third arm, two Warlord Traits, and 6 Command Points to get the Chapter Master bonus and all the relics needed. (His build would also be marginally better, but that's not super relevant.)
In practice, Calgar makes any other Terminator Captain obselete, because for about 60pts you're getting FIVE more command points and a much better build overall.
Or with Orks, take Ghazkull Thraka.
Or let any Sisters of Battle player talk your ear off about how much better Celestine is than a Canonness.
Characters should be strong and fluffy, but they shouldn't render 'nameless' alternatives obselete. It should be a variant that is unique but not better, rather than a straight upgrade. (Or, if it is a straight upgrade, that should be reflected in more ways than just a small bump in cost, or a large bump that just isn't large enough.)
That's more an issue of how the new codex handled pricing Chapter Masters of the generic variety. With BS/WS3+, you don't gain as much benefit from rerolling everything compared to just 1, which is why if the character already grants it you get lucky with whatever special effect they bring in addition to that.
However, pricing the Chapter Masters that are named doesn't work either. Nobody would pick Calgar if he were 40 more points expensive, because it's already hard gaining CP as is and even then he doesn't help so much. Nobody is gonna use Shrike if you bump him up 30 points. I shouldn't have to go into the FW guys but I will if I need to.
That's to say the generic can't be too bad. You already talked about Calgar, and I look at him as someone I can buy a Captain and Leut. for less than his price and gain the same amount of rerolls for more wounds. It's something to consider. Roboute is someone that needs a slight increase in points though.
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Earth127 wrote: I voted point limit because big point sinks in small games risks things becoming one sided (either way really).
Why shouldn't I be allowed to bring Khan in smaller games?
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
No that is not how it should work, I'm sorry but seeing the Saint and a Primarch in damn near every comp Imperial list is not being "tactical", it's not "countering", it's the easiest way to succeed as the Fluff based characters were never meant to be played in the way they are being used.
I don't want to see them nerfed, they should be beat sticks on table. But using them in competitive play is absolutely garbage, our solutions to the problem of "Making it more appropriate points wise" or "Nerf X Unit" just ruins the special character for everyone else. (Narrative, apoc, friendly, etc.)
We don't need balanced special characters in comp play, we just need characters with tactical and narrative flavor that forces our comp community to think. I have zero issues with the special characters in the codices, I have HUGE issues with comp players abusing a non-comp model.
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
No that is not how it should work, I'm sorry but seeing the Saint and a Primarch in damn near every comp Imperial list is not being "tactical", it's not "countering", it's the easiest way to succeed as the Fluff based characters were never meant to be played in the way they are being used.
I don't want to see them nerfed, they should be beat sticks on table. But using them in competitive play is absolutely garbage, our solutions to the problem of "Making it more appropriate points wise" or "Nerf X Unit" just ruins the special character for everyone else. (Narrative, apoc, friendly, etc.)
We don't need balanced special characters in comp play, we just need characters with tactical and narrative flavor that forces our comp community to think. I have zero issues with the special characters in the codices, I have HUGE issues with comp players abusing a non-comp model.
I like the idea of special characters costing command points because there is a problem with just straight up raising the points cost of the special characters.
Right now I think a lot of the generic Space Marine HQs have a pretty good points cost, so lowering their points to make the jump to the special character relatively more expensive is probably not a great idea. The generics would then be too good.
Making a large point increase to the special characters hurts because someone like Roboute would then be approaching 500 points and that would be a quarter of your army at 2000 points. The reason that hurts is because less people may then buy the model and GW will not have that.
An easier way to balance the generic with the special without drastically altering points would be to reverse the current command point bonuses and costs with the HQs. Instead of Roboute giving extra command points he would cost your force command points. I don't think the generics should give bonuses to command points, but they definitely should not cost you command points. That way, instead of a no brainer choice between the special character and the generic you would be forced to consider whether you would rather get that slightly better buff and stronger stat-line of the special character versus paying a little less for a weaker buff and stat-line but getting the flexability of more command points.
Mud Turkey 13 wrote: I like the idea of special characters costing command points because there is a problem with just straight up raising the points cost of the special characters.
Right now I think a lot of the generic Space Marine HQs have a pretty good points cost, so lowering their points to make the jump to the special character relatively more expensive is probably not a great idea. The generics would then be too good.
Making a large point increase to the special characters hurts because someone like Roboute would then be approaching 500 points and that would be a quarter of your army at 2000 points. The reason that hurts is because less people may then buy the model and GW will not have that.
An easier way to balance the generic with the special without drastically altering points would be to reverse the current command point bonuses and costs with the HQs. Instead of Roboute giving extra command points he would cost your force command points. I don't think the generics should give bonuses to command points, but they definitely should not cost you command points. That way, instead of a no brainer choice between the special character and the generic you would be forced to consider whether you would rather get that slightly better buff and stronger stat-line of the special character versus paying a little less for a weaker buff and stat-line but getting the flexability of more command points.
Again though try applying that fairly across special characters. Sure Spending say 3 CP to bring Guiliman might seem a reasonable bargan, but what about say Snikrot in the ork book, at under 70 points. No one would bring him at the cost of a CP, same with a lot of the lesser Special characters. It is much more reasonable to find the happy medium on points (maybe RG should be 400 points, not a huge increase, but enough to make a dent).
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
No that is not how it should work, I'm sorry but seeing the Saint and a Primarch in damn near every comp Imperial list is not being "tactical", it's not "countering", it's the easiest way to succeed as the Fluff based characters were never meant to be played in the way they are being used.
I don't want to see them nerfed, they should be beat sticks on table. But using them in competitive play is absolutely garbage, our solutions to the problem of "Making it more appropriate points wise" or "Nerf X Unit" just ruins the special character for everyone else. (Narrative, apoc, friendly, etc.)
We don't need balanced special characters in comp play, we just need characters with tactical and narrative flavor that forces our comp community to think. I have zero issues with the special characters in the codices, I have HUGE issues with comp players abusing a non-comp model.
If you want them only for fluff games why do you care about them having a points increase? How does that ruin the character if they are still powerful beat sticks, but might be sub-optimal for tournament play? That is what I don't get, if they are there for "fun only" then why does them being fairly or even over costed matter at all? They will still rip things up on the table in fun games, but won't be game winning pieces. That is what I don't get from your argument, are you saying "these characters should be OP in games, but that is ok because we will only use them in games where no one cares about winning?" Then why does them being higher points matter if winning doesn't matter? In Apoc nothing will matter, in fun games, RG comes in and wrecks face, but you lose because his support isn't so great, doesn't matter right the game you are playing isn't competitive after all.
That said I think the fix to a lot of these issues is leaving "allies" out of matched play. It will never happen, but doing that would tone down on a lot of spam.
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
Well, as with points and all other balancing facets of a game, making the command points costs for special characters would be on a character by character basis. Some special characters may not need a command points cost at all where Roboute may need a cost of three and some may need even higher costs and some one or two command points.
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
No that is not how it should work, I'm sorry but seeing the Saint and a Primarch in damn near every comp Imperial list is not being "tactical", it's not "countering", it's the easiest way to succeed as the Fluff based characters were never meant to be played in the way they are being used.
I don't want to see them nerfed, they should be beat sticks on table. But using them in competitive play is absolutely garbage, our solutions to the problem of "Making it more appropriate points wise" or "Nerf X Unit" just ruins the special character for everyone else. (Narrative, apoc, friendly, etc.)
We don't need balanced special characters in comp play, we just need characters with tactical and narrative flavor that forces our comp community to think. I have zero issues with the special characters in the codices, I have HUGE issues with comp players abusing a non-comp model.
Exactly and exalted.
IOW, everyone who doesn't play like I do is a try-hard and isn't playing correctly.
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
No that is not how it should work, I'm sorry but seeing the Saint and a Primarch in damn near every comp Imperial list is not being "tactical", it's not "countering", it's the easiest way to succeed as the Fluff based characters were never meant to be played in the way they are being used.
I don't want to see them nerfed, they should be beat sticks on table. But using them in competitive play is absolutely garbage, our solutions to the problem of "Making it more appropriate points wise" or "Nerf X Unit" just ruins the special character for everyone else. (Narrative, apoc, friendly, etc.)
We don't need balanced special characters in comp play, we just need characters with tactical and narrative flavor that forces our comp community to think. I have zero issues with the special characters in the codices, I have HUGE issues with comp players abusing a non-comp model.
Exactly and exalted.
IOW, everyone who doesn't play like I do is a try-hard and isn't playing correctly.
Mud Turkey 13 wrote: Well, as with points and all other balancing facets of a game, making the command points costs for special characters would be on a character by character basis. Some special characters may not need a command points cost at all where Roboute may need a cost of three and some may need even higher costs and some one or two command points.
The issue with it as a measure of balance is that they aren't very granular. So differentiating between power levels of special characters using CP is difficult. I think the only way you could really do it is make the characters very expensive and then have the ability to spend CP to reduce their cost. So maybe Guiliman gives no CP bonus and costs 500 points, but you can spend 1-3 CP to reduce his cost by 50 points per CP spent.
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
How does trying out a no special character tourny mean i dont care?
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
No that is not how it should work, I'm sorry but seeing the Saint and a Primarch in damn near every comp Imperial list is not being "tactical", it's not "countering", it's the easiest way to succeed as the Fluff based characters were never meant to be played in the way they are being used.
I don't want to see them nerfed, they should be beat sticks on table. But using them in competitive play is absolutely garbage, our solutions to the problem of "Making it more appropriate points wise" or "Nerf X Unit" just ruins the special character for everyone else. (Narrative, apoc, friendly, etc.)
We don't need balanced special characters in comp play, we just need characters with tactical and narrative flavor that forces our comp community to think. I have zero issues with the special characters in the codices, I have HUGE issues with comp players abusing a non-comp model.
Exactly and exalted.
The points cost in narrative play doesn't matter. You're using PL for that.
This thread basically consists of people who don't want to play competitively trying to police people who do, and trying to insist that special characters are somehow "only for fluff" (a thing entirely spawned in your own head) and therefore shouldn't appear in other types of game.
If any unit becomes an auto-pick then that means the points cost should be adjusted, or its rules need to be reviewed - either of the unit itself or in other areas of the faction, because there'll be a reason it's an auto-pick. Maybe it's too cheap for what it does, or it synergises more powerfully with other units, or it's the only good thing in a slot with poor diversity, whatever. That's where the adjustment needs to be made and whether that unit happens to be a particular type of Razorback or Conscripts or a "special character" is completely irrelevant.
Whilst having the special characters to cost command points may technically work, I don't like it for the same reason I don't like Chapter Masters or Relics costing CPs. Always on, list building stage options should cost points (or power levels), that's literally purpose of the points. It is really confused design if some weapons or characters cost points while some cost command points; it doesn't make sense.
Personally I would be fine if most special characters would just be removed, and we would get more modular and customisable regular characters instead. Then most old special characters could just be represented by choosing right gear and abilities. Of course there are some characters for which this wouldn't work (like the Primarchs) and those could remain.
The points cost in narrative play doesn't matter. You're using PL for that.
This thread basically consists of people who don't want to play competitively trying to police people who do, and trying to insist that special characters are somehow "only for fluff" (a thing entirely spawned in your own head) and therefore shouldn't appear in other types of game.
If any unit becomes an auto-pick then that means the points cost should be adjusted, or its rules need to be reviewed - either of the unit itself or in other areas of the faction, because there'll be a reason it's an auto-pick. Maybe it's too cheap for what it does, or it synergises more powerfully with other units, or it's the only good thing in a slot with poor diversity, whatever. That's where the adjustment needs to be made and whether that unit happens to be a particular type of Razorback or Conscripts or a "special character" is completely irrelevant.
The voice of reason. This is a game that is intended to be played between two people. Balance is paramount and going "these guys should be unbalanced because they are in the fluff!" is ridiculous at best. If you're going by fluff they should also be super valuable, so then you can cost them at thousands of points each.
I think characters should be a part of competitive play, but they're super powerful, so they should come at a cost. I don't believe in just upping the points cost. We had this back in old editions of warhammer fantasy, and it didn't matter that the vampire counts characters cost considerably more than everyone else's when nothing had a chance of killing them.
I think they should give other drawbacks. Like if rowboat dies, your army withdraws and you lose the game. You'd have to have a bloody good plan to bring that to competitive and I can't see any narrative player arguing that the army wouldn't make a hasty retreat with rowboats unconscious body to try and save him.
Now that is just an off-the-top-of-my-head suggestion, and may not be great, but it's an example.
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
How does trying out a no special character tourny mean i dont care?
Because I don't always use Special Characters and nobody should be forced into not using them if they don't want to? Does that make sense?
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
That is the best way to play the game.
This thread, however, is specifically about competitive play which is a significantly different way to play the game.
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
How does trying out a no special character tourny mean i dont care?
Because I don't always use Special Characters and nobody should be forced into not using them if they don't want to? Does that make sense?
Does trying a format out not make sense?
just like people that want to try out highlander or something
where on earth did i say we should absolutely bar special characters for EVERY SINGLE FORMAT.
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
Since, I don't know, the fact that this thread is "Should Special Characters be banned from competitive play?"
I don't know about you, but when I'm playing games in the league or at a tournament, I expect my opponent to at least be trying his best to win, and I will with all certainty be trying mine. I find it kind of insulting otherwise.
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
How does trying out a no special character tourny mean i dont care?
Because I don't always use Special Characters and nobody should be forced into not using them if they don't want to? Does that make sense?
Does trying a format out not make sense?
just like people that want to try out highlander or something
where on earth did i say we should absolutely bar special characters for EVERY SINGLE FORMAT.
And anyone could tell you how stupid Highlander is when you got armies like SoB and Necrons. It's the very principle people are making these formats because they think they're fixing a problem, but instead they're taking the single laziest route possible. So even support of those formats is stupid.
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
How does trying out a no special character tourny mean i dont care?
Because I don't always use Special Characters and nobody should be forced into not using them if they don't want to? Does that make sense?
Does trying a format out not make sense?
just like people that want to try out highlander or something
where on earth did i say we should absolutely bar special characters for EVERY SINGLE FORMAT.
And anyone could tell you how stupid Highlander is when you got armies like SoB and Necrons. It's the very principle people are making these formats because they think they're fixing a problem, but instead they're taking the single laziest route possible. So even support of those formats is stupid.
Or its something different for people to try especially the people that are tired of playing the same lists over and over
the heck is wrong with you? Just because its a style or format you dont like doesn't make everything stupid.
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
How does trying out a no special character tourny mean i dont care?
Because I don't always use Special Characters and nobody should be forced into not using them if they don't want to? Does that make sense?
Does trying a format out not make sense?
just like people that want to try out highlander or something
where on earth did i say we should absolutely bar special characters for EVERY SINGLE FORMAT.
And anyone could tell you how stupid Highlander is when you got armies like SoB and Necrons. It's the very principle people are making these formats because they think they're fixing a problem, but instead they're taking the single laziest route possible. So even support of those formats is stupid.
Or its something different for people to try especially the people that are tired of playing the same lists over and over
the heck is wrong with you? Just because its a style or format you dont like doesn't make everything stupid.
If you're bored there's several missions you can play and then Maelstrom. What these "formats" are is garbage attempts at fixing a problem, and that's all they were ever proposed as. Nothing more, nothing less. So there's nothing wrong with me.
If you're bored there's several missions you can play and then Maelstrom. What these "formats" are is garbage attempts at fixing a problem, and that's all they were ever proposed as. Nothing more, nothing less. So there's nothing wrong with me.
Missing the point that people that want to shift the status quo of list building. regardless of missions considering people still play them all and it still can get old when several types of characters are auto takes or unit spam or whatever.
the point of the formats isnt to FIX anything its just to do something different
your problem is that you dont like it so you call it garbage.
If you're bored there's several missions you can play and then Maelstrom. What these "formats" are is garbage attempts at fixing a problem, and that's all they were ever proposed as. Nothing more, nothing less. So there's nothing wrong with me.
Missing the point that people that want to shift the status quo of list building. regardless of missions considering people still play them all and it still can get old when several types of characters are auto takes or unit spam or whatever.
the point of the formats isnt to FIX anything its just to do something different
your problem is that you dont like it so you call it garbage.
Then feel free to build a highlander list. However, don't ignore the origins of its creation and why it is stupid. Because it IS stupid.
If you're bored there's several missions you can play and then Maelstrom. What these "formats" are is garbage attempts at fixing a problem, and that's all they were ever proposed as. Nothing more, nothing less. So there's nothing wrong with me.
Missing the point that people that want to shift the status quo of list building. regardless of missions considering people still play them all and it still can get old when several types of characters are auto takes or unit spam or whatever.
the point of the formats isnt to FIX anything its just to do something different
your problem is that you dont like it so you call it garbage.
The status quo of list building is huge bricks of conscripts, spammable 'generic' characters (malefic lord, Culexus wall) spammable guard bullgak, spammable chaos bullgak and Guillamen. Even Celestine is just an afterthought for the most part.
Banning special characters hurts mono-faction armies WAY more than it hurts soup armies. Ban Celestine and guard just takes 50 more conscripts, no big whoop. SoB on the other hand can pack up and go home because building a competitive SoB list without her is fething impossible. You end up with 2 extra canonesses you don't even take out of your carrying case hoping desperately your opponent doesn't notice they're missing because they're worth less to the way your army functions than the +1 to go first and you can't put them in a transport because they feth up your dominions.
Purifier wrote: I think they should give other drawbacks. Like if rowboat dies, your army withdraws and you lose the game. You'd have to have a bloody good plan to bring that to competitive and I can't see any narrative player arguing that the army wouldn't make a hasty retreat with rowboats unconscious body to try and save him.
Actually, I really like this suggestion.
I've played Warmachine for some times a few years ago and it basically works like this. You either win on objective points or you try to zerg the ennemy Warcaster and kill him. It makes the game more interesting tactically.
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
That is the best way to play the game.
This thread, however, is specifically about competitive play which is a significantly different way to play the game.
But why doesnt so called competition involve more of the hobby than deck, err, list building?
It used to...
Desubot wrote: Why not try it and see how the army lists fluctuate and settle.
asides from like a few not actually full army armies everyone has an alternative to a particular character.
Because you're not caring about balance. Nobody is gonna pay for Tyberos if he's 230-240 points. He's not taken at 205 by anybody! Well except for me because I'm planning a special model for him...
How does trying out a no special character tourny mean i dont care?
Because I don't always use Special Characters and nobody should be forced into not using them if they don't want to? Does that make sense?
Does trying a format out not make sense?
just like people that want to try out highlander or something
where on earth did i say we should absolutely bar special characters for EVERY SINGLE FORMAT.
And anyone could tell you how stupid Highlander is when you got armies like SoB and Necrons. It's the very principle people are making these formats because they think they're fixing a problem, but instead they're taking the single laziest route possible. So even support of those formats is stupid.
Or its something different for people to try especially the people that are tired of playing the same lists over and over
the heck is wrong with you? Just because its a style or format you dont like doesn't make everything stupid.
If you're bored there's several missions you can play and then Maelstrom. What these "formats" are is garbage attempts at fixing a problem, and that's all they were ever proposed as. Nothing more, nothing less. So there's nothing wrong with me.
Actually, feeling a need to say that is the first sign that there is...
Corrode wrote: If you think list matters more than player ability you aren't very good at the game.
Not sure I wholly agree, list matters more than player skill until both lists are built reasonably well. Once you get to a certain level of competitiveness in your list, skill starts to matter more. For instance a fairly average to below average player using say an IG artillery list will win tons of games if his opponents are running things like Ork Biker lists, or all tactical marines. However, once those players start optimizing within their own faction to some extent, the unskilled player running an OP list will start to lose because the list gap has been closed to some extent. For instance I ran an Azreal gunline against a player with a sub-optimal deathwatch list. I'm not a bad player, but my play involved little skill and I just blew his army off the table by the top of turn 2. Now he wasn't a great player, but I'm not convinced that a great player would have done any better because he literally had no options for winning the game. That said great players tend to bring strong lists, and at that point list matters very little.
That's how it should work though. If players insist on using lists which are incapable of countering the threats they're likely to face, that isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the players. There's also a much bigger and greyer area between "optimal", "sub-optimal" and "bad" lists than most of the internet seems to understand - largely because most commentators are not as good at the game as they think they are, or they have agendas which aren't focused on the game as a game.
Again. Why is so much of the "game" about list building to WAAC?
Maybe army collecting for a rich mutual experience, that aids immersion in the universe, that celebrates all aspects of the hobby and lifestyle, why isn't this the optimal way to play the game?
Since when is 40k ruled by MtG dropouts?
Since, I don't know, the fact that this thread is "Should Special Characters be banned from competitive play?"
I don't know about you, but when I'm playing games in the league or at a tournament, I expect my opponent to at least be trying his best to win, and I will with all certainty be trying mine. I find it kind of insulting otherwise.
See comment above.
Different ways to do competition and MtG is only one of them...
"Why does a competition about winning games focus on winning games?"
I wouldn't expect to turn up to Golden Demon and win because I had the nastiest netlist, so why are you expecting that tournaments should be won based on some vague definition of "hobby" (which is no more fair - better hobby skills require much greater natural skill, and far greater investment of time and money than winning games does).
Corrode wrote: "Why does a competition about winning games focus on winning games?"
I wouldn't expect to turn up to Golden Demon and win because I had the nastiest netlist, so why are you expecting that tournaments should be won based on some vague definition of "hobby" (which is no more fair - better hobby skills require much greater natural skill, and far greater investment of time and money than winning games does).
Yup which is why I like when events have separate awards and a "Best Overall/Ren Man" award, because I know I can never compete on the painting aspect of the hobby, so if best overall was the only award I would never have a chance. Physical limitations on my part limit how well I can do on that front. So if the community said that was all that mattered, it would be bad for my enjoyment.
There is of course the issue of commission painting etc for that being the primary aspect.
Now if people think it is a problem of the community putting more emphasis on Best General than they do on Best Overall, that is an issue with individuals in the community not events. I think it is also a symptom of forums, because list design and game outcomes are easy to discuss on forums. High level tactics, hobby tips, etc are much harder to discuss.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:Since, I don't know, the fact that this thread is "Should Special Characters be banned from competitive play?"
I don't know about you, but when I'm playing games in the league or at a tournament, I expect my opponent to at least be trying his best to win, and I will with all certainty be trying mine. I find it kind of insulting otherwise.
Amen?
Playing a competitive tournament is fielding "what works" not some scrub army.
We play by the rules of the game not extra ones that people decide on their own.
You want to do some narrative play for fun? That is a different category (and a different topic) and has been the draw for historical gaming for decades.
Corrode wrote:"Why does a competition about winning games focus on winning games?"
I wouldn't expect to turn up to Golden Demon and win because I had the nastiest netlist, so why are you expecting that tournaments should be won based on some vague definition of "hobby" (which is no more fair - better hobby skills require much greater natural skill, and far greater investment of time and money than winning games does).
Tournaments are very much about competition but some may focus a fair bit on the look of the army not just it being a game winning one, it really depends on the organizers and how they set up their scoring.
In the end, we all come back to "gaming" the tournament rules as well as the 40k rules.
I personally like my army to look good but it REALLY irritates my competitive side since it will take forever to prepare that "ideal" list based on the rules/meta of the time.
I can sometimes understand how some more competitive players field bare plastic armies (looks like garbage and is gives zero attraction as a good looking game), I may not agree with it, but I understand.
Most tournaments I go to have 2 top prizes, Best Painted, which is voted on by the participants, and the winner of the tournament. It's pretty rare for the best painted army not to be owned by one of the top ranking players in the tournament. It's almost like people that are competitive and good also care about what their models look like. The people that show up with gray armies are either new players or flavor of the month players that generally don't do the best because they haven't played the army long. You can download a netlist, but it doesn't guarantee you know how to play it well.
Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
deviantduck wrote: Most tournaments I go to have 2 top prizes, Best Painted, which is voted on by the participants, and the winner of the tournament. It's pretty rare for the best painted army not to be owned by one of the top ranking players in the tournament. It's almost like people that are competitive and good also care about what their models look like. The people that show up with gray armies are either new players or flavor of the month players that generally don't do the best because they haven't played the army long. You can download a netlist, but it doesn't guarantee you know how to play it well.
That is what I have viewed, being competitive applies to all elements of the hobby.
They step-up their game because they want to try to win everything they can.
I have found incredibly nice people who thrive on competition taking on newbie or expert alike because it is "all good" to them.
Those who enjoy the best pursuit of the goal, tend to be more fun than those who are only concerned with the goal.
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jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
Total answer to that is "because the rules allow it."
How does configuring your army the best you can, automatically become a sportsmanship issue?
Seems rather unfair.
Wiki: Sportsmanship is an aspiration or ethos that a sport or activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. A "sore loser" refers to one who does not take defeat well, whereas a "good sport" means being a "good winner" as well as being a "good loser"[1][2] (someone who shows courtesy towards another in a sports game).
If the person allows you to correct an honest mistake, is generous when the situation or rules are not clear, you will penalize them because you do not "like" their army configuration?
I figure we should reward good behavior, I will take a pleasant person over them making a fluffier army list any day.
IMO this thread has derailed into the classic narrative vs waac style.
Which is a shame.
This thread is specifically about waac play. If you are a narrative-only player, its not a context that applies to you. Trying to push the narrative playstyle to the people that enjoy powergaming is as futile as taking a whiz into a strong wind.
Lets not worry about the tournament players playing waac... thats kind of the point of the tournament playstyle.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
Sportsmanship should never be a commentary on list composition, but instead on the other players behavior at the table. This is frequently not the case, and why it has largely fallen out of favor. Too many people take losing badly as a knock against their opponents sportsmanship. These people have obviously never competed in say sports if they feel that way. It also frequently got used to "chipmunk" players so that they could get their buddies to win the event.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
Sportsmanship should never be a commentary on list composition, but instead on the other players behavior at the table. This is frequently not the case, and why it has largely fallen out of favor. Too many people take losing badly as a knock against their opponents sportsmanship. These people have obviously never competed in say sports if they feel that way. It also frequently got used to "chipmunk" players so that they could get their buddies to win the event.
Yeah we used to do sportsmanship votes at the tournaments I ran (you didn't get points but we had a separate trophy for whoever got the highest number), and it was remarkable how many times people's favourite game was against the guy they hammered off the table. Sports scores also suffer from the obvious problem that in a room of 70 guys, you'll only play 5 or 6 - and since most people are fairly neutral, it only takes one or two personality clashes to undeservedly tank someone's sportsmanship score.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
So you go to a tournament and you're penalized for bringing the best list you cam, or at minimum a stupidly capable.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
Sportsmanship should never be a commentary on list composition, but instead on the other players behavior at the table. This is frequently not the case, and why it has largely fallen out of favor. Too many people take losing badly as a knock against their opponents sportsmanship. These people have obviously never competed in say sports if they feel that way. It also frequently got used to "chipmunk" players so that they could get their buddies to win the event.
Yeah we used to do sportsmanship votes at the tournaments I ran (you didn't get points but we had a separate trophy for whoever got the highest number), and it was remarkable how many times people's favourite game was against the guy they hammered off the table. Sports scores also suffer from the obvious problem that in a room of 70 guys, you'll only play 5 or 6 - and since most people are fairly neutral, it only takes one or two personality clashes to undeservedly tank someone's sportsmanship score.
Yup that is very often the case. I tend to be the opposite, my best favorite is very often one that I lose (not always). For me it is usually the closest game of the day. But I also never knock people that table me unless they rub it in and act like jerks.
auticus wrote:IMO this thread has derailed into the classic narrative vs waac style.
Which is a shame.
This thread is specifically about waac play. If you are a narrative-only player, its not a context that applies to you. Trying to push the narrative playstyle to the people that enjoy powergaming is as futile as taking a whiz into a strong wind.
Lets not worry about the tournament players playing waac... thats kind of the point of the tournament playstyle.
No, it is not. Being WAAC and being competitive are two separate things. A true WAAC player will flip the table rather then let someone get Checkmate. "All Costs" being a case of ignoring any consequences for the actions they take in order to win. Competitive allows for the rules and wining within those rules.
Denying SCs that you don't know how to counter would be WAAC, just as insisting to use SCs that you do have would be considered WAAC.
Figuring out how to counter SCs is being competitive. At this time, the game considers them to be one unit among many, a unit that you cannot spam. Which is worse, one greatly OP model or being able to spam one rather OP that is difficult to counter in pairs or more?
The issue here is that competitive people want those OP models to be balanced so they won't be accused of being WAAC or for feeling bad for taking a strong unit. That is hardly a WAAC perspective.
The "what is waac" argument has been done to death. I am specifically describing powergamers and min/max playstyle, where they will never take anything less than full optimal.
To many people that is the same as "at all costs". Arguing the term however will never get us anywhere because it will always be seen by different people as having different meanings.
Regardless - don't whine about powergaming in a powergaming thread lol.
auticus wrote: IMO this thread has derailed into the classic narrative vs waac style.
Which is a shame.
This thread is specifically about waac play. If you are a narrative-only player, its not a context that applies to you. Trying to push the narrative playstyle to the people that enjoy powergaming is as futile as taking a whiz into a strong wind.
Lets not worry about the tournament players playing waac... thats kind of the point of the tournament playstyle.
You seem a little confused on what WAAC means, I will refer to this site for a fairly good definition:
The Cheater -
Come on, did you really expect anyone else? This guy is generally accept by everyone as a WAAC player. There's a bunch of ways to fit into this category: Intentional mis-measuring, intentional "forgetting" of rules, sweeping dice before your opponent can tell you told him you made more saves than you did, to even using loaded dice or incorrect measuring devices. This guy is no good, and ruins games for everybody, because it's all about him. Once you identify the Cheater, your best bet is to simply ban them from playing with your group (if you have the authority) or refuse to play them yourself.
The Ultra Competitive Player-
Spoiler:
Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy. The Ultra Competitive Player, or UCP for short, is the guy who lives and breathes for tournament play. His belief is often that "if it's legal, it's playable, so don't complain if I use it." The UCP is often- but not always- in the realm of "over powered," "cheese lists," and "Rules as Written" loophole tricks. To less competitive players, they may sometimes appear "WAAC," which as discussed above is incorrect- they just play their game a different way than you. They are generally the best versed in the rules of the game, have studied every army or faction book simply to know what to expect, and will likely know your own rules better than you do. As far as banning these guys... there's really no leg to stand on, and for good reason- they're actually not doing anything wrong. If you know for a fact you're not going to enjoy playing them, then generally don't. They're pretty easy to avoid, as they tend to play (and want to play) tournaments, tournament players, and people prepping for highly competitive environments- so if you avoid those environments, and politely turn down "friendly" game requests form them, there's really never any likelihood of playing them.
The Competitive Player-
Spoiler:
The Competitive Player, the CP, is a strange hybrid creature, a duck billed platypus of a gamer. They are generally a Story player or a Painter/Converter who either grew up surrounded by Ultra Competitive Players and adapted, or they are an Ultra Competitive Player that hamstrings himself by using "fluff based lists" or "rule of cool" models. This guy is less likely to be considered WAAC, but can stumble into it without realizing it- aiming for a "themed" list and not realizing the underlying theme is "beat the other guy senseless." Competitive players have generally skimmed all the different factions... but not really memorized their rules, more likely just read the stories and looked at pictures. Against other CPs he'll always be a good game. Against UCPs both players may or may not have fun due to his list not being "strong enough", and against Story Players or Painter/Converters both players may not have fun for the exact opposite reason.
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auticus wrote: The "what is waac" argument has been done to death. I am specifically describing powergamers and min/max playstyle, where they will never take anything less than full optimal.
To many people that is the same as "at all costs". Arguing the term however will never get us anywhere because it will always be seen by different people as having different meanings.
Regardless - don't whine about powergaming in a powergaming thread lol.
Doubling down.
Win... At... All... Costs.
NOT the same.
A power-gamer will get very upset if you lump him in as someone who will intentionally cheat or ignore rules.
NO.
"Full optimal" is within the rules of the game full-stop.
Here is a quote that is rather telling in this criticism:
...Here's something super important - none of the above says a damned thing about their attitude toward gaming and competition, and whether or not they are "Win At All Costs." It is so critically important that you all understand this when attending a tournament (especially one with such a variety of attendance as, say, the NOVA Open). If you don't, if you're incapable of enough deep/critical thought to recognize that a person's LIST does not reflect upon their CHARACTER by any necessary connection ... well, you'll be "that guy." YOU'LL be the Win At All Costs. Because when you lose a game, and instead of congratulating your opponent on the win ... you simply call his army cheesy, or wander around the hall complaining about how broken your opponent(s)' lists were ... well, that's just you attempting to "win" after all. I hope you realize this.
I think to bring this full circle on-topic: removing special characters will not do a thing to the nature of competitive play: what the heck are you trying to fix?
auticus wrote: We can ride the pedantic bus to argue conjugation but really, it won't change anything
Not quite. Being called "WAAC" or even "power gamer" can be seen as derogatory, and there are rules about calling people that here in the forum. So, best not to lump "competitive" in with "WAAC", okay?
Note, I'm not saying "WAAC" players aren't also "competitive", but the majority of "competitive" players aren't looking for loopholes, easter eggs, or out-right false-word-smithing in order to win a game.
Talizvar wrote: Total answer to that is "because the rules allow it."
How does configuring your army the best you can, automatically become a sportsmanship issue?
Seems rather unfair.
Wiki: Sportsmanship is an aspiration or ethos that a sport or activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. A "sore loser" refers to one who does not take defeat well, whereas a "good sport" means being a "good winner" as well as being a "good loser"[1][2] (someone who shows courtesy towards another in a sports game).
If the person allows you to correct an honest mistake, is generous when the situation or rules are not clear, you will penalize them because you do not "like" their army configuration?
I figure we should reward good behavior, I will take a pleasant person over them making a fluffier army list any day.
Seems the concepts of "ethos" and "for its own sake" have gone over your head...
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
Sportsmanship should never be a commentary on list composition, but instead on the other players behavior at the table. This is frequently not the case, and why it has largely fallen out of favor. Too many people take losing badly as a knock against their opponents sportsmanship. These people have obviously never competed in say sports if they feel that way. It also frequently got used to "chipmunk" players so that they could get their buddies to win the event.
Why shouldn't sportsmanship include what one brings to the table?
Look at John Jones, out of the UFC for what he brought into the ring.
How is getting all juiced up on spammy SCs any different?
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
So you go to a tournament and you're penalized for bringing the best list you cam, or at minimum a stupidly capable.
No, people are judged poorly for bringing cardboard cutout SCs and netlist hotness that they paid someone else to paint...
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auticus wrote: The "what is waac" argument has been done to death. I am specifically describing powergamers and min/max playstyle, where they will never take anything less than full optimal.
To many people that is the same as "at all costs". Arguing the term however will never get us anywhere because it will always be seen by different people as having different meanings.
Regardless - don't whine about powergaming in a powergaming thread lol.
My point is that power can be defined in different ways.
Exploiting half-baked rules systems to win using SCs and spam is not a show of power imho.
It is a sign of intellectual weakness.
Winning like that is like getting the front seat on the short bus...
Yeay.
auticus wrote: We can ride the pedantic bus to argue conjugation but really, it won't change anything
Not quite. Being called "WAAC" or even "power gamer" can be seen as derogatory, and there are rules about calling people that here in the forum. So, best not to lump "competitive" in with "WAAC", okay?
Note, I'm not saying "WAAC" players aren't also "competitive", but the majority of "competitive" players aren't looking for loopholes, easter eggs, or out-right false-word-smithing in order to win a game.
OK, I am calling BS here, man.
If this weren't the case, then why would so many people be so interested in stacking so many SCs from different backgrounds into single armies, or fielding nothing but characters so that they must be individually targeted, or understanding that 10 Xs allow one to do ABC 10 times a turn, to win games.
This is hobby at the expense of winning, and for me this is winning at all costs, because what is really redeeming about this hobby is all set aside in order to WIN.
And that means, for me, sportsmanship is also a casualty, before the player ever hits the table.
Taking a grenade launcher to a gunfight might be strictly within the rules, but it is still poor form and - in my opinion - a sign of weakness.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
And this is exactly why sportsmanship scores are bad.
How is making a perfectly legal army unsporting?
That is just you docking them points for not following the army composition rules you have in your head.
If you're bored there's several missions you can play and then Maelstrom. What these "formats" are is garbage attempts at fixing a problem, and that's all they were ever proposed as. Nothing more, nothing less. So there's nothing wrong with me.
Missing the point that people that want to shift the status quo of list building. regardless of missions considering people still play them all and it still can get old when several types of characters are auto takes or unit spam or whatever.
the point of the formats isnt to FIX anything its just to do something different
your problem is that you dont like it so you call it garbage.
The status quo of list building is huge bricks of conscripts, spammable 'generic' characters (malefic lord, Culexus wall) spammable guard bullgak, spammable chaos bullgak and Guillamen. Even Celestine is just an afterthought for the most part.
Banning special characters hurts mono-faction armies WAY more than it hurts soup armies. Ban Celestine and guard just takes 50 more conscripts, no big whoop. SoB on the other hand can pack up and go home because building a competitive SoB list without her is fething impossible. You end up with 2 extra canonesses you don't even take out of your carrying case hoping desperately your opponent doesn't notice they're missing because they're worth less to the way your army functions than the +1 to go first and you can't put them in a transport because they feth up your dominions.
That sounds more like an issue with the faction and not competitive play/list-building itself. Hinging how an army works on a single Special character only makes sense if it actually opens up a unique way to build the faction or represent it in a meaningful way through gameplay/tactics.
But anyway, isn't what Desubot talking about somethign that has been discussed in our own community? No Special Characters in a specific format? It's no different from what I can see.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
This is why I dislike tournaments. Sportsman score and Army Comp score are two completely different things.
If you faced someone who was the best opponent you've ever played a game with, the whole way through was enjoyable, entertaining and a laugh without a doubt the best game of 40k you've ever played - would you give them a 0 for sportsmanship? No you wouldn't. neg the crap out of their army comp score for sure, but the sporting part of it shouldn't suffer for it
(yes I realise the irony of playing a game being tabled by a 0 comp score army somehow being the most enjoyable game you've had - but the point still stands)
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
This is why I dislike tournaments. Sportsman score and Army Comp score are two completely different things.
If you faced someone who was the best opponent you've ever played a game with, the whole way through was enjoyable, entertaining and a laugh without a doubt the best game of 40k you've ever played - would you give them a 0 for sportsmanship? No you wouldn't. neg the crap out of their army comp score for sure, but the sporting part of it shouldn't suffer for it
(yes I realise the irony of playing a game being tabled by a 0 comp score army somehow being the most enjoyable game you've had - but the point still stands)
Point taken.
However, just as with the John Jones example, I feel that sportsmanship begins before the game actually begins.
Army composition, sure, but are "competitive" people scoring down other players when they bring SCs and spam loophole-exploiters?
From the feedback in this thread, alone, it seems that it is a point of pride.
Again, it seems that the mindset is one of MtG players.
For someone apparently focused on sportsmanship and 'mutualy enjoyable' games you seem to have a vast repertoire of insults and caricatures for people who play differently to you.
Talizvar wrote: Total answer to that is "because the rules allow it."
How does configuring your army the best you can, automatically become a sportsmanship issue?
Seems rather unfair.
Wiki: Sportsmanship is an aspiration or ethos that a sport or activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. A "sore loser" refers to one who does not take defeat well, whereas a "good sport" means being a "good winner" as well as being a "good loser"[1][2] (someone who shows courtesy towards another in a sports game).
If the person allows you to correct an honest mistake, is generous when the situation or rules are not clear, you will penalize them because you do not "like" their army configuration?
I figure we should reward good behavior, I will take a pleasant person over them making a fluffier army list any day.
Seems the concepts of "ethos" and "for its own sake" have gone over your head...
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
Sportsmanship should never be a commentary on list composition, but instead on the other players behavior at the table. This is frequently not the case, and why it has largely fallen out of favor. Too many people take losing badly as a knock against their opponents sportsmanship. These people have obviously never competed in say sports if they feel that way. It also frequently got used to "chipmunk" players so that they could get their buddies to win the event.
Why shouldn't sportsmanship include what one brings to the table?
Look at John Jones, out of the UFC for what he brought into the ring.
How is getting all juiced up on spammy SCs any different?
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
So you go to a tournament and you're penalized for bringing the best list you cam, or at minimum a stupidly capable.
No, people are judged poorly for bringing cardboard cutout SCs and netlist hotness that they paid someone else to paint...
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auticus wrote: The "what is waac" argument has been done to death. I am specifically describing powergamers and min/max playstyle, where they will never take anything less than full optimal.
To many people that is the same as "at all costs". Arguing the term however will never get us anywhere because it will always be seen by different people as having different meanings.
Regardless - don't whine about powergaming in a powergaming thread lol.
My point is that power can be defined in different ways.
Exploiting half-baked rules systems to win using SCs and spam is not a show of power imho.
It is a sign of intellectual weakness.
Winning like that is like getting the front seat on the short bus...
Yeay.
auticus wrote: We can ride the pedantic bus to argue conjugation but really, it won't change anything
Not quite. Being called "WAAC" or even "power gamer" can be seen as derogatory, and there are rules about calling people that here in the forum. So, best not to lump "competitive" in with "WAAC", okay?
Note, I'm not saying "WAAC" players aren't also "competitive", but the majority of "competitive" players aren't looking for loopholes, easter eggs, or out-right false-word-smithing in order to win a game.
OK, I am calling BS here, man.
If this weren't the case, then why would so many people be so interested in stacking so many SCs from different backgrounds into single armies, or fielding nothing but characters so that they must be individually targeted, or understanding that 10 Xs allow one to do ABC 10 times a turn, to win games.
This is hobby at the expense of winning, and for me this is winning at all costs, because what is really redeeming about this hobby is all set aside in order to WIN.
And that means, for me, sportsmanship is also a casualty, before the player ever hits the table.
Taking a grenade launcher to a gunfight might be strictly within the rules, but it is still poor form and - in my opinion - a sign of weakness.
Okay, so let me get this straight:
1. You would dock points out of principle on a sportsmanship score because you don't like their army composition, even though that has nothing to do with sportsmanship at all.
2. You compare bringing a list you want to flatout cheating. You have every opportunity to train the same manner as everyone else in the same way you have the ability to create your army the way you wish, which you equate to using steroids. That's actually using things like weighted dice. So you don't understand how similes or metaphors work in your examples.
3. You accuse using Special Characters as netlisting, even though it's maybe only the same few that actually show up amongst what is mostly generic characters as seen in tournament results (Roboute and Celestine showed up, saw Arkos in a few lists, and basically nobody else for special characters). To you that's netlisting, instead of acknowledging the few characters are maybe miscosted.
4. You then insult people that pay for their armies to be painted, when there s legitimate reasons to not paint your army (Like you might have too unsteady hands or you just suck at it), and decide that all these people are also incapable of painting their own armies with literally NO data to back you up whatsoever. They could've actually taken pride in their models done a good job, but heaven forbid that thought because they're not playing YOUR way.
5. You're not using tournament results to back up your claims. Again.
6. People like the fluff for those characters and want to use them? Tell me why I shouldn't use Tyberos and Asterion in the same army when they've actually FOUGHT together anyway (like for Badab) and don't do anything but benefit their own chapters anyway in separate Detachments. Once again you're deciding that, because people won't play your way, it's all WAAC. In reality, you're a bad player who can't bother to even counter characters like them. This is your own fault and complete intellectual laziness on YOUR end. You refusing to adapt to actual fair characters is weakness, not the other way around.
So what? You lost to Khan one day and your feelings are so hurt you can't maybe look past your own army list construction and/or playing? Is it they're playing unfair, or you're just a bad player? I'm doubting you have any results to back yourself up on that end.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
This is why I dislike tournaments. Sportsman score and Army Comp score are two completely different things.
If you faced someone who was the best opponent you've ever played a game with, the whole way through was enjoyable, entertaining and a laugh without a doubt the best game of 40k you've ever played - would you give them a 0 for sportsmanship? No you wouldn't. neg the crap out of their army comp score for sure, but the sporting part of it shouldn't suffer for it
(yes I realise the irony of playing a game being tabled by a 0 comp score army somehow being the most enjoyable game you've had - but the point still stands)
Point taken.
However, just as with the John Jones example, I feel that sportsmanship begins before the game actually begins.
Army composition, sure, but are "competitive" people scoring down other players when they bring SCs and spam loophole-exploiters?
From the feedback in this thread, alone, it seems that it is a point of pride.
Again, it seems that the mindset is one of MtG players.
I agree to a point, sportsmanship begins before the game starts but the way the game plays out and your experience within the game largely comes down to the individual. Special characters have nothing to do with your enjoyment of the game. Gulliman getting you down? Learn to counter it.
I have a friend who lives and breathes the tournament scene and he's commonly referred to as the smiling assasin. He's never played a game with a soft list and always chooses the "best" options yet somehow after every game you want to buy him a drink to say thanks for the game - he is that much of a blast to play. Hard armies and sports don't always go hand in hand.
Charistoph wrote: Note, I'm not saying "WAAC" players aren't also "competitive", but the majority of "competitive" players aren't looking for loopholes, easter eggs, or out-right false-word-smithing in order to win a game.
OK, I am calling BS here, man.
If this weren't the case, then why would so many people be so interested in stacking so many SCs from different backgrounds into single armies, or fielding nothing but characters so that they must be individually targeted, or understanding that 10 Xs allow one to do ABC 10 times a turn, to win games.
Apparently you don't seem to understand the concept of the easter egg hunt for rules or using false-word-smithing in order to win a game. Taking every SC your Faction can carry is currently within the rules. That is not WAAC, but can be very competitive. It can also be very Narrative, depending on the army build. That you may not like to face it doesn't automatically mean the player is WAAC.
The sentence you put in bold was more a clarification. All competitive people like to win. In this case, that also applies to the WAAC people as well. The real difference between being "just competitive" and "WAAC" is that the "just competitive" group are willing to accept the loss if the other player gave a good game, while the WAAC player would either rage-quit before he completely lost, cheat, or accuse the other player of cheating in order to claim the win. That's part of what the "at all costs" part of WAAC comes from.
jeff white wrote:Taking a grenade launcher to a gunfight might be strictly within the rules, but it is still poor form and - in my opinion - a sign of weakness.
If you know a person has a grenade launcher, and it is within the rules, then why are you surprised he brought one? Sounds like you are projecting a little by trying to force other players to avoid using units you don't know how to deal with.
There is a difference between wanting a balanced playing field and wanting a playing field balanced to your specific parameters of what you want it to look like, and some people seem to confuse the two.
Charistoph wrote: Note, I'm not saying "WAAC" players aren't also "competitive", but the majority of "competitive" players aren't looking for loopholes, easter eggs, or out-right false-word-smithing in order to win a game.
OK, I am calling BS here, man.
If this weren't the case, then why would so many people be so interested in stacking so many SCs from different backgrounds into single armies, or fielding nothing but characters so that they must be individually targeted, or understanding that 10 Xs allow one to do ABC 10 times a turn, to win games.
Apparently you don't seem to understand the concept of the easter egg hunt for rules or using false-word-smithing in order to win a game. Taking every SC your Faction can carry is currently within the rules. That is not WAAC, but can be very competitive. It can also be very Narrative, depending on the army build. That you may not like to face it doesn't automatically mean the player is WAAC.
The sentence you put in bold was more a clarification. All competitive people like to win. In this case, that also applies to the WAAC people as well. The real difference between being "just competitive" and "WAAC" is that the "just competitive" group are willing to accept the loss if the other player gave a good game, while the WAAC player would either rage-quit before he completely lost, cheat, or accuse the other player of cheating in order to claim the win. That's part of what the "at all costs" part of WAAC comes from.
jeff white wrote:Taking a grenade launcher to a gunfight might be strictly within the rules, but it is still poor form and - in my opinion - a sign of weakness.
If you know a person has a grenade launcher, and it is within the rules, then why are you surprised he brought one? Sounds like you are projecting a little by trying to force other players to avoid using units you don't know how to deal with.
Oh it is not a mystery how to counter opSC "builds"...
Wait for rules corrections and nerf bats to shift model sales is maybe the easiest way.
Read about and learn from other experience then spend a ton of time and money " building" the new hotness which is hot simply because it does counter said opSC spam soup "builds" chasing the plastic dragon seems to be the most common "competitive" way to go about it.
What is a mystery to me is how anyone could feel proud of winning while using such " builds".
Where is the virtue in that, this is the mystery to me.
And yes, if you can't paint due to unsteady hands then your career as a best of the best hobbyist is over.
Happening to me, at my age I can hardly see straight let alone paint at the level of detail that I could as a youth.
I am not complaining and don't mind losing.
I don't set out to lose but I learned not to set out to win every game either.
That is not the purpose of the game and hobby for me.
That is also not how I would define competitive play, just winning every game given halfbaked profit driven rules especially.
I did attend one grand tourney in I think it was 1998.
I lost most of my games, but I will never forget it.
The trivia tests, the scoring, the gw staff wandering about asking questions.
The winners were of various categories, and winning every game was only one of them.
At that time, one could compete in different ways, and in a general way as a hobbyist.
I was only a few years into the hobby at that time and without time and money and in all seriousness without talent to be the best at any of them.
I did work harder going forward to get better in those various ways and that tournament experience taught me most about what the hobby really entails.
It is or at least was a lot more than chasing the plastic dragon for the win.
Maybe I am a bitter old man longing for the better days, or maybe I have a substantial point.
My purpose here is simply to forcefully represent this perspective, and hopefully influence the future direction of the "sport"
In the end I am against SCs in "competitive" play because the practice discounts other aspects of the game and indeed as I understand it the competition that I feel are equally or more important to the hobby and lifestyle.
I am all for changes in the rules that encourage more p!ayer creativity and I am also for rules that demand more structure and force more restrictions on armies that are brought to competitive events as well as that come to be expected in friendly environments.
These days I have so little time I have yet to play a game with anyone in eighth edition.
I have one scheduled with the nearest fellow hobbyist that I am aware of on the other side of Seoul, but that is at least a month away.
I find a couple hours a week at my painting desk, a couple hours at forums, and i play podcasts at the gym and biking and walking the dogs and listen to battle reports as I edit papers and review other stuff for work.
I learn by twenty plus years of experience with other editions. I have played a lot of forty k. I am almost fifty years old and more than half of those have had paint on my thumbs and forefingers.
My investment in this discourse runs much deeper than winning a game.
And I take my position on principle, in the best interests of hobby and hobbyists as best as I can figure them in good conscience.
PS it is interesting to note that a bit more than half of current respondents would want to limit the use of SCs in some way. So this is not a cut and dried issue. Discourse must continue.
Charistoph wrote: Note, I'm not saying "WAAC" players aren't also "competitive", but the majority of "competitive" players aren't looking for loopholes, easter eggs, or out-right false-word-smithing in order to win a game.
OK, I am calling BS here, man.
If this weren't the case, then why would so many people be so interested in stacking so many SCs from different backgrounds into single armies, or fielding nothing but characters so that they must be individually targeted, or understanding that 10 Xs allow one to do ABC 10 times a turn, to win games.
Apparently you don't seem to understand the concept of the easter egg hunt for rules or using false-word-smithing in order to win a game. Taking every SC your Faction can carry is currently within the rules. That is not WAAC, but can be very competitive. It can also be very Narrative, depending on the army build. That you may not like to face it doesn't automatically mean the player is WAAC.
The sentence you put in bold was more a clarification. All competitive people like to win. In this case, that also applies to the WAAC people as well. The real difference between being "just competitive" and "WAAC" is that the "just competitive" group are willing to accept the loss if the other player gave a good game, while the WAAC player would either rage-quit before he completely lost, cheat, or accuse the other player of cheating in order to claim the win. That's part of what the "at all costs" part of WAAC comes from.
jeff white wrote:Taking a grenade launcher to a gunfight might be strictly within the rules, but it is still poor form and - in my opinion - a sign of weakness.
If you know a person has a grenade launcher, and it is within the rules, then why are you surprised he brought one? Sounds like you are projecting a little by trying to force other players to avoid using units you don't know how to deal with.
O, I am not surprised.
I am just saying that guy is a
So you would rather not take the best tool allowed by the rules of the event and instead limit yourself to the rules that only exist in your head. This, of course, makes you better than the person who does not share your self imposed limitation.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
Sportsmanship should never be a commentary on list composition, but instead on the other players behavior at the table. This is frequently not the case, and why it has largely fallen out of favor. Too many people take losing badly as a knock against their opponents sportsmanship. These people have obviously never competed in say sports if they feel that way. It also frequently got used to "chipmunk" players so that they could get their buddies to win the event.
Why shouldn't sportsmanship include what one brings to the table?
Look at John Jones, out of the UFC for what he brought into the ring.
How is getting all juiced up on spammy SCs any different?
Because one is against the rules of the game and the other isn't. What you are saying is Lebron is unsportsmanlike because he brings more tools to the game of basketball than you do. The John Jones comparison would be like someone bringing loaded dice. You literally have no concept of sportsmanship with regards to the rules of the game. If someone brings a legal list they are not being unsporting.
jeff white wrote: Sportsmanship was a general score.
If I saw nothing but SC soup and conscripts on the other side of the table then that score would suffer.
Besides all that, how is it competitive to use cardboard cutout characters to exploit loopholes in obviously halfassed rules systems? For whom is this seriously a rewarding challenge?
I say ban them all to forge a more redeeming mindset, narrative aside.
This is why I dislike tournaments. Sportsman score and Army Comp score are two completely different things.
If you faced someone who was the best opponent you've ever played a game with, the whole way through was enjoyable, entertaining and a laugh without a doubt the best game of 40k you've ever played - would you give them a 0 for sportsmanship? No you wouldn't. neg the crap out of their army comp score for sure, but the sporting part of it shouldn't suffer for it
(yes I realise the irony of playing a game being tabled by a 0 comp score army somehow being the most enjoyable game you've had - but the point still stands)
Point taken.
However, just as with the John Jones example, I feel that sportsmanship begins before the game actually begins.
Army composition, sure, but are "competitive" people scoring down other players when they bring SCs and spam loophole-exploiters?
From the feedback in this thread, alone, it seems that it is a point of pride.
Again, it seems that the mindset is one of MtG players.
The John Jones example fails though because cheating. What your suggesting is more like marking people down because they trained more than you prior to getting in the ring.
Oh it is not a mystery how to counter opSC "builds"...
Wait for rules corrections and nerf bats to shift model sales is maybe the easiest way.
Read about and learn from other experience then spend a ton of time and money " building" the new hotness which is hot simply because it does counter said opSC spam soup "builds" chasing the plastic dragon seems to be the most common "competitive" way to go about it.
Or just argue to have the tournaments FAQ the SC to unusability? That's even easier.
There are ways to deal with every single SC that is out there with what is currently available. That it may take more effort than you want to employ or require you to change your build is actually part and parcel of the game. It is at that point you need to ask yourself why you are playing the game and if you need to be more careful about your own opponents.
jeff white wrote: What is a mystery to me is how anyone could feel proud of winning while using such " builds".
Where is the virtue in that, this is the mystery to me.
And yes, if you can't paint due to unsteady hands then your career as a best of the best hobbyist is over.
Happening to me, at my age I can hardly see straight let alone paint at the level of detail that I could as a youth.
I am not complaining and don't mind losing.
I don't set out to lose but I learned not to set out to win every game either.
That is not the purpose of the game and hobby for me.
That is also not how I would define competitive play, just winning every game given halfbaked profit driven rules especially.
Then you are applying to me different motives than I have stated. I've known some very competitive people who are not WAAC. They push hard and play hard because they want to get the most out of themselves and expect others to do the same. It is not WAAC to play hard. If you don't like to play against people who play hard, then don't play against them. Obviously they aren't wanting to play your game any more than you want to play theirs. That still isn't justification to be derogatory towards someone who just plays hard.
jeff white wrote: I did attend one grand tourney in I think it was 1998.
I lost most of my games, but I will never forget it.
The trivia tests, the scoring, the gw staff wandering about asking questions.
The winners were of various categories, and winning every game was only one of them.
At that time, one could compete in different ways, and in a general way as a hobbyist.
I was only a few years into the hobby at that time and without time and money and in all seriousness without talent to be the best at any of them.
I did work harder going forward to get better in those various ways and that tournament experience taught me most about what the hobby really entails.
It is or at least was a lot more than chasing the plastic dragon for the win.
Maybe I am a bitter old man longing for the better days, or maybe I have a substantial point.
My purpose here is simply to forcefully represent this perspective, and hopefully influence the future direction of the "sport"
You seem to see the benefits of being competitive, i.e. you push yourself to get better. That's how a "just competitive" person is. They push hard and play hard to improve themselves. They expect others to do the same. These ones are confused by people who put themselves on the field without that expectation. On the other hand, they are as equally offended, if not more, by WAACers who do easter egg hunts in the rules or try to cheat by word-smithing new rules as any casual player is. Interestingly enough, the "just competitive" player wants a balanced game just as much as any casual. In fact, they probably want balance even more than any casual player may want.
jeff white wrote: In the end I am against SCs in "competitive" play because the practice discounts other aspects of the game and indeed as I understand it the competition that I feel are equally or more important to the hobby and lifestyle.
I am all for changes in the rules that encourage more p!ayer creativity and I am also for rules that demand more structure and force more restrictions on armies that are brought to competitive events as well as that come to be expected in friendly environments.
These days I have so little time I have yet to play a game with anyone in eighth edition.
I have one scheduled with the nearest fellow hobbyist that I am aware of on the other side of Seoul, but that is at least a month away.
I find a couple hours a week at my painting desk, a couple hours at forums, and i play podcasts at the gym and biking and walking the dogs and listen to battle reports as I edit papers and review other stuff for work.
I learn by twenty plus years of experience with other editions. I have played a lot of forty k. I am almost fifty years old and more than half of those have had paint on my thumbs and forefingers.
My investment in this discourse runs much deeper than winning a game.
And I take my position on principle, in the best interests of hobby and hobbyists as best as I can figure them in good conscience.
PS it is interesting to note that a bit more than half of current respondents would want to limit the use of SCs in some way. So this is not a cut and dried issue. Discourse must continue.
How do Special Characters discount painting or model-building? The only thing it really does is discount creativity in the army build, and that's simply because there are no options on the majority of them. Oddly enough, Marines get more options out of their SCs than most other armies because so many of them can either be on foot or ride a mount of some kind. Binary choices are boring for anyone when constructing a list. In fact it was one reason I stayed away from Necrons in 3rd-5th Edition. Their army construction is still rather simplistic when compared to the other big armies, but it is still far superior to the age of Disruption Fields on Warriors.
jeff white wrote: O, I am not surprised.
I am just saying that guy is a
You must have been real fun to play Goldeneye with.
jeff white wrote: Seems the concepts of "ethos" and "for its own sake" have gone over your head...
No, sorry, fully understood that.
Skip condescension and feel free to expand on your rebuttal that has zero for content.
We could then see if your opinion has any merit worth considering.
I enjoy 40k for what it is.
A list (net-list or otherwise) is not a means of gauging a person's enjoyment or sportsmanship.
Loading up on characters or avoiding them altogether is also not a means of identifying a person's enjoyment of the game for its own sake.
Now the "spirit" of the game can depend on the environment it is played in: a tournament = competitive which is dependent on the tournament rules.
The focus is the journey of doing your best and the process of play to learn and strive for a win without being a jerk about it.
Your opponent is valuable to you even if you are the selfish type: they are "donating" their time for you to practice.
They are like minded people you may want to play again so being nice and polite is a smart thing to do.
It takes a certain mind to be able to cut through the chaff and find the meat of the rules that matter in a game and identify the "value" of rules and units that make the best use of them.
This pretty much applies to anything.
It is a mental exercise of solving a problem or puzzle.
There is pride to be found to even make use of "profit driven rules" and maybe leverage them beyond the author's intent.
I find the comments from Jeff off-putting because he belittles the accomplishments of those who won or those who attempt to emulate or improve on those wins.
Sirlin gives a good perspective of the mental exercise of actually trying to perform winning moves and not adding excess baggage to one's thinking.
May I again say it is not inherent for a goal focused person to act like a jerk.
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win
You want to play fluff and narrative play, excellent, it is fun to do.
Characters add much to that play.
That is not the topic of the discussion here. For competitive play, it is just another item to evaluate and determine if it is optimal to use.
Removing characters makes little difference to the outcome it just moves the bar.
<edit> I really have to read more carefully and not take so long to post... saw the link before me of the same thing. Great minds think alike or fools seldom differ?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jeff white wrote: [I find a couple hours a week at my painting desk, a couple hours at forums, and i play podcasts at the gym and biking and walking the dogs and listen to battle reports as I edit papers and review other stuff for work.
I learn by twenty plus years of experience with other editions. I have played a lot of forty k. I am almost fifty years old and more than half of those have had paint on my thumbs and forefingers.
My investment in this discourse runs much deeper than winning a game.
And I take my position on principle, in the best interests of hobby and hobbyists as best as I can figure them in good conscience.
PS it is interesting to note that a bit more than half of current respondents would want to limit the use of SCs in some way. So this is not a cut and dried issue. Discourse must continue.
Yep, have a career here too.
Two years shy of 50 myself and been building models and gaming in a multitude of ways since I was 12.
Paint, glue... we can move away from comparing our authority or creds I am sure.
To believe many folk here are "only" concerned with getting that win is a bit beyond cynical.
This is a hobby.
We work hard so expect (demand?) enjoyment from our chosen pursuits.
We each derive different satisfaction from each element of it.
Playing Chess or Go or any other games are no less fun or a challenge they are just different and with varying groups and players associated with them.
Games have rules players agree to play to, if you choose to play contrary to that, you have broken that agreement or at least are playing a different game than what your opponent is aware of.
This is why groups come up with their house rules, so they get the game to a form of play they all prefer.
This removal of special characters is just another means of exercising preference, I still have not read anyone properly define what in particular will really get fixed by doing this.
In tournaments it is a bunch of strangers in a room who do not care whatsoever your idea of "proper" play unless you can point out the page it is written down.
jeff white wrote: PS it is interesting to note that a bit more than half of current respondents would want to limit the use of SCs in some way. So this is not a cut and dried issue. Discourse must continue.
Though because the poll isn't very well formatted, there's no indication if they mean "The handful of undercosted special characters need to be rebalanced." or "Ban the lot of them."
jeff white wrote: PS it is interesting to note that a bit more than half of current respondents would want to limit the use of SCs in some way. So this is not a cut and dried issue. Discourse must continue.
Though because the poll isn't very well formatted, there's no indication if they mean "The handful of undercosted special characters need to be rebalanced." or "Ban the lot of them."
Well, it does specify remove them, presumably ALL, or adjust points costs or something to that effect, which would mean less than banning but that something must be done.
Skip condescension and feel free to expand on your rebuttal that has zero for content.
We could then see if your opinion has any merit worth considering.
Looks like you have already made your judgment, huh?
A list (net-list or otherwise) is not a means of gauging a person's enjoyment or sportsmanship.
Loading up on characters or avoiding them altogether is also not a means of identifying a person's enjoyment of the game for its own sake.
Never had anything to say about that, but go for it chief,
Now the "spirit" of the game can depend on the environment it is played in: a tournament = competitive which is dependent on the tournament rules.
The focus is the journey of doing your best and the process of play to learn and strive for a win without being a jerk about it.
Your opponent is valuable to you even if you are the selfish type: they are "donating" their time for you to practice.
They are like minded people you may want to play again so being nice and polite is a smart thing to do.
It takes a certain mind to be able to cut through the chaff and find the meat of the rules that matter in a game and identify the "value" of rules and units that make the best use of them.
This pretty much applies to anything.
It is a mental exercise of solving a problem or puzzle.
There is pride to be found to even make use of "profit driven rules" and maybe leverage them beyond the author's intent.
I find the comments from Jeff off-putting because he belittles the accomplishments of those who won or those who attempt to emulate or improve on those wins.
Sirlin gives a good perspective of the mental exercise of actually trying to perform winning moves and not adding excess baggage to one's thinking.
May I again say it is not inherent for a goal focused person to act like a jerk.
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win
You want to play fluff and narrative play, excellent, it is fun to do.
Characters add much to that play.
That is not the topic of the discussion here. For competitive play, it is just another item to evaluate and determine if it is optimal to use.
Removing characters makes little difference to the outcome it just moves the bar.
Then why resist the removal of special characters, and why not embrace the rpg spirit that birthed 40k in the first place instead?
<edit> I really have to read more carefully and not take so long to post... saw the link before me of the same thing. Great minds think alike or fools seldom differ?
jeff white wrote: [I find a couple hours a week at my painting desk, a couple hours at forums, and i play podcasts at the gym and biking and walking the dogs and listen to battle reports as I edit papers and review other stuff for work.
I learn by twenty plus years of experience with other editions. I have played a lot of forty k. I am almost fifty years old and more than half of those have had paint on my thumbs and forefingers.
My investment in this discourse runs much deeper than winning a game.
And I take my position on principle, in the best interests of hobby and hobbyists as best as I can figure them in good conscience.
PS it is interesting to note that a bit more than half of current respondents would want to limit the use of SCs in some way. So this is not a cut and dried issue. Discourse must continue.
Yep, have a career here too.
Two years shy of 50 myself and been building models and gaming in a multitude of ways since I was 12.
Paint, glue... we can move away from comparing our authority or creds I am sure.
To believe many folk here are "only" concerned with getting that win is a bit beyond cynical.
But, isn't that what "competitive" is supposed to mean, at least according to the other posts in this thread?
This is a hobby.
We work hard so expect (demand?) enjoyment from our chosen pursuits.
We each derive different satisfaction from each element of it.
Playing Chess or Go or any other games are no less fun or a challenge they are just different and with varying groups and players associated with them.
Games have rules players agree to play to, if you choose to play contrary to that, you have broken that agreement or at least are playing a different game than what your opponent is aware of.
This is why groups come up with their house rules, so they get the game to a form of play they all prefer.
This removal of special characters is just another means of exercising preference, I still have not read anyone properly define what in particular will really get fixed by doing this.
In tournaments it is a bunch of strangers in a room who do not care whatsoever your idea of "proper" play unless you can point out the page it is written down.
Well, I tried to explain my position regarding the virtues of NOT using special characters, but I guess this went over your head, too, and I have other things to do than to type at a wall.
If you are seriously interested in a philosophical discussion, then I am in for it in good conscience and in good faith - no bull .
Start a thread or send me a PM.
For me, 40k and wargaming in particular have deep virtues and offer a unique opportunity to practice meta-level discourse over rules by which all participants in said discourse are simultaneously bound, mirroring moral and ethical and legal discourses. IMHO people need more practice in this, especially, as is likely more than evident in rapidly fracturing Western civil society. Seriously deep stuff. And deemphasizing fast food army construction is one important facet of this... That is my take. Anyways, if you are interested in discussing more, then I will make time. Otherwise, I voted, I note the split in the "community", and I am doing what I can to move discourse in a civil manner toward making things clear. Right now, I have other things to get done...
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: And you still have yet to create a list of all the broken Special characters.
Y? Who are you to give me homework?
"Special Characters are broken"
"Provide enough examples to prove your point"
"They're broken because I say so and you're playing the game wrong"
"You still have yet to provide examples"
"I can't because I'm wrong"
That's how the conversation is going now. If you can prove that even 1/5 of special characters that have been made are broken I'd love to concede. You won't be able to do that though. Here's the basic guideline:
1. You say this has been a constant, so it shouldn't be too hard to actually do this.
2. Choose any three editions from 4th to 8th edition. If this were consistent, you will be able to do this.
3. Compare all special characters to the codex equivalents, and prove why they're broke.
Hell, I can make it even easier for you. Go through the new SM, CSM, and Grey Knight Codices and show this. These are all new, so it won't be impossible to get the rules (which I'm sure was going to be your excuse with that last task. "None of the books exist anymore so I can't do it!!!!! Sorry!!!!!!!"). The Tactica threads have been super lively since those releases, so it'll be easy to obtain information you might not have.
You want to make claims like you do? Actually back them up. You have yet to actually do that.
Skip condescension and feel free to expand on your rebuttal that has zero for content.
We could then see if your opinion has any merit worth considering.
Looks like you have already made your judgment, huh?
What "went over your head" (do we really need to say this?) is you have expressed views quite vocally but no real reasoning for them.
I am sure you are a fan of the quote "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle" but do that enough and statements like yours appear as devil's advocate for the sake of it.
A list (net-list or otherwise) is not a means of gauging a person's enjoyment or sportsmanship.
Loading up on characters or avoiding them altogether is also not a means of identifying a person's enjoyment of the game for its own sake.
Never had anything to say about that, but go for it chief,
Not specifically but you appeared to support character removal.
Or are you just toying with the idea?
Talizvar wrote: Now the "spirit" of the game can depend on the environment it is played in: a tournament = competitive which is dependent on the tournament rules.
The focus is the journey of doing your best and the process of play to learn and strive for a win without being a jerk about it.
Your opponent is valuable to you even if you are the selfish type: they are "donating" their time for you to practice.
They are like minded people you may want to play again so being nice and polite is a smart thing to do.
It takes a certain mind to be able to cut through the chaff and find the meat of the rules that matter in a game and identify the "value" of rules and units that make the best use of them.
This pretty much applies to anything.
It is a mental exercise of solving a problem or puzzle.
There is pride to be found to even make use of "profit driven rules" and maybe leverage them beyond the author's intent.
This is where you and I part ways.
You seem to enjoy the exercise of debate.
I do have some curiosity on where we part ways here since again you are being rather vague.
I assume "being nice and polite is a smart thing to do" is not agreeable?
I find the comments from Jeff off-putting because he belittles the accomplishments of those who won or those who attempt to emulate or improve on those wins.
Of course you do.
Here lies evidence despite claims to the contrary that no "reasonable" discussion is wanted other than baiting people.
Sirlin gives a good perspective of the mental exercise of actually trying to perform winning moves and not adding excess baggage to one's thinking.
May I again say it is not inherent for a goal focused person to act like a jerk.
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win You want to play fluff and narrative play, excellent, it is fun to do.
Characters add much to that play.
That is not the topic of the discussion here. For competitive play, it is just another item to evaluate and determine if it is optimal to use.
Removing characters makes little difference to the outcome it just moves the bar.
Then why resist the removal of special characters, and why not embrace the rpg spirit that birthed 40k in the first place instead?
FINALLY the crux of the matter.
I was seriously afraid you would not make your point.
An RPG does not lend itself well to competitive play so it seems counterproductive to move in that direction.
Tournaments with a strong competitive element seems to be an anathema to your sensibilities.
Talizvar wrote: Yep, have a career here too.
Two years shy of 50 myself and been building models and gaming in a multitude of ways since I was 12.
Paint, glue... we can move away from comparing our authority or creds I am sure.
To believe many folk here are "only" concerned with getting that win is a bit beyond cynical.
But, isn't that what "competitive" is supposed to mean, at least according to the other posts in this thread?
You appear to only recognize the "ends" without looking at the "means" of achieving those goals.
Well, I tried to explain my position regarding the virtues of NOT using special characters, but I guess this went over your head, too, and I have other things to do than to type at a wall.
If you are seriously interested in a philosophical discussion, then I am in for it in good conscience and in good faith - no bull .
Start a thread or send me a PM.
For me, 40k and wargaming in particular have deep virtues and offer a unique opportunity to practice meta-level discourse over rules by which all participants in said discourse are simultaneously bound, mirroring moral and ethical and legal discourses. IMHO people need more practice in this, especially, as is likely more than evident in rapidly fracturing Western civil society. Seriously deep stuff. And deemphasizing fast food army construction is one important facet of this... That is my take. Anyways, if you are interested in discussing more, then I will make time. Otherwise, I voted, I note the split in the "community", and I am doing what I can to move discourse in a civil manner toward making things clear. Right now, I have other things to get done...
I am afraid that the issue is you are more than happy to have a deep philosophical discussion but you are missing a really key element: you do not wish to participate and possibly exercise those ideas by applying them.
The discourse has not been civil, certainly has not been clear... you yourself seem to think things go over our heads, the fault may lie with the delivery of those ideas and not explaining yourself more fully.
Your failure to articulate does not make your audience dunces and is insulting to assume or infer so.
Scott-S6 wrote:So you would rather not take the best tool allowed by the rules of the event and instead limit yourself to the rules that only exist in your head. This, of course, makes you better than the person who does not share your self imposed limitation.
You have no justification to belittle other people for taking "a grenade launcher to a gunfight" when you could have taken a grenade launcher too. If you choose not to, that's on you, not your opponent.
If you want to win, play the game. If you don't care about winning, play your game.
jeff white wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: And you still have yet to create a list of all the broken Special characters.
Y? Who are you to give me homework?
Well, I imagine you MUST have heard of "proving your point"?
No?
Well, it's simple - to convince others to seeing your point and supporting you, you need to PROVE that your point is correct.
Unfortunately, you don't seem to want/be able to prove your point, hence the amount of people disagreeing (very strongly).
As a question added to that - when was Telion broken? Chronus? Harker? Kell? Karamazov? Centos? Darkstrider? Aun'Va? Any of the Dark Eldar SCs? Illic Nightspear? Old One Eye? Lucius the Eternal? Karanak? Ad infinitum...
What's so OP about these characters?
Harker's pretty good right now. Telion had some nice Synergy in 7th with his warlord trait, to get Rending on whatever you wanted. But overpowered? Well, maybe Harker right now (since he gives rerolls to all those big artillery pieces), I'm not sure, I don't know enough about guard. But the rest? Nah?
On the criticism of characters side, Special characters almost always get more rules/equipment for their points than similar stock HQ choices. The issue with this tends to be that they either end up severely overcosted or severely undercosted depending on how powerful their combination of rules happen to be. GW tends to have trouble costing characters based on their actual on table effectiveness. I'm hoping that chapter approved etc will make tweaks to points costs to address some of these problems to make all models in the game playable.
Should competitive play do away with vehicles?
Should competitive play do away with weapons?
Should competitive play do away with models altogether?
Dice?
Tables???
Look, wanting fixes to balance certain specific models is one thing, we all have models we have issues with, and think need to be fixed. But special characters are a big part of the game, and just randomly saying "well, we should just get rid of part of the game for competitive play because I don't like it" isn't a fix. Competitive play and casual play should represent the same game. The fix comes in designing game balance so that armies are all equally as viable in competitive play as they are in casual (and are equally viable to each other)
jeff white wrote: PS it is interesting to note that a bit more than half of current respondents would want to limit the use of SCs in some way. So this is not a cut and dried issue. Discourse must continue.
Apparently your grasp of statistics is weak.
The current results (52/48) would indicate a high confidence of the results showing no preference in the respondents (based on your biasing of the poll with combining 2/3 choices into a single one for the results).
If we take the three options as being separate rather than abusing them as you've just done then No is the strongest result with a reasonable margin of confidence.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AnFéasógMór wrote: Should competitive play do away with vehicles?
Should competitive play do away with weapons?
Should competitive play do away with models altogether?
Dice?
Tables???
Look, wanting fixes to balance certain specific models is one thing, we all have models we have issues with, and think need to be fixed. But special characters are a big part of the game, and just randomly saying "well, we should just get rid of part of the game for competitive play because I don't like it" isn't a fix. Competitive play and casual play should represent the same game. The fix comes in designing game balance so that armies are all equally as viable in competitive play as they are in casual (and are equally viable to each other)
He's not interested in fixing game balance. His argument is special characters equal bad because I limit myself to not using them which makes me better than those that do just like my refusal to take a properly strong army also makes me better than those that do. Scrub mentality.
Breng77 wrote: On the criticism of characters side, Special characters almost always get more rules/equipment for their points than similar stock HQ choices. The issue with this tends to be that they either end up severely overcosted or severely undercosted depending on how powerful their combination of rules happen to be. GW tends to have trouble costing characters based on their actual on table effectiveness. I'm hoping that chapter approved etc will make tweaks to points costs to address some of these problems to make all models in the game playable.
I agree.
I can understand complaints about say RG, Celestine and a few others. They are clearly too cheap, and being so warp the game because there is no reason not to take them.
Banning all special characters however seems like a leap. There are plenty you will never see in a competitive game because they are obviously bad.
Its like "ban forgeworld". There is some stuff which is arguably too good - but there is far more rubbish. Its just the rubbish choices never make the table.
Jeff White is 100% correct, it used to be called "playing within the spirit of the game" and those who didn't were openly mocked in White Dwarf.
Fortunately it's largely just the internet that seems to advocate playing like this, the real world, as ever, is very different where the..."scrubs" outnumber the oddballs.
I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
Wakshaani wrote: I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
They should be saved for epic, 3000+ games.
Because those characters have NEVER done scouting missions before or been cut off from the rest of the main force and have to fight their way back? Or they're using a diversion force against a larger foe?
I know we joke about forging the narrative but gak it's like you didn't even try.
Wakshaani wrote: I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
I don't get that at all. In a non-narrative game who cares what characters are there? Surely it's far more important in a narrative game that the only characters present are those that are appropriate?
Wakshaani wrote: I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
They should be saved for epic, 3000+ games.
Because those characters have NEVER done scouting missions before or been cut off from the rest of the main force and have to fight their way back? Or they're using a diversion force against a larger foe?
I know we joke about forging the narrative but gak it's like you didn't even try.
Such as Sergeant Harker or Telion, for example. It's 100% fluffy to have them in a small detachment.
Wakshaani wrote: I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
I don't get that at all. In a non-narrative game who cares what characters are there? Surely it's far more important in a narrative game that the only characters present are those that are appropriate?
Wakshaani wrote: I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
They should be saved for epic, 3000+ games.
Because those characters have NEVER done scouting missions before or been cut off from the rest of the main force and have to fight their way back? Or they're using a diversion force against a larger foe?
I know we joke about forging the narrative but gak it's like you didn't even try.
Such as Sergeant Harker or Telion, for example. It's 100% fluffy to have them in a small detachment.
I'm not a fan of balancing entire armies around special characters, such as with Thousand Sons, Death Guard and now Ad Mech. Most characters are fine, and most armies seem to be fine. However, having the same special character in every army list for a certain army (think Death Guard with Typhus/Mortarion, Sisters with Celestine etc) doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I feel that the alternatives should be just as viable.
So… By building and playing a list “to win” in a competitive tournament would make me a waac and unsportsmanlike player? Seems to be a very very broad, sweeping statement that will be greatly mis-representing 99% of those at events.
Building a super strong list for a casual or narrative game and playing to win, sure, that could easily be seen as being more than a little waac, as this is an arena where “the spirit of the game” is not only fully embraced but completely exceeded. This is all about the “narrative” and all about laid back fun. But this is a totally different environment to a competitive game/event. Now, don’t get me wrong, competitive events still embrace the spirit of the game, but the stakes are, of course, higher.
If you expect to go to a competitive event/tournament and not see the clear majority of players taking the best lists they can put together, then you are going to the event with the wrong mindset. These are all about testing yourself and your list against other strong armies and players. Sure, you expect everyone to be a sportsman and not try to game every wording of every rule, but to expect them not to play to win in such an event is just plain stupid, and personally, I think you should just avoid tournaments if you expect them to be any different.
SC do not correlate to how “sportsmanlike” a player is, in a competitive environment or casual environment. The only SCs that tend to be a problem right now was BobbyG, Cawl, Celestine to an extent and Magnus and Mortarian. (Adding in Mort cos, let’s face it, he prob will be overly busted) Most of the “minor” characters aren’t a problem at all, and even then, if you know Magnus or Mort are being played, you can generally put together a list that will either counter them, or kill them in 1 turn. I’ve been planning an Eldar army based on the Path of the Warrior book trilogy containing Maugan-Ra, Baharroth and Karandras, but apparently, that’s too unsportsmanlike. Likewise, you’d be removing an entire sub faction in the Ynnari.
Personally, I think some of the fixes are pretty easy adjustments in regards to points or setup. For example, I think the Celestine should be required to take at least 1 Gemini (effectively bumping her up to 200 points). The fact the BobbyG gives 3CP (which would otherwise take 300+ points for Marines) can easily justify an increase in points. Cawl, currently seems cheap for what he can now do with the codex, but I’ll reserve judgement until more games are played/seen.
I think Jeff is mixing the competitive and casual environments up and somehow expecting/wanting them to be exactly the same. One is all about fun and narrative, the other is all about testing yourself and your army to the max. Sure, you can go in with “sub-optimal” or “non-meta” lists to test them out, something which I like to try myself as I prefer to try to beat the meta lists rather than conform to them, but, you have to do that knowing you are going to be facing a whole lot of cheese.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: And you still have yet to create a list of all the broken Special characters.
Y? Who are you to give me homework?
Because the burden of proof lays with the accuser. That's how it works.
Still has yet to do it with just the current Codices. They have no point to prove and I gave the EASY version of the task.
I believe that dictatorial types are not accustomed to being given tasks or to explain themselves.
I would suggest the more helpful thing is not the list itself but maybe the criteria of "broken".
I can only see that starting where the most "abuse" of an ability or power can be used as a force multiplier.
Auras appear to be the easiest to spot and then their accompanying force to augment. (Guilliman springing to mind).
The easiest means of limiting Auras is naming specifically the faction type, model type (i.e. infantry) or something of that nature can ramp-up or tone-down those.
I think many earlier suggested this.
Celestine has some nice unit Aura buffs but that 2+ (83% chance) to come back to life with all 7 wounds restored? Nasty.
Dante was more for his jumppack/mobility for getting in range of his aircraft and his re-roll buff (I would say the lesser of "broken" really, takes a bit of skill there...).
Commissars: taking a cheap low-leadership blob, sacrifice one guy and all is good. For those who like fluff, he may need to substitute a "to hit" roll in case he misses. Oh wait, this is not a "special character" of sorts.
In the end, these combinations make it interesting to see what can be done to leverage these models to make the most of that model or the units accompanying them.
The games would not be near as interesting getting all these rules into play.
Dai wrote: Jeff White is 100% correct, it used to be called "playing within the spirit of the game" and those who didn't were openly mocked in White Dwarf.
And where, exactly, are you getting this information that using SCs is not "playing within the spirit of the game"?
I would suggest in counter-point that going to a competitive event and not using all of the tools at your disposal to take the best army you can and play it as well as possible is not "within the spirit of the game".
Why are people being shamed for playing Warhammer 40,000 8e? I wasn't aware that somehow the restrictions of Warhammer 40,000 2e applied to 8e somehow.
Dai wrote: Jeff White is 100% correct, it used to be called "playing within the spirit of the game" and those who didn't were openly mocked in White Dwarf.
And where, exactly, are you getting this information that using SCs is not "playing within the spirit of the game"?
I would suggest in counter-point that going to a competitive event and not using all of the tools at your disposal to take the best army you can and play it as well as possible is not "within the spirit of the game".
I agree I had read a few times in White Dwarf the "spirit of the game" according to Jervis Johnson was basically Risk mixed with DnD: "Forge the Narrative" should spring to mind.
So the armies as a whole were updated together and there is a better handle on how to control the model rules.
The most telling comment is about "keywords" to be able to create "desired rules synergies", "while restricting unwanted rules combos".
I keep thinking it is merely a case of needing to tweak a few abilities when it comes to special characters and not "throw the baby out with the bathwater".
In a tournament, everything that is legal, should remain legal. Yes, I know seeing Rowboat/Celestine nigh on dozens of times gets boring, but I take as a sign that the player is there to win and I know it's going to be a tough game.
Me? I don't really take characters at all. Neither do most of my FLGS as tournaments. Christ, in a 7th edition tournament a guy in my FLGS came 5th using a pure Khorne Berzerker army. Was it full of characters? No. Did he understand the game, his skill, tactics and simply outsmarted his opponents? Yup.
Netlists mean feth all if you can't understand the synergies in it or the skill required to use. Characters can make your army stronger. Understanding HOW they make it stronger is the key. Banning characters is the easy way out.
Dai wrote: Jeff White is 100% correct, it used to be called "playing within the spirit of the game" and those who didn't were openly mocked in White Dwarf.
And where, exactly, are you getting this information that using SCs is not "playing within the spirit of the game"?
I would suggest in counter-point that going to a competitive event and not using all of the tools at your disposal to take the best army you can and play it as well as possible is not "within the spirit of the game".
I agree I had read a few times in White Dwarf the "spirit of the game" according to Jervis Johnson was basically Risk mixed with DnD: "Forge the Narrative" should spring to mind.
So the armies as a whole were updated together and there is a better handle on how to control the model rules.
The most telling comment is about "keywords" to be able to create "desired rules synergies", "while restricting unwanted rules combos".
I keep thinking it is merely a case of needing to tweak a few abilities when it comes to special characters and not "throw the baby out with the bathwater".
I'll go back to my question - is there anything from GW referring to this edition to suggest that using SCs is not playing within the spirit of the game?
Scott-S6 wrote: I'll go back to my question - is there anything from GW referring to this edition to suggest that using SCs is not playing within the spirit of the game?
Sorry, got too caught up in what Dai, had to say.
No, I have never seen anything that GW has published that would say fielding/playing characters are not within the spirit of the game.
In all honesty, would anyone expect them to down-play or speak badly of ANY of their product? I just got rid of my 15 years of white dwarf magazines that ended about 2015 and played since 2nd edition if any credentials are to be given.
BUT how you use the characters, especially in a way contrary to the "narrative" of what is 40k, you may see an argument from those like Jervis and possibly Andy Chalmers.
I honestly see competitive play and fluff play as two completely different goals where it is nice to meet somewhere in the middle.
I see rules, I figure out my strategy and figure out the optimal means of winning which is largely spent trying to overcome the random elements of dice throwing.
It is a legitimate means of fun, matching wits with another player is always a fun endeavor and I can admire how different people approach this puzzle.
Fluff play is literally a participative narrative, simulating/sandbox some part of the 40k universe and RPG some element of it.
You have an emotional investment in the characters at play and want to see them reach their intended goals so there is a little competition somewhere in there.
I greatly enjoy seeing painted miniatures on the table and these folk tend to invest time in making their models look good more than most.
I am more than happy to craft an army list that best fits the "fluff" of a given scenario so it makes sense in the narrative: this is different goal in a game, to tell a better story.
I usually talk ahead with these guys to make sure neither of us bring a rocket launcher to a knife fight.
I like making scenarios with a fair bit of control of what is allowed to go into that scenario.
A means of getting a match as close as possible, my goal is to get a close game, a "nail biter" because those are the most fun and memorable.
Like any good book, not knowing the outcome till the bitter end makes for the pleasing game AND narrative.
The players should be able to switch armies and have an equally good chance of a win.
Scott-S6 wrote: I'll go back to my question - is there anything from GW referring to this edition to suggest that using SCs is not playing within the spirit of the game?
Sorry, got too caught up in what Dai, had to say.
No, I have never seen anything that GW has published that would say fielding/playing characters are not within the spirit of the game.
In all honesty, would anyone expect them to down-play or speak badly of ANY of their product? I just got rid of my 15 years of white dwarf magazines that ended about 2015 and played since 2nd edition if any credentials are to be given.
BUT how you use the characters, especially in a way contrary to the "narrative" of what is 40k, you may see an argument from those like Jervis and possibly Andy Chalmers.
I honestly see competitive play and fluff play as two completely different goals where it is nice to meet somewhere in the middle.
I see rules, I figure out my strategy and figure out the optimal means of winning which is largely spent trying to overcome the random elements of dice throwing.
It is a legitimate means of fun, matching wits with another player is always a fun endeavor and I can admire how different people approach this puzzle.
Fluff play is literally a participative narrative, simulating/sandbox some part of the 40k universe and RPG some element of it.
You have an emotional investment in the characters at play and want to see them reach their intended goals so there is a little competition somewhere in there.
I greatly enjoy seeing painted miniatures on the table and these folk tend to invest time in making their models look good more than most.
I am more than happy to craft an army list that best fits the "fluff" of a given scenario so it makes sense in the narrative: this is different goal in a game, to tell a better story.
I usually talk ahead with these guys to make sure neither of us bring a rocket launcher to a knife fight.
I like making scenarios with a fair bit of control of what is allowed to go into that scenario.
A means of getting a match as close as possible, my goal is to get a close game, a "nail biter" because those are the most fun and memorable.
Like any good book, not knowing the outcome till the bitter end makes for the pleasing game AND narrative.
The players should be able to switch armies and have an equally good chance of a win.
How is any of this relevant to competitive play discussion? A full page of rambling that basically sums up to 'I play fluffy a lot and think it's fun' which is fine but has nothing to do with anything going on with this thread.
I don't think it makes sense to remove named characters in competitive, or any kind of play, for strictly the reason of "game balance."
In your own campaign setting? Do whatever you like. I know at one point in 7th we ran a "nonames" campaign that required no named characters because everyone had a generic character they would run and gain upgrades/relics with over time.
But it's just as asinine to outlaw named characters from competitive play because of Guiliman, celestine and cawl as it is to outlaw flyers because of Hemlocks and Stormravens, or outlaw infantry because of conscripts and brimstones.
The actual solution is to let GW know we prefer balance to their current spanking off to how great their current favored crop of special snowflakes is. if we're at a level in competitive play where you have to pay full price for models that only come into play when other models you had die and who then IMMEDIATELY have to take a morale test (see: Pink Horrors), then yes, obviously, you should have to pay reinforcement points for a character who comes back to life. How is this in any way different than summoning a new model onto the field, except for it being named "Gemini Specialius Snowflakia" instead of "blue horror #3456534"?
it's clear from the nerfs to Stormraven lists, razorwings, Conscripts (incoming) and others that GW is at least looking at and thinking about competitive balance now, and that's great. But if you'd pull out the same level of whining about seeing someone like Lukas the Trickster or Fuegan as you do about Guilliman or Cawl, then yeah, you're just arguing from scrub mentality, and you should really re-examine as to whether the "spirit of the game" restrictions you put on yourself are REALLY just personal preferences, or whether you just want an inbuilt excuse for yourself as to why games you lose aren't "your fault."
Scott-S6 wrote: I'll go back to my question - is there anything from GW referring to this edition to suggest that using SCs is not playing within the spirit of the game?
Sorry, got too caught up in what Dai, had to say.
No, I have never seen anything that GW has published that would say fielding/playing characters are not within the spirit of the game.
In all honesty, would anyone expect them to down-play or speak badly of ANY of their product? I just got rid of my 15 years of white dwarf magazines that ended about 2015 and played since 2nd edition if any credentials are to be given.
BUT how you use the characters, especially in a way contrary to the "narrative" of what is 40k, you may see an argument from those like Jervis and possibly Andy Chalmers.
I honestly see competitive play and fluff play as two completely different goals where it is nice to meet somewhere in the middle.
I see rules, I figure out my strategy and figure out the optimal means of winning which is largely spent trying to overcome the random elements of dice throwing.
It is a legitimate means of fun, matching wits with another player is always a fun endeavor and I can admire how different people approach this puzzle.
Fluff play is literally a participative narrative, simulating/sandbox some part of the 40k universe and RPG some element of it.
You have an emotional investment in the characters at play and want to see them reach their intended goals so there is a little competition somewhere in there.
I greatly enjoy seeing painted miniatures on the table and these folk tend to invest time in making their models look good more than most.
I am more than happy to craft an army list that best fits the "fluff" of a given scenario so it makes sense in the narrative: this is different goal in a game, to tell a better story.
I usually talk ahead with these guys to make sure neither of us bring a rocket launcher to a knife fight.
I like making scenarios with a fair bit of control of what is allowed to go into that scenario.
A means of getting a match as close as possible, my goal is to get a close game, a "nail biter" because those are the most fun and memorable.
Like any good book, not knowing the outcome till the bitter end makes for the pleasing game AND narrative.
The players should be able to switch armies and have an equally good chance of a win.
They did down play special characters in the past, some previous editions have seen a variety of limitations on SCs.
In a narrative game the use of special characters does need careful consideration - does it make sense for that character to be involved at that time and place. Of course, this also applies to non SCs and some squads. A chapter doesn't have a supply of disposable chapter masters.
None of which is relevant to competitive play. As for the rocket launcher to a knife fight comment, in a competitive environment the same idea applies but the problem is when someone brings a knife to a rocket launcher fight. Of course, the CAAC never turn that judgemental eye on themselves...
Scott-S6 wrote: They did down play special characters in the past, some previous editions have seen a variety of limitations on SCs.
Oh, yes, a variety of adjustments were made for tournament play but they always seemed to try very hard not to get them banned.
I have had trouble getting my hands on anything further where anyone from WD complained on the use of special characters.
In a narrative game the use of special characters does need careful consideration - does it make sense for that character to be involved at that time and place. Of course, this also applies to non SCs and some squads. A chapter doesn't have a supply of disposable chapter masters.
100% agree, it needs to "make sense" within the context of the 40k universe.
Things have to be really hitting the fan if any HQ is required to show up.
None of which is relevant to competitive play. As for the rocket launcher to a knife fight comment, in a competitive environment the same idea applies but the problem is when someone brings a knife to a rocket launcher fight. Of course, the CAAC never turn that judgemental eye on themselves...
It is hypocritical I agree.
Competitive events explain well the expectations.
CAAC has no qualms about roasting anyone bringing a "net-list" in pretty much any environment.
When warned, when in a tournament, it is incredibly irritating to see a fluff-bunny list across the table.
Heaven forbid there is a "sportsmanship" score because when they are utterly destroyed, no matter how much you try to hold off you will get a 1 or 0.
There will be complaints, "that is cheesy"... etc... and the only answer would be:
"You got to pick ANYTHING you want according to the rules, why am I not allowed?", that is because they are playing a different game in their head.
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ERJAK wrote: How is any of this relevant to competitive play discussion? A full page of rambling that basically sums up to 'I play fluffy a lot and think it's fun' which is fine but has nothing to do with anything going on with this thread.
Keep your fluff outta my crunch.
Because why is there ANY discussion on removing special characters? (this is the topic after all).
What is to be "fixed" in doing that? The only answer is because people think it will add more "fluff to your crunch".
The "I like to play fluffy" folk feel that tournaments need to "lighten up" on what they view as "abuse" in play.
I personally think that they just want to remove any "flavorful" elements of competitive play and be able to say that narrative play is much sexier since they can play anything they want because only they know how to play well with others. I believe I pointed all that out in my "ramblings" earlier if you were looking for relevance.
Wakshaani wrote: I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
They should be saved for epic, 3000+ games.
Why? Who says those two or three squads aren't that special character's private retinue? Do you think military leaders of that calibre travel alone when they aren't engaged in some enormous battle? Who's to say that they aren't on their way to some 20,000 point mega battle, and were ambushed by a small force hoping to take out the enemy commander before they could take the field?
Wakshaani wrote: I'm fully in support of them getting the boot for non-narrative games. Ditto with the Lords of War. But, I'm in the minority here. I just get me knickers in a twist over the idea that in every corner of the galaxy, Special Character X decides to stroll down to some patrol or two-three squad game, show up, and go, "Hai guys!"
They should be saved for epic, 3000+ games.
Why? Who says those two or three squads aren't that special character's private retinue? Do you think military leaders of that calibre travel alone when they aren't engaged in some enormous battle? Who's to say that they aren't on their way to some 20,000 point mega battle, and were ambushed by a small force hoping to take out the enemy commander before they could take the field?
People always forget this is a game meant to be in a larger scale war, it has narrative, it had many aspects to it.
good reason.
i'm using 
That's how it works.
