So here’s a super general purpose thread, where we can all moan incessantly about what used to be.
The only rule is no complaining, criticism or whining about Current Editions - or as is with 40K at the very minute, that transition period.
Oh no. I’m looking for ‘damned kids, get off my lawn” Toothless Old Timer whines. Let this serve as testament to what internet weirdos once adored and been shockingly robbed of. And yes, as you might’ve guessed, this is intended to be fairly tongue in cheek.
The opinions are factual, but hopefully dramatically overblown.
I’ll go fist!
1. Necromunda. Love it, love it, love it. It’s absolutely my jam and I want it on Toast of a morning. But….. WHERE ARE MY PIT SLAVES? It’s all fine and well delving into the depressing drudge of the average Underhiver, but what of those that some idiot welded a massive weapon to, treated incredibly poorly, then put on a Surprised Pikachu face when their staff/victims decided “nah, time you didn’t have a face”
Battletech was a great game before the Clan Invasion stuff completely wrecked the balance. We used to build lances by tonnage, but 200 tons of Clams grossly overshadowed 200 tons of Inner Sphere every day. Why would anyone not play Clans, now? Totally killed the game.
(Yes, I played Battletech back in the day and remember when TRO 3050 first came out...)
Damn kids and your fancy-schmancy models. Back in my day, all we had to play with was rocks and sticks, and we actually had to use our imagination if we wanted to play a game. Now, you just let some big company tell you what your imagination is. Next thing you know, it'll be the government and their mind control telling you what to imagine. But I'll be safe with my rocks and my sticks when you're all just pawns of Big Brother.
Valander wrote: Battletech was a great game before the Clan Invasion stuff completely wrecked the balance. We used to build lances by tonnage, but 200 tons of Clams grossly overshadowed 200 tons of Inner Sphere every day. Why would anyone not play Clans, now? Totally killed the game.
(Yes, I played Battletech back in the day and remember when TRO 3050 first came out...)
Yup. When clans dropped we had to change how we balanced things. Split into two teams. Set the tonnage for the IS side. Then both teams would bid downward to see how many tons they would need to take it. Very on-brand for clan warfare. Push to far down and even with the tech edge, you’ve be outgunned. Let the other guy get it too high, he’ll wipe the floor with you.
There were a lot of games like that. Core rules were good. Maybe the first expansion or two. Then the power creep starting spinning out of control. Back in the day our two big wargames were Battletech and Car Wars. We had to draw a hard line with CW. A lot of stuff just got silly later on.
Valander wrote: Battletech was a great game before the Clan Invasion stuff completely wrecked the balance. We used to build lances by tonnage, but 200 tons of Clams grossly overshadowed 200 tons of Inner Sphere every day.
Why would anyone not play Clans, now? Totally killed the game.
Why not play clans? Because we tried that, & like you, found it ruined the game we enjoyed.
So the answer is simple. We rarely play Clans. And when we do it's Clan on Clan.
BTech isn't a competitive game, and playing it as such is silly given the disparity in technology levels. As such, there are plenty of reasons to not use ClanTech in games.
As someone who had to play against it at the time, the 3.5E 'Chaos' Codex remains the greatest Codex-based travesty to ever emanate from the 40k studio.
Grognard complaining, you say? I've finally found my home. Buckle up, lads:
#1: Retcons
Charax wrote: people throw around the word "retcon" too freely these days when they actually mean "not mentioned within an arbitrary time period I choose to acknowledge as being valid".
Kids today and their not-knowing-what-words-mean. Just because something exists in a book written before you learned how to read and it hasn't yet been chewed up and regurgitated to you in the form of a 20 second Youtube Short against the background of some generic art and copyright-free music doesn't mean it was erased from existence. A retcon has to be retroactive - it needs to go "This is the way things are, they were never any other way". merely not talking about something for 20 years doesn't do that. and yes, Some stuff in 40k has legitimately been retconned, but it's far less common than you'd think.
#2 Loretubers If you learned about 40k from youtube, you haven't learned 40k lore.
Sorry, but you haven't. you've learned some guy's interpretation of selective bits of 40k lore that is almost always mixed in with their headcanon and is never, ever sourced. I mean, lexicanum can be pretty bad with sources sometimes but at least it pretends, a youtuber will just say stuff and give no indication of where it's from so you can't verify it.
and yes, I know, #NotAllLoretubers, but a lot of them.
#3 40K Anything above 2000 points should be a game of Epic, so should anything involving flyers and superheavies. 40k just breaks down at larger sizes. the importing of flyers and superheavies into 40k (and the general biggification of the game) has strained the mechanics to breaking point. 40k's a fun game, but it just doesn't handle some things well. Nothing wrong with some things being in another game system that does it better. Sorry Knights players, the models are really cool though.
#4 The Squats should have saved Baal This one isn't really a gripe, just some alt history. Imagine if the force that descended on Baal to liberate them from the Tyranids wasn't the Indomitus crusade, but was the Squats:
- The narrative symmetry alone: the Imperium failed to come to their aid to defend the Homeworlds from the Tyranids, but the Squats come screaming out of the great rift to save one of the Imperium's homeworlds from the Tyranids, because although they bear a grudge, showing mankind how it's done
- You can keep the Votann update, so now you have a bunch of pissed-off stunties with Dark Age tech who have spent the last century or more developing anti-tyranid weapons and defences, coming to kick Leviathan's teeth in
- Guilliman and the Indomitus crusade doing it is just boring, sorry.
#5 Newcromunda I'm with Doc on this one, they need Pit Slaves back. And Spyrers (and while you're at it you can actually retcon that "Tau tech ended up in spyrer suits across the other side of the galaxy" nonsense. Actually, take out the Patriarchs and Matriarchs too, dumb idea, ugly models). Ratskins could use a revamp too if you can avoid making them "native american stereotypes but with rats"
BTech isn't a competitive game, and playing it as such is silly given the disparity in technology levels. As such, there are plenty of reasons to not use ClanTech in games.
Valander wrote: Battletech was a great game before the Clan Invasion stuff completely wrecked the balance. We used to build lances by tonnage, but 200 tons of Clams grossly overshadowed 200 tons of Inner Sphere every day. Why would anyone not play Clans, now? Totally killed the game.
(Yes, I played Battletech back in the day and remember when TRO 3050 first came out...)
I'll go you one better. I started playing when it was BattleDroids, and then Lucasfilm got cranky about it...
Gods yes, I'm right there with you.
All these kids with their double heat sinks not learning how to manage their heat...
They were all awesome. Some were better than others, but they were all such labors of love and imagination.
Who ever would have expected Gorkamorka to be a thing??! And the expansion, Digganob? Mutant descendants of the original human explorers who crashed along with the Space Hulk? Necron-worshipping humans who also idolize the Orks? Communist Grots? *Chef's Kiss*.
And who doesn;t miss how Mordheim and Necromunda basically set the standard for sci-fi and fantasy skirmish systems. Every time a new skirmish game comes out, I swear that the first thing people tend to ask about is "How's the campaign system? Does it have any Mordheim-style skill and injury tables? Can one of my guys who goes out of action in a game end up losing D6 fingers??"
You damn kids don't know how good you have it these days, what with professionally produced miniatures in metal, plastic, and resin! In all sorts of genres! Historical, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Weird War II, zombie apocalypse, ad infinitium! Spoiled rotten you all are! Back in MY day, we had to CAST our own minis! From LEAD! And you know? We were HAPPY with what we got!
Tongue in cheek, yes, but I'm not kidding. I really did have to cast my own. And the molds I linked to are superior to mine as they are three cavity molds with a command element. Mine was a single line infantryman, and I had to cast two hundred of them one by one in a batch of three. Any more than that and you'll destroy the mold. The vulcanized rubber is heat-resistant, but not heat proof. Yet you get better results if the mold is warm, so it is a balancing act.
https://shop.princeaugust.ie/battle-of-waterloo-wargaming-moulds/?page=4
Vulcan wrote: I'll go you one better. I started playing when it was BattleDroids, and then Lucasfilm got cranky about it...
Gods yes, I'm right there with you.
All these kids with their double heat sinks not learning how to manage their heat...
Same here! And even with our single heat sinks, we were HAPPY with what we had!
All these kids with their double heat sinks not learning how to manage their heat...
That's deep...
Punk kids not getting off my lawn!
I miss the various insanity mechanics in RT. Being able to screech with my Squat bike/trikes and the pure loveliness of the vortex grenade that persists and screws both intended target and thrower.
Everything's just too expensive. I built entire armies for less than $1 per plastic figure. Want a Rhino? $20, same as in town.
Now you need a line of credit to buy this junk. I was at the hobby store the other day and they were asking a week's wages in the 1990s for some oversized Mecha ripoff (some sort of cross of a Battlemech and a French pre-dreadnought).
Great for the big spenders, but if I want Titans, I'll play Space Marine or maybe Epic.
Besides, what is it actually going to do? Either it's a watertower with guns or it goes full Godzilla on the map.
In my day, we didn't have such nonsense. Oh sure, there were those Armorcast things, but you had to ask permission to use them and no one took them seriously.
These kids are spoiled, spoiled, I tell ya, and don't know what a dollar is really worth. Trust-funders with servants painting their figures!
I know this is the wrong thread for sensible thoughts, but the pricing is not as bad as we think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s up over inflation, but I know I personally have my wallet stuck in 1990. Box of minis? Hardcover book? Should be $20, or thereabouts. Punch that number into the inflato-tron and it comes out to $46.42.
Nevelon wrote: I know this is the wrong thread for sensible thoughts, but the pricing is not as bad as we think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s up over inflation, but I know I personally have my wallet stuck in 1990. Box of minis? Hardcover book? Should be $20, or thereabouts. Punch that number into the inflato-tron and it comes out to $46.42.
And production quality is way up.
Oh really? Do the tanks have working running gear yet? I mean, they didn't back then, but they also didn't have a hole in the bottom.
Look, you Little Lord Fauntleroys with your fancy mansions can celebrate the fact that each and every one of your mass-army figures now has the ability to strike a unique disco pose, but I'm on a budget, and I'm just fine with having my line infantry use a standard pose.
You know, like every other miniatures game in history.
It's all well and good to break out Grey Poupon for the Easter ham, but during the week, it's the yellow stuff for the working man.
But I guess for you dot-com millionaires, who have internet things and flat screens and stuff, that's not a worry!
I'm trying to keep my Geo Metro in spare parts, you guys are all "but the quality!"
You keep the quality and give me back my rotary dial phone, which was free with the line AND IT WORKED.
My contribution would be the complaint others had about MY forces back in 3rd edition. An entire army (except scouts iirc?) that runs forward when it fails its morale checks, instead of running backwards? Who thought this was a good idea!!?
It was amazingly fun being the one on the other side of the table, though
Damn kids and their goldfish attention span these days. Back in the day we waited years - sometimes more than a decade - for a new codex or armybook, and we still survived!
Also: kida these days do not appreciate how good they have it with this newfangled interwebs (or whatever it is called). Back in the days all we had was word of mouth and a few magazines. You knew a new model or game was coming out when it was already in store, or advertised in the latest White Dwarf. And "the meta" was whatever the coolest dude at the store was playing at the time.
Damn kids. Wouldn’t know a good Battle Report if it was painted neon, standing in front of them, banging pots and pans together and shrieking in an attempt to stop those lazy Squirrels hibernating during the winter.
MS Paint field overviews! Cleverly restaged pivotal moments with proper photography. Jervis being hopeless at the games he designed. Adrian Wood being really good. Andy Chambers and his mutton chops, looking like a pound shop Lemmy. But the write up actually being informative.
Also, being able to blast the turret off an enemy tank, and the hilarity when it inevitably landed on something else valuable. Sometimes it was your own stuff getting squished, sometimes it was the enemy having salt rubbed into the wound. Elf’n’Safety improved somewhat after 2nd Ed, and it’s not been as much fun since
Darn kids don't know what it was like back when the Land Raider was the most impressive model in the game, shown regularly in the rulebooks and White Dwarf... and you couldn't even buy one, due to some numpty supposedly breaking the mould...
H.B.M.C. wrote: The 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex remains the greatest Codex-based travesty to ever emanate from the 40k studio.
One can not describe the Pain induced whenever one looks at that codex and it's fancy traitor guard artwork and contrasts that witht he fact that you COULDN'T FIELD CULTISTS ANYMORE.
And a whole lot of other nonsensical changes which have turned CSM into the most codex compliant of codex compliant there was at that time.
______________
For a more recent exemple though.
Standardised everything and clearly dictated rules by content of kit. Especially HQ.. looking at you GSC (or more recent CSM dropping ever more of their armory off)
Back in me day, we used to buy 3 biker squads and 2 nob squads and made our own darn biker waaghboss and his cronies. And the game was better off that way. And the sadest bit, we nowadays got 3d printers and instead of embracing that GW decided and with gw the community that kitbashes and conversions are the spawn of evil and or modelling for advantage.
leopard wrote: Damned kids and how they insist a game can't have page after page of flow charts and lookup tables just to move a model
hell I've had people call star fleet battlescomplicated for feths sake
if you can't win a rules argument by killing your opponent with a rulebook its not a game worth playing
and don't get me started on how kids today don't know the true meaning of "dreadsock"
Yeah, people whinging about having to carry a rule book and a codex or two have no idea how good they have it.
With Star Fleet Battles, your rule book was also your chair. Just bring in that storage tub and have a seat, good to go.
Mind you I never actually played a game with it (too much discussion about the rules), but the point of gaming is to talk and hang out, not move toys back and forth.
These young pups think that gaming is about gaming. Spoiled fools.
Oh man, I totally forgot about how many rulebooks you had to lug around . Who didn't have a small forest's worth of useless paper after playing several years, too?
leopard wrote: Damned kids and how they insist a game can't have page after page of flow charts and lookup tables just to move a model
hell I've had people call star fleet battlescomplicated for feths sake
if you can't win a rules argument by killing your opponent with a rulebook its not a game worth playing
and don't get me started on how kids today don't know the true meaning of "dreadsock"
Yeah, people whinging about having to carry a rule book and a codex or two have no idea how good they have it.
With Star Fleet Battles, your rule book was also your chair. Just bring in that storage tub and have a seat, good to go.
Mind you I never actually played a game with it (too much discussion about the rules), but the point of gaming is to talk and hang out, not move toys back and forth.
These young pups think that gaming is about gaming. Spoiled fools.
Totally, with a proper game you can own the dozens of books required for years before you even realise its actually a game, and for any real game the 'pre-game discussion' phase can last years, I mean some of the best games technically written from the 1970's are still in the early playtest phase
if the completed game doesn't take up an entire all and require specialised contractors to move it its obviously been streamlined far too much to cope with the ADHD generation and their reduced attention spans, I mean they can't even keep focus for a year or two however will they manage the multi year real time experience of a proper game
and thats before you get into how they think a D1000 table is scary, ha! thats just to tell you which other book to look in to find the actual tables you will need to simply work out the modifiers required
Back in my day, if you wanted a QRS you made it your gorm-darn self! You didn't wait and expect the publisher to do it for you!
Plus, you did it on a typewriter or word processor, made copies of it at the library for a nickel, and then begged them to laminate it for you for pick-up a few days later.
leopard wrote: hell I've had people call star fleet battlescomplicated for feths sake
if you can't win a rules argument by killing your opponent with a rulebook its not a game worth playing
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote: With Star Fleet Battles, your rule book was also your chair. Just bring in that storage tub and have a seat, good to go.
Looking at the storage tub my Star Fleet Battles stuff is in and realizing would, indeed, make a decent chair at need...
A d1000 chart? Heck, play Rolemaster and deal with their critical charts! Different charts for slashing, stabbing, crushing, animal attacks, and who knows what else? Anything from 'take extra damage' to 'you're dead, sucks to be you' over dozens of d100 charts. These kids with their 'double damage' critical hits just don't know how good they have it now!
Back in my day, you had to make your own terrain. You couldn't buy it in a shop.
In fact, you couldn't even buy a book on how to make it! You pretty much had to piece together how to do it from dozens of magazine articles, snippets dropped in the comments of photographs, railroad modeling books, or hoping some old salt would tell you the secret.
More often than not, you learned by doing it, failing, and then trying again until it looked passable enough to put on your table of other suitably DIY terrain.
That's back when Wargaming WAS Punk Rock for NERDS!
Valander wrote: Battletech was a great game before the Clan Invasion stuff completely wrecked the balance. We used to build lances by tonnage, but 200 tons of Clams grossly overshadowed 200 tons of Inner Sphere every day. Why would anyone not play Clans, now? Totally killed the game.
(Yes, I played Battletech back in the day and remember when TRO 3050 first came out...)
I'll go you one better. I started playing when it was BattleDroids, and then Lucasfilm got cranky about it...
Gods yes, I'm right there with you.
All these kids with their double heat sinks not learning how to manage their heat...
That last line really got me, goddamnit.
I was totally the newbie who took the Clan mechs. Back in the day I had a Clan Wolf patch too! My first exposure was the Battletech Compendium, and those full color pics of the custom Mad Cat model sold me so hard. That was my intro to wargaming. The only Inner Sphere mech I really liked was the Marauder. . . ahem, I mean the Zentraudi Officer Battle Pod . . .
Practicing my drawing skills by copying the Marauder pic out of the 3025 Technical readout, during summer camp, while all the other kids played on the beach. This was the way.
The only way to learn SFB was to get your teeth kicked in repeatedly with surprise rules. Kids these days don’t have the patience for that. They want fair games they can learn the rules and have a chance of winning in under a year.
Now come over here and let me show you how tractor beams, targeting rules, and drones a/o plasma torps interact…
But for being thicker then the yellow pages (another thing kids these days don’t know) the rulebook was so well cross referenced. Rules arguments were swift, sharp, and brutal. So we could spend the hour we could have been arguing filling out our EA forms.
Ah yes, Chartmaster. I might have a book around here for that somewhere. I recall a critical hit through the ear, which instantly killed the victim while also removing excess wax.
The internet has totally changed the concept of gaming. Back in the day, the games came with catalogs, which were often the only way you could know what else was out there.
I remember these circulating among gaming friends as we debated what purchase might be worthwhile. Store selection was spotty, so mail order was often the only option.
When I got a little older, one of my stores carried copies of Fire & Movement as well as the resurrected Strategy and Tactics, both of which had game reviews. No unboxing videos back then, no sir. Just a few column inches of some nerd's take on it with maybe a grainy black and white photograph of parts of the map.
There was a piercing crit, high on the chart that was “shot passes through both ears, hearing impaired” but did not specifically kill you. Which was odd, because at the place it was in the chart it should have, and rolemaster did not flinch from telling you in excruciating detail how messed up you were.
Great system in the hands of a good GM. But required a lot of system mastery. Which kids these days just don’t have the patience for.
Valander wrote: Battletech was a great game before the Clan Invasion stuff completely wrecked the balance. We used to build lances by tonnage, but 200 tons of Clams grossly overshadowed 200 tons of Inner Sphere every day. Why would anyone not play Clans, now? Totally killed the game.
(Yes, I played Battletech back in the day and remember when TRO 3050 first came out...)
Love all the Star Fleet Battles references. I've got just about everything released for that game, currently in a large cardboard box that is probably too heavy for me to lift by myself (which has as much to do with my complete lack of physical fitness as it does to how many books and stuff are in the box). Never have played many games due to complete lack of players locally, but it's a cool system and a cool offbeat-Star Trek setting.
Going back to G.O.G mode for a minute - people who CBA to use the right word when posting on t'internet, and then throw a hissy fit when you point it out - moral instead of morale, for example, or calvary instead of cavalry.
How you use language is important, damn it - in a written medium, it's the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse, and helping your uncle jack...
In my day, you’d tear through the Dungeon, show a Bloodthirster who’s boss, make a small fortune, retire to the inn, then get horribly murdered to death off a street urchin when you went for a wee. Or fall off a cliff. And that’s if you were lucky, because you were dead and it didn’t matter. It’s when you got mugged and everyone knew the daemon slaying hero was in fact terrified of children.
or take Traveller where most gamers today would be dead during character creation, a risk that any proper game system includes
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ZergSmasher wrote: Love all the Star Fleet Battles references. I've got just about everything released for that game, currently in a large cardboard box that is probably too heavy for me to lift by myself (which has as much to do with my complete lack of physical fitness as it does to how many books and stuff are in the box). Never have played many games due to complete lack of players locally, but it's a cool system and a cool offbeat-Star Trek setting.
the brats today who are not fit to lick the boots of proper gamers while they lounge on my lawn, sitting on my tank, wouldn't know a Lyran Wildcat from the Hydran Warrior, I blame the parents
Damn kids with their one Leadership characteristic for all purposes! In my day we had Intelligence, Cool, Willpower AND Leadership, and each one did a different thing.
Nowadays they have their telephones, photographic cameras, high fidelity systems, personal computers and paperless atlases all in their pockets. Grumble mumble rhubarb grumble
Juxtimon wrote: Damn kids with their one Leadership characteristic for all purposes! In my day we had Intelligence, Cool, Willpower AND Leadership, and each one did a different thing.
Nowadays they have their telephones, photographic cameras, high fidelity systems, personal computers and paperless atlases all in their pockets. Grumble mumble rhubarb grumble
Intelligence, Cool and Willpower had to be removed as kids today lack all three
The grimdark stuff is just fine, but I need that light at the end of the tunnel that isn't a freight train. I still love first ed, and I still have a Sensei warband, that I drag out whenever you consarned whippersnappers give granddad a chance to play.
Kelvis Kraen is his name. He wields a force sword and neuro-disruptor. Along with his beloved pet/pal Ogryn Stosh, the Navigator Estradio Deltovan, and a reformed Chaos champion (yep, the Sensei could make that happen!) named Kargryn Darkfire (dorky, but, hey, its 40k) he roams Twilight Sector, dodging and battling the Imperium and Chaos both and serving the Starchild and the Sensei Master Light of the Son.
In my day, computer games took ages to load. And were quite often not worth the bother.
They think Elden Ring is hard? At least you can complete that. Try Jet Set Willy. Where you literally couldn’t complete the game, due to programming bugs. You think a Horse ascending into the upper atmosphere is a bug? You don’t know you’re born.
What’s wrong with doodling crude images on a school textbook, eh?
Do you know how long it would take to send that doodle over the internet with a 300 baud acoustic modem?
You fancy kids with your internet games. In my day we had play by mail. You wrote your moves on paper, stuck it in an envelope with a stamp, sent it in to be processed, and had to wait a month for the results!
What’s wrong with doodling crude images on a school textbook, eh?
textbooks?
you had textbooks?
posh modern rubbish, we had to make do with scratching into slate, then being beaten to death with it at least three times a week, but never more than four, not like them posh swines
Dysartes wrote: As someone who had to play against it at the time, the 3.5E 'Chaos' Codex remains the greatest Codex-based travesty to ever emanate from the 40k studio.
Please, show us on the teddy bear where the Iron Warrior touched you.
And more importantly: please tell me what was the problem with the Night Lords list. I've asked this question multiple times to the 3.5 detractors, and have yet to get an answer. We didn't all play Iron Warriors back then, after all (and those of us that didn't had to deal with them just like everyone else).
Nevelon wrote: The only way to learn SFB was to get your teeth kicked in repeatedly with surprise rules. Kids these days don’t have the patience for that. They want fair games they can learn the rules and have a chance of winning in under a year.
Now come over here and let me show you how tractor beams, targeting rules, and drones a/o plasma torps interact…
But for being thicker then the yellow pages (another thing kids these days don’t know) the rulebook was so well cross referenced. Rules arguments were swift, sharp, and brutal. So we could spend the hour we could have been arguing filling out our EA forms.
And even if you can get a kid interested, they just can't cope with fractional power points during EA as you try to teach them the full rules...
Nevelon wrote: The only way to learn SFB was to get your teeth kicked in repeatedly with surprise rules. Kids these days don’t have the patience for that. They want fair games they can learn the rules and have a chance of winning in under a year.
Now come over here and let me show you how tractor beams, targeting rules, and drones a/o plasma torps interact…
But for being thicker then the yellow pages (another thing kids these days don’t know) the rulebook was so well cross referenced. Rules arguments were swift, sharp, and brutal. So we could spend the hour we could have been arguing filling out our EA forms.
And even if you can get a kid interested, they just can't cope with fractional power points during EA as you try to teach them the full rules...
Sadly I no longer have my old SFB stuff. A log of games from that era were a bunch of us pooling out money and buying for the group. My friend Dave ended up with the SFB when we split it up years past.
I did end up with the 40k stuff and enough OGRE to crack the earth open, so can’t complain too much.
Cruiser duels using the tournament pack was our preferred SFB format, but we’d mix it up from time to time.
I flew Hydrans by preference. Hellbores, fusions, fighters, and phaser-g’s. Good times.
Back in the olden days (back in the day is too modern), your necrons were a mysterious raiding force, small and elite. It was like a bunch of Boy Scouts fighting the predator and that’s a big part of their original draw. They didn’t need a skagillion pages of background to make them interesting.
In my day, computer games took ages to load. And were quite often not worth the bother.
They think Elden Ring is hard? At least you can complete that. Try Jet Set Willy. Where you literally couldn’t complete the game, due to programming bugs. You think a Horse ascending into the upper atmosphere is a bug? You don’t know you’re born.
Luxury! In my day, you didn't buy disks or downloads, you bought the code. That is, you got to program the game yourself. "Here, type in 2,000 lines of code without typos (and hope our editors were sharp) in order to play your feeble computer game."
No wonder Avalon Hill games were more popular. Third Reich was breeze compared to this torment.*
*Did anyone ever really figure out the naval rules?
What’s wrong with doodling crude images on a school textbook, eh?
Do you know how long it would take to send that doodle over the internet with a 300 baud acoustic modem?
You fancy kids with your internet games. In my day we had play by mail. You wrote your moves on paper, stuck it in an envelope with a stamp, sent it in to be processed, and had to wait a month for the results!
I think you’ll find that entirely depends on just how unfeasibly prehensile the [REDACTED] was, no?
What’s wrong with doodling crude images on a school textbook, eh?
Do you know how long it would take to send that doodle over the internet with a 300 baud acoustic modem?
You fancy kids with your internet games. In my day we had play by mail. You wrote your moves on paper, stuck it in an envelope with a stamp, sent it in to be processed, and had to wait a month for the results!
I remember those days. I don't think any of those games ever reached a conclusion. Most never got past the second turn.
They made a great range of games, from beer and pretzels, to boxes full of maps and chits.
Yes and no.
I loved Starship Troopers in principle, except the Bugs never won, and the Skinnies were so laughable there was not point in making them ever take the field. We did try a homegrown scenario, once, where a squad of cap troopers was sent into a Skinny world in a cloaked ship to take out the local ruler, where essentially infinite Skinny reinforcements kept coming onto the field. That was fun, but otherwise, forget it.
The Bugs could win in the scenario (was it Planet P?) where the cap troopers were badly damaged, but that was it. They could win the scenarios that included nukes, but those were kind of pointless anyway.
Long and the short though, I hate chits and love miniatures. Thus, AH was always kind of an anathema for me.
Fully sculpted hard plastic terrain? Obscene Opulence!
We had to make our own. Books for hills, isn’t, marvellous.
And even when we did get pre-made terrain, it was more lethal to your models than any Lascannon as the cardboard would fall off.
Kids these days think they’re slumming it with MDF terrain. I mean, that’s not just lazy, but being a lazy cheapskate. Typical Millennial Behaviour!.
Hypocrites going on about Greta Thunberg and saving the planet and they’re not even making terrain from whatever crap they’ve got lying around - they’re buying it, and it’s made from oil! And it comes in perfectly good terrain fodder packaging.
Pharisastic Poppinjays and Work Shy Fops the lot of them!
Yes the Thesaurus is getting a work out. Yes it’s a print version. Yes I’m asking my Dad what a word means rather than check the Dictionary.
we can't afford gutters round here, we have to make do we potholes, and we had to steal them, and toy tell kids today and do they believe a word of it?
I have incidentally pointed this thread to my youngest and he loved it
In my day, computer games took ages to load. And were quite often not worth the bother.
They think Elden Ring is hard? At least you can complete that. Try Jet Set Willy. Where you literally couldn’t complete the game, due to programming bugs. You think a Horse ascending into the upper atmosphere is a bug? You don’t know you’re born.
Luxury! In my day, you didn't buy disks or downloads, you bought the code. That is, you got to program the game yourself. "Here, type in 2,000 lines of code without typos (and hope our editors were sharp) in order to play your feeble computer game."
No wonder Avalon Hill games were more popular. Third Reich was breeze compared to this torment.*
*Did anyone ever really figure out the naval rules?
I had Third Reich but I never found anyone willing to play it.
What was up with the naval rules? I'd read through the rules way back in the day, but I don't remember them all that well.
wasn't so much three Stinger-2 into point blank, not three as such.. more like the surviving dozen or so from the 24.. in groups, on his fleet except the one ship to the rear
called it a game at that point, he has X-Plasma which was impressive but the fighters got to him before it got to me as he launched quite late
the Stinger-H played with that rear ship and the escort fighters pretty much took down the plasma
had he fired earlier or considered fighters to be dangerous, I mean the sheets were on the table, I made a point of not having a look at his (because I knew what an X-Ship was), he just assumed any non-X ship was dead meat
leopard wrote: thought about Third Reich, but I didn't want one of these modern games so still looking for the first one...
Oh, I understand. I was nervous about buying it, since it didn't use the traditional Avalon Hill color palette of pink and blue. Still, it preserved the ugly white hex-conforming aesthetic that old-time gamers find so familiar.
Any game that doesn't have an "A Elim" or "D Elim" combat result is made for whiny brats who can't handle the doomstack going bye-bye.
Kids today have no sense of the crushing disappointment and futility that real wargames bring. That truly is the best training for life.
Damn kids and their Andy Chambers rock-star worship! Man roont 40K with his abstract 3rd edition nonsense. 2nd edition was a gods-damned trainwreck at its end, but it was OUR gods-damned trainwreck!
Yes, I'm still bitter.
And just to set off the modern terrain-hating grognards, I've been printing heaps of terrain lately. I have very mixed emotions about it.
Gitkikka wrote: Damn kids and their Andy Chambers rock-star worship! Man roont 40K with his abstract 3rd edition nonsense. 2nd edition was a gods-damned trainwreck at its end, but it was OUR gods-damned trainwreck!
Yes, I'm still bitter.
Amen, brother. Preach it!
And just to set off the modern terrain-hating grognards, I've been printing heaps of terrain lately. I have very mixed emotions about it.
NO.
Terrain should be made of packing foam. Or sprues. I have a "pumping station" that actually uses fixtures pulled out of a toilet tank. Looks great, btw.
This business of buying terrain is the devil's work, and I won't stand for it.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Terrain should be made of packing foam. Or sprues. I have a "pumping station" that actually uses fixtures pulled out of a toilet tank. Looks great, btw.
This business of buying terrain is the devil's work, and I won't stand for it.
Heartily agreed . Buying terrain wasn't remotely an option that I knew of, and everyone had to get creative with it. One of the best parts of the hobby, back in the day!!
Darn Kids and all this constant change and new releases.
I have a job, and kids and an annoying spouse that wants to spend time with me. The once every other month I get to meet up with friends and play a game I want to play something that we know how to play, not have to read all the new rules added to a game since we last meet up. I want something that will still be the same in 20 years time when I fancy playing it again.
And whats this starship battles nonsense, star trek starship tactical combat simulator played with micro machines is the only space game that will ever bring you joy.
Also bring back ratskins, and spyers and scavvies and all original lore from necromunda. To hell if it offends people nowadays.
Tamereth wrote: Darn Kids and all this constant change and new releases.
I have a job, and kids and an annoying spouse that wants to spend time with me. The once every other month I get to meet up with friends and play a game I want to play something that we know how to play, not have to read all the new rules added to a game since we last meet up. I want something that will still be the same in 20 years time when I fancy playing it again.
And whats this starship battles nonsense, star trek starship tactical combat simulator played with micro machines is the only space game that will ever bring you joy.
Also bring back ratskins, and spyers and scavvies and all original lore from necromunda. To hell if it offends people nowadays.
if it offends people so much the better, kids today wouldn't go and read the background to understand it
give them Slaves to Darkness and make them read the mutation tables
1st edition AD&D (and D&D before it) was not a fun game, at least not before you hit like 5th level and could stop worrying about giant rats. 2nd edition was better but still not great. For games of that era (deep breath) Palladium Fantasy was far better. Things like a combat system that included dodges and parrys, and a skill system that let players add hit points through training were true improvements.
CvT wrote:That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of British plumbing.
It’s worse than our teeth.
^^^^ this
Britain did all it's plumbing like 150 years ago, then stopped bothering after that
you simply cannot improve upon perfection
It does seem like it's really a project to breed Gelatinous Cubes, and actual waste disposal is just a convenient side effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatberg#Notable_fatbergs (good to see my new home getting a few honourable mentions lol)
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: To be fair, I do live in an Edwardian building, so the root plumbing probably is knocking on for about that old!
New Builds are crap. Paper thin walls. Tiny rooms. Too many units in too little space. Pah!
Gimme my old buildings. Made proper. Like they used to be.
Are you prepared to pay the craftsman and controll the site and their work? Also considering competition law you may well also get not decent craftsman but outsourced "Manpower"* due to law.
Because that is what you will have to do, atleast from experience from my brief stints in construction, ironicaly in plumbing and heating sector....
Tamereth wrote: Darn Kids and all this constant change and new releases.
I have a job, and kids and an annoying spouse that wants to spend time with me. The once every other month I get to meet up with friends and play a game I want to play something that we know how to play, not have to read all the new rules added to a game since we last meet up. I want something that will still be the same in 20 years time when I fancy playing it again.
And whats this starship battles nonsense, star trek starship tactical combat simulator played with micro machines is the only space game that will ever bring you joy.
Also bring back ratskins, and spyers and scavvies and all original lore from necromunda. To hell if it offends people nowadays.
Ah... Star Fleet Battles predates FASA's Starship Tactical Combat Simulator by a good decade. You've been out-grognarded!
I had that game too. The rules are a lot slimmer, and gameplay is noticeably faster than Star Fleet Battles, but a fair amount of the basic mechanics are very close, if not identical. It wouldn't take long for you to learn Star Fleet Battles if you're comfortable with the STCS.
But SFB allows for things that STCS does not. I had great fun with my Klingon battlecruiser, taking out all the surviving control spaces with hit-and-run raids on my opponent's ships after the first battle pass and leaving their ship uncontrolled.
Until they started posting guards, anyway.
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Kid_Kyoto wrote: Someone has to say this so it may as well be me.
1st edition AD&D (and D&D before it) was not a fun game, at least not before you hit like 5th level and could stop worrying about giant rats. 2nd edition was better but still not great. For games of that era (deep breath) Palladium Fantasy was far better. Things like a combat system that included dodges and parrys, and a skill system that let players add hit points through training were true improvements.
Was that the system where, no matter how experienced and/or how agile your character was, unless they actually burned an action to dodge they got hit 75% of the time?
Star Fleet Battles.. *goes misty-eyed* a game where you could fly a D7C, and find an opponent who got used to hit & run raids so started posting guards
so then you launch an attempt to capture him, with all his marines on guard duty and just flat out take the ship from under his nose
Covering a model in unnecessary detail and faction bling does not make a superior 'design' or aesthetic! There is a beauty in simplicity, and more crap stuck to or etched into it does not make a model somehow 'better' than a serviceable representation of a basic soldier/trooper/whatever, and it certainly doesn't justify 'luxury' pricing!
And posing a model leaping off the rock or enemy helmet that just happens to be everywhere he goes might be more 'dynamic', but that's not automatically 'good'! Some times it's 'ridiculous'!
[stops shaking fist, but keeps an eye on that cloud...it better just move on out of here, if it knows what's good for it]
Covering a model in unnecessary detail and faction bling does not make a superior 'design' or aesthetic! There is a beauty in simplicity, and more crap stuck to or etched into it does not make a model somehow 'better' than a serviceable representation of a basic soldier/trooper/whatever, and it certainly doesn't justify 'luxury' pricing!
And posing a model leaping off the rock or enemy helmet that just happens to be everywhere he goes might be more 'dynamic', but that's not automatically 'good'! Some times it's 'ridiculous'!
[stops shaking fist, but keeps an eye on that cloud...it better just move on out of here, if it knows what's good for it]
[shakes fist at possibly, but almost certainly not the same cloud]
The other side of that coin, without being contrarian to your good senior self?
Stupid Rackham fans and their obsession with the “filigree” which only ever proved to be really really good painting! Models bald as a baby’s bum in terms of fine detail. Grrrrrrr!
[being Britain, cloud literally rains on my parade]
I remember when the things that people remembered were better things. Reminiscences were better in those days, before people started remembering things that aren't worth remembering.
amazingturtles wrote: I remember when the things that people remembered were better things. Reminiscences were better in those days, before people started remembering things that aren't worth remembering.
Not as good as I remember them being, you whippersnapper guttersnipe you!
amazingturtles wrote: I remember when the things that people remembered were better things. Reminiscences were better in those days, before people started remembering things that aren't worth remembering.
Not as good as I remember them being, you whippersnapper guttersnipe you!
That's true. I'd forgotten to have going to be remembering that, back in the day.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Someone has to say this so it may as well be me.
1st edition AD&D (and D&D before it) was not a fun game, at least not before you hit like 5th level and could stop worrying about giant rats. 2nd edition was better but still not great. For games of that era (deep breath) Palladium Fantasy was far better. Things like a combat system that included dodges and parrys, and a skill system that let players add hit points through training were true improvements.
Look at the guy pushing this new-fangled "advanced" D&D! The first D&D was clearly the best. Do you really need more than three alignments - the Good, the Bad, and the Wishy-washy? No!
Spare me your chaotic neutral good with evil tendencies and your fighter/cleric/monk/illusionist/barbarian.
There are four archetypes and three demihumans. That's all you freaking need.
And yes, I went "retro" in the late 80s with some of my friends and we had a blast. Much less complexity made for better storytelling.
I also did a revival just a few years back and once again, we found it perfectly adequate - you don't need a rule for every stinking thing in the game like "speed factors" and such.
Last time I checked, the current D&D is closer to that than any other previous edition.
Also, one of my favorite dungeons was Drums on Fire Mountain, produced by TSR UK, aka Games Workshop. Tom Kirby was credited with the design and the credits are a virtual who's who of the early company.
amazingturtles wrote: I remember when the things that people remembered were better things. Reminiscences were better in those days, before people started remembering things that aren't worth remembering.
amazingturtles wrote: I remember when the things that people remembered were better things. Reminiscences were better in those days, before people started remembering things that aren't worth remembering.
even nostalgia isn't what it once was
Disagree. Prior to the 80s, game design was pretty grim. RPGs didn't exist. Wargames were things like Avalon Hill's Gettysburg, which is ugly and has a bunch of headquarters counters that serve no discernable purpose.
But then came a new age, a Golden Age, with game companies popping up all over the place. I kind of felt bad for the older dudes who had to get by with games like Tactics II when they were young and were forced to rub elbows with a bunch of pimply teenagers to play Panzer Leader or Modern Naval Battles. At least they had finally found opponents!
Plus, we had the Cold War. So much post-apocalyptic stuff out there, from Third World War (SPI) to Third World War (GDW) to World War Three (also SPI, but earlier). Twilight: 2000, with nukes flying everywhere and Cyberpunk, which you know wasn't that far off. Blade Runner, set in the distant future of 2019 with FLYING CARS.
So much goodness. I got to grow up with Star Wars; kids 10 years older than me had to make do with Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes and Space: 1999. Their nostalgia sucked.
You damn kids have it so easy these days! You don't know how to manage your mana, and you don't have to learn! Back when Magic was launched, we had to manage our mana carefully, cause there was "Mana Burn". Since you spoiled whippersnappers haven't a clue what that mean, I'll explain it. If you had leftover mana in your pool when you ended your turn, you took damage equal to the unspent mana in the pool. Nowadays you kids leave 20, 30, even a hundred points of mana in your pool out of sheer carelessness! Spoiled rotten, the lot of you!
And the creatures you can Summon these days! For a mere two colored mana you get a 4/4 Flying, First Strike, Trampler! Back in my day, two colored mana would only get you a 2/2 creature with no powers! For single power like First Strike for that cost, you'd have to permanently discard the top five cards of your deck! That's "Exile" to you young snots!
And we didn't have no fancy-schmacy keywords to simplify the rules either. Had to read three or more paragraphs of text in six point type and REMEMBER that it meant "permanently discard" or what have you! Now you have all these clever mnemonic keywords baked into the rules, and you kids don't even have to think! Now wonder the world's going to hell in a handbasket!
Serious: Stopped playing in 1996 or '97, but pre-COVID I helped a friend open some boosters. By my standards there was serious power creep. There were not any 4/4 Flying, First Strike, Tramplers that I saw, but the creatures were an order of magnitude better than when I was playing. That also applied to the other cards, like Sorceries and Enchantments. One card could do things you used to need at least a two card combo for, or even three!
Yes, but those were Rares. These new cards are Commons and Uncommons. Although I suppose if everyone at the table is playing the current cards, then even if the power level is high by late '90s standards, it doesn't matter. But unless one has "Power 9" and is playing a Time Recursion deck, then there's no point in trying to play with the older cards. {Yes, there are some exceptions even outside of Power 9, but not many.}
I was in magic from the start. Ok, not quite the beginning, but pulling beta cards out of sealed packs, and ending up with a chunk of alphas from those slightly older then I. Sold most of my collection in ‘99 to help with the down payment on a house. Kept my alpha/betas.
Fast forward to still a while ago; almost exactly 10 years. Decided to break out the old cards for a few games at the FLGS. Was amazed at the power creep. Even with some old the old power cards from the old days, hard to keep up. Decided to just tap out and sell, which provided the funds to start blogging here.
Manaburn was a factor in my main red deck. Mana flares and gauntlets of might. My deck was built to handle the flow, but many others were not. Good times.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: IIRC in Paladium a 6+ on D20 hit, but that number went up if you had armor (ie leather armor might raise it to 10+, plate mail 16+).
In addition you could parry (free action if you had a parrying item in your hand) or dodge (using an action) and had to out roll your attacker.
Compare to D&D where you had no defensive actions, you just took the hit.
Combat had options! And choices! And there was a skill system! And 1st level wizards could cast more than one spell!
I'm not saying it would be my first pick today, but it was loads better than D&D.
At least in D&D, you needed to roll a 14 or better to hit my 18 dex character while you only need a 8 to hit the dex 6 klutz. In palladium you hit both on a 5+ unless they're spending attack actions dodging... which means I'm not getting to attack and ultimately I'm going to lose. I've never seen a fight, in real life, sparring, or movies, where someone just stands there waiting to get hit.
All of Newcromunda rules can throw themselves in a river until they get sorted out. I refuse to buy 8 books to reactivate my Necromunda figures. GW almost lured me back with that game but as soon as I realized the GW Book Machine was in full operation I got out.
Original Necromunda needed 1 or two books for rules and it's still a great game.
In fact, the entire GW book-buying carousel can burn. Grimdark Future has my heart and it'd be awful hard for them to get me back.
And another thing! Well actually that's it...
As someone getting close to Grognard age, the rest of the Wargaming world is pretty fantastic. I feel like I'm drowning in great affordable minis, wonderful affordable and fast playing rules sets and friendly gamers.
I can't even summon up the energy to be annoyed with all the premium games with minis I'd love but prices and rules I can't stomach. There's just too much other stuff I enjoy.
Those damn kids today don't know how it feels to wait almost 30 years (and counting) for new Warp Spiders sculpts. Or 25 for updated Falcon. Those are not simply older than a lot of the playerbase, they are TWICE as old as I was, when I first got them!
Now about terrain - I have about a cubic meter of styrofoam packaging (from a huge ass freezer and a washing machine), waiting to be converted to an awesome fortress table. But I will be printing details for it - I simply can't unsee everyday objects turned terrain.
Vulcan wrote: At least in D&D, you needed to roll a 14 or better to hit my 18 dex character while you only need a 8 to hit the dex 6 klutz. In palladium you hit both on a 5+ unless they're spending attack actions dodging... which means I'm not getting to attack and ultimately I'm going to lose. I've never seen a fight, in real life, sparring, or movies, where someone just stands there waiting to get hit.
It doesn't work for me.
YES! Let's argue the merit of game systems that are 30 years out of print!
Ready...fight!
I said "fight!"
Okay, I know you're both using walkers, but could we speed this up?
No, he's over there. OVER THERE!
Oh, never mind.
I remember the Palladium arms and armor books, because tons of my friends bought them to look at the cool pictures. None of them bothered to use the system because D&D was what everyone knew.
I will rise to defend D&D to note that defense was automatic - you didn't have to say "I'm defending myself" because it was assumed that you were (that's what the Dex and shield bonus was for).
Decades of gaming experience later, I think it still holds up well for what it was meant to do: provides a framework for a storytelling game of adventure. The old 1981 rules were easy to understand, quick to teach, the limited number of classes still allowed for lots of flexibility. Later editions that required dozens of books that had to be carted around were a bit much.
Vulcan wrote: At least in D&D, you needed to roll a 14 or better to hit my 18 dex character while you only need a 8 to hit the dex 6 klutz. In palladium you hit both on a 5+ unless they're spending attack actions dodging... which means I'm not getting to attack and ultimately I'm going to lose. I've never seen a fight, in real life, sparring, or movies, where someone just stands there waiting to get hit.
It doesn't work for me.
YES! Let's argue the merit of game systems that are 30 years out of print!
Ready...fight!
I said "fight!"
Okay, I know you're both using walkers, but could we speed this up?
No, he's over there. OVER THERE!
Oh, never mind.
Don't make me beat you with my cane, you disrespectful whippersnapper!
Vulcan wrote: At least in D&D, you needed to roll a 14 or better to hit my 18 dex character while you only need a 8 to hit the dex 6 klutz. In palladium you hit both on a 5+ unless they're spending attack actions dodging... which means I'm not getting to attack and ultimately I'm going to lose. I've never seen a fight, in real life, sparring, or movies, where someone just stands there waiting to get hit.
It doesn't work for me.
YES! Let's argue the merit of game systems that are 30 years out of print!
Ready...fight!
I said "fight!"
Okay, I know you're both using walkers, but could we speed this up?
No, he's over there. OVER THERE!
Oh, never mind.
I remember the Palladium arms and armor books, because tons of my friends bought them to look at the cool pictures. None of them bothered to use the system because D&D was what everyone knew.
I will rise to defend D&D to note that defense was automatic - you didn't have to say "I'm defending myself" because it was assumed that you were (that's what the Dex and shield bonus was for).
Decades of gaming experience later, I think it still holds up well for what it was meant to do: provides a framework for a storytelling game of adventure. The old 1981 rules were easy to understand, quick to teach, the limited number of classes still allowed for lots of flexibility. Later editions that required dozens of books that had to be carted around were a bit much.
I remember Palladium mostly because I have artist friends who are still waiting to be paid for artwork that Kev commissioned and then reneged on the deal.
nou wrote: Those damn kids today don't know how it feels to wait almost 30 years (and counting) for new Warp Spiders sculpts. Or 25 for updated Falcon. Those are not simply older than a lot of the playerbase, they are TWICE as old as I was, when I first got them!
Now about terrain - I have about a cubic meter of styrofoam packaging (from a huge ass freezer and a washing machine), waiting to be converted to an awesome fortress table. But I will be printing details for it - I simply can't unsee everyday objects turned terrain.
I still remember the excitement of seeing Warp Spiders when they first released. I can’t be entirely sure, but I think they may have been the first New Addition Unit I ever personally experienced in 40K.
Certainly I can tell you the White Dwarf they were in was a copy held by my school’s Library (a friends mum was the librarian, and she pretty much let us subscribe to whatever!)
World of Darkness Vampire the Masquerade for me chaps. Lovely system which focuses on cunning over dice rolling.
AD&D has never tickled my pickle. It’s just too abstract. Not gonna slag it off with it being the Grandaddy of them all. But it’s definitely all been done much better since.
Also the lack of a fixed world irks me on a level I can’t justify.
leopard wrote: Vampire the Masquerade was a very good set of rules that focused nicely on helping tell a story without getting in the way of the story
And yet it got wrecked because the idiots in charge decided to do a Y2K countdown. Did they not see what happened to Third World War/Twilight 2000?!
The 90s version was the best version and it brought women into RPGs in yuuuge numbers. Broad-minded ones, with dark fantasies. Ah, those were the days...
But I digress. I shall yell at that cloud, right THERE. Begone, Ventrue scum!
leopard wrote: Traveller was vastly better than some oversized lizard in a cellar
Vampire the Masquerade was a very good set of rules that focused nicely on helping tell a story without getting in the way of the story
Without Traveller, Firefly would probably never have happened (JW has stated he played an SFrpg during his 'college years' and given when that was, Traveller was more than likely *THAT* rpg) - and if you've seen it and/or played Traveller, they mesh like fishfingers and custard.
leopard wrote: Vampire the Masquerade was a very good set of rules that focused nicely on helping tell a story without getting in the way of the story
And yet it got wrecked because the idiots in charge decided to do a Y2K countdown. Did they not see what happened to Third World War/Twilight 2000?!
The 90s version was the best version and it brought women into RPGs in yuuuge numbers. Broad-minded ones, with dark fantasies. Ah, those were the days...
But I digress. I shall yell at that cloud, right THERE. Begone, Ventrue scum!
I cannot truly shout at clouds, as I have the 25th Anniversary Bumper Book.
Including digital copies.
But it is a wonderful, permissive system. For instance, just because you don’t have points in firearms or drive etc doesn’t mean you can’t attempt such mundane things. Because it recognises there’s a difference between being able to drive a car or shoot a gun, and doing those things safely, competently and efficiently.
Just the basic reasoning behind the masquerade (they massively outnumber us, we’d be in serious trouble if we tried anything) makes so much sense.
Granted our games tended to get out of hand (one of mine ended up 2nd Gen…) but man they were fun.
it was the main draw for me of GURPS, which was my main RPG for many years, "the Prisoner" was an excellent mind screw book for example
the idea that you have some default ability at most things was one a few players couldn't get their head around, ok make sure what you are trying is simple, and preferably not dangerous otherwise you learn why kids today hurt themselves
as a side note the lack of "classes" also made sense a wizard could quite easily pick up a sword and get laughed at by goblins as he hurt himself with it
Still loved the background of Vampire though
as with all it was amusing to try and create profiles for each other, and then argue about them
But it is a wonderful, permissive system. For instance, just because you don’t have points in firearms or drive etc doesn’t mean you can’t attempt such mundane things. Because it recognises there’s a difference between being able to drive a car or shoot a gun, and doing those things safely, competently and efficiently.
That really is not unusual. Even back it the day.
You usually defaulted back to an attribute if you did not have a skill.
leopard wrote: it was the main draw for me of GURPS, which was my main RPG for many years, "the Prisoner" was an excellent mind screw book for example
the idea that you have some default ability at most things was one a few players couldn't get their head around, ok make sure what you are trying is simple, and preferably not dangerous otherwise you learn why kids today hurt themselves
as a side note the lack of "classes" also made sense a wizard could quite easily pick up a sword and get laughed at by goblins as he hurt himself with it
Still loved the background of Vampire though
as with all it was amusing to try and create profiles for each other, and then argue about them
The lack of classes is why I like In the Labyrinth and its descendant, GURPS. Class-based always felt wrong to me. Just because a person is of a certain profession doesn't mean they cannot learn something associated with an opposed skill set. Presumably if they had free choice of career they'll pick something suited to their innate talents, so intellectual types will become nuclear physicists or engineers, and physical types will become lifeguards and firefighters. But our nuclear physicist can still take up free-climbing. Yet in class-based systems anyone not a thief is prohibited from ever learning climbing.
Rolemaster combined the concepts of Class and Skill-driven. IIRC, you selected your class, and then taking the preset defaults, moved them around to set that character's personal costs to buy said skills of that class. So while a Wizard's magic skills were automatically set as the cheapest for advancement, other advancement costs were placed by the player. So you could have a Wizard who grew up a farm boy. Magic skills advance at a cost of 1 (set by the class), Climbing advances at 5 per point, 2 handed Weapons advance at 10 per point (he does know how to use an axe, since his parents had him cut the firewood), and somehow he met a Shaolin Monk and learned some martial arts defense techniques, so Adrenal Defense at 20 per point! [That last is real as our wizard did take Adrenal Defense and Bows, both at cost 20 and alternated skill points between them as he advanced.]
Still more GURPS characters should take some basic skills and not use defaults as suggested by this article, Everyday Skills by GURPS Line Editor "Dr. Kromm". Taking his point, converting myself to a contemporary GURPS character, I'd have Driving (Automobile), Computer Operation, Swimming at least, and maybe Hiking, Running and Fishing, but I've been a couch potato for so long that those may have rotted to their defaults. So the same argument goes for an original RPG character. "You say your character grew up on a farm, but your character doesn't have any skills that he'd have learned just growing up? If you want to min/max, I'll let you, but if your character suddenly needs Animal Handling, you do not get to say, "But he'd have learned that growing up on the farm!" and roll at higher than default. You want it, buy it."
VTM is also a pleasing challenge to be Story Teller for.
For instance, the Bloodline powers can lead to very unusual troupes. And it’s your job to ensure your players are suitably challenged, and they can all feel like they were able to provide some part of the group solution.
It’s also a very newbie friendly game. Not only are the mechanics quite simple to grasp (though I’d still recommend a dry run session or two so they can refine through experience), but the world itself is…our world. They have everything we have (or had, if like me you prefer pre-age of internet settings) but Magic and monsters are all too real. No lengthy reading needed. No half arsed primers required. No “you can’t do that because X” for behaviours etc.
Though I draw the line at Mage. Too esoteric for my tastes. Won’t run one, won’t play in one. Just not my bag.
My dream though is to load folk through a successful Prometheus campaign. But that is the Work Of Ages. Not only do you need mature players (Prometheans are difficult to portray) but players experienced in the setting to truly get the most out of it all. Not to mention that as it’s my job as Story Teller to set their milestones, I can’t make them too exotic or unattainable. At least at first.
I remember Palladium mostly because I have artist friends who are still waiting to be paid for artwork that Kev commissioned and then reneged on the deal.
Yeah, that sounds about right for that bunch.
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leopard wrote: Traveller was vastly better than some oversized lizard in a cellar
Vampire the Masquerade was a very good set of rules that focused nicely on helping tell a story without getting in the way of the story
Ah, Traveller. Great memories of characters dying during character creation. Good times.
Vampire was the only game I ever played not because I liked the game (I thought it was pretty mediocre) but to see what the ladies attending the game wore this week.
leopard wrote: Traveller was vastly better than some oversized lizard in a cellar
Vampire the Masquerade was a very good set of rules that focused nicely on helping tell a story without getting in the way of the story
Ah, Traveller. Great memories of characters dying during character creation. Good times.
Vampire was the only game I ever played not because I liked the game (I thought it was pretty mediocre) but to see what the ladies attending the game wore this week.
At least if you were using High Guard (the naval supplement for Traveller) for CharGen, it was possible to get a pilot character who could voluntarily take a huge penalty on survival and still auto-pass the survival roll. As a bonus, that character would still pass with such a margin that they'd win the highest military award of the Imperium! I was wondering what they did: stop the Third Solomani Rim War from even starting while drifting in an unarmed lifepod with no communications, weapons or life support?!
By the time the Scouts book came out, they'd toned it down a LOT! {Scouts was the book I was interested in.}
I have yet to play a V:TM game to conclusion. At least the ones I've joined the GM loses interest after two sessions.
Played the Renaissance version of Mage to conclusion and enjoyed that. What little I know of the contemporary Mage RPG I can see how it could be hard to get a feel for it.
Vulcan wrote: Vampire was the only game I ever played not because I liked the game (I thought it was pretty mediocre) but to see what the ladies attending the game wore this week.
Yes, a very different environment from the D&D crowd.
I think D&D was good at what it set out to do: small unit combat/raiding parties. The archetypes make character creation very easy and the "basic" game simply relied on the DM to discuss things with the players and use a relevant ability.
I didn't like GURPS because you had to do a lot more reading to build a character.
Vampire (and the Storyteller games) hit the sweet spot, because the game came with pre-made archetypes (complete with illustrations) that you could use right out of the box.
I think that was a big part of the appeal to the distaff side. Teenage boys thrive on complex rules - they are puzzles to be solved just as much as playing the game itself. Min-maxing was a challenge in and of itself.
For people more interested in the actual story, that was a huge turnoff.
The XP system was also geared towards story, and roleplaying rather than killing the monster and getting the treasure.
One thing I really liked was the way the power curve was relatively flat - yes, a 13th Gen vampire was lunch to an 8th Gen, but only to a point. It was a far cry from 1st level vs 10th level fighters.
Valander wrote: Battletech was a great game before the Clan Invasion stuff completely wrecked the balance. We used to build lances by tonnage, but 200 tons of Clams grossly overshadowed 200 tons of Inner Sphere every day. Why would anyone not play Clans, now? Totally killed the game.
(Yes, I played Battletech back in the day and remember when TRO 3050 first came out...)
Thank you for saying this. I can breathe again. Although it didn’t quite kill the game, it definitely changed it to something different (and I think lesser) so we stayed with the older rules.
Is not the true test of a good RPG yarn, whether single session or long running chronicle…..Utterly Frustrating Your GM/DM/Story Teller with a super easy fix to what was meant to be a significant problem?
Ref me and the lads very nearly diabolirising The Big Bad At The Time when they compelled us to drink of them in an attempt to Blood Bind. We so very, very nearly got away with it. Pretty sure (and fair play, few plans can withstand Sheer Force Of Stupidity) the Story Teller fudged their dice. As is their right.
Is not the true test of a good RPG yarn, whether single session or long running chronicle…..Utterly Frustrating Your GM/DM/Story Teller with a super easy fix to what was meant to be a significant problem?
Ref me and the lads very nearly diabolirising The Big Bad At The Time when they compelled us to drink of them in an attempt to Blood Bind. We so very, very nearly got away with it. Pretty sure (and fair play, few plans can withstand Sheer Force Of Stupidity) the Story Teller fudged their dice. As is their right.
ahh yes the delight of basically recognising what film/book they were ripping off, then a simple solution like not stealing the car, or making sure the radios were working, or not splitting up etc
works nicely both ways when players get too crafty in reading source books, through them an adventure from another system, and pick a monster but change its appearance nad some of its behaviours
the fun on the smug bastards faces when they realise a goblin need not be a "level zero" character so to speak..
oh and after they walk into a bar, in full battle kit, and start asking strangers to pay them to do illegal things..
Granted the Chronicle that sticks in my mind was..20+ years ago? But man, the Troupe usually found something the Story Teller over looked!
Amateur hour. True veteran players would refuse to follow any of the clues at all, utterly ignoring the plot in favor of engaging in pointlessly antagonizing NPCs and/or trying to leave the entire campaign area.
I recall one campaign where the party split on which adventure to do and because it was more of a pool of players than a tight-knit group (and people had other things going on), the majority switched every session. So one week, we're going into the caves, the next week we pull out and go into the haunted town.
The week after, that, the town quest is abandoned for the cave, but of course no sooner had we made a small amount of progress than the majority ran back to the town.
In my day, the measure of a player was how many DMs he'd driven mad.
in my day a GM learnt how to rule with a fist of steel and players unable to take a hint learnt..
while also keeping multiple potential plots open and freely swapping between them in a world where other things were happening
though in truth players, being players, were not hard to "guide" show where treasure or the chance to make things explode were waiting and off they went
this is except when playing Paranoia, where if they get to the briefing room without half their clones dead something has gone very wrong
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Back in my day, players and GMs worked together to create a good time for everyone. Antagonizing each other was for Stratego, or worse, Monopoly.
This is the grumpy thread. I'm not sure where the happy rainbow 'everyone got along' thread is, but I'll let you know if I see it, just after I finish yelling at this cloud...
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leopard wrote: in my day a GM learnt how to rule with a fist of steel and players unable to take a hint learnt..
while also keeping multiple potential plots open and freely swapping between them in a world where other things were happening
though in truth players, being players, were not hard to "guide" show where treasure or the chance to make things explode were waiting and off they went
this is except when playing Paranoia, where if they get to the briefing room without half their clones dead something has gone very wrong
This is the correct approach. Kill a few characters outright. As a DM, I've thrown a thunderbolt from on high a time or two.
occasional thunderbolts as a "get on with it" work, a slightly more subtle way of some mahoosive monster gradually waking up and developing an interest works too
also helps if you have at least one or two players who see their character surviving while others sadly do not as a "no actual downside" situation
As someone getting close to Grognard age, the rest of the Wargaming world is pretty fantastic. I feel like I'm drowning in great affordable minis, wonderful affordable and fast playing rules sets and friendly gamers.
I can't even summon up the energy to be annoyed with all the premium games with minis I'd love but prices and rules I can't stomach. There's just too much other stuff I enjoy.
This ^^
I play cheap rules (I still play the original Rogue Trader rules when I can) with cheap miniatures. I paint them to a gameable standard. I My terrain is top down flat, which, while admittedly not quite as attractive, is infinitely better for allowing you to actually move your pieces around on the board.
I'm happy.
Now, does that mean I deride your lovingly crafted and painstakingly painted Bretonian army, and the handcrafted castle with working drawbridge? Of course not! Beautiful stuff is beautiful stuff!
But there is a certain beauty in the practical side of the hobby as well.
They’re not what they used to be. Basically matched Powerfists (with the benefits that brought) and a pair of parries to add some bells and whistles.
My god you didn’t want to get into a punch up with Assault Terminators. Double parry tipped the odds even against really powerful characters, and they only needed a couple of successful hits to gut pretty much anything short of a Carnifex or Greater Daemon. Even they’d know they’d been in a fight and if they walked away, they’d be thinking twice about such incaution in future.
Then, as with so many things which used to be terrifying, 3rd Ed came along with its Wand Of Poodleification making them super weedy. Re-roll to hit is nice and that. But….gimme their 2nd Ed rules all the same.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As for GMing? The balance is not rewarding bad behaviour, and not punishing Genuinely Inventive Solutions you hadn’t considered.
Fudge some dice here and there is fine. But just….not letting something work because you didn’t think of it isn’t. At least not to me. Your game. Your players. Your call
Kids these days have no idea what POWERFUL weapons are. Assault terminators with a pair of those bad boys gave just about anybody nightmares. Now it's all abstract things with airplanes flying around shooting at Johnny Socko's Giant Robot.
As for GMing? The balance is not rewarding bad behaviour, and not punishing Genuinely Inventive Solutions you hadn’t considered.
I'm questioning the Grognard status of some of you people. In my day DMs were petty tyrants and power-hungry bastards who used every dirty trick they could find to torment their players - who paid them back in the coin of endless rules-lawyering and the deliberate sabotage of every single plot element.
It was one thing to meta-game a TSR module, but to really rip the heart of out a DM, you had to completely wreck this painstakingly crafted home-brewed campaign - either by short-circuiting every plot device or just going on random killing sprees.
The DM in turn had to ride the fine line of killing off PCs with precision and care. If everyone realizes they're going to die, it's quite literally Game Over. Better to keep them perpetually wounded, starve them of potions and burn out all the magic in "random encounters" with legendary foes so that when they finally face the boss monster, they beg for clemency and pull out the "emergency" (i.e. comically loaded) dice.
Kids these days think of roleplaying games as a collaborative exercise in storytelling. In my day, it was the Nerd Thunderdome - only with a higher body count. The party wasn't a brave fellowship, but a bunch of treacherous treasure hunters, just waiting to drive a shiv into each other's back. Fighters existed to beat up magic-users - or conveniently let a monster "slip through" their fighting line to administer needed punishment.
Magic-users bided their time, knowing that once they got into the "teen" levels, they could kill everyone in the party at a whim. Thieves honed their back-stabbing skills on the night watch, and clerics blackmailed everyone, hoarding all the healing spells for themselves.
I remember back to time when TSR emphatically asserted "THERE ARE NO DARK ELVES," before bowing the knee before the Spider Queen. An age of half-ogre-half-elf-half-orc hybrids, multi-classed monk/barbarian/assassin/anti-paladin/magic-users of chaotic neutral alignment with evil tendencies that could nevertheless wield a +5 Holy Avenger thanks to a dispensation from the Platinum Dragon.
Munchkins roamed in great herds back then, their thick glasses flashing like foxfire as they bored you with hour after hour of their mindless cheaty exploits. If you don't know the taste of Jolt, if you haven't eaten a pound of Smarties at a single sitting, if you haven't itemized each and every hit your character took for the last three years, I pity you, for you have never truly lived.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Back in my day, players and GMs worked together to create a good time for everyone. Antagonizing each other was for Stratego, or worse, Monopoly.
Diplomacy. The king of piss-everyone-else-off games.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Back in my day, players and GMs worked together to create a good time for everyone. Antagonizing each other was for Stratego, or worse, Monopoly.
Diplomacy. The king of piss-everyone-else-off games.
You needed a certain level of detachment to play Dip and still be friends afterwards. There is no blaming the dice, the cards, or anything. You did what you needed to to to win, and often that involved betrayal. Sometimes you helped with one hand, stabbed with the other. Glorious. My old gaming group in Louisville played it periodically, with only a little bad blood generated. But they were more wargamers who would sometimes have an RPG game going. My NY group only tried it once, and still talks bitterly about it to this day. But with one exception besides myself, they were more roleplayers who would sometimes wargame. Different mindset.
Also great for Play By Mail. I think I’ve got old ‘zines and correspondence in my Dip box. Good old paper and stamps (although we did shift to e-mail after it was more widespread)
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Back in my day, players and GMs worked together to create a good time for everyone. Antagonizing each other was for Stratego, or worse, Monopoly.
Diplomacy. The king of piss-everyone-else-off games.
*goes misty eyed*
the "colonial" version was also excellent
heard it described as a game to play with six people you no longer wished to be friends with
great fun when there are a couple or two playing, or even worse a pair who are not a couple but one or both want to be
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Back in my day, players and GMs worked together to create a good time for everyone. Antagonizing each other was for Stratego, or worse, Monopoly.
Diplomacy. The king of piss-everyone-else-off games.
Arch-villain Henry Kissinger was reportedly a genius at this game.
My group played it. Once. After the dust had settled, it was ruled off-limits, because everyone was soft and weak.
New grumpy "old" git irritant - bloody consolidationists.
Back in my day, it was always cool and interesting when new units and new equipment got added to the game - sure, some of it was overtuned and some was undertuned, but we didn't sit around and claim it was just adding "bloat" to the game.
Now we've got these posters who - going by their Joined dates here - are generally a bunch of Johnny-come-lately's who want to strip much of what makes the game fun and/or interesting out in the name of "consolidation" and "simplification".
They don't get it, they don't want to get it, and I really wish it didn't look like their insidious mind virus has infected the Design Studio, leading to monstrosities like the Combi-Weapon we've seen, or what's happened to the variety of Nemesis Force Weapons.
Can we just consolidate them down to one account, please? And possibly use a car crusher to consolidate them into one body, too?
Dysartes wrote: New grumpy "old" git irritant - bloody consolidationists.
Back in my day, it was always cool and interesting when new units and new equipment got added to the game - sure, some of it was overtuned and some was undertuned, but we didn't sit around and claim it was just adding "bloat" to the game.
Well in my day, we didn't need 31 flavors of the same weapon system. Boltgun, bolt pistol, storm bolter and maybe a combi-bolter were enough. You didn't need bolter carbines, bolter LMGs, reduced calorie bolters, bolters with cheese, bolter 'n' chips and so on.
You could have one weapon be the workhorse for multiple armies.
Now generation Participation Trophy has given every faction - no matter how small and insignificant - some sort of Very Special Episode of their weapon.
No. The Universe is big, impersonal, hostile and no one cares about whether the grips fit your small soft elfin hands. Weapons are produced on an industrial scale of "one size kills most."
This isn't a coffee shop where you can demand your lasgun be a frappe with a caramel drizzle. You get black coffee, period. Shut up and drink it.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Back in my day, players and GMs worked together to create a good time for everyone. Antagonizing each other was for Stratego, or worse, Monopoly.
Diplomacy. The king of piss-everyone-else-off games.
Henh. Fond memories.
A friend of ours was a big Axis and Allies fan. He home-brewed some rules allowing a 'free for all' for world domination. Took me and a friend all of about five minutes to break it. Turns out when Russia and Germany ally, the only thing that kept Britain and Japan in the game for long was them being islands... but we quickly reduced them to ONLY their home islands, and bombed even that meager income out from under them.
No. The Universe is big, impersonal, hostile and no one cares about whether the grips fit your small soft elfin hands. Weapons are produced on an industrial scale of "one size kills most."
This isn't a coffee shop where you can demand your lasgun be a frappe with a caramel drizzle. You get black coffee, period. Shut up and drink it.
This really made me laugh
Probable photo of the Necromunda designer's coffee order:
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: No. The Universe is big, impersonal, hostile and no one cares about whether the grips fit your small soft elfin hands. Weapons are produced on an industrial scale of "one size kills most."
This isn't a coffee shop where you can demand your lasgun be a frappe with a caramel drizzle. You get black coffee, period. Shut up and drink it.
This is also the universe where each and every coffee shop is using half-remembered recipes of something that can vaguely fall under the umbrella of "black coffee" but with different beans, grind sizes, ratios of coffee to water, brew times etc.
So yeah, you get your black coffee, you don't get to choose what goes in it, but the black coffee you get from your corner coffee shop doesn't taste the same as the one you get from across town, and if you have the ability to access multiple coffee shops and know what the differences are, you can get the one you prefer.
But the guard regiment that just buys a thousand coffees from whichever shop is either closest, cheapest or the one which is Administratum approved? They don't get to choose
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Back in my day, players and GMs worked together to create a good time for everyone. Antagonizing each other was for Stratego, or worse, Monopoly.
Diplomacy. The king of piss-everyone-else-off games.
Henh. Fond memories.
A friend of ours was a big Axis and Allies fan. He home-brewed some rules allowing a 'free for all' for world domination. Took me and a friend all of about five minutes to break it. Turns out when Russia and Germany ally, the only thing that kept Britain and Japan in the game for long was them being islands... but we quickly reduced them to ONLY their home islands, and bombed even that meager income out from under them.
Good times...
We also came up with FFA axis rules. IIRC our fix to the Britain problem was letting them shift some of the value from Canada to the home isle, and getting a free industrial complex they could put on any of their territories after pregame diplomacy but before the start. We also gave Russia something ot help in the far east. Because the US/Japan alliance was also bad news for game balance.
We played so much of the basic axis and allies it started to feel like a solved game
Balance is not supposed to be balanced and living rule books spoil that. Halflings should be harder to use than Orcs or Chaos warriors. When you try to fairly balance everything you remove player freedom to play worse but fun armies. Managing animosity or bad stats are part of the fun to some people. Wargaming is too inexact to be an esport and it doesn't need to balance for them. No one worth listening to will complain halflings are underpowered and not tournament viable. You can have your super hard armies full full cheese. But leaves vets with jank factions to use in store leagues or events to even the skill gap
Terrain should be made of packing foam. Or sprues. I have a "pumping station" that actually uses fixtures pulled out of a toilet tank. Looks great, btw.
Oh! So I guess yours must look quite similar to mine
I hate the 2000 pts list fad. Before all those kids landed in the game we used to play 1500 pts all the time. But the little Timmies cannot budget the way out of a wet Battle for Macragge box so we had to scale up to 2000 pts. Meaning I had to buy, and, even worse, paint more IG.
I'm old enough to remember when just about ALL the GW model ranges were goofy in the extreme. Empire Elector Counts waving swords whose blades would have been six inches wide at that scale come to mind. Just about everyone had enormous hands, too, clearly showing that Basketball, not Bloodbowl, was the preferred sport of the Old World. Those guys could palm 20-inch mortar rounds.
Yeah, they were silly but they were cheap, and that counted for a lot. Who cared if they had the proportions of "Nude Descending a Staircase," they worked and that was all that mattered. Kids these days demanding 20 skulls per model and the proper number of visible fingers and things - luxury!
I'm old enough to remember when just about ALL the GW model ranges were goofy in the extreme. Empire Elector Counts waving swords whose blades would have been six inches wide at that scale come to mind. Just about everyone had enormous hands, too, clearly showing that Basketball, not Bloodbowl, was the preferred sport of the Old World. Those guys could palm 20-inch mortar rounds.
Yeah, they were silly but they were cheap, and that counted for a lot. Who cared if they had the proportions of "Nude Descending a Staircase," they worked and that was all that mattered. Kids these days demanding 20 skulls per model and the proper number of visible fingers and things - luxury!
I would rather have a goofy hat and a plank for a sword than cookie cutter copy and pasted cad designed space marine given a new gun. Goofy or not, there's personality in old sculpts you lack in todays digital technology
Plus I like novelty hats and underdog factions. Chaos dorfs were the first army book I ever bought and I always wanted to make an army of them. I still have like 30 plastic chaos dwarves but no where to use them. They're so cool but don't fit my play style at all.
Back in Rogue trader era playing Space Marines vs WHFB dark elves on the floor of my boarding school dormitory and the DEs smashing the SMs because one was a skirmish game, and the other rank and file.
The rules were fantastically compatible (DEs stayed in ranks and SMs were skirmished) except close combat where we made a couple house rules.
Yo7 wrote:I still have like 30 plastic chaos dwarves but no where to use them. They're so cool but don't fit my play style at all.
Play classic Warhammer Quest with them!
The old-school plastic monopose minis suit boardgames perfectly.
(WHQ 1995 counts for the Grumpy Grognards thread because it's run by an utterly ruthless and lethal GM made entirely of cardboard and dice. None of this newfangled "exciting and enjoyable adventure carefully fine-tuned to thrill, but not destroy, the players" nonsense. You go with three other idiots down a dungeon full of monsters? You deal with the consequences. )
Waaagh_Gonads wrote: Back in Rogue trader era playing Space Marines vs WHFB dark elves on the floor of my boarding school dormitory and the DEs smashing the SMs because one was a skirmish game, and the other rank and file.
The rules were fantastically compatible (DEs stayed in ranks and SMs were skirmished) except close combat where we made a couple house rules.
IIRC the "Siege" supplement of the time encouraged games like this, small squad of maureens taking on the unwashed natives of some primitive planet, and seldom the walk over you expect.
I think it let both sides keep their own melee bonuses, so anything rank and file had a good chance when it got to melee range to win with the static bonuses and weight of numbers
which seemed fitting really
also fun with a high elf dragon dogfighting some imperial airborne contraption made from an airfix kit
Postie delivered my 2nd Ed Codex Orks (a book wot I ‘ave never ‘ad before) just as my lunch hour ended.
Still had a cursory flick through. Oh…..oh those poor Boyz. How much you lost to the merciless “baby, bath water, and sod it why not the bath too” approach of 3rd Ed.
No Clans! Boring support weapons! No Mad or Boarboyz. A sickly anaemic thing we instead thrust upon an unwilling audience. Even the Shokk Attak Gun would be gone for years.
Just two 2nd Ed books to go now. Space Wolves and Angels of Death.
I do however need to go sort out my book shelf. It’s not as orderly as it should be. Not fussed for exact chronological order, but all editions should be lined up together.
Postie delivered my 2nd Ed Codex Orks (a book wot I ‘ave never ‘ad before) just as my lunch hour ended.
Still had a cursory flick through. Oh…..oh those poor Boyz. How much you lost to the merciless “baby, bath water, and sod it why not the bath too” approach of 3rd Ed.
No Clans! Boring support weapons! No Mad or Boarboyz. A sickly anaemic thing we instead thrust upon an unwilling audience. Even the Shokk Attak Gun would be gone for years.
Oh cruel 3rd Ed.
I was knocked out how many vehicles we lost in the 2nd ed codex.. all those wonderful Gobsmashas, Braincrushas, Lungburstas etc all gone
I've kept my copy of Angels of Death. The 2nd ed. Blood Angels paint scheme was better than the 3rd ed. one, even if it was a pain for me to paint. (Kept slopping the black trim onto the red and having to go back and fix it.) Same way I've kept the other older books; the paint schemes were better. However, I was also younger then, and so often used my own schemes to be original. Not so fussy now, but the main reason I switched from historical to fantasy or sci-fi minis gaming was so I could do my own thing, not 200+ identical infantry, 20 of this type of cavalry, 20 of a different type of cavalry, and 20 of a third type (the fancy elite boys as opposed to the disposable schmoes in the first two regiments). This is why Frostgrave and Stargrave are more to my taste now. Full creativity; Joe Mc created both 'verses, but he lets you populate them as you please*, not the way GREED WORKSHOP dictates.
* Well, mostly. But there's plenty of his scenarios where an obscure critter is used and will never show up again. My response is, "In this universe, long-haired twixgibbets are hairless and only have four limbs, and just so happen to look like hippos from our world!"
I do however need to go sort out my book shelf. It’s not as orderly as it should be. Not fussed for exact chronological order, but all editions should be lined up together.
I've got 'em all, even Codex Battles, which is a WD compilation and kind of hard to find. A bunch of battle reports from back in the day (spoiler alert! The newer army always wins), and the rules for the Razorback, Battle Bunker (the cardboard insert in mine was missing) and Adeptus Arbites.
The old Orks had ten times the character of their later selves, particularly when it comes to firepower.
I'm old enough to remember ork players going through tons of yellow paint!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Pretty sure I’ve got battles. I got super lucky when I started my collection a couple of years back, and got SoB and Assassins for really low prices.
Having said that….where the bloody hell is my Sisters of Battle codex???
The gremlins took it. Trust me, they'll give it back once you've bought a replacement.
Easy E wrote: Back when Orks had litters! None of this Fungus crap!
As I like eating mushrooms, when they announced that Orks are fungus, I could not help but wonder if they are good eating. Yes, I understand they like a good krump, but people still hunt wild boars* for the challenge, so I'm sure there would be enough crazy hunters who would hunt orks for gourmands. "Ork. It's what's for dinner."
*A friend of mine went to a Florida college. He made a friend there, a bow hunter who invited him to go boar hunting in the Everglades. The hunter explained that one should shoot the boar from the side, going for a heart or lung shot, since boars have thick skulls, and shooting them in the head just pisses them off. Well, he shot the boar in the head: perhaps it turned at the wrong moment or something. Anyway, my friend and his host were chased through the Everglades for five miles until the boar finally bled out. They then had to carry 400lbs of dead boar out of the swamp. Anyway, that's how I heard it. I don't know how much the story got exaggerated, if at all.
Easy E wrote: Back when Orks had litters! None of this Fungus crap!
As I like eating mushrooms, when they announced that Orks are fungus, I could not help but wonder if they are good eating. Yes, I understand they like a good krump, but people still hunt wild boars* for the challenge, so I'm sure there would be enough crazy hunters who would hunt orks for gourmands. "Ork. It's what's for dinner."
*A friend of mine went to a Florida college. He made a friend there, a bow hunter who invited him to go boar hunting in the Everglades. The hunter explained that one should shoot the boar from the side, going for a heart or lung shot, since boars have thick skulls, and shooting them in the head just pisses them off. Well, he shot the boar in the head: perhaps it turned at the wrong moment or something. Anyway, my friend and his host were chased through the Everglades for five miles until the boar finally bled out. They then had to carry 400lbs of dead boar out of the swamp. Anyway, that's how I heard it. I don't know how much the story got exaggerated, if at all.
Orks are canonically edible, and somewhat tasty and nutritious, it comes up in a Space Wolves story:
‘At least we’re not eating them afterwards.’ Lukas’ expression became speculative. ‘Though we could, I suppose.’
‘No.’
‘Seems a waste to burn them, is all.’
‘No.’
‘Where is your sense of adventure, Halvar?’ Lukas asked. ‘New experiences are what life is all about.’
‘Not our lives. I just kill xenos – I don’t eat them.’ Halvar hesitated. ‘Except ork, on occasion. Very rare occasions,’ he added hastily.
‘No need to be ashamed, pup. We’ve all eaten an ork at one time or another. They cook up nicely.’ Lukas concentrated on navigating the narrow, uneven corridor. It was a natural bore hole, worn open by tectonic pressures, weather or some long ago disaster. One of the secret paths that wolves and other things used to sneak into the Aett.
Fugazi wrote: I never understood the move to change their background to fungus/fungoids.
Did anyone ever give a reason? In an interview or something?
Oh they’ve always been partly Fu good. What changed was a claim about how they reproduce.
In Waaaargh! The Orks! it’s simply said an old Ork wanders off into the wilderness and is never seen again, but Wildboyz wander out of the Wilderness and are adopted into a Tribe,
Orks as a society however, probably don’t care too much about where Yoofs come from!
It always struck me as odd. Like, here's an orc (in spaaaaaace, so it's an ork). We all know what an orc is, from either LotR or D&D. So let's make it a fungus?
Like I'd said before I think that at some point someone at GW read the Dragon Rider books, the Orks are more or less Thread with dakka, random drifing about and make a right mess of whatever planet has the misfortune to encounter
Wasn't it Gav Thorpe and the third edition rulebook? I think that was the first mention we had of it.
I choose to completely ignore that bit of background (as is my right, as a grognard), because we already have one bio-terror faction and I like the idea of the Ork families and clans that you had in the Rogue Trader Ork books, which were just so much more flavourful.
Pacific wrote: Wasn't it Gav Thorpe and the third edition rulebook? I think that was the first mention we had of it.
I choose to completely ignore that bit of background (as is my right, as a grognard), because we already have one bio-terror faction and I like the idea of the Ork families and clans that you had in the Rogue Trader Ork books, which were just so much more flavourful.
Wait, don't they use magic mushrooms? How does a 'shroom get high off of a 'shroom?
I figured it was part of GW's "No Sex Please, We're English" culture. There are few (if any) references to romantic entanglements in any of the 40k lore, with just about everyone being a bachelor for life. (The Dark Angels had some other, ahem, issues.)
So rather than explain to Timmy how when mommy and daddy ork love each other very much, they just bud or give off spores or something. As for humans, the men are too busy fighting to raise sons and the proper place for girls is in bondage-themed nunneries. Babies come from somewhere else.
I figured it was part of GW's "No Sex Please, We're English" culture. There are few (if any) references to romantic entanglements in any of the 40k lore, with just about everyone being a bachelor for life. (The Dark Angels had some other, ahem, issues.)
So rather than explain to Timmy how when mommy and daddy ork love each other very much, they just bud or give off spores or something. As for humans, the men are too busy fighting to raise sons and the proper place for girls is in bondage-themed nunneries. Babies come from somewhere else.
It always struck me as strange.
Re: Wait, don't they use magic mushrooms? How does a 'shroom get high off of a 'shroom? Probably in the same way their technology works, "A Wizard Did It."
With a wider commercial appeal, GW may have wanted to downplay some of their earlier miniature releases. I've a crudely printed advertisement from Citadel Miniatures from about 1980. Many of the figures are from the 1st ed. AD&D Fiend Folio, not surprising as The Fiend Folio was comprised of British created monsters first published in The White Dwarf. However, the inner fold hid a page of various torture devices with naked female victims on them. And I've been given to understand that Slaneeshi daemonettes no longer have bare breasts, and Sisters Redemptia now have merely revealing clothes instead of strategically placed purity seals. So GW is pretending they are wholesome and family-friendly now when historically they have not been.
Pacific wrote: Wasn't it Gav Thorpe and the third edition rulebook? I think that was the first mention we had of it.
I choose to completely ignore that bit of background (as is my right, as a grognard), because we already have one bio-terror faction and I like the idea of the Ork families and clans that you had in the Rogue Trader Ork books, which were just so much more flavourful.
Pacific wrote: Wasn't it Gav Thorpe and the third edition rulebook? I think that was the first mention we had of it.
I choose to completely ignore that bit of background (as is my right, as a grognard), because we already have one bio-terror faction and I like the idea of the Ork families and clans that you had in the Rogue Trader Ork books, which were just so much more flavourful.
Gorka Morka was where it was first presented.
Oh man, yes! That was a game I missed and have always wanted to play. Is the book worth a read if I can find it?
Fugazi wrote: It always struck me as odd. Like, here's an orc (in spaaaaaace, so it's an ork). We all know what an orc is, from either LotR or D&D. So let's make it a fungus?
I don't know. Always seemed like a weird choice.
Really? I thought it was brilliant.
[my standard rant on orks, abbreviated as much as I can]
I feel like 40K orks are one of the most creative and underappreciated 'ecologies' in science fiction/fantasy. The ecology is incredibly simple to explain, but has all these hidden aspects that make it creatively useful, especially for a wargame.
Orks reproduce through fungal spores, emerge almost fully grown ('yoofs'), and have (a lot of) their knowledge encoded within them. Pain doesn't seem to engender anxiety or dread in them, and they can heal from almost any non-mortal injury (and mortal injuries can be fixed with ork parts and staples).
This means:
•Orks have no evolutionary reason to have nurturing instincts.
•Their reproduction isn't tied to their own survival nearly as much as other races. Violent death is a reproductive strategy.
•Their knowledge is strongly ingrained in them at birth, so there's no need for schooling, or for the whole ideas of protecting the youth and revering the elders.
•Violent conflict is relatively low-risk for them, both personally, and as a species. They aren't going to have disabled war veterans.
It allows them to be violent, conflict-loving hooligans with no respect, without actually making them slaves to Chaos and mustache-twisting evil guys. Yes, they are insanely violent and cruel from a human perspective, but no so much from their own.
Pacific wrote: Wasn't it Gav Thorpe and the third edition rulebook? I think that was the first mention we had of it.
I choose to completely ignore that bit of background (as is my right, as a grognard), because we already have one bio-terror faction and I like the idea of the Ork families and clans that you had in the Rogue Trader Ork books, which were just so much more flavourful.
Gorka Morka was where it was first presented.
Oh man, yes! That was a game I missed and have always wanted to play. Is the book worth a read if I can find it?
I’m….not sure. For my sins, I’ve never owned Gorka Morka. Was too invested in Necromunda, and too student to afford another game system. Certainly I’ve never heard much in the way of bad words against it.
Fugazi wrote: It always struck me as odd. Like, here's an orc (in spaaaaaace, so it's an ork). We all know what an orc is, from either LotR or D&D. So let's make it a fungus?
I don't know. Always seemed like a weird choice.
Really? I thought it was brilliant.
[my standard rant on orks, abbreviated as much as I can]
I feel like 40K orks are one of the most creative and underappreciated 'ecologies' in science fiction/fantasy. The ecology is incredibly simple to explain, but has all these hidden aspects that make it creatively useful, especially for a wargame.
Orks reproduce through fungal spores, emerge almost fully grown ('yoofs'), and have (a lot of) their knowledge encoded within them. Pain doesn't seem to engender anxiety or dread in them, and they can heal from almost any non-mortal injury (and mortal injuries can be fixed with ork parts and staples).
This means:
•Orks have no evolutionary reason to have nurturing instincts.
•Their reproduction isn't tied to their own survival nearly as much as other races. Violent death is a reproductive strategy.
•Their knowledge is strongly ingrained in them at birth, so there's no need for schooling, or for the whole ideas of protecting the youth and revering the elders.
•Violent conflict is relatively low-risk for them, both personally, and as a species. They aren't going to have disabled war veterans.
It allows them to be violent, conflict-loving hooligans with no respect, without actually making them slaves to Chaos and mustache-twisting evil guys. Yes, they are insanely violent and cruel from a human perspective, but no so much from their own.
They are, in their own unique way? A Perfect Society. All accept and embrace one rule of law - that might makes right. If you beat someone up and Nick all their stuff? You deserve it more. If they sucker punch you the next day and Nick it all back? Now they deserve it more.
It’s wild and anarchic to non-Orks, but it’s clearly a very successful model. One can even argue they lack true malice because of that life view. Yes they enslave other species and treat them poorly. But one could argue they just lack the understanding that different species have different merits. Orks will put down a slave rebellion, sure. But they take little to no steps to actively defuse such. Because to the Orky mindset, if the slaves are now ‘ard enuff? Good for them.
Cruel? Yes. But not malice. And almost certainly not evil. Like Tyranids they’re just following their genetic imperative.
Orks weren't explicitly fungal in rogue trader, but they've always been plant-like. In RT they were green because of symbiotic algae on their skin (which is part of why they're so tough.
The fungi thing didn't spring out of nowhere, the spores (heh) were planted right from the beginning
Easy E wrote: Now I feel the need to go dig out Waaagh! The Orks and my RT book to find "the truth"!
Got you covered. Page 5, "Ork Physiology"
Spoiler:
Page 6: Snotlings (Snotlings are explicitly symbiotic to fungi in RT)
Spoiler:
Page 35 & 91 repeat that Snotlings are fungus, and elaborates that a Snotling that eats too much fungus becomes one (gotta love RT body horror)
Spoiler:
so in RT Orks (and all greenskins): Symbiotic with Algae
Snots specifically: Symbiotic with Fungus
so the orks are fungus thing didn't pop out fully-formed in Gorkamorka or 3rd edition or whatever, the greenskin/fungus connection was always there, it just wasn't explicitly the Orks that were the fungal ones
Da Butcha wrote:Really? I thought it was brilliant.
[my standard rant on orks, abbreviated as much as I can]
I feel like 40K orks are one of the most creative and underappreciated 'ecologies' in science fiction/fantasy. The ecology is incredibly simple to explain, but has all these hidden aspects that make it creatively useful, especially for a wargame.
Totally get your perspective (and if you have an unabbreviated rant, I'd love to read it, and you can certainly feel free to PM it). Believe it or not, I mostly agree with you. I just wish Orks were orcs and the fungoid creatures were some other name. So my grumpy grognard take is really just a technicality.
Charax wrote:Orks weren't explicitly fungal in rogue trader, but they've always been plant-like. In RT they were green because of symbiotic algae on their skin (which is part of why they're so tough.
The fungi thing didn't spring out of nowhere, the spores (heh) were planted right from the beginning
Page 185 of RT: "Humans and Orks share a similar physiology..." so I don't buy that they've always been plant-like. I'd say the opposite, there were explicitly not fungal in RT. But I don't have the Waaaaagh or Gorka Morka books, so if it changed by then, so be it.
EDIT: I wrote the post before seeing Charax's subsequent post. Thank you, Charax, for posting those excerpts.
Charax wrote:Orks weren't explicitly fungal in rogue trader, but they've always been plant-like. In RT they were green because of symbiotic algae on their skin (which is part of why they're so tough.
The fungi thing didn't spring out of nowhere, the spores (heh) were planted right from the beginning
Page 185 of RT: "Humans and Orks share a similar physiology..." so I don't buy that they've always been plant-like. I'd say the opposite, there were explicitly not fungal in RT. But I don't have the Waaaaagh or Gorka Morka books, so if it changed by then, so be it.
Charax wrote:Orks weren't explicitly fungal in rogue trader, but they've always been plant-like. In RT they were green because of symbiotic algae on their skin (which is part of why they're so tough.
The fungi thing didn't spring out of nowhere, the spores (heh) were planted right from the beginning
Page 185 of RT: "Humans and Orks share a similar physiology..." so I don't buy that they've always been plant-like. I'd say the opposite, there were explicitly not fungal in RT. But I don't have the Waaaaagh or Gorka Morka books, so if it changed by then, so be it.
But...I...literally...just...
15 minutes ago...
4 separate quotes...
I know, I know. I was typing when you posted. Thanks for posting!
I ‘member a time when t’internet didn’t bother my poor, sad, foetid mire of a brain with Netlists and Meta and increasingly confusing math hammer where it’s expressed as percentage and not fractions!
I remember when you had to decide between a cheap bare bones infantry squad that was going to die on the first turn, or one with all the bells and whistles that costed a 50% extra.
Fugazi wrote: It always struck me as odd. Like, here's an orc (in spaaaaaace, so it's an ork). We all know what an orc is, from either LotR or D&D. So let's make it a fungus?
I don't know. Always seemed like a weird choice.
Really? I thought it was brilliant.
[my standard rant on orks, abbreviated as much as I can]
I feel like 40K orks are one of the most creative and underappreciated 'ecologies' in science fiction/fantasy. The ecology is incredibly simple to explain, but has all these hidden aspects that make it creatively useful, especially for a wargame.
Orks reproduce through fungal spores, emerge almost fully grown ('yoofs'), and have (a lot of) their knowledge encoded within them. Pain doesn't seem to engender anxiety or dread in them, and they can heal from almost any non-mortal injury (and mortal injuries can be fixed with ork parts and staples).
This means:
•Orks have no evolutionary reason to have nurturing instincts.
•Their reproduction isn't tied to their own survival nearly as much as other races. Violent death is a reproductive strategy.
•Their knowledge is strongly ingrained in them at birth, so there's no need for schooling, or for the whole ideas of protecting the youth and revering the elders.
•Violent conflict is relatively low-risk for them, both personally, and as a species. They aren't going to have disabled war veterans.
It allows them to be violent, conflict-loving hooligans with no respect, without actually making them slaves to Chaos and mustache-twisting evil guys. Yes, they are insanely violent and cruel from a human perspective, but no so much from their own.
Basically, they're prepubescent boys - no interest in girls, love to brawl, no thought for the future and they have terrible judgement regarding risk.
I will say that this kind of wrecks the earlier fluff about Stormboyz being taught the ropes of fighting and "outgrowing" discipline as they get older.
There's also the clan loyalty thing, which makes no sense if they're just fungi. Why feel loyalty to anyone or anything?
I also think that Orks being indifferent to death because its the only way they reproduce and they lack any kind of fear instinct is less interesting than the notion that they are so carried away by the WAAAAGH that it supersedes self-preservation.
I remember when proper grumpy grognards didn't take to the internet to moan.... oh.. wait...
Moaning took place at conventions or in letters to the editors of gaming magazines.
I think what the internet did was act as an accelerant in spreading information that was already out there. Going through old games and magazines, certain strategies and "hacks" emerged, they just took a while to get around.
A great example of this is that when 4th ed. 40k came out and people began to realize that GW was now doing a "product cycle" rather than trying for a "definitive edition," the 2nd ed. retro movement was able to compare notes and found that there was a surprising overlap in what people felt needed to be fixed.
It was kind of weird to discover that players from around the world all agreed on a set of relatively simple fixes and many had already been using them.
Flame wars also got faster. Kids today have no idea of the patience required for waiting a week or more to see the replies to your sick burn. Nowadays, you can burn out a thread in a matter of days, but when I was young, people would argue for years over this stuff, and don't get me started about letters crossing each other in the mail.
Now you can go full nuclear over a rules dispute and even get banned in a single day, all in the comfort of your own home. You don't even need to go the post office to buy stamps! Luxury!
Miguelsan wrote: I remember when you had to decide between a cheap bare bones infantry squad that was going to die on the first turn, or one with all the bells and whistles that costed a 50% extra.
M.
I remember a time when people wouldn't jump through hoops to keep justifying playing said game and when presented with a viable alternative didn't turn their collective noses up at it.
Miguelsan wrote: I remember when you had to decide between a cheap bare bones infantry squad that was going to die on the first turn, or one with all the bells and whistles that costed a 50% extra.
M.
I remember a time when people wouldn't jump through hoops to keep justifying playing said game and when presented with a viable alternative didn't turn their collective noses up at it.
I remember when proper grumpy grognards didn't take to the internet to moan.... oh.. wait...
Moaning took place at conventions or in letters to the editors of gaming magazines.
I think what the internet did was act as an accelerant in spreading information that was already out there. Going through old games and magazines, certain strategies and "hacks" emerged, they just took a while to get around.
A great example of this is that when 4th ed. 40k came out and people began to realize that GW was now doing a "product cycle" rather than trying for a "definitive edition," the 2nd ed. retro movement was able to compare notes and found that there was a surprising overlap in what people felt needed to be fixed.
It was kind of weird to discover that players from around the world all agreed on a set of relatively simple fixes and many had already been using them.
Flame wars also got faster. Kids today have no idea of the patience required for waiting a week or more to see the replies to your sick burn. Nowadays, you can burn out a thread in a matter of days, but when I was young, people would argue for years over this stuff, and don't get me started about letters crossing each other in the mail.
Now you can go full nuclear over a rules dispute and even get banned in a single day, all in the comfort of your own home. You don't even need to go the post office to buy stamps! Luxury!
If you believe 4chsn moderators in interviews after they quit this still happens to this day. 2 guys posting the same arguments against each other daily for literally years. Both thinking its different people they're fighting with..
Grognards remember when lists were written on paper and you had to do your own maths. These days you print it out after some website spits it at you... and then it's not printed half of what it should have...
ProtoClone wrote: You damn kids and your high falutin games and rules.
All we needed in my day was a stick and an opponent. You beat each other until someone gave up.
ProtoClone wrote: You damn kids and your high falutin games and rules.
All we needed in my day was a stick and an opponent. You beat each other until someone gave up.
And we were better people for it too! You soon learned to play nice when someone had a 2nd ed whippy stick..
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So if GW are finally going to update the Vyper Jetbike (not a rumour!) I hope they restore the fighting platform.
I do miss that. Think I even converted one at the tail end of 2nd Ed.
Waiting for a company to make a model?!
That's kid stuff. In my day you made it yourself, using whatever was handy.
Same applied to boardgames. No one back then waiting for a special scenario, they made it themselves and hand-cut cardboard pieces for the new units.
Heck, I still have maps I drew on hex-sheet paper. (Oh and even getting that paper was a chore, I tell you! Before that I used hand-drawn grids made with a ruler.)
Kids these days have it easy. Go online, whinge away, wait for someone to bring you your precious toy, and whinge for something else.
In my day we had to cut down the tree, haul it to mills, hand-cycle the machinery, crank the paper roll, cut each individual sheet with a pocket knife, and THAT was how you made a gaming map.
Don't get me started on working in that lead mine to make miniatures!
"In my day we had to cut down the tree, haul it to mills, hand-cycle the machinery, crank the paper roll, cut each individual sheet with a pocket knife, and THAT was how you made ... toilet roll..."
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
There's also the clan loyalty thing, which makes no sense if they're just fungi. Why feel loyalty to anyone or anything?
Not all fungi are the same, a Death Cap & a Truffle are both mushrooms, ones delicious and one makes you dead. Orks can be racist too
That's kid stuff. In my day you made it yourself, using whatever was handy.
Same applied to boardgames. No one back then waiting for a special scenario, they made it themselves and hand-cut cardboard pieces for the new units.
Heck, I still have maps I drew on hex-sheet paper. (Oh and even getting that paper was a chore, I tell you! Before that I used hand-drawn grids made with a ruler.)
Kids these days have it easy. Go online, whinge away, wait for someone to bring you your precious toy, and whinge for something else.
In my day we had to cut down the tree, haul it to mills, hand-cycle the machinery, crank the paper roll, cut each individual sheet with a pocket knife, and THAT was how you made a gaming map.
Don't get me started on working in that lead mine to make miniatures!
I have the White Dwarf issue where they show you how to make a grav-tank for 40k out of a Speedstick container (or whatever UK brand used that container style; here in the US it was Speedstick). Also own the How to Make Wargaming Terrain that GW used to publish. Catch them trying to keep the Greed Workshop Hobby(tm) affordable now! We wouldn't want their board of directors to light their Cuban cigars with mere platinum plated lighters instead of £100 notes! Poor little rich boys. I bleed for them, I won't say from where.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
There's also the clan loyalty thing, which makes no sense if they're just fungi. Why feel loyalty to anyone or anything?
Not all fungi are the same, a Death Cap & a Truffle are both mushrooms, ones delicious and one makes you dead. Orks can be racist too
My absolute favourite Mushroom is Gyromitra esculenta. It produces enough Hydrazine (yes, the stuff used as rocket fuel) that you can get light poisoning just by being in a badly ventilated room with some. It's deadly poisonous if eaten. 'Esculenta' means 'delicious', people in Finland prepare it in convoluted ways to make it un-poisonous enough to ingest in moderate quantities.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So if GW are finally going to update the Vyper Jetbike (not a rumour!) I hope they restore the fighting platform.
I do miss that. Think I even converted one at the tail end of 2nd Ed.
Waiting for a company to make a model?!
That's kid stuff. In my day you made it yourself, using whatever was handy.
I've really got to get back to some of the junk I made out of nail anchors, vending machine capsules and milk bottle caps, and post them here for all of you to gouge out your eyes over!
That's kid stuff. In my day you made it yourself, using whatever was handy.
Same applied to boardgames. No one back then waiting for a special scenario, they made it themselves and hand-cut cardboard pieces for the new units.
Heck, I still have maps I drew on hex-sheet paper. (Oh and even getting that paper was a chore, I tell you! Before that I used hand-drawn grids made with a ruler.)
Kids these days have it easy. Go online, whinge away, wait for someone to bring you your precious toy, and whinge for something else.
In my day we had to cut down the tree, haul it to mills, hand-cycle the machinery, crank the paper roll, cut each individual sheet with a pocket knife, and THAT was how you made a gaming map.
Don't get me started on working in that lead mine to make miniatures!
I have the White Dwarf issue where they show you how to make a grav-tank for 40k out of a Speedstick container (or whatever UK brand used that container style; here in the US it was Speedstick). Also own the How to Make Wargaming Terrain that GW used to publish. Catch them trying to keep the Greed Workshop Hobby(tm) affordable now! We wouldn't want their board of directors to light their Cuban cigars with mere platinum plated lighters instead of £100 notes! Poor little rich boys. I bleed for them, I won't say from where.
I remember the article where they showed you how to paint their expensive plastic battle board.. using little pots of paint and a small brush, amazed they missed a chance to promote their crap "airbrush".
they didn't mention the larger paint pack they sold specifically to paint this board with
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The spray gun was never marketed as an airbrush. Just an alternative to sprays for base coating.
Once had a kid try to return one. Thick with paint. He didn’t take kindly to being told “no”. But then he was an odd kid.
this is why painting that expensive bit of plastic they called a table was the perfect thing to use it on really
imagine that paying for a plastic table instead of stealing your parents finest dining table cloth and getting paint all over it the way nature intended
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The spray gun was never marketed as an airbrush. Just an alternative to sprays for base coating.
Once had a kid try to return one. Thick with paint. He didn’t take kindly to being told “no”. But then he was an odd kid.
this is why painting that expensive bit of plastic they called a table was the perfect thing to use it on really
imagine that paying for a plastic table instead of stealing your parents finest dining table cloth and getting paint all over it the way nature intended
Tablecloth?! All well and good for those to the manor born, but in my family we used old Army blankets spread on the dirt floor for our games.
Okay, maybe not on the dirt floor, but for big battles, the old Army wool was a cheap alternative to gaming felt.
As for making your own toilet paper, please. That's what the Sears catalog was for!
We used a bolt of fabric that we crumpled up and hit with some SAC Bomber Tan to give it a little character. Books under it for hills, salvaged styrofoam bunkers. Good times.
My first gaming table comprised of two carpenter trestles, an old office top plonked on those, topped off with two interior doors to form the board. Painted goblin green in colour, using paint mixed at B&Q (a hardware store in the U.K.).
This was during 2nd Ed. And because interior doors are more than 2’ wide? Each side had a margin which was handy for datafax cards and that.
From a grognard's perspective, I think most have a limit of how much BS they can put up with whichever gaming company and game they follow, where they just say "no more". It might be a price rise, a poor piece of rules writing, an un-necessary change to the background made completely for commercial reasons, and taking a great hairy dump on the work of their predecessors. It will be one single thing, one straw, that breaks the camel's back.
As this is a grognard-friendly zone, this video from Monty Python illustrated it pretty well. The person affected would be John Cleese (is it safe for me to say that?) - the extra little fish slap across the face: I'm going to say for me it was 6th edition 40k, and I was trying to work out with my opponent which re-roll, amongst the five special rules in play, took presedence over the other. And I just stopped and said "wtf I am bothering with this"
example of a game company going "gun-foot-aim-fire-reload-repeat"
Battlefront with Flames of War, the 4th incarnation of which was so well loved by its player base that Battlefront nuked their own forum
never played first, I'm told 2nd improved a lot, third fixed a few things but "simplified" a lot that was ok, 4th moved it from being "the game of the film of ww2" towards "now updated for a modern audience!" with a game that was only partly WW2 connected shifted firmly into the 1980's with a WW2 skin based on the "team yankee" game in a desperate attempt to chase X-Wing players
seriously, what is is with game systems assuming people cannot count above 100, I mean go to Norfolk, base 11 on fingers is easy
leopard wrote: example of a game company going "gun-foot-aim-fire-reload-repeat"
D&D 4th edition, the one with the cards that played like a tabletop console game. No more "describe your attack," nope it was a power as written.
Total commercial failure, so much so I heard that 3.5 editions books on resale outsold it.
4th was pretty good as a MMO combat simulator but, for me, it wasn't D&D.
I did think it sold fairly well, at least to begin with, though. And it did get the Adventurer's League ball rolling, which I think is a positive thing.
leopard wrote: example of a game company going "gun-foot-aim-fire-reload-repeat"
D&D 4th edition, the one with the cards that played like a tabletop console game. No more "describe your attack," nope it was a power as written.
Total commercial failure, so much so I heard that 3.5 editions books on resale outsold it.
ah yes the video game played with dice on a table top, you can do what the writers present and nothing else. well unless you have a GM with common sense and then the rules are at best a framework to be discarded when they get in the way..
I gave it a miss
in other news, I remember when people made their own army roster, scribbled in the margin of an often reused bit of paper with the stub of a pencil
Easy E wrote: Back in my day, a Virus Outbreak strategy card could sideline 90% of my army before turn 1.
That took character to play!
Also a certain amount of physical courage, particularly if your opponent had enjoyed a pre-game pint.
I'm old enough to remember when PLAYERS had to act as the "developers" of the game because the actual designers had no earthly idea what they were actually building. Many of the "campaign" games had never been played to completion. I remember calling up the designer (hey, they had the number in the rules) and asking if a rule permitted two charges in the same turn. Awkward pause. He re-read the rule several times aloud. "I guess so. None of our guys ever wanted to try that."*
"Errata" actually included redrawing portions of the maps and core rules would have "Oh yeah, that totally wrecks the game so don't do it" updates.
Playtesting was a luxury for the super-rich, sort of like a car that would start when you turned the key. Real gamers bought a loose collection of gaming spare parts and three sets of contradictory schematics and figured out how to make it work.
Kids these days! As soon as they have a question, they run to the internet to find the answer.
*Dean Essig, Civil War Brigade Series. I bloodlusted the Iron Brigade and wanted to go for broke. It was legal!
Pacific wrote: From a grognard's perspective, I think most have a limit of how much BS they can put up with whichever gaming company and game they follow, where they just say "no more". It might be a price rise, a poor piece of rules writing, an un-necessary change to the background made completely for commercial reasons, and taking a great hairy dump on the work of their predecessors. It will be one single thing, one straw, that breaks the camel's back.
As this is a grognard-friendly zone, this video from Monty Python illustrated it pretty well. The person affected would be John Cleese (is it safe for me to say that?) - the extra little fish slap across the face: I'm going to say for me it was 6th edition 40k, and I was trying to work out with my opponent which re-roll, amongst the five special rules in play, took presedence over the other. And I just stopped and said "wtf I am bothering with this"
I do not understand the endless constant hype products have today. Before the current thing is released they're already previewing the next 2 releases. There's no time to digest any thing or figure out what you want to do with a game, it's just an endless cycle of marketing with everything else out the window. Then once enough people catch on its time for a new edition, Not to improve anything of course. It's to need all the best selling things into the floor and bump up what didn't sell well last time.
I can't remember who it was but an old GW chap said the company was doomed when the marketing department started to dictate to the design department and I couldn't agree more. I don't need nor want online algorithms to dictate the way a hobby is engaged with. But now everything is based on maximum exposure online and little else. You sell your soul to a robot and lose the fun of the hobby.
Easy E wrote: I recall when every game store had a store cat!
This hit me hard.
Not around here. Bookstores had cats. The great stores (that are no longer around) had train layouts and things that cats would find irresistible.
I also miss the days when GW was just another player in the industry, not deserving of their own section. Around 20 years ago, general purpose hobby shops began consolidating space for miniatures and GW pretty much took it over.
Of course such stores are now a thing of the past. Growing up, there was multiple options for a day at the hobby shop. Rider's for full service, Hobby Hub for a more toy-and-train approach, The Abyss for the hard-core D&D and Steve Jackson crowd. Those willing to make the drive to metro Detroit had access to The Alcove, a store whose name is still spoken with love and veneration.
They were succeeded by Just 4 Fun, The Fortress, Gen X, Major League Sports Cards and Games, and 21st Century.
All of those stores are now gone. There is still a Rider's in Grand Rapids, but that's an hour and change away.
The joy of going into a shop, picking up a copy of Fire & Movement, seeing the new gaming releases and making an impulse buy on a terrible Avalon Hills design ("France 1940," anyone?) is lost to the present generation.
Is it also lost on our generation? I don't feel any excitement for current things in pretty much any medium. I am not opposed to liking new things but anything post 2005 has rarely if ever appealed to me. It feels like watching an old vhs tape slowly repeating the same movie but wearing out. There's nothing to be excited to impulse buy even when you fancy a new model or rule set.
I'd love to browse a new line of models or pick up a new book and not have to qualify it with an excuse for trying something new rather than being invested in it
Might be a difference in what excites you vs where the market has gone? Feels like we’re in a new golden age of plastics, with Stargrave and WGA and Mantic and Victrix. Dropfleet’s new spaceships still get me excited in the way a new Star Wars, Star Trek or Babylon 5 spaceship did in the old days. However, I find Games Workshop to be anti-exciting, in that new release that should excite me in theory instead leave me feeling tired and depressed on release.
Re: Cats. Yes, our used bookstores also had cats. In fact, we lost two be-catted bookstores just before the pandemic. The only extant store in my area with cats today is a comic book store that sells at suspiciously reasonable prices.
Yo7 wrote: Is it also lost on our generation? I don't feel any excitement for current things in pretty much any medium. I am not opposed to liking new things but anything post 2005 has rarely if ever appealed to me. It feels like watching an old vhs tape slowly repeating the same movie but wearing out. There's nothing to be excited to impulse buy even when you fancy a new model or rule set.
I'd love to browse a new line of models or pick up a new book and not have to qualify it with an excuse for trying something new rather than being invested in it
I fear old bean that is simply life. Especially those of us of a similar fine vintage.
I was born in 1980, and as such I’ve pretty much been there for the birth of home computing, and definitely the Internet Age.
When I look back upon it, there is a period (my 20’s) where everything seems to have hit hyper speed. But that might just have been booze related shenanigans.
We lack the perspective to truly spot what was and wasn’t a new iteration of Old Hat when we were young, because…well….we were young.
The best we can do is, outside of this thread which is our designated safe space, not be a Richard to folks discovering the things we love and loved for the first time. Instead we should encourage them.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Might be a difference in what excites you vs where the market has gone? Feels like we’re in a new golden age of plastics, with Stargrave and WGA and Mantic and Victrix. Dropfleet’s new spaceships still get me excited in the way a new Star Wars, Star Trek or Babylon 5 spaceship did in the old days. However, I find Games Workshop to be anti-exciting, in that new release that should excite me in theory instead leave me feeling tired and depressed on release.
That's because there is nothing innovative or interesting in what they are doing. It is a naked exercise in extracting cash from a captive player base. Every three years you get a new game, new models, new rules.
I'm old enough to remember when new editions were expected to add value. The rules were cleaner, better, maybe added new features but the primary selling point was its improvement on known flaws.
Now it's just swapping new flaws for the old ones.
I do look at some of the revised board games with interest. Better graphics there for sure. I remember when Avalon Hill thought blue and pink were nice, martial colors.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Might be a difference in what excites you vs where the market has gone? Feels like we’re in a new golden age of plastics, with Stargrave and WGA and Mantic and Victrix. Dropfleet’s new spaceships still get me excited in the way a new Star Wars, Star Trek or Babylon 5 spaceship did in the old days. However, I find Games Workshop to be anti-exciting, in that new release that should excite me in theory instead leave me feeling tired and depressed on release.
I agree. As mentioned elsewhere I've greatly enjoyed kit-bashing Northstar, WGA and assorted 3rd party bits. Greed Workshop monopose leaves me cold, and the prices make me rage. {As does their deliberate strange cuts intended to prevent kit-bashing. Really a right leg leading up to a left arm that has to be twisted into its opposite? Don't try to tell me that's for mold efficiency: I've done home-casting and know the process of mold making, even if I've never done it myself.}
Similarly, I am no longer that excited by new games. Of course, in Jr High and HS, I had few games and it was all new. Now I have an extensive collection and know people with even larger collections. So I may be initially interested, but then common sense takes over. "You already own a game on this subject, and it hasn't hit the table for a decade", and so I put it back. Or "It's an economic worker placement Euro, you know [Name Redacted] will buy it, so save the money for miniatures."
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I'm old enough to remember when new editions were expected to add value. The rules were cleaner, better, maybe added new features but the primary selling point was its improvement on known flaws.
Now it's just swapping new flaws for the old ones.
I do look at some of the revised board games with interest. Better graphics there for sure. I remember when Avalon Hill thought blue and pink were nice, martial colors.
Yes, with Greed Workshop's planned obsolescence of editions every three years, there is no significant continuity between rules sets, so there can be no improvement. They just exchange one set of mistakes for all new mistakes, and whatever the must-haves were for your army, they are now worthless, so you now have to buy new units at the higher prices (since GW raises prices annually regardless of economic climate). I've given up on them. With Kings of War, a new edition is a new edition in the old sense, so it is a refinement.
As for the Avalon Hill blue and pink, I'm pretty sure that comes from U.S. army wargames tradition of that time. Red is Aggressor force, and Blue is Defending force.
Something I do miss is the generalized gaming magazines like The Space Gamer. When White Dwarf was not a house organ, but covered all games. Sure, there were a lot of ad for Citadel miniatures, but the 'zine had articles on Runequest, AD&D, Traveller, hobby articles, reviews, general interest articles like a RPG oriented look at a real world society/culture and how you might add it to your RPG of choice. Good stuff. Now it might not be cost-effective for print magazines these days, and perhaps then only way to cover costs is for a magazine to be a house organ, I don't know. Still, it was pleasant to go to the LGS, look at the current issues, and pick one or two up when they had articles useful to you.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Might be a difference in what excites you vs where the market has gone? Feels like we’re in a new golden age of plastics, with Stargrave and WGA and Mantic and Victrix. Dropfleet’s new spaceships still get me excited in the way a new Star Wars, Star Trek or Babylon 5 spaceship did in the old days. However, I find Games Workshop to be anti-exciting, in that new release that should excite me in theory instead leave me feeling tired and depressed on release.
I agree. As mentioned elsewhere I've greatly enjoyed kit-bashing Northstar, WGA and assorted 3rd party bits. Greed Workshop monopose leaves me cold, and the prices make me rage. {As does their deliberate strange cuts intended to prevent kit-bashing. Really a right leg leading up to a left arm that has to be twisted into its opposite? Don't try to tell me that's for mold efficiency: I've done home-casting and know the process of mold making, even if I've never done it myself.}
Similarly, I am no longer that excited by new games. Of course, in Jr High and HS, I had few games and it was all new. Now I have an extensive collection and know people with even larger collections. So I may be initially interested, but then common sense takes over. "You already own a game on this subject, and it hasn't hit the table for a decade", and so I put it back. Or "It's an economic worker placement Euro, you know [Name Redacted] will buy it, so save the money for miniatures."
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I'm old enough to remember when new editions were expected to add value. The rules were cleaner, better, maybe added new features but the primary selling point was its improvement on known flaws.
Now it's just swapping new flaws for the old ones.
I do look at some of the revised board games with interest. Better graphics there for sure. I remember when Avalon Hill thought blue and pink were nice, martial colors.
Yes, with Greed Workshop's planned obsolescence of editions every three years, there is no significant continuity between rules sets, so there can be no improvement. They just exchange one set of mistakes for all new mistakes, and whatever the must-haves were for your army, they are now worthless, so you now have to buy new units at the higher prices (since GW raises prices annually regardless of economic climate). I've given up on them. With Kings of War, a new edition is a new edition in the old sense, so it is a refinement.
As for the Avalon Hill blue and pink, I'm pretty sure that comes from U.S. army wargames tradition of that time. Red is Aggressor force, and Blue is Defending force.
Something I do miss is the generalized gaming magazines like The Space Gamer. When White Dwarf was not a house organ, but covered all games. Sure, there were a lot of ad for Citadel miniatures, but the 'zine had articles on Runequest, AD&D, Traveller, hobby articles, reviews, general interest articles like a RPG oriented look at a real world society/culture and how you might add it to your RPG of choice. Good stuff. Now it might not be cost-effective for print magazines these days, and perhaps then only way to cover costs is for a magazine to be a house organ, I don't know. Still, it was pleasant to go to the LGS, look at the current issues, and pick one or two up when they had articles useful to you.
There's still magazines out there if you want them but they're not anything like they used to be. There's no money in article writing compared to DIY internet fame..
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yo7 wrote: Is it also lost on our generation? I don't feel any excitement for current things in pretty much any medium. I am not opposed to liking new things but anything post 2005 has rarely if ever appealed to me. It feels like watching an old vhs tape slowly repeating the same movie but wearing out. There's nothing to be excited to impulse buy even when you fancy a new model or rule set.
I'd love to browse a new line of models or pick up a new book and not have to qualify it with an excuse for trying something new rather than being invested in it
I fear old bean that is simply life. Especially those of us of a similar fine vintage.
I was born in 1980, and as such I’ve pretty much been there for the birth of home computing, and definitely the Internet Age.
When I look back upon it, there is a period (my 20’s) where everything seems to have hit hyper speed. But that might just have been booze related shenanigans.
We lack the perspective to truly spot what was and wasn’t a new iteration of Old Hat when we were young, because…well….we were young.
The best we can do is, outside of this thread which is our designated safe space, not be a Richard to folks discovering the things we love and loved for the first time. Instead we should encourage them.
I respectfully disagree. Old hat is even older now. I'm not saying the 80s and 90s were the height of originality and nothing was ever borrowed but it wasn't ubisoft games, the last of us remake 5 or Skyrim whatever edition. You went from pong to sonic to final fantasy. But leaps in technology and ideas being explored throughout a 50 year time period. We've hit a slump since then and globalism has expanded it even further. Theres no longer distinct national personalities in games, it's all become americanised. And the ironic thing is its not even American games like warmachine doing it. Its mostly the Nottingham crowd..
BobtheInquisitor wrote:Might be a difference in what excites you vs where the market has gone? Feels like we’re in a new golden age of plastics, with Stargrave and WGA and Mantic and Victrix. Dropfleet’s new spaceships still get me excited in the way a new Star Wars, Star Trek or Babylon 5 spaceship did in the old days. However, I find Games Workshop to be anti-exciting, in that new release that should excite me in theory instead leave me feeling tired and depressed on release.
Re: Cats. Yes, our used bookstores also had cats. In fact, we lost two be-catted bookstores just before the pandemic. The only extant store in my area with cats today is a comic book store that sells at suspiciously reasonable prices.
I enjoy those kits but I don't find them exciting. I would have leaned into ghazals dark fantasy style for more exciting. The current plastics are all very... safe? Functional, well cast and the right amount of painting needed but.. safe. Theres nothing beterrn gws dancing tutu wearing prancing on a rock over detailed models and safe generic fantasynin plastics these days... I want something... birthdayish.. a special center piece that isn't resin and a pain to build.
Have you looked at Kingdom Death, Conquest: Last Argument of Kings, or Malifaux? Each of those lines puts out fantastically weird centerpiece minis in plastic. I’d even recommend Ex Illis for their giant demon mini, but I doubt you can find that for a reasonable price anywhere anymore.
And that’s ignoring some of the more characterful plastics from the big companies, such as the Landsknecht (space) ogres, the Raven-riding dwarfs, or cartoonish, tailless snakemen. The big plastics producers are starting to take more risks. I’m very excited for plastic Quar when they come out.
Yo7 wrote: I respectfully disagree. Old hat is even older now. I'm not saying the 80s and 90s were the height of originality and nothing was ever borrowed but it wasn't ubisoft games, the last of us remake 5 or Skyrim whatever edition. You went from pong to sonic to final fantasy. But leaps in technology and ideas being explored throughout a 50 year time period. We've hit a slump since then and globalism has expanded it even further. Theres no longer distinct national personalities in games, it's all become americanised. And the ironic thing is its not even American games like warmachine doing it. Its mostly the Nottingham crowd..
I will say that the 80s and 90s were a period of intense creativity and innovation, both in game design and in other spheres. Science tells us that the 80s saw the greatest diversity in music experimentation in human history. Since then, things have regressed, and the same is true in game design.
There has been a consolidation of "IP" across the board, and instead of trying to build market share by creating innovative designs, there is a definite drive to lock people into a subscription model and use market presence to enforce it.
On the one hand, yes, the internet, print-on-demand publishing has made it possible to share gaming ideas as never before.
On the other hand, capital is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and those hands want less.
Consider: How much smaller was GW in terms of market share and market capitalization in 1995 than it is today? What was its creative output then compared to today?
Once upon a time there was TSR, and also Wizards of the Coat, and also Hasbro. Now they are one, and George Lucas holds the One Ring that rules them all.
I think the thing that can be done is to celebrate the old stuff, which has never been more accessible.
If you think about it, our generation has thrown away more creative ideas than other generations ever had. Some of them are worth a second look.
And that's why I bought Modern Naval Battles, because dammit, I couldn't afford it in the 1980s and I can today!
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Have you looked at Kingdom Death, Conquest: Last Argument of Kings, or Malifaux? Each of those lines puts out fantastically weird centerpiece minis in plastic. I’d even recommend Ex Illis for their giant demon mini, but I doubt you can find that for a reasonable price anywhere anymore.
And that’s ignoring some of the more characterful plastics from the big companies, such as the Landsknecht (space) ogres, the Raven-riding dwarfs, or cartoonish, tailless snakemen. The big plastics producers are starting to take more risks. I’m very excited for plastic Quar when they come out.
Conquest models are so miserable to build I would take multiple root cannels over building them. I bought an orc starter set and could not stomach them.
Kingdom death is all resin isnt it? I have lots of resin and limited time to clean resin. There's only so many models you can build outside in a mask when weather permits.
Empire ogres aren't really exciting. Lizards are okay but didn't click with me. But it still doesn't feel original or interesting. Think of how many factions today are just 80s factions continued. Here's the 2020s version of space elves? Why don't we have modern tech sci fi worlds instead of retro futurism everything still? Think of space elves but they have super advanced ai. Internet and smart phone tech. How does that look in terms of space elf warfare? That would be exciting
Back in my day, the Wolf Guard could all be Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launchers so when they launched all their missiles in turn 1 the blast radius could cover my entire deployment zone.
That took real character to play against armies like that!
Easy E wrote: Back in my day, the Wolf Guard could all be Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launchers so when they launched all their missiles in turn 1 the blast radius could cover my entire deployment zone.
That took real character to play against armies like that!
Terrain made a huge difference. All the 2nd ed. boards I played on had very clutter lines of sight. Put simply, it was hard to see from deployment zone to deployment zone, which put a premium on movement and concealment.
Today, the noobs all fret over who has the first turn, but in my day, the second turn was coveted because it allowed you to move onto the objective without risking a subsequent shooting phase.
Units could (and did) start in cover, hidden, and moved out when they were provided with adequate supporting fire (or complete disregard for sound tactics).
Kids today talk about "alpha strikes" because their rules are like dumbed-down Axis and Allies: just throw boxes of dice at each other.
Real 40k was much more subtle, using the full scope of the shooting rules to control your opponent's fire options. The "closest and easiest" target rule was a prime example: you could either throw a Demolish with a dozer blade and ablative armor out front to act as a shot sponge, or offer worthless chaff troops for the same purpose. If the opponent opens fire, on your turn you can direct a withering counter-strike.
If they don't, you move into close assault, blasting even hidden units out of their cover with plentiful templates.
Easy E wrote: Back in my day, the Wolf Guard could all be Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launchers so when they launched all their missiles in turn 1 the blast radius could cover my entire deployment zone.
That took real character to play against armies like that!
Haha.. that's one of the things I heard spoken of, but never saw in person. I think it probably needed some commitment, even with the bits ordering service, and I can imagine the reaction of the mail order Trolls when you asked for it over the phone!
I think the worst rules abuse I saw was a humble Eldar Guardian which transformed into an assassin using polymorph and was actually in terminator armour riding a bike (they had used the old 'armour egg' squat model on a trike, which made it even more hilarious). Although I think even with the wacky 2nd ed rules didn't go that far and it wasn't allowed!
I don't like alternative activations. It feel much less involved than having to plan a whole turn and execute it or recover from it going bad. Sitting down and taking a few minutes to mull over your next turn is an enjoyable part of the game to me. Alt activations feels like a solution to lack of attention or keeping people off their phone..
Also phones should be banned at gaming tables except for emergencies or looking up rules problems. It's disrespectful to be flipping through your phone mid game, they're a tool not the center of attention over the guy sitting across from you. Having to reply to the wife once or work is understandable but I am a firm believer in engaging with what you're doing instead of focusing on electronic devices. If your phones more interesting than the table top game.. don't play the game at all. Play with your phone and save insulting the guy across the board from you.
Started with RT. Got hit with a lot of real life. Came back toward the end of 3rd. Sometime around 5th and the release of 6th, I gave up trying to keep up. Real life hit back at the same time, and I've barely kept up with the state of the game. I loathe the primaris aesthetic and think they look like bland, generic scifi. The helmets are stupid. The floating brick vehicles, Primaris Brickcessors or whatever, are such lazy design to my eye. If you stripped away the logos and sigils, I would swear that entire line is from a knock off manufacturer. It's a little weird because I like the idea of true scale marines, but I don't like these, and I'm certainly not going to replace all the stuff I own and have painted--especially now that I feel the horrible march of time on all of my bones.
(This is just a grumpy rant. I don't begrudge the folks who love the new stuff at all, and I hope they don't begrudge me a little shouting into the wind.)
I honestly don't understand half of what people say in the 10th ed threads, lol. I don't read them anymore. It's hilarious to me, because I grew up with 40k from the very beginning, yet the new stuff feels utterly foreign. There is sooooooo much new fluff, both in the rulebooks and Black Library, I feel like a trespasser in the 40k Background forum. I'm an outsider in my own hobby.
This would have made me bitter once. I'm happy to say I don't feel that way at all. I still love the models I have and the codecies I own and read. I have plenty to paint. I pick up an odd model here or there, but I don't feel that FOMO for the exclusive Ultramarine Captain Foot-on-Rockius.
I wish I could say I knew what brought me to this place of peace. Maybe just a growing perspective on life? I don't know. If you've reached a similar place, I'd love to hear how you arrived.
Fugazi wrote: (This is just a grumpy rant. I don't begrudge the folks who love the new stuff at all, and I hope they don't begrudge me a little shouting into the wind.)
Well, you've come to the right place for it!
I look at the 10th ed. stuff and reminds me of all the other releases I didn't care about. I suppose there is a feeling of continuity and tradition now the children of people who first lamented a "next edition" are now old enough to do the same.
As for Primaris, I don't actually know what that is. Seems that GW is tossing around Church Latin terms like a radical splinter group from the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Their scapulars are blued steel or something.
Nu 40k was a soft reboot. Same way the force awakens was. They can't mothball everything so they keep the bare minimum and call it inferior to their new toys. There's a new, much more toy friendly design running through everything which is the market they seem to want. Funky pops fo4 a miniature game is insulting if not straight up an attempt to humiliate the audience and property they're from.
If you have stuff going on in life and more options than just this game it's easy to not get mad. Have fun doing something else and you can lose a hobby or two. If you have nothing else it's just problem
Here's a pretty good set of roleplaying rules. Please pay close attention.
If you want to do something, or avoid getting done by something, roll 1d6.
If you roll a 4+, you get it done, or you don't get done by it.
If you roll a 3-, you don't get it done, or you do get done by it.
If you have an ability, spell, magic item, Walmart gift certificate, or whatever, that helps you out, add 1 to the roll.
If the enemy has something like the above, and he's using it against you, subtract 1 from the roll.
That's pretty much all you need. All the rest in a decent rpg, the weapons, monsters, spaceships, ancient artifacts, etc., are idea generators that good players and GMs should look hard at to see whether they can add decent new ideas into play, whether they advance the party's interests or slow them doesn't matter.
Yo7 wrote: If you have stuff going on in life and more options than just this game it's easy to not get mad. Have fun doing something else and you can lose a hobby or two. If you have nothing else it's just problem
This is such a good insight, and I think it’s what did it for me. Looking back, I had the most FOMO when 40k was my main hobby. Now I have a wonderful family and lots of games from the modern board game renaissance and more outdoorsy things to do. I still love 40k. But if I don’t get a game going for a while, it doesn’t matter. I have other stuff to do.
I didn’t expect to get a big life perspective on a Warhammer forum today, but here we are.
The games are last on the list of things I like to do in this hobby.
Building, converting, painting, lore.....then like 13th or so on list comes the game.
I played my last game of 40k(for the foreseeable future) last night. 10th has absolutely and actively ended my desire for 40k, even more especially so since 30k, Necromunda & epic scaled games are ACTUALLY fun.
I will continue to buy the minis that I like, but as far as the rules go, I couldn't even give a feth because giving is free and my feths cost $€£¥
Is it any surprise those damn kids can’t reach their potential when they don’t have bangers like this to drive them in?
Best those whippersnappers can hope for is some dubstep which sounds like someone having a really really bad time on the lavvy after a dodgy Prawn Biryani. Without the pleasure of first having said Prawn Biryani.
Is it any surprise those damn kids can’t reach their potential when they don’t have bangers like this to drive them in?
But is it the final countdown?
The Big Switch for me was the complete lack of anything other than the battle to fasten onto. In 2nd, you could have fun sidebar narratives about the units and characters (and individual vehicles!) and follow them. Even if you used the (widely adopted) streamline rules (follow the link, kids) and wanted to play a higher points battle, you still kept those lovely moments when the chaplain burst out of hiding, survived overwatch thanks to his rosarius and hurled the haywire grenade at the lead tank to block the road to the objective with its wreck, only to die when the turret landed on him.
Back in the say, it was okay to lose, so long as you lost with style.
Now there is no style, it's all alpha-strike, all the time.
Which brings me to another topic, the fact that no one even knew that word. Old-school wargames were designed to be tests of strategy but also endurance. Yeah, there were games you could win in a turn, and everyone quit playing them. The Axis and Allies nerds figured out some slick gambits, and MBchanged the damn rules because it's GLOBAL WAR, not a tennis game where the first ace wins.
And the notion of buying your way to victory??? Not even. The micro-armor guys were wise to that - players who wanted to field every single Puma chassis ever built in a single battlefield. No, Melvin, try something else.
To put it another way, people who tried to engineer the irresistible arrmy were rightly shunned as losers and try-hards. Now it's a recognized and lauded skill. Thanks, GW.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: The Axis and Allies nerds figured out some slick gambits, and MBchanged the damn rules because it's GLOBAL WAR, not a tennis game where the first ace wins.
Ah, Axis and Allies.
My first and only game of the original--well, either the 1981 or 1984 version, I can't remember--was against two other players. I was Japan and had no idea what I was doing. But I can speak some Japanese, so at least I brought some authenticity to the proceedings.
Early in the game I randomly rolled the aeroplane distance upgrade (supercharged engines or something). I promptly started attacking America directly, from the far side of the Pacific. By the time we had to pack up, I had launched a land invasion of the United States.
Didn't last long before my units were surrounded and overwhelmed ... but good god it was worth it for the disbelief on the American player's face. He was an A&A veteran and had never seen that happen before. Neither had the spectators at the table. Beginner's luck is hilarious.
There is definitely a strong argument that losing in style matters. 2nd Ed also allowed for chain reactions which could turn a game around.
For instance, during a multiplayer game (Sunday at GW, everyone field everything) I once blasted a turret off a tank (Predator maybe? Might’ve been an Immolator. We’re talking 25 years ago so memory hazy) which landed on a Dreadnought. Dreadnought was staggered back into the midst of a SoB squad, and was blown up the same turn, taking out the SoB squad.
Likewise I’ve had my Land Raider (only one in the shop!) not just taken out by an Orky Smasha Gun (lifta-droppa), but dropped square onto a Devastator squad, squishing the lot of them.
And this is why I’m desperate to get back into 2nd Ed gaming. It’s big, it’s daft, it’s completely silly and I’m a slag for it.
Where abouts are you in the UK Mad Doc? We have a regular 2nd Ed group in Essex, for all the turret flinging fun you could ever need. Very relaxed games and no model elitism either.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: The Axis and Allies nerds figured out some slick gambits, and MBchanged the damn rules because it's GLOBAL WAR, not a tennis game where the first ace wins.
Ah, Axis and Allies.
My first and only game of the original--well, either the 1981 or 1984 version, I can't remember--was against two other players. I was Japan and had no idea what I was doing. But I can speak some Japanese, so at least I brought some authenticity to the proceedings.
Early in the game I randomly rolled the aeroplane distance upgrade (supercharged engines or something). I promptly started attacking America directly, from the far side of the Pacific. By the time we had to pack up, I had launched a land invasion of the United States.
Didn't last long before my units were surrounded and overwhelmed ... but good god it was worth it for the disbelief on the American player's face. He was an A&A veteran and had never seen that happen before. Neither had the spectators at the table. Beginner's luck is hilarious.
Yeah, Axis & Allies ends precisely one way, its just a question of whether Hitler and Tojo (Mussolini? Who's he?) get crushed now or later.
I've seen some cool alternate rules online where the Axis get black magic to turn things around. Wonder if I cn find them...
leopard wrote: a key part of doing something successfully in a table top game, as with life, is lacking the knowledge that its "impossible"
Or attempting the long-odds your opponent wrote off. Because to assume low chance is no chance is tempting The Dice Gods. And as the Wizards of Unseen University have calculated, million to one chances work nine times out of ten.
In 3rd-6th Ed I popped more than a few tanks in my time with some Bolt Pistols to the rear armour.
leopard wrote: a key part of doing something successfully in a table top game, as with life, is lacking the knowledge that its "impossible"
Or attempting the long-odds your opponent wrote off. Because to assume low chance is no chance is tempting The Dice Gods. And as the Wizards of Unseen University have calculated, million to one chances work nine times out of ten.
In 3rd-6th Ed I popped more than a few tanks in my time with some Bolt Pistols to the rear armour.
and it is a truly glorious thing to behold
not the tank going woof, the look on your opponents face
bit like when Gretchin turn the tide of the battle
Definitely. And a lot of the time, those pistols didn’t have a great deal else to do, mostly being on the board because they’re standard equipment,
Likewise in 2nd Ed, I had occasional Great Success with Guard squads shouldering their Lasguns, and choosing to pelt the enemy with massed Frag Grenades. Due to range (Sx2+2”) it was highly situational. But when that situation cropped up, it was definitely worth it. And thanks to being so situational, an option your opponent could easily forget existed.
its why my first 40k army was Imperial Guard, there is something about just ordinary bods in an insane universe just getting on with the job and just occasionally not ending up on the menu
Whilst the butt of many in and out of setting jokes? They’re the ones truly holding the line. And for the most part, they’re just mooks like you or I, given a Lasgun and training then sent off against the unfathomably horrific foes of a hostile universe.
And whilst the butcher’s bill is almost always staggering? They do win, and win the majority of their battles. If they didn’t, The Imperium would’ve fallen millennia ago.
All this reminds me a bit of my second game of 40k. Early 8th edition, so I'm not a grumpy grognard. But the game was extremely close. My guard had only the sergeant left. Everyone else has died or fled (hurry lame 8th edition moral rules).
Two objectives were on the center line of the board, one held by my guardsman, the other held by my opponents last remaining sister of battle and 1HP rhino.
The Gambit: I could either remain in the objective, even move into cover and with a little luck survive my opponents shooting for a draw.
Or I could move 6", and shoot my laspistol on the rhino. I would be outside of the objective with no chance at winning the game, if I couldn't kill the rhino and Battlesister. With a laspistol with one shot.
You all can bet my Guardsman sergeant got a hefty promotion after killing the rhino, letting it explode and the Battlesister getting blown to bits next to it. Incredible unlikely but man this was the story at the club the next weeks.
I do miss the smaller games of using whatever few models I had. Now, if I want to field all my space Marines we have to play apocalypse on the ground as no table can field all the tanks I own (thanks HH plastic tanks)
Whilst the butt of many in and out of setting jokes? They’re the ones truly holding the line. And for the most part, they’re just mooks like you or I, given a Lasgun and training then sent off against the unfathomably horrific foes of a hostile universe.
And whilst the butcher’s bill is almost always staggering? They do win, and win the majority of their battles. If they didn’t, The Imperium would’ve fallen millennia ago.
The 2nd ed. IG was pretty damn scary in skilled hands. One of my housemates (who helped get me into the game) had done a stint as a tank driver/gunner, and his forces were built not on cool weirdness but solid modern doctrine. He always had overwatch for his forward elements, always took spotters for the barrage, kept armor in the off-board reserve, etc.
I didn't get into the Guard until 3rd and it was just very much rules exploits on exploits. Reminded me of playing the Empire during Herohammer. Take sentinels for pre-game "free move." Take an assassin so you can move one enemy unit before the game starts. Use oddball armor selections to min-max special rules (especially the new sponson/pillbox nonsense).
Getting back into 2nd glorious because the IG ran how it was meant to at long last.
Kids these days have no knowledge of actual platoon-level combat. They think WW I was guys running around trenches with steampunked Broomhandles and prototype Bergmanns. World War II was killing werewolves in castles.
What made 2nd work wasn't just the weirdness, it was that it was layered on a pretty solid, realistic and intuitive set of core rules.
We had a hex and chit WWII games where if you wanted to play both the Europe and Pacific theaters in a combined game (they were separate boxes) the suggested play time was listed as “one summer”
Those old hyper detailed games were not shy about eating your time.
Video games are nice and log your hours for you. I can’t even estimate how much time I spent playing Car Wars. And while a huge chunk was rolling around shooting things, an even larger part was tweaking car designs. On paper with a pencil. Nothing as fancy as a computer to help…
Nevelon wrote: We had a hex and chit WWII games where if you wanted to play both the Europe and Pacific theaters in a combined game (they were separate boxes) the suggested play time was listed as “one summer”
World in Flames by Australian Design Group, maybe? I still have that. The full WWII scenario starts with the line: "Welcome to 50 hours of gaming pleasure..."
Nevelon wrote: We had a hex and chit WWII games where if you wanted to play both the Europe and Pacific theaters in a combined game (they were separate boxes) the suggested play time was listed as “one summer”
World in Flames by Australian Design Group, maybe? I still have that. The full WWII scenario starts with the line: "Welcome to 50 hours of gaming pleasure..."
I didn’t own it (it was my friend’s) and it was like 30+ years ago. Could have been. It’s labeled in my brain as “WW2: <blank> theater of operations” with European/Pacific versions. We never did the combined version, but did have it set up on his dining room table and played over weeks/months.
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that in the wider world at that time, nothing offered the same time investment opportunity as such games and TTRPG.
Early computer games? Yeah you could play them for hours, but the games could be completed in 15-20 minutes. And outside of the arcade and a relative few console games, not multiplayer.
Folk today may look at such games and the associated time investment and scoff. But we see the same thing, just shifted to MMORPG games. Also our single player type games have gotten larger and more involved. I’ve easily sunk 200 hours into Tears of the Kingdom, and at least double, maybe triple that into Fallout 4 and Skyrim. Without ever really considering myself a “gamer” as such.
Whilst it’s been a long time since I was active in TTWG? It will always be my first love. Social aspect, crafty aspect, clevers aspect. All lovely, all super relaxing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Now, for my next trick? A self-grump!
For reasons I cannot properly explain, I am massively, massively snobbish when it comes to non-official expansions and rules. At least outside of agreed tweaks and house rules in a campaign.
I think it may come from having had a WD subscription since I was tiny (well, the paper shop delivered one every month), and that being a time before t’internet. So pretty much all my gaming knowledge and education came straight from the horse’s mouth. Because there was no other easily accessible source.
Add in some school friends with very…..liberal ideas about balance making home brew Codexes (including one which was Just Space Marines, but with Wolf Guard style Terminators, and Imperial Guard style pre-game bombardment!) and I’ve always been massively overly sceptical about unofficial rules.
Speaking of the early days, Trish Carden has a FB page, and as well as her current projects she throws up older ones and photos from the earliest days of Citadel and Marauder Miniatures.
Seeing the early day photos is genuinely bonkers. Because we’re seeing an honest to goodness niche, grass roots nerd cottage industry, which we now know grew into something of a cultural juggernaut, worth more to the UK’s annual economy than its entire fishing industry!
It’s almost a ludicrous proposal than in what, less than 40 years, it could go from a handful of happy nerds in a tiny office where everyone did anything to this international company which along the way, redefined the entire nature of the war gaming market.
No, it's ten years within the game. Monthly turns, so 120 turns to complete the scenario. Comparable to a solo console game if you binged on it.
However, you couldn't truly binge because after a while your brain would be exhausted with the calculations and looking up the various rules mechanics. Also: playing seven factions simultaneously.
As you get older your body starts to have issues. Wear and tear so that game you can't wait to play has to be cancelled because your back is borked. Incredibly frustrating and depressing.. Young uns take bending over for dice for granted. Grognards start to resemble mantic ghouls.
As you get older your body starts to have issues. Wear and tear so that game you can't wait to play has to be cancelled because your back is borked. Incredibly frustrating and depressing.. Young uns take bending over for dice for granted. Grognards start to resemble mantic ghouls.
I've taken to buying high contrast dice so I can read the numbers/pips. No more buying speckled jade dice or other "cool" looking dice with patterns which camouflage the pips. Definitely no more low contrast like black with dark green numbers for the Cthulhu Mythos aesthetic: now dark blue with LARGE white numbers, or red with LARGE yellow pips, thank you.
The grognards of my youth might have had big bellies, but they were surprisingly strong. Possibly due to the fact that miniatures were lead, and the tote cases were custom made from 1/8th inch plywood with metal hinges and hasps. And they'd bring in two full corps: 180 25mm Infantry, 40 cavalry, and 9 guns with 18-27 crew. At fifteen I could only manage my single corps. Of course, that was all I owned as well.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: There is definitely a strong argument that losing in style matters. 2nd Ed also allowed for chain reactions which could turn a game around.
For instance, during a multiplayer game (Sunday at GW, everyone field everything) I once blasted a turret off a tank (Predator maybe? Might’ve been an Immolator. We’re talking 25 years ago so memory hazy) which landed on a Dreadnought. Dreadnought was staggered back into the midst of a SoB squad, and was blown up the same turn, taking out the SoB squad.
Likewise I’ve had my Land Raider (only one in the shop!) not just taken out by an Orky Smasha Gun (lifta-droppa), but dropped square onto a Devastator squad, squishing the lot of them.
And this is why I’m desperate to get back into 2nd Ed gaming. It’s big, it’s daft, it’s completely silly and I’m a slag for it.
I had a game where I shot a tempest tank and the turret launched off and landed on the avatar killing him. I had another instance where I shot an ork biker unit and several of the orks scattered into my unit killing my devastators. Another game I remember Jones was acting strangely... and a number of my imperial guard were just killed by Jones exploding. 2nd edition was a lot of fun!!!!
As you get older your body starts to have issues. Wear and tear so that game you can't wait to play has to be cancelled because your back is borked. Incredibly frustrating and depressing.. Young uns take bending over for dice for granted. Grognards start to resemble mantic ghouls.
I've taken to buying high contrast dice so I can read the numbers/pips. No more buying speckled jade dice or other "cool" looking dice with patterns which camouflage the pips. Definitely no more low contrast like black with dark green numbers for the Cthulhu Mythos aesthetic: now dark blue with LARGE white numbers, or red with LARGE yellow pips, thank you.
The grognards of my youth might have had big bellies, but they were surprisingly strong. Possibly due to the fact that miniatures were lead, and the tote cases were custom made from 1/8th inch plywood with metal hinges and hasps. And they'd bring in two full corps: 180 25mm Infantry, 40 cavalry, and 9 guns with 18-27 crew. At fifteen I could only manage my single corps. Of course, that was all I owned as well.
Dice trays.
I never used this back in the day. We just rolled the dice on the tabletop, and if one hit the floor, no problem.
Now? I'm very averse to getting down on all fours and crawling in pursuit of wayward dice. So we use box lids to contain them.
As you get older your body starts to have issues. Wear and tear so that game you can't wait to play has to be cancelled because your back is borked. Incredibly frustrating and depressing.. Young uns take bending over for dice for granted.
Tell me about it.
I've got knee damage that makes standing around the shops 4' tall tables for 2-3+ hours difficult to untenable. Some days the left knee's relatively fine. Other days.... Even when it's giving me problems, walking about is often doable (say trekking through the grocery store.). Just not standing about on it for long periods.
Fortunately the shop got a mix of table heights & I can almost always claim one where we can sit while playing/between turns.
ccs wrote: Fortunately the shop got a mix of table heights & I can almost always claim one where we can sit while playing/between turns.
One of the oft-overlooked virtues of the IGO-UGO turn sequence is that the non-moving player has ample time to sit down, sip a beverage, use the restroom, get another beer, etc.
Indeed, that's part of why I disdain this silly "alternating activation" fetish that all the kids claim is "the bomb" or something. I need a pause to refresh between my moves, and letting the other guy squint at the measuring stick, dig out his roster for reference and check a datafax allows me to visit the loo without any loss of vital gaming time.
Has anyone tossed the kids off the lawn yet for their fancy schmancy army list apps?
Back in the day, real men crunched their lists with paper and pencil and maybe a push button calculator, if they were well heeled or had one for school or work. Bonus points for sportsmanship if your opponent could actually read your handwriting or if you doodled something in the margins.
And I can remember many a game without lists where we just brought what we had and threw it on the table. That was true for Warhammer, 40K (Rogue Trader then), and our WW2, ACW, and Napoleonic miniature game sessions. I think we only drew a line at Guard units since one guy always wanted to use the entire French Imperial Guard.
I started out using color-coded index cards to assist with ad hoc army generation.
I've never used an army builder, but I do use spreadsheets because as long as you use an innocuous file name, no one at work will trouble you while you're fiddling with them.
