So breaking points are so far the only downer encountered in the first game. Everything else was a blast.
The problem is a few things, keeping track of breaking point can be very simple but get very complicated quickly.
Simple:
If both sides just have one formation, all it requires is figuring out the magic number of models removed as casualties that exceed the formations breaking point. This just requires knowing that number and either neatly arranging your dead models on the sideboard in a fairly easy to account way or a pen and pad where you update the number of casualties as you remove models from detachments that have died. You don't have to think about distinguishing which detachment belong to which formation as there is only one.
So far so good, it's just one number to remember and you count up until you hit that number, you can also stop counting once your one and only one formation in this case is broken.
Complicated:
As point levels of games go up and players find themselves fielding more and more formations, the above mentioned method has to happen for each formation, which would mean knowing each formations breaking point and having multiple dead piles/areas for casualties but withone further, quite dire complication. If multiple formations have the same detachments, example: two formations both containing identically sized and armed units of say leman russes, I now have to be able to tell if the leman russ im removing was from my armoured company formation or my sub-cohort. This may be as simple as simply only taking certain unit types in certian formations, to avoid having to mark them with a colour or symbol or number under the base. But the problem can get very complicated if running large armies.
An example, just a simple one, imagine running two identical formations, every unit mirrored exactly right down to weapon loadouts, how are you going to know where to put any ofthe casualties even if you've divided up a space on the side board for two castualty piles with identical breaking point numbers?
The issue is, I don't mind tracking casualties, but it will get so complicated so quickly that it will make larger games very difficult when I don't think they'll have to be as complicated. To give an example from a game on Friday, we had to make a small area of sideboard for the various structures on the board and document which ones corresponded to which structure. Even with only 5 structures on the board this took up more sideboard than i would have liked. It competed with space for documenting out two formations dead piles/breaking points. This already felt cluttered and we were only playing on a 4x4 mat section of an 8x4 table, so we had 4 feet of sideboard and it still was frustrating knowing that in most cases outside of basement gaming we will only have a total table size of 6x4, meaning only 2 feet for sideboard with 4x4 mat, or if we try 4x5, only a single foot of sideboard. So thinking ahead to trying to run events locally, kinda have to pick our battles.
My solution, the simplest possible home brew rule would be the following.
Combine all formations breaking points into 1 number, the army as a whole now has one and only one breaking point number to track. Lets say you've combine your 4 or 5 formations breaking points, sake of argument your breaking point is now 52, you have one dead pile, or if you prefer to pack your dead models back in a case you can just track with a pen and a pad, but you may still want to have your models ready in case there's a miscount or error. I'm only thinking that would matter in the example of a tournament/event where a third party might have to help account for things.
What this means is you don't have to stress over the added level of giving units sub designations with symbols or colours or numbers. Similarly your opponent will know if you are close to breaking because its one number both are tracking with full transparency, but they don't have to start asking if this bolter marine units is from x formation, they simply know how many more models they have to remove to break the army, so its just way less emotional stress/weight and a lot more fun imo.
I'd love peoples thoughts.
For those of you who, like myself, are more of a visual creature, here is a good way of understanding the problem, and this is with a 4x4 game board/mat, imagine a 4x5 or 4x6 board/mat, 1 foot of sideboard could be very restrictive.
Well, there are restrictions on order choices for broken formations and modifiers to morale rolls and someone might like the rewards of destroying half of a singled out formation.
I don't recall having any trouble back in the second edition days (bar the jokes about needing a second table just for the army cards - but then we played really big games).
I guess it could be an issue for a game made up of unpainted models or a player who fields formations that are exact duplicates and deploys in such a way as to be confusing, and without any markings to tell them apart. But... breaking formations is part of the game.
I love your illustration, it both illustrates the issue well and makes me giggle. I think the solution to your problem might be getting a separate snacks table. One of those rolling drink tables maybe, with crisps & beer, cheese & wine or why not ice and GTs. Imagine this being sent as a suggestion to the GWFAQ team as a proposed gaming setup...
I too don't think combine army total break point is a good idea, I want both players to be able to break a Formation as it will be a key tactic.
So solving the practical tracking challenge is key. I am thinking only a dice tracker for each Formation on the side area, on like a paper with squares for each Formation. Putting killed models from Detachments in a storage box below the table per Formation of VPs are awarded for killing, otherwise just removing them.
Breaking formations rather than whole armies is, indeed, a big part of the game that can direct maneuvering in both offensive and defensive ways as players try to cripple certain targets in their opponent's lines. That's attrition and at least a way to interact with C&C problems modeling, while breaking whole armies is more akin to bottle tests and similar "lose more" mechanics that aren't there to be interacted with, they are there to force the game to a close sooner than later.
In larger games, I'd probably try to just keep the dead neatly arranged on their rosters separated by formations so that I can always just look at the paper and the number of casualties on said paper.
My plan is to give the blast markers from Epic 40,000/Armageddon a new lease of life, by using them to visually mark casualties. Adds a little drama to the visuals, and will be a nice visual reminder of break points: lots of blast markers? Check against the formation.
have to say the way I was handling this, in a game with just two formations, was to have noted the initial size, and break point on the bit of paper I wrote the army list on.
and then ticked off casualties taken as they occurred as a simple tally - afterall it doesn't matter what in the formation died, just how many have. That combined with a fair few dropping dead at a time made it reasonably simple.
I get the point though, it will be a bit easier once I have worked out "normal" detachments and formations as they can be marked up on the bases.
having managed with 15mm formations tracking casualties to get "at or below half strength" with units of ~40 or so bases, across several such units its just something you essentially get used to
do like that illustration though, and its actually harder than that one of the places I game at where they have set up actual 5x4 tables, typically as a 10x4 with two mats and there is literally no "sideboard" area
almighty Gork alone knows how they will cope when GW go back to 6' tables at some point
I'd love all of you though understand that I'm trying to come at this from an event perspective, meaning a unifying system and bespoke "I paint coloured chevrons and numbers on everything" is a non-starter. If there's an issue or discrepancy with people's counts in terms of casualties, even with multiple dead piles for a third party to count/check/audit if that's me or another TO we wouldn't be privy to everyone's special system, because it's two problems, its objective count but also "how do I, your opponent, or anyone, know what formation any detachment belongs to, you could literally have the same 1000pt formation 3 times over?" There's historical gaming and then there's need a 3 hour symposium before being able to play, there are limits.
I played AT, I remember the insane amount of mistakes made on both sides simply ticking the wrong terminal by mistake in a game with like 7 models per side, how people think this is a reasonable as at 3000pts is beyond me. I understand perfectly well the impract it's suppose to have, I also know its completely untenable from an event perspective for an entire game mechanic to be handled differently by every player. I simply don't have the time to study the history of every players paint scheme and numerology system. It would have to be on system for all. This was also goonhammer's bigger complaint about the game, the book keeping at scale just falls apart.
I as a TO can come in and try and detangle a dispute over a single breaking point number, meaning I can ask the player to be able to count his dead pile. I'm sorry, I can't then have to take a census of 6 different chevrons for the same model.
Also, no one has been able to answer me how this will work with 1 foot of sideboard (playing 4x5 on a 6x4), I'm playing with 4 feet of sideboard (8x4) and it was borderline untenable to do both that and track all the separate piles of dudes who are in buildings. So this isn't just "i don't like this rule" It's entirely untenable from not jus ta TO perspective but a logistics/physical space requirement, no local store was able to accommodate titanicus for the same reasons, needing a massive space for sideboard. Any solution that still has people marking individual bases in a game that's not just supposed to scale up well but allegedly designed to play at those higher levels, its going to have me sticking to incredibly low point levels or enact draconian nonsense like no duplicate units across formations.
Just for refference, all of this is happening on a backdrop of half the people I talk to saying something like "wysiwyg" doesn't or shouldn't matter in LI, when in many cases the weapon is often the only distinction between units, like its rich hearing that from someone with 2 las and 2 kheres on their dreads who want me to remember its actually 4 kheres or 4 las, this same person is then going to be upset that I'm a slow learner to their vast and complicated series of colours and numbers to designate which model belongs to which detachment. Some people are using weapon loadout to distinguish similar units, some are using numerology and pagan symbolism, like there are other fish to fry trying to have on objective standard for all participants. If the same person modelling a lascanon left sponson and an autocannon right sponson thinking that's fine, also expects others to check under every base "oh ye this was 32 orange section 6" that's so far removed from reality. At least in terms of an event/tournament.
its not about events with markings for me, its about how I can keep track of things, and on the list formations are noted as "RED", "GREEN" etc as thats how I keep track of them
for my 40k Guard I used similar to what I'm planning here for the platoon stuff (even though it hardly mattered)
base troops, say the tactical bods here, get solid blue say as a base colour. each squad then had a different pattern in white
so you can see what is part of what
the key bit is to have the only thing that matters be the models on the table being able to physically count up, the initial sizes recorded so dead stuff can go in a box to sort out later
bods in buildings are easy, stick those that fit on them, and the rest up tight behind the building, typically angled againt it so they can be seen not to be in play
stuff in transports is harder, often deployed along the baseline towards the sides
if the "book keeping" goes beyond a side of A4 something is being done wrongly
you don't actually need to mark the bases either, worse case a small coloured counter near the unit, stick the order counter adjacent to it and then keep units a few inches apart
if someone wants to cheat this sort of stuff they will, a somewhat sad fact of life
and I agree on the point about space for sideboards.
personally not expecting massive issues, time will tell though
Automatically Appended Next Post: as an aside, it is worth taking that event perspective for "how can this be done in a simple and easy to audit way?". because once that works its easy to port to more casual games
and harder to go the other way
however there are many games where casualties need tracking against units, or formations.
I think here the way to go is make it so the dead pile flat out doesn't matter, what matters is whats on the table.
"Formation five has 26 models, a break point of 13, how many are alive?" (counts up) "14, so not yet broken, one away"
the game on Saturday had that question "how many more to break them?" asked a few times
leopard wrote: its not about events with markings for me, its about how I can keep track of things, and on the list formations are noted as "RED", "GREEN" etc as thats how I keep track of them
for my 40k Guard I used similar to what I'm planning here for the platoon stuff (even though it hardly mattered)
base troops, say the tactical bods here, get solid blue say as a base colour. each squad then had a different pattern in white
so you can see what is part of what
the key bit is to have the only thing that matters be the models on the table being able to physically count up, the initial sizes recorded so dead stuff can go in a box to sort out later
bods in buildings are easy, stick those that fit on them, and the rest up tight behind the building, typically angled againt it so they can be seen not to be in play
stuff in transports is harder, often deployed along the baseline towards the sides
if the "book keeping" goes beyond a side of A4 something is being done wrongly
you don't actually need to mark the bases either, worse case a small coloured counter near the unit, stick the order counter adjacent to it and then keep units a few inches apart
if someone wants to cheat this sort of stuff they will, a somewhat sad fact of life
and I agree on the point about space for sideboards.
personally not expecting massive issues, time will tell though
Okay but understand in an event with 10-20 people, if there's any dispute or question over the count, how does a third party come in and detangle this without doing their own count? A single pile isn't going to work with like 3+ formations if it matters which formation each model came from. Even with 3 identical formations, every single model, lets say solar aux, every single tank, every single infantry it's not just a matter of count, its matter of does it belong to formation 1, 2 or 3. Think vote counting, all a TO can do is come in and give their own objective count, but again, one count is very different than 3 counts, or 4, or 5.
Good point about transports, that's another chunk of sideboard that may potentially need to be carved out, we didn't have any transports in our game, but if we did that'd be yet one more thing to need a system like the structures.
What I'm proposing is one count, so as you say even if your dead pile is right into a box or display case, it can still be counted. It doesn't have to be organized. It's a massive level of difference. It's that or junk the entire rule at a certain point level. It's not the end of the world at a 1000pts, at 2-3000, it's a total non-starter.
leopard wrote: its not about events with markings for me, its about how I can keep track of things, and on the list formations are noted as "RED", "GREEN" etc as thats how I keep track of them
for my 40k Guard I used similar to what I'm planning here for the platoon stuff (even though it hardly mattered)
base troops, say the tactical bods here, get solid blue say as a base colour. each squad then had a different pattern in white
so you can see what is part of what
the key bit is to have the only thing that matters be the models on the table being able to physically count up, the initial sizes recorded so dead stuff can go in a box to sort out later
bods in buildings are easy, stick those that fit on them, and the rest up tight behind the building, typically angled againt it so they can be seen not to be in play
stuff in transports is harder, often deployed along the baseline towards the sides
if the "book keeping" goes beyond a side of A4 something is being done wrongly
you don't actually need to mark the bases either, worse case a small coloured counter near the unit, stick the order counter adjacent to it and then keep units a few inches apart
if someone wants to cheat this sort of stuff they will, a somewhat sad fact of life
and I agree on the point about space for sideboards.
personally not expecting massive issues, time will tell though
Okay but understand in an event with 10-20 people, if there's any dispute or question over the count, how does a third party come in and detangle this without doing their own count? A single pile isn't going to work with like 3+ formations if it matters which formation each model came from. Even with 3 identical formations, every single model, lets say solar aux, every single tank, every single infantry it's not just a matter of count, its matter of does it belong to formation 1, 2 or 3. Think vote counting, all a TO can do is come in and give their own objective count, but again, one count is very different than 3 counts, or 4, or 5.
What I'm proposing is one count, so as you say even if your dead pile is right into a box or display case, it can still be counted. It doesn't have to be organized. It's a massive level of difference.
totally understand, needs to be unambiguous, no argument if that cannon is one of them or counts as several against the break point (joke)
I think as noted in a follow on the trick is to make the dead pile unimportant and focus on "how many are alive?" as they will still be on the table. How many in a detachment should be simple, the issue is which detachment is which formation. Well if you have say 6-7 formation I think the answer is a token of some sort adjacent to each one, coloured, numbered, whatever - with the colour and number noted on the list
so say three Marine Demi Companies, Red, Blue, Green, two armoured in Pink and White, a bastion formation in black. numbering may be easier.
since the break point is half its easy to count up or down.
I would suggest for an event the TO should state in the event pack how they want this to be done, then everyone follows that
leopard wrote: base troops, say the tactical bods here, get solid blue say as a base colour. each squad then had a different pattern in white
you don't actually need to mark the bases either, worse case a small coloured counter near the unit, stick the order counter adjacent to it and then keep units a few inches apart
Painting model/painting base is basically same but base has two advantages. a) it can work better lore wise(the marines have certain colour scheme after all) b) easier to spot. While you could have formation symbol as shoulder pad edge...for one mkvi don't have shoulder pad edges and base edge is lot more visible...
ahh sorry to clarify I mean painting the actual base, the 25mm disc, I use small marking on the back. base edge is steel legion drab, so far only a red and a blue unit marked up for SA, without the initial formation marking as I've only got one formation.
colours on the base rim are a lot easier to repaint, and if I was going to an event I would repaint to match the lists being used.
vehicles are a bit harder, lacking the base, however I'm hoping not to mess with the formations that often so for example my SA armour currently has a red band with a narrower white band centred as a formation marking. another formation will get say the same with blue
it is possible to add the unit markings to models, and I need to come up with something to denote rhinos to formations (benefit of printing them is I can print up plenty, downside is having to then paint the lot)
I think they key bit here is that its not me it has to be clear to, its my opponent. I can see expanding the base rim stuff to match what I did for Flames, the base rims being similar sizes
there the coloured square gets a black outline to make it stand out, and "special" units e.g. support troops within a tactical detachment get a clear marking to show that. and then its all replicated on the front
will have to paint some up and show it, with an example of how its clarified back onto a list.
that said if there are those here reading who organise events, how would you recommend doing this?
The 'army break point' was used in Epic: 40,000, so it's not inherently a bad idea – but it would work very differently to the way the game is set out. That in turn would impact people's army lists, choices etc. Personally, I think if you're looking for a tournament/event-friendly solution, changing the rules in such a fundamental way seems a bit of a non-starter.
I think a simple idea would be to hand out a sheet of paper for both players to use. This would have boxes for formations and (say) a hundred tick boxes in each box. Before the game, the player puts a mark to show the size of their formation, and the halfway (break) point, and crosses out all of the excess boxes. The opponent then 'ticks off' casualties as they're caused.
Importantly, from a third party point of view, it doesn't require much space and provides a neutral record.
+Edit+
Worked up a quick visual:
100 might well be far too many for typical formations, but the principle is hopefully clear.
A system that has me mandating how people paint stuff is untennable for an event standard, I'd argue it untennable in general as a game mechanic where its already hard enough just to get people to paint period. That's just not a solution. I'm looking to able to administer a solution to the problem, not create more problems. A token next to every model in a mass battle game designed for hundreds of models is a non-starter too.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Apologist wrote: The 'army break point' was used in Epic: 40,000, so it's not inherently a bad idea – but it would work very differently to the way the game is set out. That in turn would impact people's army lists, choices etc. Personally, I think if you're looking for a tournament/event-friendly solution, changing the rules in such a fundamental way seems a bit of a non-starter.
I think a simple idea would be to hand out a sheet of paper for both players to use. This would have boxes for formations and (say) a hundred tick boxes in each box. Before the game, the player puts a mark to show the size of their formation, and the halfway (break) point, and crosses out all of the excess boxes. The opponent then 'ticks off' casualties as they're caused.
Importantly, from a third party point of view, it doesn't require much space and provides a neutral record.
Have you ever volunteered or worked an election? The count isn't built on trust, in fact it's designed to have 2 or more people count it to ensure accuracy. At least here in Canada on provincial level.
You're not thinking in terms of errors or mistakes or miscommunication, people are making decisions on what to target based on breaking points. I or other TO is called to a dispute over breaking points, how do I untangle that if "he said x unit was from y formation, so i targetted it, but it turns out its from z formation, but he accidentally pulled a model from formation x. Like, none of this is something I can help with unless I've been watching the entire game. I also can't conjur up more space for sideboard if the board has a lot of structures and transports. This is so much a logistics thing too. its untenable from so many perspectives, administratively, physically.
Like oh you did colour? We're doing number designations for formations for this event, so just re-number you 147 mode list, I'll wait. Oh looks like you've got two 37's there, oopsie.
Crablezworth wrote: A system that has me mandating how people paint stuff is untennable for an event standard, I'd argue it untennable in general as a game mechanic where its already hard enough just to get people to paint period. That's just not a solution. I'm looking to able to administer a solution to the problem, not create more problems. A token next to every model in a mass battle game designed for hundreds of models is a non-starter too.
well its not a token next to each model, its next to each detachment to show which formation its part of. and since each detachment is getting an order token next to it anyway the volume of them is either workable or there is already a problem
I also suspect that in practice the sort of detachment people have quite a few of will be the exact sort of detachment that has an on table strength of 100% or 0% anyway
that marked sheet with the circles works, or an excel version with Squares, nice idea to have the enemy marking it off, done right you can also add the unit stats etc to it avoiding the need to keep asking perhaps (or at least any faction rules)
Apologist wrote: My plan is to give the blast markers from Epic 40,000/Armageddon a new lease of life, by using them to visually mark casualties. Adds a little drama to the visuals, and will be a nice visual reminder of break points: lots of blast markers? Check against the formation.
That’s a nice one.
My big idea was a sheet with a list of formations and their break points, with dice to count casualties. That way your minis can go back in the case where they belong and you save a bunch of space.
Apologist wrote: The 'army break point' was used in Epic: 40,000, so it's not inherently a bad idea – but it would work very differently to the way the game is set out. That in turn would impact people's army lists, choices etc. Personally, I think if you're looking for a tournament/event-friendly solution, changing the rules in such a fundamental way seems a bit of a non-starter.
I think a simple idea would be to hand out a sheet of paper for both players to use. This would have boxes for formations and (say) a hundred tick boxes in each box. Before the game, the player puts a mark to show the size of their formation, and the halfway (break) point, and crosses out all of the excess boxes. The opponent then 'ticks off' casualties as they're caused.
Importantly, from a third party point of view, it doesn't require much space and provides a neutral record.
+Edit+
Worked up a quick visual:
100 might well be far too many for typical formations, but the principle is hopefully clear.
Knowing the count isn't the only problem, veriftying the count is the problem, if those are votes for x y or z, i can make 3 piles of x y an z from a dead pile and check it agains the tick boxes but if that dead pile is one pile in a box and not seperated by formation, its a much longer process, and all of this assumes a universal tracking system that the event can mandate, events can barely mandate being painted, let alone how.
Apologist wrote: My plan is to give the blast markers from Epic 40,000/Armageddon a new lease of life, by using them to visually mark casualties. Adds a little drama to the visuals, and will be a nice visual reminder of break points: lots of blast markers? Check against the formation.
That’s a nice one.
My big idea was a sheet with a list of formations and their break points, with dice to count casualties. That way your minis can go back in the case where they belong and you save a bunch of space.
That doesn't work for an event though, because a dispute in count would lead to having to dump said case back on the board and divide out the dead to verify count/formation.
Crablezworth wrote: A system that has me mandating how people paint stuff is untennable for an event standard, I'd argue it untennable in general as a game mechanic where its already hard enough just to get people to paint period. That's just not a solution. I'm looking to able to administer a solution to the problem, not create more problems. A token next to every model in a mass battle game designed for hundreds of models is a non-starter too.
well its not a token next to each model, its next to each detachment to show which formation its part of. and since each detachment is getting an order token next to it anyway the volume of them is either workable or there is already a problem
I also suspect that in practice the sort of detachment people have quite a few of will be the exact sort of detachment that has an on table strength of 100% or 0% anyway
that marked sheet with the circles works, or an excel version with Squares, nice idea to have the enemy marking it off, done right you can also add the unit stats etc to it avoiding the need to keep asking perhaps (or at least any faction rules)
There's already a problem just getting enough order tokens. That won't be a problem soon, but now you've doubled the token on the board, and as an event I have to now mandate a token system for a game with like 20+ detachments on the board at 1000pts.
Apologist wrote: The 'army break point' was used in Epic: 40,000, so it's not inherently a bad idea – but it would work very differently to the way the game is set out. That in turn would impact people's army lists, choices etc. Personally, I think if you're looking for a tournament/event-friendly solution, changing the rules in such a fundamental way seems a bit of a non-starter.
I think a simple idea would be to hand out a sheet of paper for both players to use. This would have boxes for formations and (say) a hundred tick boxes in each box. Before the game, the player puts a mark to show the size of their formation, and the halfway (break) point, and crosses out all of the excess boxes. The opponent then 'ticks off' casualties as they're caused.
Importantly, from a third party point of view, it doesn't require much space and provides a neutral record.
+Edit+
Worked up a quick visual:
100 might well be far too many for typical formations, but the principle is hopefully clear.
Knowing the count isn't the only problem, veriftying the count is the problem, if those are votes for x y or z, i can make 3 piles of x y an z from a dead pile and check it agains the tick boxes but if that dead pile is one pile in a box and not seperated by formation, its a much longer process, and all of this assumes a universal tracking system that the event can mandate, events can barely mandate being painted, let alone how.
thats why you don't bother with the dead pile, but verify against what is alive and on the table.
if the army list says the 3rd formation had two detachments of 8 infantry, a command stand and a detachment of three tanks its up to the controlling player to be able to point to them on the table, if they are not there - or clearly denoted as in transports etc, they must be dead
point is stuff thats on the table isn't taking up any more space than the table itself, and then the dead pile can be in a box of out sight as it no longer matters
if a formation has say 16 things in it it doesn't matter if you count casualties up to the break point or count survivors down to it, the break point doesn't move and then there is no longer any need to sort the casualties into separate heaps
Crablezworth wrote: That doesn't work for an event though, because a dispute in count would lead to having to dump said case back on the board and divide out the dead to verify count/formation.
No because then you just count the models on the table as others have said. If A-B=C then A-C=B must also be true.
Apologist wrote: The 'army break point' was used in Epic: 40,000, so it's not inherently a bad idea – but it would work very differently to the way the game is set out. That in turn would impact people's army lists, choices etc. Personally, I think if you're looking for a tournament/event-friendly solution, changing the rules in such a fundamental way seems a bit of a non-starter.
I think a simple idea would be to hand out a sheet of paper for both players to use. This would have boxes for formations and (say) a hundred tick boxes in each box. Before the game, the player puts a mark to show the size of their formation, and the halfway (break) point, and crosses out all of the excess boxes. The opponent then 'ticks off' casualties as they're caused.
Importantly, from a third party point of view, it doesn't require much space and provides a neutral record.
+Edit+
Worked up a quick visual:
100 might well be far too many for typical formations, but the principle is hopefully clear.
Knowing the count isn't the only problem, veriftying the count is the problem, if those are votes for x y or z, i can make 3 piles of x y an z from a dead pile and check it agains the tick boxes but if that dead pile is one pile in a box and not seperated by formation, its a much longer process, and all of this assumes a universal tracking system that the event can mandate, events can barely mandate being painted, let alone how.
thats why you don't bother with the dead pile, but verify against what is alive and on the table.
if the army list says the 3rd formation had two detachments of 8 infantry, a command stand and a detachment of three tanks its up to the controlling player to be able to point to them on the table, if they are not there - or clearly denoted as in transports etc, they must be dead
point is stuff thats on the table isn't taking up any more space than the table itself, and then the dead pile can be in a box of out sight as it no longer matters
if a formation has say 16 things in it it doesn't matter if you count casualties up to the break point or count survivors down to it, the break point doesn't move and then there is no longer any need to sort the casualties into separate heaps
Okay and when he points to two identically armed and sized detachments, I'm to be able to independent verify without having to trust him that this detachment of 6 ogryns is totally not the one from that other formation. You could literally have the same formation 3 times, each unit, identical numbers and weapons. Without even a rule mandating some kind of uniformity, you could have the same formation, same point costs, and go out of your way to have different weapons on everything and its not that helpful either "no no you see the is the 6 malcador unit with 3 las turrets, 4 demolishers, 2 batttlecannon and 1 vanquishers... not the one with 1 las turret, 3 demolishers, 2 vanquishers, and 3 battlecannons.. I have system you see...." I've gone cross eyed.
A one off game with friends and in-built trust is very different than community building where that trust has to also be built. So in the context of running events, standards really need to form to make up for areas the game didn't account for. Like I need to modify things path of least resistance so there's one standard for all participants. That's far and away from people's personal organziational strategies and colour/number/other physical model modification.
if you have an opponent who is going to try to use deception like that all bets are off.
but that is why those three identical detachments, from three different formations, each at a different formation casualty level need a way to indicate which formation they are part of. a coloured token or something
and the beauty of that is simple, say two formations of four Ogyrn move so they mingle, then split, it doesn't matter which four get which token as they are interchangable at that point - having been one block any could be from either so as long as they move apart in two groups its fine
and at any time you can say, and indeed see, which detachments, and at what strength currently are on the table from any formation. count them up, oh look there are 13 left, the formation started with 20, so its not broken yet
doesn't matter which 13 are alive, all that matters is formation good/formation bad
drop tiddlywinks next to each, stick a small MDF token with a number of it next to each - point being with this system you need something and counting whats on the table is path of least resistance
Automatically Appended Next Post: tl;dr version.
step one, you have an army list, with formations listed, you need this anyway
step two, number the formations and work out the formation break point, including fractions, write down the point at which it breaks both in terms of stands destroyed and stands remaining
step three, when deploying a detachment stick a numbered token with it to show which formation its from - if there is no other unambiguous way to determine this (e.g. "I've only got one unit of Kratos in my list, in the third formation" probably doesn't need marking, but for clarity mark it anyway)
step four, at any time you can see which detachments are from which formation, and count the models to compare to the written break point
and note step four essentially is replacing "count models in the dead pile", and the counter next to them is replacing having to keep the dead stuff sorted
and anyone who will try and cheat this is the sort of person who is likely to stick a model in the "wrong dead pile by mistake" anyway
leopard wrote: if you have an opponent who is going to try to use deception like that all bets are off.
but that is why those three identical detachments, from three different formations, each at a different formation casualty level need a way to indicate which formation they are part of. a coloured token or something
and the beauty of that is simple, say two formations of four Ogyrn move so they mingle, then split, it doesn't matter which four get which token as they are interchangable at that point - having been one block any could be from either so as long as they move apart in two groups its fine
and at any time you can say, and indeed see, which detachments, and at what strength currently are on the table from any formation. count them up, oh look there are 13 left, the formation started with 20, so its not broken yet
doesn't matter which 13 are alive, all that matters is formation good/formation bad
drop tiddlywinks next to each, stick a small MDF token with a number of it next to each - point being with this system you need something and counting whats on the table is path of least resistance
An event isn't built on trust, trust but verify, you submit lists, you document and show what you're taking, this is asked of all participants, one standard. Every single 40k/30k event I've ever done would have been impossible if I had to create a colour/number/token system for all participants to follow. Again I'm not looking for ways to create more problems, none of this is tenable for a big event.
Like I'm looking for a solution that sees me not telling everyone how to paint and document their own models, that can only come from an objective count of models, it can't take in other contexts at scale. Titanicus fell apart after rabout 7 titans for similar logistical reasons. You don't have infinite sideboard or endless time, all those titan mega battles got to about turn 2 in a weekend's worth of playing.
As @MarkNorfolk, westiebestie and SherryPie say above, breaking formations is a key part of the strategy, so altering the rules in such a way fundamentally changes things. I'm just not convinced that it's necessary – the game is explicitly 'crunch-heavy' and aimed at experienced players, so I'd hope you could expect a certain level of honesty and sense of fair play.
If independent verification is absolutely vital – and I can see why a competitive tournament would want that – then the Army Break Point idea you outline above seems reasonable. Personally, I think it might be a bit heavy-handed.
If you do pursue that idea, I suggest you 'market it' to the players by having it as a special rule for all the missions e.g.
Strategic conquest Ignore the Break Point rules in the main rulebook and instead [yadayadayada]' ...rather than an addendum. Exactly the same effect, but you don't have to justify altering the main rules.
If you're willing to loose the reins a bit, there are other options to tracking casualties – a few of which have been suggested above.
I guess the fundamental question is how much you want to affect the fundmentals of the game for the majority of participants, in order to to ensure accuracy for the particular edge case of a dispute arising, the players not being able to resolve it amicably, and calling in a referee.
Apologist wrote: As @MarkNorfolk, westiebestie and SherryPie say above, breaking formations is a key part of the strategy, so altering the rules in such a way fundamentally changes things. I'm just not convinced that it's necessary – the game is explicitly 'crunch-heavy' and aimed at experienced players, so I'd hope you could expect a certain level of honesty and sense of fair play.
If independent verification is absolutely vital – and I can see why a competitive tournament would want that – then the Army Break Point idea you outline above seems reasonable. Personally, I think it might be a bit heavy-handed.
If you do pursue that idea, I suggest you 'market it' to the players by having it as a special rule for all the missions e.g.
Strategic conquest Ignore the Break Point rules in the main rulebook and instead [yadayadayada]' ...rather than an addendum. Exactly the same effect, but you don't have to justify altering the main rules.
If you're willing to loose the reins a bit, there are other options to tracking casualties – a few of which have been suggested above.
I guess the fundamental question is how much you want to affect the fundmentals of the game for the majority of participants, in order to to ensure accuracy for the particular edge case of a dispute arising, the players not being able to resolve it amicably, and calling in a referee.
Yeah I'd market it a a special rules of the event/scenario and explain how it makes the event even possible. The reality is, I understand it alters the game, but its an alteration that makes an event even possible. The event would also require lists, meaning documentation of not just detachment composition but loadouts in the case of vehicles/knights/titans. And possibly further having to institute some kind if policy on mixed weapon loadouts. There's a lot to have to document and ask fo all participants but some asks are just impossible.
An event that may see people travel to play, a lot more needs to go into making that work because it means players are likely in many cases playing one anothere for the first time, which is very different than regular opponents/club members.
the way the rules are written you have to be able to trace a detachment on the table back to its home formation, you have to do that even tracking dead stuff to a formation card of some sort - if not how do you know where to put it when it dies?
there is literally no way around having to know this
having it actually on the table is the clearest way of doing it - short of re-writing the rules to ignore formation break points, which seems to be a reasonably important part of the game
I also don't see why, in a game thats going to require players to bring a pot of tokens to issue orders with anyway why the idea of "you need one marker per detachment with a number indicating which formation its part of that can be put adjacent to it, with the order token is considered game breaking somehow
say a 3k game, likely 5-6 formations? a few high value special assets and then each formation has maybe 4-5 detachments. thats what 30 odd units in game?
seems a token system to track them is probably the easiest way of doing it, and takes far less space than sideboards etc which can then be used for say transports - and with a duplicate marker for the transports its now also very easy to mark who is riding in what
and yes I can see why AT falls apart, you have no way not to have the terminals, a bit like how Star Fleet Battles works well with one ship or a small squadron but needs a trained librarian and several assistants if you go for a full fleet battle
if you are crating an event for LI and, I think correctly, see the need to be able to audit a game in its current state at any point a way to denote which formation is which is required.
though this is actually a bit easier, if say you have two detachments of four Leman Russ in an armoured formation with a pair of Baneblades say, thats three tokens, all identical linking to the formation - it doesn't matter which Leman russ formation lost a model, just that you know the formation as a whole lost one
Automatically Appended Next Post: incidentally, I also suggest the way to actually resolve this isn't theoryhammering, but to try multiple different methods in actual games and see how it works
leopard wrote: the way the rules are written you have to be able to trace a detachment on the table back to its home formation, you have to do that even tracking dead stuff to a formation card of some sort - if not how do you know where to put it when it dies?
there is literally no way around having to know this
having it actually on the table is the clearest way of doing it - short of re-writing the rules to ignore formation break points, which seems to be a reasonably important part of the game
I also don't see why, in a game thats going to require players to bring a pot of tokens to issue orders with anyway why the idea of "you need one marker per detachment with a number indicating which formation its part of that can be put adjacent to it, with the order token is considered game breaking somehow
say a 3k game, likely 5-6 formations? a few high value special assets and then each formation has maybe 4-5 detachments. thats what 30 odd units in game?
seems a token system to track them is probably the easiest way of doing it, and takes far less space than sideboards etc which can then be used for say transports - and with a duplicate marker for the transports its now also very easy to mark who is riding in what
and yes I can see why AT falls apart, you have no way not to have the terminals, a bit like how Star Fleet Battles works well with one ship or a small squadron but needs a trained librarian and several assistants if you go for a full fleet battle
if you are crating an event for LI and, I think correctly, see the need to be able to audit a game in its current state at any point a way to denote which formation is which is required.
though this is actually a bit easier, if say you have two detachments of four Leman Russ in an armoured formation with a pair of Baneblades say, thats three tokens, all identical linking to the formation - it doesn't matter which Leman russ formation lost a model, just that you know the formation as a whole lost one
Automatically Appended Next Post: incidentally, I also suggest the way to actually resolve this isn't theoryhammering, but to try multiple different methods in actual games and see how it works
I'm not looking to discuss this in the context of one off games vs a regular opponent. Like I'm not trying to move the goal posts, you're just not understanding this from the perspective of having to administer it for like 20 plus attendees, its a nightmare. I just simply don't have the ability to run an event without altering breaking point, I'm not celebrating this or saying anyone needs to adopt it for normal play. It's like trying to run an AT event without the terminals, it just wouldn't work IMO It's also just one of the issues that needs smoothing out, also stil need to fight ever wyswyg policies ect. And there's crossover there for sure with documenting breaking point. As mentioned earlier, I hadn't even considered the side board that may potentially need to be carved out just for units on both sides in transports. So it may already be a game like AT that actually needs a lot of sideboard outside of any other factor, I gotta pick my battles.
I have played in events with other games where exactly this sort of thing occurs, hence the follow on comment about trying this in action, firstly see exactly how much of a problem it is - and it obviously is a problem as at some point a form of record keeping is needed - which as you have rightly pointed out needs to be easy for an event organiser or judge to understand, without it having to be explained, and is equally hard to game, either on purpose or accidentally.
in smaller games or more informally it may or may not matter, and while some sort of painted mark is the best way (avoids tokens and paper entirely) as you note its not practical to impose.
as I see it the issue you are posing is that say you, as an organiser, need to be able to go to a table, at any point and either check, or be requested to check one or both sides current state.
you need to be able to quickly and clearly determine which formations are and are not broken to resolve any disputes
and as an event coordinator space is a consideration so the idea of sideboards full of formation diagrams is impractical, even if that were not also subject to manipulation and shell gaming
as I see it the only way to resolve that is to have a way, hardly matters what, but a defined way to say "this detachment is part of that formation and it has taken this many casualties" to total up casualties for the formation against a defined breakpoint.
for me you can count losses or count survivors, both methods work, and in informal games count whichever is easier, but it needs to be essentially "at a glance"
if you can look at say formation #4, and see it has 16 models remaining, by counting them, its solved the issue.
the issue is then one of "how do you denote which formation a detachment is from?"
Automatically Appended Next Post: oh yes, and the transports issue is a bit more in depth as well.
note hits can only be scored on models the firing unit can see, say four rhinos but they can only see two, it now matters who is in which one... (assuming you have units with different types of stands in them)
again something to work out that may not matter in more casual games
its a side issue, but another to consider
I'd personally go for painted markings but as you note thats likely not practical.
what I would however suggest is that this is made to be the players problem, they need to make it clear who is in what and what detachment is from where - if I was to arrange and event I'd consider having a couple of ways this can be done, with a "pick one and stick to it" rule
e.g. if you have painted markings, use that, if not it may be tokens, or some other solution but it needs to be clear and critically not slow the game down or clutter that table more than strictly unavoidable
leopard wrote: I have played in events with other games where exactly this sort of thing occurs, hence the follow on comment about trying this in action, firstly see exactly how much of a problem it is - and it obviously is a problem as at some point a form of record keeping is needed - which as you have rightly pointed out needs to be easy for an event organiser or judge to understand, without it having to be explained, and is equally hard to game, either on purpose or accidentally.
in smaller games or more informally it may or may not matter, and while some sort of painted mark is the best way (avoids tokens and paper entirely) as you note its not practical to impose.
as I see it the issue you are posing is that say you, as an organiser, need to be able to go to a table, at any point and either check, or be requested to check one or both sides current state.
you need to be able to quickly and clearly determine which formations are and are not broken to resolve any disputes
and as an event coordinator space is a consideration so the idea of sideboards full of formation diagrams is impractical, even if that were not also subject to manipulation and shell gaming
as I see it the only way to resolve that is to have a way, hardly matters what, but a defined way to say "this detachment is part of that formation and it has taken this many casualties" to total up casualties for the formation against a defined breakpoint.
for me you can count losses or count survivors, both methods work, and in informal games count whichever is easier, but it needs to be essentially "at a glance"
if you can look at say formation #4, and see it has 16 models remaining, by counting them, its solved the issue.
the issue is then one of "how do you denote which formation a detachment is from?"
Automatically Appended Next Post: oh yes, and the transports issue is a bit more in depth as well.
note hits can only be scored on models the firing unit can see, say four rhinos but they can only see two, it now matters who is in which one... (assuming you have units with different types of stands in them)
again something to work out that may not matter in more casual games
its a side issue, but another to consider
I'd personally go for painted markings but as you note thats likely not practical.
what I would however suggest is that this is made to be the players problem, they need to make it clear who is in what and what detachment is from where - if I was to arrange and event I'd consider having a couple of ways this can be done, with a "pick one and stick to it" rule
e.g. if you have painted markings, use that, if not it may be tokens, or some other solution but it needs to be clear and critically not slow the game down or clutter that table more than strictly unavoidable
it is an interesting problem
In the case of just what detachments were in what building, my opponent had two identical 8 strong units of terminators both in buildings at one point. So even that, with documentation and mutual trust, was a mistake almost made in terms of taking wounded from the wrong building number. This is stuff that can happen between friends, so untangling it between first time opponents is bound to happen outside of breaking point or other considerations. And doin all of this on a 1 foot sideboard would be... oof. As it is already the rules for structures are so involved I'd have to make a tonne of new terrain just to included those in an event to begin with, whether or not i can formulate one system for the event to track who is in what structure.
if the identical units in a building are from the same formation it matters less (as the enemy targets one and can say "the damaged one" etc). but yes if they are from different formations it all stacks up
and no way its working on a 12" wide sideboard, especially not as the rules, dice etc have to live somewhere
while maybe not that practical here for vehicles "casualties" can be denoted by having a smoke or flame marker for the vehicle, removable turrets etc - woirks in 15mm but I suspect not that practical in 8mm - pity as its very visual
leopard wrote: if the identical units in a building are from the same formation it matters less (as the enemy targets one and can say "the damaged one" etc). but yes if they are from different formations it all stacks up
and no way its working on a 12" wide sideboard, especially not as the rules, dice etc have to live somewhere
while maybe not that practical here for vehicles "casualties" can be denoted by having a smoke or flame marker for the vehicle, removable turrets etc - woirks in 15mm but I suspect not that practical in 8mm - pity as its very visual
Well the issue wasn't break related at the time just if we pulled casualties from the wrong structure, the two structures were like 40+ inches from one another. The thing too with TO's coming by to help is it may not be an issue of cheating simply untangling what happened. Like if we hadn't caught the possible mistake of pulling dudes from the wrong building at the time, its one example of just normal things that can go wrong without any ill will on either party's side, but having to contend with that while also all the book keeping that competes for space, its just nuts.
A note too on weapon loadouts if an event doesn't have some kind of policy. There are 36 variations of malcador loadout. I could make a 1 formation 3015 point list right now with 30 malcadors and 12 baneblades and still not have every permutation of loadout for the malcadors. So while I get formations breaking points ect, its also a game where every detachment in every formation can basically max out unit size almost to absurdity (with corresponding increase in firepower per activation)..
ahh yes, though I think in a way GW have made "how big should my unit be?" quite an interesting one be prohibiting splitting of fire against multiple targets with very few exceptions
so yes you can have large units that are more robust but much firepower is wasted
and you can also have smaller units that will never actually do much but are flexible, if easily destroyed.
and +lots to in all innocence removing models from the table as they die but in effect then putting them in the wrong place
and mistakes will happen, I guess the trick is to get a good few games down and work out how best to try and minimise them
I'm trying to come up with the most elegant solution to this dillemma, and the best I can come up ATM would be to double dip on the order tokens.
You could have custom order tokens with the formation number on the other side of the token. Now, tokens are a hassle because you need a lot of them, but if a token had a way to change the number value on its other side (a circular plastic/resin/paper disc you can rotate ala Epic 1st edition Titan void shield markers on their base), you could just have a bunch and could set each to the required value at any given time. Then you'd still need a way to denote which detachment has activated somehow.. maybe by placing a token on top of a model denotes this detachment has activated already? Determining break point would then be performed by counting the tokens remaining on the board, if they number less than a formations break point, you know that particular formation is broken, no dead pile counting required. Isn't formation breakage calculated in the end phase? By that time, every detachments order token has already been flipped to show its formation (and placed on top of a model to denote they have activated)
For tourneys however, these tokens would need to be static.. in which case the only viable way I can see it working is with having custom made tokens with the formation numbers permanently fixed to them. You'd basically need to print a large batch of tokens to use for your games
It's not a perfect solution because you'd need to make a foolproof way to know which detachment has activated, and you'd need a flockton of order tokens for a larger tourney game, but its the sanest method I can think of ATM
tauist wrote: I'm trying to come up with the most elegant solution to this dillemma, and the best I can come up ATM would be to double dip on the order tokens.
You could have custom order tokens with the formation number on the other side of the token. Now, tokens are a hassle because you need a lot of them, but if a token had a way to change the number value on its other side (a circular plastic/resin/paper disc you can rotate ala Epic 1st edition Titan void shield markers on their base), you could just have a bunch and could set each to the required value at any given time. Then you'd still need a way to denote which detachment has activated somehow.. maybe by placing a token on top of a model denotes this detachment has activated already?
For tourneys however, these tokens would need to be static.. in which case the only viable way I can see it working is with having custom made tokens with the formation numbers permanently fixed to them. You'd basically need to print a large batch of tokens to use for your games
It's already going to be a challenge to have enough order tokens on hand alone until everyone's sets come in. We had one set of paper tokens on friday and quickly rand out. It's been a big enough task coordinating with friends over where to get tokens for orders. Yet more tokens can't be the answer, that's not a fair ask of anyone coming to an event, a pen and paper sure but a hole new set of token isn't tenable at scale.
Well IMHO a bag of hundred or so tokens per player (they can be paper or anything easily printable) is a better solution than pen and papering it out, and having to have sideboards and whatnot.. but feel free to come up something that suits you better
tauist wrote: I'm trying to come up with the most elegant solution to this dillemma, and the best I can come up ATM would be to double dip on the order tokens.
You could have custom order tokens with the formation number on the other side of the token. Now, tokens are a hassle because you need a lot of them, but if a token had a way to change the number value on its other side (a circular plastic/resin/paper disc you can rotate ala Epic 1st edition Titan void shield markers on their base), you could just have a bunch and could set each to the required value at any given time. Then you'd still need a way to denote which detachment has activated somehow.. maybe by placing a token on top of a model denotes this detachment has activated already?
For tourneys however, these tokens would need to be static.. in which case the only viable way I can see it working is with having custom made tokens with the formation numbers permanently fixed to them. You'd basically need to print a large batch of tokens to use for your games
It's already going to be a challenge to have enough order tokens on hand alone until everyone's sets come in. We had one set of paper tokens on friday and quickly rand out. It's been a big enough task coordinating with friends over where to get tokens for orders. Yet more tokens can't be the answer, that's not a fair ask of anyone coming to an event, a pen and paper sure but a hole new set of token isn't tenable at scale.
well for this its something that can be as simple as a pack of 20mm round MDF discs and a sharpie. but also "token" is more of a concept here, its a marker of some sort, could be a paper label, coloured glass bead, painted mark. these do not need really to be game specific in any way, though obviously they could be
and the starter game I had used two sets of the flimsy paper ones, not enough of one, forget which, for everything
main point was that the other side of a token is currently underutilized, yet you must have one for every detachment. To my peabrain that unutilized space sounds like an answer to designating formations. How to make it happen IRL, well that's the tricky part.
What seems obvious however is that there is a screaming void waiting for 3rd party token manufacturers to step in. Everyone is running out of tokens even as they are, yet you cannot buy more of them from GW..
tauist wrote: main point was that the other side of a token is currently underutilized, yet you must have one for every detachment. To my peabrain that unutilized space sounds like an answer to designating formations. How to make it happen IRL, well that's the tricky part.
What seems obvious however is that there is a screaming void waiting for 3rd party token manufacturers to step in. Everyone is running out of tokens even as they are, yet you cannot buy more of them from GW..
Removal or the sequence/phase of removal of the order tokens is part of the documentation for activations, But even with your example in the context of an event I don't control what tokens people have, some it might be paper ones from the starter, others it may be custom printed two sided ones with their army's symbol on the back. I'm not just pulling out that example out of nowhere, was looking with a friend at what tokens to get yesterday and its very likely that the ones I get, the back will have a raven guard symbol on all of them.
tauist wrote: main point was that the other side of a token is currently underutilized, yet you must have one for every detachment. To my peabrain that unutilized space sounds like an answer to designating formations. How to make it happen IRL, well that's the tricky part.
What seems obvious however is that there is a screaming void waiting for 3rd party token manufacturers to step in. Everyone is running out of tokens even as they are, yet you cannot buy more of them from GW..
tokens with a colour to the main body work, until you get more than a few formations, also issues around colour-blindness to consider, ones with a formation number of the back, full size, and the front, smaller with the order icon works and scales, but not quite so much "at a glance"
personally wondering on combining the two
formation 1: mid brown
formation 2: red
formation 3: orange
formation 4: yellow
formation 5: green
formation 6: blue
formation 7: violet
formation 8: grey
formation 9: white
formation 10: black
as a base colour, contrasting colour for a number and the order icon
Crablezworth 812348 11619250 wrote:
Also, no one has been able to answer me how this will work with 1 foot of sideboard (playing 4x5 on a 6x4), I'm playing with 4 feet of sideboard (8x4) and it was borderline untenable to do both that and track all the separate piles of dudes who are in buildings. So this isn't just "i don't like this rule" It's entirely untenable from not jus ta TO perspective but a logistics/physical space requirement
I tried to buy maybe I was not clear enough.
1x A4 with boxes denoting Formations. Casualty tracker in each. Actual casualties go in one stackable box per formation under the table next to one of the table legs, if you need to verify, or count total points for a secondary objective.
Another A4 for buildings/transport if you need to track those.
Crablezworth 812348 11619250 wrote:
Also, no one has been able to answer me how this will work with 1 foot of sideboard (playing 4x5 on a 6x4), I'm playing with 4 feet of sideboard (8x4) and it was borderline untenable to do both that and track all the separate piles of dudes who are in buildings. So this isn't just "i don't like this rule" It's entirely untenable from not jus ta TO perspective but a logistics/physical space requirement
I tried to buy maybe I was not clear enough.
1x A4 with boxes denoting Formations. Casualty tracker in each. Actual casualties go in one stackable box per formation under the table next to one of the table legs, if you need to verify, or count total points for a secondary objective.
Another A4 for buildings/transport if you need to track those.
Will the event be providing x amount of boxes? Assume it was, if the error was a player placing a dead model in the wrong box, I still don't see how a third party is going to figure that out. If it was me making the mistake, all my identical models look the same, I couldn't tell you at a glance which base of velletri belong to which formation and the entire point is avoiding having to make those distinctions objective and visual for all to see, the boxes don't solve this and this is the core problem and what has to be avoided to make the whole thing tenable. With my solution one only need one's box and that can be their army case which gets the event or store off the hook for added costs, and the TO only has to verify count and not do a complete census and the event doesn't have to invent a whole set of rules gw didn't to properly document identical models from different formations.
drawback with combining all formations into a single number and then having the army break as a whole is you lose the granularity
the way to defeat some armoured formations will be to break them, they are vulnerable to this as they can be quite small. denies them "first fire" and makes it safer to approach to finish in detail.
in effect your superheavy formation is now being padded by the cheap infantry behind the hill
it is of course a lot faster to break the army in one go, but I think you are losing a fair bit of flavour in the actual game mechanics
there is another option for an event that could also work, or at least make life easier: stick in a maximum number of allowed formations
leopard wrote: there is another option for an event that could also work, or at least make life easier: stick in a maximum number of allowed formations
This does seem to be the way the conversation leads. If space, game time and complexity are a problem, then reducing the size of the game seems the natural solution. Rather than paper around the problems of large games, restrict things to 2,000pts, or 2 or fewer formations.
Not only does that ameliorate (or eliminate) the problem of formations break points, but it's also more practical for players who – by the sounds of things – will be relative newcomers to the game. Simply having less on the board is easier for both players to grasp, takes less time to set up and play (so more time for thinking, chatting and socialising), and leaves more space for the sideboard.
As an aside, the design notes for Titanicus specifically noted that the board (4 x 4ft) was smaller than GW's usual games (6 x 4ft) in order to ensure space for terminals etc. I can only assume a similar consideration is behind Epic: Legions' odd 5 x 4ft set up.
tneva82 wrote: Yea not fan of single break point. Just dumbing game down for "competitive" game. Bleargh.
If i pick up one of your models right now, will it objectively tell me what formation its in>? If the answer isn't yet, you're in the same boat as me. This isn't even about competitive, this would be just as important in a fluff event or multiplayer giant game.
tneva82 wrote: Yea not fan of single break point. Just dumbing game down for "competitive" game. Bleargh.
does still leave the question of "whats a practical way to actually do this, especially as games get larger?" though
Exactly, the same logistics and problem is there for everyone. All my tanks say "317" because its the army not the detachment, i don't even have room left if i was ocd enough and inclined enough to give every base and tank some unique identifier.
tneva82 wrote: Yea not fan of single break point. Just dumbing game down for "competitive" game. Bleargh.
does still leave the question of "whats a practical way to actually do this, especially as games get larger?" though
The game is clearly an homage to old-school design – and 'pen, paper and plenty of time' is probably the answer. I don't think this is going to be a problem when you're playing with friends in a casual environment – or at least not one that can't be solved through a little chat and sorting through the casualty piles.
Still, since the question is focussing on competitive tournament gaming, I still think there are more elegant solutions than an army break point for the reasons outlined above.
leopard wrote: there is another option for an event that could also work, or at least make life easier: stick in a maximum number of allowed formations
This does seem to be the way the conversation leads. If space, game time and complexity are a problem, then reducing the size of the game seems the natural solution. Rather than paper around the problems of large games, restrict things to 2,000pts, or 2 or fewer formations.
Not only does that ameliorate (or eliminate) the problem of formations break points, but it's also more practical for players who – by the sounds of things – will be relative newcomers to the game. Simply having less on the board is easier for both players to grasp, takes less time to set up and play (so more time for thinking, chatting and socialising), and leaves more space for the sideboard.
As an aside, the design notes for Titanicus specifically noted that the board (4 x 4ft) was smaller than GW's usual games (6 x 4ft) in order to ensure space for terminals etc. I can only assume a similar consideration is behind Epic: Legions' odd 5 x 4ft set up.
The second you have more than one formation that may have any crossover in units, you're going to have to have the ability for anyone to objectively identify what formation the model belongs to so it's not just points level. Example, I can make single formation right now that's over 3000pts (3015 in fact) and contains 42 models with a breaking point of 21 and not have to mark anything and only need a note bad, but this is also a list of 30 malcadors and 12 baneblades and a whopping 8 activations. I don't think formations are some big balancing thing people seem to think they are. This is a game where weapons loadouts the vast majority of time aren't costed at all.
Crablezworth 812348 11619250 wrote:
Also, no one has been able to answer me how this will work with 1 foot of sideboard (playing 4x5 on a 6x4), I'm playing with 4 feet of sideboard (8x4) and it was borderline untenable to do both that and track all the separate piles of dudes who are in buildings. So this isn't just "i don't like this rule" It's entirely untenable from not jus ta TO perspective but a logistics/physical space requirement
I tried to buy maybe I was not clear enough.
1x A4 with boxes denoting Formations. Casualty tracker in each. Actual casualties go in one stackable box per formation under the table next to one of the table legs, if you need to verify, or count total points for a secondary objective.
Another A4 for buildings/transport if you need to track those.
Will the event be providing x amount of boxes? Assume it was, if the error was a player placing a dead model in the wrong box, I still don't see how a third party is going to figure that out. If it was me making the mistake, all my identical models look the same, I couldn't tell you at a glance which base of velletri belong to which formation and the entire point is avoiding having to make those distinctions objective and visual for all to see, the boxes don't solve this and this is the core problem and what has to be avoided to make the whole thing tenable. With my solution one only need one's box and that can be their army case which gets the event or store off the hook for added costs, and the TO only has to verify count and not do a complete census and the event doesn't have to invent a whole set of rules gw didn't to properly document identical models from different formations.
I think you're slightly looking for problems now, having each player bring a box per formation is very doable and doesn't require any painting or codification.
You 'll never get past the problem of trust though, so your TO specific worries about verifying aren't going to be bullet proof however, any player can place casualties wrongly unintentionally or intentionally. If players cheat then so be it, players shouldn't have to worry about that as trust should exist in basic form. If a player cheats and people find out they're burned.
A think this game is best approached from a non tournament perspective anyway. This discussion is now very TO specific and easy solutions during a casual game exist.
A think this game is best approached from a non tournament perspective anyway. This discussion is now very TO specific and easy solutions during a casual game exist.
And yet that context being the operative one didn't stop you. I didn't create the issue and as I've said, you're likely in the same boat as me if I can't pick up one of your tanks or infantry bases and not immediately be able to objectively identify what formation it belongs to. I'm not the one creating that problem, I'm the one pointing it out it's an issue that exceeds far more than just trust, but physical reality of space available. It's not about the box you put a dead unit in, it's about being able to figure out objectively if you put it in the wrong box, that may be the entire thing a to is helping to untangle but literally can't if its subjective and not objective, something anyone can verify "ah yes this tank is part of formation 3 as marked here on the back" and the problem with that expectation is its basically an impossible standard. This isn't me trying to find a problem, the problem is there for all of us regardless of an event or not, but in the context of this thread and trying to find a work around in order to be able to run an event the single breaking point is the best I've got. It's the one box solution to speak to your example. It wouldn't require either of us to come up with some intricate signature system for tracking detachments and formations.
Yeah I understand you and the problem, don't want to belittle it. I just meant this thread is named and started as a discussion around tracking Formation casualties which seems to have a consensus in the thread. Now it's TO limitations. That's fine.
The game does indeed involve more book keeping need than hoped.
I just think its manageable and there are multiple non intricate practical solutions to this as mentioned.
If basic trust is not there however, or visual verification is needed all the time then as you say, quite a big sideboard is needed for this game.
westiebestie wrote: Yeah I understand you and the problem, don't want to belittle it. I just meant this thread is named and started as a discussion around tracking Formation casualties which seems to have a consensus in the thread. Now it's TO limitations. That's fine.
The game does indeed involve more book keeping need than hoped.
I just think its manageable and there are multiple non intricate practical solutions to this as mentioned.
If basic trust is not there however, or visual verification is needed all the time then as you say, quite a big sideboard is needed for this game.
Trust is needed in 40k and yet despite that games happen. If you can't trust opponent you are screwed in 40k as well.
It's ridiculously easy to cheat in 40k. Hasn't stopped 40k tournaments. Not issue in li either.
there is another option for an event that could also work, or at least make life easier: stick in a maximum number of allowed formations
THIS
In the end it is going to be the best approach.
PS also, that will make formations bigger, and there will be less spam of certain detachments...
Can limit formations but that doesn't get rid of the problem until you limit it to 1 formation, the problem starts the moment you have 2 or more formations. I also want to point out, formations limit like nothing. I can make a single formation that is worth over 3000pts and contains 42 tanks, I don't think formations limit anything in a game where every formation allows the maxing out of every single detachment other than hq. Like the super heavy detachment is 6 super heavies max... that's not really limiting much. 3 identical formations is 9000pts... so even if I limited formations, it doesn't really limit anything. The game already has built in discounts for adding to existing detachments instead of forming new ones and that starts right away with any formation.
there is another option for an event that could also work, or at least make life easier: stick in a maximum number of allowed formations
THIS
In the end it is going to be the best approach.
PS also, that will make formations bigger, and there will be less spam of certain detachments...
Can limit formations but that doesn't get rid of the problem until you limit it to 1 formation, the problem starts the moment you have 2 or more formations. I also want to point out, formations limit like nothing. I can make a single formation that is worth over 3000pts and contains 42 tanks, I don't think formations limit anything in a game where every formation allows the maxing out of every single detachment other than hq. Like the super heavy detachment is 6 super heavies max... that's not really limiting much. 3 identical formations is 9000pts... so even if I limited formations, it doesn't really limit anything. The game already has built in discounts for adding to existing detachments instead of forming new ones and that starts right away with any formation.
For **** sake, yes it helps.
Limiting the number of formations reduces the book-keeping of casualties you and I are complaining about.
Can limit formations but that doesn't get rid of the problem until you limit it to 1 formation, the problem starts the moment you have 2 or more formations. I also want to point out, formations limit like nothing. I can make a single formation that is worth over 3000pts and contains 42 tanks, I don't think formations limit anything in a game where every formation allows the maxing out of every single detachment other than hq. Like the super heavy detachment is 6 super heavies max... that's not really limiting much. 3 identical formations is 9000pts... so even if I limited formations, it doesn't really limit anything. The game already has built in discounts for adding to existing detachments instead of forming new ones and that starts right away with any formation.
Uhhuh. I have demi company full of infantry and armoured company full of tanks.
Pretty easy to determine then which formation casualties came from?
You can't fit all the tanks you want to demi company generally anyway so putting them all to armoured company.
Limiting one would break game pretty hard btw. I managed to just about fit 1.7j into one demi company but that results in silly list where you just max out everything. Everybody plays same as there's not much of freedom. 1.7k marines, warlord, 700 pts empty...Gee. Oh wait max 1 formation so no warlord either.
2000 points and 2 formations max (+1 Titan or Knight formation) sounds like a reasonable approach for tournament play. Larger games than that will take far too long to resolve anyways.
Not enforcing a formations cap in a tourney setting is just asking for trouble.. 70 point SA formations anyone? Cheesefest in the making.. I mean, was it not already established that the game is unbalanced in terms of points effectiveness? If you dont cap formation amounts, WAAC tryhards will just push that problem over the top, because they can always just spam a min sized new formation to get access to the more OP detachments
I also dont see how it would be unreasonable to demand "all models must be easily identifiable in terms of formation it belongs to", even in 40K tourneys they usually have a strict WYSIWYG requirement no? And still people manage just fine.. In the Epic of olde, stands had these flags on them, you could add something similar to LI (heck, you could even magnetize em so you would be able to use a specific model in any future formation)
there is a huge issue with limiting the number of formations though
you are essentially telling Solar Auxilia players not to enter, they need multiple formations to get the HQ units to make the army work.
indeed they quite specifically do not want a low number of large formations as thats a gateway to the bulk being outside the command range of their HQ units, and provides an easy quick kill through killing those commanders
tauist wrote: 2000 points and 2 formations max (+1 Titan or Knight formation) sounds like a reasonable approach for tournament play. Larger games than that will take far too long to resolve anyways.
Not enforcing a formations cap in a tourney setting is just asking for trouble.. 70 point SA formations anyone? Cheesefest in the making.. I mean, was it not already established that the game is unbalanced in terms of points effectiveness? If you dont cap formation amounts, WAAC tryhards will just push that problem over the top, because they can always just spam a min sized new formation to get access to the more OP detachments
I also dont see how it would be unreasonable to demand "all models must be easily identifiable in terms of formation it belongs to", even in 40K tourneys they usually have a strict WYSIWYG requirement no? And still people manage just fine.. In the Epic of olde, stands had these flags on them, you could add something similar to LI (heck, you could even magnetize em so you would be able to use a specific model in any future formation)
So basicajly every marine list is same. And people can't use predators and sicarans same time.
Also is formation spam that powerful as each breaks so easily...
40k tournament, btw don't require squad markings. Wysiwyg is about weapons. In li terms equivavent is model has heavy bolters it plays as heavy bolter. Not lascannon.
And 40k requires trust betwenn plavers to work. Hardly unreasonable li needs as well. Weird if you can trust 40k player but not li. I expect i can trust more li than 40k.
tauist wrote: 2000 points and 2 formations max (+1 Titan or Knight formation) sounds like a reasonable approach for tournament play. Larger games than that will take far too long to resolve anyways.
Not enforcing a formations cap in a tourney setting is just asking for trouble.. 70 point SA formations anyone? Cheesefest in the making.. I mean, was it not already established that the game is unbalanced in terms of points effectiveness? If you dont cap formation amounts, WAAC tryhards will just push that problem over the top, because they can always just spam a min sized new formation to get access to the more OP detachments
I also dont see how it would be unreasonable to demand "all models must be easily identifiable in terms of formation it belongs to", even in 40K tourneys they usually have a strict WYSIWYG requirement no? And still people manage just fine.. In the Epic of olde, stands had these flags on them, you could add something similar to LI (heck, you could even magnetize em so you would be able to use a specific model in any future formation)
So basicajly every marine list is same. And people can't use predators and sicarans same time.
Also is formation spam that powerful as each breaks so easily...
40k tournament, btw don't require squad markings. Wysiwyg is about weapons. In li terms equivavent is model has heavy bolters it plays as heavy bolter. Not lascannon.
And 40k requires trust betwenn plavers to work. Hardly unreasonable li needs as well. Weird if you can trust 40k player but not li. I expect i can trust more li than 40k.
Every marine list is already very samey in tourney scenes, is it not? Don't see any huge change there..
Can't use Predators and Sicarans at the same time? Last I checked, Legion Armoured Company gives you both as Core detachments, you tripping?
well 40k doesn't need squad markings because each squad is a thing on its own, you don't have to group your list into collections of four/five units and then track casualties in those groups - just at individual squad level
and yes a lot of 40k marine lists are very samey, I'm not sure that lack of variation is specifically one of the good points of the game though
As I've said, make tracking this the players problem, have a few "accepted" ways to do it that promote clarity and reduce confusion, and just run with it
As I've said, make tracking this the players problem, have a few "accepted" ways to do it that promote clarity and reduce confusion, and just run with it
If your a TO it's not much to stat in your tournament info packs/event page/whatever a few sentences stating that players are expected to have a way to manage the admin in an appropriate fashion, whether it's the paint job or some marker by each detachment. If they want to take part in a game where distinct formations are important, then they need to acomodate that in their plans.
As I've said, make tracking this the players problem, have a few "accepted" ways to do it that promote clarity and reduce confusion, and just run with it
If your a TO it's not much to stat in your tournament info packs/event page/whatever a few sentences stating that players are expected to have a way to manage the admin in an appropriate fashion, whether it's the paint job or some marker by each detachment. If they want to take part in a game where distinct formations are important, then they need to acomodate that in their plans.
thats essentially what I mean, list a few ways you are happy with and let players pick one
Really interesting discussion on this topic. I will say this problem isn't unique to this system, some of the ideas that Leopard proposed (of colour coding and marking on bases) I have seen used in FoW events because you need to track casualties from specific units. But it has always been a big problem, I have actually seen two guys (who were both lovely blokes and usually very friendly with each other) actually almost come to blows in what was meant to be a fun-narrative event (!) because we couldn't be sure which casualties some commando units, scaling some bunkers in the Normandy landings, had sustained - and the result would literally decide the game. So this sort of thing can be really important, and by no means is it unique to Legions.
Going back to old-Epic: In SM2 we used to use the unit cards and place the casualties themselves on the company cards as they were inflicted. It was still some record-keeping, but you then checked against this. As the cards aren't an integral part of this game, as they were with SM2, perhaps have a piece of paper and check-list in this case, or something like the system Apologist noted above?
In summary, after reading some of the above, I do *not* think this game is suited for competitive, tournament play (and by that, the sort where 3rd party validation might be needed). Fine for friendly tournaments or loose narrative games where you just trust players to keep track of casualties, but not something that needs iron-shod record keeping. In the same way weapon loadouts and WYSIWYG apply, it's just too hard to keep track of which one of 19 loadout combinations and side sponsors a vehicle has, considering the size of that 8mm scale vehicle, when I am looking across the board at it. You get some dirty-as-hell comp tournament players, not many but some, and they would just have way too much free reign - suddenly the Predators side sponsor weapons transform - Obliterator-like - into an anti-infantry weapon as they approach them. And without a ridiculous amount of book-keeping it just wouldn't be possible to fully police.
issue with "put models on the cards", which is what the rules seem to imply for garrison and transports, is simple "where do you put the cards?" which was one of the initial problems. takes a bit of space and you don't want them on the field of play.
I'm going with WYCQSIWYG* simply because I'll confuse myself if I don't, I accept others go differently, we have a shell game player locally but otherwise its mostly "all predators are this configuration today" stuff
there is another option for an event that could also work, or at least make life easier: stick in a maximum number of allowed formations
THIS
In the end it is going to be the best approach.
PS also, that will make formations bigger, and there will be less spam of certain detachments...
Can limit formations but that doesn't get rid of the problem until you limit it to 1 formation, the problem starts the moment you have 2 or more formations. I also want to point out, formations limit like nothing. I can make a single formation that is worth over 3000pts and contains 42 tanks, I don't think formations limit anything in a game where every formation allows the maxing out of every single detachment other than hq. Like the super heavy detachment is 6 super heavies max... that's not really limiting much. 3 identical formations is 9000pts... so even if I limited formations, it doesn't really limit anything. The game already has built in discounts for adding to existing detachments instead of forming new ones and that starts right away with any formation.
For **** sake, yes it helps.
Limiting the number of formations reduces the book-keeping of casualties you and I are complaining about.
And prevents spamming of support/rare slots.
Until its limited to 1 and only 1 the problem remains. If you divide a parking lot into a and b you actually have to know if you parked in a or b, this is the problem. My solution was combining the breaking points of all formations into one number and essentially one formation to get around this problem of having to mark all models to designate formation. That's a solution.
As I've said, make tracking this the players problem, have a few "accepted" ways to do it that promote clarity and reduce confusion, and just run with it
If your a TO it's not much to stat in your tournament info packs/event page/whatever a few sentences stating that players are expected to have a way to manage the admin in an appropriate fashion, whether it's the paint job or some marker by each detachment. If they want to take part in a game where distinct formations are important, then they need to acomodate that in their plans.
And as a TO I'm telling you that's not tenable. full stop. Not to nitpick you example either, but its not even realistic in itself or useful, everyone having their own bespoke record system isn't an objective system or standard for all players and even if there was one system being put foward by an event, why would people paint or mark every single one of their models just to attend an event? It's a big enough ask to just have hem bring painted models have the time.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pacific wrote: Really interesting discussion on this topic. I will say this problem isn't unique to this system, some of the ideas that Leopard proposed (of colour coding and marking on bases) I have seen used in FoW events because you need to track casualties from specific units. But it has always been a big problem, I have actually seen two guys (who were both lovely blokes and usually very friendly with each other) actually almost come to blows in what was meant to be a fun-narrative event (!) because we couldn't be sure which casualties some commando units, scaling some bunkers in the Normandy landings, had sustained - and the result would literally decide the game. So this sort of thing can be really important, and by no means is it unique to Legions.
Going back to old-Epic: In SM2 we used to use the unit cards and place the casualties themselves on the company cards as they were inflicted. It was still some record-keeping, but you then checked against this. As the cards aren't an integral part of this game, as they were with SM2, perhaps have a piece of paper and check-list in this case, or something like the system Apologist noted above?
In summary, after reading some of the above, I do *not* think this game is suited for competitive, tournament play (and by that, the sort where 3rd party validation might be needed). Fine for friendly tournaments or loose narrative games where you just trust players to keep track of casualties, but not something that needs iron-shod record keeping. In the same way weapon loadouts and WYSIWYG apply, it's just too hard to keep track of which one of 19 loadout combinations and side sponsors a vehicle has, considering the size of that 8mm scale vehicle, when I am looking across the board at it. You get some dirty-as-hell comp tournament players, not many but some, and they would just have way too much free reign - suddenly the Predators side sponsor weapons transform - Obliterator-like - into an anti-infantry weapon as they approach them. And without a ridiculous amount of book-keeping it just wouldn't be possible to fully police.
WYSIWYG is easy to police, it's objective unlike player's bespoke record and marking systems to track formations, i may not know intrinsically what a yellow triangle with a number indicates but i can sell a lacannon from a heavy bolter no problem. It's an easy standard to set too in terms of an event.
I'd actually go further and try and mandate weapon loadouts be the same in detachments to save time. There's crunchiness and there's making the entire game a headache for no reason.
leopard wrote: mandating mono-load outs and "only one formation" means you are essentially playing a different game
mixed loadouts are very useful, allows adding some point defence to strike units
Allowing two loadouts then, but unlimited is insane, the malcadors have 36 different possible weapons loadouts. In a 3000pts single formation list you could have 5 maxed out detachments of 6 each and still not have a single one with the same loadout. I'm not saying there's any incentive to be that obtuse but it really is a problem. Two different loadouts maybe, unlimited is insane. Understand I'm saying this not in a vacuum but in the context of people arguing that wysiwyg shouldn't even matter to begin with. There are pitfalls too if every tank in your list is identical (just in terms of spacing/confusing where one detachment starts and ends if operating closely). Same time if every unit of tanks is massively mixed it can be difficult to tell where they start and end as well. I absolutely get people who do small unit marking just for that reason alone before any consideration to formation markings.
I really think this is blowing it out of proportion, and that each community and TO will settle on their own system. Not to mention the 99.9999% of players, who will never see this forum.
just because they have that many combinations doesn't mean you will see that, you are only going to see variations within a unit where there is a viable tactical reason to do so
and as you note, its on the model so keeping track is easy
you also at an event can go for a nice clear statement "all models must be equipped with weapons they are using", or state that any unit with varied load outs must be as modelled
the unit marking and formation marking thing really isn't a massive issue, this has been a "problem" historical games have managed quite well with for decades, ditto other sci-fi and fantasy type games
and as noted the moment you put limits on the number of formations you are in effect banning Solar Auxilia armies as they require the HQ units to function
I really think this is blowing it out of proportion, and that each community and TO will settle on their own system. Not to mention the 99.9999% of players, who will never see this forum.
What about every player having their own subjective system of marking units is tenable? I could tell you a number or colour designate anything. "Oh uh today purple triangles mean this formation." If you have to consult me, a player in your event, for intrinsic knowledge a to to try and unravel a dispute or help solve a problem like models in the wrong dead pile there's basically no ability for oversight or transparency and we're right at "trust me, bro" the person who may be cheating or have a terrible memory or constantly putting units from the wrong formations in the wrong dead piles.
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leopard wrote: just because they have that many combinations doesn't mean you will see that, you are only going to see variations within a unit where there is a viable tactical reason to do so
and as you note, its on the model so keeping track is easy
you also at an event can go for a nice clear statement "all models must be equipped with weapons they are using", or state that any unit with varied load outs must be as modelled
the unit marking and formation marking thing really isn't a massive issue, this has been a "problem" historical games have managed quite well with for decades, ditto other sci-fi and fantasy type games
and as noted the moment you put limits on the number of formations you are in effect banning Solar Auxilia armies as they require the HQ units to function
My point is some units have literally a and b options and some have 36 possible flavours, there's a vast gulf between those two for people are a bit touched to have some silly combinations. A unit of 6 malcadors with 2 different loadouts is very different than 6 we can agree? We can also likely agree that try as they might the touched can really over complicate units with binary options like contemptor dreadnoughts or tarantulas, that both only have 2 weapon options.
I think a couple loadouts in a detachment is ok, but it gets silly with 6 heavy tanks like baneblades/kratos/malcadors.
The unit marking thing is a big issue for me, the massive influx of people into LI means im trying to make it work locally for players coming from 30k/40k not just people who have been exclusively playing flames of war or other historicals for the past few years.
Limiting formations isn't that limiting even for solar aux. Lets say its limited to 3 formations, that's plenty. As I've said a few times, formations might limit aux's ability to have hq/tank commanders but its not exactly limiting anything else, 1 formation of solar aux tanks can be 3015pts, 30 macladors, 12 baneblades. I think it's more about point level first then figuring out what makes sense. Could easil see 1-3 faction formation, 0-1 allied formation, 2000pts.
I really think this is blowing it out of proportion, and that each community and TO will settle on their own system. Not to mention the 99.9999% of players, who will never see this forum.
What about every player having their own subjective system of marking units is tenable? I could tell you a number or colour designate anything. "Oh uh today purple triangles mean this formation." If you have to consult me, a player in your event, for intrinsic knowledge a to to try and unravel a dispute or help solve a problem like models in the wrong dead pile there's basically no ability for oversight or transparency and we're right at "trust me, bro" the person who may be cheating or have a terrible memory or constantly putting units from the wrong formations in the wrong dead piles.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote: just because they have that many combinations doesn't mean you will see that, you are only going to see variations within a unit where there is a viable tactical reason to do so
and as you note, its on the model so keeping track is easy
you also at an event can go for a nice clear statement "all models must be equipped with weapons they are using", or state that any unit with varied load outs must be as modelled
the unit marking and formation marking thing really isn't a massive issue, this has been a "problem" historical games have managed quite well with for decades, ditto other sci-fi and fantasy type games
and as noted the moment you put limits on the number of formations you are in effect banning Solar Auxilia armies as they require the HQ units to function
My point is some units have literally a and b options and some have 36 possible flavours, there's a vast gulf between those two for people are a bit touched to have some silly combinations. A unit of 6 malcadors with 2 different loadouts is very different than 6 we can agree? We can also likely agree that try as they might the touched can really over complicate units with binary options like contemptor dreadnoughts or tarantulas, that both only have 2 weapon options.
I think a couple loadouts in a detachment is ok, but it gets silly with 6 heavy tanks like baneblades/kratos/malcadors.
The unit marking thing is a big issue for me, the massive influx of people into LI means im trying to make it work locally for players coming from 30k/40k not just people who have been exclusively playing flames of war or other historicals for the past few years.
which is why if you, as an event organiser, have an issue with it then you, as an event organiser, can stipulate in the event pack what is and is not acceptable at your event, with regard to unit markings, formation markings, how models are made and equipped, variations etc
and it doesn't matter if players have only played 40k, if they are moving to a game where formation marking in some way matters (which used to for 40k when you had formations with their own rules that only applied to those units remember) then there seems little point re-inventing a wheel when this is more or less a solved problem for other systems
though admittedly systems where people taking a paint & brush to a model is not something that has to be stated, its just what you do
the ways to make bases of infantry are legion, coloured dots, printed labels on the rim, on the underside, coloured markings on the models, any combination and more, many games require this sort of tracking, and get played at events, and seem to manage
the idea that a model is deployed as what its a model of is usually accepted as normal too outside 40k, and even then the idea that "these Panzer IIF are actually Panzer II Luch" is generally fine as you seldom have them together.
Heck I've got 6mm Napoleonic where knowing two types of infantry with near identical models apart matters, with different painted trousers and markings on the base - and its fine, its easy to track who is commanded by who as well.
is this a problem? yes it is, but its not one without solutions
and once you have people willing to cheat all bets are off anyway
Automatically Appended Next Post: and yes a unit of six tanks with one loadout, with a mix of two load outs and all six being different is in theory a problem, right up until you stick in an event note that units must be modelled as they are armed, or that all instances of a single model across the entire army must have a single configuration if the models vary otherwise.
I really think this is blowing it out of proportion, and that each community and TO will settle on their own system. Not to mention the 99.9999% of players, who will never see this forum.
What about every player having their own subjective system of marking units is tenable? I could tell you a number or colour designate anything. "Oh uh today purple triangles mean this formation." If you have to consult me, a player in your event, for intrinsic knowledge a to to try and unravel a dispute or help solve a problem like models in the wrong dead pile there's basically no ability for oversight or transparency and we're right at "trust me, bro" the person who may be cheating or have a terrible memory or constantly putting units from the wrong formations in the wrong dead piles.
If you are that worried about cheating i hope you never ever play in any miniature tournaments. They all require trust to work and i could cheat in every one of them in ridiculous level.
If you can't trust your opponent no miniature game whatsoever works.
Hell even game like go requires trust unless you have 3rd person watching over. Just you and me? You need to trust me not to cheat to play the game.
I really think this is blowing it out of proportion, and that each community and TO will settle on their own system. Not to mention the 99.9999% of players, who will never see this forum.
What about every player having their own subjective system of marking units is tenable? I could tell you a number or colour designate anything. "Oh uh today purple triangles mean this formation." If you have to consult me, a player in your event, for intrinsic knowledge a to to try and unravel a dispute or help solve a problem like models in the wrong dead pile there's basically no ability for oversight or transparency and we're right at "trust me, bro" the person who may be cheating or have a terrible memory or constantly putting units from the wrong formations in the wrong dead piles.
If you are that worried about cheating i hope you never ever play in any miniature tournaments. They all require trust to work and i could cheat in every one of them in ridiculous level.
If you can't trust your opponent no miniature game whatsoever works.
Hell even game like go requires trust unless you have 3rd person watching over. Just you and me? You need to trust me not to cheat to play the game.
They don't require trust to tell a lascannon isn't a missile launcher, though. I trust but verify, if I can't verify, there goes trust. None of this is a reason to actively have less objectivity and more systems rife for abuse. I've met plenty of people who have destroyed trust in the context of wargaming, plenty of "that guys". Or pehaps everyone is just assumed to be a perfect angle, that's not been my experience of humans or their patterns of behavior. Just like the walking projection of the people who can't stop talking about "competitive" games and and how winning and losing is destoying their hobby while trying to hide the very real emotional response they have to losing. We have all types in wargaming, for better or worse.
I really think this is blowing it out of proportion, and that each community and TO will settle on their own system. Not to mention the 99.9999% of players, who will never see this forum.
What about every player having their own subjective system of marking units is tenable? I could tell you a number or colour designate anything. "Oh uh today purple triangles mean this formation." If you have to consult me, a player in your event, for intrinsic knowledge a to to try and unravel a dispute or help solve a problem like models in the wrong dead pile there's basically no ability for oversight or transparency and we're right at "trust me, bro" the person who may be cheating or have a terrible memory or constantly putting units from the wrong formations in the wrong dead piles.
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leopard wrote: just because they have that many combinations doesn't mean you will see that, you are only going to see variations within a unit where there is a viable tactical reason to do so
and as you note, its on the model so keeping track is easy
you also at an event can go for a nice clear statement "all models must be equipped with weapons they are using", or state that any unit with varied load outs must be as modelled
the unit marking and formation marking thing really isn't a massive issue, this has been a "problem" historical games have managed quite well with for decades, ditto other sci-fi and fantasy type games
and as noted the moment you put limits on the number of formations you are in effect banning Solar Auxilia armies as they require the HQ units to function
My point is some units have literally a and b options and some have 36 possible flavours, there's a vast gulf between those two for people are a bit touched to have some silly combinations. A unit of 6 malcadors with 2 different loadouts is very different than 6 we can agree? We can also likely agree that try as they might the touched can really over complicate units with binary options like contemptor dreadnoughts or tarantulas, that both only have 2 weapon options.
I think a couple loadouts in a detachment is ok, but it gets silly with 6 heavy tanks like baneblades/kratos/malcadors.
The unit marking thing is a big issue for me, the massive influx of people into LI means im trying to make it work locally for players coming from 30k/40k not just people who have been exclusively playing flames of war or other historicals for the past few years.
which is why if you, as an event organiser, have an issue with it then you, as an event organiser, can stipulate in the event pack what is and is not acceptable at your event, with regard to unit markings, formation markings, how models are made and equipped, variations etc
and it doesn't matter if players have only played 40k, if they are moving to a game where formation marking in some way matters (which used to for 40k when you had formations with their own rules that only applied to those units remember) then there seems little point re-inventing a wheel when this is more or less a solved problem for other systems
though admittedly systems where people taking a paint & brush to a model is not something that has to be stated, its just what you do
the ways to make bases of infantry are legion, coloured dots, printed labels on the rim, on the underside, coloured markings on the models, any combination and more, many games require this sort of tracking, and get played at events, and seem to manage
the idea that a model is deployed as what its a model of is usually accepted as normal too outside 40k, and even then the idea that "these Panzer IIF are actually Panzer II Luch" is generally fine as you seldom have them together.
Heck I've got 6mm Napoleonic where knowing two types of infantry with near identical models apart matters, with different painted trousers and markings on the base - and its fine, its easy to track who is commanded by who as well.
is this a problem? yes it is, but its not one without solutions
and once you have people willing to cheat all bets are off anyway
Automatically Appended Next Post: and yes a unit of six tanks with one loadout, with a mix of two load outs and all six being different is in theory a problem, right up until you stick in an event note that units must be modelled as they are armed, or that all instances of a single model across the entire army must have a single configuration if the models vary otherwise.
I simply don't want to be the enemy for having to make up a marking system and tell everyone who wants to attend an even how to paint their army, not simply that it must be painted. A colour system won't work, we have players who are colour blind, a number sytsem might work but it's a big ask. AT never took off here because of the terminals, and gw selling "the good terminals" seperately on top of needing weapon cards, and finally sideboard to do all of this which a lot of store struggle to have. LI needs to be as high speed low drag as possible, that might mean playing on a smaller mat to allow more sideboard. I still see combining break numbers into a single army wide break point as a the best solution because it immediately solves the core problem for which is it completely gets rid of needing to designate each model to its home formation.
If 30k allowed a rainbow of special or heavy weapons combined in single units it'd be te same problem, thankfully the basic convention of 5-10 plasma or melta or lasguns or missile launchers prevailed. If it hadn't, someone would have had to house rule it out of sheer sanity.
I simply don't want to be the enemy for having to make up a marking system and tell everyone who wants to attend an even how to paint their army, not simply that it must be painted. A colour system won't work, we have players who are colour blind, a number sytsem might work but it's a big ask. AT never took off here because of the terminals, and gw selling "the good terminals" seperately on top of needing weapon cards, and finally sideboard to do all of this which a lot of store struggle to have. LI needs to be as high speed low drag as possible, that might mean playing on a smaller mat to allow more sideboard. I still see combining break numbers into a single army wide break point as a the best solution because it immediately solves the core problem for which is it completely gets rid of needing to designate each model to its home formation.
Well you will have to upset someone by having some way to recognise which formation each unit is part of, thats a core part of the game rules
agree a pure colour system isn't ideal, though colours combined with numbers (marked in a high contrast way) isn't a huge issue
players have to bring the models, order counters etc. some suitably marked MDF bases, as noted, marking with a sharpie works perfectly fine so there is nothing complex here) works
and HH does permit weapons to be combined, in Veteran units, same as how 40k allows it. both games seem to manage and manage without house rules.
and thats before you go anywhere near T'au units with the various drones
and combining into one break point also changes the game significantly as breaking individual formations restricts those formations
leopard wrote: combining into one break point also changes the game significantly as breaking individual formations restricts those formations
And combining it now means every model is one more tick closer to the breaking point, so ya unfortunately you can't single out his armoured company, you can have however now really focus on squishy stuff as it all gets it closer to breaking. And here's the best part, people will actually show up and play because there's now no requirement to have a convoluted number/colour/symbols system and they can just relax, have fun, not have to worry about anything more than a single count and throw models in their case or on their display stand when they're dead. That's far more upside for me than downside.
The event would also have end game scoring not progressive, I'm ready to hear how that somehow destroys the game (joking)
Progressing scoring v end game scoring does indeed change the game, and changes it considerably, though in a way that can be structured around but the forces for it will be very different
personally adding an army break point, as well, with more than half the formations broken, would be interesting. moving to just a single army wide break point changes the game considerably
you then also have "so why would marines care that Auxilia are dying? thats what they are for isn't it?"
not to mention the casualties a unit outside their chain of command have taken may be something they are not even aware of
or the idea of having bulky, but cheap, Auxilia units that stay to the rear, largely out of sight, purely to boost the robustness of the assault troops
I see why you think its good, I respectfully disagree.
I also think its at this point a bit too early to tell just how big of an issue this is
So you dont want to be enemy yet become enemy by breaking game and dump it down while not changing that you need trust. If you can't trust your opponent single breakpoint fixes NOTHING. Zip. Nada. Zero.
leopard wrote: Progressing scoring v end game scoring does indeed change the game, and changes it considerably, though in a way that can be structured around but the forces for it will be very different
personally adding an army break point, as well, with more than half the formations broken, would be interesting. moving to just a single army wide break point changes the game considerably
you then also have "so why would marines care that Auxilia are dying? thats what they are for isn't it?"
not to mention the casualties a unit outside their chain of command have taken may be something they are not even aware of
or the idea of having bulky, but cheap, Auxilia units that stay to the rear, largely out of sight, purely to boost the robustness of the assault troops
I see why you think its good, I respectfully disagree.
I also think its at this point a bit too early to tell just how big of an issue this is
That's fair, I don't know how big of an issue it will be either. Can always add secondary objectives to each mission/scenario if need be.
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tneva82 wrote: So you dont want to be enemy yet become enemy by breaking game and dump it down while not changing that you need trust. If you can't trust your opponent single breakpoint fixes NOTHING. Zip. Nada. Zero.
All you did was break game. Good job.
Wonderful having you here fren, totally contributing. Please, don't go anywhere, if anything post more. The vast ocean in between will surely mean what I do with a local event with 6-8 people will completely destroy legions imperialis for all of finland, or somsething. I look forward to it. -maniacal laughter-
if you are not proposing to use the rulebook scenarios, and to be honest a willingness to go outside them is welcomed, I'd hope you were proposing to publish them ahead of time, along with any secondary scoring mechanic.
allows building an army around them
likewise I mean you can of course propose to change any core or optional rule in the game, so long as you publish that in advance too
e.g. you could decide to replace the points system entirely, and use something sensible instead that assigns costs to weapons
The event would also have end game scoring not progressive, I'm ready to hear how that somehow destroys the game (joking)
Well as historv shows it will result in players focus on killing as table enemy and go to objectives last turn is superior strategy.
Infantry loses value as their main strength is objective control which becomes irrelerant. 1 tank does job just fine when enemy dead.
So you would need to repoint every unit if you want balance but by now it has become clear you dont want balance and are just looking to make tank armies the king.
Single breakpoint, end game scoring...both ideas that favour tanks. Gee. What a coincidence...not.
I think an important question here: Did anyone read this rulebook and say to themselves "I fancy a fully comp tournament scene for this game"?
I suspect that the number would be fairly low. I would put this game down towards Necromunda (although not that bad) in terms of how suitable it is for that sort of gaming.
And if you are not doing fully comp tournaments, of the sort you get for card games or games like ASOIAF, which were made specifically with matched and tournament play in mind, then the question of people trying to fool others or cheat becomes less important.
Pacific wrote: I think an important question here: Did anyone read this rulebook and say to themselves "I fancy a fully comp tournament scene for this game"?
I suspect that the number would be fairly low. I would put this game down towards Necromunda (although not that bad) in terms of how suitable it is for that sort of gaming.
And if you are not doing fully comp tournaments, of the sort you get for card games or games like ASOIAF, which were made specifically with matched and tournament play in mind, then the question of people trying to fool others or cheat becomes less important.
The event would be something like
have a list that shows detachment weapon loadouts, full normal wysiwyg requirements, exceptions allowed in cases of model being damaged.
Combine formations breaking points into a single breaking point, test once for whole army when/if it happens.
Maximum 2 weapon loadouts for vehicle detachments, 50/50 where possible (some units are in 3's) This would allow for people to sill mix within detachments without going crazy and having 6 differently armed malcadors. It would also be kind to new players who may only have 2 dreads with las and 2 with kheres.
1-3 formations from your main faction, 0-1 allied fromations.
All models/armies must be fully painted.
Points level, number of rounds and board/mat size tbd but probably 1000-2000 4x4 or 4x5 depending on location/likely attendance.
The event would also have end game scoring not progressive, I'm ready to hear how that somehow destroys the game (joking)
Well as historv shows it will result in players focus on killing as table enemy and go to objectives last turn is superior strategy.
Infantry loses value as their main strength is objective control which becomes irrelerant. 1 tank does job just fine when enemy dead.
So you would need to repoint every unit if you want balance but by now it has become clear you dont want balance and are just looking to make tank armies the king.
Single breakpoint, end game scoring...both ideas that favour tanks. Gee. What a coincidence...not.
You caught me, my only goal here was to ruin gaming, specifically in finland with my evil plot to only see tanks on the board.
leopard wrote: there is a huge issue with limiting the number of formations though
you are essentially telling Solar Auxilia players not to enter, they need multiple formations to get the HQ units to make the army work.
indeed they quite specifically do not want a low number of large formations as thats a gateway to the bulk being outside the command range of their HQ units, and provides an easy quick kill through killing those commanders
tauist wrote: 2000 points and 2 formations max (+1 Titan or Knight formation) sounds like a reasonable approach for tournament play. Larger games than that will take far too long to resolve anyways.
Not enforcing a formations cap in a tourney setting is just asking for trouble.. 70 point SA formations anyone? Cheesefest in the making.. I mean, was it not already established that the game is unbalanced in terms of points effectiveness? If you dont cap formation amounts, WAAC tryhards will just push that problem over the top, because they can always just spam a min sized new formation to get access to the more OP detachments
I also dont see how it would be unreasonable to demand "all models must be easily identifiable in terms of formation it belongs to", even in 40K tourneys they usually have a strict WYSIWYG requirement no? And still people manage just fine.. In the Epic of olde, stands had these flags on them, you could add something similar to LI (heck, you could even magnetize em so you would be able to use a specific model in any future formation)
So basicajly every marine list is same. And people can't use predators and sicarans same time.
.
Why is that? there are armoured companies
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, there is an special rule for the quick start mission released to play with the contents of the box in a matched play: no formation breaks.
that could be applied to missions in a tournament.
Infantry loses value as their main strength is objective control which becomes irrelerant. 1 tank does job just fine when enemy dead.
So you would need to repoint every unit if you want balance but by now it has become clear you dont want balance and are just looking to make tank armies the king.
Single breakpoint, end game scoring...both ideas that favour tanks. Gee. What a coincidence...not.
Single breakpoint does not favor tanks.
It favors masses of cheap models in the back in cover to prevent reaching break point -> probably going to be infantry, not tanks.
think the quick start is less "no formation breaks!" as much as there is only one formation per side (with everything in it)
3-4 formations in a 2k game is probably workable, though does again need a fair few more games under the belt - also to work out how long they will likely take if nothing else
leopard wrote: think the quick start is less "no formation breaks!" as much as there is only one formation per side (with everything in it)
3-4 formations in a 2k game is probably workable, though does again need a fair few more games under the belt - also to work out how long they will likely take if nothing else
Yes but it shows even gw understands that fromation breaks are perhaps something best left for later games, and it coincides with my solution of one combined unit break number.
It favors masses of cheap models in the back in cover to prevent reaching break point -> probably going to be infantry, not tanks.
Yeah and it also means opponents can attempt to ignore some tank detachments where possible to put the hurt on infantry which are squishier and easier to target in hopes of breaking the army. Worth noting too this will be easier to do as both armies get more barrage weapons.
But this also fits with the end game scoring I'd be going for. If people find play is too static without progressive scoring, can add secondary objectives that spice things up and perhaps incentives to mix it up in the middle. That and maybe allow more units the ability to be kept in reserve.
leopard wrote: think the quick start is less "no formation breaks!" as much as there is only one formation per side (with everything in it)
3-4 formations in a 2k game is probably workable, though does again need a fair few more games under the belt - also to work out how long they will likely take if nothing else
Yes but it shows even gw understands that fromation breaks are perhaps something best left for later games, and it coincides with my solution of one combined unit break number.
Or it could show they don't work in a small game with only one formation, or it could be in the grand tradition of starter games that ignore certain rules in favour of others, given it didn't occur to them to put that starter scenario in the box its not that relevant either way.
note the game size in the box is a lot smaller than any event is likely to use and as such is hardly representative anyway
It favors masses of cheap models in the back in cover to prevent reaching break point -> probably going to be infantry, not tanks.
Yeah and it also means opponents can attempt to ignore some tank detachments where possible to put the hurt on infantry which are squishier and easier to target in hopes of breaking the army. Worth noting too this will be easier to do as both armies get more barrage weapons.
But this also fits with the end game scoring I'd be going for. If people find play is too static without progressive scoring, can add secondary objectives that spice things up and perhaps incentives to mix it up in the middle. That and maybe allow more units the ability to be kept in reserve.
to be honest in a game with only end game scoring and not progressive objectives are flat out ignored until that point and the focus becomes entirely on castling up and killing things with a final turn dash
which made various 40k iterations the wonderfully engaging experience they were
not that final turn scoring cannot work but you need to see the variations it will produce, especially with a single break point as you will be allowing that final charge instead of finding some units are prohibited from Charge! orders
leopard wrote: think the quick start is less "no formation breaks!" as much as there is only one formation per side (with everything in it)
3-4 formations in a 2k game is probably workable, though does again need a fair few more games under the belt - also to work out how long they will likely take if nothing else
Yes but it shows even gw understands that fromation breaks are perhaps something best left for later games, and it coincides with my solution of one combined unit break number.
Or it could show they don't work in a small game with only one formation, or it could be in the grand tradition of starter games that ignore certain rules in favour of others, given it didn't occur to them to put that starter scenario in the box its not that relevant either way.
note the game size in the box is a lot smaller than any event is likely to use and as such is hardly representative anyway
It favors masses of cheap models in the back in cover to prevent reaching break point -> probably going to be infantry, not tanks.
Yeah and it also means opponents can attempt to ignore some tank detachments where possible to put the hurt on infantry which are squishier and easier to target in hopes of breaking the army. Worth noting too this will be easier to do as both armies get more barrage weapons.
But this also fits with the end game scoring I'd be going for. If people find play is too static without progressive scoring, can add secondary objectives that spice things up and perhaps incentives to mix it up in the middle. That and maybe allow more units the ability to be kept in reserve.
to be honest in a game with only end game scoring and not progressive objectives are flat out ignored until that point and the focus becomes entirely on castling up and killing things with a final turn dash
which made various 40k iterations the wonderfully engaging experience they were
not that final turn scoring cannot work but you need to see the variations it will produce, especially with a single break point as you will be allowing that final charge instead of finding some units are prohibited from Charge! orders
End game scoring is how it is done in Epic: Armageddon. And it is the most tactical game GW has ever produced. It is also the closest (and best) thing to a wargame they have done.
If end game feels off or like everyone is waiting to engage and dancing around all game, could always add random game length so no one knows for sure if the game will end turn 5 or 6 for example, like chance of a 6th turn on a 3+ or 4+.
I have no problem too with simple secondary objectives to bait more early game engagement, even as simple as couple objectives that let you score early progressive vp's just for scoring them. Like the little crates that gave money or vehicles in command and conquer.
I just don't like progressive scoring for all of it because it doesn't make any sense to me in totality.
no harm in changing scoring across scenarios, indeed the more scenarios the better really, provides options.
you just need to be aware it will generate very different armies and a different play style, favouring those who can castle for defence with late game deep strikes or mobility deciding the outcome and early turns being as much sniping at range as possible
End game scoring is how it is done in Epic: Armageddon. And it is the most tactical game GW has ever produced. It is also the closest (and best) thing to a wargame they have done.
Not in the usual end of game sense, though. Besides scoring being scenario-dependent and there being a lot of very different scenarios, even in the Grand Tournament scenario that you're likely referencing here the scoring is dynamic and actively determines whether the game continues or not (ie. you aren't waiting to jump on objectives as the end arrives, you are actively pressing to force as many objectives as possible to force the end in your favor). But it is true that you don't need to tally points over time in GT E:A.
another option is to use something like how flames does it, again not exclusively, just as one of many options.
essentially:
- there are objectives, some yours, some your enemies - you must defend yours and capture the enemy, while they try to do the same (sometimes this is asymmetric as well
- capture by moving onto the objective in your movement, you "secure" it at the start of the next turn (in V3) so your enemy has one turn to shift you
- game ends when you capture an enemy objective
- scoring is based on the level of casualties you suffered (not caused) while winning - losers score is a fixed number less the winners score
rewards swift, decisive action, rewards low casualties while doing it, punishes dithering, and feels like you have a mission and the enemy is just an obstacle in your way
End game scoring is how it is done in Epic: Armageddon. And it is the most tactical game GW has ever produced. It is also the closest (and best) thing to a wargame they have done.
Not in the usual end of game sense, though. Besides scoring being scenario-dependent and there being a lot of very different scenarios, even in the Grand Tournament scenario that you're likely referencing here the scoring is dynamic and actively determines whether the game continues or not (ie. you aren't waiting to jump on objectives as the end arrives, you are actively pressing to force as many objectives as possible to force the end in your favor).
QFT
You can't castle up in EA/EpicAU 30k because if your opponent fulfills enough of the mid game scoring conditions to win, they become end game scoring by ending the game..
I would like a mix in a Tournament:
-progressive scoring scenarios
-mixed scoring scenarios
-end game scoring scenarios (preferably with random game length)
A mix gives all armies a chance and encourages combined arms and good tactics adapted to the scenario played.
leopard wrote: another option is to use something like how flames does it, again not exclusively, just as one of many options.
essentially:
- there are objectives, some yours, some your enemies - you must defend yours and capture the enemy, while they try to do the same (sometimes this is asymmetric as well
- capture by moving onto the objective in your movement, you "secure" it at the start of the next turn (in V3) so your enemy has one turn to shift you
- game ends when you capture an enemy objective
- scoring is based on the level of casualties you suffered (not caused) while winning - losers score is a fixed number less the winners score
rewards swift, decisive action, rewards low casualties while doing it, punishes dithering, and feels like you have a mission and the enemy is just an obstacle in your way
there are many ways to score scenarios
Yeah I remember FoW and how 'realistic' the objectives felt. And good point with the 'feels like you have a mission'.
End game scoring is how it is done in Epic: Armageddon. And it is the most tactical game GW has ever produced. It is also the closest (and best) thing to a wargame they have done.
Not in the usual end of game sense, though. Besides scoring being scenario-dependent and there being a lot of very different scenarios, even in the Grand Tournament scenario that you're likely referencing here the scoring is dynamic and actively determines whether the game continues or not (ie. you aren't waiting to jump on objectives as the end arrives, you are actively pressing to force as many objectives as possible to force the end in your favor).
QFT
You can't castle up in EA/EpicAU 30k because if your opponent fulfills enough of the mid game scoring conditions to win, they become end game scoring by ending the game..
I would like a mix in a Tournament:
-progressive scoring scenarios
-mixed scoring scenarios
-end game scoring scenarios (preferably with random game length)
A mix gives all armies a chance and encourages combined arms and good tactics adapted to the scenario played.
Good points too.
What I feel about objetives and scoring in LI is that they seem totally 'gamey'. They are not engaging at all.
Why are they giving me VP every round? why are they giving me more VP EACH round? why are they located at perfectly symmetrical points?
at a guess the scenarios, and credit to GW for including more than one and for even putting them in the actual book, are written to be simple to test and the symmetrical design is used because it "should" be equally fair
I guess the progressive bit can be seen as the longer you hold the point, or line, the better you are doing and it prevents tap & dash be it on the last turn or whatever to claim a victory due to one bod with his toe on something that could never be held if the game progressed
key though, have variation, which forces more varied and capable lists
just forget "kill points", that trash can burn in hellfire
I quite like the new missions and ideas in the new game, it feels like one of the few genuine improvements over SM2. Although I liked the objectives system in the original game, it didn't have much variety and could become tedious if you played a lot - so I think a lot of people ended up making extra scenarios, of the sort described above.
Pacific wrote: I quite like the new missions and ideas in the new game, it feels like one of the few genuine improvements over SM2. Although I liked the objectives system in the original game, it didn't have much variety and could become tedious if you played a lot - so I think a lot of people ended up making extra scenarios, of the sort described above.
I did like the "siege" version, where the defender placed all four, that was a nice twist
Played 1500pts last night with single break point, it was fine. We both ended up having the exact same break point when we combined the breakpoints of all our formations, 28.
We tried planes and knights for the first time, I had an acastus porphyrion, two thunderbolts and two arvus lighters, my opponent had two questoris knights and two xiphons.
Was a fun game, things went south when I lost my acastus to some kratos and my legate to a charge by the questoris knights. Overall scoring was fine, I basically had an arvus left on the board by the end so had no board control at all.
Anyway, point was it was fine, much easier to track, one we were within sight of each others breaking points it was much easier to consider our next moves because we didn't have constantly check what was in what formation. I messed up my count at one point so did have to count the dead pile, but did so with my opponents help so it was objective. This would have been more of a nightmare if I had to detangle formations.
I'd be absolutely fine with a random end game, like on turn 5 person who lost initiative gets to roll and on a 3+ or 4+ you got to turn 6. I'd also be totally fine with limited reserves for larger games, the ability for example of marines to hold terminators in reserve and deep strike when they choose has proven difficult to counter. but its also worth remember that we're all playing with sorta incomplete lists. No one has light armour or artillery outside of rapiers or havocs or some of the knights/titans. Solar aux doesn't even have ground transports so the arvus's were my fist time having any unit in a transport.
As to controlling formations for an event, the biggest concern I've heard back from talking with various locals getting started is not loving the idea of marines armies with more than 2 legions. I think the current consensus is allowing 2 max but the second comes out of 70/30 so would mean not being able to take knights/titans ect. But ya formations, the only question in my mind is, if people really want to force combined arms you say max 3 form your faction, 0-1 each and then the usual allied 70/30 formation, so some knights or a titan or an allied formation.
The only though for the 0-1 is so try and limit tank heavy lists. I don't think it really does much to prevent them, as even a single solar aux armoured formation can take like 40+ tanks, but it would at least cut down on their activations/msu.
I think for scenarios, still have objectives be scored end game, but have perhaps a different amount per round, like 5 4 3 so the fight is more intense as the amount of overall objectives shrinks. Those numbers are just examples, a lot would depend on if it's a 4x4 or 4x5.
Secondary objectives could be either book ones but likely the same for both sides, or just a way to get some "progressive scoring" in and have ways to get vp's that your opponent can't take away. Simplest example, 2-3 center line objectives worth 1-2 vp each, scored immediately. My only problem there, like with a lot of progressive scoring is, everything is like a march order away from an easy packman gobble up, some boards this isn't or might not be a problem as choke points and paths can be blocked by detachments, but without a lot of terrain or impassable terrain, I've seen plenty of low point battle reports where the victory points just pile up to the point where it feels like im watching basketball. I don't think those are good examples to base a judgement on entirely but they do seem just as much as armies dancing around one another like dance dance revolution doing what the game gives them an incentive to do. Again that's very easy for both sides to do on a 4x5 with like 600pts a side and not a tonne of terrain, so a I don't think that's a fair way to poop on progressive scoring but. But it just doesn't work for me in a lot of situations, if I have a scenario with 3 bridges in the center being the objectives. Progressive scoring or, too much of it, sorta works against the main objectives being taking and holding the bridges. There are rules in the rulebook for destroying bridges as well, perhaps that could be a twist, being able to destroy them and take objectives out of play. I don't think its the end of the world for both sides to have a couple backfield objectives, but then the numbers balloon up fast. But I could see a couple low value (low vp) progressively scored objectives in each players backfield representing like stealing resources or destroying important supplies. I just think the focus should be end game scoring those bridges.
@C: Cool, but won't you guys try at least one of the book scenarios too in your evaluation of scenario design leading up to a Conclusion on how you want to form your scenarios? Maybe they dont play put quite as you think? You won't know until you try.
Marine armies are more mobile atm but think long term. For sure game dynamics is going to swing once more units arrive, in particular SA transports. Which should help with either type of objective scoring.
N.B Terminators can't Deep strike last turn to just contest end game objectives, Reserves not arriving after a certain turn are destroyed afaik (dont have the book here).
westiebestie wrote: @C: Cool, but won't you guys try at least one of the book scenarios too in your evaluation of scenario design leading up to a Conclusion on how you want to form your scenarios? Maybe they dont play put quite as you think? You won't know until you try.
Marine armies are more mobile atm but think long term. For sure game dynamics is going to swing once more units arrive, in particular SA transports. Which should help with either type of objective scoring.
N.B Terminators can't Deep strike last turn to just contest end game objectives, Reserves not arriving after a certain turn are destroyed afaik (dont have the book here).
The book missions aren't very interesting, the 3000 point battle report from white dwarf featured end game scoring for objectives, but all of the missions in the book seem to be progressive scoring. Again, I'm not new to progressive scoring, I just think it's not that great, both me and my opponent are on the same page there, whether it's 30k or titanicus. End game scoring for the majority of objectives just works better, for us. I think there's room for some progressive scoring, but another feature I can't stand is just how quickly the score adds up, watching a 600pts battle report where they've both got like 20-40vp by mid game just feels like I'm watching basketball. I understand the concern of end game scoring, people will refuse to engage until late game, but I've seen plenty to be concerned about watching battle reports of book scenarios progressive scoring, the battle seems more about dancing around one another with march order getting quick vp's and much less about engaging one another, many boards are just far too open and when you add march order tripling infantry moves and difficult terrain not slowing infantry you just get a lot of zipping around the board munching up point like pacman. Infantry other than marines who can get missile launchers basically just stay hidden as much as possible because they don't have access to any mid or long range weapons, rapiers aren't even out yet for either side sadly.
As for the deep striking termies, my opponent is able to hold the terminators in reserve and bring them in when he wants provided its before turn 5. Where that differs from past gw games we've played is, in 30k reserves outside of special cases like pods generally come in on a roll, there may be characters or wargear that alter the roll or allow a re-roll but total control is pretty rare, in LI you seemingly for now have total control over when to bring them in but after turn 4 they're gone so it's gotta be sometime before then. Other complication is he's got two units, 8 strong, so unless he scatters and gets removed from play from that it's been tough to deal with, for now.
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Formosa wrote: yep reserves are auto dead after turn 4 with the exception of flyers.
Yes but unlike other gw games we've played that have players roll for reserves, in this both units of 8 get choice of when they want to come in provided as you said that's by turn 4 as they can't turn 5, but its still very strong.
@C: interesting, I have the opposite experience with only End game scoring and rule sets w double/triple moves. Just leads to boring castling and gun lines with an end game dash as you can reach or contest pretty much all objectives with a final dash. Hence why I prefer mixed scoring. But with progressive points being lower than end game objectives scoring points. Leads to manouver battles all game as opposed to what I just described and still the end game can swing it.
Saw a game system, though sadly forget which, had multiple objectives, and progressive scoring - however the game end criteria was based on one player having a set number of objectives after "x" turns, so grab three from six and score, four from six and the game ends
and there was progressive points based on how many so an incentive as a player behind if they grabbed four or more in a turn could claw back a deficit
but also rewarded fast wins.
Some of the other stuff from Flames could be good as well, loss conditions such as "no unit within the enemy table half", or "no unit within 16" of an objective in the enemy table half.
made it a bit easier to throw a timid enemy back and end the game
Crablez, the White Dwarf report uses progressive scoring for the main objectives with some end of game secondaries on top. The players of that report talk about it very clearly, noting the difference between the two forces approaches as the loyalist drop force aggressively went for it deep in the enemy lines while the traitors took it conservatively and got going towards the end...
Sherrypie wrote: Crablez, the White Dwarf report uses progressive scoring for the main objectives with some end of game secondaries on top. The players of that report talk about it very clearly, noting the difference between the two forces approaches as the loyalist drop force aggressively went for it deep in the enemy lines while the traitors took it conservatively and got going towards the end...
And what was that main objective again? Ah yes. both sides trying kill some random unit on the other side for a tonne of vp. My point was the mission had objective markers scored end game, not every turn. Most of the book missions have fixed objective placement, I don't love that but I get the lets just play vibe of a lot of the book missions, foregoing stuff like randomizing deployment zones ect. I get that with larger and larger games you sorta just need to get playing ect, but a lot of elements of how missions/scenarios work also leave a lot to be desired. The secondary objectives range from interesting to god awful, also not a fan of each side having different ones, same problem I had in AT, just less so as thankfully there's no tertiary objective strats to have to contend with. Was glad to see at least one scenario allows both players to alternate placing objectives. I still think although the pre-defined objectives are faster to get the game going, it still "feels" better to allow objective placement.
Sherrypie wrote: Crablez, the White Dwarf report uses progressive scoring for the main objectives with some end of game secondaries on top. The players of that report talk about it very clearly, noting the difference between the two forces approaches as the loyalist drop force aggressively went for it deep in the enemy lines while the traitors took it conservatively and got going towards the end...
And what was that main objective again? Ah yes. both sides trying kill some random unit on the other side for a tonne of vp. My point was the mission had objective markers scored end game, not every turn. Most of the book missions have fixed objective placement, I don't love that but I get the lets just play vibe of a lot of the book missions, foregoing stuff like randomizing deployment zones ect. I get that with larger and larger games you sorta just need to get playing ect, but a lot of elements of how missions/scenarios work also leave a lot to be desired. The secondary objectives range from interesting to god awful, also not a fan of each side having different ones, same problem I had in AT, just less so as thankfully there's no tertiary objective strats to have to contend with. Was glad to see at least one scenario allows both players to alternate placing objectives. I still think although the pre-defined objectives are faster to get the game going, it still "feels" better to allow objective placement.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
With the magazine physically here in my hand, let's check. White Dwarf 493, page 116, left upper corner boxout titled "Objectives", the exact quote: "In the Seize and Hold mission, 6 objectives are placed - 2 in each player's deployment zone and 2 in neutral territory. Victory points are awarded at the end of each round - 2 VPs for each objective in your own deployment zone, 5 VPs for each neutral objective and 7 VPs for each objective in the enemy's deployment zone". Let's also see those secondary objectives, spelled out on page 118 in a similar boxout: "Before the battle, both players roll two D6 to determine their Secondary Objectives. -blah blah- James and Tom both chose Control the Battlefield, which rewards up to 15 VPs for controlling table quarters at the end of the game." The game ended with 57-68 points, both sides scoring 10 points from their end of the game table control and the rest from controlling the objectives on the table, scoring those every turn. Like I said, the players discuss their different approaches to scoring and preserving their forces either aggressively or conservatively.
Sherrypie wrote: Crablez, the White Dwarf report uses progressive scoring for the main objectives with some end of game secondaries on top. The players of that report talk about it very clearly, noting the difference between the two forces approaches as the loyalist drop force aggressively went for it deep in the enemy lines while the traitors took it conservatively and got going towards the end...
And what was that main objective again? Ah yes. both sides trying kill some random unit on the other side for a tonne of vp. My point was the mission had objective markers scored end game, not every turn. Most of the book missions have fixed objective placement, I don't love that but I get the lets just play vibe of a lot of the book missions, foregoing stuff like randomizing deployment zones ect. I get that with larger and larger games you sorta just need to get playing ect, but a lot of elements of how missions/scenarios work also leave a lot to be desired. The secondary objectives range from interesting to god awful, also not a fan of each side having different ones, same problem I had in AT, just less so as thankfully there's no tertiary objective strats to have to contend with. Was glad to see at least one scenario allows both players to alternate placing objectives. I still think although the pre-defined objectives are faster to get the game going, it still "feels" better to allow objective placement.
Uuh...wd played scenario from book. That's how blood angels got early lead. They used fast units to get to objectives early including traitor home.
At the end traitor forces were dominating board with blood angels more or less wiped off. End game scoring a) loyalist would have lost big time b) loyal's whole strategy would be disasterously stupid. End game you can't rush straight to objectives in costly assaults because objectives would have been irrelevant and only end game matters. He who wipes enemy wins. So throwing your troops so recklessly bad.
Only reason it worked was progressive. There's 2 ways then to play. Hit hard and fast, try to build lead that holds. Or go slow & steady aiming to cripple enemy and then catch up.
End game 1st way just doesn't work. You take shooty army to blow and some fast units for end game dash. And maybe some cheap deep strikers to come on turn 4 where you can't reach.
@c: Also bear in mind the issue you are having with Terminators coming in as late as possible to grab the end game objectives is 100% a tactic/symptom that comes from your scenario design. If you only want end game objectives, you're gonna get tactics like that.
You are being dogmatic against something and then not liking the effects of being against it, in a nutshell.
I really recommend realizing during game scoring can
a) represent many things
b) be mixed with end game scoring to great effect , imo better than only either type
c) generally lead to more interesting, tactical games of manouver and deliberations about when to commit your assets where
Anyhow I aim to try all the mixes for tactical variation and opportunities for all play styles.
Ymmv, go with only End game as you're dead set on that but then no point in complaining about how it plays out imo. We all can realize how that type of scenario will play out as it will be similar most times. 🤷
Referring to that mission, thought that was what was played in the battle report. Regardless, we can all read where it says "end game objective". Can we now take sights off me and put them on the game designers?
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westiebestie wrote: @c: Also bear in mind the issue you are having with Terminators coming in as late as possible to grab the end game objectives is 100% a tactic/symptom that comes from your scenario design. If you only want end game objectives, you're gonna get tactics like that.
You are being dogmatic against something and then not liking the effects of being against it, in a nutshell.
I really recommend realizing during game scoring can
a) represent many things
b) be mixed with end game scoring to great effect , imo better than only either type
c) generally lead to more interesting, tactical games of manouver and deliberations about when to commit your assets where
Anyhow I aim to try all the mixes for tactical variation and opportunities for all play styles.
Ymmv, go with only End game as you're dead set on that but then no point in complaining about how it plays out imo. We all can realize how that type of scenario will play out as it will be similar most times. 🤷
Yeah no, sorry, you don't even know whether the termiantors came i turn 2 or 4 in either of the games man, you're not actually even privy the score, so how you're making that assessment is a bit beyond me.
"You are being dogmatic against something and then not liking the effects of being against it, in a nutshell." The feeling is mutual.
"no point in complaining about how it plays out imo" I don't recall complaining how it played out, both games went very well, largely on account of the vp scores not rivaling a basketball game. Tell ya what, I'll just watch basketball and every 10 seconds when they score a hoop I'll say "wow, tactical" I'm sure that will have converted in no time, If that doesn't work in making me like progressive scoring my final effort, I'll switch to pacman
Anyway, combined break point seems to work fine and solves the main issue, having to come up with some sort of system to mark identical units. I believe I mentioned this before but our combined break point for our last game ended up beinf exactly the same at 28.
Referring to that mission, thought that was what was played in the battle report. Regardless, we can all read where it says "end game objective". Can we now take sights off me and put them on the game designers?
Again, what? Which mission? Everything in the video that you link talks about progressive scoring. The first mission page shown was for 40k and the actual LI missions 1 & 3 (2 in the middle being for Heresy, as the article was about combining different games to a campaign) clearly read that scoring is done at the end of each round. And before that, while going through the battle report, listen to 16.55-17.10 timestamp where he reads the objectives for the report and how they are done each round.
I have no desire to hold sights on anyone, but I do have an issue with attempts at glibness without receipts.
Its always puzzling to watch someone paint themselves into a corner deliberately. Are they going to leave a small path open to get out? Are they going to listen to advice when multiple experienced people tell them what's going on, trying to help them? Or will they keep painting until their position is completely stuck in the corner, defensively talking back at anyone telling them maybe they should have listened?
Pragmatic is the opposite of dogmatic. Ie open to other perspectives, learning from experiences rather than staying to rigid opinions or principles. When someone has played many rulesets for 25 years, most of them with end game scoring, many modern sets with hybrid scoring and expressively saying they're open for all kinds of missions, well thats pragmatic and based on experiences. Calling them dogmatic back would be incorrect, hence the explanation. Stating one type of scoring is basketball or Pacman while the other is a real battle, well thats typically being dogmatic, by definition.
Someone brought up the issue of Terminators contesting and coming in late being hard to counter. Advice to the painter followed and discussion on mission scoring followed. If the painter now says this was not what he said, well ok why did we waste time discussing that then?
In a battle, not wargame, there are tactical objectives linking to a strategic one. You have low level targets DURING your mission, take the hill or structure that gives you a vantage point, protect the Crossroads. Intel can be found in that structure maybe, good firing lanes important to control. All happen during a battle. Morale is affected on both sides by control/loss. Hence game representation of scoring during a battle.
If this ifeels like Pacman lets move over to end "game" objectives and their real life representation. When does a battle End? After a fixed time limit, after X turns? Maybe before night vision etc limited battles to daylight but hardly anymore. Or is it once or side is destroyed below capacity to fight on, broken, surrenders or flees? And does that indeed not change what was during battle objectives to end of battle objectives? Saying only End of battle counts would mean there would be no point to control that vantage point/Crossroads until the enemy is beaten when its suddenly very important to secure it I see this perspective as the one not linked to how real battle is waged. Again I am not man guessing, I have done service.
The Tournament scenario of EA30k/EpicAU 30k captured this quite well. Force enough of an advantage during the game abd that abstracted into breaking the enemy, thus becoming end game scoring.
Regarding the LI game, since its not true alternating activations end game dash isn't quite as bad, as you can't move in after everything has fired. But the double/triple moves still means you can dash from afar. Deep strike is indeed potent and hard to counter if only End game scoring is present. Flyers unloading anything without jump packs have to stay for a turn and change to hover/Skimmer in the End phase so they can de bestroyed by the castling player in the last turn. Flyers dropping jump troops last turn will be tougher.
I'm still open to try End game scoring only in LI as well and will give all sorts a few tries since its a game and should be challenging and entertaining for both players. Even though me, and I read the other people commenting as well, feel those scenarios are much more predictable and less entertaining. And to me, less realistic in the sense what does it even represent, only fighting to control stuff after exactly 5 turns of time. That's not how a battle is fought.
Referring to that mission, thought that was what was played in the battle report. Regardless, we can all read where it says "end game objective". Can we now take sights off me and put them on the game designers?
Again, what? Which mission? Everything in the video that you link talks about progressive scoring. The first mission page shown was for 40k and the actual LI missions 1 & 3 (2 in the middle being for Heresy, as the article was about combining different games to a campaign) clearly read that scoring is done at the end of each round. And before that, while going through the battle report, listen to 16.55-17.10 timestamp where he reads the objectives for the report and how they are done each round.
I have no desire to hold sights on anyone, but I do have an issue with attempts at glibness without receipts.
The link is timecoded to the screencrab of the mission. It's not the one they played but was shown in he white dwarf. Attempts at glibness? I've linked to the exact frame grab of the mission i'm reffering to with end game scoring for objectives, you are correct that's not the one they played, my mistake.
The link is timecoded to the screencrab of the mission. It's not the one they played but was shown in he white dwarf. Attempts at glibness? I've linked to the exact frame grab of the mission i'm reffering to with end game scoring for objectives, you are correct that's not the one they played, my mistake.
That timestamped mission with noticeably different graphic style is indeed for 40k and has nothing to do with LI nor the battle report in question, being merely an early rumour which people debunked within the first hours of those leaks coming out.
As for glibness:
Crablezworth wrote:
Sherrypie wrote: Crablez, the White Dwarf report uses progressive scoring for the main objectives with some end of game secondaries on top. The players of that report talk about it very clearly, noting the difference between the two forces approaches as the loyalist drop force aggressively went for it deep in the enemy lines while the traitors took it conservatively and got going towards the end...
And what was that main objective again? Ah yes. both sides trying kill some random unit on the other side for a tonne of vp. My point was the mission had objective markers scored end game, not every turn. [...]
Snide tones do not suit one well, when they are not operating from experience since you clearly haven't read the report which contradicts everything you said. With that said, mistakes happen and life goes on.
The link is timecoded to the screencrab of the mission. It's not the one they played but was shown in he white dwarf. Attempts at glibness? I've linked to the exact frame grab of the mission i'm reffering to with end game scoring for objectives, you are correct that's not the one they played, my mistake.
That timestamped mission with noticeably different graphic style is indeed for 40k and has nothing to do with LI nor the battle report in question, being merely an early rumour which people debunked within the first hours of those leaks coming out.
As for glibness:
Crablezworth wrote:
Sherrypie wrote: Crablez, the White Dwarf report uses progressive scoring for the main objectives with some end of game secondaries on top. The players of that report talk about it very clearly, noting the difference between the two forces approaches as the loyalist drop force aggressively went for it deep in the enemy lines while the traitors took it conservatively and got going towards the end...
And what was that main objective again? Ah yes. both sides trying kill some random unit on the other side for a tonne of vp. My point was the mission had objective markers scored end game, not every turn. [...]
Snide tones do not suit one well, when they are not operating from experience since you clearly haven't read the report which contradicts everything you said. With that said, mistakes happen and life goes on.
You're absolutely right, I was incorrect in both cases.
How many games of legions have you been able to get in so far? I've played two. Enjoyed both thoroughly with end game scoring and combined breaking point. Which as I mentioned in our last game, our combined breaking points were both exactly 28 units.
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westiebestie wrote: Its always puzzling to watch someone paint themselves into a corner deliberately. Are they going to leave a small path open to get out? Are they going to listen to advice when multiple experienced people tell them what's going on, trying to help them? Or will they keep painting until their position is completely stuck in the corner, defensively talking back at anyone telling them maybe they should have listened?
How many legions imperialis games have you had, oh wise one? Talking as if legions is something you've played for 25 years isn't really doing any favours either. I don't know how much simpler I can put this, I've encountered progressive scoring in plenty of games and loathed for a myriad of reasons across said games. The entirety of titanicus I played with end game scoring. I don't think there's anything wrong with limited progressive scoring, limited. That's not being dogmatic, that's the perspective my own experience and preference dictate. I believe you if you prefer progressive scoring, believe me when I say I prefer end game. I appreciate you being open to end game scoring, and I will fully acknowledge that as point levels increase a random game length from 5-6 may really be what's needed if end game rushes become common. Why we haven't encountered that yet is we've been doing 1000-1500 points, so very little is left alive by turn 5. We're still playing with sticky objectives, so that also means shooting units off an objective you can't switch back isn't as useful as it would be otherwise. I do want to have limited progressive scoring, but I still prefer it be relatively low vp.
I won't personally get the chance to play before well into January, sadly, but with a critical eye towards the reports thst are coming out as things are the game plays pretty much like SM 2nd did (surprising nobody as the rules are only slightly different). Which came out in 1991, so there could feasibly be people around who have played similar stuff for over 25 years
My take is always towards a wide variety of missions and terrain setups, always weighting the importance of tactical decisions at the table over a priori deliberations. Progressive or otherwise dynamic, even secret, scoring systems do that better than end of game points, which have a more passive effect on the flow of the game. Neither are more realistic than the other, though progressive systems tend to give a more accurate portrayal of the myriad factors and time pressures that go into actual battles (as miniature games by their nature tend to only deal with the tactical *how* of fighting rather than the strategic *why* of it).
westiebestie wrote: Its always puzzling to watch someone paint themselves into a corner deliberately. Are they going to leave a small path open to get out? Are they going to listen to advice when multiple experienced people tell them what's going on, trying to help them? Or will they keep painting until their position is completely stuck in the corner, defensively talking back at anyone telling them maybe they should have listened?
How many legions imperialis games have you had, oh wise one? Talking as if legions is something you've played for 25 years isn't really doing any favours either.
I don't know how much simpler I can put this, I've encountered progressive scoring in plenty of games and loathed for a myriad of reasons across said games. The entirety of titanicus I played with end game scoring. I don't think there's anything wrong with limited progressive scoring, limited. That's not being dogmatic, that's the perspective my own experience and preference dictate. I believe you if you prefer progressive scoring, believe me when I say I prefer end game. I appreciate you being open to end game scoring, and I will fully acknowledge that as point levels increase a random game length from 5-6 may really be what's needed if end game rushes become common. Why we haven't encountered that yet is we've been doing 1000-1500 points, so very little is left alive by turn 5. We're still playing with sticky objectives, so that also means shooting units off an objective you can't switch back isn't as useful as it would be otherwise. I do want to have limited progressive scoring, but I still prefer it be relatively low vp.
I somehow knew there would be slew jab slightly directed at my person instead of answering my game reasoning around your statements coming. I did not say I am wise or have played LI since before it came out, that's all you bending my words. Ridicule is a poor substitite of argument, I am partly guilty too. For transparency I'm into my first new edition games just as you of course. Lets leave that, you can respond to me saying you are dogmatic if you find that a word loaded with value rather then descriptive. I'm in no way dogmatic though as you implied in return, its just wrong. I am super pragmatic actually. Sorry if I offended you with this.
You also did not quote any of my reasoning or explanations, just my observation.
Now you are clear its your preference. That's cool, that can't be argued with. Its also based on experiences of previous systems I gather.
But you have previously argued in multiple threads on multiple platforms (Dakka, FB) that progressive scoring does not represent anything tangible, using repeated ridiculing references to sports which I find illogical. Voicing a strong opinion without real argument (at least not any that I've seen). I tried to disprove that with explanations and examples, as per discussing something. You are now fully aware progressive scoring can be viewed as more tangible and logical than scoring after a certain time, slightly random or not. Especially if objectives are placed on points of tactical importance and not geometrically even.
Whatever you stay with, be clear its based on preference and not real world battle analogy reasons as if it was a discussion when both sides are open to discuss with the purpose of enriching perspectives. Noone will argue since you do it for personal preference reasons unless you also argue that the other perspective is ridiculous.
Same thing with changing formation break points to army wide really, do it if you prefer it. It alters the game options tactically but is easier to track for sure.
Same with only impassable terrain instead of difficult in your scenario, it alters tactical options for Infantry & walkers especially but if both players like to why not.
What I can't get my head around us why decide all this just based on opinion without even trying the other way. I will try all ways then pick favourites, and vary. I will even try your scenario for enrichment & perspective. But I wont argue rationale anymore
Sherrypie wrote: I won't personally get the chance to play before well into January, sadly, but with a critical eye towards the reports thst are coming out as things are the game plays pretty much like SM 2nd did (surprising nobody as the rules are only slightly different). Which came out in 1991, so there could feasibly be people around who have played similar stuff for over 25 years
My take is always towards a wide variety of missions and terrain setups, always weighting the importance of tactical decisions at the table over a priori deliberations. Progressive or otherwise dynamic, even secret, scoring systems do that better than end of game points, which have a more passive effect on the flow of the game. Neither are more realistic than the other, though progressive systems tend to give a more accurate portrayal of the myriad factors and time pressures that go into actual battles (as miniature games by their nature tend to only deal with the tactical *how* of fighting rather than the strategic *why* of it).
Well can we both agree while faster to have the fixed objective locations for each mission/scenario, it's nice that one of book missions allows both sides to place 3 objectives as opposed to a fixed map. I see the benefit to both, one for speed, the other for more in depth games/scenarios/allowing players to put objectives next to cool landmarks/terrain/structures ect. Fair to say neither of our AT games/missions were super standard/by the book. I think for the better most of the time, in my case it didn't affect much because there wasn't really a local scene playing core matched play missions/open engine war cards.
A marked difference as well is deployment zone is pretty standard for most missions with a couple exceptions. Again for speed of play I do like that most of the book missions don't have a lot of variables to juggle like x amount of possible deployments, really its just the secondary objectives that add a bit of variance, there's only 6. I'm not a big fan of those but a few of them are fun.
Just getting back to breaking point, the plan on this end is to keep playing with combined breaking point and inch up the point level of games by about 500pts until we get to around 3000 and see how it goes, if there's a large disparity for example as we inch up and up. So far it was a pleasan surprise to see our combined breaking point number be the same in our last game (28 units).
westiebestie wrote: Its always puzzling to watch someone paint themselves into a corner deliberately. Are they going to leave a small path open to get out? Are they going to listen to advice when multiple experienced people tell them what's going on, trying to help them? Or will they keep painting until their position is completely stuck in the corner, defensively talking back at anyone telling them maybe they should have listened?
How many legions imperialis games have you had, oh wise one? Talking as if legions is something you've played for 25 years isn't really doing any favours either.
I don't know how much simpler I can put this, I've encountered progressive scoring in plenty of games and loathed for a myriad of reasons across said games. The entirety of titanicus I played with end game scoring. I don't think there's anything wrong with limited progressive scoring, limited. That's not being dogmatic, that's the perspective my own experience and preference dictate. I believe you if you prefer progressive scoring, believe me when I say I prefer end game. I appreciate you being open to end game scoring, and I will fully acknowledge that as point levels increase a random game length from 5-6 may really be what's needed if end game rushes become common. Why we haven't encountered that yet is we've been doing 1000-1500 points, so very little is left alive by turn 5. We're still playing with sticky objectives, so that also means shooting units off an objective you can't switch back isn't as useful as it would be otherwise. I do want to have limited progressive scoring, but I still prefer it be relatively low vp.
I somehow knew there would be slew jab slightly directed at my person instead of answering my game reasoning around your statements coming. I did not say I am wise or have played LI since before it came out, that's all you bending my words. Ridicule is a poor substitite of argument, I am partly guilty too. For transparency I'm into my first new edition games just as you of course. Lets leave that, you can respond to me saying you are dogmatic if you find that a word loaded with value rather then descriptive. I'm in no way dogmatic though as you implied in return, its just wrong. I am super pragmatic actually. Sorry if I offended you with this.
You also did not quote any of my reasoning or explanations, just my observation.
Now you are clear its your preference. That's cool, that can't be argued with. Its also based on experiences of previous systems I gather.
But you have previously argued in multiple threads on multiple platforms (Dakka, FB) that progressive scoring does not represent anything tangible, using repeated ridiculing references to sports which I find illogical. Voicing a strong opinion without real argument (at least not any that I've seen). I tried to disprove that with explanations and examples, as per discussing something. You are now fully aware progressive scoring can be viewed as more tangible and logical than scoring after a certain time, slightly random or not. Especially if objectives are placed on points of tactical importance and not geometrically even.
Whatever you stay with, be clear its based on preference and not real world battle analogy reasons as if it was a discussion when both sides are open to discuss with the purpose of enriching perspectives. Noone will argue since you do it for personal preference reasons unless you also argue that the other perspective is ridiculous.
Same thing with changing formation break points to army wide really, do it if you prefer it. It alters the game options tactically but is easier to track for sure.
Same with only impassable terrain instead of difficult in your scenario, it alters tactical options for Infantry & walkers especially but if both players like to why not.
What I can't get my head around us why decide all this just based on opinion without even trying the other way. I will try all ways then pick favourites, and vary. I will even try your scenario for enrichment & perspective. But I wont argue rationale anymore
Enjoy the game.
I have every intent to try a lot of stuff terrain wise, impassable was more just to slow start because some of the other rules like obstacles need a bit of clarification ect. Book mentions combining terrain types so that might be the solution. I think as long as the concepts are clear for both parties in terms of having read the terrain rules, it shouldn't be too hard to compromise on setups both players like and rules that work well for both parties.
The combined breaking point may become more of an issue as we inch up the size of our games towards 3000, it still solves a big problem in that I can have an event or host a few games where I don't have to force people to mark identical units to what formation they belong to, that's a really really big relief so it's difficult to walk back even if imperfect.
I don't think we'll ever fully convince one another on scoring, but that's fine, apologies for any tone or offense as I do feel strongly about end game scoring so no doubt I probably used less than flattering analogies ect. I think we're all excited for legions so that's a good thing and I think it has enough in the book to keep us all content assuming we get to roll dice
So for the terminators, one game they got staggered dropped on turn 3/4, the other they both came in on turn 2. Both games i controlled a minimum of 3/5 objectives either way and would have won through progressive snowballing. We talked about it after game 2, and if he had put ogryns in the structures instead, he would have countered my entire strategy; 3d6+6 isnt a tempting target for the terminators.
I originally had this big anecdote about playing both end game and progressive over the years of GW games, but the site ate my entire post so I'll just say this. Both are game able, both allow for strategies to squeeze the most advantage out of. Progressive has resulted in the most turn 2/3 surrenders in my experience, and the least fun games as early scoring snowballs into a guaranteed win.
Stuff like raven guard or alpha legion just allow turn 1 scoring tempo for any player that includes them, by dint of showing up. Take something with quake or shock pulse and just have fun with the turn 1 lead. Solar aux just can't do anything like that, but at least they can do some end game scoring with arvuses the same way marines can with their flying transports.
Infiltrate is a good point, I hadn't really considered that in conjunction with progressive scoring but that does seem like a real issue. For me it would certainly come up as I'm doing raven guard for marines. This also ties in with most missions having fixed objective locations, granted that's not always the end of the world but for some that have say the preponderance of objectives in no man's land and few or none for deployment zone objectives, infiltrating units just seems to be gifted an early lead in progressive scoring. Thankfully there's still a mission that has both sides alternate placing objectives, but the deployment zones seem to make infiltrate less relevant seeing as it looks like half the board in that scenario/mission.
The better attempts of gw to do progressive scoring have it only kick in on turn 2 to allow both sides an opportunity to get in position, but it seems the people doing the specialist game missions...didn't quite get the memo; dominion has the same issues in 30k with scoring from turn 1.
Now, granted LI has alternating activations to avoid "1st player gets maximum advantage" syndrome, but there's still really so much you can do if the raven guard/alpha legion infiltrate screens and core units onto the objectives and just saturate them with tactical strength.
Just to put the cat among the pigeons, the group I game with have our own way of deciding win/loss.
To be clear this is our preferred method, we are all very narrative play inclined and don't go near the competitive scene as a few of us havehaf very bad experiences, not with the games but with some of the people up to and including a player being threatened with a knife by his opponent.
Enough rambling, for all games we play whether FOW, LI, 40k or whatever it's decided simply by each player drawing up or writing a battle plan and the one who succeeds closest to completing his/her objectives wins, simple really. Each to their own.
There are tactics & traits that help with either type of scoring.
Infiltrate is a fringe case, 2/18 Legions can do it, 16/18 can't and SA can't. Some units coming later are likely to have it organic but those are not tough units with staying power in general.
Marching Rhinos & disembarked troops can reach past midfield in Turn 1 already anyway and bring lots of tactical strength.
Drop Pods changes this to all of the battlefield anyway, for stuff that don't already have deep strike.
I hope SA get their Dracosan transports soon! And hopefully the faster, smaller one too (forgot its name).
Anyway a key is not comparing custom End game scoring with OOTB progressive scenarios. We need to modify the progressive too if judging fairly.
Scoring from turn 2 and enough end game scoring so games can swing an early lead if played well is generally good imo. Or even progressive progressive scoring: increasing vp for each objective from turn 2 to end game.
Sherrypie wrote: SA can infiltrate and forward deploy their whole armies with pioneer formations, though you need to cough up some Rapiers for it.
Yeah. Hard to comment on even fairly early balance between the factions with sooooo much stuff to come for both. Transports for SA, infiltrate for SA, drop pods and flyers for marines, jet bikes etc etc etc.
Well SA already do have their own fliers for the "got to get there first" moments
Albeit triple the euro cost per transport slot but it's there.
(on flip side it's so cheap point wise you can have cheap detachment waiting in air forcing marines to keep something at rear guarding rear objective. For marines keeping flyer just waiting for chance would be more expensive proposal)
tneva82 wrote: Well SA already do have their own fliers for the "got to get there first" moments
Albeit triple the euro cost per transport slot but it's there.
(on flip side it's so cheap point wise you can have cheap detachment waiting in air forcing marines to keep something at rear guarding rear objective. For marines keeping flyer just waiting for chance would be more expensive proposal)
yes the marine transport fliers are eye watering in points while that little unarmed SA one is certainly cheap, hadn't really looked to be honest but they look really good
Arvus is not flashy one certainly but the advantage is that it forces opponent to respond to it. Can't just mark rear objectives sticky and move forward. If SA just moves slowly forward having to keep rear guarded as well due to marine flyers that's immediately hands tied to a degree.
Add just 4 stands in 2 fliers and if marine leaves objective rear unguarded hey presto you can steal it.
Especially until artirelly and draconians arrive this can be useful tool.
But does mean quite a hefty euro/pound tag Which is why I would go for the cheap detachment rather than full assault formation.
54 pts for SA cheapest air transport detachment vs 135 for marines. Obviously 4 tacticals bit more useful than 4 lasrifle stand and storm eagle has guns and arvus not but still the value of threatening rear objectives is there.
Yeah going in right away probably not strategy to go for. Wait for suitable spot.
It's not the thunderhawk&drop 4 dreadnought/8 terminator or assault marine threat level unit but hell of a lot cheaper so they can afford to wait. And cheap enough if they do go poof to overwatch won't sting as much as thunderhawk. And at least removed shooting vs bigger unit if that happens.
Thinking here its a case of looking what air defences the enemy has, trying to spend a turn or two nuking that then drop some annoyance behind enemy lines, they may not be hard to kill but four stands of SA, even without a nearby commander still have to be killed.. in a game with not much that can split fire and where everyone seems to be doing a downer on adding some heavy bolters to vehicles
Me, I'm adding heavy bolters here and there. Not all but some have them. Infantry might not be fancy, it might not be killy but cheap, just few can grab objective from tanks and split fire rare. Hence my running theory is heavy bolters are more useful than stats would indicate in direct kill power.
I'm doing Heavy Bolters here and there too, PD is a strong rule that lets you shoot before general shooting in the combat phase & Overwatch at effectivity. That's worth a lot. Got to counter those pesky deep strikers & air cav with something. Its much easier taking out the Infantry before it can garrison.
AA w Skyfire is the other option but more costly.
Sure Lascannons are good in themselves but e.g. las Predators are going to be outshone by all the proper AT stuff once it arrives anyway.
I like that scenarios & tactics promote a balanced combined approach. Even though skew lista will certainly be a factor in this game too, if played that way.
Predators might be outshone in kill rate but provided they are cheap enough that's value of it's own. Especially due to limit of split fire. If you have 2 detachments opponent has harder time to deal with than 1 nastier detachment.
And with lethality so high bodies has durability of it's own.
Sherrypie wrote: SA can infiltrate and forward deploy their whole armies with pioneer formations, though you need to cough up some Rapiers for it.
Exactly this.
I was not aware of the SA Formation rule, only play Astartes, thanks Sherrypie! And gee thanks C for repeating Sherrys post.
So lots of Rapiers for now then. And mostly (squishy) Vanguard, some Support and one unit of Armour for the rest. Be interesting to see a whole Formation forward deploy like that! Sounds fun!
Its still a fringe case for Astartes.
Anyway as described, marching Astartes Transports & Charging (out of an Assault Transport) or Marching transported troops gets you past midfield turn 1 anyway on most table sizes and deployment maps so those matchups could be bloody short range engagements quickly and both sides are able to contest objectives.
Marched transports, LRs & Air Dropped jump troops mean it's anyones game to grab stuff early though, and imo more powerful than Infiltrate. Drop Pods & Air Drops threaten all the way over the table if one leaves their back field open.
I can't see Infiltration being what I would call an issue in any scenario, once we have a complete game its merely one of many ways to get forward early. The difference of course being before or during Turn 1. It's useful though, not saying it's not.
But it's very good to see SA getting some help in getting forwards so both main factions have more tools in their tool box. Hoping they get their Transports soon as well.
I need to find an opponent that does SA so I can see this puppy on the table. And watch stuff burn under the fires from a Malcador Infernus.
keep in mind having more detachments on the board than your opponent has many advantages, e.g. bringing your air interceptors on after theirs, so you get the "Interceptor" shot and they don't etc.
multiple small units are more flexible when shooting and harder to kill - yes more vulnerable to fall back as a cost but with multiple small units, say units of three to even test two will be dead so the resulting loss isn't huge - fall them back, out of sight and they are another activation to play with
I'm trying to have at least one tank with HB sponsons in a unit of three, even if not used much the ability to threaten drive-by attacks helps keep smaller enemy infantry on its toes
Infiltrate is a fringe case, 2/18 Legions can do it, 16/18 can't and SA can't. Some units coming later are likely to have it organic but those are not tough units with staying power in general.
Those 2 legions have....huge swathes of units doing it. And it also ignores the fact that you can freely mix as many legions as you have formations. You can quite literally tailor an infiltrating infantry wall to supplement any marine force; 8 tacs and 16 terminators to stand in front and screen is about 255 points with hq. If you need more screens you have plenty of room to add it. It's actually incredibly easy to incorporate into marine lists and has....no downsides to doing it.
So good reason for me not to love progressive scoring.
So to bring this back on to the topic at hand, break points, fair to say combined break points work well for an event because it means not having to police formations in terms of identical units or institute/invent some convoluted system attendees must follow.
Formation could be limited but I don't know what those limits would be. I know personally I don't love super friends marine lists with a different legion for each formation, so I'd probably start there in terms of introducing limits. Precisely to avoid players taking formations to get infiltrate or better jink saves.
If the thought is to force variety, could limit each formation 0-1, so could still have like 3 formations but each would be different. This would limit solar aux from doing multiple infiltrating formations for example. Would limit a little bit armour, not by much but would at least force likely larger units. Then standard like allie/knight/titan formations.
But ya combined breaking point solves more, for me at least, than having to make a whole system for tracking formations and enforce it. Hard enough to get people not to glue giant bases to tanks already
Heavy bolters: I pretty much put on them where possible on the grounds that a) infantry is important so increasing the ability to remove my opponent's foot-sloggers seemed a good idea, and b) the split-fire/shoot in the movement phase seemed like a good ability to buy into. Later tank detachments can specialize as tank hunters later.
Combining break points for the whole army.... I think I'll run a few events 'by the book' to start with and see how the players manage.
Infiltrate is a fringe case, 2/18 Legions can do it, 16/18 can't and SA can't. Some units coming later are likely to have it organic but those are not tough units with staying power in general.
Those 2 legions have....huge swathes of units doing it. And it also ignores the fact that you can freely mix as many legions as you have formations. You can quite literally tailor an infiltrating infantry wall to supplement any marine force; 8 tacs and 16 terminators to stand in front and screen is about 255 points with hq. If you need more screens you have plenty of room to add it. It's actually incredibly easy to incorporate into marine lists and has....no downsides to doing it.
RG Astartes case that have it do have a big opportunity, AL can only infiltrate one (1) detachment if taken as Allied Formation or three (3) if primary. That's nowhere near "huge swathes".
I would say only 1/18 Legions have a major opportunity to infiltrate. Which by polls is also the least popular to paint, because its so dark in this scale.
The cases of occurance are still a marginal/minority, hence my word fringe. If you feel it's not a minor thing in your player base, ok. If many in your group plays RG or Pioneer Formations, fair.
Regarding fringe or not. I like to base my arguments on some kind of argumentation or data instead of just expressing a strong opinion. In this case, I used the data available. Polls here and on FB indicate about 80% players do Astartes, 20 SA. Of those 80%, 0-1 do RG, ~5% do AL. So about 0.1-0.8 % of all players play RG in the wider community of context here given the data at hand. By definition fringe. If you think thats indicating non fringe in general, well what argument or data do you base that on?
Small data set but an indication. Another is the total lack of RG paint posts in either FB group. They might all be slow or non sharing, but is it likely see bout to see a sudden RG explosion, all in the name of Infiltrate exploitation of progressive scoring? Since there are so many other ways of taking objectives early I can't see it like you do.
Very few players aim to paint small black models in general, DA and IH slightly less impopular, but how many will do it just to get Infiltrate?
Allied Formations also dont seem popular at all, yet.
You two are probably talking from the competitive/tournament perspective though. There I too believe gaming for advantage rather than rule of cool will be popular. But other Legions bring very strong Traits too. I think you'll find there are way more popular power gaming builds than RG.
I for one think RG are super cool and it would be a shame to try to forbid the builds as possible due to Legion Traits
Anyway your friend/friend of opinion is already talking about both not allowing mixing different Astartes Legions and only having end game scoring to avoid this. So it wont be occuring for you if attending those events.
For the rest of us, its interesting tactical variation like many other varied strategies.
If one wants to forbid forward deployment, the logical extension would also be to forbid any type of assymetric arrival e.g deep strike. Both affect objective scoring opportunity. But the more you forbid, the less LI Out of the book remains.
Now now @ C, your gut reflex troll jabs like throwing in Pacman just reduce likelihood of being taken seriously vs staying on subject like the rest of your post. Meant seriously as a word of advice if you want people to take your other content seriously. It's a discussion forum for mostly adults. Internet discussion isn't that different to IRL, its not about winning with insults or offense or provoking reaction. Its about understanding eachothers points, some times reaching concensus, in other times such as this just realizing other perspectives.
As you said its not about convincing you or me. I am totally fine with you wanting only End game scoring, army wide Break Point, no infiltrate, no Allied Legions or whatever other change from Core rules to make it better for how you like it. It's your game. And ours are ours. We both have a passion for the game, thats good. Like I said, enjoy the game, I think we all do, mostly.
Yup, all Astartes can already charge past midfield objectives Turn 1. All armies can contest and/or charge backfield objective holders by Turn 2.
More ways of doing so are coming soon.
Its pretty fair that SA can infiltrate a formation to compensate for not having Assault Transports (at least not yet).
westiebestie wrote: There are tactics & traits that help with either type of scoring.
Anyway a key is not comparing custom End game scoring with OOTB progressive scenarios. We need to modify the progressive too if judging fairly.
Scoring from turn 2 and enough end game scoring so games can swing an early lead if played well is generally good imo. Or even progressive progressive scoring: increasing vp for each objective from turn 2 to end game.
So to clarify what I meant, don't play progressive vp scoring from Turn 1.
A couple of scenario scoring proposals we are to evaluate more and vary between
Vp per objective per turn 1-5
X,X, X, X, X
0,X,X,X,X (out of the book minus Turn 1)
0,X, X+1, X+2, X+3 (progressive progressive scoring)
0, X, X, X, 2X (out of the book minus Turn 1 and bigger importance to end game opening for a swing)
0,0,0,0,X
X donotes the VP in the scenario. Different value weather its in own deployment zone, neutral or enemy dz.
This means tactical variation is available and promoted, and we aim to modify as few game and army selection rules as possible for now.
Infiltrate is a fringe case, 2/18 Legions can do it, 16/18 can't and SA can't. Some units coming later are likely to have it organic but those are not tough units with staying power in general.
Those 2 legions have....huge swathes of units doing it. And it also ignores the fact that you can freely mix as many legions as you have formations. You can quite literally tailor an infiltrating infantry wall to supplement any marine force; 8 tacs and 16 terminators to stand in front and screen is about 255 points with hq. If you need more screens you have plenty of room to add it. It's actually incredibly easy to incorporate into marine lists and has....no downsides to doing it.
RW Astartes case that have it do have a big opportunity, AL can only infiltrate one (1) detachment if taken as Allied Formation or three (3) if primary. That's nowhere near "huge swathes".
I would say only 1/18 Legions have a major opportunity to infiltrate. Which by polls is also the least popular to paint, because its so dark in this scale.
The cases of occurance are still a minority, hence my word fringe. If you feel it's not a minor thing in your player base, ok. If many in your group plays RW or Pioneer Formations, fair.
Regarding fringe or not. I like to base my arguments on some kind of argumentation or data instead of just expressing a strong opinion. In this case, I used the data available. Polls here and on FB indicate about 80% players do Astartes, 20 SA. Of those 80%, 0-1 do RW, ~5% do AL. If you think thats indicating non fringe in general, well what argument or data do you base that on?
Small data set but an indication. Another is the total lack of RW paint posts in either FB group. They might all be slow or non sharing, but is it likely see bout to see a sudden RW explosion, all in the name of Infiltrate exploitation to progressive scoring? Since there are so many other ways of taking objectives early I can't see it like you do. Anyway see last paragraph, it wont be occuring for you.
Very few players aim to paint small black models in general, DA and IH slightly less impopular, but how many will do it just to get Infiltrate?
Allied Formations also dont seem popular at all, yet.
You two are probably talking from the competitive/tournament perspective though. There I too believe gaming for advantage rather than rule of cool will be popular. But other Legions bring very strong Traits too. I think you'll find there are way more popular power gaming builds than RW.
I for one think RW are super cool and it would be a shame to try to forbid as many builds as possible.
Anyway your friend/friend of opinion is already talking about both not allowing mixing different Astartes Legions and only having end game scoring to avoid this. So it wont be occuring for you if attending those events.
For the rest of us, its interesting tactical variation like many other varied strategies.
If one wants to forbid forward deployment, the logical extension would also be to forbid any type of assymetric arrival e.g deep strike. Both affect objective scoring opportunity. But the more you forbid, the less LI Out of the book remains.
Now now @ C, your gut reflex troll jabs like throwing in Pacman just reduce likelihood of being taken seriously vs staying on subject like the rest of your post. Meant seriously as a word of advice if you want people to take your other content seriously. It's a discussion forum for mostly adults. Internet discussion isn't that different to IRL, its not about winning with insults or offense or provoking reaction. Its about understanding eachothers points, some times reaching concensus, in other times such as this just realizing other perspectives.
As you said its not about convincing you or me. I am totally fine with you wanting only End game scoring, army wide Break Point, no infiltrate, no Allied Legions or whatever other change from Core rules to make it better for how you like it. It's your game. And ours are ours. We both have a passion for the game, thats good. Like I said, enjoy the game, I think we all do, mostly.
Ya, a single detachment can have 13 models in it, in a formation that costs like 155 points. You have screening independent assault marines and then the scoring core. Easy to spam, and spam you can since mixing legions aren't allies.
Nebulous poll/data time. Kindly refrain from claiming data analysis when you're not making polls to answer the specific question, have an admittedly small sample size, and use percentages instead of numbers. General "what legion are you interested in starting" to a bunch of new people is worthless to answering the question of "would it be worth it to take some small raven guard or alpha legion formations to score early and gain and advantage?". Like, it'd be like I ran a poll on how many Terminator stands people have from their initial buys and then used it as a counter to "terminators last turn flip objectives to game end game scoring", as no one hit critical mass yet.
That's the crux really; it's a game strategy using the available rules to take an advantage. It's not diminished in potency because people don't like darker schemes or haven't thought about it yet. It's a GW game; there's basically no limits on strategies, even exorbitant costs.
I'm also not sure what the point is of telling me not to worry about it since we've changed the mechanics. It's a discussion on the merits of various scoring methods; you certainly posted plenty about endgame despite it not affecting you.
@tneva82 never claimed it was super duper autowin. I claimed it gives you an early advantage that's harder to play around than the second last turn deepstrike.
I also mentioned taking screens. Like screens of terminators , screens of assault marines; stuff to prevent your scoring unit from getting charged and allowing them to continue racking that lead up. An obvious thing to do really.
It's not certainly not only good in 1 list build lol, and imo is worse paired with an all tank build. The strength of taking these formations in marine lists is that you can get them really cheap at no penalty and can slot into many builds. It's also funny that you're strawmanning crabz' list...when it hasn't won. And also ignoring his many stands of veltaris and ogryns, but whatever.
@wesribestie again. What astartes infantry can charge past midfield objectives on turn 1? There's a 14" no man's land and only assaults can reach the objective with 14"; the rest is 10". What goes past the 14" mark on charge orders?
Infiltrate is a fringe case, 2/18 Legions can do it, 16/18 can't and SA can't. Some units coming later are likely to have it organic but those are not tough units with staying power in general.
Those 2 legions have....huge swathes of units doing it. And it also ignores the fact that you can freely mix as many legions as you have formations. You can quite literally tailor an infiltrating infantry wall to supplement any marine force; 8 tacs and 16 terminators to stand in front and screen is about 255 points with hq. If you need more screens you have plenty of room to add it. It's actually incredibly easy to incorporate into marine lists and has....no downsides to doing it.
RW Astartes case that have it do have a big opportunity, AL can only infiltrate one (1) detachment if taken as Allied Formation or three (3) if primary. That's nowhere near "huge swathes".
I would say only 1/18 Legions have a major opportunity to infiltrate. Which by polls is also the least popular to paint, because its so dark in this scale.
The cases of occurance are still a minority, hence my word fringe. If you feel it's not a minor thing in your player base, ok. If many in your group plays RW or Pioneer Formations, fair.
Regarding fringe or not. I like to base my arguments on some kind of argumentation or data instead of just expressing a strong opinion. In this case, I used the data available. Polls here and on FB indicate about 80% players do Astartes, 20 SA. Of those 80%, 0-1 do RW, ~5% do AL. If you think thats indicating non fringe in general, well what argument or data do you base that on?
Small data set but an indication. Another is the total lack of RW paint posts in either FB group. They might all be slow or non sharing, but is it likely see bout to see a sudden RW explosion, all in the name of Infiltrate exploitation to progressive scoring? Since there are so many other ways of taking objectives early I can't see it like you do. Anyway see last paragraph, it wont be occuring for you.
Very few players aim to paint small black models in general, DA and IH slightly less impopular, but how many will do it just to get Infiltrate?
Allied Formations also dont seem popular at all, yet.
You two are probably talking from the competitive/tournament perspective though. There I too believe gaming for advantage rather than rule of cool will be popular. But other Legions bring very strong Traits too. I think you'll find there are way more popular power gaming builds than RW.
I for one think RW are super cool and it would be a shame to try to forbid as many builds as possible.
Anyway your friend/friend of opinion is already talking about both not allowing mixing different Astartes Legions and only having end game scoring to avoid this. So it wont be occuring for you if attending those events.
For the rest of us, its interesting tactical variation like many other varied strategies.
If one wants to forbid forward deployment, the logical extension would also be to forbid any type of assymetric arrival e.g deep strike. Both affect objective scoring opportunity. But the more you forbid, the less LI Out of the book remains.
Now now @ C, your gut reflex troll jabs like throwing in Pacman just reduce likelihood of being taken seriously vs staying on subject like the rest of your post. Meant seriously as a word of advice if you want people to take your other content seriously. It's a discussion forum for mostly adults. Internet discussion isn't that different to IRL, its not about winning with insults or offense or provoking reaction. Its about understanding eachothers points, some times reaching concensus, in other times such as this just realizing other perspectives.
As you said its not about convincing you or me. I am totally fine with you wanting only End game scoring, army wide Break Point, no infiltrate, no Allied Legions or whatever other change from Core rules to make it better for how you like it. It's your game. And ours are ours. We both have a passion for the game, thats good. Like I said, enjoy the game, I think we all do, mostly.
Kindly refrain from claiming data analysis when you're not making polls to answer the specific question, have an admittedly small sample size, and use percentages instead of numbers. General "what legion are you interested in starting" to a bunch of new people is worthless to answering the question of "would it be worth it to take some small raven guard or alpha legion formations to score early and gain and advantage?". Like, it'd be like I ran a poll on how many Terminator stands people have from their initial buys and then used it as a counter to "terminators last turn flip objectives to game end game scoring", as no one hit critical mass yet.
That's the crux really; it's a game strategy using the available rules to take an advantage. It's not diminished in potency because people don't like darker schemes or haven't thought about it yet. It's a GW game; there's basically no limits on strategies, even exorbitant costs.
I'm also not sure what the point is of telling me not to worry about it since we've changed the mechanics. It's a discussion on the merits of various scoring methods; you certainly posted plenty about endgame despite it not affecting you.
@tneva82 never claimed it was super duper autowin. I claimed it gives you an early advantage that's harder to play around than the second last turn deepstrike.
..
It's not certainly not only good in 1 list build lol, and imo is worse paired with an all tank build. The strength of taking these formations in marine lists is that you can get them really cheap at no penalty and can slot into many builds. It's also funny that you're strawmanning crabz' list...when it hasn't won. And also ignoring his many stands of veltaris and ogryns, but whatever.
@wesribestie again. What astartes infantry can charge past midfield objectives on turn 1? There's a 14" no man's land and only assaults can reach the objective with 14"; the rest is 10". What goes past the 14" mark on charge orders?
Well, drawing indications from available data sets are much more indicative and reasonable than saying it is or isn't so based on no data or argument. The samples are enough to see indications. You can't tell if the responders are new comers or already existing ones as you indicate. Feel free to post relevant polls if you feel the need to dive deeper, or provide any other data or argument that you think supports your claim that RG infiltration is indeed not a minority case, or indeed an issue.
Later on once SA get their required Rapiers we'll see if the Pioneer formation is popular. With only minority printers currently having theoretical access to it it can't be common. Right now I've yet to see any SA print army contain them. Have you seen it played, at all?
As told now by numerous responses by numerous people, we don't see Infiltration as hard to counter or an "issue".
All Astartes have access to Storm Eagles & Assault marines. SE is an Assault Transport, Ass Marines can disembark during flight, charge order and get a bonus CAF vs garrisoned structures to boot. SE moves 25", Ass Marines charge 14". Thunderhawk works too.
As soon as Land Raiders drop this threat expands to most infantry. 16" ish March for LR + 10" ish charge + 10 DZ takes you to 36", well past midfield objectives unless the table is huge.
I dont see DS as an issue with end game scoring. You have a turn to get rid of them, same as Infiltating enemies Turn 1.
I dont want to restrain any available core tactic or play style, or any scenario type. I recommend waiting until both sides have Core transports before judging.
As said in my other post, just slightly modify scenario to remove the Turn 1 scoring if this is a worry.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Any Rhino mounted inf can also contest double Rhino move + March move. That's a lot of tactcal strength that goes far turn 1.
Well, drawing indications from available data sets are much more indicative and reasonable than saying it is or isn't so based on no data or argument. The samples are enough to see indications. You can't tell if the responders are new comers or already existing ones as you indicate. Feel free to post relevant polls if you feel the need to dive deeper, or provide any other data or argument that you think supports your claim that RG infiltration is indeed not a minority case, or indeed an issue.
My claim is that it's incredibly easy to add Raven Guard or Alphas on to pre-existing forces. My next claim was that polling using "data" with no numbers is disingenuous. The third claim was that taking a get hype poll to make an argument for strategy viability is incongruous; should I claim any legion tech is unlikely because nothing broke 9% of votes? Just never worry about getting charged by world eater assault infantry because they only got 4% of votes at 25 people.
Later on once SA get their required Rapiers we'll see if the Pioneer formation is popular. With only minority printers currently having theoretical access to it it can't be common. Right now I've yet to see any SA print army contain them. Have you seen it played, at all?
I'll let you know after our next game since yes, we have SA rapiers. And why wouldn't it be popular, especially right now? It's the only source for barrage from the SA faction and is the higher scaling between them and marines (who also have a ton of competing choices for the support slot). You also get the very useful veltaris, and another source of super-valuable HQ aura. Plus infiltrate and forward deploy for tanks. It's 150 minimum and is the better formation to dump detachments into for SA simply because they get benefits as opposed to...none.
As told now by numerous responses by numerous people, we don't see Infiltration as hard to counter or an "issue".
Ya but you guys also just ignored half of what I wrote re: screens in and out of detachment, ease of implementation in list, tempo in a scoring system known to prompt snowballing, etc... Almost like you didn't really read what I was saying or something.
All Astartes have access to Storm Eagles & Assault marines. SE is an Assault Transport, Ass Marines can disembark during flight, charge order and get a bonus CAF vs garrisoned structures to boot. SE moves 25", Ass Marines charge 14". Thunderhawk works too.
Got me there on the storm eagles and thunderhawks. But I'll point out that 200 points in storm eagles to carry 30 points of 4 ASM loses to that single Alpha Legion 13 model brick of a detachment that was ~155 and had 2-8 ASM. That's also ignoring that the storm eagles need to pray they don't get overwatched pre-disembark (as in, as soon as they enter range) as that 1 wound and a 3+ base doesn't do much. I'll also point out the irony of using the unavailable storm eagle as a counter-example, after all this talk about niche/minority. It's a strategy that lets you have a chance of breaking their early scoring, but it just costs way more and is at the mercy of a few factors (terrain for placement, detachment comp for either just out-fighting the maximum of 4 ASM getting out of the Eagles per formation or for blowing them up, enemy orders, etc...). So it's kind a less efficient strategy. And only works on one objective per formation unless you run the Air one.
As soon as Land Raiders drop this threat expands to most infantry. 16" ish March for LR + 10" ish charge + 10 DZ takes you to 36", well past midfield objectives unless the table is huge.
As soon as the venators and tanks with shock pulse drop it cuts it all in half. So does access to currently available quake blasts. But most importantly, you can't drive over intervening enemy models lol. That's the entire point of taking screening units; you put them in front of your scoring ones to prevent them from getting charged. Also, that whole thing about tempo and point investment efficiency
Storm Eagles I think are both expensive and will be restricted to flanks, and likely need an interceptor escort initially to try and splat some air defences.
flank simply to limit what can fire at them, ideally you want woods or similar for them to race up behind then drop down into hover mode, largely out of sight.
and even then you prey to the dice gods about overwatch not splatting them as they move up.
I looked at my currently typical marine formation, needs 400 points of storm eagles to jump it all forwards.. ouch
Ok am up to page three, so apologise if this is countered later.
First, use spoiler tags for large images - with my small screen I have to move it back and forth like a typewriter with every line. Ping.
Second, yes I too would like to do a tourney. Not least because I have awesome terrain'd table.
Then to the problem. As TO, org point would definitively be that all units must clearly belong to their formation. Base colours, flags, jingles. Don't care, they need to be.
I would _probably_ limit formations. Spamming small ones has pros and cons, the main con is speed...
They will resolve things a bit, but as you say, space. Would have to play around with it, can I have trailing lines of dead coming off each formation? A counter unit like a Kings of War multibase formation (tracks hits to a unit). Blast markers/other counters. Currently if it has to be offtable I think a bulk buy of those different colour small squares used to learn to count in school (not dice, they get rolled by accident), or similar tactile multiple colour objects that can be used as dead piles.
small formations are so easily broken they are seriously fragile and can lose utility at that point
some care less than others but for all the +1 morale effect can be significant in the "brave Sir robin" factor
as long as its clear, and clear "at a glance" what is part of what its not too bad so far (three formations at 1,400 so far here, opponent has four).
do wonder on adding a victory point for breaking a formation as a general thing, its not much but a slight discouragement to split them up more than tactically useful
could have a counter for each formation, I have a small block I use in LotR, holds four dice and follows characters about - something like that, start with the breakpoint of the formation showing, placed near the formation in the same colour or where its visible - then count down as casualties come
with some penalty in effect to discourage "mistakes", it should be easy to check - formation size at start v whats currently on the table.
Then to the problem. As TO, org point would definitively be that all units must clearly belong to their formation. Base colours, flags, jingles. Don't care, they need to be.
That's not one system though, so how will you, the TO, implement this standard in terms of verification? Like I get its simple to communicate it as a requirement, but on the other end of that, verifying they complied, that's potentially a lot of headache. If someone hasn't marked their models accordance to their formation, or done so poorly, how would you verify that? I'm not trying to put this on you, but gw gave us no objective standard or method for any of this. They didn't include flags or a system ect. There are practical considerations as well, colours on a base don't help colourblind players, that may sound specific and it is but in my case one of my potential opponents would be colour blind, so handing him a chart with colours that indicate formations isn't much help, he'd need a number or letter system. I've heard suggestions of number under bases, which is at least objective, but you have to pick them up to observe that, so again it's good but not great.
And how will you be handling the based tank brigade? (people who base units that shouldn't have bases and do not come with them) Because that appears to be the next delicate subject for events. But I mean surely if an event has strict modelling requirements like ensuring every model has in an objective indication of which formation it belongs to then asking players not to glue their tanks to bases should be an easy one.
It's a bit of a pain for the TO, but you can get rubber bands in massive quantities for fairly cheap.
Ask players to submit lists at least 1 week before event (or whatever feels reasonable to the TO to have enough time to pull this off).
TO goes through lists, marks rubber bands with I, II, III, IV, V, etc to correspond with formation, puts them in a little baggie, and hands it to the player on signing in.
Player puts rubber bands around model as appropriate for their list.
Probably untenable due to each player probably needing 100+ rubber bands to cover their models (I'm honestly not sure how many models the average army brings). But with enough time and volunteers tempted with free beer/snacks could work.
This at least avoids the issues of
1) Making players paint a certain way
2) Making players come up with their own bespoke system
3) Marking bases and doing ???? to vehicles.
4) Does not cause issues if 1 or more player are color blind
From the player's perspective, they sign up, submit lists, and receive a baggie of game aids. Easy Peasy.
Rihgu wrote: It's a bit of a pain for the TO, but you can get rubber bands in massive quantities for fairly cheap.
Ask players to submit lists at least 1 week before event (or whatever feels reasonable to the TO to have enough time to pull this off).
TO goes through lists, marks rubber bands with I, II, III, IV, V, etc to correspond with formation, puts them in a little baggie, and hands it to the player on signing in.
Player puts rubber bands around model as appropriate for their list.
Probably untenable due to each player probably needing 100+ rubber bands to cover their models (I'm honestly not sure how many models the average army brings). But with enough time and volunteers tempted with free beer/snacks could work.
This at least avoids the issues of
1) Making players paint a certain way
2) Making players come up with their own bespoke system
3) Marking bases and doing ???? to vehicles.
4) Does not cause issues if 1 or more player are color blind
From the player's perspective, they sign up, submit lists, and receive a baggie of game aids. Easy Peasy.
Or they could just combine the break numbers of their formations into one number and now you only have to police people putting bases on things that don't have them.
Well, drawing indications from available data sets are much more indicative and reasonable than saying it is or isn't so based on no data or argument. The samples are enough to see indications. You can't tell if the responders are new comers or already existing ones as you indicate. Feel free to post relevant polls if you feel the need to dive deeper, or provide any other data or argument that you think supports your claim that RG infiltration is indeed not a minority case, or indeed an issue.
My claim is that it's incredibly easy to add Raven Guard or Alphas on to pre-existing forces. My next claim was that polling using "data" with no numbers is disingenuous. The third claim was that taking a get hype poll to make an argument for strategy viability is incongruous; should I claim any legion tech is unlikely because nothing broke 9% of votes? Just never worry about getting charged by world eater assault infantry because they only got 4% of votes at 25 people.
Later on once SA get their required Rapiers we'll see if the Pioneer formation is popular. With only minority printers currently having theoretical access to it it can't be common. Right now I've yet to see any SA print army contain them. Have you seen it played, at all?
I'll let you know after our next game since yes, we have SA rapiers. And why wouldn't it be popular, especially right now? It's the only source for barrage from the SA faction and is the higher scaling between them and marines (who also have a ton of competing choices for the support slot). You also get the very useful veltaris, and another source of super-valuable HQ aura. Plus infiltrate and forward deploy for tanks. It's 150 minimum and is the better formation to dump detachments into for SA simply because they get benefits as opposed to...none.
As told now by numerous responses by numerous people, we don't see Infiltration as hard to counter or an "issue".
Ya but you guys also just ignored half of what I wrote re: screens in and out of detachment, ease of implementation in list, tempo in a scoring system known to prompt snowballing, etc... Almost like you didn't really read what I was saying or something.
All Astartes have access to Storm Eagles & Assault marines. SE is an Assault Transport, Ass Marines can disembark during flight, charge order and get a bonus CAF vs garrisoned structures to boot. SE moves 25", Ass Marines charge 14". Thunderhawk works too.
Got me there on the storm eagles and thunderhawks. But I'll point out that 200 points in storm eagles to carry 30 points of 4 ASM loses to that single Alpha Legion 13 model brick of a detachment that was ~155 and had 2-8 ASM. That's also ignoring that the storm eagles need to pray they don't get overwatched pre-disembark (as in, as soon as they enter range) as that 1 wound and a 3+ base doesn't do much. I'll also point out the irony of using the unavailable storm eagle as a counter-example, after all this talk about niche/minority. It's a strategy that lets you have a chance of breaking their early scoring, but it just costs way more and is at the mercy of a few factors (terrain for placement, detachment comp for either just out-fighting the maximum of 4 ASM getting out of the Eagles per formation or for blowing them up, enemy orders, etc...). So it's kind a less efficient strategy. And only works on one objective per formation unless you run the Air one.
As soon as Land Raiders drop this threat expands to most infantry. 16" ish March for LR + 10" ish charge + 10 DZ takes you to 36", well past midfield objectives unless the table is huge.
As soon as the venators and tanks with shock pulse drop it cuts it all in half. So does access to currently available quake blasts. But most importantly, you can't drive over intervening enemy models lol. That's the entire point of taking screening units; you put them in front of your scoring ones to prevent them from getting charged. Also, that whole thing about tempo and point investment efficiency
Leaving data indications aside as we clearly view that differently, we can just agree that regardless of interpretation no available data indicates RG will be common, but view it differently if the available data indicates they are un-common.
Yes, it's super easy to add any Legion Formation. I think the difference is you think adding RG might be common because of Infiltrate and Infiltrate is seen as an issue.
I say lets see, I don't think they will be because there are much stronger exploit builds possible and I don't see any problems with Infiltrate as there are already many counters and more coming. If you find there's a short window now before e.g. drop Pods & assault transports arrive that Infiltrate is hard to counter for you guys then you'll find there are other gaps and exploits too until we get complete army lists. Lack of AA, Transports, Artillery etc. Its a subset of the game yet.
Arguing Storm Eagles are unavailable even though they've been for sale for years, many of us have them already and they are available to print since long, is strange. Especially while also claiming the availability of unreleased SA Rapiers only available to print armies is not a limiting factor and should be "popular, especially right now".
Let us know how the SA Pioneers go! I think it would be fun for both. Unless enemy is also SA maybe, as they have much fewer counter options than Astartes.
Oh I read your messages, I didn't comment on the screening or reinforced early lead strategy as there are many tactical counters mentioned and drawbacks to that aggressive early strategy. See below for examples. Since you thought Astartes can't get further than 14" a turn I think that coloured your perceptions. Midfield objectives are about 14" from DZ so bear in mind you can get to within scoring range of them with a lot of untransported stuff too.
Yes, Storm Eagles are expensive. Yes, taking just one would be difficult to do much with vs maximum infiltration, thats not what I would recommend. You need to see the army as a whole, that's one option to have you assault from behind screens and all the way out to the enemy deployment zone objectives ability (40" from own edge), it costs and should cost. There are cheaper ways of getting just to the middle. You keep talking about screens and air dropped troops mean you have to spread out your screen to 360, which is difficult. Anyway real soon cheaper Drop Pods are reducing the cost and limitations of this strategy. They are also arriving Turn 1 and pretty much anywhere.
You mention infiltration Venators. Overwatching all approaching Assault Transports with your one Infiltrated Armour detachment per Pioneer Formation and hitting on 6s in general. With luck you'll stop one approaching detachment for sure. Only being able to Overwatch once vs each approaching Assault detachment also limits redundancy strategy.
Analyzing Infiltrate. I think you'll find it's a double edged sword. Its essentially a gamble, as you open yourself up to divide & conquer for early gains. I like when an opponent uses it because it opens up more tactical options for me.
Some of the tactical exploits I think about when the enemy deploys infiltrated to ~midfield objectives
-Opens up possibility to Charge already turn 1, great for any assault focused army components
-Opens up possibility to focus fire on a part of his army with my full army, which is now also within reach of shorter range weapons. Divide & conquer.
-Opens up possibility to drop units behind his units to get past any screens
-Opens up possibility to drop units behind his units to cut off Fallback paths
-Opens up possibility to drop units behind any Infiltrated Armour to get Rear Arc shots (arguably limited use until we get drop Pods to drop Dreads / Melta Infantry)
-Opens up options to contest objectives in his now weaker deployment zone, since he spread out his army
I am sure greater players have many more tricks to choose from.
So to summarize, I welcome Infiltrate, regardless of Scenario scoring type. It makes for interesting games, some times an opponent will benefit from a Reinforced early infiltrate strategy, many times they will instead loose big due to exploits of their spread out army.
Game designers clearly gave AL, RG and SA Pioneers the ability to play in character, and all players more tactical variation in how they want to fight a battle. I think thats great.
Then to the problem. As TO, org point would definitively be that all units must clearly belong to their formation. Base colours, flags, jingles. Don't care, they need to be.
That's not one system though, so how will you, the TO, implement this standard in terms of verification? Like I get its simple to communicate it as a requirement, but on the other end of that, verifying they complied, that's potentially a lot of headache. If someone hasn't marked their models accordance to their formation, or done so poorly, how would you verify that? I'm not trying to put this on you, but gw gave us no objective standard or method for any of this. They didn't include flags or a system ect. There are practical considerations as well, colours on a base don't help colourblind players, that may sound specific and it is but in my case one of my potential opponents would be colour blind, so handing him a chart with colours that indicate formations isn't much help, he'd need a number or letter system. I've heard suggestions of number under bases, which is at least objective, but you have to pick them up to observe that, so again it's good but not great.
Does there need to be one system? If the formations are easily discerned, by whatever method, isn't that enough? All the tanks in the Armoured Company? Sorted. Two demi-legios? Is one is Dark Angels, the other Imperial Fists? Or is one on blue bases and the other on red bases? No wukkas. Does one player have a finely painted army with company markings, another with coloured/numbered tokens next to each detachment? Cushty, mon bruv.
And how will you be handling the based tank brigade? (people who base units that shouldn't have bases and do not come with them) Because that appears to be the next delicate subject for events. But I mean surely if an event has strict modelling requirements like ensuring every model has in an objective indication of which formation it belongs to then asking players not to glue their tanks to bases should be an easy one.
Should be a rare occurrence. I did base my old Forge World Vanquishers just to protect that long thing main weapon barrel a bit. A note about measuring from/to the vehicle itself will do, surely. As long as the base is a 'tight fit' to the model then issues should be trivial.
That sounds a sensible way of doing it. We used to have the same thing with Flames of War, some people preferred to base their tanks, you just ignore that for sake of measurements and go from the vehicle itself - job done.
Yes, it's super easy to add any Legion Formation. I think the difference is you think adding RG might be common because of Infiltrate and Infiltrate is seen as an issue
I guess it's just my experience of playing GW games. People figure out what works and gives them the best advantage in the game and take it. It happened in 6th with allies (and then everything else they added on), 7th with detachments and formations, 8th with loyal 32, 9th with all the various op armies and builds, 10th with eldar and knights, heresy 2nd with contemptors and las heavy supports, AT with Vulcan/plasma hounds and acastus. People have brought up already playing against mixed legions with world eater assaults, death guard obj campers and another legion for the tanks. It's just a matter of time. I'll also use this opportunity to say i reread the allies/multi legion rules and having multiple legions doesn't make them allies; alphas get the full 3 detachments and EC get the initiative steal.
i say lets see, I don't think they will be because there are much stronger exploit builds possible and I don't see any problems with Infiltrate as there are already many counters and more coming. If you find there's a short window now before e.g. drop Pods & assault transports arrive that Infiltrate is hard to counter for you guys then you'll find there are other gaps and exploits too until we get complete army lists. Lack of AA, Transports, Artillery etc. Its a subset of the game yet.
I'll admit that maybe when the full compliment of artillery is out you'll be able to bomb the infiltrating units with ease, ignoring any los blocking terrain, break up the screens, and allow fast moving stuff to actually get on the objective. But, and I'll keep on saying it, the ability to bubble wrap and screen the objectives really deflects ground assault, pods, and some air drops depending on the board context. These counters aren't really counters; they let you interact with the the opening strategy, but you're still down on tempo and points needed to solve the problem. Like, the nature of infiltrate allows for the infiltrating player to react to their opponents deployment and create the most favourable set up for themselves.
Arguing Storm Eagles are unavailable even though they've been for sale for years, many of us have them already and they are available to print since long, is strange. Especially while also claiming the availability of unreleased SA Rapiers only available to print armies is not a limiting factor and should be "popular, especially right now".
I...didn't. I said it was ironic you were using it as an example after the whole infiltrate is a minority tactic and shouldn't be worried about. Like, the only people who own storm eagles are people who played AI, or played community modified Epic; also a minority of players considering the volume of sales LI. I also never claimed the bit about rapiers lol. You asked if I had seen anyone with SA rapiers, i answered yes. I realize i worded my answer oddly though; I meant "right now" as in the context of the current wave. Once the rapiers are fully available, then the formation should be super popular in the current rules set for all the reasons I mentioned.
many tactical counters mentioned and drawbacks to that aggressive early strategy
But there really aren't many...counters. You're not at risk of losing the game if the opponent spends like 3x the amount of points to trade out your advanced objective holders.
Since you thought Astartes can't get further than 14" a turn I think that coloured your perceptions. Midfield objectives are about 14" from DZ so bear in mind you can get to within scoring range of them with a lot of untransported stuff too.
No, i thought astartes stuff couldn't charge past 14" from turn 1 starting in their DZ lol. That's very, very different from moving more than 14" in general. And yes, you can obviously march into range, which is why i keep on suggesting some sort of screen and bubblewrap play. Make them move around impassable terrain/through difficult and around the screen, and then they won't have enough tactical strength within 3" to contest, let alone flip (since you're pushed back 1" from enemy models).
Storm Eagles are expensive. Yes, taking just one would be difficult to do much with vs maximum infiltration
It wasn't even maximum infiltration. It was one detachment that costs 108-120 points. And also I said two storm eagles, because you need 2 to transport 4 bases of assault marines.
You keep talking about screens and air dropped troops mean you have to spread out your screen to 360, which is difficult. Anyway real soon cheaper Drop Pods are reducing the cost and limitations of this strategy. They are also arriving Turn 1 and pretty much anywhere.
See above about how it practically functions. You don't need the screen to be 360, you just need it to stop stuff coming from the front. Drop pods have the potential to contest if you dump a large enough detachment and they don't lose models. But also, you know, another example of a unit that can easy snowball a lead on progressive GW scoring lol.
You mention infiltration Venators. Overwatching all approaching Assault Transports with your one Infiltrated Armour detachment per Pioneer Formation and hitting on 6s in general. With luck you'll stop one approaching detachment for sure. Only being able to Overwatch once vs each approaching Assault detachment also limits redundancy strategy.
Or whatever you take from alpha legion when the sicarans/falchions/Sabres are out. As part of your 3 detachment per formation. And like usual, if your opponent is sending multiple detachments in assault transports and wildly out spending you just to contest an objective, then that's fine. And also like usual, if you have that line of a screen you're forcing people to waste movement driving around.
I feel like i need to take some pictures or something to illustrate my point.
Analyzing Infiltrate. I think you'll find it's a double edged sword. Its essentially a gamble, as you open yourself up to divide & conquer for early gains
No, i don't. It's been one of the strongest usrs to have on a unit since it's been introduced in GW games, even with end game scoring. It's not a gamble; the infiltrating player has full control about where to place their models, with full information from your opponents deployment.
Only issue is bigger footprint which could be used to block movement etc but don't be jerk and if need be move vehicles so the infantry fits where they could go(i'm assuming vehille player doesn't want models over his base.
Based vehicles work in other games without officially having base. Not really issue.
infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend
Analyzing Infiltrate. I think you'll find it's a double edged sword. Its essentially a gamble, as you open yourself up to divide & conquer for early gains
No, i don't. It's been one of the strongest usrs to have on a unit since it's been introduced in GW games, even with end game scoring. It's not a gamble; the infiltrating player has full control about where to place their models, with full information from your opponents deployment.
I cut down your response even though I read it all and appreciate your experiences, to be clear.
In essence, we have contradictory experiences. In multiple game systems and editions I've seen some of the most crushing defeats when one player spreads out too aggressively, gets overextended and the divide&conquer exploitation effects follow. I've also of course seen devastating Alpha Strikes and early leads not being clawed back, and games won by Infiltrating as a start. Way fewer times though outside of tactically simpler games like 40k though. It's anecdotal both ways and our experiences differ so that's that.
Since I dont know how your community plays to tactically reinforce or counter Infiltrate there's no possibility or point in arguing why you feel it can't be countered just as any strategy, tactic, deployment has answers. Yes it's a type of play opening that opens yourself to answer and in this case even exploits. You can say there are no counters all you want. Or swap the word to a word you like that corresponds to response to a early game style, countering it. I also note you left out my spelled out list of counters and exploits I use of your quote.
Any Lost/Broken Infiltrating Formation or lost Detachment(s) is the drawback of the double edged sword. If you first played a subset of your army against an entire army and later play the remaining army against that full army, you'll be at a disadvantage in both phases. I dont know why your experience is that the divide & conquer player can't then profit back in scoring, 40k aside.🤷
Anyway in LI, most Armies as they seem to look right now will likely choose to focus fire on infiltating Formation (s) with their entire army and any shrewd player will aim to Break infiltrators Formation, one at a time. Firing with an entire army on them should mean they Break quickly given the lethality. Once Broken failed Morale checks due to casualties will increase which makes it snowball a little and any clever opponent will focus on one unit at a time if they want later casualty Morale checks already in the turn 1 to be made at -1 Moral in the now Broken Formation. Detachments that remain but are in a Broken Formation can't First Fire Turn 2. They can still Overwatch on Advance order but can be both First Fired and CCed before we get to Turn 2 Advancing Fire stage so might have to go through another few Morale Checks at -1 before they eventually even get to shoot.
So to summarize you find it difficult to the point of it being an issue dealing with Infiltrate in LI, ok noted. I think it adds more tactical layers to the game while allowing certain armies to play in character. I see multiple possible ways of dealing with it and more coming. You think it will be common in competitive play. Ok noted, let's see.
Here are some other Legion Trait builds examples you might want to think about if adding Formations for competitive (ab)use is your angle & worry
-WE mass assault infantry
-WS/EC air superiority / air cav w improved Jinks & choice of Initiative once
-UM Armoured Companys, with small cheap high RoF detachments "painting" units with hits, used to give bigger units re-rolls
-minimal DG Formation just for robbing the enemy of key terrain
-IW Demi-Company with stacked Tactical Strength bonuses to Walkers, running Infantry at TS 6-7, Walkers TS 4-6.
Etc
Combine with the usual min-maxing and/or skew/spam list building concepts. Check the FB groups, there are interesting people & ideas there. Personally the scariest skew list I've yet to see proposed is the all Infantry SA list.
leopard wrote: infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend
How do you mean?
If the Infiltrating side score the midfield ones Turn 1 and then falls back, weakened (or not), that leaves opponent to score them turns 2-5 comfortably swinging the vp result.
In most scenarios the Infiltrating side needs to last a majority of Turns on the non DZ objectives before falling back if the vp Maths are to add up. 3 Turns in a 5 Turn game. More if secondary scoring rewards table control that is also given up by retreating.
leopard wrote: infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend
How do you mean?
If the Infiltrating side score the midfield ones Turn 1 and then falls back, weakened (or not), that leaves opponent to score them turns 2-5 comfortably swinging the vp result.
In most scenarios the Infiltrating side needs to last a majority of Turns on the non DZ objectives before falling back if the vp Maths are to add up. 3 Turns in a 5 Turn game. More if secondary scoring rewards table control that is also given up by retreating.
mean if you can infiltrate you can grab turn one, you then move up and consolidate with other units - its not falling back, it only puts you ahead by a bit. but once you have them you reinforce them but have little need to go further.
my fault for not making this clearer.
have managed to make this sort of work with bods in Rhinos, infiltration is a cheaper way to do it and you can use that to be there to block enemy in transports from just walking up
leopard wrote: infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend
How do you mean?
If the Infiltrating side score the midfield ones Turn 1 and then falls back, weakened (or not), that leaves opponent to score them turns 2-5 comfortably swinging the vp result.
In most scenarios the Infiltrating side needs to last a majority of Turns on the non DZ objectives before falling back if the vp Maths are to add up. 3 Turns in a 5 Turn game. More if secondary scoring rewards table control that is also given up by retreating.
mean if you can infiltrate you can grab turn one, you then move up and consolidate with other units - its not falling back, it only puts you ahead by a bit. but once you have them you reinforce them but have little need to go further.
my fault for not making this clearer.
have managed to make this sort of work with bods in Rhinos, infiltration is a cheaper way to do it and you can use that to be there to block enemy in transports from just walking up
Aha, yeah you wrote "you can afford to fall back to defend" which is the opposite of reinforcing, I couldn't make sense of that. Then we're on the same page now! Reinforced forward deployment exploit. Then possibly fall back to Castle defence after amassing unbeatable lead.
Basically anyone Infiltrating in a standard progressive scoring needs to net hold more objectives for a majority of Turns, while facing divide & conquer challenges, for it to work in the end. Which is part of the reason I find its often not worth it, even before taking in the varied scoring types you are likely to face. Infiltrate builds with only End game scoring for example, while all the other more generic Legion buffs are useful in any scenario.
The smallest possible modification I can think of to diminish that strategy's chances of success for any reason, would be the common practise of removing scoring Turn 1 in progressive scoring scenarios as previously discussed.
ah yes my bad, by fall back I was more thinking you infiltrate to secure and block an objective then fall back to cover to defend it
hardest part here so far, in smaller 1,400 games though, is defending the rear from deep striking units while having enough advancing to grab the midfield
my usually opponent likes to sit back, in cover and try to pounce late game. as the game grows I will have rear area stuff (likely a SA formation so rear objectives have some warm bodies on them as they are cheap enough)
@westie ya Dakkas quote system is frustrating; similarly i did read your answer.
I left out your list of counters because I've already covered the charge aspect enough times, and the rest fall into a lot of speculation because we have no rules for pods and need to see the pod specific formation. Ultimately, forcing deepstrikers to react and drop in the midfield where most of the game is going to be taking place already, is a positive. You're forcing a big commitment to prevent you from taking a lead, while concentrating the enemy's forces and drawing out some of their disruption? Seems like you're ahead in game tempo.
Stuffs going to die. These detachments being put ahead to score are going to die at some point; it's only a problem if it dies/runs before getting any value, or breaks with some of the formation being in a position that would require march/first fire. But meanwhile, of course, you have the rest of your army to use as your opponent is trying to prevent you from taking an early lead. Like I'm not proposing to send out faramir to hold osgiliath without reinforcement and just turtle in Minas tirith if you know what I mean.
And you know what, i totally agree you can jam other legions in to a list to get gamey advantages. All those things just reinforce the strengths of the detachments...and you can do it all in combination with some forward objective grabbing formations lol. There is 0 game reason not tool your formations for a given legion to squuze more juice.
I also agree that there's stronger lists and that adding infiltrators to your army makes it broken. And that swarms of ogryn tercios is terrifying. But my entire original point is that both systems of scoring has optimal, gamey, strategies for securing the win. And infiltrate (and pods) is one of the tools for progressive scoring.
@Skimask: fair, I understand your points. I don't necessarily agree on your takes but I respect and value your perspectives.
The easiest to play and least costly counter is of course simply focussed shooting on the smaller Infiltrated force, breaking and decimating it at a higher tempo than it can do back to your full force. You can also choose to charge Turn 1 with pricy options or contest with cheap if you decimated any screens. Regardless you can mass charge turn 2 without. Weather screens & footprint blocking can be reinforced or not is going to decide how that goes. But a full army First firing into an opponent using part of his army to move up behind should kill at a higher rate.
Scoring tempo wise, an early lead is only good if it can be held to the end, if you indeed pay the price for being divided & conquered by fading it will swing and you net loose in the end. Its the beauty of it. Makes those games pretty interesting imo.
Interesting for sure to see if assault transports & pods can be taken in any general Transport slot of e.g. a Demi-Company.
Finally the point we agree most clearly on, ease of mixing multiple Legion Formations. Competitive list builders generally don't like situational benefits, like only valuable in certain scenarios. They tend to exploit the easiest to use general buffs. Especially in a Tournament context with a mix of Scenarios & scoring types. Infiltrating in an End game scoring only scenario, in an alternating activation game where Alpha strike benefits are mostly out, is opening yourself to exploits and risk for little or no scoring benefit. Similarly when you face CC monsters like WE or mass Ogryns, the last thing you want is starting closer to them.. When you could instead have chosen general buffs.
I guess we'll have to wait and see how the wider community and the competitive one build their lists, and if Infiltrate is popular/strong enough to feature or not in those contexts. Now and later on once we have more complete army lists.
Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.
Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.
tneva82 wrote: Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.
Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.
Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.
8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.
Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.
key is you may take higher casualties, trick is going to be managing and mitigating that.
e.g. grab both mid field objectives where there are two, but pick the one you will be able to hold - e.g. there is a building between it and the enemy you can both occupy and have bods behind.
you get the early lead and now your opponent is the one under pressure, infantry are harder to shift when they don't need to move.
but even the objective you think you will not hold, grab it, get the points, then give it up - you had both for a turn and focus on holding one, you will stay ahead
then the secondaries start to matter, as does taking advantage of a poor defence in the rear.
will come down a fair bit to the terrain layout and density
tneva82 wrote: Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.
Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.
Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.
8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.
Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.
Well 40K is not an Epic game, and 40k has not alternate activation...
...but, Epic Armageddon uses end game scoring and it is one of the most balanced games out there (can't say the same for LI seeing the points costs of the units though)...
tneva82 wrote: Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.
Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.
Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.
8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.
Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.
Well 40K is not an Epic game, and 40k has not alternate activation...
...but, Epic Armageddon uses end game scoring and it is one of the most balanced games out there (can't say the same for LI seeing the points costs of the units though)...
Yeah unit balance is a bit all over with point costs. It's really obvious as you go up in points on titans, it's obviously a curve and not a linear progression in terms of what you get for your points. The 150 point difference between a warlord and warmaster is a good example of that, even the 75 point difference between a normal warlord and a psi one is a hell of deal. This is also my concern for planes, they seem pretty fragile with the exception of the thunderhawk. What's also setting planes apart is hover mode seems like a big deal, because being able to enter in hover mode means you can make use of los to keep incoming fire to a minimum. Only needing 6's to be hit can mean a really bad day with enough dice coming at you. We had initially thought jink stacked with armour as opposed to simply taking the best one.
An aspect I like about end game scoring with objectives is I feel it makes the story telling aspect of a battle or battle report a bit easier to grasp in that it's who held what in the end. This is also a bit of a hurdle to overcome with largely fixed objective locations. I just like the battlefield having like 4-6 important areas or structures, is is also how white dwarf did mega battle reports in the past. Very low victory points across the board so it was easier to track turn to turn. You got a good sort of ten thousand foot view of the boards turn to turn and maybe some diagrams to help piece things together, but visually you could track the battle or battles from page to page and in the end see a fairly straight forward summation of the battle, largelty in terms of who held what in the end and maybe if a special character was killed.
There's something much more straight forward to my mind being able to read like "imperials 6vp or 4vp" and have a breakdown of who held what like "the orks held the submarine depot, the marines held firm on the spaceport, the bridge remained contested" that to me just seems more comprehensible than who got what medals for holding what the longest even if they lost it. It's not that it isn't interesting to hear "the stormtroopers held the pumping station for 4 turns gaining them x vp that can't be taken away, only to lose the pumping station in the end to the meganobz, who for some reason got fewer vp even though it was theirs in the end". It's the same way some strategic objectives aren't super glamorous but like who holds a bridge or air strip for 6 minutes just doesn't seem like something I want to bother scoring. I do think though that perhaps having random game length might be something worth considering if end game scoring is going to be the majority scoring for scenario/mission packet I think that's the way I'll go initially.
tneva82 wrote: Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.
Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.
Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.
8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.
Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.
Something not considered too is, it's more difficult to document alternating activation games than turn based, so in terms of documenting a legions game, end game scoring is much easier to follow in terms of just the a-b-c of what happened. Only thing that might need more documenting is like planes coming and going off the board back into reserve but even with a very coles notes report of the battle you can have the final global picture of the board with simply what is left, where it is and what if anything it controls. That's so different then telling the turn by turn tale of where the score is/was at. 40k was more enjoyable before 8th.
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leopard wrote: ah yes my bad, by fall back I was more thinking you infiltrate to secure and block an objective then fall back to cover to defend it
hardest part here so far, in smaller 1,400 games though, is defending the rear from deep striking units while having enough advancing to grab the midfield
my usually opponent likes to sit back, in cover and try to pounce late game. as the game grows I will have rear area stuff (likely a SA formation so rear objectives have some warm bodies on them as they are cheap enough)
I'm very much wishing for just a normal reserve option for units. Deep striking and outflank are powerful because the controlling player can just choose the when and where, deep strike at least has some element of risk and I actually would prefer a mishap table over simply the unit being removed from play if they can't be placed. With that said though, if normal reserve was perhaps limited but allowed the same level of choice in terms of when you want a unit to arrive from your board edge. Even if it was 0-1 per 1000pts it'd still be useful. Could have he same limitations as outflank in that I don't think you can arrive with charge order.
An aspect I like about end game scoring with objectives is I feel it makes the story telling aspect of a battle or battle report a bit easier to grasp in that it's who held what in the end. This is also a bit of a hurdle to overcome with largely fixed objective locations. I just like the battlefield having like 4-6 important areas or structures, is is also how white dwarf did mega battle reports in the past. Very low victory points across the board so it was easier to track turn to turn. You got a good sort of ten thousand foot view of the boards turn to turn and maybe some diagrams to help piece things together, but visually you could track the battle or battles from page to page and in the end see a fairly straight forward summation of the battle, largelty in terms of who held what in the end and maybe if a special character was killed.
There's something much more straight forward to my mind being able to read like "imperials 6vp or 4vp" and have a breakdown of who held what like "the orks held the submarine depot, the marines held firm on the spaceport, the bridge remained contested" that to me just seems more comprehensible than who got what medals for holding what the longest even if they lost it. It's not that it isn't interesting to hear "the stormtroopers held the pumping station for 4 turns gaining them x vp that can't be taken away, only to lose the pumping station in the end to the meganobz, who for some reason got fewer vp even though it was theirs in the end". It's the same way some strategic objectives aren't super glamorous but like who holds a bridge or air strip for 6 minutes just doesn't seem like something I want to bother scoring. I do think though that perhaps having random game length might be something worth considering if end game scoring is going to be the majority scoring for scenario/mission packet I think that's the way I'll go initially.
Totally agree with this.
VP scoring is not inmersive at all. Just numbers.
End-game goals like in Epic Armageddon is a way more engaging and narrative experience.
I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.
The_Real_Chris wrote: I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.
while this is quite obviously correct keep in mind the humble Rhino pays points for a weapons upgrade, where as the Warlord titan, and indeed everything pretty much with a few exceptions, doesn't
then you have heavy support marines for the same price as the tactical support marines when one is quite clearly better than the other in just about every practical application
points are going to be all over unless GW get a grip
lists will be all over until more stuff comes out, and manages to stay in stock long enough to matter
The_Real_Chris wrote: I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.
Well some are more ahead of the curve than others, individuals 3d printing or using models from epic to fill gaps of what has rules but hasn't officially released, so that's some planes, deredeos and leviathans, aa/las tarantulas and rapiers for both sides. All of those have rules in the book and are not particularly difficult to proxy. Yes there's a lot more coming next year, but that doesn't change the analysis that can be made now.
For starter, it's plain to see point costs are on a curve and not linear. Starting with titans and knights, clearly the balance thought here wasn't points related but the realization that these units would not be common on account of the 70/30, meaning neither side can spam too much of it without going very very high point level games. That in addition to the options at least being identical for both factions does something for balance, but as leopard rightly points out a single rhino is being asked to pay 2 or 4 points for its weapon upgrade options while whole titans and knights are exempt from this with a few exceptions related to "upgrades" that are really just different sub classes of knight.
What that means is, it's already plain to see some units are just much better for the point costs, the only thing containing things somewhat is again the 70/30 overall availability with that ratio. A unit of armigers added to a knight is 180pts, it's 6 wounds, very good weaponry and overall prowess.
The titan's don't pay for weapons loadouts, so again there will be obvious winners and losers, plasma blast gun for example. The curve is evident when you look at what titans get for their point cost, the 150pts between a warlord and warmaster, it's staggering difference. Again this is a bit contained by the fact that you'd have to be playing a pretty big game to even field a warmaster, but a warlord can be fielded at around 2000pts level. Either way, this doesn't bode that well for stuff coming out, as there will likely be winners and losers.
From unit to unit now there's a few factors, what does it cost, how much do you save when adding to an existing detachment vs starting a new one. There's again point costs where you look at scratch your head a bit, leviathan vs contemptors, now granted you can add leviathans to contemptor detachments but either way, the point costs between the two units, give what you get for that point difference is difficult to ignore. Granted yes the contemptors with accurate las cannons are still good and different, they don't have close combat capabilties or 5+ inv save. In other words when we compare two units that are at least baseline similar and try and parse out the point costs differences and account for them, you realize something is indeed a bit odd with rhinos paying 2-4pts for their weapon upgrades or a thunberbolt randomly paying 3pts to upgrade its guns. So going back to titans not paying for theirs or at least not paying more for some of the options sorta rubs me the wrong way. The upside is that the list building is smoother as something a simple as a weapon choice doesn't throw off your whole list's allie ratio (70/30) but that comes at the cost of, it won't be long until certain builds just sorta reign supreme. I've seen a youtube video ranking weapon options on a warhound and it was quite in depth and well reasoned. Titanicus struggles to price weapons well even with them costing extra because the integers of 5pts don't leave much latitude to point things on an okay gradient so I'm not saying it's an easy task on the li side either, but it's something to note.
Lastly, maxed out detachments start having the game sorta frey at the seems, you're saving points all along the way and it's not really containing msu that much. You also get to a point where the sheer firepower of each activation, at least when it comes to tanks and planes, is so devastating it doesn't really matter that you can't split fire for most things.
At least these issues are well spread out, and with both factions being able to take the other as an allie, there's no one unit out of anyone reach, so that's also worth mentioning, but still, that doesn't change economy, that doesn't change people will do the math, combine it with their first hand experience and will simply have better lists for the points they spend. I actually think it's not worth obsessing over though it is a guarantee to happen, I feel the best way to go is find a point level where balance is less of a problem. I think it's also difficult to ignore that without limiting formations, marines armies with multiple legions could prove to be rather annoying, because all legions rules also have their winners and losers.
I think the upside though is unit types seems decently conceived, especially terrain wise. So that helps balance in that there are a lot of small considerations that may be difficult to cost out. Only concern is expansion making this worse, for example if heavy presence of drop pods isn't well conceived, it along with terminators could become rather oppressive, especially in the context of what will already possibly be a meta heavy with infiltration to gain early scoring on account of largely progressive vp scoring.
But ya points are whacky and so are formations, you can make 3000+ army from a single armoured formation. It will have fewer activations than most but the sheer firepower of each activation/detachment is very high in a game where other than titans and knights, being obscured does not naturally give any benefits, without also being in base contact in the case of obstacles, or being entirely within the boundaries of area terrain. Put another way, it has been my experience that on account of that fact, detachments die very fast.
An aspect I like about end game scoring with objectives is I feel it makes the story telling aspect of a battle or battle report a bit easier to grasp in that it's who held what in the end. This is also a bit of a hurdle to overcome with largely fixed objective locations. I just like the battlefield having like 4-6 important areas or structures, is is also how white dwarf did mega battle reports in the past. Very low victory points across the board so it was easier to track turn to turn. You got a good sort of ten thousand foot view of the boards turn to turn and maybe some diagrams to help piece things together, but visually you could track the battle or battles from page to page and in the end see a fairly straight forward summation of the battle, largelty in terms of who held what in the end and maybe if a special character was killed.
There's something much more straight forward to my mind being able to read like "imperials 6vp or 4vp" and have a breakdown of who held what like "the orks held the submarine depot, the marines held firm on the spaceport, the bridge remained contested" that to me just seems more comprehensible than who got what medals for holding what the longest even if they lost it. It's not that it isn't interesting to hear "the stormtroopers held the pumping station for 4 turns gaining them x vp that can't be taken away, only to lose the pumping station in the end to the meganobz, who for some reason got fewer vp even though it was theirs in the end". It's the same way some strategic objectives aren't super glamorous but like who holds a bridge or air strip for 6 minutes just doesn't seem like something I want to bother scoring. I do think though that perhaps having random game length might be something worth considering if end game scoring is going to be the majority scoring for scenario/mission packet I think that's the way I'll go initially.
Totally agree with this.
VP scoring is not inmersive at all. Just numbers.
End-game goals like in Epic Armageddon is a way more engaging and narrative experience.
It almost needs to be not so much boring as just, an actual objective or set of objectives that sound somewhat believable in a boilerplate war fiction sort of way. Like we don't need to go in depth with each one, people can put two and two together why taking a refinery or spaceport might prove important. The progressive scoring feels like we've reduced those things even further to the point of being food items in a buffet and units are just chomping down on them. "Oh the kratos got another hunk of the dockyard, they just can't get enough dockyard, it does look quite delicious!".
Basically the story of this game would be who controlled which of these objectives in the end.
The_Real_Chris wrote: I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.
while this is quite obviously correct keep in mind the humble Rhino pays points for a weapons upgrade, where as the Warlord titan, and indeed everything pretty much with a few exceptions, doesn't
then you have heavy support marines for the same price as the tactical support marines when one is quite clearly better than the other in just about every practical application
points are going to be all over unless GW get a grip
lists will be all over until more stuff comes out, and manages to stay in stock long enough to matter
Yeah I think the winners and losers unit wise won't be too difficult to sniff out. Some units almost feel like traps in that there are many many ways to load them out but can serve as a bit of a distraction, like the malcador with 36 possible builds but a lot of them have really mixed range bands. Also not to be cynical but I think heavy bolters are ok but its easy to over value them given their range, lascannons actually do get work done in numbers, an all las malcador or predator is bring the full weight of its detachments firepower to bear because its all same range band, that adds up fast when there's 3-4 of them.
Some units have just such obvious winners and losers in terms of loadouts, russ and contemptor dreads come to mind. For russ, vanquisher is like no contest. For contemptors, accurate las vs terrible kheres is obvious choice as well. So then we might ask why weren't these options "upgrades" that cost more points? It's super weird that that logic applies to a rhino but not a warlord titan indeed.
with the objective stuff I think a couple of pages on table design wouldn't have gone amiss, specifically pick the scenario, then layout the table so that there is "something" to explain why the objective is where it is
is it a key bit of high ground, or just behind such giving control of the high ground and some shelter?
is it some key building or group of buildings?
is it a transport hub? a bridge? a landing field?
does it guard the approach to any of these? (ones near board edges for example placed on roads can be considered to be guarding a route to "something" just off table
helps to avoid objectives being in "WTF is that there for?" places and helps tell a bit of a story, even if only a basic one.
likewise having structures made by human or other hands in some sort of logical layout, not just randomly dumped about helps. this is where the GW tiles actually really suck - unless you have a high density of buildings WTF are all the roads for?
and when artillery comes in it will matter that boards are designed specifically to discourage the static gun lines and artillery duels of the past
and heavy bolters.. interesting beasties, personally I've got ~one in three tanks with HB sponsons, so they have something for anti infantry and semi decent overwatch, this may get revised upwards. likewise my Leman Russ so far are 50/50 Vanquishers with las cannons and normal with heavy bolters, not perfect against anything but flexible.
and yes I know what you mean by larger detachments being nasty, regular opponent has a group of four Kratos that like to be on First Fire orders.
mind you so far my limited air force is enjoying them
Yeah I think the winners and losers unit wise won't be too difficult to sniff out. Some units almost feel like traps in that there are many many ways to load them out but can serve as a bit of a distraction, like the malcador with 36 possible builds but a lot of them have really mixed range bands. Also not to be cynical but I think heavy bolters are ok but its easy to over value them given their range, lascannons actually do get work done in numbers, an all las malcador or predator is bring the full weight of its detachments firepower to bear because its all same range band, that adds up fast when there's 3-4 of them.
Have you compared the Malcador to the Kratos? it is ridiculous. How can the Kratos be cheaper?
Well, it's either not much or vitally important - the Malcador is faster and it's main guns have a longer range so therorectically it can outshoot the Kratos in a running battle. As 'Heavy Armour' the Kratos also has a greater 'non-points' cost to put it on the table.
It's also just one of the issues that needs smoothing out, also stil need to fight ever wyswyg policies ect. And there's crossover there for sure with documenting breaking point. As mentioned earlier, I hadn't even considered the side board that may potentially need to be carved out just for units on both sides in transports. So it may already be a game like 
(joking)
