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I think its a balance between cost, product value and model count, huge model count does not only increase cost, but drives off potential players.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I think its a balance between cost, product value and model count, huge model count does not only increase cost, but drives off potential players.

It can put off a good number of players but it can also draw in a players who want to play big games. I've played skirmish games and now I want bigger games, hence I enjoy 40K. I'm now looking at starting Hail Caesar and Bolt Action too, yes both, both have input from Rick Priestly. and both generally require high figure count. They're what I want and like 40K cheaper than the CMG games I've played in the past.

I generally like Rick Priestly's take on Wargaming.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:


Going more on topic, I am surprised to read what ExNoctemNacimur wrote, people preferring to play an obviously faulted game system over a better written and balanced system because it forces them to be... competitive?

I'm not sure, but I think it's more of the idea that they know the game is imbalanced and so don't take it so seriously. With Warmachine, we know that it's a lot more balanced, and so it's played a lot more competitively. It's sort of like playing football with your mates or playing football against other schools - you take things a lot less seriously when you're playing in a casual setting rather than a more competitive setting.

 Nucflash wrote:
The problem is that there are to few of you in the general population.. or we would see alot more kidds around.. Now for me personaly I dont want to play with little kidds.. But they are important for the growth and health of the hobby... Now as I said before there are a few that pick up these games... But if you compare with other recreational hobbys in the same general genre, more are playing other things like computer games and card games... This will become a problem sooner or later... And instead of sticking with my guns, saying that cinematic gamplay and bear and pretzels games is the only way forward and digging my head in the sand. I do understand that the Table-top industry needs to change to bring back the masses..

Yeah, I don't think so.

Warmachine appears to be widely sold in the States. If it's what the kids want, why does 40k continue to outsell it?

The reason why I was initially wary of starting miniature wargaming was that I had to assemble all my models and then paint them.

Kids not starting up the hobby probably aren't driven by the balance of the rules. They don't start because of the price (because whichever way you play it, GW or PP, 35 bucks for a single miniature is a lot of money) and that they have to assemble, paint and learn huge rulebooks (the 40k book is what, 130 pages for the rules? The quickstart guide to Warmachine/Hordes still is quite lengthy. Compare that to an interactive tutorial on a video game). The reasons for some of my friends leaving the hobby stated that it was cost and time that affected their decision. The reason they start the hobby up is probably due to model choice and the idea of playing a game with these cool models. Some may go for the Warmachine aesthetic, but it appears more like the idea of Space Marines or Elves in space or whatever. They also want to play the game their friends play. The reason I started LOTR is because my friends played it. I didn't give two hoots about whether my Easterling warrior would perform just as well as 2 goblins on the tabletop. Neither did my friend. To us, that's a secondary consideration. I'm never going to play a game in which the models I collect are something I loathe. I'm never going to collect an army with models that I dislike, and while you may disagree, I'm going to assume and say that most other people will not collect an army or play a game with models that they dislike. It's the reason why I was in conflict about starting up a Fantasy army or a WM/H army. I'd heard a lot about how awesome the game was, but at the end of the day, I preferred the idea of lords fighting on Stags and unleashing hails of arrows onto goblin hordes (though eventually, I gave in and started WM/H - I now have two armies for the game, one 35 pt Circle army and one 15 pt Menoth army, but I have like six Lord of the Rings armies, two large 40k armies and a fairly large fantasy army because I have too much time).

TL;DR - kids won't start because one game is more balanced, they'd start because they like the models, the models are widely available and they want to play what their friends play, whether that's 40k, LOTR, Warmachine, Infinity etc.

But that's waaay offtopic. Sorry OP.

 Easy E wrote:
I like to collect rulebooks for games, and I don’t intend to ever play most of them. I have recently finished reading through Black Powder, Bolt Action, and Warmaster Ancients all of were primarily designed and written by Rick Priestley. I also recently got my hands on the Warmachine Prime-Remix rulebook. Reading through the two books, the differences in philosophy were stark.

You have alot of false distinctions bewteen the two.

Collaboration vs. Competition
Rick’s Style was focused more on a war game being a collaborative event. The books included discussion of the way “gentleman” behave and sportsmanship. In addition, there is a lot of talk about how the game is secondary to having fun, and having fun being the core driver of the rules. The ethos was about how players were to work together to have fun.

Meanwhile, Warmachine was focused on something very different. It was focused on what you DID to an opponent as opposed to what you did together. The focus was on competing against each other to see who the best at playing toy soldiers was.

Partially untrue. Rick's style still leads to being competitive. You still are fighting one another, and someone still wins and loses.

Conversely, while you are competiting against one anotehr in warmachine, you still are working together to have a fun game. Tight rules=/= no sportsmaneship and gentleman behavior and fun.

Social vs. Event
Rick’s writing almost treated the game itself as secondary. It was an excuse to get together to “talk shop” about painting, history, and share experience. It was a reason to drink beer and eat junk food. The rules were there to allow someone an excuse to get away from everyday life and spend some time chatting with their buddies.

Warmachine is written where the game is an event. Each one is significant. The purpose of getting together is the game, the playing of it, and the winning of it. You might get together with buddies to “talk Shop” but that was so you could be better at playing the game next time.

False nartative. You've never been over our game group playing warmachine where the drinks flow and the games are played, but its more social then gaming. AGain, you're making distinctions where either could be one or the other.

“Gentleman” vs. “Gamers”
Again, we see Rick’s rules emphasizing gentlemanly conduct, and what should or should not be done. The mechanisms for resolving disputes are straight forward and he writes as if no real disagreement should occur during a game that cannot be resolved quickly and moved past for the sake of the game moving forward.

Warmachine is written in way where the rules matter, a lot. Disagreements should not stop the game in, but the foreword talks a great deal about the “Remix” being put in place to make the rules flow as tightly as possible.

Rick's HAS to rely on gentleman conduct, becuase frankly, he sucked at writing rules right the first time. There SHOULDNT be any disputes if the rules are right. Converesely, there isnt any reason not to have gentleman's conduct with warmachine if you two wish to alter or agree to something.

British v. American- Perhaps this is a cultural thing? Americans have a very “competition” focused society, and Warmachine is primarily an American company. Is Britain a more communal place? I honestly don’t know.

Ultimately, I think this is most of the case. You see it in GW's business designs as well as game theory when Rick was with GW.

Historical vs whatever....never had any experience with historicals, cant say.

Niche vs niche is irrelevant. Both are wargames. They may or not appeal to you if you like sci-fi vs steam punk.

I do not agree with the classification of Priestly's style as social or narrative. In my opinion he sits on the fence. If he really wanted a social or narrative game he would do away with points values and win conditions. If these things remain, some waac player will game the system. Sadly this is what happens to GW games. I enjoy both narrative games as well as competitive games. However, I want one or the other. The on the fence stuff sucks.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I played EVE, I went to their fanfests, I quit playing EVE, don't think I will go back.

What CCP defines as "sandbox" is a weak excuse to not work on a proper game system, I personally do not view EVE as a sandbox, you cannot do whatever you want as CCP and EVE supporters proclaim, you can scum people retaliation free though.

For me a sandbox is just that a sandbox, a place were you can with the tools available to you create your own stuff, the games designer job should be twofold, giving you enough tools to create what you may imagine and make sure you will not disrupt everybody else plans or everybody else disrupt yours.

EVE provides tools to hurt and disturb other people without consequences, in my opinion its a badly designed game that is trapped in this stage held hostage to its current player base.

Going more on topic, I am surprised to read what ExNoctemNacimur wrote, people preferring to play an obviously faulted game system over a better written and balanced system because it forces them to be... competitive?

In my opinion a tight balanced rule system does not forces you to be competitive or deprives you from the "beer and pretzels" enjoyment of a game, yes it does deprive you from the excuse that if you loose its the systems fault and its inherit imbalance, but if this is a reason to go hardcore competitive and not enjoy the game, its not a fault of the system.

Again in my opinion the Industry needs not abandon any of the two design philosophies nor one is es valid from the other, but the industry must significantly up its product value and quality, the "Priestly" approach is not an excuse for a bad game system, nor is for imbalanced forces.

You know its Hurting others take makes EvE fun... Scaming and fooling people... I know some of you find this horrible but I must confess I also like to play Boardgames to dominate and crush people... I dont care if you are a 10 years old or 50 years old. My only mission from a start of a game (computer/boardgame/Tabletop game of poker for money) is to win win win.. and as an added plus if I can make you angry and upset while doing it, will give me added kicks... Sorry it is nothing personal and people that know me accept it or they avoid playing me and I ridicule them for it. I think that is the reason I prefer will writen to the point rules.. Because the fluff do not interest me, and skills are the only thing that mathers.. And Rick Prieslty play for fun Bear and pretzel you can win with dumb luck... I HATE THAT... I win most of my games.. not because of Luck, or rules Laywering (because I dont use those kind of tactics and I dont have to in Warmachine). I just move better and I trade miniatures better on the game board then most people... I'm good at strategic games... But the less LUCK there is the better the game is.. That is why Chess will always be the KING OF GAMEs for me....


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 spaceelf wrote:
I do not agree with the classification of Priestly's style as social or narrative. In my opinion he sits on the fence. If he really wanted a social or narrative game he would do away with points values and win conditions. If these things remain, some waac player will game the system. Sadly this is what happens to GW games. I enjoy both narrative games as well as competitive games. However, I want one or the other. The on the fence stuff sucks.

The problem is that I am a Waac player And the reason I hate Rick Priestly games is because they allow you to "bend the rules" because they are so poorly written. There is no skills in playing the rules, that is what weak people who cant play do. For example the Orc player in our local gaming group, always bend the rules and found loop holes to take advantage off... After we swtiched over to Warmachine, he gets beaten 9 times out of 10... And he hates the game... And you know why?? because he sucks at playing Strategic table top games.. If he cant play the rules and bend them he will lose.... The mayor reason for playing well made balanced rules is so you can see who really is good at playing a game.. and not who can cheese the rules best...

You know there is a misconception that playing to win (or WAAC) is a free pass to be a horrible person, no that's a character flaw in my books, you can play to win and still be a decent person.

And hurting others in EVE is not what makes it fun, its what keeps it at the niche market it is and why I said it is held hostage at that point, in my opinion EVE had it because from the start dealing with such things is a difficult challenge fr the game designer and CCP decided to simply not bother, that's poor unclear undefined rules right there a fact that scammers took to maximum advantage there is no disadvantage being one, horrible game design.

I have to agree with spaceelf.
There is nothing wrong with writing a co-operative narrative driven rule set.Where the aim of the game is to work WITH you opponent to tell a great story and play it out.
This is the sort of game that OLD historical rules sets used to do in re-fighting historical battles.The sort of game Rick started on at W.G.R.G.

And if these rules are promoted as narrative co-operative games that is perfectly fine.

However, GW plc has a studio writing rules in this way, but markets them to appeal to a wide demographic as possible.
DROPPING PV and just using senario driven games is where WHFB and 40k work best.

But GW plc want to sell toy soldiers to as many people as possible.
So use PV and special rules to drive sales of the short term sales of minatures at the detriment of the game and the player base stability.

Most people play 40k DESPITE its rules not because of it.

The rules written focusing on game play , irrespective of the level of competition or co-operation are the best sort of game.
As these let the intent of the developers be shown to the gamers.
So the gamers pick the game most suited to them and their play style.

When GW promoted a range of games , they were far more honest about the type of game play each game was best suited for.
Now they pretend WHFB and 40K are suitable for every age and play style, despite this being very far from the truth.

In short co-operative games AND competative games are ALL fine for their respective play style and respective game groups.
Its only when they are mis- marketed there are real problems....IMO.

The only big difference I see in both philosophies is the people playing them... Some people can play 40k competitively and others can play warmachine narratively... Yes some games are more targeted for certain types of styles but it boils down to the gamers themselves, and how far they want to take things.

I don't see any conflict between any style of game and being a gentleman while playing it... that association was poor IMO.

As always Nucflash tries to make some absolutist points about things but when someone is talking about his own view on how times changed, how things are now etc and then starts with things like "Childrean these days have alot less imagination. " I tend to move away. I mean how out of touch can you be with reality?

The only thing that changed in philosophy is that today you have more options in your tabletop and that ,contrary to all predictions, our hobby is actually growing... Much like " video did not kill the radio star" videogames did not kill tabletop gaming and neither one philosophy in gaming will kill the other.

Speaking of kids is a good example, today they have a palette of choices that any of us farts could only dream off and the results are amazing! for them lots of option is their philosophy and they always look for different things without being stuck into only one mode or game... That alone is very promising.

One thing that is being missed about WM/H is that while its competitive, its also balanced. The rules do tend to favor a somewhat aggressive style of play. However, even the rulebook says that this isnt permission to be an ass. It is possible to have a friendly and competitive game.

Lets also not forget that its possible to win with a huge variety of army combinations. Even "fluffy" lists have a fair chance of winning a game. The majority of winner/loser in WH/H is up to the player and how well they use what they have. While there are some tougher than average builds, there are no "automaitc win" builds like some other major games favor.

All that being said, I feel that the best rule sets out there are from the small guys. Look at things like Shockforce/Warengine and Song of Blades & Heroes.


As far as this "narrative" game style...it seems to me they are saying that certain armies can expect to always lose, but thats OK because you told a story. Am I missing something? WTF is that junk? To me that line of thinking stinks of someone making an excuse for an unbalanced rule set. I see no point in playing a game Im guaranteed to lose every time. I certainly dont have to win every time, but I like having a fighting chance.

 NAVARRO wrote:
I don't see any conflict between any style of game and being a gentleman while playing it... that association was poor IMO.

Not to pick on you Navarro, but I honestly don;t see where people got this from my original post. Neither style is forcing someone to play a certain way. Please point out where the original post said tight =/= fluffy or whatever direvative people usually like to argue about. Of course, they can play however they want. I also went to great pains to point out that neither way was better, but a lot of people bring their own baggage to a topic like this so it was bound to happen.

What I did say is that one philosophy seems to FAVOR a certain style of play based on the other core philosophies of the game design. For example, Rick clearly want's some type of balance or he wouldn't make Point Values, and Warmachine clearly wants some form of collaberation or it wouldn;t be a two player game.

Sorry, i just had to get that bit off my chest. Again, I'm not tryign to argue one philosophy is better than another. I'm trying to point out that such game design philosophies seem to exist, and think through why a designer would choose one ove rthe other, even if the choice is mostly unconscious habit.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

Lets also not forget that its possible to win with a huge variety of army combinations. Even "fluffy" lists have a fair chance of winning a game. The majority of winner/loser in WH/H is up to the player and how well they use what they have. While there are some tougher than average builds, there are no "automaitc win" builds like some other major games favor.

WM/H isn't any more or less balanced than most other games; people still talk about netlists in WM/H and there are most certainly suboptimal builds that make winning extremely difficult versus lists that have a well defined 'gimmick'. Anytime you break synergy in WH/H you're asking for trouble; that's the biggest problem most new players have, is learning what's synergistic and what isn't.

My viewpoint may be slanted because my Rhulics keep getting curb-stomped by pretty much everybody else, but I don't think it's fair to say that WM/H is 'balanced'. It's interactions are more strictly defined, sure. But it's plagued with bad lists like any game system will be. Local metas will always ensure that someone thinks their list is bad, because in context it is.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

All that being said, I feel that the best rule sets out there are from the small guys. Look at things like Shockforce/Warengine and Song of Blades & Heroes.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll have to check those out!

@madforminis.
The thing is most of the narrative is from senarios.
Most historical games pre 1980s were mainly set up for re creating historical battles.(AFAIK.)
As most historical battles only really ocurred when one side had a substantial advantage.One side is usually very likely to loose, but the senario lets the players swap and see who does best in a bad situation.(This is how most historical games were player when I was a kid.)


Not to mention most other games have lots of tactical depth.(Unlike 40k where strategic focus is used to appeal to newbs and collectors.)
40k game play is so shallow most people either focus on the end result , (W/L/D).OR add a ton of narrative to make the game interesting.(Leading to the WAAC FAAC divide.)
(PV are really only needed for pick up and play games.And for this type of game they need to be more accurate than GW plc allows in 40k WHFB.)

 IceRaptor wrote:
WM/H isn't any more or less balanced than most other games; people still talk about netlists in WM/H and there are most certainly suboptimal builds that make winning extremely difficult versus lists that have a well defined 'gimmick'. Anytime you break synergy in WH/H you're asking for trouble; that's the biggest problem most new players have, is learning what's synergistic and what isn't.

My viewpoint may be slanted because my Rhulics keep getting curb-stomped by pretty much everybody else, but I don't think it's fair to say that WM/H is 'balanced'. It's interactions are more strictly defined, sure. But it's plagued with bad lists like any game system will be. Local metas will always ensure that someone thinks their list is bad, because in context it is.

I have to disagree pretty vehemently here. The factions themselves are quite balanced. Rhulics are not a full faction, they're just a small subset of the Mercs faction and not intended, yet, to be standalone (PP has basically stated this). If your perception of balance is skewed by the inability of Rhulics to be a competitive standalone faction, then that's essentially because you're trying to play a known and intentional underdog competitively.

On top of this, although many known gimmicks/modules do exist, the lists that people win with at a high level of play do not tend to incorporate them. I don't think there's been a major tournament series in the US that double Stormwall has taken, for example (supposed to be totally broken). The top Skorne players are rarely running Molik Karn bullet, as another example.

In fact, the people who go and win tend to generally be the same handful of players, regardless of what faction they play. Watt is an obvious example, having won events with Skorne year before last, and Menoth last year. If the same people are winning with a variety of stuff, and it's not the FOTM BEST! stuff, that's the best indicator there is that player ability trumps netlists, and therefore stuff is actually pretty balanced.

That is not to say that every model is equal. There are 'bad' models in every faction that rarely see play. Sometimes they're stuff people don't give a fig about, like Khadoran Kossites, and sometimes they're stuff that you want very badly to play but it's just not that good, like Mountain King.

But in terms of total game balance? Yes, WM/H is better balanced than the vast majority of the field, and that includes 40k.

 sourclams wrote:

I have to disagree pretty vehemently here. The factions themselves are quite balanced. Rhulics are not a full faction, they're just a small subset of the Mercs faction and not intended, yet, to be standalone (PP has basically stated this). If your perception of balance is skewed by the inability of Rhulics to be a competitive standalone faction, then that's essentially because you're trying to play a known and intentional underdog competitively.

Not being a highly competitive player, I'll defer to your assertions about the tournament scene. I tried to bracket my statements with my own biases to make it clear where I was coming from. My personal experience is that people claim WM/H is extremely balanced, but there appear to be strong and weak match ups that can occur. Disregarding my personal example, would you state that you can take any combination of models from faction A and have no easier to harder time against models from faction B?

In other words, if I take a suboptimal build of say Cryx against an optimized Cygnar list, am I going to get my butt handed to me, or can it compensate for the disparity with skill? If it's just that optimized Cryx is sufficient to win against optimized Cygnar then I would argue it's the game that's balanced per se, but rather the metas that are in play during the tournaments. If you know that 1/3 of Cryx is 'tournament ready' against 2/3 of Cygnar then that's fine, but that's not what I'd say indicates the 'game' is balanced as much as a particular meta is balanced.

I know the Rhulics are the underdog, that doesn't matter to me (because I picked them for aesthetics). And WM/H has been designed to be more competitive and thus more 'equivalent' in certain matchups. But asserting that it's more balanced overall - eh, that doesn't feel right to me. You can get really asymmetric matchups in play. It's not Infinity (oofph) but it's possible.

So in short, I agree and I disagree!

Warmacine/Hordes is highly based on skill, but it also depends on the factions. Not because one faction is vastly superior to another (they aren't), but because some armies are a lot more difficult to play, for example Circle. I'm going to give Menoth a go and see if I don't lose quite so many games!

 IceRaptor wrote:

In other words, if I take a suboptimal build of say Cryx against an optimized Cygnar list, am I going to get my butt handed to me, or can it compensate for the disparity with skill?

I think this is where the confusion lies. Most people say that WM/H is balanced at the faction level. No faction wil get roflstomped everytime nor will one faction win every time.

In terms of optimized lists, sure you can win with one lacks synergy or basic list building principles, but why try to win a drag race with a lawn mower running on laundry detergent?

IceRaptor wrote:

 sourclams wrote:

I have to disagree pretty vehemently here. The factions themselves are quite balanced. Rhulics are not a full faction, they're just a small subset of the Mercs faction and not intended, yet, to be standalone (PP has basically stated this). If your perception of balance is skewed by the inability of Rhulics to be a competitive standalone faction, then that's essentially because you're trying to play a known and intentional underdog competitively.

In other words, if I take a suboptimal build of say Cryx against an optimized Cygnar list, am I going to get my butt handed to me, or can it compensate for the disparity with skill?

I feel that a skilled player with an subpar list will beat an unskilled player with what could be considered a better list (Like eHaley + Stormwall x2).

PsychoticStorm wrote:And hurting others in EVE is not what makes it fun, its what keeps it at the niche market it is and why I said it is held hostage at that point, in my opinion EVE had it because from the start dealing with such things is a difficult challenge fr the game designer and CCP decided to simply not bother, that's poor unclear undefined rules right there a fact that scammers took to maximum advantage there is no disadvantage being one, horrible game design.

Or maybe CCP has a different vision from yours? There player count is increasing while MMO's like World of Warcraft and ToR are losing players. While you may not like the idea of someone being able to kill you at any time, that does not make EVE a bad game. If the freedom to do as you please is the cost for it not having 10+ million subscribers, I'm down with that.

its the freedom to do as you wish without any retaliation as long as you do not wish to do something meaningful like playing the game as advertised.

A person who blackmails, scums, cheats (other players not the game) double crosses, ectr ectr. has virtually nothing to be afraid of, on the other hand a miner, a hauler, anything non pirate has everything to loose and no protection or chance of retaliation.

ToR was a mesh and the falling numbers it has show it, WoW is loosing an insignificant amount of subscriptions (for it) after years and years of going strong, nobody should really be surprised, in my opinion EVE shows the steady growth of players opening more alt accounts, as it was in the past.

While all the above are of topic I will try to steer it halfway on topic, from a game designers perspective, allowing somebody to do something without true or proper risk/ challenge is a bad game design and has no balance.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
its the freedom to do as you wish without any retaliation as long as you do not wish to do something meaningful like playing the game as advertised.

A person who blackmails, scums, cheats (other players not the game) double crosses, ectr ectr. has virtually nothing to be afraid of, on the other hand a miner, a hauler, anything non pirate has everything to loose and no protection or chance of retaliation.

ToR was a mesh and the falling numbers it has show it, WoW is loosing an insignificant amount of subscriptions (for it) after years and years of going strong, nobody should really be surprised, in my opinion EVE shows the steady growth of players opening more alt accounts, as it was in the past.

While all the above are of topic I will try to steer it halfway on topic, from a game designers perspective, allowing somebody to do something without true or proper risk/ challenge is a bad game design and has no balance.

I created a topic in the Video Game section about this (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/523407.page).

 IceRaptor wrote:
In other words, if I take a suboptimal build of say Cryx against an optimized Cygnar list, am I going to get my butt handed to me, or can it compensate for the disparity with skill?

Without knowing yours or your opponent's skill level and familliarity with the models, it's impossible to guess. If you used those Cryx models reasonably, and within the scope of the scenario, then I'd assume the Cryx player would trump a Cygnar eHaley double Stormwall gunmage list that just LOL-ed and pewpewd all da shotz.

T4 Rasheth and T4 Doomshaper have both won major tournament series, and both were considered terribad until they did so.

If it's just that optimized Cryx is sufficient to win against optimized Cygnar then I would argue it's the game that's balanced per se, but rather the metas that are in play during the tournaments. If you know that 1/3 of Cryx is 'tournament ready' against 2/3 of Cygnar then that's fine, but that's not what I'd say indicates the 'game' is balanced as much as a particular meta is balanced.

I don't honestly understand your fractional tournament-capable 'meta' breakdowns. Something that is bad in one context (Trenchers) could be good in another (Trenchers with Siege). To some degree matchups do matter, but given that almost every tournament allows multiple lists and the specialists/sideboard in the 2013 SR rules, having an 'optimized list' matters less than knowing your list and abilities, and your opponents' lists and abilities, and maximizing your effectiveness while making few mistakes or falling into their traps.

I know the Rhulics are the underdog, that doesn't matter to me (because I picked them for aesthetics). And WM/H has been designed to be more competitive and thus more 'equivalent' in certain matchups. But asserting that it's more balanced overall - eh, that doesn't feel right to me. You can get really asymmetric matchups in play. It's not Infinity (oofph) but it's possible.

Yes, this is quite true. Asymetric or 'skew' lists often run into semi-hard counters or are themselves semi-hard counters. If you're/they're building these sorts of lists, then that itself is part of your overall strategy. There is really no 'One List to Rule Them' in the game or even in the individual factions, though. And, even then, there's really no lack of bad/skew matchups in 40k or other game systems, and I'd have to say that a bad matchup in a Wm/H game still has a lot of potential to be overcome simply because removing a single model ends the game.

 Easy E wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
I don't see any conflict between any style of game and being a gentleman while playing it... that association was poor IMO.

Not to pick on you Navarro, but I honestly don;t see where people got this from my original post. Neither style is forcing someone to play a certain way. Please point out where the original post said tight =/= fluffy or whatever direvative people usually like to argue about. Of course, they can play however they want. I also went to great pains to point out that neither way was better, but a lot of people bring their own baggage to a topic like this so it was bound to happen.

What I did say is that one philosophy seems to FAVOR a certain style of play based on the other core philosophies of the game design. For example, Rick clearly want's some type of balance or he wouldn't make Point Values, and Warmachine clearly wants some form of collaberation or it wouldn;t be a two player game.

Sorry, i just had to get that bit off my chest. Again, I'm not tryign to argue one philosophy is better than another. I'm trying to point out that such game design philosophies seem to exist, and think through why a designer would choose one ove rthe other, even if the choice is mostly unconscious habit.

Fair enough. I was referrint to:

“Gentleman” vs. “Gamers”
Again, we see Rick’s rules emphasizing gentlemanly conduct, and what should or should not be done. The mechanisms for resolving disputes are straight forward and he writes as if no real disagreement should occur during a game that cannot be resolved quickly and moved past for the sake of the game moving forward.

Warmachine is written in way where the rules matter, a lot. Disagreements should not stop the game in, but the foreword talks a great deal about the “Remix” being put in place to make the rules flow as tightly as possible.

I read here a loaded underline of Rick= gentleman and PP= gamers... and the VS means they are the opposite....while I was pointing out that this connection was poor... Maybe a better choice would be friends VS players or something along those lines, but then again I probably read this the wrong way.

Gamers vs Gamers seems like the most correct way to me.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Gamers vs Gamers seems like the most correct way to me.

Yeah, my phraseology is poor.

The versus refers to how the designer approaches the rules compared to the other designers. Both are gamers and designed for gamers, but they have a different tone.

I honestly don't know how to phrase it, Guidelines vs. Rules maybe?

Rick's style is to give you guidelines to play by, but he encourages you to modify them in the writing to fit your needs.

Warmachine is designed to be rules that are not to be broken. That way players will always have the same basis for understanding how a game will flow/work. Granted, the players can still do what ever they want, but the designers did not intend for you to modify the rules on your own, hence the references to optimization and wording in the foreward and such.

Does that catch the flavor better?

 sourclams wrote:

I don't honestly understand your fractional tournament-capable 'meta' breakdowns. Something that is bad in one context (Trenchers) could be good in another (Trenchers with Siege). To some degree matchups do matter, but given that almost every tournament allows multiple lists and the specialists/sideboard in the 2013 SR rules, having an 'optimized list' matters less than knowing your list and abilities, and your opponents' lists and abilities, and maximizing your effectiveness while making few mistakes or falling into their traps.

There's a point of distinction that I'm driving out though, which is what if permutation X of a set of models is 'tournament-capable' but permutation Y is not 'tournament-capable', then saying 'faction A is balanced against faction B' is perhaps more correctly characterized as 'faction A can be optimized to be effective against faction B'. Our dispute likely comes down to how strictly we're assigning value to 'balance' - if I can't pickup and play list 123 against list 987 that's not necessarily 'balanced' by my definition of the term. Which was what I was saying about WM/H and every other wargame - they all have issues being 'balanced' in the sense that you don't get a major advantage against another opponent by virtue of the list you bring. You pretty much have to be playing a symmetric matchup to completely eliminate list-building as a skill component to success.

It appears that you're saying that 'balance' comes at the more restricted end of the spectrum, in that my 'optimized' list of faction A has a reasonable chance of success against your 'optimized' list of faction B, and that there's as much room to optimize A as there is B. That's fine, and I even agree that Warmachine appears to be the leader of all the systems out there at this point. Whether or not that's due to their rules, or how their very well developed tournament structure, I don't know. But I'm willing to write it up to the rules and not necessarily the culture.

 sourclams wrote:

Yes, this is quite true. Asymetric or 'skew' lists often run into semi-hard counters or are themselves semi-hard counters. If you're/they're building these sorts of lists, then that itself is part of your overall strategy. There is really no 'One List to Rule Them' in the game or even in the individual factions, though. And, even then, there's really no lack of bad/skew matchups in 40k or other game systems

Sure, but as I reference above, this is an aspect of 'balance'. Perception of a game's balance will vary depending on how far apart on the spectrum of hard to soft counter any given matchup is. If you bring a list that has hard-counters against the units that I love, then basically I'm going to think the game is 'broken' because there's little I can do to counter it (such is the nature of hard counters, right)? Sure, you can tell a person 'well just play X instead of Y' - which removes the hard counter aspect - and is completely valid. But that doesn't negate that the original matchup was, by definition, asymmetric. Which is another way of saying unbalanced.

 sourclams wrote:
I'd have to say that a bad matchup in a Wm/H game still has a lot of potential to be overcome simply because removing a single model ends the game.

Like objectives, assassination can mask a multitude of sins. Sure, 40K doesn't have caster kill scenarios - but if they did, would that make the game more 'balanced', or would the caster kill be 'hiding' the balance 'issues'?

WM/H is a great game, don't get me wrong. I just find that it has plenty of asymmetric matchups, like most open-ended wargames. A good portion of learning the game is learning the meta and how to apply it to your gaming group.