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I really wish they weren't so hellbent on selling us premium terrain kits. They look great admittedly, but its so strange seeing a new game sold solely on its terrain rather than its miniatures. I miss the days when GW gave us some templates and told us "foam board is cheap, spray it gray and you've got a city".

 Kennizard wrote:
I really wish they weren't so hellbent on selling us premium terrain kits. They look great admittedly, but its so strange seeing a new game sold solely on its terrain rather than its miniatures. I miss the days when GW gave us some templates and told us "foam board is cheap, spray it gray and you've got a city".

Right, now you’ve got YouTube to do that instead, so GW had to step up their game.

Then just get the book? No one is stopping you from using foam board if you want to.

frankelee wrote:
Sad how GW is so far removed from having fluff and narrative in their games that players no longer know how to handle seeing it. These games have come a long way since the days when they were basically an extension of D&D where you fought a battle because that'd be cool.

It would be neat if the team lists include a few special/big options (like Necromunda/Mordheim or Blood Bowl did), but at the same time people need to try accepting this game on its own terms. There already is a game where you can use all your 40K models, it's called 40K. This is going to be different than that, and people who just take it as it is and give it a chance that way are probably going to have a much better time playing.

Right? Instead of creating a gameplay experience that allows you to tell the story of the game, and brings all its various elements to life, they are once again tacking on extra things- in this case to make the game "narrative"- without designing it to be so from the ground-up or top-down in the first place. Mandating players to name their KTs does not make the game more narrative. Detailed rules, including but by no means limited to customizing your team members with interesting options, is how you make a narrative game.

Adding a bunch of "do what you want with wargear" rules that would only realistically work for marines and guard does not make the game more narrative, it makes it harder to balance.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Adding a bunch of "do what you want with wargear" rules that would only realistically work for marines and guard does not make the game more narrative, it makes it harder to balance.

This argument going back and forth reminds me of the same thing happening in necromunda.

Give it a year and a few expansions and they may well ditch the restrictions like they did for necromunda, but for the base box there's no reason for them not to have things relatively tightly constrained when you can just ignore those rules when you're playing with people who agree with you.

Right now it's a game intended to be played straight out of boxes, no it's not going to cater to every last thing a hobbyist can put together. Once they start adding advanced stuff, and we already know rogue trader is coming, maybe they'll do it officially. Till then, make a few notes on rules changes for whatever group you play in.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Adding a bunch of "do what you want with wargear" rules that would only realistically work for marines and guard does not make the game more narrative, it makes it harder to balance.

Harder for GW to balance. Balance is a difficult concept for them. And it isn't just that it's harder to create your KT, and give each model its own backstory, personality, fighting style, and equipment to reflect that. It's the gameplay. Malifaux, another skirmish game has a strong narrative element, but it is "in the doing", not just snippets of lore or statements from Wyrd and the dev team that it is so. Asymmetrical missions. The interact action. Abilities like Rotten Belles' Lure or Mr. Graves' Show Them The Door. Comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the likelihood of an outcome, similar to the old WS chart. Actual alternating activation. GW isn't giving us, the players, the tools for telling stories, despite their claims that this is a narrative game, or that we should Forge The Narrative TM.

GoatboyBeta wrote:
Then just get the book? No one is stopping you from using foam board if you want to.

Thats my plan, I dont need more scenery. Its just there's also the issue of unique rules cards packaged with their scenery bundles. I think its an odd marketing approach, it really just seems like an excuse to get 40k players to buy more scenery rather than an attempt to get a new market interested in a new game.

I mean if you were looking to check out a new game and you saw the product line was like a half dozen $80 boxes of walls and cranes but only a couple of miniatures would you jump in?

Shamelessly lifted from Edge of Empire’s FB feed.

I give you, the boxed set content.

Is colored plastic noticeably different in quality to gray plastic? I heard something about it making the plastic weaker or some such, not sure if that's true.

Dandelion wrote:
Is colored plastic noticeably different in quality to gray plastic? I heard something about it making the plastic weaker or some such, not sure if that's true.

It’s gibberish. Grey plastic is coloured grey exactly the same way the other colours are made. Virgin polystyrene is translucent white, which is why expanded styrene is such a brilliant white.

Blastaar wrote:

frankelee wrote:
Sad how GW is so far removed from having fluff and narrative in their games that players no longer know how to handle seeing it. These games have come a long way since the days when they were basically an extension of D&D where you fought a battle because that'd be cool.

It would be neat if the team lists include a few special/big options (like Necromunda/Mordheim or Blood Bowl did), but at the same time people need to try accepting this game on its own terms. There already is a game where you can use all your 40K models, it's called 40K. This is going to be different than that, and people who just take it as it is and give it a chance that way are probably going to have a much better time playing.

Right? Instead of creating a gameplay experience that allows you to tell the story of the game, and brings all its various elements to life, they are once again tacking on extra things- in this case to make the game "narrative"- without designing it to be so from the ground-up or top-down in the first place. Mandating players to name their KTs does not make the game more narrative. Detailed rules, including but by no means limited to customizing your team members with interesting options, is how you make a narrative game.

Hmmm, crunchy weapons rules are really just used by min-maxers to play competitively, they don't make the story more narrative. As a veteran roleplayer who is really into narrative games, I can definitively say the trend in narrative roleplaying games has been to move severely away crunchy rules or simulation. If they really want to make it more narrative, they should try to generalize equipment and weapons more than it looks like they are, it's much, much more narrative to imagine how your squad is equipped, and perhaps have a few vague bonuses for some of that equipment than it is to have everything gamified and strictly enforced with rules.

Also I noticed somebody earlier mentioned that pre-gen tables are exactly the opposite of what roleplayers want, I can speak for all long-time roleplayers when I say our libraries are filled with books containing pre-gen tables. The argument back and forth on here is all wrong, it's not whether or not RPGers like them---When roleplayers get a book it's like buying a toolbox, and then you take it home and you're completely in charge and on your own. Many 40K players get a rulebook and feel as if they're being handed Hammurabi's Code of Miniature Gaming, which tells you when, where, and how you will use your miniatures in order to play toy soldiers, and how many eyes you are to lose for each infraction.

If anybody wants to actually get into narrative gaming you need to let go of crunchy rules, trying to win, "squad building", and being worried about what the book says you can and can't do. Otherwise, you're not really into narrative gaming, you're into winner-take-all, competitive story-mode.

You can roleplay in 4th Ed D&D too. I find 3/3.5 Ed much more condusive to roleplay and narrative. 4th Ed felt a lot more crunchy, though.

Better balance is a good thing. But there are some tradeoffs between balance and RP/narative options.

Some cool info on the upcoming Rogue Trader Kill Team:
http://natfka.blogspot.com/2018/07/kill-team-rogue-trader-reveal.html

 Kennizard wrote:
I really wish they weren't so hellbent on selling us premium terrain kits. They look great admittedly, but its so strange seeing a new game sold solely on its terrain rather than its miniatures. I miss the days when GW gave us some templates and told us "foam board is cheap, spray it gray and you've got a city".

They also told us that gluing a lascannon on a deodorant stick was a grav-tank around the same time-period.

I'm quite happy with the prospect of the terrain bundles.

Dandelion wrote:
Is colored plastic noticeably different in quality to gray plastic? I heard something about it making the plastic weaker or some such, not sure if that's true.

It was the case in older coloured plastic sets. Space Hulk plastic is noticeably harder and more brittle. Newer coloured plastic kits seem to have same quality as the grey plastic though.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Shamelessly lifted from Edge of Empire’s FB feed.

I give you, the boxed set content.

This looks like... An absolutely astounding amount of terrain.

So I really don't like the folded battlefield 'mat' in there (because it's a folded piece of creased whatever), thoughts on 22x30 mats? I have a suspicion somebody's going to make some, but so far have just found 30x30 ones. I'd be happy to plop for a little neoprene KT mat when able, could do vinyl as needed (have many 36x36 for MFX).

*makes a note to drop FLG a line*

Barring a mat in the proper size, is the answer just masking tap on a table / larger mat? 22x30 is small enough I wonder about cutting a frame to those specs, then could just use any of my larger mats ...

EDIT
- Salvage

 Kennizard wrote:
I mean if you were looking to check out a new game and you saw the product line was like a half dozen $80 boxes of walls and cranes but only a couple of miniatures would you jump in?

Absolutely. Skirmish games need terrain. They need cover, blocking terrain, multiple levels, catwalks, and all sorts of stuff like that. I think bundling terrain with the miniatures is the smartest thing you can do - I wouldn't have started playing Infinity without the paper terrain in the two player box sets.

I really wish they'd sell individual Realm of Battle tiles.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
So I really don't like the folded battlefield 'mat' in there (because it's a folded piece of creased whatever), thoughts on 22x30 mats? I have a suspicion somebody's going to make some, but so far have just found 30x30 ones. I'd be happy to plop for a little neoprene KT mat when able, could do vinyl as needed (have many 36x36 for MFX).

*makes a note to drop FLG a line*

Barring a mat in the proper size, is the answer just masking tap on a table / larger mat? 22x30 is small enough I wonder about cutting a frame to those specs, then could just use any of my larger mats ...

EDIT

Spoiler:

Well now:

- Salvage

It's not a mat.



Both the boxed game and the expansion set have the same material.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
So I really don't like the folded battlefield 'mat' in there (because it's a folded piece of creased whatever), thoughts on 22x30 mats? I have a suspicion somebody's going to make some, but so far have just found 30x30 ones. I'd be happy to plop for a little neoprene KT mat when able, could do vinyl as needed (have many 36x36 for MFX).

*makes a note to drop FLG a line*

Barring a mat in the proper size, is the answer just masking tap on a table / larger mat? 22x30 is small enough I wonder about cutting a frame to those specs, then could just use any of my larger mats ...

EDIT

Spoiler:

Well now:

- Salvage

I just don’t get why some people are getting so hung up on the size of the playing area. It comes with a 22x30 inch card surface, but that doesn’t mean it has to be played on a board of exactly those dimensions. They’ve already said it can be played on a single realm of battle tile (24x24 inch).

The mat is the size it is (22" x 30" because that's about twice the size of the box (11.5" x 17").

And yes, it really doesn't matter. Use a 2' x'2' mat, or whatever you have that's close enough.

Ooh. Generated backgrounds... now where did I put the Macho Women with Guns RPG generator tables...

Ah yes. Here it is. Page 14 of the pdf...

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://rpg.rem.uz/BTRC/Macho%2520Women%2520With%2520Guns/Macho%2520Women%2520With%2520Guns%2520-%2520Batwinged%2520Bimbos%2520from%2520Hell.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwizy77Py6TcAhWOZ1AKHbslAOwQFjAKegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw1kNbkEStviMmvh9yEZNH77

Grade School Bassalopes on Drugs.

Feral Englishmen with diplomatic immunity.

Mutant Engineers with pointy things, possibly from Sirius

I love those tables...

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Is anyone really going to tell someone they have to roll up their army fluff before the game?

Yeah it's okay, it's not like the old warlord traits, or random psychic powers!

 Flinty wrote:
Ooh. Generated backgrounds... now where did I put the Macho Women with Guns RPG generator tables...

Speaking of character generation tables, we do not talk of the tables from F.A.T.A.L. though. WE DO NOT!

frankelee wrote:

Blastaar wrote:

frankelee wrote:
Sad how GW is so far removed from having fluff and narrative in their games that players no longer know how to handle seeing it. These games have come a long way since the days when they were basically an extension of D&D where you fought a battle because that'd be cool.

It would be neat if the team lists include a few special/big options (like Necromunda/Mordheim or Blood Bowl did), but at the same time people need to try accepting this game on its own terms. There already is a game where you can use all your 40K models, it's called 40K. This is going to be different than that, and people who just take it as it is and give it a chance that way are probably going to have a much better time playing.

Right? Instead of creating a gameplay experience that allows you to tell the story of the game, and brings all its various elements to life, they are once again tacking on extra things- in this case to make the game "narrative"- without designing it to be so from the ground-up or top-down in the first place. Mandating players to name their KTs does not make the game more narrative. Detailed rules, including but by no means limited to customizing your team members with interesting options, is how you make a narrative game.

Hmmm, crunchy weapons rules are really just used by min-maxers to play competitively, they don't make the story more narrative. As a veteran roleplayer who is really into narrative games, I can definitively say the trend in narrative roleplaying games has been to move severely away crunchy rules or simulation. If they really want to make it more narrative, they should try to generalize equipment and weapons more than it looks like they are, it's much, much more narrative to imagine how your squad is equipped, and perhaps have a few vague bonuses for some of that equipment than it is to have everything gamified and strictly enforced with rules.

There are a lot of "trends" right now towards simplicity, and not all of us welcome them. Crunchy rules absolutely do make the story more narrative because having rules is the whole point of a roleplaying game, and so the broader and more detailed the rules are the broader and more detailed your narrative can be. If you have fun with the whole "just like imagine everything braah" style, have at it, but that's improv acting not playing an RPG.

Also I noticed somebody earlier mentioned that pre-gen tables are exactly the opposite of what roleplayers want, I can speak for all long-time roleplayers when I say our libraries are filled with books containing pre-gen tables. The argument back and forth on here is all wrong, it's not whether or not RPGers like them---When roleplayers get a book it's like buying a toolbox, and then you take it home and you're completely in charge and on your own. Many 40K players get a rulebook and feel as if they're being handed Hammurabi's Code of Miniature Gaming, which tells you when, where, and how you will use your miniatures in order to play toy soldiers, and how many eyes you are to lose for each infraction.

We might own books with pregen tables in them, but a fair number of us never use them.

If anybody wants to actually get into narrative gaming you need to let go of crunchy rules, trying to win, "squad building", and being worried about what the book says you can and can't do. Otherwise, you're not really into narrative gaming, you're into winner-take-all, competitive story-mode.

And this kind of sentiment just biles ma pish. First, the rank hypocrisy of it - when it's convenient for the "rules are for rubes" brigade, everything is about choice, and being in control of your own experience, and what makes sense to you as a player maaaaan, but as soon as anyone dares to have a conception of narrative gameplay that doesn't focus exclusively on the narrative at the absolute expense of the gameplay, well they're just doing it wrong. Second, it's complete nonsense - again, narrative gaming. Games have rules, that's the whole point, they codify an experience within a framework that all the participants can learn and follow, and if you throw away crunchy rules, squad building, and what the book says you can and can't do then you're not narrative gaming at all, you're into playing make-believe. Which isn't to say that's somehow bad or wrong, unlike your lot I try not to judge people for how they choose to have fun, nor is it to say that the rules have to be treated as "Hammurabi's Code of Miniature Gaming", but it's not the One True Way of Narrative Gaming and the constant snobbery on display from folk who hold your view towards anyone who disagrees has become tiresome(it's also prevalent among the close-to-GW bigwigs in the INQ28 community, which is a double irony considering their "just pick what you like and roll a 4+ sometimes to see if an action succeeds, anything else is basically dirty WAAC trash" is the complete antithesis of the deep, crunchy ruleset from which the whole INQ28 community first came).

 Crimson wrote:
I really wish they'd sell individual Realm of Battle tiles.

For the last couple of years, the UK stores have started selling individual tiles for a limited time from the day GW start announcing the Armies on Parade competition.

I have no idea of that policy extends to other countries.

Have we got a price on the Killteam carry case yet?

 Rolsheen wrote:
Have we got a price on the Killteam carry case yet?

£20 RRP from way back in the thread. Not sure what that translates to elsewhere with GW's pricing brackets.