Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Yes yes their sandals all come untied at the same time very realistic, suppose when it happens to cavalry they all wanted to eat grass at the same time ?

IMO you should be able to count on how far your troops are going to be able to move and get to grips with the enemy, there are enough random elements to the game already

cheers

Papasmurf

We shouldn't take this down the "realism" route. Under battlefield conditions, it is extremely difficult to get everyone moving to the right place at the right time.

The U.S. Military has significant challenges with this, and we're talking about a force outfitted with all manner of radio, satellite, and other communications equipment.

The charge game has just changed- it's more a matter of risk management, rather than distance estimation. I've really enjoyed through the thought processes on whether risking a charge is worth it.

Charging was always risk management only now instead of basing your risk assessment on a known you need to contend with more randomness - randomness that I find pointless, frustrating and unnecessary

cheers

Papasmurf

Lollers. Carpentry might be a skill. It's a skill that has fudge-all to do with playing a game of goblins and beer.

As soon as you got dice, it's a chance game. Hell, as soon as you got cards. No one is going to say a poker player is a chess player. If a blind donkey gets dealt four aces every hand, he's going to win. If a warhammer player gets all the dice in his/her favor, it doesn't matter if there's guessing, no guessing, hunching, asking your cousin, or telepathy, they're going to win. That is the case no matter what edition you played in, because dice were there.

Dice games have an inherent casualness about them. Even backgammon is preferrably played with a cocktail in hand (and white fedora for some reason). Yes, there are competitive Monopoly games. And I'm sure there's tons of game theory about it. But let's be serious on how serious it is for the vast majority of its participants--and by extension, warhammer's.

Not sure what % of their population they felt were hard-core tourney players, but I'm guessing not a whole lot.

Things I like about 8th:
+ Goblin / Skink characters and the like have an actual reason outside themed lists (They're not competing their 70-80pts for a single slot with a 300pt Lord, for example).
+ Improved common Magic Item list (I swear I only ever saw "Dispel Scroll", "War Banner", and "Power Stone" used in my store of the common list)
+ Terrain doesn't bring everything to an end now
+ Benefits for fielding large units besides "Outnumber and longer three-rank bonus".

Things I dislike:
+ Magic has become very powerful. Some people are going "Well how else are we going to wipe out 30-40 models in a single turn phase?" My response? You shouldn't, at least not without a major point investment or a large point level.
+ Terrain, overall, does too little. Are you cavalry of some sort? Skirmishers in woods? No? Ignore it, practically, unless it's Mysterious. Is it Mysterious? Enjoy your troops being bumbling morons who couldn't pick out a River of Blood from a bubbling brook until it's biting them in their ass.
+ Improvement to common Magic Item list, instead of being a supplement, replaces most of the army-specific stuff.
+ Skirmisher lists, as a product of the Rulebook and recent army books, are pretty much non-existent either army list-wise and practicality-wise. I shall grieve for the loss of Clan Eshin. :(

Oh, yeah. Remember gunlines? Like 6 cannons. With random movement, everyone has more options. You have a chance to charge.

A 7.0 Dwarf army knew it wasn't going to be getting into melee against a range force. So they were all gunlines. Or ded dorfs.

Duke- except for anvil lists that threw their forces across the field, forget it I done arguing with you IT is also repetitive, useless and unproductive. You like 8th, I don't particularly

cheers

Papasmurf

I do agree with the random charges, at least in it's current incarination. Having the reliable factor of a determined charge range is fine. Or at least gains/loses 3D, having to completely gamble to 2-12 inches charge range makes it completely random, and does not make the game any more stratergy focused. Rather it introduces a random factor that may not be nessiary, and may cause outright losses when that army obsolutely fails to meet combat due to luck.

I am fine with everything else, the magic may be a bit extreme, but that can be factored, and protected against to an extent

Wysten wrote:I do agree with the random charges, at least in it's current incarination. Having the reliable factor of a determined charge range is fine. Or at least gains/loses 3D, having to completely gamble to 2-12 inches charge range makes it completely random, and does not make the game any more stratergy focused. Rather it introduces a random factor that may not be nessiary, and may cause outright losses when that army obsolutely fails to meet combat due to luck.

I am fine with everything else, the magic may be a bit extreme, but that can be factored, and protected against to an extent

It's not 2-12, it's 2-12 + M. And as the 2-12 is on 2d6, you have a decent sliding scale on what to expect. Can a bad roll ruin your plans? Sure it can. But the same is true of just about every aspect of the game from a failed LD check stopping a march, to a wizard blowing himself up trying to cast a simple spell to a big bad combat monster whiffing completely, losing combat to some inane unit, breaking and then getting run down and slaughtered.

LIES! Papa Smurf assured me this game was all skill!

But for the sake of argument, I'd be curious to see tournament winners by race for the different editions. I bet you see a lot more variety in 8th. Which would make the primary "skill" in 7th, choosing the right race.

DukeRustfield wrote:LIES! Papa Smurf assured me this game was all skill!

But for the sake of argument, I'd be curious to see tournament winners by race for the different editions. I bet you see a lot more variety in 8th. Which would make the primary "skill" in 7th, choosing the right race.

Yeah skill in 7th edition was playing daemons...

The spread at the last GT I went to was VERY balanced... Let me find it...

1 Lizardmen
2 Lizardmen
3 Dark Elves
4 Skaven
5 Dark Elves
6 Warriors of Chaos
7 Skaven
8 Daemons of Chaos
10 Dwarfs
11 Skaven
12 Orcs and Goblins
13 Lizardmen
14 Dark Elves
15 Warriors of Chaos
16 Lizardmen
17 Dwarfs
18 Ogre Kingdoms
19 Empire
20 Warriors of Chaos

Its a pretty decent spread, much more so then 7th edition tbh.

And also as far as charges are concerned. In 7th edition you could EASILY position to outcharge your opponent, especially of your movement was higher then theirs. I honestly dont think that is skill...

8th edition you are required to set up charges differently, to where if you do fluff one you can recover... I am constantly double and triple charging units to make sure at least one gets in. I plan for one to fail, but have two hit. Honestly sometimes all my charges making it actually mess me up lol.

No Wood Elves :(

malfred wrote:No Wood Elves :(

I just posted the top 20 out of... 87.

Best wood elf player came in 28th.

Er, actually, it is. I don't see why people think "Army has innate advantage over another in certain field, said advantage is used" is considered "unbalanced". Do people think it's unbalanced that Elves could charge four more inches on foot than Dwarf infantry?

There's a difference between "Haha I get a 10"+D6" charge range you have a static 6" charge I'll park 11" away" and "Having reliable, notable differences in charge range has no use in a skill-based game".

Minsc - go for the eyes BOO, the eyes!!!!!

sorry had to get that out

yes duke nothing but skill!
Matters less to me now that I have also decided to vote with my wallet and play something NOT GW

Cheers

Papasmurf

ShivanAngel wrote:8th edition is way more competitive and fun then 7th edition ever was...

90% of the people who complain about 8th edition got hit by one dwellers or something, lost the game, and ran to the forums crying overpowered.

The general consensus I get NOT ON FORUMS is that 8th edition is one of the best editions warhammer has had in a long while, and I agree with that (been playing since 5th).

The vocal group the bitches and moans is normally a minority!

Agreed with this. Most people upset over 8th edition are tournament gamers from 7th who are pissed their dragon lords and cav-bus armies or whatever don't curb-stomp everything in sight anymore.

From what I've seen in South Carolina and Texas, 8th edition has very much re-ignited Fantasy, drawing both new people with the sexy models and old timers from past editions (mostly 5th it seems).

Here in Baltimore, 8th Edition revived things too... but then died out three months later.

The problem with 8th Edition, first and foremost, was not the rules or competitiveness or what-have-you. It was that GW spent almost a year before they actually put out a new book for it. Could you imagine GW putting out a new 40K Edition in January... then not putting out anything for it until September?

Warhammer is a really weird business model.

-It's a turn-based table top game.
-With a multi-hundred to thousand(s) of dollar base.
-Usually requiring some painting/hobbying.
-A large-ish space to play.

What is this, 1985? I think one thing that hurts them is their unchanging model. Magic the Gathering, which is a fracking card game, got savvy and you can play online. We're in a computer world now. They release some games based on the IP, but they aren't the game. Blood Bowl is successful as a computer game. If they had a subscription-based online game, where you even had to pay a few bucks for "models" and such, I think they'd vastly increase their userbase. It would provide stable money. It would spawn crossover with people migrating to the physical models--I know some friends who do both the online and board version of BB.

I could easily see myself spending $100+ a year on an online WHFB. They're paranoid that is going to cut into their model sales and such, but there's just a huge swath of the population they are totally missing.

People are lazy, and they're especially lazy for their entertainment. If televisions were hand-cranked only, we'd watch it .00001% of the time we do now. It's an incredibly expensive hobby with a lot of time input, and no guarantee you'll actually find anyone within 32489 miles willing to play. I think the online gaming wave has changed the landscape for our dorky entertainment needs.

It's not like we're writing these forum posts as postcards and mass sending them to each other.

an online game would be VERY expensive to get up and running.

It wouldn't be practical for people to "buy" models for it. a Subscription might work, but again it could drive as many customers away as draw them in.


GW is a Miniature company, not an electronic company. GQ didn't make any of the DoW or Warhammer Online games, they licensed the IP out for large fees to Game companies that make games like that.

DukeRustfield wrote:Warhammer is a really weird business model.

Doesn't that apply to all miniature companies?

Only Wargame I really know that had an online version of itself was Field of Glory. I dont think anyone plays it. Imo tabletop games and online dont mix too well. You'll easily get 2 crowds. The online fanatics that'll buy any online material no matter how mundane and then theres the pirates that'll just pirate all the materials. Magic Online taught me that

Methinks though this is getting off topic

Grey Templar wrote:more direct control???


sure, you knew how far you could charge, but you couldn't premeasure and its pretty easy to think you have range and then be an inch out of it.

Yes, knowing the exact distance you would move forward on a charge would be having more direct control than when it's determined by a dice roll. You can't argue with this.

I much prefer the random charges.

So do I. If you'd read the entirety of my post you'd have realised I was explaining why some people preferred the old game, and that ultimately I do not think those reasons were good enough.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PapaSmurf wrote:Yes yes their sandals all come untied at the same time very realistic, suppose when it happens to cavalry they all wanted to eat grass at the same time ?

IMO you should be able to count on how far your troops are going to be able to move and get to grips with the enemy, there are enough random elements to the game already

cheers

Papasmurf

The randomness represents the vagaries of command and control, and also the problems a general might have with understanding exactly how far his units have advanced across the battlefield. You and I can walk around the battlefield, eyeball distances and now even directly measure them, but on the field the general is advancing within his own unit, with cannon balls bouncing past him and magic spells going off all over the place, so he has a lot of difficulty in knowing exactly when the cavalry on his right flank should charge.

So we have random charges. Personally, I think they're a little too random, I'd have prefered double movement + D6, so a mvmt 4 unit was charging from 9 to 14" on average, not 6 to 16", but what we have is preferable to the old system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

streamdragon wrote:It's not 2-12, it's 2-12 + M. And as the 2-12 is on 2d6, you have a decent sliding scale on what to expect.

While it is on a bell curve, the scare of results from highest to lowest produces greater randomness overall. The standard deviation for 2D6 is 2.4, while for a single D6 it's 1.8.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DukeRustfield wrote:Warhammer is a really weird business model.

-It's a turn-based table top game.
-With a multi-hundred to thousand(s) of dollar base.
-Usually requiring some painting/hobbying.
-A large-ish space to play.

Except that WHFB is a miniatures game first and foremost. As a strategy game, it's way overpriced and frankly not a particularly skillful game. If people were interested in playing strategy games I'd recommend the dozens of boardgames, or plenty of computer games, that'll cost about a tenth as much and provide a far more rewarding game.

But if people are interested in painting miniatures and then putting them all on a battlefield to fight against their mate's army, well then Warhammer is wonderful.

It is a weird business model, though, you got that part right. But it's weird because a massive portion of sales is to customers who don't seem to get they're buying into a miniatures hobby, who spend a fortune, play some games with half painted (and sometimes half-assembled models) before quitting in disgust. It'd be like if World of Warcraft got half its subs from people who were really into playing around with the clothes and colour choices of their characters, and thought all this levelling up and raiding was just a means to an end...

sorry for my speed reading

Grey Templar wrote:sorry for my speed reading

Not a problem, sorry if I sounded a little snippy

WHFB used to be the game I just played for fun, no tournies or balls out hardcore. I have very little hobby time to play and have totally lost interest with this edition.

Why spend hundreds of dollars and countless hours painting a unit when one bad/good roll and they all disappear?

Magic is WAY too critical and powerful. I didn't like lots of magic in 7th. I HATE it in 8th.

I can't even gather enough interest to read the entire rulebook.

::sigh:: anybody want to buy a pile of old Savage Orcs?

sebster wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:more direct control???


sure, you knew how far you could charge, but you couldn't premeasure and its pretty easy to think you have range and then be an inch out of it.

Yes, knowing the exact distance you would move forward on a charge would be having more direct control than when it's determined by a dice roll. You can't argue with this.

I don't know about direct control, but I find it a much better way to play the game. If evens out the movement rates of the various units, eliminates cheating and arguments over mis-measurements (as well as the frustration of setting everything up perfectly and finding out you misjudged distance by a quarter inch), and encourages you to have a plan that can stand up to the vagaries of fate.

Omegus wrote:I don't know about direct control,

You have to able to know. This is a thing which everybody has to be able to know. When your movement is a set amount, you have more direct control over your unit than when your movement is based on a dice roll.

This isn't an argument for or against (plenty of games, from kid's games like monopoly to respected strategy games like backgammon are built around random movement), it's just a statement of definition. Whether you prefer the new system or the old, you need to be able to agree on the basic terms used to describe each.

but I find it a much better way to play the game. If evens out the movement rates of the various units, eliminates cheating and arguments over mis-measurements (as well as the frustration of setting everything up perfectly and finding out you misjudged distance by a quarter inch), and encourages you to have a plan that can stand up to the vagaries of fate.

Which is all fine. Personally I like the new system just because the old system always got screwy when it came to measuring one thing, such as my opponent measuring whether his crossbows were within half range, and then me having to ignore that information when it came time for my knights to charge his troops (it measured 17", so I know I'm out of charge range... but I should know that so...)

Exactly what was allowable knowledge and what was dubiously gained knowledge (did he really declare to fire with his crossbows because he thought they might be range, or was he just trying to get a good range guess for his nearby mortar?) was far too murky, and led to many awkward moments. The move to pre-measuring has been for the best, and with that pre-measuring we've needed random charge ranges (or else we'd see the silliness of slightly faster troops always deploying just out of counter charge range to set up their own charges). I do feel, though, that right now the charge ranges are very random, and think a move to double movement + D6 would produce less very silly results.

Insert "the importance of" between "about" and "direct". Better?

I disagree on D6 being less random, even given the smaller deviation. 2d6 gives a nice bell curve, so you have more reliable expected results. With the D6, much like running in 40K, it's way too easy to just roll a 1 and be screwed.

Omegus wrote:Insert "the importance of" between "about" and "direct". Better?

I think it pretty clearly matters to some people. Hence them openly declaring. You can say it doesn't matter to you, and I'd chip in to say it doesn't matter to me either, but saying that it doesn't matter to other people is pretty out there.

You don't get to decide what other people do an don't like.

I disagree on D6 being less random, even given the smaller deviation.

What? How can you do that?

That makes exactly as much sense as saying 'I disagree on me being shorter, even though you're taller than I am'.

2d6 gives a nice bell curve, so you have more reliable expected results. With the D6, much like running in 40K, it's way too easy to just roll a 1 and be screwed.

It's just as likely to roll a 2, 3 or 4 on 2D6 as it is to roll a 1 on a D6, rolling the former would make give you a result at least 3 below the average, whereas rolling the 1 on the D6 puts you only 2.5 below the average.

Maybe my perception is colored by Warmachine. That game would be awful if it used single D6s to determine the result of actions.

2d6 would be a horrible idea for fantesy, considering the amounts of dice we roll currently.


D6 base with 2D6 for certain tests is the best method currently.


2d6 base is good for a small scale game like warmachine, but when you can have upwards of a hundred(or even several hundred) models that you need to roll for the single D6 is the only practical way to go.