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Good points; anyhow, competition is a good thing if something is to keep GW from being more a monopoly than it really is!

The codex book costs, alone are a major turn-down for me.

The only problem is getting new players because most are indoctrinated to GW. This reminds me of taking a person from a religious belief to atheism.

scarletsquig wrote:Chess-clock gameplay can be used, and games play extremely quickly (about a third of the time it takes to play a similar-sized game of warhammer), allowing tournaments to work really well.

Chess-clock can be used in WHFB too.

Matches aren't actually notable faster than in WHFB. 2000 points WHFB game takes ~2,5 hours and similar-sized KoW game takes about the same time. There's not any reason why KoW would be three times faster to play than WHFB. And anyways, why you think you can compare "same-sized" armys of two different game systems? Army of X points can be much smaller in game system Z than in game system Y.

scarletsquig wrote:Also, KoW has well-written, non-ambigious rule and the army lists are extremely w against each other. There are no "cheese builds" or obvious "you use use this arm you must take these units" flaws with the game.

You are right in that, it's damn cool when a game doesn't need 1000 page faq to work.

I've played only 1st edition so far, and in that time army lists were not very well balanced. I know there has been a lot of changes since that, but anyway I'm unsure about the balance. I will know better when I've played few matches in 3rd edition against all armies, ofc. But anyways, abyssal dwarves seem little OP to me with their angkor heavy mortar & decimator spam. At least that's quite obvious build for them.

scarletsquig wrote:No random charge distances either, so you can actually plan your movement properly.

But you can measure every distance. With non-random charges that's just stupid, and possibly the most stupid rule in KoW.

Edit: And what I ment when I said that KoW is too simple is that there's less armies and units than in WHFB, so there's less things to take care of. Because of that composing a good list and tactics doesn't require as much skill a in WHFB.

By same-sized, I mean "model count" not "points". And I'm speaking from experience on that. Once you know and are familiar with the KoW rules, games are very quick.

3rd edition rules and lists have been through a lot of playtesting, if there's anything broken left in the game I'd be very surprised. As always,Mantic is great about keeping things updated and tweaking points values for balance.

Pre-measuring is another love/hate thing that varies from person to person. I personally like pre-measuring as I don't consider the art of range-guessing to have valid tactical merit*, it's just a case of "whose eyesight is good enough to tell whether that unit is 24" away or 24 1/4?". That said, I'd be fine with either a pre-measured or a non-pre-measured gaming system, I don't see it as much of a big factor. I'd be interesting on hearing a better reason against pre-measuring than "it's stupid".

*The exception is for artillery-based games, such as WW1 and WW2 naval games where it has to form the core of the gameplay for historical accuracy.

Lord Gragorak wrote:Matches aren't actually notable faster than in WHFB. 2000 points WHFB game takes ~2,5 hours and similar-sized KoW game takes about the same time. There's not any reason why KoW would be three times faster to play than WHFB. And anyways, why you think you can compare "same-sized" armys of two different game systems? Army of X points can be much smaller in game system Z than in game system Y.

You...haven't played much of KoW, have you?

An identically sized KoW and WHFB battle (In terms of regiment size since the points sizes aren't exactly equivalent), given similar terrain and player skill/familiarity with the system, will take 1/2-1/3 the time in KoW compared to WHFB. When first learning the game, a match might take maybe 25% longer. But I've been able to teach this to people inside of 10 minutes, and play a 500 pt KoW game (3 elf regiments and 2 elf bolt throwers vs 6 undead regiments) in under half an hour, complete with all the bumps and slow starts associated with playing a new system. A similar game of WHFB would take at least an hour and a half, with 30-45 minutes dedicated to teaching the new person the rules before rolling a single die.

I've played only 1st edition so far, and in that time army lists were not very well balanced. I know there has been a lot of changes since that, but anyway I'm unsure about the balance. I will know better when I've played few matches in 3rd edition against all armies, ofc. But anyways, abyssal dwarves seem little OP to me with their angkor heavy mortar & decimator spam. At least that's quite obvious build for them.

They've improved this somewhat, and afaik Abyssal Dwarves are now a close-range shooty/melee army, with the occasional farther-ranged support. They seem to have far less of an image problem than the vanilla Dwarves do in regards to gunlines though.

But you can measure every distance. With non-random charges that's just stupid, and possibly the most stupid rule in KoW.

The only stupid part I could see with this would be someone fanagling to get the 1/8"-outside-of-charge-range, and in a tournament setting I don't think this would be such an issue due to the chess clock penalizing excessively fine maneuvering. Other than that, the rule adds reliability to the game (No more wasting XYZ points on a unit because they failed half their charges during the game) and encourages aggressive tactics (Charging an enemy at the edge of your charge range means they might be caught outside your support and subsequently flank-charged, as opposed to WHFB where everyone huddles until they're <6" away before charging, making the game both slower and discouraging offensive maneuvers)

Edit:

Because of that composing a good list and tactics doesn't require as much skill a in WHFB.

I highly disagree with this. WHFB does have a level of tactics, but so many rules or units are a never-take or always-take that the level of tactics is highly diluted.

For example, someone passingly familiar with WHFB might wish to make an army with lots of cavalry, enjoying the models and having seen movies like LOTR displaying very effective cavalry charges. However, this would make for an extremely poor army due to the prevalence of Steadfast and the relative ineffectiveness of cavalry in 8th edition. Knowing not to take cavalry is not "skill," it's simply poor game design.

On the other hand, I can (and have) take any army list from KoW and randomly determine every unit, unit size, and unit upgrades and both get a useable and unique army out of the result. The reason for this is every unit is balanced both in points cost and effectiveness, so I don't have to worry that "X unit is completely not worth the points" (Zombies in previous edition Vampires army, many choices from the Wood Elves book, Ungors) or "Y unit is only effective in this specific combination of abilities/spells/units, and is otherwise useless." I personally enjoy being able to literally pick whatever I want from an army list and be secure in the knowledge that I can be as effective as the most hardcore powergaming cheese-lister in KoW, and that the battle result will ultimately boil down to tactics and the luck of the dice as oppossed to who built the better army list.

A few days ago a few customers were interested in playing 40K and they opened their eyes (O_O) when they hear the price of the minis.

I'd play if my rulebook would end up in my mail. God, I don't know if it's the excitement, but it seems to me like if it has been forever the kickstarter ended. I just can't wait anymore for the book to be in my hands. I know other people received it, but why not me ???
:_(


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Capt. Camping wrote:A few days ago a few customers were interested in playing 40K and they opened their eyes (O_O) when they hear the price of the minis.

GW is just ridiculous.
Tell their prices to anyone who isn't in the wargaming hobby game.
They will never want to begin it.

I'm sure the anti-Warhammer Fantasy is a good and quick playing game with no rules debates. Let's see what happenes when tournaments become a factor...

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:I'm sure the anti-Warhammer Fantasy is a good and quick playing game with no rules debates. Let's see what happenes when tournaments become a factor...

I've heard wonderful things about all their numerous tournaments so far. The Mantic employees (including Alessio, the main designer/rule writer) all play, and they tend to try and form the most cheesed-out lists they can conjure to identify issues for balancing later. Unfortunately, not being in the UK really stunts my ability to personally go to the tournies, but so far I've yet to hear a complaint about them.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:I'm sure the anti-Warhammer Fantasy is a good and quick playing game with no rules debates. Let's see what happenes when tournaments become a factor...

In every tournament so far, the tournament organizers have been able to play a few games as well, due to there being almost zero rules debates.

The £1000 cash prize for the tournaments next year will be a good acid test to see how well that holds up when things get *really* competitive.

I am trying and I will keep trying to get new players for KOW.

Much like with, well, every system out there, once a tournament circuit is established, the once crystal clear rules suddenly become a network of swiss cheese. See Magic the Gathering, Dungeons&Dragons minis for reference...

scarletsquig wrote:
If it was all about warhammer clones, then they wouldn't be releasing so many unique units that have no equivalent unit in warhammer, and certainly wouldn't be releasing their human army as a solar cult with angels, nuns and sabertooth cavalry.. they'd have gone with generic landsknetch if they didn't think that their rules were of any interest to a lot of people. They'd have also ditched their "true scale" sculpts to more closely match the style of GW figures if all they wanted to do was peddle knock-offs to skint GW players.

Gotta disagree with you on that part. It's still largely about Warhammer clones and providing alternate Warhammer models. Having a game/ruleset of their own is great, and gives them a chance to claim that they're doing their own thing, but honestly we all know who the 900lb gorilla is, and they'd be silly to ignore that. I mean, Avatars of War has a ruleset of it's own, and even Maelstrom (Bane Legions) has rules coming out, but we all know where the majority of their models are going to be played.

Their human army is their best chance to "break away" from the GW tropes, while their other stuff to date is pretty clearly designed to fit into the GW niche. Just look at the orcs and goblins. Even the Abyssal Dwarves fit in with the current FW revival of them. The Humans, though - since Mantic are already a niche "non-GW" company, they'd be competing with the Perrys and every other historical manufacturer if they went for a "Not-Empire" or "Not-Brettonian" human army. By doing their own thing with the humans, it actually separates them from the pack in what is the most crowded army space, These will be their first range to stand on their own (though I'm sure the Paladins and Sisters will still be quite Empire-compatible).

scarletsquig wrote: Pre-measuring is another love/hate thing that varies from person to person. I personally like pre-measuring as I don't consider the art of range-guessing to have valid tactical merit*, it's just a case of "whose eyesight is good enough to tell whether that unit is 24" away or 24 1/4?". That said, I'd be fine with either a pre-measured or a non-pre-measured gaming system, I don't see it as much of a big factor. I'd be interesting on hearing a better reason against pre-measuring than "it's stupid".

I like both both non-pre-measured and pre-measured game systems. I enjoyed playing 7th edition WHFB, but I also enjoy playing 8th. With non-random charges pre-measuring isn't good system imo, cos' it's easy to put unit just out of opponent's charge range and so. In game systems that have random charges you just have to think about odds all the time.

darkPrince010 wrote:You...haven't played much of KoW, have you?

No I haven't.

darkPrince010 wrote:I highly disagree with this. WHFB does have a level of tactics, but so many rules or units are a never-take or always-take that the level of tactics is highly diluted.

That's not true. Most armies (all but beasts, WE, HE and brets) have 4-8 effective competitive builds, and most units can be used on competitive lists.

darkPrince010 wrote:For example, someone passingly familiar with WHFB might wish to make an army with lots of cavalry, enjoying the models and having seen movies like LOTR displaying very effective cavalry charges. However, this would make for an extremely poor army due to the prevalence of Steadfast and the relative ineffectiveness of cavalry in 8th edition. Knowing not to take cavalry is not "skill," it's simply poor game design.

You are wrong with this, there are lot's of good cavalry units in WHFB that have their use in competitive lists. Big unit of grail knights with HKB lord can crush nearly everything in their way, most VC armys have unit of 10+ black knights with riding vampire lord, WoC can take big unit of tzeentch knights with favour of the gods hero & 2x shrines (knights are quite good when they have 1+as and 3+ ward), empire can be competitive full knight army cos' they have four good knight units, and mourfangs are currently the best unit inte whole game (at least in ETC games). Also, fast cavalry is damn usefull.

Edit: I don't know do you use any restrictions in US, but ETC restrictions have fixed most of the problems of WHFB. Without any restrictions game is completely out of balance and all armies have only few competitive builds.

@scipio - I specifically said "it isn't all about" because I disagree that it is the *only* thing that Mantic wants to do, as people often suggest when making negative remarks about the company.

I agree with everything you posted. I wasn't making a black-and-white statement saying "they don't have anything that clones warhammer", just providing evidence to counter the idea that that's the only thing they ever want to do.

In fact it's not even their main focus at this point, I know enough about the company to know that GW-compatibility is simply a "we need the sales" crutch that will allow them to get them where they want to go. The three new human armies are going to be the start of us seeing what Mantic *really* wants to do now that the generic archetypes that make up easy sales are mostly complete.

Mantic miniatures are very much sold with KoW in mind first and foremost at this point in time, they've changed a lot of their business plan since they started out 3 years ago.

Note that the bulk of the kickstarter contained a lot of units that don't have any pre-existing GW alternative. When given the choice, they'd rather do their own thing, and the kickstarter gave them the luxury of being able to do that for once without having to be cautious and release more GW clones until the numbers in the piggy bank added up well enough to take a risk on something new.

Many fanboys players really talked trash about Mantic for being a copy of GW, but in reality that compatibility give them survivability. We have seen dozens of games trying to compete against the giant and they failed for different factors.

Its proven if you cannot go against them, join them!

That's not true. Most armies (all but beasts, WE, HE and brets) have 4-8 effective competitive builds, and most units can be used on competitive lists.

I fully admit that not every army is completely useless (I'm not as familiar with the current meta of 8th WHFB as I am with 40K and cede to your experience there), but I bolded a bit I'd like to emphasize:
As I said before, KoW is so well balanced that I can randomly create my entire army from the ground up and end with a completely competitive army (Ditto for Warpath). I don't know of any army in WHFB or 40K that can claim the same, and in many cases this is due to some units in the army flat-out being ineffective, not worth the points, or better covered by a different model, rather than due to an incomplete synergy that would render the model effective.

Since I'm not familiar enough with WHFB to cite examples from there, let me a small sampling of some from 40K:
Vespid Stingwings
Aun'va
Drone Squad
Chaos Spawn
Pyrovores

As for WHFB, I was only familiar with the previous edition of the VC, but even then Zombies and Blood Knights (Their role is better performed by Black Knights in almost every regard) stand out as sub-par models for their cost/effectiveness. 2 crap selections out of ~10 Special/Core troop choices. 20% of the rank-and-file models from a single codex that would likely never see use in a competitive setting.

You are wrong with this, there are lot's of good cavalry units in WHFB that have their use in competitive lists. Big unit of grail knights with HKB lord can crush nearly everything in their way, most VC armys have unit of 10+ black knights with riding vampire lord, WoC can take big unit of tzeentch knights with favour of the gods hero & 2x shrines (knights are quite good when they have 1+as and 3+ ward), empire can be competitive full knight army cos' they have four good knight units, and mourfangs are currently the best unit inte whole game (at least in ETC games). Also, fast cavalry is damn usefull.

I mean an army of all cavalry. Every model.

I know you can make an army like that, but in WHFB regardless of your skill as a general, there's a high chance that army will get wiped by an effective counter-army, such as one with high prevalence of steadfast, high S shooting or high volume of shooting, any respectable volume of spells, etc.

On the flip side, in KoW people can and have fielded entire armies of cavalry, and they've performed just as effectively overall as other, more heterogeneous armies. If an all-cavalry army were to fight an all-spearmen army, while at a slight disadvatadge the cavalry army still has a remarkably even chance of victory. Compared to WHFB, that cavalry general may as well shake hands if he's fighting steadfast speamen blocks or MSU of handgunners.

Edit: I don't know do you use any restrictions in US, but ETC restrictions have fixed most of the problems of WHFB. Without any restrictions game is completely out of balance and all armies have only few competitive builds.

Out of curiosity, what are the typical ETC restrictions? (I don't have a basis of comparison for this to KoW as the KoW tournament scene is only really picking up this year. The only restriction for KoW I know of at the moment is no allies, which seemed to be a somewhat optional rule anyhow)

darkPrince010 wrote:As I said before, KoW is so well balanced that I can randomly create my entire army from the ground end with a completely competitive army (Ditto for Warpath).

Dwarf/abyssal dwarf army without any war engines? Army consisting only of orclings? Doesn't sound very competitive builds.

darkPrince010 wrote:I mean an army of all cavalry. Every model.

Ok, you're right in that. But there can be competitive bretonnian list with only two non-cavalry models (trebutchets). Competitive empire knight armys can be very devastating with only four non-cavalry models (2x cannons and 2x rare chariot that gives +1 to hit -don't remember the name).

darkPrince010 wrote:Out of curiosity, what are the typical ETC restrictions?

Few words about ETC: ETC = European team championship (acctually that's worldwide championship, because there are also teams from USA, Australia and New Zealand). Rules are also used in European single championship and in many other tournaments, because they are well balanced. ETC tourament is held at the country that won the tournament last year. For example, Poland won the ETC 2011 tournament, so this year ETC will be in Poland.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=103153

Lord Gragorak wrote:Dwarf/abyssal dwarf army without any war engines? Army consisting only of orclings? Doesn't sound very competitive builds.

See, this is where WHFB and KoW diverge significantly in their playstyles.

In WHFB, Dwarves (both chaotic and not) rely on a solid backbone of shooting, due mainly (afaik) to low speed and limited ability to offensively go after the opponent. Orcs&Goblins need heavier hitters to deal with larger targets. and larger blocks of tougher enemies.

In KoW, while these are strengths of said respective armies, they are not necessities. A Dwarf army (Again, both chaotic and good) has options other than just shooting, despite having a better selection of warmachines than most other races. In addition, points are well balanced with effectiveness, so you don't have to worry that being forced to take foot soldiers or dwarf cavalry (they ride giant badgers/bears) is a hindrance like it would be in WHFB. It doesn't become a point sink of "This unit will not earn it's points back compared to a warmachine of the same or similar cost."

As for the orc example, the massive increase in number of troops using just orclings is actually balanced to make up for their cheaper cost and lack of stopping power that the normal orcs have. Again, the units are not point sinks but actually are worth their value in points (So a 50pt regiment of Orclings is equivalent in power to a 50pt regiment of dwarven warriors). Admittedly Orclings are weaker, but they cost less points directly proportional to their weakness and allows you to field larger regiments/hordes.

This is a key point in KoW vs WHFB. In WHFB, with a given unit you have to analyze whether it's worth the points, whether a slightly overcosted unit might be better in a certain list than a fairly or undercosted unit. Points values do not always match up to actual battlefield usefulness or value.

KoW on the other hand (excluding some fan lists, including my own, as they need further testing and balancing) has units that are actually worth their value in points. You don't have to fret over if a 50 pt unit of orcs is more powerful than a 50pt unit of goblins, or if the 50pt unit of goblins will be automatically crushed by a 50pt unit of dwarves. 50pts gives you 50 pts of power, versatility, and reliability, which means that 2000 pts of whatever I can conjure has a fighting chance against any other combination of 2000 pts.

(Begin )

More importantly, Mantic has been incredibly good about continuing to balance their lists. Despite releasing the new goblins and abyssal/chaos dwarf artillery, the goblins and artillery are not notably greater in power compared to the rest of the list, or compared to other armies. When warmachines were too powerful, they were given a (somewhat excessive, but now better) nerf.
While GW does balance their armies, it tends to be to extremes, crippling effective units and improving previously useless or newly released models. These boons and nerfs are far in excess of the actual bonuses or penalties needed to actually balance the unit, and as such hobbles the balance of an army book/codex as a whole.

You mention that there are 4-8 effective builds for most WHFB armies. Why aren't there 15 or 20 per army?

Why not 50? Or a hundred?

Each army has 15-20+ different units to choose from in any combination (Within some restrictions) that they desire, so why aren't these armies being fielded in incredible diversity of compositions? Netlists should exist in the hundreds or thousands of equally effective builds, not a mere dozen or so that are reliably effective.
The huge dearth of actual effective builds compared to possible builds indicates a severe lack of balance within the armies (Brought about in some cases by the main rules).

Just looking at the Mantic's KoW and Warpath forums, there are dozens if not hundreds of lists, and I have yet to hear of anyone who was completely roflstomped due to anything apart from bad generalship (Leaving a massive flank exposed, overextending beyond the main army's defense, etc) or simply the wrath of the dice gods.
When you boil away the units and models and abilities of the various armies, you're left with a game being determined partly by chance, and the rest by generalship. It's not coming down to who knew better which units to avoid or pick in their army list, it's who's the better general with a bit of luck on their side.

And that's what a wargame should truly be.

/

Played my first games of Kings of War on the weekend. It was fantastic. I was constantly commenting on how much better it is than Warhammer Fantasy. It is of course my personal preference, but these things really stood out:

Magic is really simple, just a couple of different shooting attacks. No seperate phase or extra dice rolling to bog the game down. No game winning turn 1 spells.
Units actually matter. I was really put off Fantasy because despite their insistance on huge blocks of infantry in the new edition, infantry rarely do anything decisive unless they have a character or something. Not so in Kings of War, a character that costs the same points as a unit, generally performs the same that unit. In fact i think there might be a slight bias towards units rather than characters.
Everything is well balanced.
Strategy can counter losses and list building very easily. You cannot win the game in list building. (this point alone should convert a whole bunch of GW players)
Its simple, learned the game very quickly.

Best of all, its free!

I can see how some would be put off by the simplicity, but the fact i had a game with about 100 models vs 120 models in less than 2 hours is amazing in itself. I could see myself playing 3 or 4 games in a day easily when i have a better grasp of the rules, rather than one game of fantasy in the same timespan.

Hi folks.
I can understand how WHFB/40k players have reservations about KOW/WP .
The thing is GWplc use over complicated rules to make up for lack of actual game play options.

And so some GW players thing that rule set has to be complicated to deliver complex game play.
But anyone playing the KOW rules soon realises that great gameplay can be achived by straight forward rules.

All gamers want maximum game play with the minimum of complication.
Mantic seem to unsderstand this.Along with how customers want value for money...

Mantic by gamers for gamers.

GW plc by corperate directive, for short term share dividend payouts.

Lanrak wrote:Mantic by gamers for gamers.

GW plc by corperate directive, for short term share dividend payouts.

How could you say this? How dare you.

GW has a long history of creating rulesets that are based on making a game that allows for fun, fair play. In no way does the shifting of units with distinct advantages in power to newly-released and slightly-higher-priced models indicate any sort of subterfuge beyond attempting to deliver a quality game to their customers. Indeed, the careful treatment of the fluff by both their authors as well as rule writers (As evidenced in the exquisitely-crafted Allies matrix) display perfect understanding of both the universe they created as well as the changes needed to ensure a better balanced game.

In addition, GW is sure to never neglect players who choose to utilize non-Imperium armies, as evidenced by carefully crafted and balanced updates like the Tyranid FAQ and the patient tailoring of the 6e rules to ensure that armies like Chaos Daemons and Eldar are not left behind or used merely as ally units only. In fact, you can see the love and respect GW has for their customer in their online web forums, their fair pricing of metal alternatives (Switched to to save you, the consumer, money!), and the fair and equal treatment and pricing for consumers from all regions and continents.

In stark contrast are the greedy moneygrubbers over at Mantic. Ripping off GW IP such as Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and the Undead, they continue to ceaselessly emulate and dilute GW's ideas, with recent releases like the Kingdoms of Men (An obvious anagram to Mend of Smoking, a river in Lustria they clearly copied and arranged to suit their devious purposes) and the "Celestial Angel Paladin" (An obvious rendition of the graceful Brettonian Pegasus Knight). They continue to root around and unearth GW ideas such as the Squats (Who they've tried to disguise the origins by giving them the name Forgefathers, creating a range of poorly-concealed unique unit sculpts, and crafted a meaninglessly in-depth and well-thought-out backstory) and Chaos Dwarves (Whom they've poorly attempted to hide behind the name Abyssal Dwarves, yet more flimsy in-depth history and backstory, and a range of unique sculpts that only serve to confirm their similarity to GW's old and abandoned IP).

Mantic as a company has no shame. They come to the consumers begging for handouts in the form of a Kickstarter, and in return merely giving them 50% off deals or 2-for-1 model deals in an attempt to hide them lining their own pockets. They are so poor at writing fair and fun rules that they ask the community for feedback and implement some of the ideas of people who don't even create games for a living, thinking they'd know best how to play and exploit their hobby games?! Furthermore, they have the perversity to release their rules for free, as they can't even get people to buy the full-price rulebook without printing it fully in color and sticking the donors names in it! Even their pricing exposes their corruption, as they price their models low in an attempt to lull the consumer into a constant purchasing habit, before abruptly jacking up the prices as I'm sure they'll do in 5-10 years.

As I've shown above, only smart players pick GW. Everyone else can go flocking to Mantic for all we care.

/ and sarcasm

thank you darkPrince010,

That rant just made my day.

I myself cannot wait another day for my shipment (or 2) from Mantic with my rulebook, armies and the lot. Get them armies built, and get my game on!

Whilst I really like Mantic, I don't see why people have to have an endless "us V them" mentality such as dp displays.

GW exist to make a profit, so do apple, yet hipsters are all happy to buy apple, why do you have to take it so personally?

DP isnt as bad as people you see around the forums, there are 8 or 9 pretty ridiculous ones, but the way they behave genuinelly puzzles me, as if they caught Jervis Johnson fist fething their wife after catching the early flight home.

GW are a big corporation that mainly exists to make a profit, as a grown man, I can happily deal with this. Welcome to the real world, why do war gamers feel so entitled? Do you hate Coca Cola and Heinz as well?

Not that I think GW are doing things right, personally I think they are fething up constantly and that is why people are deserting them in droves, but I don't take it fething personally!

Well, other than selling all my GW fantasy stuff and buying all Mantic obviously!

I really don't see the point in DPs very lengthy rant though.. what purpose do they serve? Do you think one of the faceless suits at GW will read it and suddenly go "feth it, I've had a quick look on dakka dakka and ive decided we should sell our rulebooks for $10 and our boxed sets for $25"

gak happens, buy Mantic and crack on with your life.. but don't get bogged down in bitterness and spite.. your only shortening your life span and heading for an ulcer.

I was more being sarcastic and poking fun at the fething ridiculous excuses people use when attacking Mantic or defending GW. Besides, when do you think GW last remembered that the internet exists?

I know I personally have a strong dislike of GW because everyone nearby plays it and refuses to play anything without the name "warhammer" in it.

It would be like if all your friends insisted that you play a multiplayer video game of some kind with them, only to reveal that they all have gold-plated PS3s while you have an xbox 360. My only options are to buy a PS3, which I'll be looked down on if it's not gold-plated (Read: Not official GW and using similar models from other manufacturers, scratchbuilt, paperraft, etc), or to try and convert them to a different system.

So far the latter hasn't happened, and I can neither afford nor desire the former, so all that's left is my dislike of GW and incredulity at some people's blind devotion to it.

Fairy nuff olf chap. I can understand it to some extent of course.

At least you can proxy all your mantic stuff and still play WH fantasy if your mates are stubborn fethers.

Unfortunately not. They cringe at the sight of anything except GW, Infinity, or PP official models. I got a load of flak for my paper tyranids (Which I can understand, despite being peeved by it) and a lot more flak for using Warzone figs for my IG footsloggers :/

darkPrince010 wrote:

Lanrak wrote:Mantic by gamers for gamers.

GW plc by corperate directive, for short term share dividend payouts.

How could you say this? How dare you.

GW has a long history of creating rulesets that are based on making a game that allows for fun, fair play. In no way does the shifting of units with distinct advantages in power to newly-released and slightly-higher-priced models indicate any sort of subterfuge beyond attempting to deliver a quality game to their customers. Indeed, the careful treatment of the fluff by both their authors as well as rule writers (As evidenced in the exquisitely-crafted Allies matrix) display perfect understanding of both the universe they created as well as the changes needed to ensure a better balanced game.

In addition, GW is sure to never neglect players who choose to utilize non-Imperium armies, as evidenced by carefully crafted and balanced updates like the Tyranid FAQ and the patient tailoring of the 6e rules to ensure that armies like Chaos Daemons and Eldar are not left behind or used merely as ally units only. In fact, you can see the love and respect GW has for their customer in their online web forums, their fair pricing of metal alternatives (Switched to to save you, the consumer, money!), and the fair and equal treatment and pricing for consumers from all regions and continents.

In stark contrast are the greedy moneygrubbers over at Mantic. Ripping off GW IP such as Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and the Undead, they continue to ceaselessly emulate and dilute GW's ideas, with recent releases like the Kingdoms of Men (An obvious anagram to Mend of Smoking, a river in Lustria they clearly copied and arranged to suit their devious purposes) and the "Celestial Angel Paladin" (An obvious rendition of the graceful Brettonian Pegasus Knight). They continue to root around and unearth GW ideas such as the Squats (Who they've tried to disguise the origins by giving them the name Forgefathers, creating a range of poorly-concealed unique unit sculpts, and crafted a meaninglessly in-depth and well-thought-out backstory) and Chaos Dwarves (Whom they've poorly attempted to hide behind the name Abyssal Dwarves, yet more flimsy in-depth history and backstory, and a range of unique sculpts that only serve to confirm their similarity to GW's old and abandoned IP).

Mantic as a company has no shame. They come to the consumers begging for handouts in the form of a Kickstarter, and in return merely giving them 50% off deals or 2-for-1 model deals in an attempt to hide them lining their own pockets. They are so poor at writing fair and fun rules that they ask the community for feedback and implement some of the ideas of people who don't even create games for a living, thinking they'd know best how to play and exploit their hobby games?! Furthermore, they have the perversity to release their rules for free, as they can't even get people to buy the full-price rulebook without printing it fully in color and sticking the donors names in it! Even their pricing exposes their corruption, as they price their models low in an attempt to lull the consumer into a constant purchasing habit, before abruptly jacking up the prices as I'm sure they'll do in 5-10 years.

As I've shown above, only smart players pick GW. Everyone else can go flocking to Mantic for all we care.

/ and sarcasm

Excellent. I even read this in nigel thornberrys voice.

I haven't played a game as yet but my first run through of the rules give me a simple enough system to understand.

One thing I hated about GW was the "to hit" chart and "to wound" chart. Alot of the veterans know the chart by heart. Now for new players (like everyone was at one point) that are dependant upon older players to teach, the veterans really do not point the chart out and pretty much just say "4 or better to hit and you need three's to wound". A beginner would or should go to his army book look at the stats and look at his opponents book and look at his stats and finally look at the chart. This is done twice (once for each chart).

Now, for KoW, my understanding is look at the number of dice to roll and look at you own army's stats for to hit and be done with it. Then, you opponent rolls to see if those hit actually wound. No charts to memorize. Simple and easy to learn. Now, I didn't talk about special abilities, saves, modifiers, magic and the like as both games have the same things to consider. But the easy-to-learn mechanics make this "window dressing" something I would like to play over the GW games.

^ Yep, that's the great thing about it. No complex charts or cross-reference tables.

Only thing that is different from your understanding there is that you roll the dice to attempt to wound the unit, not your opponent.

The game is designed so that your opponent rolls nothing and does nothing in your turn.