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A friend and I have been playing fantasy off and on since the new edition came out. I started off playing Chaos Dwarfs (since that's what I had from an eternity ago) but we both decided they were a bit beardy after I figured out how to run the list properly (the indy GT edition). So, I switched to Ogres and bought, and painted, my way up to 2500-3000 points now.

My friend has several armies since we've both been playing since the early 90's and so far I've faced his Empire, O&G and Chaos Daemon armies and have handily beat him with the Ogres or Angry Dwarfs after learning which rock to pound his scissors with. And that leads me up to my problem, and his too apparently. We were playing last night and it was obvious by T3 that the game was going to end up with me mopping the floor with his slaaneshi daemons even with all his leadership tricks that he was pulling out and so we stopped and went and had a beer and talked about it.

The game is boring. You build a list to maximize your army's strengths while attempting to minimize its weaknesses. This time I took an Ogre horde with 19 bulls a tyrant a slaughtermaster, a bruiser BSB and a butcher. I had a few other units on the field but they were throw aways or distraction makers like the hunter and slave giant. I was casting more buffs than he could reliably counter and countering more spells than he could hit my horde with, not to mention they had MR3 from items.

Anyway, so we were talking about how it's all Rock Scissors Paper with a great deal of dice rolling going on in the interim. Sure he could have played my army with empire and taken 5 cannons and pummeled the unit but then my gorger and yhetees would be on them by turns 2 and 3 and the ironcurse amulet is a steal at 5 pts. It's not that one of us is a better "General" than the other because he's actually better than me, but how well the rocks you provided your troops match up with your opponent's scissors.

We only play about twice a month so it's probably not being burned out; it just seems that WH40K was more fun than this game of marching rocks, scissors and piles of paper.

Anyone else feel the same?

Playing repeatedly against the same opponent and the same armies will burn anyone out. It's only rock paper scissors if you don't tweak lists around every time.

Although 40k turns into magic the gathering with it's 'meta' 'build'(deck) 'midgame' 'win conditions' and power level...

If only every game were as intricate as MTG played properly.

Adding a stack to warhammer would be interesting.

Rock/scissors/paper is a poor analogy because a rock always beats scissors. You can take the poorest unit in the game against the "best" and it still has a chance of winning because dice are involved. You can skew your chances, obviously, but there's always a random element. A Gnoblar can pwn a dragon if a whole lot of 1s and 6s are rolled.

Also, making a list because it's fun provides more entertainment that just min-maxing. On a sort of related note, I never understood why people cheat in online games. The whole point is to have a challenge. Goof off a little and see if you can still make it work. Make a theme. You got all this lore available. Set up some campaigns with escalating penalties and benefits.

40K to me, as stated, is far more about best lists. There's simply stuff you do in a codex because it's absurdly powerful. There's a lot bigger numbers and stacking effects and mega units. And unlike fantasy, you can have some units that simply cannot be hurt by weak enemies if they stood there for a million turns (uber vehicles). I never liked that. But if you think you'll have more fun, try it out.

Although you both have multiple armies, you are playing the same opponent. Maybe some of the boredom comes from that. Someone else might have different tactics, or a different list.

Also, are you using all of the scenarios in 8th? Several of the options, even under Pitched Battle, give you different experiences, since deployment can be based off die rolls, with key units in reserve, or scattered all around the board.

Finally, if you really are both that good at creating lists that reliably beat your opponent, put it to the test! Start wagering points. Bet him you can beat 2000 points of O&G with 1500 points of Ogres (or whatever). This will lead to different tactical challenges, and it might lead to some interesting wagers (Well, your Ogres beat me, but I can beat 2000 points of Ogres with 1400 points of Empire). See who can win despite the largest points imbalance.

I agree: Powergaming with minmaxed army lists can get boring. That's not what the new Fantasy edition was written for, as the game developpers are no tournament players. It is intended for fun games with a strong story telling component, otherwise the magic system wouldn't be so random (succeed that one dice roll to transfort into a dragon and autowin, lose your 500 point mage in a blast and autolose).

Why don't you play a game, then swap armies, playing the exact same scaneario, but he uses your army and you his.

See if he can mop the floor with you,,,

I had a similar sort of problem, maybe you should try playing skirmish or a 500 point border patrol force.

If that doesn't work, maybe try a completely different army to ogres, like vampire counts or skaven...

Thank you all for your thoughts and I do believe there are some excellent points here.

Even though we have different armies, it's still me playing against him over and over. I think the biggest reason for this is that we've pretty much gotten back into the game because we played it so long ago and it's something that we have in common and an excuse to meet up a couple of times per month and casually throw some dice around and have a beer afterwards versus alternatives (going to a strip club or a bar and thus getting in trouble with our spouses). The FLGS that we visit is 1/2 way between his house and mine and if it wasn't for the game, we wouldn't see each other as often and we've been friends for years.

Maybe we'll just need to try something different for a while like some of you suggest or actually start using the scenarios instead of just running across and beating on each other.

Thanks again for the thoughts.

There are some great ideas here. I have always liked adding a story element to it to spice things up, so the scenarios or a campaign could be good. Maybe you guys could look into competing in a doubles tournament at the FLGS. It would allow the two of you to still play together, but compete against other players.

Many of the points I might have made have already been mentioned, but I do have one thing to add.

You talk about it being easy once you've found the "rock to pound his scissors". Why not try units that aren't quite ideal for the situation?

For instance, I've dropped slayers from my Dwarf list, but I'd like to start rotating the back in, just to see if I can make them work. Things like that provide the opportunity to keep things fresh.

Of course, definitely what others have mentioned (different points levels, army swap, scenarios). These all go a long ways...

I'm a big fan of escalation campaigns, where you can let your army "grow" over a long period of time rather than just putting the same lists up there again and again.

Also, if you have a copy of Mordheim or one of the BRBs (I don't think it's in the current edition) with the skirmish rules, you can watch your characters get more and more badass over time as they lose an eye, start to cause fear, get tougher, and so on.

There are lots of ways to keep it fresh. Unbalanced scenarios, story-driven things rather than the usual Victory Points-defined battles, and on and on.

Red_Zeke wrote:Many of the points I might have made have already been mentioned, but I do have one thing to add.

You talk about it being easy once you've found the "rock to pound his scissors". Why not try units that aren't quite ideal for the situation?

For instance, I've dropped slayers from my Dwarf list, but I'd like to start rotating the back in, just to see if I can make them work. Things like that provide the opportunity to keep things fresh.

Of course, definitely what others have mentioned (different points levels, army swap, scenarios). These all go a long ways...

Yeah, I've stopped taking Ironguts because, well they're Ironguts and haven't taken Greatskull since the first time I used it and it blew up his 4th level wizard on turn 1 and the spell didn't kill a single Ogre. I've just been using Bulls, Gnobblars a hunter some yhetees and 1 scraplauncher; I don't even put magic weapons on my tyrant anymore.

Looking further down the thread; the escalation league or ideas about scenarios and story components sounds like a great idea.


Thanks again to you all for your great ideas.

From my experience, ogres themselves are unendingly boring under the current book and the current rules. They lack the depth of tactical units that make the game MUCH more interesting - my skaven, for example, are far more rewarding to play than my ogres, because I have a combination of blocks, redirecters, small(ish) arms, magic, artillery, monstrous infantry, monsters and so on with the rats, while with the ogres I have 2-3 units of bulls/guts, and then some toys like yhets or hunter. Nothing swiftstrides, nothing is cheap and fast enough to matter (i.e. gnoblars don't count), magic is a bore, shooting is nonexistent.

AND on top of that, you're playing deathstar ogres? Deathstar breaks the game by brutally limiting how the match will be played: does the other guy stop the deathstar? Win; deathstar player not thrilled. Does he successfully avoid the deathstar, by feeding it units and picking off its chaff? Minor win; deathstar player miffed. Does he fail to stop the deathstar, letting it dock with units that matter? Deathstar victory; opponent feels pounded to gak himself. And there you have it. (An aside: this is why I'm 100% for unit points caps in competitive (or any) events.)

Sorry for a bit of a rant, but as a frustrated ogre player who has moved on to armies that offer enough units and tools to actually play 8th edition, I think that might be part of your problem. Also, deathstar ftl.

- Salvage

Boss Salvage,

I understand what you're saying it's just every other tactic I've tried has ended up wth me getting trounced.

I'm not really ready to start yet another army just yet but I was thinking something hordish would be fun like either of the undead armies or a straight goblin army.

How about you try joining a gaming club or play in you FLGM so you will face different armies and different opponents.

heacy hitter wrote:How about you try joining a gaming club or play in you FLGM so you will face different armies and different opponents.

I suppose you're right; we need to stop playing against each other all the time and branch out. There're some nice people at the FLGS that I go to; now I just have to tell my friend, "It's not you, I just think we need to see other people."

agnosto wrote:You build a list to maximize your army's strengths while attempting to minimize its weaknesses.

don't assume that's what everyone does. Try something different.

Boss Salvage wrote:From my experience, ogres themselves are unendingly boring under the current book and the current rules.

It doesn´t help that most Ogre lists are bound to be quite similar to each other due to the amount of the restrictions they have.

You have to have a Tyrant or Bruiser as general. You need an unit of Bulls fullstop. You need a unit of Bulls for every unit of Gnoblars you want to use, and a unit of Gnoblars for every Scrappy you want and so on.

Anyway, I can only second the club/FLGS point. Variety in your enemies is the best thing to keep the motivation high.

Boss_Salvage wrote:AND on top of that, you're playing deathstar ogres? Deathstar breaks the game by brutally limiting how the match will be played: does the other guy stop the deathstar? Win; deathstar player not thrilled. Does he successfully avoid the deathstar, by feeding it units and picking off its chaff? Minor win; deathstar player miffed. Does he fail to stop the deathstar, letting it dock with units that matter? Deathstar victory; opponent feels pounded to gak himself. And there you have it. (An aside: this is why I'm 100% for unit points caps in competitive (or any) events.)

I was going to come in and say this for Salvage if he didn't. Deathstars seemingly break the game in 8th, and the ETC unit cap of max 450 points per unit (or 40 infantry models / 12 monstrous infantry) I think strikes a nice balance between allowing large units and also limiting deathstars.

That said, I'm sad to hear that ogres are apparently boring to play. I've been touting them and almost wishing I had started them instead of my troll army with chaos ogre units. But now that I think of it, I realize why mine is probably more interesting... trolls are crazy interesting in and of themselves, and I also have access to all the fun/odd toys of WoC, including interesting characters that can fly around in discs, hellcannon, etc. It's not tons more, but it's enough to make my monstrous infantry list a bit more interesting, it seems.

Honestly, I had the same impression as you do now when I was running my tree army in 8th edition. Without skirmish rules giving 360 LOS, and having no shooting or magic to speak of, I felt like "I push my army forward you push yours". This was highlighted when I was teaching my bro the game, and he beat me . Granted, I was walking him through and built him a good list for my trees and was still getting used to my WoC. Had to go back to the drawing board on the WoC after that

So I feel your pain. I actually just started Warmachine/Hordes for this same reason. I still like Fantasy a Lot, and it's way more intricate the 40k in my opinion. But the "rock, paper, scissors" feeling is there at times, especially against a similar opponent. In warmahordes, if you change your warcaster/warlock you have a radically different army playstyle at times, and it can keep things more fresh. So against a regular opponent, that might be worth trying out (and the starter battle boxes are cheap cheap cheap, and you can actually play a game if you each have a box against each other).

So I think army choice has a lot to do with it, with deathstar making it even worse, and this needs to be addressed. You could houserule a unit size limit. Also, is there a reason your opponent is taking slaanesh daemons? The right deamon units are imho still borderline broken in 8th (flamers), but the wrong ones are very lackluster.

Edit: Escalations leagues Rock! I participated in one to build up the troll army, and it's been my best fantasy gaming experience. Different opponent each week, everyone trying out a new army. It definitely makes the game fresh!

Go down to your FLGS and play against a different army.

Or perhaps try adding some narrative to your games, it makes them more interesting and fun. Perhaps tailor your armies to match a famous battle from the warhammer history, or try things like linked battles.

You'll soom find there's a lot more ways to play WHFB

RiTides wrote:trolls are crazy interesting in and of themselves, and I also have access to all the fun/odd toys of WoC, including interesting characters that can fly around in discs, hellcannon, etc.

The idea of a troll riding around on a disk of Tzeench has me giggling inside.

Most of the time, I end up playing against myself. I have two strong gaming centers around here, but they're both VERY 40K oriented, and I'm still a bit intimidated and insecure about my grasp on the "flow" of fantasy. So, until I can at least distract my potential opponents with a nicely painted army, I'm stuck facing my own worst enemy... me.

You can understand how the potential for boredom would be high in that situation. So I think of ways to mix it up.

I did a battle report this weekend about a debacle of a meeting between my tomb kings and my high elves. It was such a mess from beginning to end that I decided they needed a rematch to at least set the record straight. This got me thinking about ways to tie the two battles together, especially based on the peformance of one scrappy high elf mage.

- I grabbed my copy (unearthed might be a better word) of the Mordheim rulebook and rolled on the chart in the back for the lasting effects of a hero being incapacitated in a battle. Galis ended up with Horrible Scars, which befits the sole survivor of an undead massacre (causes fear). I gave him "Lose an Eye" for giggles, making Galis the Hesitant into Galis One-Eye, now a bitter and angry level 4 Archmage, who has been nursing his wounds and his grudge for thirty five years, waiting for a chance to go back to Khemri and take it to Khalida.

So ... yeah. EXACT same army lists, with only a lord/hero reshuffle for the elves. But the whole dynamic has now changed, because the story is about Galis trying to get revenge on the soulless undead who massacred the army he was in before.

- I also arbitrarily decided that a major victory, like the ones the TK army got, awarded the "general" (yeah, its me either way, but I keep note of its me or if its fake me leading a particular army) gets 5 "Tactical Points" and a minor victory gets you 3 TPs. A draw awards both sides 1.

A general can use TPs to affect the set up of the game. You can influence the scenario by moving the result of the Pitched Battle roll up or down by one (3 TP), rerolling a die on your wizard's spell selection (1 TP), rerolling the dice on the random terrain chart (1 TP), the NUMBER of random terrain pieces (2 TP), or spend 1 TP for D3 of extra fences to set up after deployment but before Vanguard moves.

Once the game starts, you can't spend any more, but you can stockpile them to spend in subsequent games. They are general specific, so they carry over to other armies they may play in the "campaign."

- In college, we played a lot of Necromunda. I had a House Delaque gang with a guy who carried a heavy flamer who JUST. WOULDN'T. DIE. This one guy racked up a tremendous body count, got incapacitated in just about every game (he was a bit of a bullet magnet), but came back meaner and scarier based on the campaign result charts. The rest of the gang was decked out in all greys and dark blues, but I started painting this guy much brighter, and every time he'd kill people, I'd add more brightly patterned chaos to his "Technicolor Trenchcoat," as it came to be known. The painting and conversion that accompanied that league kept it fresh and exciting for everybody who played in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
- I'm still trying to get my girlfriend to play regularly, instead of the once-in-a-blue-moon schedule we have going now. I'm thinking that the best way to get this done is to try and find the warbands campaign rules. If I remember correctly, both the skirmish and the warband rules are in the back of the 7th ed. BIG BRB (they're not in my current IoB BRB - or LRB as I like to call it).

The warbands were a nice way to build a new army while still remaining emotionally invested in the units. Because you were only wheeling out half a unit at a time, you took more time painting and modeling, and you had this growing attachment to your scrappy little models - especially the third archer from the left. You know, the one with the broken bow that always rolls sixes? He should get a name....

It takes forever to get a 2500 point army that way, but it's a good way to spread the cost of collecting it out over several months and a great way to stay interested.

If I can pull this off with her, it'll be a perfect excuse to start lizards

A lot of folks slate White Dwarf in reccent years, and to be fair I can see their point.

However I do think the little narrative campaigns it has mentioned in the past year or so with the little pics for each unit have been very inspiring.

Maybe what you need to do is concentrate more on the story, than the absolute 'rule' of the books and units. Give units little modifications just for fun, and try and play a narrative through a series of battles.

Here are some rules for warbands.

http://www.warfan.net/Warbands.pdf