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.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
It looks OK, except that stupid weather table. The acid fog and lightning effects are backwards; giant metal machines, especially ones touching the ground, are basically immune to lightning, military ones especially. No-one, not even the Mechanicus, is dumb enough to build a giant lightning rod without an actual lightning rod. Massive, broad spectrum energy bursts fetching sensors though, that’s a thing.
Same with clouds of acid; nothing about that should block even half the sensors available to a Titan, but exposed metal is gonna have a bad time…

It just ruins the whole plausibility of fictional robots shooting fictional weapons on fictional planets.

puzzledust wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
It looks OK, except that stupid weather table. The acid fog and lightning effects are backwards; giant metal machines, especially ones touching the ground, are basically immune to lightning, military ones especially. No-one, not even the Mechanicus, is dumb enough to build a giant lightning rod without an actual lightning rod. Massive, broad spectrum energy bursts fetching sensors though, that’s a thing.
Same with clouds of acid; nothing about that should block even half the sensors available to a Titan, but exposed metal is gonna have a bad time…

It just ruins the whole plausibility of fictional robots shooting fictional weapons on fictional planets.

I dont get this argument, we are talking about a game which takes place all over the galaxy and beyond, on planets with all sorts of different weather systems.

Why would the weather be the same as the weather on earth ?

Might as well complain about why building would prevent the titan from moving or shooting through it at all, they have radar and even if they don't, they could have smaller unit like knight spot the thing and signal the location to them.

I can't think of any new players "confused" by that rule at all. Even seven-year-old kids managed it.

re. "bean counters"; I don't understand - can you explain how not allowing pre-measuring leads to an increase in profits?

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I can't think of any new players "confused" by that rule at all. Even seven-year-old kids managed it.

re. "bean counters"; I don't understand - can you explain how not allowing pre-measuring leads to an increase in profits?

Not confused by rule but newbies are only ones affected by it. Veterans know more than enough tricks that they might just as well premeasure. That buildilng is 4" wide, tiles 24" long with edges visible, i have my 6" long hand at convenient spot, bit elementary school math and you have distance within inch.

Rule is decades old. Always fail. Unsurprisingly quality games abandon it. It gives illusion of skill in favour of real skill.

Dunno how it leads but fact is author didn#t want the rule but got overridden.

Personally, I'd point out those tricks to my opponent too, if he was new. Estimation is a real skill. Whether it's one you want in a game is a different matter.

Without it, I think the game would bog down. I've experienced that in Warmachine and Infinity, and in boardgames using grids for movement - measuring one move, then another, back to the first, then what about that one instead? YMMV, but that makes a worse game IMO. And as regard cheating, there's the guy who picks up a model, measures a move, changes their mind, puts it back - but in a slightly different place to their advantage.

To be honest, it's such a trivial thing to ignore if you don't like it I don't know why I've bothered wasting so many words typing these posts.

To everyone miffed about how weather could affect anything in the game or "why they don't have radars lol":

1) Have you ever checked how vulnerable our current systems are to changing conditions? Our satellites can be swept away in an instant if the Sun decides to have a bad day (thus space weather forecasting is a big deal), material physics labs all around the globe are working all the time to mitigate the effects of particle bombardment (like you have in space) on intricate systems, normal clouds can accidentally block or bounce things like radio waves or GPS signals, acidic rain can and does hurt measuring equipment, lightning rods are not necessarily perfectly positioned in a barn (or Emperor forbid, in a huge walker of doom that is usually constantly under artillery fire) and might short into something unintended...

2) Jamming and counter-intel is a thing. In the Titandeath novel there is a funny remark from one of the main characters about how predictable it is that engagements start with a huge lash of electrical warring in the communications, which is often quickly squashed, but "just has to happen" almost as a greeting when opening hostilities.

3) It's weird scifi with magitech, where you can have lots of awesome effects like that. Also in Titandeath, there is one fight scene in the void of space where there are also giant factory towers that produce utterly wonky magnetic fields that make the area look utterly black in some wavelengths that the titans could see, but the princeps could still go on by using their human eyes.

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

5) Anything that has to do with military history mostly consists of listing how things went wrong. Putting interesting conditions like bad scifi weather that makes things go wrong in there (without making the game too random) is good for producing such war stories.

tneva82 wrote:
It's artificial "skill" introducting without actually being real skill.

Stupid, illogical, unfluffy and even rules author was set against it but bean counters overrode him.

I agree with you 100% here. Range finders for golf were invented in 1955! Yet somehow in the year 32,000 we haven't managed to replicate that technology yet. We have titans the size of skyscrapers, laser weapons, plasma weapons, directed energy weapons, force fields, and all manner of other technologically advanced toys, but we have to blindly fire our weapons and hope our target is in range of them? It makes no sense at all. It doesn't make sense from a fluff perspective and it's a stupid rule that does nothing to add any tactics to the game.

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

That would make them a strategic consideration then wouldn't it?

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

The preview of Toxic Storm does three things:

1) Reduce available range to 3d10 inches. With three dice you get a pretty reliable bell curve around 16,5" and know that firing over 30" isn't possible. That sounds like something one can and should plan for, no? Expect to go close and be unavailable to use your long range support. Does not sound like random for random's sake.

2) Add one to all damage taken. Where's the random there? You have to take that into account from the word go and can use that tactically, for an example to gain more bang from your smaller weapons that fire lots of rounds. Just a tactical consideration there.

3) Random lightning. That's proper random, yes, but it happens all day long for both sides and most likely averages out on, say, 30 tries that you might throw in a normal Confrontation sized game. It can skew, sure, but it is also fairly dangerous for both sides and in what world is it not a tactical consideration to keep in mind that your engines MAY take a hit in the beginning of the turn? That encourages you to keep your own shields up to not take that possibility and to shred your opponent's shields even if you might not have the normal dakka to capitalize on it immediately because there is a chance that nature does it for you. Heck, that is exactly what outsmarting someone in many real and fictive stories is about: taking advantage of the fictional positioning to do something more than one might be expected to.

Also, you don't have to use them if you don't like them. I do. I will. You do you.

JWBS wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

That would make them a strategic consideration then wouldn't it?

I don't care what they are, as long as they affect both players equally and consistently.

tneva82 wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
They do have range fiunders. Unfortunately they also have radar jammers, stealth equipment (seriously - you used to be able to fit an entire titan with cameleoline), ECM and ECCM and the battlefield will be covered in smoke, dust, erratic lighting and more. "no premeasuring" is as good a way of simulating that as trying to build all those effects explicitly into the rules.

(I suppose you could make movement and weapon ranges a number of dice rather than a fixed value, but I don't think you lot would like that either!)

And all you archieve is confuse newbies. Any veteran meanwhile will use known terrain sizes, board section sizes, his hand placed in convenient location(need 6" distance? Well I just have my hand nearby...Instant tell) plus basic algerbra. Might just as well be measured flat out for all the effect it does. You get to premeasure at will without taking up measure tape. It's artificial "skill" introducting without actually being real skill.

Stupid, illogical, unfluffy and even rules author was set against it but bean counters overrode him.

So, as per, all the objections to this come down to "Players with lots of experience shouldn't have an advantage over new players" and "Some people might cheat, so it's bad". Neither of which is a reasonable argument, since a requirement to get better at the game over time is something most people want from strategy systems, and "people might cheat" can be applied to any mechanic you like, including dice. Should GW games stop using dice? Yeah

 Sherrypie wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

The preview of Toxic Storm does three things:

1) Reduce available range to 3d10 inches. With three dice you get a pretty reliable bell curve around 16,5" and know that firing over 30" isn't possible. That sounds like something one can and should plan for, no? Expect to go close and be unavailable to use your long range support. Does not sound like random for random's sake.

2) Add one to all damage taken. Where's the random there? You have to take that into account from the word go and can use that tactically, for an example to gain more bang from your smaller weapons that fire lots of rounds. Just a tactical consideration there.

3) Random lightning. That's proper random, yes, but it happens all day long for both sides and most likely averages out on, say, 30 tries that you might throw in a normal Confrontation sized game. It can skew, sure, but it is also fairly dangerous for both sides and in what world is it not a tactical consideration to keep in mind that your engines MAY take a hit in the beginning of the turn? That encourages you to keep your own shields up to not take that possibility and to shred your opponent's shields even if you might not have the normal dakka to capitalize on it immediately because there is a chance that nature does it for you. Heck, that is exactly what outsmarting someone in many real and fictive stories is about: taking advantage of the fictional positioning to do something more than one might be expected to.

Also, you don't have to use them if you don't like them. I do. I will. You do you.

This is the one I was taking particular issue with, as one could have inferred. It's just such typical GW Jervis bs that had hitherto largely seemed to have passed this game system by. It's also the sort of thing that appears in every game system they produce and could practically been cut and pasted from an AOS or 40K rule book, so on top of it being nonsense in-game it's also lazy, recycled, nonsense. The "averages out" argument is technically true, but average rolls don't equal average effects. I may roll a statistically average number of sixes, but if they happen all together over one or two turns and bork my Warlord, that's an uneven effect from average probability.

It's the worst sort of rule writing and it's something you only really see in GW games. It removes player agency with no means of mitigation, and I will have an issue with that in any game.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

The preview of Toxic Storm does three things:

1) Reduce available range to 3d10 inches. With three dice you get a pretty reliable bell curve around 16,5" and know that firing over 30" isn't possible. That sounds like something one can and should plan for, no? Expect to go close and be unavailable to use your long range support. Does not sound like random for random's sake.

2) Add one to all damage taken. Where's the random there? You have to take that into account from the word go and can use that tactically, for an example to gain more bang from your smaller weapons that fire lots of rounds. Just a tactical consideration there.

3) Random lightning. That's proper random, yes, but it happens all day long for both sides and most likely averages out on, say, 30 tries that you might throw in a normal Confrontation sized game. It can skew, sure, but it is also fairly dangerous for both sides and in what world is it not a tactical consideration to keep in mind that your engines MAY take a hit in the beginning of the turn? That encourages you to keep your own shields up to not take that possibility and to shred your opponent's shields even if you might not have the normal dakka to capitalize on it immediately because there is a chance that nature does it for you. Heck, that is exactly what outsmarting someone in many real and fictive stories is about: taking advantage of the fictional positioning to do something more than one might be expected to.

Also, you don't have to use them if you don't like them. I do. I will. You do you.

This is the one I was taking particular issue with, as one could have inferred. It's just such typical GW Jervis bs that had hitherto largely seemed to have passed this game system by. It's also the sort of thing that appears in every game system they produce and could practically been cut and pasted from an AOS or 40K rule book, so on top of it being nonsense in-game it's also lazy, recycled, nonsense. The "averages out" argument is technically true, but average rolls don't equal average effects. I may roll a statistically average number of sixes, but if they happen all together over one or two turns and bork my Warlord, that's an uneven effect from average probability.

It's the worst sort of rule writing and it's something you only really see in GW games. It removes player agency with no means of mitigation, and I will have an issue with that in any game.

I normally firmly agree with you on this issue, but in this case I think it's pretty harmless. It's not part of army construction. It's not part of core rules. It's not part of basic scenarios. It's part of some optional rules from a supplementary book and it's actually representing something that would likely be pretty random in its effects. This isn't rolling for warlord traits, or getting sucked into a multi-random table of dice rolls for a weapon profile or special rule, or having basic terrain that will randomly decide to eat one of your units.

This kind of thing is only a problem when its commonplace and non-optional, this rule meets neither criteria and so is fine IMO. Like the man said; don't like it, don't use it.

OMG, those lightning attack rules remind me of that ion-storm mission in Command & Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun. Damn thing kept wiping out my Wolverines! Grrrrr!

The weather rules sound interesting and so long as they favour neither side...it adds to the drama. If they are that objectionable then future expansions or White Dwarf might revise them...

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

The preview of Toxic Storm does three things:

1) Reduce available range to 3d10 inches. With three dice you get a pretty reliable bell curve around 16,5" and know that firing over 30" isn't possible. That sounds like something one can and should plan for, no? Expect to go close and be unavailable to use your long range support. Does not sound like random for random's sake.

2) Add one to all damage taken. Where's the random there? You have to take that into account from the word go and can use that tactically, for an example to gain more bang from your smaller weapons that fire lots of rounds. Just a tactical consideration there.

3) Random lightning. That's proper random, yes, but it happens all day long for both sides and most likely averages out on, say, 30 tries that you might throw in a normal Confrontation sized game. It can skew, sure, but it is also fairly dangerous for both sides and in what world is it not a tactical consideration to keep in mind that your engines MAY take a hit in the beginning of the turn? That encourages you to keep your own shields up to not take that possibility and to shred your opponent's shields even if you might not have the normal dakka to capitalize on it immediately because there is a chance that nature does it for you. Heck, that is exactly what outsmarting someone in many real and fictive stories is about: taking advantage of the fictional positioning to do something more than one might be expected to.

Also, you don't have to use them if you don't like them. I do. I will. You do you.

This is the one I was taking particular issue with, as one could have inferred. It's just such typical GW Jervis bs that had hitherto largely seemed to have passed this game system by. It's also the sort of thing that appears in every game system they produce and could practically been cut and pasted from an AOS or 40K rule book, so on top of it being nonsense in-game it's also lazy, recycled, nonsense. The "averages out" argument is technically true, but average rolls don't equal average effects. I may roll a statistically average number of sixes, but if they happen all together over one or two turns and bork my Warlord, that's an uneven effect from average probability.

It's the worst sort of rule writing and it's something you only really see in GW games. It removes player agency with no means of mitigation, and I will have an issue with that in any game.

I normally firmly agree with you on this issue, but in this case I think it's pretty harmless. It's not part of army construction. It's not part of core rules. It's not part of basic scenarios. It's part of some optional rules from a supplementary book and it's actually representing something that would likely be pretty random in its effects. This isn't rolling for warlord traits, or getting sucked into a multi-random table of dice rolls for a weapon profile or special rule, or having basic terrain that will randomly decide to eat one of your units.

This kind of thing is only a problem when its commonplace and non-optional, this rule meets neither criteria and so is fine IMO. Like the man said; don't like it, don't use it.

Oh, if it were being put forward as an element of the core game my ire would be far stronger. But it is still representative of gak rules writing the GW seems determined to perpetuate and I'm disappointed to see it.

 Yodhrin wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
They do have range fiunders. Unfortunately they also have radar jammers, stealth equipment (seriously - you used to be able to fit an entire titan with cameleoline), ECM and ECCM and the battlefield will be covered in smoke, dust, erratic lighting and more. "no premeasuring" is as good a way of simulating that as trying to build all those effects explicitly into the rules.

(I suppose you could make movement and weapon ranges a number of dice rather than a fixed value, but I don't think you lot would like that either!)

And all you archieve is confuse newbies. Any veteran meanwhile will use known terrain sizes, board section sizes, his hand placed in convenient location(need 6" distance? Well I just have my hand nearby...Instant tell) plus basic algerbra. Might just as well be measured flat out for all the effect it does. You get to premeasure at will without taking up measure tape. It's artificial "skill" introducting without actually being real skill.

Stupid, illogical, unfluffy and even rules author was set against it but bean counters overrode him.

So, as per, all the objections to this come down to "Players with lots of experience shouldn't have an advantage over new players" and "Some people might cheat, so it's bad". Neither of which is a reasonable argument, since a requirement to get better at the game over time is something most people want from strategy systems, and "people might cheat" can be applied to any mechanic you like, including dice. Should GW games stop using dice? Yeah

Except that's not real skill. And no cheating whatsoever so your "some player might cheat so it's bad". Who's saying anything about cheating? I'm not. It's legal so it's not cheating. If you have issue with somebody doing those tricks it's your problem.

It's not even like this is NEW idea. It's old. Decades old. And shown to be bad IN PRACTICE. There's reason why the author of the game was dead set against it.

tneva82 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
They do have range fiunders. Unfortunately they also have radar jammers, stealth equipment (seriously - you used to be able to fit an entire titan with cameleoline), ECM and ECCM and the battlefield will be covered in smoke, dust, erratic lighting and more. "no premeasuring" is as good a way of simulating that as trying to build all those effects explicitly into the rules.

(I suppose you could make movement and weapon ranges a number of dice rather than a fixed value, but I don't think you lot would like that either!)

And all you archieve is confuse newbies. Any veteran meanwhile will use known terrain sizes, board section sizes, his hand placed in convenient location(need 6" distance? Well I just have my hand nearby...Instant tell) plus basic algerbra. Might just as well be measured flat out for all the effect it does. You get to premeasure at will without taking up measure tape. It's artificial "skill" introducting without actually being real skill.

Stupid, illogical, unfluffy and even rules author was set against it but bean counters overrode him.

So, as per, all the objections to this come down to "Players with lots of experience shouldn't have an advantage over new players" and "Some people might cheat, so it's bad". Neither of which is a reasonable argument, since a requirement to get better at the game over time is something most people want from strategy systems, and "people might cheat" can be applied to any mechanic you like, including dice. Should GW games stop using dice? Yeah

Except that's not real skill. And no cheating whatsoever so your "some player might cheat so it's bad". Who's saying anything about cheating? I'm not. It's legal so it's not cheating. If you have issue with somebody doing those tricks it's your problem.

It's not even like this is NEW idea. It's old. Decades old. And shown to be bad IN PRACTICE. There's reason why the author of the game was dead set against it.

The author of the game is not god. New != better. Plenty of people think it's a brilliant mechanic, as evidenced by the multiple people arguing the point with you.

And if that's not real skill then what the hell is by your daft standards? Learning how to estimate distances using the information available on the tabletop without having to measure it is the very definition of a skill; something most people don't begin with inherently but can develop over time by applying themselves. As for cheating, this has been explained already but evidently needs to be said again; estimation means no measuring, just working with the information the tabletop gives you. Leaning over the table and planting your arm, or your hand, or your rulebook, or any other random object or appendage that you've pre-measured in order to determine the distance is, by definition, measuring and also using information that's not part of the tabletop, ergo it is cheating. So if that happens to you all the time, find better people to play with.

 Yodhrin wrote:

And if that's not real skill then what the hell is by your daft standards? Learning how to estimate distances using the information available on the tabletop without having to measure it is the very definition of a skill; something most people don't begin with inherently but can develop over time by applying themselves. As for cheating, this has been explained already but evidently needs to be said again; estimation means no measuring, just working with the information the tabletop gives you. Leaning over the table and planting your arm, or your hand, or your rulebook, or any other random object or appendage that you've pre-measured in order to determine the distance is, by definition, measuring and also using information that's not part of the tabletop, ergo it is cheating. So if that happens to you all the time, find better people to play with.

No premeasuring is also not new rule and provenly by many games to be superior...

All those tricks makes all estimates as pointless. Why estimate when you can easily without effort find it. And you cry foul on cheating, everybody will do it without anybody being able to prove it. Rule that is enforceable only by god himself coming to judge is not good rule. You cannot prove it. Everybody does it except newbies in their first few games. Nobody does something obvious like plant hand nearby for long time. More like you do it when you move hand around say moving your models or picking up dice. Takes like microseconds...Good luck proving you premeasured that! You'll get laughed out for sheer sillyness.

It's been proven to not work. Opposite is also proven to work. No premeasure rule is already ancient rule. Premeasuring is also old rule so saying "new!=better" is false. Neither is new. Both are proven veterans. Only one of them is proven as good though...

It's not real skill. It's not even difficult. Anybody who has played at all can do it within inch. And calling it cheating makes you just a crying without evidence. Good luck proving it. You need the literal christian god from bible to come to judge to do it. Good luck with that...

No premeasuring is a very bad rule, and most decent games sytems have loooooong abandoned it.

I will most certainly be ditching it via houserule. It's just comically bad games design.

 Azreal13 wrote:

JWBS wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

That would make them a strategic consideration then wouldn't it?

I don't care what they are, as long as they affect both players equally and consistently.

By that standard, why you're even rolling dice at all, instead of replacing them with some sort of averages or random seed table? What if you roll 1 and your opponent rolls 6? That's, like, the exact opposite of 'affecting both players equally and consistently'

tneva82 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

And if that's not real skill then what the hell is by your daft standards? Learning how to estimate distances using the information available on the tabletop without having to measure it is the very definition of a skill; something most people don't begin with inherently but can develop over time by applying themselves. As for cheating, this has been explained already but evidently needs to be said again; estimation means no measuring, just working with the information the tabletop gives you. Leaning over the table and planting your arm, or your hand, or your rulebook, or any other random object or appendage that you've pre-measured in order to determine the distance is, by definition, measuring and also using information that's not part of the tabletop, ergo it is cheating. So if that happens to you all the time, find better people to play with.

No premeasuring is also not new rule and provenly by many games to be superior...

All those tricks makes all estimates as pointless. Why estimate when you can easily without effort find it. And you cry foul on cheating, everybody will do it without anybody being able to prove it. Rule that is enforceable only by god himself coming to judge is not good rule. You cannot prove it. Everybody does it except newbies in their first few games. Nobody does something obvious like plant hand nearby for long time. More like you do it when you move hand around say moving your models or picking up dice. Takes like microseconds...Good luck proving you premeasured that! You'll get laughed out for sheer sillyness.

It's been proven to not work. Opposite is also proven to work. No premeasure rule is already ancient rule. Premeasuring is also old rule so saying "new!=better" is false. Neither is new. Both are proven veterans. Only one of them is proven as good though...

It's not real skill. It's not even difficult. Anybody who has played at all can do it within inch. And calling it cheating makes you just a crying without evidence. Good luck proving it. You need the literal christian god from bible to come to judge to do it. Good luck with that...

See, all these things you keep saying are opinions, not facts, no matter how emphatically you state them.

None of the people I play with do any "tricks" like you mentioned, because they're not cheating arseholes. Just like nobody I play with(or would play with) brings loaded dice to games, or deliberately "mismeasures" while moving stuff, or any of the countless other "tricks" that can be done while playing a wargame in a way that is impossible to actually definitively prove but for some reason don't irrevocably taint the game mechanic they're associated with Plenty of the people I play with and elsewhere online disagree that premeasuring has been proven superior, because we prefer the alternative.

You do grasp that you're allowed to prefer something without having to engage in these farcical gymnastics trying to justify that opinion as somehow objectively true, right?

Eh.

AT is ultimately a game of manouvering, rather than shooting. So blind ranges adds to that. It's very much part of the game's challenge.

And like all other aspects of the game, there are ways and means to help get your eye in that much quicker. Such as trigonometry, and know the dimensions of the board. Is that cheating? No, because all that information is equally available to both parties. That one might be better at it is an advantage - not an unfair one.

Consider X-Wing and Armada. So far as I'm aware, they don't allow pre-measuring of any kind. You have to eye ball it.

 Irbis wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

JWBS wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

4) It's a game. Tactical considerations like that are good for the game.

Except when they're not tactical considerations but random things happening randomly to random units at random.

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

I've no issues with the concept of altering the parameters of the game for variety or fluff reasons, but when the rules describing them start "roll a d6" then forget it.

That would make them a strategic consideration then wouldn't it?

I don't care what they are, as long as they affect both players equally and consistently.

By that standard, why you're even rolling dice at all, instead of replacing them with some sort of averages or random seed table? What if you roll 1 and your opponent rolls 6? That's, like, the exact opposite of 'affecting both players equally and consistently'

The disingenuous is strong with this one...

When you know you're just grenade lobbing and gak stirring, why even bother posting?

Anyway...as noted previously, it is an 'optional' rule, so I guess many people will opt not to do it?

I think there's a discussion down in Game Design about the merits of randomness and such in games.

 Azreal13 wrote:

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

Why are you playing a random dominant game? Every time you roll a die you introduce the possibility of being penalized by pure happenstance. With dozens if not hundreds of these rolls throughout the course of a game, it means that more than half of the outcome is determined by chance. That is the implicit terms of service we all sign when we play a game of toy soldiers and chance cubes.

via Imgflip Meme Generator

I dont think we can expect much until next month.

The Reaver weapon sprue is on the horizon and the Knights need more weapon options at some point, whether by means of upgrade sprue or new box sets.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

I am quite happy to lose against an opponent who out thinks me, or engineers their own luck. If I lose because of random stuff that unfairly penalizes me because dice rolled higher/lower than they did against my opponent? No thank you.

Why are you playing a random dominant game? Every time you roll a die you introduce the possibility of being penalized by pure happenstance. With dozens if not hundreds of these rolls throughout the course of a game, it means that more than half of the outcome is determined by chance. That is the implicit terms of service we all sign when we play a game of toy soldiers and chance cubes.

I can't speak for you, but not playing a random dominant game is pretty much the point. I am in control of my dice in so much as I can play to secure bonus dice/positive modifiers etc. Equally I'm in control of my models and how they move and act in order to try and force my opponent to act as sub-optimally as possible.

I'm content that dice peaks and troughs happen. This isn't the same as "roll a dice and on this arbitrary number a thing does or doesn't happen."