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purplefood wrote:

Retrias wrote:or SW razor spam, because really, how many long fangs and razorback can a wolf company have?

Actually SW don't have any set definition of what makes up a Great Company
Some companies are heavy on Blood Claws and their companions whilst others are heavy on vehicles or veterans (or both)

The whole point of the Wolf Lords is that they do their own thing, so any type of SW army can be fluffy. As examples of current wolf lords:
Krakendoom's company loves transports.
Gunnar Red Moon loves Long Fangs
Morkai loves Scouts
Grimnar favors wolf guard
Harald Deathwolf uses wolves of all kinds (TWC, FW, etc)
Bjorn Stormwolf uses Heavy weapons, bikes and Vindicators (noisy stuff)
Egil Iron Wolf - Armored assaults
Krom Dragongaze - Wolf Guard
Ragnar Blackmane - Drop Pod assaults
Sven Bloodhowl - Close combat specialists
Kjarl Grimblood - redeemers and flames

And that doesn't even take into account you making your own Wolf Lord to replace one who uses his own tactics. Pretty much any SW army is fluffy.

It's OK not to get it. You helped me develop the idea probably as far as it can go. I'm pleased that I seem to have been mostly on the right track out of the gate.
Thanks for the input.

VoidAngel wrote:It's OK not to get it. You helped me develop the idea probably as far as it can go. I'm pleased that I seem to have been mostly on the right track out of the gate.
Thanks for the input.

So you reinvented composition restrictions?

The problem is that they are arbitrary, subjective and tough to maintain. GL with that.

Yes. That's what I did. Mission accomplished! Next up - renaming stats!

I think I'll go with:

Hackity Choppiness
Dakka
Schwarzenggarianity
Fortitude
Hit Points
Hit-You-Firstyness
Swing BattaBatta
and
Bossiness!!!

Whatcha think. No, nevermind - it's perfect and I don't want to explain it 17 times.

VoidAngel wrote:Yes. That's what I did. Mission accomplished! Next up - renaming stats!

snip

Whatcha think. No, nevermind - it's perfect and I don't want to explain it 17 times.

Hmm. Sarcasm? Don't think I've run into that before. I am hereby defeated and my points invalidated.

Good game.

Legislating 'fluffy' is like legislating morality. Unlikely to be successful and ultimately in the eye of the beholder.

Guideline, not legislation.

Framework, not morality.

Voluntary game between friends, not re-write of the core rules in my image.

Don't know if this was brought up or not (only read half of page one), but these rules are extremely unpleasant.

Necrons and Tau have the worst troop choices in the game. And you're going to require four of them? o.O

I guess in that case, I hope all of your friends share your 'vision' and that none of mine do.

And I agree with DoP, I hope they don't play Necrons or Tau.

Yes, it was brought up.

They work well for most current codices. Necrons are very out of date, and need a lot of troops anyway to keep from phasing out on turn 4.

Right. I'm trolling in my own topic, which was about trying to help people play a completely voluntary fluff-themed game. Right-0.

Thanks for your valuable input.

If it's a voluntary restriction between friends, why have the restriction at all?

Besides, the majority of your rules go against my army's fluff (which you can read by clicking the link in my sig).

1- My army's chapter master is always accompanied by his most trusted sanctifier (kind of like a cross between a chaplain and an apothecary) close at hand. To not include both in the same army, regardless of points value, would be unfluffy.
2- Sometimes, the only way to represent a DIY chapter's characters is through the use of a special character. Likewise, there are some (very fluffy) builds that require a special character to be used.
3-The fluff of my chapter (especially considering the state in which they are modelled) is that they are heavily depleted and reduced to the last few men in a final battle. In such a case, only a few elite warriors would remain. 4 troops choices does not really fit 'a few elite warriors.'

Fafnir wrote:If it's a voluntary restriction between friends, why have the restriction at all?

This.
"Hey friend, who I play all the time, don't be a jerk and make a lame, non-fluffy list."
"Hey Pretre, not a problem."
"Hey friend, do we need arbitrary guidelines to play in this manner?"
"Hey Pretre, nah, we're cool."

VoidAngel wrote:





Right. I'm trolling in my own topic, which was about trying to help people play a completely voluntary fluff-themed game. Right-0.

Thanks for your valuable input.

I think he was calling you a troll for creating the topic in the first pace.

VoidAngel wrote:
1) You may take one HQ choice in games of 1850 points or less.

Hmm. My 70 point Lord Commissar Anzio who is an adviser to my Company Commander Ivan Lebedeff is saddened by this remark. Also, does this include HQs that don't take up slots? Can SW take two for one? Can I still have Ministorum Priests? Could a BT player have an HQ other than the Emprah's Champ?

2) Your HQ choice may not be a special character, unless your opponent knows which one it will be. You're entitled to the same courtesy.

HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! I'M PLAYING RAVENWING!!!! I'LL TRUST YOUR GOOD GRACES AND YOUR MIND-ALTERING FLUFF ORGAN TO KEEP YOU FROM TAILORING. S'COOL THOUGH, I'M PRETTY OP AS IS.

3) You must take a minimum of 4 Troops choices.

I think that makes the slighly out of date (and mostly Xenos) codices all cry a little bit. Eldar/Tau/Necrons/Daemonhunters all get hurt pretty bad by that, and Orks get a HUGE boost.

4) Read your codex. If the list you construct does not seem to adhere to basic themes of your army - go back and start over. Yes, this is a bit subjective - but be honest. If you have a Blood Angles list full of Devastators and Tactical squads equipped to turtle...you probably have failed to grasp the flavor of your army. A reading of the fluff should reveal this to you.

??? Okay, who's to judge this? Would a person need to have a written passage offhandedly mentioning a previous battle where such a formation is allowed for it to be legit? Because there's nothing like legendary strategic acumen to have to fight your battles the same way as you're historically renown for doing so.

5) Select equipment appropriately. If power swords are supposed to be "rare and precious artifacts of the Chapter" - and you have as many as you are allowed to field by the rules...something is wrong. Rule #3 is intended to help prevent this a bit. That and, well, most armies are centered around the regular soldier.

Bolters are rare and precious in pieces of fluff. Does that mean that I have to make my 4 mandatory troop choices be Scouts with shotguns to be legit? See, here's the thing, most people have never even seen a Space Marine. That makes Space Marines rare, though unfortunately not nearly as rare on the table as in the fluff. So assuming there is one Space Marine for every ten million people out there (random guess) and let's say you do something stupid like include a full Vanguard squad each with power weapons for some asinine reason. You now have 15 power weapons, maybe, out of 60 or so guys. That means that you have one power weapon per ten million inhabitants. How rare is rare? By these rules, can you even have enough sets of Terminator Armor in one place at one time to field a min size squad?

Or put another way. Howitzers are rare in real life because I've never actually seen one. Most of the people I've met have never seen one, though I know a guy who has. Yet if I were on the battlefield, (perhaps during WW2) I would expect to see more than two in an army.

If it's a tournament, I expect some beardy horror designed only to crush everything in its path. I love the fluff, but will construct lists for fun, or just to see if they'll work sometimes.

How many tournaments have you been to? For all the tournament fear and horror stories, I've never actually had an upsetting situation.

Guideline, not legislation.

Framework, not morality.

Voluntary game between friends, not re-write of the core rules in my image.

You called them rules on the first page.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and Space Marines are totally nine feet tall.

I think the moral of the story is that 'fluffy' is highly subjective, and using restrictions on army list selections to try and enforce 'fluffy' armies is nigh impossible.

Great Gak of Gork - are you all illiterate?

Burn it all. Here's the intent, let's start with that - and YOU all can suggest approaches. I see now that my mistake was to offer any suggestions at all.

Audience: Friends and like-minded FLGS patrons you might get a pick up game with.
Type: Friendly game, with some voluntarily agreed to structure aimed a characterful armies that are not jarringly at odds with the common perception of said armies.
Purpose: To shut up whiners about "cheese" "unfluffiness" and "WAAC" playing - because it's a FRIENDLY game, for FUN.
Reasoning: Many, but not all, players will have trouble achieving this in the total absence of any sort of guidelines. "Don't be cheesy" is enough for *some*, but not all, players.

If such an endeavor interests you - have at it!
If such an endeavor insults you to the core of your being and offends your every earthly sensibility, causing feelings of existential rage and/or yawning abysses of emotional desolation - THIS IS NOT THE THREAD FOR THEE. The proverbial door lieth thataway.

daedalus wrote:
Oh, and Space Marines are totally nine feet tall.

bs. I modelled mine to be 8 feet tall.

VoidAngel wrote:
Burn it all. Here's the intent, let's start with that - and YOU all can suggest approaches. I see now that my mistake was to offer any suggestions at all.

How about forget about arbitrary guidelines altogether and just determine between your group what you want to field?

VoidAngel wrote:Great Gak of Gork - are you all illiterate?

Actually, I know who my parents are. Now I'm just insulted.

Burn it all. Here's the intent, let's start with that - and YOU all can suggest approaches. I see now that my mistake was to offer any suggestions at all.

Audience: Friends and like-minded FLGS patrons you might get a pick up game with.
Type: Friendly game, with some voluntarily agreed to structure aimed a characterful armies that are not jarringly at odds with the common perception of said armies.
Purpose: To shut up whiners about "cheese" "unfluffiness" and "WAAC" playing - because it's a FRIENDLY game, for FUN.
Reasoning: Many, but not all, players will have trouble achieving this in the total absence of any sort of guidelines. "Don't be cheesy" is enough for *some*, but not all, players.

If such an endeavor interests you - have at it!
If such an endeavor insults you to the core of your being and offends your every earthly sensibility, causing feelings of existential rage and/or yawning abysses of emotional desolation - THIS IS NOT THE THREAD FOR THEE. The proverbial door lieth thataway.

I think part of the problem is that most people don't HAVE issues like these for friendly games. At least not serious ones. I'll forever give my friends a hard time about packing every last heavy bolter and flamer against my 'Nids, or for bringing three wraithlords and an Avatar, but at the end of the day, it's just a game, and we still have fun. They do the same if I bring two Demolishers. Part of the magic is that sometimes the game just takes a strange bend and you end up wiping out every MC, or Chimera-spam, or whatever, and then you have a good laugh about it afterwards. Or you guys just need to do as petre said earlier and clear if it's a game, or a playtest/fluff session before hand.

daedalus wrote:

VoidAngel wrote:Great Gak of Gork - are you all illiterate?

Actually, I know who my parents are. Now I'm just insulted.

lmao. Win.

Some of the rest of it is just knowing your opponent. Your approach wouldn't work well on pickup games, because most people (me) don't bring their entire collection, just an army for a particular levels of points. I'd be pissed if I got ready to set up against you and you made a stink about the fact that I brought a Special Character or had two HQs. On the other hand, if you know the person and know what kind of player he is, you should be able to match his sense of what he considers reasonable. For example, the guy our group has that plays Xenos? I know I can bring my hardest, cheesiest, stupidest list against him because he's going to do the same. The guy who does SM? I bring as many Ogryn and ministorum priests as I have and then we butt heads having a laugh about all the little army men who are dying. Guy who does IG/CSM? He's cool enough we can discuss what kind of game we WANT to play prior to, and expect the other person to actually follow through with the expectations set.

You don't need rules. You just need to properly understand and meet each other's expectations.

Thank you for your time. Mephiston, Astorath, and my 30 Death Company jump Marines all with power weapons wish you luck against my scouting Baals with Flamestorm cannons.

If points were bolter rounds, I've got a ballistic skill of negative 3 in this thread.

Honestly, I think you are confusing "fluffy lists" with "hard lists"

If you are playing a friendly game with your friends, you probably shouldn't be taking min-max top tier competitive lists, and going for the curb stomp. Instead you'll probably take units because they are fun.

Lets say somebody brings an Iyanden Wraithwall list to the table, a squad of guard, 2 squads of guardians, Avatar, Farseer, a squad of harlies and 3 Lords. You're telling me you are going to look him in the eye and say, because he only has 3 troop choices and 2 HQs, that his list is un fluffy and he should go play some min max tourney player because he is clearly WAC player?

I mean you can't draw hard and fast lines- especially when talking about "fluff" which gets changed around in every codex.

Lets look at Chaos for example. GW specifically says that chaos space marines gravitate to powerful Chaos Lords. This to an extent implies that Chaos lords have a lot more say in what goes on the field than the Codex Astartes.

Like Scott said, something blatently against the spirit of the codex would be unfluffy- for instance if you had a Slaanesh Prince with Zerker Troops, or Noise Marines serving under a Khorne Lord- you better have a good explanation... because Khorne hates Slaanesh most of all.... unless you are playing Black Legion... because I think ANYTHING goes with them haha.

Lets say, for instance that Obliterators are rare. But is it really that hard to imagine a Chaos Lord or Demon Prince who actively seeks them out, and spends the majority of their campaign obtaining the relics and equipment that the Obliterators want- thus making them more likely to follow him? Maybe your army is like that.

Trying to re create a force org chart does nothing to help encourage fluffy armies. All it does is give somebody a template to create an unfluffy army that will still be whined about because its not fluffy. Thats part of the reason GW created the force org chart in the first place, and made troops scoring. They are already trying to encourage you to take more troops, and limiting the amount of heavy support and fast attack you can take.

Basically the difference between "fun" armies and "hard" armies is what you are after. Fluffy is very subjective... and can't really be put into a strict template.

Granted somethings seem very unfluffy, such as a dead Farseer guiding every Eldar army, but what can you do? Just put a blanket ban on Eldrad? That seems overly harsh, especially since there are 2 pages dedicated to him in the codex, and hes meant to be available to play, because special characters (in small doses) can be a lot of fun.

GW's recent focus on special characters being cost effective monsters compared to the customizable vanilla characters, is a problem with the direction GW has decided to take the company, not with the Fluffyness of armies.

VoidAngel wrote:Thank you for your time. Mephiston, Astorath, and my 30 Death Company jump Marines all with power weapons wish you luck against my scouting Baals with Flamestorm cannons.

If points were bolter rounds, I've got a ballistic skill of negative 3 in this thread.

Dude, if you don't want to discuss things, you might be in the wrong place.

Discussion is fine. Concussion is not. And that's what I'm getting from banging my head on my desk every time I read a new post here.

Then maybe stop reading it?

You said you got what you wanted out of the thread; maybe it is time to walk away.

To give you an idea, you posted what is a pretty inflammatory / unpopular subject (composition rules) on an internet forum. You're going to get a lot of responses to that kind of post and they probably aren't going to be what you are looking for.

If you are looking for 'safe' responses, try safe topics.

I think the confusion, as confusing as it is that you are confused by it, is the innocent use of the word "rules".

It should have been abundantly obvious from EVERYTHING else I wrote that these were never intended as RULES. I used the word "guidelines" at least a bazillion times, but slip and say "rules" and it's doooooooooooom!

Noted.

VoidAngel wrote:1) You may take one HQ choice in games of 1850 points or less.
2) Your HQ choice may not be a special character, unless your opponent knows which one it will be. You're entitled to the same courtesy.
3) You must take a minimum of 4 Troops choices.
4) Read your codex. If the list you construct does not seem to adhere to basic themes of your army - go back and start over. Yes, this is a bit subjective - but be honest. If you have a Blood Angles list full of Devastators and Tactical squads equipped to turtle...you probably have failed to grasp the flavor of your army. A reading of the fluff should reveal this to you.
5) Select equipment appropriately. If power swords are supposed to be "rare and precious artifacts of the Chapter" - and you have as many as you are allowed to field by the rules...something is wrong. Rule #3 is intended to help prevent this a bit. That and, well, most armies are centered around the regular soldier.

1. Belial
2. HAY IM TAKIN BELIAL
3. 4? How bout FIVE...TH/SS squads. With a coupla chainfists and CMLs thrown in for funsies.
4. Belial...troops...Dreadnought. Fluff? Check.
5. Let's see...Terminator armor. Check. And two asscannons to make sure the special weapon loadout looks 'fluffy' enough.


There, enjoy not beating that 1500 pt list with anything that SMs constricted to 4 Tac or Scout squads can dish out at 1500. And plasma guns have always been rare pieces of wargear, so if I see more than 2 on your side of the table you're a beardy gak-nut.

Seriously, comp scores don't work. At all. People have put far more time and thought into them than you and have still failed miserably. Comp scores simply add yet another element of complexity to the game, meaning that 'hard' players have more stats to game with to develop the most powerful list this new framework can bear and 'less hard' players get hosed over when they want to show up with Sicarius and a Chaplain (yeah, that's totally overpowered...).

The troops requirement is an especially craptastic sticking point because it hoses over armies with less useful troops options.

Who does fine with 4 troops?
DE
SW
BA
IG
Nids
DA
Orks
Chaos

Who gets hosed?
Tau
Crons
GK--especially "pure" GK
Sisters
SM

Oh, good, BA and SW are now competitive. Again. It's totally fun trying to gun down 4 SW rhinos and razorbacks with my single Dreadnought shooting t/l las and a missile.

No one is confused. We 'get' what you're trying to do. The problem is that it is unpopular.

People don't like guidelines either. Composition Guidelines is just as inflammatory.

It's like that old saying about politics and religion. Except around here it is comp scores and guidelines.

pretre wrote:No one is confused. We 'get' what you're trying to do. The problem is that it is unpopular.

People don't like guidelines either. Composition Guidelines is just as inflammatory.

It's like that old saying about politics and religion. Except around here it is comp scores and guidelines.

THAT is the first useful thing I've read in the last two hours.

OK, fine. The newbie's been educated that these are verboten topics. Well and good.

Oh, and DA example guy - I can beat that with any army you care to name, and any cooperation from the dice (my greatest enemy) - and yes, using my own guidelines.