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 Manchu wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
Sorry, Manchu - even the books support my interpretation of the intention of the rules. Mr. Kinrade continues to talk about how battlegroups are not a player's whole collection, how the forces are written to allow for balance, etc. Unless the in-book examples are also simply "pitches"?

Possibly so. I'm not suggesting duplicity. Designers naturally tend to be partial to their own work. I am a bit suspicious you and I are probably just talking past one another somehow. Unless you are really saying the primary purpose of Battlegroup is tightly balanced tournament and pick-up style gaming.

Oh, no! No, if that's the case then yes, we are talking past each other. I don't think we'll ever see the Battlegroup series of rules being used in tournaments like DBA or Fields of Glory. As to pick up games, however - yes? Iron Fist does run campaign weekends which pitch players that bring their own lists to what is essentially a Red-vs-Blue tournament to decide which side wins. It's a kind of a mix of campaign and tournament, but it still features pick-up-games against potentially unknown opponents.

 infinite_array wrote:

I don't think anyone is suggesting points and balance don't go together.

Really? Because because I've seen plenty of that in regards to AoS.

Seems like we are talking past one another here, too. I think most folks agree that points-based list building is a mechanic intended to foster balance. There is more disagreement as to whether points-based list building is an effective balancing mechanic.

TBF point-based list building also has a strong marketability dimension. GW's fantasy product range may have simply outgrown it ... weirdly bringing miniatures wargaming full circle back to not using points. In any case - I still don't see the contradiction you suggest. There is a widely-held belief that points are supposed to balance a game. An option should cost more if it is more powerful. The problem with this seemingly straightforward principle is points are never an accurate, transparent currency of "power" ... for the very reason that they become part of the calculus of power. It often transpires that a less powerful option that is cheaper ends up being better than a more powerful expensive option. This observation is not something I cooked up to defend AoS, by the way. Nor does it mean points cannot help foster balance.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In 40K the points are unbalanced and the game structure allows players to find exploits which in many cases are so extreme as to be highly unbalancing.

One solution is properly balanced points and army structure.

Other solutions are to create defined army lists,
- to randomise army lists within boundaries, or
- to use historical forces and
- balance by other means such as objectives.

GW have chosen a different solution, not to bother with balance at all.

The dozen or more balancing systems that have already been created for AoS indicate that this solution is unsatisfactory to a lot of people.

40k points are generally close enough if one is just looking for a game to play.

40k is too complex to have proper balance, simply due to the sheer number of cross-interactions due to Unbound.

- 40k uses formations to create defined army lists very effectively. A good example is the Codex Astartes Battle Company.
- I do NOT want mandated random armies, whereby I roll a series of d66 to determine which units I may play, and how many of each type. That would be pretty messy.
- Codex Astartes Battle Company is the pseudo-historical analogue here.
- GW has been trying to balance via scenarios and objectives, but the "community" has been resisting this forever. Recall how 2E was pure "line up and kill" whereas 6E is mostly objectives, and now has Maestrom of random, changing objectives. Note that the community hates Maelstrom, preferring line up and shoot, still thinking about tabling as the win condition.

GW has tried pretty much everything they could, and finally did away with points altogether. That's not to say that AoS isn't balanced, but more that a lot of people are knee-jerking back to old habits of trying to play equal points battles, rather than accepting potentially unbalanced forces.

People wanting "balance" always fail to acknowledge the differential in skill. If points were perfect, the game would move to an almost purely skill-based game. In such a game, aside from freak die rolls (which can be mitigated by skillful play), every game becomes deterministic in that the higher-skilled player wins. Is that the desirable outcome? What if these "balance" players end up in a meta in which they have to constantly play better opponents and can't rely on points imbalances to eke out a win?

AoS not having points suggests that one may have better-balanced game between players of different skill levels than in previous editions, simply because any handicapping is in the player's hands rather than the rules. IOW, if Player B thinks they need more / larger / better units against Player A, he can take them as desired.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 infinite_array wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

It's good stuff, and suggests that trying to create points is a mistake.

It's this new narrative that's sprung up with the release of AoS - that tournament gaming = points and army lists, and tournament gaming is some kind of poisonous cancer to tabletop wargaming. Which is some sort of defense as to why AoS skips any pretense of balancing mechanics or limitations, rather than just allowing GW to skip any kind of effort when they're trying to roll out the next big kit that they're hoping their customers will buy a baker's dozen of.

Why should GW limit what I want to play in any given game? I bought the models, I should play them as I choose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Los pollos hermanos wrote:
Chess wouldn't be chess if the rules could just switch up every few turns,

Obviously, you've never played Knightmare Chess


https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/227/knightmare-chess

If you've never played, you should. It's a great sandbox.

 Manchu wrote:
TBF point-based list building also has a strong marketability dimension. GW's fantasy product range may have simply outgrown it ... weirdly bringing miniatures wargaming full circle back to not using points. In any case - I still don't see the contradiction you suggest. There is a widely-held belief that points are supposed to balance a game. An option should cost more if it is more powerful. The problem with this seemingly straightforward principle is points are never an accurate, transparent currency of "power" ... for the very reason that they become part of the calculus of power. It often transpires that a less powerful option that is cheaper ends up being better than a more powerful expensive option. This observation is not something I cooked up to defend AoS, by the way. Nor does it mean points cannot help foster balance.

Games without point value or competition are either extremely broad appeal (typically for children), or extremely niche. AoS is too expensive to be broad appeal, and WFB was already niche, and GW didn't like that. Frankly I don't understand their thinking at all, other than as a quick money grab before selling the company and moving to bermuda.

I respect Jervis. He created my most favorite GW ruleset - Epic Armageddon (which has points and a fantastic standard battle scenario).
However, I disagree with him here, and I disagree with how the AoS fans are trying to characterise the lack of points or balancing mechanism in AoS as a virtue.
Seeking a balanced, competitive game is just as valid a playstyle as 'put some minis on the table and lets roll some dice and tell a story!'. In fact, since gamers have gravitated overwhelmingly toward the balanced and competitive style of play I would say it is a natural evolution of the game that meets the needs of most gamers. By deliberately denying gamers this style of play with their AoS rules, GW are showing incredible arrogance. And I'm pretty sure it will not go well for them. It is never wise to try to swim against the current, or ignore what a large proportion of your customers want.
Another argument that many others have made is this: providing a good method for balancing forces does not stop people from fielding asymmetrical forces or using their own scenarios or forging narratives. They can still do that just as easily. But people are also able to play a balanced, competitive game if they want to.
By not providing this versatility, GW has severely restricted the playstyle for AoS, which is likely to also severely restrict the audience for it.

 Eggheart wrote:
It is never wise to try to swim against the current, or ignore what a large proportion of your customers want.

Given that SMs alone outsold the entirety of Fantasy, which was declining and dying, the large proportion of GW's actual Customers didn't want then points-based Fantasy.

The fact that some people prefer points-based gaming does not mean that it was incorrect for GW to move away from points, if that's how they envision the game going forward.

While GW could add points, Jervis' article suggests that they won't, because it's not aligned with how they play internally, nor how they want players to enjoy their game.

Besides, as we've seen with Tournaments, players can organize their own points system. And looking at ETC, for example, I don't think that is far-fetched at all.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Eggheart wrote:
It is never wise to try to swim against the current, or ignore what a large proportion of your customers want.

Given that SMs alone outsold the entirety of Fantasy, which was declining and dying, the large proportion of GW's actual Customers didn't want then points-based Fantasy.

Assuming that there were SM lines that outsold Fantasy because people didn't like Points in their Fantasy game is...more than a wee bit of a stretch.

Up until the last couple weeks, who saw anyone talk about points, as a fundamental concept, as the reason they didn't like Fantasy or anything else? I can't recall a single one.

There were plenty of issues with points costs being mishandled, but that's always existed in every game ever. The common complaints with Fantasy? Cost, time investment, and Magic sometimes being out of control .

 Talys wrote:
Well, put on the other shoe.

How do you create a game with models that range from peasant with pitchfork to God of Undead and quite literally everything in between, and in the context of a 30 model wargame make it so that every game can be a fair fight, and so that no model is marginalized?

How do you build a game so that someone can show up with the models they enjoy modelling, and play without feeling like they have no hope of winning against the person who shows up with the models that they built to beat you?

You do you build a game that allows reasonable allowances of allies and situationally unreasonable allowances (desperate times call for desperate measures!), without allowing craziness on the tabletop?

Perhaps the issue is one of scale, and trying to hamfist too much into too little?

Like trying to make a LotR game where Sauron can be included in every single orc raid against Gondorian rangers?

40k is running into many of the same issues, and stuff that was previously literally only ever intended to be portrayed in Epic are now being forced into the fifth iteration of the 3rd ed ruleset without any change in granularity.

Perhaps the issue is GW simply trying to shove everything in their game universes into a single game, where previously they had two or three for each system to portray different scales and playstyles (e.g. Inquisitor & Necromunda, 40k, and Epic).

Unfortunately the response of "well, lets just make a ruleset that simply covers the model interactions and a basic setup condition" doesn't really satisfy anything.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Given that Fantasy was clearly dying, points-based gaming may have run its course. The fact that some people prefer points-based gaming does not mean that it was incorrect for GW to move away from points, if that's how they envision the game going forward.

This is purely conjecture, but:

I dont think WFB failed to meet GW's sales requirements because it had a points balancing system. I dont think points-based gaming has run its course. I dont think that it is just some tabletop gamers that prefer having a balancing mechanism - I think it is the vast majority. I think most tabletop gamers like a balanced, competitive game to varying degrees. I think that points enable them to do that. I think most people dont have the time or the temperament to prepare for or enjoy non-structured, narrative-forging, 'RPG-style' games.

This I think is objectively true:

Providing a good balancing system would have made AoS more versatile, and able to be played anywhere on a playstyle spectrum from RPG to competitive tournament. Versatility is good. Not providing this versatility in AoS, means that AoS is not as good a game as it would otherwise have been.

 Eggheart wrote:

This I think is objectively true:

Providing a good balancing system would have made AoS more versatile, and able to be played anywhere on a playstyle spectrum from RPG to competitive tournament. Versatility is good. Not providing this versatility in AoS, means that AoS is not as good a game as it would otherwise have been.

Well, there are two aspects to this. One is that human beings aren't rational. Oh, you can just ignore points values. Sure you can. I bet if you go to a games night and ask someone to play a game with you in a system where points values are entrenched they will look at you like you're completely insane and they're wondering whether they should dial emergency. Points values create an expectation that by using the points system you will create a balanced game, and typically that furthermore creating a balanced game is something that's ultimately desirable. You can try to counteract this by changing the culture, and that's cool, but you are swimming against the current because of the implications the points system makes.

The other question is whether points values create, in general, a more balanced game than not using points values. I suspect that in many cases they do not because the fundamental assumption is that points values lead to a balanced game where in many cases this is far from true. In most sufficiently complex game systems (which probably describes most wargames), we could sit down together and create two lists where one has virtually no chance of victory against the other. I'm not saying we can make an awful list and a good list and the good one will win - we can make two good lists that nonetheless result in a completely one-sided matchup, and we are still likely to find ourselves burdened with the expectation that on some level this matchup is "fair" because their points values match. If we were actually critically evaluating the lists it would likely be immediately apparent that one will have a very hard time winning, but because we have delegated responsibility to a points system that is blind to too many factors (like what the opponent's list contains or what the scenario or terrain are, or some combination of these) we have come up with a less balanced match while simultaneously feeling that it will be more balanced.

In other words:
- points systems don't necessarily create balanced games, yet
- points systems create an expectation that a game between similarly costed armies will in some way be balanced, even though
- points systems are blind to many factors that players with a basic understanding of the game system may be able to consider

Human beings are not rational.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

40k is too complex to have proper balance, simply due to the sheer number of cross-interactions due to Unbound.

That's why noone plays unbound for a serious game. Not to mention 40k is such a simpleton of a ruleset that it could be balanced even for unbound, assumng work was put into it instead of playing a few games and slapping a point cost.

- GW has been trying to balance via scenarios and objectives, but the "community" has been resisting this forever. Recall how 2E was pure "line up and kill" whereas 6E is mostly objectives, and now has Maestrom of random, changing objectives. Note that the community hates Maelstrom, preferring line up and shoot, still thinking about tabling as the win condition.

So maelstrom made 40k balanced but the "community resisted it"? You really don't have any idea, do you?

GW has tried pretty much everything they could, and finally did away with points altogether. That's not to say that AoS isn't balanced, but more that a lot of people are knee-jerking back to old habits of trying to play equal points battles, rather than accepting potentially unbalanced forces.

GW has tried everything except proper playtesting and balancing. "Everything they could", how do you even post such a nonsense?

People wanting "balance" always fail to acknowledge the differential in skill. If points were perfect, the game would move to an almost purely skill-based game. In such a game, aside from freak die rolls (which can be mitigated by skillful play), every game becomes deterministic in that the higher-skilled player wins. Is that the desirable outcome? What if these "balance" players end up in a meta in which they have to constantly play better opponents and can't rely on points imbalances to eke out a win?

Is that an undesirable outcome? Jesus.

It's the most desirable outcome possible.

AoS not having points suggests that one may have better-balanced game between players of different skill levels than in previous editions, simply because any handicapping is in the player's hands rather than the rules. IOW, if Player B thinks they need more / larger / better units against Player A, he can take them as desired.

Except that you could always give a "worse" player more points. Now it is just harder because you need quite a knowledge about a system to properly judge the power level of units and you have to do it first before you even try to handicap anyone. It's times easier to go wrong and you start fresh each time you change the list, as opposed to just finding a good value in points for handicap.

The funny thing is that AoS is actually moderately balanced straight out of the box. At least, based on my reading of a couple of the war scrolls, it is noticeable that the power gap between units is much less than in 40K.

A unit say of 10 Dwarves has about the same amount of hits and shots as a hero unit with maybe 6 hits and 4 shots, considering it won't all be able to get into H2H due to weapon ranges, and will suffer from battle shock.

The thing that is going to lead to wild imbalance is the special rules. But that is the way GW rolls.

The randomness in the game is mostly confined to resolving areas of uncertainty in combat, such as 'to hit'. The only real problem is the rolling for initiative each turn, and people have already begun to house rule that out because it is too lucky.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Spoiler:

Well, put on the other shoe.

How do you create a game with models that range from peasant with pitchfork to God of Undead and quite literally everything in between, and in the context of a 30 model wargame make it so that every game can be a fair fight, and so that no model is marginalized?

How do you build a game so that someone can show up with the models they enjoy modelling, and play without feeling like they have no hope of winning against the person who shows up with the models that they built to beat you?

You do you build a game that allows reasonable allowances of allies and situationally unreasonable allowances (desperate times call for desperate measures!), without allowing craziness on the tabletop?

Perhaps the issue is one of scale, and trying to hamfist too much into too little?

Like trying to make a LotR game where Sauron can be included in every single orc raid against Gondorian rangers?

40k is running into many of the same issues, and stuff that was previously literally only ever intended to be portrayed in Epic are now being forced into the fifth iteration of the 3rd ed ruleset without any change in granularity.

Perhaps the issue is GW simply trying to shove everything in their game universes into a single game, where previously they had two or three for each system to portray different scales and playstyles (e.g. Inquisitor & Necromunda, 40k, and Epic).

Unfortunately the response of "well, lets just make a ruleset that simply covers the model interactions and a basic setup condition" doesn't really satisfy anything.

The LoTR game analogy is perfect: if the game rules permit you to take Sauron and Gandalf for X and Y, and everyone wants to play with Z points which is greater than X or Y, then Sauron and Gandalf show up in every game, because there are no units that add up to X as good as Sauron, nor any units that add up to Y as good as Gandalf. Especially when Gandalf can buff Aragorn and make him into an indestructible killing machine. Nobody even ends up buying orc raiders, much less playing a little game with them that might be fun.

This is entirely the problem with 40k. All those 1850 competition points end up with same-y strategies of deathstars, deepstrike, MSU, etc. In PP games, there are most certainly winning lists too; pick yourself 50 fluffy points and prepare to lose.

The thing is, it's really cool (at least I think it is) to have a game that can have peasants and pitchforks, middling heroes, heroes of the realm, angelic/demonic beings, demigods, and full-on gods -- all in the same game. The trick is to do exactly as you suggest: don't play them all in the same game!

So if you're playing orc raiders and a wood elves in a glade, you can make the game interesting. Just pick the units on one side, pick approximately equivalent units on the other side, set it up , and go. The idea behind AoS is that without points, you force the two players to agree on equivalence before the game. With points, players will inevitably fall back on, "but that's X points."

With points, players (rightly) look to build efficiency within constraints. Constructing efficient armies are part of the game. Without points, players must instead look to building fairness -- unless they want to fool their opponent pre-game, which isn't in the spirit of the game, and won't work for more than 1 game.

By the way, the scale creep in 40k is entirely the fault of the players -- GW produces stuff that people want, and 40k players overwhelmingly want bigger things. We get giddy at the prospect of bigger, stompier, more badass stuff, and it's that treadmill (plus newer, more and shinier models) that's kept 40k going for 3 decades. I mean, the Imperial Knight was the most popular model in the year it came out, so that's gotta say something, right?

You could say, "But GW should be wise, and not give players what they want, just because they'll spend money... they should know better and act in the best interest of the game!" The problem is, another company would do it then, and even with crappy rules, people would jump there.. because 40k players gave demonstrated that they want newer, shinier, and bigger models.

Lots of people hated the big monsters everywhere direction in whfb. I have a hpa and Karl Franz on a gryph but rarely use them.

I love big things in 40k though.

 infinite_array wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
Sorry, Manchu - even the books support my interpretation of the intention of the rules. Mr. Kinrade continues to talk about how battlegroups are not a player's whole collection, how the forces are written to allow for balance, etc. Unless the in-book examples are also simply "pitches"?

Possibly so. I'm not suggesting duplicity. Designers naturally tend to be partial to their own work. I am a bit suspicious you and I are probably just talking past one another somehow. Unless you are really saying the primary purpose of Battlegroup is tightly balanced tournament and pick-up style gaming.

Oh, no! No, if that's the case then yes, we are talking past each other. I don't think we'll ever see the Battlegroup series of rules being used in tournaments like DBA or Fields of Glory. As to pick up games, however - yes? Iron Fist does run campaign weekends which pitch players that bring their own lists to what is essentially a Red-vs-Blue tournament to decide which side wins. It's a kind of a mix of campaign and tournament, but it still features pick-up-games against potentially unknown opponents

As I write Battlegroup with Warwick, no its not conducive to tournament style of play... though I know of stores who have run a BG tournament. It helps that those involved were all BG gamers and approached it in the spirit of the game, and played it in the same manner as our own Campaign weekends.

Our points are a tool and there to allow players to easily and quickly get a game going, though the lists themselves are designed to force a player to choose forces that give a historical feel to them. When then used with the generic scenarios, you can have games that are anything but balanced - if you mean that 'balance' equates to each side having an equal chance of winning throughout and from the start.

Our balance is more in meaning that the armies you select are roughly equivalent but still within their historical feel and context... but be prepared for Lady Luck to spit in ya eye once the battle starts. With our scenario design and Battle Rating mechanic, plus limited orders per turn, i cant see it appealing to those who like the stereotypical Tournament game. What we have is a game that utilises points to allow easy pick up play but still give what we feel is the right historical 'feel' or 'flavour' for the given period. The system also works equally well with structured historical scenarios such as those featured in the books. If you look at our 3rd book - Fall of the Reich - its balance is even more skewed, on purpose to reflect that chaotic period in the last few months of the war. If you play Germans in April 1945, its hard work from the outset, but thats the point to our game design - It tries to put over the feel of the period, and at times that might leave you at a distinct disadvantage from the get go. Its not a problem for the gamer who is 'playing the period', but it could be one for those who 'play the rules'. I like nothing more than rolling out my poor Volkssturm to meet the Red Army onslaught. 9 times out of 10 they get steamrollered, but I still have fun being a speed bump, but the one time I do win is made all the sweeter given the tools at my disposal!

So for us, points are a tool to be used to help players set up a game with minimum fuss. We then give the period feel by sturctured lists that are historically constrained and scenarios that provide varying conditions in every game. Along with this the Battle Rating chit system means you never know exactly the state of your opponents army condition, all of which builds for a very tense, exciting and often unpredictable game.

Myself and Warwick are both narrative gamers, even when using points for pick up games, our scenario design gives vastly different games everytime as forces arrive in a varied manner. All of these factors mean the games tend to tell a story. Sometimes tahts the story of an utter debacle, sometimes its the story of a victory against the odds. I think that variety, by the simple use of army lists and well designed scenarios is one of the strong points of Battlegroup. We also play large historical games and here sides can often be vastly outnumbered, but victory conditions are applied that then add the 'balance' so that both sides have the opportunity to win.

At the end of the day, we can only write games that we want to play. Thats our simple ethos. We can only hope that others like playing them too.

Big P wrote:
At the end of the day, we can only write games that we want to play. Thats our simple ethos. We can only hope that others like playing them too.

And that's the crux of the issue - WFB had become something that GW's designers didn't want to play, and they ended up reconcepting into something that they did. As the designers, that's really up to them. Railing that they should have points that they don't want doesn't change things.

Well, we don't know that. It seems far more likely that WHFB had turned into something that GW's customers didn't want to buy any more and the company's business managers ordered the design staff to make a new game that hopefully would sell better.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Big P wrote:
At the end of the day, we can only write games that we want to play. Thats our simple ethos. We can only hope that others like playing them too.

And that's the crux of the issue - WFB had become something that GW's designers didn't want to play, and they ended up reconcepting into something that they did. As the designers, that's really up to them. Railing that they should have points that they don't want doesn't change things.

Only it has nothing to do what GW wants or doesn't want to play. WFB had bad sales. And it had bad sales, because of huge imbalance between armies and super high entry point for new player. To an extent the same is happening to w40k right now. The games turns from buying an army and playing it, in to owning a huge multi model collection from different faction. I wouldn't be suprised if in a few years w40k shared WFB fate. More high cost models, higher entry point and fewer and fewer new players.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well, we don't know that.

It seems far more likely that WHFB had turned into something that GW's customers didn't want to buy any more and the company's business managers ordered the design staff to make a new game that hopefully would sell better.

Considering Jervis' article and AoS as it was released, compared to what WFB8 had become, I thought it a reasonable conclusion.

I'm sure that the design staff were under pressure to bring something new into WFB to reverse the slide, and I'm sure it goes back before 8E. 8E was the 40k of WFB, with the addition of Knight-class centerpieces along with hordes. That didn't work as well as GW had hoped, so AoS goes the other direction.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Up until the last couple weeks, who saw anyone talk about points, as a fundamental concept, as the reason they didn't like Fantasy or anything else? I can't recall a single one.

Right on. Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun. There wasn't a camp arguing against the use of points and you didn't see a lot of gamers showing off their pointsless scenarios and what not.

With the arrival of AoS it's turned into a fundamental issue on which the community is deeply divided. Did people change their minds about what they enjoy after GW told them to? Or were they in agreement with Jervis' gaming philosophy all along and just kept it quiet for reasons?

Either way I don't know why they're so confident in their ability to come up with and agree on exciting and interesting scenarios at the drop of a hat. On the other hand I guess they do have years of experience at pretending to enjoy games, so they won't be caught losing at having fun.

 Fabio Bile wrote:
Or were they in agreement with Jervis' gaming philosophy all along and just kept it quiet for reasons?

Some of us have been big fans of Jervis-style gaming for a long time.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well, we don't know that.

It seems far more likely that WHFB had turned into something that GW's customers didn't want to buy any more and the company's business managers ordered the design staff to make a new game that hopefully would sell better.

Considering Jervis' article and AoS as it was released, compared to what WFB8 had become, I thought it a reasonable conclusion.

I'm sure that the design staff were under pressure to bring something new into WFB to reverse the slide, and I'm sure it goes back before 8E. 8E was the 40k of WFB, with the addition of Knight-class centerpieces along with hordes. That didn't work as well as GW had hoped, so AoS goes the other direction.

I think the doubling of price of army books and codexes was a major problem for both systems.

 Fabio Bile wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Up until the last couple weeks, who saw anyone talk about points, as a fundamental concept, as the reason they didn't like Fantasy or anything else? I can't recall a single one.

Right on. Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun. There wasn't a camp arguing against the use of points and you didn't see a lot of gamers showing off their pointsless scenarios and what not.

With the arrival of AoS it's turned into a fundamental issue on which the community is deeply divided. Did people change their minds about what they enjoy after GW told them to? Or were they in agreement with Jervis' gaming philosophy all along and just kept it quiet for reasons?

There are many, very long, very heated threads in the archives here that deal with the issue.

While nobody complained about points as such, many people challenge the claim that the existence of points implies "balance" as a conscious design goal and "lack of balance" inevitably as incompetence or "sales-taking-over-game-design". That assumption has always been wrong.

GW's conscious direction of game design has been apparent for a long time. I got back into 40K only after the fired hacks like Alessio Cavatore and dropped the sterile philosophy of 4th and, to a lesser degree, early 5th for a more narrative and more cinematic approach.

The problem is, anybody expressing opinions of this kind would always get shouted down by the highly vocal minority of "balance uber alles" that infests these boards.

 Talys wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Spoiler:

Well, put on the other shoe.

How do you create a game with models that range from peasant with pitchfork to God of Undead and quite literally everything in between, and in the context of a 30 model wargame make it so that every game can be a fair fight, and so that no model is marginalized?

How do you build a game so that someone can show up with the models they enjoy modelling, and play without feeling like they have no hope of winning against the person who shows up with the models that they built to beat you?

You do you build a game that allows reasonable allowances of allies and situationally unreasonable allowances (desperate times call for desperate measures!), without allowing craziness on the tabletop?

Perhaps the issue is one of scale, and trying to hamfist too much into too little?

Like trying to make a LotR game where Sauron can be included in every single orc raid against Gondorian rangers?

40k is running into many of the same issues, and stuff that was previously literally only ever intended to be portrayed in Epic are now being forced into the fifth iteration of the 3rd ed ruleset without any change in granularity.

Perhaps the issue is GW simply trying to shove everything in their game universes into a single game, where previously they had two or three for each system to portray different scales and playstyles (e.g. Inquisitor & Necromunda, 40k, and Epic).

Unfortunately the response of "well, lets just make a ruleset that simply covers the model interactions and a basic setup condition" doesn't really satisfy anything.

The LoTR game analogy is perfect: if the game rules permit you to take Sauron and Gandalf for X and Y, and everyone wants to play with Z points which is greater than X or Y, then Sauron and Gandalf show up in every game, because there are no units that add up to X as good as Sauron, nor any units that add up to Y as good as Gandalf. Especially when Gandalf can buff Aragorn and make him into an indestructible killing machine. Nobody even ends up buying orc raiders, much less playing a little game with them that might be fun.

Right, and that's where there used to be a divide. Certain things weren't allowed unless the game being played was at least X number of points, or were only available in Epic or its equivalent. A big part of the problem with both 40k and Fantasy, is that they simply allowed everything as long as the game was physically big enough to pay the points for it. You could see Archaon and Nagash in a typical 2500pt Fantasy pickup game after the End Times changes, characters like Abaddon or Draigo and superheavy tanks like Baneblades could be taken in 1000pt skirmishes, and a Reaver Titan can be played in an 1850pt game. There once were limits on these sorts of things. Amazingly powerful special characters couldn't show up to just any battle. Legendary war machines, Godzilla sized creatures, and D-weapons capable of one-shotting anything in the game weren't something to be seen in typical tournament sized lists. They had a specific special expansion (Apocalypse) just for those things, and earlier had an entire game built around them (Epic).

Collapsing that separation and allowing everything into any game is a huge part of the problem. Allowing everyone to take everything in every game made balancing it impossible. When you've got games of superheavy tanks versus monster hordes, what use does the basic infantryman serve? That level of granularity becomes pointless. And both Fantasy and 40k got hit with that super hard.

Though at the same time, they appeared to basically stop trying. It's one thing to not restrict Sauron-equivalents to an Epic style game, but when they're costed such that they're always an attractive and viable option that can overcome deficiencies elsewhere, that's another problem to add to the issue.

Now, did players like bigger and cooler models? Of course. But I don't recall seeing people wanting to be able to take Titans, Gargantuan Creatures, Haywire rifles, D weapons, 2++ rerollable saves, etc in normal games, it was stuff people wanted to trot for the big local apoc games a couple of times a year, not something that could be hamfisted into any potential pickup game.

Wonderwolf wrote:


GW's conscious direction of game design has been apparent for a long time. I got back into 40K only after the fired hacks like Alessio Cavatore and dropped the sterile philosophy of 4th and, to a lesser degree, early 5th for a more narrative and more cinematic approach.

Aside from just having bigger things that lead to a ton more lopsided curb-stomps and tablings, what's more "cinematic" about the game now than in 5th? It's more random, it's a whole lot more arbitrary, and to me *way* less cinematic. Randomness !=fluffy, narrative, or cinematic. They've added more skin-deep "whizz-bang", but there's basically nothing in the way of narrative gaming the way something like say, Battletech, Heavy Gear, Ogre, or most RPG's give players the tools for in terms of tons of well thought out pre-built scenarios, campaign tools, etc.

I mean, I have my qualms with Alessio, but the idea that "balance is bad", and that it hurts other kinds of gaming, is absurd. Good balance should only help enhance narrative play by giving players a better suite of tools to work with to design their scenarios. Bad balance helps nobody.

 Fabio Bile wrote:

Right on. Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun. There wasn't a camp arguing against the use of points and you didn't see a lot of gamers showing off their pointsless scenarios and what not.

With the arrival of AoS it's turned into a fundamental issue on which the community is deeply divided. Did people change their minds about what they enjoy after GW told them to? Or were they in agreement with Jervis' gaming philosophy all along and just kept it quiet for reasons?

Its pretty standard psychology when it comes to a brand new system that some like that is met with harsh criticism. You latch on to the main focus of the games difference with the old system and declare it a freeing masterpiece that sweeps away everything (suddenly) wrong with the old system as if it was the shining light of the emperor himself doing away with the evils of the old system, that everyone hated, nobody had fun playing, only power players ever played and was basically the cause of all misery on terra.

Obviously im over exaggerating here but simply put its over compensating for the new system. It doesn't have points, warhammer has points, so the focus becomes that warhammer fantasy points system was an evil that AoS saved us from rather than just been a new game without points rather than fixing a mistake, hence making the new game look better. Demonizing the points system is to be expected, although even I'll admit the level its been taken to is pretty funny with the way some people talk you'd think point was and always has been the bane of everyone and caused all fantasy players to cry in misery at how bad it made the game. The idea that points system literally stopped people having any fun and nobody used to talk to their opponent, you couldn't play story scenarios or do anything out of the lines is pretty silly and suddenly its fun thanks to no points and the reasons are all reasons that you could do with points and talking it through with your opponent anyway

Im not even trashing AoS here, fantasy had points, sigmar doesn't thats it. All the reasons listed of to why no points is better are reasons either system can play with so its pretty silly tbh.

"If only the game didn't have points I can't even talk with my opponent to work out a scenario because the points won't let me!! *tears*" - average WHFB player not having fun ever thanks to points.

The top 5 selling wargames are 40k, X-wing, warmachine, attack wing and hordes. Every single one of those games use point systems. The sale numbers for point-less games are well below fantasy 8th at its lowest point.

Its possible that Jervis is so committed to art that he created a super niche product to suit his vision, but the more likely scenario is that he is simply is as incompetent at marketing as he is at game design. Jervis has zero credibility criticizing the value of point systems when he lacks the most basic understanding of how they work.

Like a few have mentioned before, I think player skill has a lot to do with it as well. Clinging on to say "hey the points were even!" doesn't exactly mean it was balanced. I mean why do you think we have concepts of "It's OP because of the points cost?".

I have watched a few AoS matches at our store, and honestly even when they were just throwing in models. It seemed more like it was tactical mistakes then the units. Forgetting bonuses, casting Inspiring presence, ect.

matthewp wrote:
Like a few have mentioned before, I think player skill has a lot to do with it as well. Clinging on to say "hey the points were even!" doesn't exactly mean it was balanced. I mean why do you think we have concepts of "It's OP because of the points cost?".

Easy. Because the developers didn't do their job, and used a dart board to assign points costs.

There's assigning points values, based on data, statistical analysis, and most importantly, playtesting (ie lots of playtesting) which has a lot more value than assigning points values badly. Don't confuse the two. Gw often end up with the latter, not the former.

matthewp wrote:
Clinging on to say "hey the points were even!" doesn't exactly mean it was balanced.

Its an impossibility to create a truly balanced wargame, are are too many variables for that to ever be realistic.

However points provide a framework and guide to a fair game, the more work that is done on producing accurate points costs the fairer the game will be.

Removing points costs in their entirety simply result in unfair games and realistically few people like unfair games. Even RPGs have monster levels or suggested group sizes.

 Vaktathi wrote:


I mean, I have my qualms with Alessio, but the idea that "balance is bad", and that it hurts other kinds of gaming, is absurd. Good balance should only help enhance narrative play by giving players a better suite of tools to work with to design their scenarios. Bad balance helps nobody.

For a long time, it created a toxic environment for gaming, where people insisted/assumed that all available options, are acceptable and appropriate for any and all games, and that just because something "legal" to be used, it doesn't require explicit consent from your opponent.

Everything that breaks this perception and puts mutual consent/agreement/pre-game conversation clearly above the rules will enhance competitive play as much as narrative gaming and make the whole gaming socioenvironment in general a more sociable, friendly and agreeable place for everyone.

Wonderwolf wrote:

For a long time, it created a toxic environment for gaming, where people insisted/assumed that all available options, are acceptable and appropriate for any and all games, and that just because something "legal" to be used, it doesn't require explicit consent from your opponent.

Haha what? since when. Are we literally now making up this delusion of a past where warhammer was nothing but toxic. Where no players talked with each other to create scenarios or fair games? I mean support no points game sure but don't openly lie to a group of people who like you have actually played tabletop with other people and know that in fact there is usually just one guy there to win at all costs. Ive been talking games through with opponents and playing mass made up scenario games for like two years before AoS landed and it certainly wasn't toxic. I learn't how to play by playing people I didn't even know and they certainly didn't crush me in one turn because the evil points made them want to win at all costs. In fact if you talk with other players they will help you out with your list to help you improve your army but I must have imagined that because as we've ascertained, nobody talked or had fun before AoS it was all serious, super serious stuff.