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 vict0988 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
This thread reminds me....what edition was it that you didn't have to reveal wargear until it was used? Or was that Fantasy?

WHFB, you could walk into a unit with a character, find out the unit has flaming attacks, reveal you were prepared with a 2++ against flaming attacks. Mostly it was just a question of how many pts were spent on offence vs defence or the character is naked. Magic items were unbalanced so it was often somewhat predictable. Hidden Assassins and Fanatics were worse. You could suss them out by estimating whether your opponent had all their pts on the table. I think it's too clunky, lists should not have to be kept secret.

We had a local rule similar for our local WHFB games to what I'm seeing here in general - that you had to have a print-off of your Army List to give to your opponent, the one caveat was that we didn't have to tell our opponent what unit an assassin or fanatics were in, but we DID have to tell a third party if we could, or we'd have to have a list that was printed off with the assassin listed with the unit it was with to show after the game to avoid shenanigans. As a Dark Elf player, I absolutely had assassins and even when an opponent knew that I had them on my list, they would still sometimes get careless about charges etc. As for magic items, I remember that pain. There were a handful that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE took. I also remember the complete an utter crap of buying a character model and never being allowed to use said character (also not having a character model that represented a character at all... Malekith on a chariot, I'm looking at you) unless your opponent was okay with it, which 9 times out of 10, they wouldn't be.I miss original WHFB, but there are definitely some things I don't miss about it.

Speaking of dark elf assassins and our local rule (quick anecdote here), we actually had a game store owner who also played Dark Elves and never, not once, was honest about his assassin placements. He would pull this along with a few other underhanded tricks involving scouts and dark riders that were all gotchas. Pretty sure it's how he won 90% of the time. Everyone hated playing him. Yet he called me out on "cheating" when I would drop four bolt throwers on the table despite me having the ability to do so based on point values, but then his store didn't last very long since he was an ass to everyone. Seriously anyone like this (including a few posters I've seen so far) I would not play with again once I found out they played the game like that and I fully believe that the "git gud' argument on that side of the field is downright toxic and unwelcoming.

As to gotchas and the general topic at hand, if it's not obvious already, I DESPISE them. Feel bad moments in a GAME is not what I play for. Yes I know the dice may fail me, or I might make an honest to goodness mistake even with all of the info avialable. I can accept that. Being misinformed or not informed at all about a rule or something that twists or breaks a rule when I should have been? That's another thing entirely. It's why I quit playing games like MtG. It may stem from the fact that I am an old school Battletech player where loadouts were openly known and you absolutely HAD to be open about what 'mech variant you were using in tournaments and there were no custom load-outs allowed for tournaments back then.

I will say that I appreciate that I am seeing a lot of people here that agree that gotchas are bad and are willing to remind and/or point out when they have something that would affect my strategy. And no, that doesn't mean you have to hold someone's hand. Telling me about something a unit has gear/relic/strategem-wise is not the same as telling me that I shouldn't move into an area because I would lose some movement over that (though if I move too far because I didn't know or forgot, do let me know so I don't end up cheating, please). Being a new 40k player and a returning wargame player after about 12 years, it gives me hope that the 40k community here locally may be of a similar mind (I hope) in terms of simple reminders about what a unit/character has. For WYSIWYG, I don't believe in that per se. Some of us don't have oodles of money to throw around to get every possible variation of each unit let alone have the ability to field two or even three of every variation. I plan on magnetizing my army, but that only goes so far. Also custom models are a thing and they can't be accounted for by this as was mentioned by others.

WHFB had a bad competitive culture compared to 40k (or AOS now), that's one part of Oldhammer I don't miss at all. Great setting and some great characters, but the rules were super problematic, especially in later editions, and strangely seemed almost designed to reward playing like a total bastard.

yukishiro1 wrote:
WHFB had a bad competitive culture compared to 40k (or AOS now), that's one part of Oldhammer I don't miss at all. Great setting and some great characters, but the rules were super problematic, especially in later editions, and strangely seemed almost designed to reward playing like a total bastard.

"Problematic" XD

I was trying to be diplomatic.

 vict0988 wrote:

 BlackoCatto wrote:
As the lone regular Guard player in my group I find it is a necessity that I make the many Marine and now Necron players know how my army works. I don't expect myself to know everything about their army and I sure as Hell don't expect them.

Whaaat? You can go from a 5+ to a 4+ Sv with your 10-man 1w t3 unit, what a gotcha. /s

Getting hit by 15 plasma hits is a lot worse or pointing all of a Shadowsword's guns at a vehicle and then getting got by a surprise 4++.

Well when the Ork player realizes that they aren't Str 3, but due to regimental trait are Str 4 and wipe out the last of his boyz then it is rather a gotcha in a sense. Or that my Leeman Russ's can shoot twice with an included reroll for shots, yea.

BTW, my current record with one Demolisher Canon is 42 wounds in a single turn.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Worst gaming experience I've had in the last 10 years:

Me: Oh Inquisitor Coteaz? What special stuff does he do again?

Opponent: He does X, and Y

Me: *First turn Drop Pods near opposing army

Opponent: Ohh, I forgot to tell you that Coteaz does Z, which is allows models within (whatever distance) shoot at all your Pods and troops when they arrive within (whatever distance).

Me: . . . .

That's not new info though.

Are you suggesting that it's ok that my opponent didn't tell me a very relevant piece of information even after I specifically asked them?

Yeah. It's not their job to babysit you. Even in the mid 2000s we had summaries of rules. If you don't at least have a very small idea of what a model does, you deserve a loss. Research takes very little time

Refusing to answer a direct question about a unit's rules is TFG behaviour. In this case I'd just hand over the Codex so my opponent could read it. Seems like that would be one good way to research a unit's abilities.

I like the idea of revealing a percentage of an army list so that there is still some surprise aspects.

 Hollow wrote:
I like the idea of revealing a percentage of an army list so that there is still some surprise aspects.

That is a cool idea, but it would have to be built within the system. 40k is not built that way-all list info is public knowledge, at least as far as I know.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
I like the idea of revealing a percentage of an army list so that there is still some surprise aspects.

That is a cool idea, but it would have to be built within the system. 40k is not built that way-all list info is public knowledge, at least as far as I know.

It could be interesting to explore. Have public and private information, basically everything that you deploy on the table is public information but things that you put in deepstrike or put in transports wouldnt be known by the opponent until they show up on the table.

You would still spend CP to put stuff in deepstrike, your opponent just wouldnt now what exactly was kept back.

(yes, im referencing Infinity)

Flipped this completely once and had a campaign to emulate fog of war. Minimum of 10 games, aim to eliminate the opponent. Army lists of 10,000 points each. "Standard" (whatever that is) army in those days was 1000 - 1500 pts.

Parameters were not less than 500 points per game, not more than 5000. Have lists, but don't share - find out what the enemy has when you encounter or scout it. Survivors stay in the "pool" available for future games.

It worked well enough that we completed the campaign.

Certain games handle hidden information marvellously.

An example is Chain of Command, where your core lost is known (the basic infantry platoon for your faction at that time in World War 2) but your support options are not, and that is how you spend your points.

For example, if you both have 18 points of support, the Soviet player might spend them on 3 T-34/1941s to make a tank platoon whilst the Germans might buy some cheap anti-tank options, field fortifications, whatever.

Neither player knows what the other is bringing until said element arrives on the table (the only pregame thing you put during deployment is minefields and barbed wire). So you could be completely surprised by anything. This means you have to be prepared for anything.