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Hey folks!

Lots of 8th talk, so here's some more! I don't know about you, but aside from Matched Play, I'm also really excited to see what happens with Narrative Play. The old system of points, missions, and random traits/powers made it a bit clunky to have a game where the story was the centre stage. Every previous attempt I did with this devolved into a pitched battle, and I have to admit that I never really felt that payoff. Nowhere was this more apparent in my games than in Mega Battles. So one of the things I'm really looking forward to with NewHammer is how Narrative Games can be used to construct epic battles on the Mega Battle scale. I'm thinking that Power Ratings will be the best way to go here so that players are more concerned with the units they're taking rather than worrying about staying within a points cost for upgrades. The new summoning rules, selected powers, and other hints also offer ideas for how you can construct the story of the battle as well. Lastly, having massive charges and multiple close combats across a huge field should be very interesting with the new combat rules.

What kind of Narrative Play games are you looking forward to?

same amount i played, pretty much zero.

For Apoc games, if I ever play one, I'll use Narrative for the power level system. Pointing out upgrades in Apoc is just awful.

This is something that kind of baffles me. I think I understand and can appreciate the idea of vague point values vs. strict point values - but I've never understood people saying "Now we can play X way!". You could always play X way. There isn't a more rules-limited gaming community than the Games Workshop/Warhammer one for some reason.

I've genuinely seen people say "Well in 8th, we can just take what we own and put it on the table and play a game.", as if they were somehow magically bound from doing this beforehand? For pick-up games I suspect you'll still find people preferring match play (because of concerns over winning/losing, bla bla bla), so I don't think the Narrative version really offers anything other than a faster way to calculate points. People who were already playing house rules, narrative games, and campaigns will probably continue to do so. I can see one benefit being larger Apocalypse style games - if you want to use a lose construct for side balance --- the Narrative point values might be more easy/quick for something like that. No one wants to really spend a week working up a 7,500-10,000 list where you have to arm each sergeant, etc.

40K has always shined when people move away from the comically strict base rules that Games Workshop have put out. I see people saying "Well which of the usual ten scenarios do you want to play?". Ugh, that pains me. Scenarios are incredibly easy to work up, and only take a game or two of play testing to be useful. First time you play, be ready to add/remove stuff on the fly. There's a ton of wonderful possibilities out there, but people are way too hemmed in by a rulebook. I think it ties into the fact that you have a large portion of the Warhammer community who really only play Warhammer and may not be exposed to a variety of tabletop wargames, etc. which provide far more expansive options - and rulebooks that encourage gamer creations/house rules/custom scenarios, etc.

In short, I don't see this changing anything, really. People who played narrative based games before will continue to do so. People who were super anal about point systems and meta will continue to be, as much as possible.

I would like to play AND FINISH a mix of campaigns and custom scenarios. I have tried playing in a couple campaigns at various times over the years, and each time the campaign died. Whether by scale-creep of too many players, custom rules making victory impossible if you lose your first game hard, or by organizer losing the interest or time necessary to maintain it, none of my campaigns have ever finished.

 Elbows wrote:
This is something that kind of baffles me. I think I understand and can appreciate the idea of vague point values vs. strict point values - but I've never understood people saying "Now we can play X way!". You could always play X way. There isn't a more rules-limited gaming community than the Games Workshop/Warhammer one for some reason.

I've genuinely seen people say "Well in 8th, we can just take what we own and put it on the table and play a game.", as if they were somehow magically bound from doing this beforehand? For pick-up games I suspect you'll still find people preferring match play (because of concerns over winning/losing, bla bla bla), so I don't think the Narrative version really offers anything other than a faster way to calculate points. People who were already playing house rules, narrative games, and campaigns will probably continue to do so. I can see one benefit being larger Apocalypse style games - if you want to use a lose construct for side balance --- the Narrative point values might be more easy/quick for something like that. No one wants to really spend a week working up a 7,500-10,000 list where you have to arm each sergeant, etc.

40K has always shined when people move away from the comically strict base rules that Games Workshop have put out. I see people saying "Well which of the usual ten scenarios do you want to play?". Ugh, that pains me. Scenarios are incredibly easy to work up, and only take a game or two of play testing to be useful. First time you play, be ready to add/remove stuff on the fly. There's a ton of wonderful possibilities out there, but people are way too hemmed in by a rulebook. I think it ties into the fact that you have a large portion of the Warhammer community who really only play Warhammer and may not be exposed to a variety of tabletop wargames, etc. which provide far more expansive options - and rulebooks that encourage gamer creations/house rules/custom scenarios, etc.

In short, I don't see this changing anything, really. People who played narrative based games before will continue to do so. People who were super anal about point systems and meta will continue to be, as much as possible.

But GW providing the "rules" for it validates it in the eyes of so many players. Not many people are willing to finagle with the rules or army construction methods (unless it is handled by "official tournaments", blech) and so many more aren't willing to try out custom scenarios. I mean, how many people played Cities of Death? Planetstrike? Battle Missions? Those were GW publications, but they were not part of the core rules, so were forgotten or ignored except for players willing to play an "unbalanced" game. And to come up with custom scenarios? That didn't fly for pickup games (at least in my area).

I agree with you, the narrative and competitive players will keep doing their thing, regardless. I am just glad now that more people may be willing to try out Narrative Play now that the rules are present.

BunkhouseBuster has it.

I have encountered far too many players that would rather struggle through rules they absolutely hate rather than risk the corruption of house ruling. They treat rulebooks as some sort of infallible divine law when it clearly isn't.

I have been able to sneak house rules by these players by calling them scenario rules when I design custom scenarios. However, that loophole can only go so far.

Elbows, we shouldn't need rules stating flatly we can change the things we don't like, but some people to in ink before they will budge. Even then, many players will ignore that part of the rules but follow everything else to the letter.

I don't get it, and I try not to play too many games with those types of players and only if despite that, they are fun to game with. I'm sure they have their reasons, but the reasons (can't remember the house rules or what about new players) I have been given don't really apply as much these days as I play a bunch of games and not a whole lot of new players.

I'll be rooting out the old IA book campaigns and running them again in 8th to see how they hold up - especially The Anphelion Project.
They were fun when I did them in 6/7th.

After that maybe a homebrew campaign if GW has worked out some sort of system for that.

I'm looking forward to warzone armageddon as I have BA 3rd company. Also looking to try shadow war for smaller quicker games.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
But GW providing the "rules" for it validates it in the eyes of so many players....

...And to come up with custom scenarios? That didn't fly for pickup games (at least in my area).

When it comes to pick up games in general I am going to guess the standard will continue to be matched play.

I'd guess when AoS first came out it probably shifted the game to narrative play simply because GW didn't offer the option so most people quit.

I'm building a space hulk table; so Im super eager to play a few roaming terminators against an unending tide of genestealers!

I also like the idea of Orks sieging an IG fortress.

Our gaming group sometimes adds additional rules for narrative play. One favorite is The Ritual, which is an objective in the center of the board and if a character activates it, an event happens for the rest if the game.

Anytime I play a Dark Angels player, I like to turn one objective into a Fallen Angel and create a Relic type mission.