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For those of you interested on a fresh take on the hobby, you might find my article of value. You can find it here https://strategicelite.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-discerning-strategist-by-bob-faust.html

Your thoughts and feedback are welcome!

Bob

Looks cool.
I would like to see your critical appraisal of 8th ed 40k

 jeff white wrote:
Looks cool.
I would like to see your critical appraisal of 8th ed 40k

Not sure how much of the article you got through, because its a long read, but I did my time with the GW stable of products and My Turn/ Your Turn game design. I left all of that behind to design my own games with Playable Realism in mind back in 2006. In watching some game play videos on 8th edition I can tell you it wouldn't grab me at all because its still the IGO/UGO method, which is really MyTurn/YourTurn. Standing in place while your opponent gets to throw everything at you isn't, for me, compelling or engaging on a rewarding tactical level. So not my jam.

Where the GW games excel is the worldbuilding and immersive setting. Though I don't play, I will always be a Black Templar at heart.

Nice article, if somewhat... declarative? Preaching would be too strong a word. Still, the philosophy behind this is a very familiar and laudable one. Good show.

Regarding GW games and those elements you seem to be after, I can heartily recommend checking Adeptus Titanicus out. Critical thinking required, though, as most of the internet seems to get quite a lot of things wrong with the rules, especially in any reviews that came out last year

Sorry, without my contacts in I read 'laudible' as 'laughable'..... My bad!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sherrypie wrote:
Nice article, if somewhat... declarative? Preaching would be too strong a word. Still, the philosophy behind this is a very familiar and laudable one. Good show.

Regarding GW games and those elements you seem to be after, I can heartily recommend checking Adeptus Titanicus out. Critical thinking required, though, as most of the internet seems to get quite a lot of things wrong with the rules, especially in any reviews that came out last year

While in all honesty I'll probably not pick up AT because its theme isn't really my jam, I do believe that some of GW's best and most tactically and strategically rewarding games were their peripheral ones, like Epic 40K and Warmaster. From your description AT sounds to be more in that wheelhouse.

That would be my take, too. Mainline games often go for lowest common denominators, whereas the smaller ones can better focus on what they're about, be it army command, skirmishing crews of individual characters or what not.

In Titanicus, it's an alternating action skirmish game with half a dozen models per side where the game is like managing walking battleships while juggling their resource management about while everything is on fire. Forcing bad decisions on your opponent and outmaneuvering their positions is the meat of the game and it has succeeded splendidly.

I'm glad you have found a way to game that you enjoy.

Despite the caveats, it did read a little "moral high ground": "Discerning strategist" infers that other options are not discerning nor strategic...

But, if you and your friends are having fun - go for it!

Just read it

You'd love Dropzone Commander / AT probably

Let's face it, gamers who grew up in the 70's through the 90's are NOT the gamers entering our hobby now.

You can begrduge these new gamers and tell them to "get off my lawn", or you can embrace and mentor them. The hobby is never going back either way.

This sounded more like, "Get off my lawn" even if I feel the same way you do. Instead, we need to be planting seeds about alternative ways it can be done, instead of putting a line in the sand. You can restrict yourself right out of gaming if you are not careful.

Take it for the little it is worth....

 Easy E wrote:
Let's face it, gamers who grew up in the 70's through the 90's are NOT the gamers entering our hobby now.

You can begrduge these new gamers and tell them to "get off my lawn", or you can embrace and mentor them. The hobby is never going back either way.

This sounded more like, "Get off my lawn" even if I feel the same way you do. Instead, we need to be planting seeds about alternative ways it can be done, instead of putting a line in the sand. You can restrict yourself right out of gaming if you are not careful.

Take it for the little it is worth....

Thanks for your feedback. I'm curious to know how the 'get off my lawn' vibe relates to the 3rd Pillar - Co-Operative play? That entire point is about mentoring new people into the hobby. What am I missing?

Possibly because you are espousing virtues and values from 1987 and the article pushes on how fun those were and thus leads to a conclusion we should return to that.

Disclaimer: I started playing in 1989 and agree with you. However, cooperative play is very much anti what the current gen of gamers really wants out of their wargames barring an outlier.

Cooperative play is huge in boardgames these days.

Yeah its pretty solid in board games. Getting wargamers to want cooperative play though has been very... volatile...

 auticus wrote:
Yeah its pretty solid in board games. Getting wargamers to want cooperative play though has been very... volatile...

Just to be clear, I'm not referring to Co-operative Play as in the way some board games run. I'm talking about a Co-operative gaming attitude and atmosphere where we help each other out and develop new players. That's more an issue of the spirit the games are played in, rather than the Players vs Board idea. I hope that's more clear.

Thats a bit more clear yes, and I don't see a problem with that.

 Faust23 wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Let's face it, gamers who grew up in the 70's through the 90's are NOT the gamers entering our hobby now.

You can begrduge these new gamers and tell them to "get off my lawn", or you can embrace and mentor them. The hobby is never going back either way.

This sounded more like, "Get off my lawn" even if I feel the same way you do. Instead, we need to be planting seeds about alternative ways it can be done, instead of putting a line in the sand. You can restrict yourself right out of gaming if you are not careful.

Take it for the little it is worth....

Thanks for your feedback. I'm curious to know how the 'get off my lawn' vibe relates to the 3rd Pillar - Co-Operative play? That entire point is about mentoring new people into the hobby. What am I missing?

I guess "Get Off My Lawn" can be rebranded as.... "You're doing it wrong...."

Players joining the hobby since Y2K have very different wants and desires from their gaming then what motives us older 70's-90's gamers. I hear historical players say all the time that the new fish "don't care about history". I.e. they are doing it wrong!

No, they are doing it right for themselves.....

I read the Discerning Strategist as simple a new label for the same old divides wargamers (and nerds, and even people) in general like to put around each other. If that is the way you want to play and can find others who will pledge their metal with yours.... awesome! I feel and like the gaming style you prefer too.

However, no one else will get to that point unless they get a chance to play wargames the way they like to play them first. Then, their taste may evolve overtime to suit mine and join in my fun, or they might not. However, if they get scared out of the wargame scene for "doing it wrong, so get off my lawn" early..... then the entire wargaming scene has a problem.

It is a tough problem for the community to face, but let's all start from the basic premise that NO ONE is doing it wrong. There are only your own personal preferences which you can share with others in a congenial and gentlemanly way; but ultimately it is up to individual players to decide what they want to do.

Edit: Some bad grammar and spelling, which are probably still in the text, but I missed them!

Another problem I encounter nowadays with young 'uns is that (not all the time) they play each game like it's a Fortnite session. The games tend to be very by-the-books businesslike affairs, where too many times the main point is the endgame winning element. I say like videogames because it's play session, play session, repeat, repeat. Which causes wargaming to lose some of it's great charm.

All the storytelling and group hilarity starts to just...not happen, and everyone plays like it's a tournament. Currently it's a problem at my usual LARP events, too. Too many newbies playing like it's a WoW raid and they are all just real-life nerds with headsets, not a living DnD session where it actually matters if you can actually sneak up on someone to justify why you are playing a rogue.

It's kind of an unconscious thing that needs to be...unlearned, I guess.

It matters to this discussion because it's not a thing that needs to be smacked down, but rather something that needs to be steered towards the real fun, which is getting 'too far into it'. Moan and shake your head about how crappy your army commander is, not because his stat suck, but "because he's always been kind of a loser, even as a grunt. I dunno why I 3ven keep letting him lead things."

I've actually found that skirmish gaming (especially campaigns) and co-op style games enable this mindset better, because it's less like you are playing "chess, but with tons of pieces", which some armyscale wargames can end up feeling like, especially ones that prioritize lots of synergy within lists.

The thing us older gamers have to realize and accept is that the guys that jumped in post y2k ARE in it solely for the end game and it is very much an analog version of fortnite. And thats what they want out of it.

 auticus wrote:
The thing us older gamers have to realize and accept is that the guys that jumped in post y2k ARE in it solely for the end game and it is very much an analog version of fortnite. And thats what they want out of it.

Now now, that is insulting.

Vast over-simplification ahead.... tally-ho!

Y2K gamers learned the basics of gamesmanship by playing games against each other online or by playing in organized sports activities.

70's-90's gamers learned it from their families and in the local neighborhood pick-up game of stickball (or equivalent).

This has led to a bit of a cultural divide, and drives different wants, needs, and behavior patterns. No one is "doing it wrong" as long as each player is getting something from the experience that they value.

Boomer gamers are like this, Millenniual gamers are like that, and X-gamers just want to be extreme.

I don't see how its insulting. Its a stereotype on both ends for a reason... because its largely true.

Its not insulting. Its two sides of the coin that want two different things out of their game.

Look at design paradigms in games. Today's games are almost entirely designed to be bite sized, fast, very abstract as opposed to simulation, and based on the working and popular framework provided by Magic the Gathering. Synergy based games full of fast action, highly lethal, and where the name of the game is maximizing the math of probability via buffs and optimal choices.

The traditional wargames are for the most part gone. It has its outliers like kings of war which has a tiny fraction of players compared to the 40k and AOS player universe. Competitive gaming is by and large the expected norm. Playing to win. The goal is the end game. Winning or losing. Meta game. Etc. The concept of designing lists with your opponent to have a close narrative game will always lead to dozens of pages of angry back and forth because its just so alien of a concept today that it triggers intense emotion on both sides of the aisle.

That is to target the demographic that is the majority today.

There is no insult implied there.

Yeah, I feel that sometimes old-school wargamers (whether they are actually old, or just new players that are interested in that style of gaming) find a lot of solace in moving over to skirmish gaming, which is a section that is still very much NOT about the competitive scene. Now, there are several skirmish games that are designed with the tournament scene in mind (Warhammer Underworods, etc) but the majority of the genre is more intimate than that, with more emphasis on campaign settings that represent warbands which are players' personal creations and their journeys and growth inside of a setting, rather than just overall control of an environment (overland territories, space quadrants, a planet, a city, what have you) for large warring factions.

Skirmish gaming is also where you find a lot of the more interesting activation mechanics.

 Faust23 wrote:
For those of you interested on a fresh take on the hobby, you might find my article of value. You can find it here https://strategicelite.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-discerning-strategist-by-bob-faust.html

Your thoughts and feedback are welcome!

Bob

I more or less agree, with some caveats.

(1)'Complete, compelling and cooperative'. Not the attitude -this I applaud, and wholeheartedly agree with. The terminology though? Personally, I prefer the term collaborative to co-operative. For the simple reason that 'co-operative' refers to a specific type of game.

(2). The discerning strategist. Nice title, and if that's what you want to call yourself, go for it. I have no particular issue with it, but have come across what I think is a better term. Online, all you see is a binary casual/competitive terminology oftentimes, and I think the reality on the ground is quite different. Someone here once used the term 'post-competitive' to describe themselves, as in, they'd done the tournaments and conventions and that simply didn't do anything for them. They were nonetheless serious about their games and their hobby, and felt they couldn't call themselves 'casual' even if they didn't consider themselves 'competitive' based on the usual internet talking points (themed games as opposed to pick-up games/tournaments, reluctance to engagement in list-building-for-advantage etc).so, something else. That said, I think it's perfectly fair to consider yourself a discerning hobbyist/gamer when you have particular/specific desires/wants from your hobby, and search them out in particular.

I generally agree with the view of finding like minded individuals as being the key to enjoying your gaming. I find as we'll, being honest with yourself helps. There's no point trying to force yourself to enjoy something, or to lie to yourself that you are enjoying something when you are not. Or to define your family g by what everyone else is doing. And most importantly, gaming past that point of burnout. Funny thing I realised is that as I get older, my tastes have definitely changed and evolved (I won't say 'matured' - I'm a married thirty something who still plays with his toy soldiers after all!) and for me, it's finding those games and those things that keep the buzz.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Yeah, I feel that sometimes old-school wargamers (whether they are actually old, or just new players that are interested in that style of gaming) find a lot of solace in moving over to skirmish gaming, which is a section that is still very much NOT about the competitive scene. Now, there are several skirmish games that are designed with the tournament scene in mind (Warhammer Underworods, etc) but the majority of the genre is more intimate than that, with more emphasis on campaign settings that represent warbands which are players' personal creations and their journeys and growth inside of a setting, rather than just overall control of an environment (overland territories, space quadrants, a planet, a city, what have you) for large warring factions.

Skirmish gaming is also where you find a lot of the more interesting activation mechanics.

Somewhat, but there is a renaissance of wargames that put more emphasis in representing an actual battlefield over abstract buffing and hand waiving. The fantasy realm has seen both Warlords of erehwon (Rick Priestley) and Conquest (Alessio) show up this year, on top of the established Kings of War (Alessio) that are all army scale and emphasize maneuvers and what have you. Kings of War is almost exclusively competitive tournament play and Conquest is pushing for that as well though has invested a LOT into their narrative and back story and want to also push campaign play (more cooperative tell a story play).

I find the competitive fire is just as strong in the old-school gamers as it is with the current gen, its just the old school gamers factor in "immersion" into their list of requirements whereas the current gen doesn't care about that.

I'm curious to see where we are in a couple years and if this will start to counter act the GW mainstream push.