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It always makes me happy to see other Crusade players, and we've heard from a few. That's where I'm at- PL and Crusade is pretty much all I play.

 catbarf wrote:


Being able to swap around weapon upgrades also functionally sidesteps the issue of assigning appropriate costs to each, because it no longer is a matter of taking whatever's most optimal for the points. Even if a plasma gun is a better pick than a flamer in 80% of matchups, and in a purely points system you would never opt for flamers in a take-all-comers list if they had the same cost, being able to swap in flamers in that 20% of matchups where they're better would give them utility.

The problem then is how to realistically handle that in a game where WYSIWYG is expected and magnets are not commonly used.

I really liked this post, because the ease of model swapping when using PL allows like-minded players looking for a fair, fun fight to adjust their armies in order to achieve that goal. If I was playing a game with points, and a player shows up with an army I expect to crush, I can't easily take out my heavy and specials to make it more fair, because if I did, I'd have to rework the whole army. In PL games, I pull heavies and specials to drop in standard issue troopers all the time. This is my favourite part about PL.

As for how to represent it on a WYSIWYG table, the key is to play a game that is smaller than your collection. If I've got 5 BSS squads, but I'm only using 2, I can make any load-out for the two units I am using. Harder to do with vehicles unless you like magnets.

 vict0988 wrote:

If you think it's okay to add, subtract or change weapons in a PL game then what makes it not okay in a pts game? You can just play with +50 or -50 pts if you want, tournament players aren't going to chase you down and beat you with the official hammer just because you're fiddling with the game with a pts list instead of a PL list.

You're not wrong- I mean, I was talking about friendly games, and for sure if I met up with a player from my crew for 2k matched, and if we thought either of us was at a disadvantage, neither of us would bat an eye at someone adding heavies/ specials; one or the other of us might volunteer to remove heavies/ specials as well... But the point is that it's cleaner with PL because it doesn't change the cost/value of the army.

 JNAProductions wrote:
The conversation of “Hey, can I follow the rules as written, or do I need to nerf myself beyond what’s already there?” Shouldn’t need to be had.

Points ain’t perfect-but they’re better than PL.

Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

No, you don't. You're applying the same handicap either way. The net effect on the army is the same. Not needing to change anything else when using PL because the cost is "the same" and needing to when using points because the cost is "different" is entirely in your mind.

PL doesn't stop the overall value of the army from changing, it just provides a convenient way to ignore it. If you need that, it's perfectly fine. But many people who use points don't mind playing with a "handicap" either, if it would lead to a better, more enjoyable game.

You are using "value" in the sense of "abiities of the army in question" - and in that sense, you are correct; it doesn't change whether you're using points or PL.

But the word "value" is used by many to mean "what the army costs" in points or PL. And in this context (which is the way I was using the word in my post) the value of the army doesn't change due to equipment swaps alone using PL but it does if you're using points.

If a player says: "Sure, dropping a meltagun into each tac squad will make the game more fun for both of us, so go ahead- just make sure you remove the equivalent points value from somewhere else in the army because that's what the rules say," how is that in my head? The rules DO say that, and it is my opponent's right to insist that I do that.

If we are playing PL, the opponent CANNOT ask you to do this, because the meltaguns in question do not have a PL cost.

And that's not an opinion, it's a fact. Denying it is silly: weapons have point values but not PL values.

 Blackie wrote:


In the example you've made I see no meaningful difference between PL and points, it's just quicker in the PL case. In both cases one player tailors his list vs the opponent but still plays with the same points/PL budget. It's like you're assuming that switching loadouts in a PL list is legal while doing it in a points one isn't and requires permission.

My response to Gadzilla probably clarifies this and could serve as a response to this statement too, but just to be sure, I thought I'd respond to you as well.

Again, if I'm swapping out five lasguns or bolters to swap in five meltaguns, because of the "Mustering in Army" rules in the relevant mission pack, I probably still need permission to do this anyway; even if you want to argue that I don't need permission, it's still polite to do so. But in a Point game, when the player agrees, they can make me go through the additional step of subtracting the points value of five meltaguns from somewhere else in my list because those are the rules of the game.

If we are playing PL, the opponent CANNOT make me go through the additional step as above, because meltaguns have no PL value. Even if he wants to ask me to pay for them, and even if I would agree to do so, neither of us is going to be able to follow through with it, because there is no rules that exists which would even allow us to do it.

Again, it's a fact not an opinion, and denying it is silly.

Now, here's the caveat: I think that BOTH of these posts were written with the idea that I am saying PL is better because the rules function this way. It's the only reason I can think of why you would respond to my post the way you did; we can all clearly open the book and read the points value beside the meltagun entry, and we can all just as clearly see that there isn't a PL value there. I'm not saying this makes PL better, so there's no need to say "Well there's really no actual difference..." because you don't need to prove that PL isn't better than points because I never actually said it was.

So let's be clear: according to observable and objective reality, there is a points cost but not a PL cost for most equipment as written, and this fact does objectively make it easier to swap load out in a PL game than points game when one or both of the players prefer to keep as many of their rule interpretations RAW as possible.

 Blackie wrote:

Spoiler:

The fact is that switching loadout just before playing is quicker with PL. Like you said, it just saves an additional step.

But if you bring a list, you have to specify loadouts for your units. It's not like in a PL game people are allowed to bring extra models or extra bitz so that they can tailor the opponent's list. You still have to ask permission and to discuss that, because in the list you provided you already chose all the wargear for your units. It simpy takes less time to make the corrections if the opponent agrees to such changes.

When using points there are several units that have free upgrades or loadouts that cost the same, but to make those free corrections players still need to ask the opponent, since the list they provided would be altered .

Just to clarify, to me pre-game discussions and possible changes to the lists in order to try to have a more balanced game are standard procedure. And I have nothing against using PL.

Yep- I agree entirely. I also see now why you responded- you're correct- in my original post it wasn't clear that I was aware of this point; thanks for clarifying.

Hecaton wrote:


No. Mine actually happened. Jake's is just what he *wishes* was true because it would allow him to win an argument.

Jake doesn't care about winning an argument- he's been playing 40k since '89 quite happily with friends and family outside of stores, and he's trying to tell people that they are free to choose the same thing rather than pissing and moaning on the internet.

If Jake cared about arguments on the internet, he'd probably do stupid things like assuming he understands people's motives better than they do, or assume they are lying about something, when really, he has no way of knowing one way or the other.

Quite frankly, if Bolter and Chainsword had finished it's migration yet, Jake wouldn't be here as often as he has been for the past two weeks, and you wouldn't have to worry about Jake at all... And he'd be pretty happy about that, because his tolerance for whiners is wearing thin.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Jake also does an awful lot of calling people whiners in the same post he asserts that the way they play is wrong.

After all, if you don't play with friends and family outside of stores, you're not doing 40k right.

If suggesting that people try a 25 PL crusade at home with a friend is telling people they're playing wrong, then every time you've suggested someone play Command and Conquer, or 4th ed, or Dust, you're also telling people they're playing wrong.

Now, I will say that perhaps my use of the word "Whiner" was a bit heavy handed. It doesn't happen often, and certainly not "an awful lot" and usually when it does, it's a response to direct provocation- which it was in this case, as others have pointed out. This is my 2130th post, so 1% of that would be 21 posts- I challenge you to find that many where I've called someone a whiner, or been offensive. Then find out how many of those comments I later returned and apologized for, like I'm doing now.

But for what it's worth, to anyone I've offended by using the word "whiner" I apologize, and I'll do my best to avoid in the future for the sake of the Dakka community.

With that in mind, I'm going to try one last time to respond to some of the subsequent discussion posted by Hecaton, and I'll do my best to keep it civil.

Hecaton wrote:


If someone's telling everyone else they're playing the game wrong, and then gives an unworkable solution to fix that, it's a reasonable take.

So first, I'm going to explain the assumptions I'm making.

Given the context, I assume that the "someone" you're referring to is me, and that the "unworkable solution" you're referring to is the swapping IN of troops equipped with specials and heavies when you're faced with an army that is at an obvious advantage, or swapping OUT of troops equipped with specials and heavies when you're faced with an army that is at a disadvantage.

I recognize though, that by generalizing, you are indicating that you've seen similar types of arguments before, possibly even from other people, and that you're kind of responding to those posts too. And that's a fair game- I do it all the time, because after reading 3 pages of posts, even when you're quoting only one person, you're probably also responding to somewhat similar posts by others.

Now clearly my proposed solution won't work for all cases, because sometimes a lack of specials and heavies ISN'T actually what's causing the imbalance. Usually even in cases where it doesn't work, it still moves the game somewhat closer to balance.

I find it encouraging that you yourself said this:

Hecaton wrote:
PenitentJake was describing a situation in which players are trying to create a *fair* game. And there's no reason you couldn't have done it with points.

Because if you're implying that swapping load out and taking a points handicap as result is something that can be done, then it sounds like you're implying that the load out modification has some some potential to bring a game closer to balance. It's hard to say for sure that this is what you're implying though, because you use the pronoun "you" in the second sentence, so you may be implying that Andykyp could have just as easily played his Craftworld Scout vs. Necron Scout game with points.

I won't assume which of those two scenarios is correct- you can clarify if you want, but it's by no means required.

Hecaton wrote:

It's funny how people who say "just have a conversation before the game" never have *actual* examples, they just say "this happens all the time."

Almost like they don't play that much or in the way they say they do.

I will be the first to admit that I don't play as often as many if not most of the people on Dakka- ESPECIALLY the ones who are in leagues, or campaigns run at stores- there's no way I play as often as those dudes, and I've said so on more than one occasion. I've also certainly never claimed anything to the contrary, though I admit that one or two of my posts my have been worded vaguely enough that someone could be forgiven for making that assumption. For example, I frequently state that I've been playing since '89, and I could see how someone might equate that statement with playing often.

So to clarify:

In my entire history with the game, I've played in 2 tournaments back in 2008. I've NEVER played 40k in a store.
I worked at a youth center from 96-98 and ran the center from 98-01. I ran narrative campaigns for both 40k and classic Necromunda 3-5 nights per week, and my entire collection lived at the center at that time so that the kids, many of whom did not have the means, could use my models to play.

The biggest battle I've ever played in was a 6 player 3 on 3 Apocalypse game with 9k points per side - that would have probably been 2008.

In 9th?

I've only ever played Crusade, not yet more than 25PL, though the rosters for each of my Crusades and my collection(s) of models is far larger. I've played Death Watch and Sisters with an without Inquisition allies, and I even once played a pure Inquisition detachment. I've also played GSC, CSM (technically Cultists using some BSF antagonists to create a detachment) and Drukhari. In total, I've played about 8 games. Every single game has been fun for both my opponent and myself.

I've had 3 different opponents: one is my partner, another is a friend I met through work- the husband of a colleague, and the third is one of the kids who used to play at the center I ran- he's all grown up now.

I have never, ever claimed otherwise. If you have assumed something different because the posts that you were responding to did not clearly state my experience, I get that- I have rolled this information out several times in my history as both a Dakkanaught and a Frater, but I don't do it every post because it doesn't always strike me as relevant.

Now that you know EXACTLY how I play, you can see how WILDLY different our experiences of the game are, and it's probably why we disagree as often as we do.

Both of our "ways to play" are equally valid. Mine makes me and my opponent happy... Every time. Your way to play doesn't sound like it makes you happy. Ever.

If I suggest that you try playing the way I play, that is not me telling you you are playing wrong- it is literally me saying "Dude, I've never played a game I didn't enjoy, so if you're having a hard time having fun, you might consider trying it and seeing if it works for you too."

Seriously. If you have a friend who is a nerd, but has never played 40k because they don't want to invest in an army and you have a collection that is big enough to build two, 25 PL forces, teach that friend how to play on your kitchen table or theirs. It might not be your preferred style of play, and in fact it might even be so different from what you think of as 40k that it actually feels like a whole new game that happens to be set in the 40k galaxy.

And I can understand that you want the 2k pick-up game in a store to be fun, and that it currently might not be fun. This is a reasonable expectation, and it is something that GW should work towards. I have never claimed otherwise- because again, suggesting that you try a 25 PL game at home with a friend when you're clearly not having fun playing 2k matched in a store is NOT saying "You're playing wrong", nor is it excusing the state of the 2k Matched game that you are complaining about. If you've already tried it and it didn't work, sorry for assuming you hadn't tried it yet, but since I've never seen you post about trying it and not liking it, I feel that my assumptions is at least understandable, if not forgivable.

Before we move on to my specific stories of swaps, I want to address one more thing: Often when people suggest ways to improve the 2k matched game, their suggestions are valid for improving 2k matched games, but they would completely destroy my way of playing. I've seen people suggest everything from removing ALL strats (common), consolidating factions by removing units (common), eliminating subfaction rules (less common), eliminating ways to play (less common), eliminating entire factions (rare), or completely blowing up the game and starting over (uncommon). Now I fully admit and concede that all of these can be valid solutions for improving the 2k Matched game in stores... But ALL of these suggestions absolutely destroy my way of playing, which I will remind you is currently RAW book legal and just as "valid" as 2k matched.

So when somebody makes one of these suggestions, I do tend to speak up about it, because I would prefer GW fix 2k Matched in a way that DOESN'T destroy 25PL Crusade since I am currently having more fun with 40k than I ever have. And so far, they mostly have, because all the rules changes I have hated (aircraft limit, no mixing subfactions, Ro3, etc) have been restricted to Matched Play.

Okay... so now we are down to the specific PL equipment swaps that have happened in actual 8th edition games I have played:

The most common is removing my Armorium Cherubs from my Retributors when my opponent's army isn't threatening enough that I need those extra shots- that's happened twice: once against Chaos Cultists, once against GSC. I included them, in my list because I was positive my opponent would choose to use the Venomcrawler and they didn't, and once because I thought they'd bring a Ridgerunner and they didn't. I also often swap Simulacra in or out based on need- I tend to pick faith bolstering abilities, so in a 25 PL game when I'm stacked with MD generating subfaction rules, WL traits and Relics, I can really lay the AoF down.

The one game I fielded an Inquisition detachment, I swapped in 2 meltaguns to each Accolyte unit, because my opponent DID choose the Venomcrawler in that game.

And I once switched the Aggressor load out in my DW Indomitor kill team from Boltstorm gauntlets to flamers because he swarmed me with Cultists.

Hecaton wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

PenitentJake wrote:
Jake doesn't care about winning an argument- he's been playing 40k since '89 quite happily with friends and family outside of stores, and he's trying to tell people that they are free to choose the same thing rather than pissing and moaning on the internet.

Some of us have jobs that necessitate moving around a lot. And games where the rules don't suck and the community is less toxic than 40k are better for building communities and meeting people in new towns - where you don't have to negotiate the fething Treaty of Westphalia before having a pickup game. Moreover, your practice of shaming people who do run into trouble is toxic positivity, and you're clearly dancing around culpability for that to avoid copping to it.

First off: yes, your situation of moving around often will make it harder for you to try my suggestions, and yes, I now understand the reason why you need the 2k Matched game to be improved as much as you do. This is valid- I hear you, and I understand your point of view.

Second, I can see how you would se the "pissing and moaning" as shaming... and it does sound that way. But allow me to remind you that BEFORE the post you quoted, you said these things to me:

"Your conversation above is entirely farcical, and doesn't apply to 40k"
"No. Mine actually happened. Jake's is just what he *wishes* was true because it would allow him to win an argument."

These two statements are the reason I may have come across as a little shamey and a little fed up. If you want me not to say things seem harsh, you might consider being a little friendlier too.

It's worth mentioning that AFTER I made the statement you quoted, you went on to say this:

"It's such a subservient viewpoint I can't have respect for it."

For what it's worth, I am writing this post now to address my tone, and to respond to your request for specific and detailed information about how I play and times when I've used loadout swaps in actual games with actual people. Do you still feel that I am "clearly dancing around culpability for that to avoid copping to it?"

If you do, then I would humbly ask that you consider whether or not you are "clearly dancing around culpability for that to avoid copping to it" until and unless you address the three statements that you made.

Finally, here is the entire post I made that set this whole ugly chain of escalating anger in motion:

PenitentJake wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
The conversation of “Hey, can I follow the rules as written, or do I need to nerf myself beyond what’s already there?” Shouldn’t need to be had.

Points ain’t perfect-but they’re better than PL.

Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.

Now did you notice that the last lines of this post acknowledge that the same kind of swapping in a points based game IF AN OPPONENT AGREES TO DO SO?

It's okay if you missed it the first time- Gadzilla and Blackie didn't catch it either, but their responses where constructive, helpful and quite frankly awesome, and I think they helped us see each other eye to eye- and in fact all of that respectful dialogue and resolution occurred before your three statements I quoted above.

Anyway, cheers mate- I hope I've explained myself, and addressed my own lack of diplomacy as well as provided you with enough information about how I play, who I play, where I play and when I've swapped which models in, out and the reasons why I did it. If you and Unit don't find this post acceptable, well allow me to apologize in advance for that too- I'm not sure how much further I can go to accommodate and validate you, and my posts are so damn wall-of-text long that I'm not sure you'd want to read another one anyway. But let the record show I tried.

Peace brothers, and may this game, another version of it, or a different game entirely give you the satisfaction you seek.

Penitent out.

Hecaton wrote:

You are only using a fraction of the rules breadth of 40k.

As are you.

And thanks for owning up to those three pieces I quoted that where responsible for my ill will.

That was big of you, and certainly helped promote peace going forward.

Hec, you are correct- better balnace Would improve 25 PL Crusade games as much as it would improve 2k matched. I do agree with that.

It's THE WAY people sometimes suggest achieving that balance that has the potential to wreck Crusade. I'm not saying all suggestions would... I've seen some really decent suggestions that I would not object to,

But I've also seen people suggest that for the sake of balance, the game needs to remove subfaction rules. This is an example of a suggestion that would destroy the game for me. I've waited since second for there to be a difference between Order of Our Martyred Lady and Sacred Rose... And it blows my mind that people would suggest undoing that to create a slightly better balance.

Certainly, not everyone is advocating for that. But some people are. There are other examples, but I want to keep this post a reasonable length.

Cheers.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Honest question: why? If narrative is the goal and the heart of the game is the stories you tell about the events on the table why is it so essential that different sub-factions have different rules?

Because in the stories I want to tell, and in the stories that have already been told in Black Library and rule books since Rogue Trader, and in forty years of White Dwarf, subfactions always have fought differently. There just haven't always been rules to reflect that for factions that aren't Space Marines

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And why by order/chapter/etc, not by squad? Why is each order/chapter/etc one-dimensional around a specific buff instead of having the full range of possibilities?

Well, for starters, because Bloody Rose Retributors get their training at the same convent as Bloody Rose Seraphim.

Secondly, because differences between units ARE currently represented in the game via strats, warlord traits, relics and battle honours.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Like, if I play Cadians I re-roll 1s when standing still but what if I want to play a more mobile force? Why do I have to pretend my Cadians are Tallarn, and if I can just use the Tallarn rules why have them faction-locked at all?

If you want to play a mobile force of Cadians, you field them in an outrider detachment instead of a patrol, select as many mobile units as you can and choose warlord traits, relics and battle honours that enhance mobility. You also prioritize the use of strats that enhance mobility.

But a question for you: if GW has been writing fluff for twenty years that suggests that Cadians are known for the ability to hold ground and dig in, and Tallarns are known for mobility and you wanted to play a mobile force of guard, why did you choose to play Cadians? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to ... and I don't think you're currently unable to as I explained above. You just use different tools than subfaction traits to do the job, since there are so many other tools available.

How many LotR players want dwarves with bows?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Coming from older editions where we still had plenty of narrative in our games I just don't get it. It all seems like complexity creep crossing into rules bloat to get into that level of detail on a game as large and diverse as 40k. Set balance arguments aside, why not remove them for design elegance reasons?

Plenty of options for narrative? Sure. I remember, I was there too. I remember choosing the Order of Our Martyred Lady because I really wanted to tell stories about Martyrdom- it is a concept I've always found fascinating. All orders have martyrs, sure... but the fluff of Martyrdom has always been strongest with OoOML, from changing the name of the order after Katherine's Martyrdom, to changing their livery after the slaughter at Armageddon to the fate of Sanctuary 101...

The point is that it didn't make a lick of difference, because the only difference between OoOML and BR on the table top was a paint job. But these days when I play my OoOML, they behave exactly like they were always supposed to according to well established lore.

If I WANT to tell the story of an Argent Shroud martyr? I still can- there's a generic strat that confers bonuses on an army who has a character martyred.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah. A good example is 4th edition Imperial Guard, where they had choosable faction traits and then SUGGESTED traits for lore factions.

So Armageddon Steel Legion had Mechanized, Storm Troopers, Ratlings, Conscript Squads, and Xeno-fighters:Orks because of the Armageddon campaign.

But if you wanted to run a drop regiment recruited from Armageddon before the conflict with the Orks erupted? Swap out Mechanized for Drop Troops and Xeno-fighters:Orks for whatever you like. The game suggested the narrative to you, rather than mandating it.

Jake, you know how much I hate the current GW for their "play the army OUR WAY or don't play it at all" rules, including Crusade rules as well as faction rules.

I do know how much you hate that, and I feel for you.

I know about your Dark Eldar who are space-based not Commorragh based, and I think they're cool.

Personally, I'd reflect the fluff you described to me by taking lots of Razor Wings and Void Ravens; I'd throw in a few units of Corsairs; I'd choose Raid spoils rather than generate them randomly so that I could max out my Docks territories, and I'd see which of the build-your-own kabal/ cult/ coven traits best suited the idea in my head.

To be clear though, your suggestion of having "recommended" traits for cannon subfactions rather than "set in stone" traits for subfactions would be acceptable to me. And it's great that guard had it in 4th, but sisters and at least a handful of other factions did not. This is the beauty I personally see in 8th/ 9th - EVERY faction is getting consideration of their subfactions, which feels way better than some factions just not being able to meaningfully distinguish.

CadianSgtBob wrote:


But why do you need explicit rules for that?

I don't NEED them. I've been playing since '89. But now that I have them, the game makes me happier, so I don't want to lose them.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Why does your narrative element only exist if the tabletop game explicitly has a rule titled This Is Your Narrative Rule?

Well, maybe it would help you to understand my perspective if I explained to you that I'm a role-player more than I'm a war gamer. So I have been involved in storytelling systems since I played my first game of Dungeons and Dragons when I was 8 years old- back in '81.

In that game, elves got bonuses to dexterity, dwarves got bonuses to constitution and that made sense. People who play roleplaying games are very used to using rules to drive stories. In World of Darkness games, there are traits which are generally restricted to clans. In Shadowrun, the same. In Cyberpunk, the same.

My favourite edition of D&D was 3.5. I LOVED feat trees, prestige classes, racial paragon rules etc, etc. I had all the supplements for classes, and they were awesome to me. 5th edition is what I'm playing now because it's what my GM and my group want to play- for many of them, D&D is the ONLY RPG they've played, and 5th is the only edition they've played. So I do it... But I know how much deeper and more complex my character could be if I was able to use the 3.5 ruleset to express and support it (Specifically the Rokugan supplement that contains the feat tree for the Nezumi martial art, Mochatchikan). Though somebody, somewhere at some point in time decided that was bloat too, and created a streamlined game because that's "Elegant Design" and now I settle for a monk who has exactly the same options as every other monk, despite the fact that my character fights more with teeth and tail than fists and feet.

40k's background and models were amazing to me, and whenever we played 40k, I did whatever I could to make it more like a roleplaying game. Inquisitor and Necromunda where always better games from my perspective than 40k, but neither had the range. So I waited 33 years for GW to make a version of 40k that borrowed the things that I liked about Necromunda and Inquisitor and brought them into 40k.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

If you find the concept of martyrdom appealing why do you need an explicit rule called Martyrdom, why can't you just do things like aggressively trade suicide units vs. playing more cautiously in another faction?

Since an Argent Shroud player can just as easily trade suicide units, what actually makes the OoOML different besides the paint job? When every subfaction chooses from the same list of abilities only, why have subfactions at all?

If 40k wasn't a game, but just a series of novels, videos and art, then the stories alone would be enough for me. But because 40k IS a game, I personally want differences on the table top between my factions and subfactions so that my choice of which to play makes a tangible difference in the game. If my choice about which faction or subfaction I play is meaningless in the game- if a sister is just a sister- then I feel like GW should never have made different Orders in the first place.

And the thing that kicks me in the teeth about that EVERY freaking time is Space Marines.

Because many of the people who advocate for doing away with subfaction traits still want to have Space Marine subfactions with rules differentiation.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Or, as you put it:

If you want to play a mobile force of Tallarn, you field them in an outrider detachment instead of a patrol, select as many mobile units as you can and choose warlord traits, relics and battle honours that enhance mobility. You also prioritize the use of strats that enhance mobility.

This is what I don't get, you keep telling me how much you can do through making choices like which units you bring or which WLT you take and how powerful those tools are for representing the kind of force you have in your story but then you also insist that two regiments/orders/etc aren't different unless there's an explicit rule titled They Are Different.

These layers of diversity exist for those folks who like a sub-faction's background and identity, but also want to bring a unique twist to it. An OoOML force SHOULD be able to martyr better than anyone else, even though everyone should be able to Martyr.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

But a question for you: if GW has been writing fluff for twenty years that suggests that Cadians are known for the ability to hold ground and dig in, and Tallarns are known for mobility and you wanted to play a mobile force of guard, why did you choose to play Cadians?

Two things:

1) Regiments aren't one-dimensional like that.

It isn't about "one dimensional" - it's about creating rules that empower reflection of the stories that form the cannon. The things that ARE subfaction rules reflect the things that the owners and creators of the IP deem to be dominant characteristics of the subfactions they have created. This is done so that all members of the subfaction have something in common beyond geography and livery. I think of subfaction rules as tangible manifestations of culture. There are differences between members of a given culture, but if there weren't also commonalties between them, the culture couldn't actually be said to exist at all.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

There are Tallarn artillery regiments that sit behind the front lines and bombard the enemy all day... Even DKoK, presented as being a static cannon fodder siege force to the point of becoming a meme army, had an alternate list that was an elite mechanized force.

Yes, there are, but none of them should be as good at as a subfaction whose identity as designed by the creators of the IP involves a reputation of having the best artillery units in the guard. You can make your Tallarn artillery shine, because there are plenty of non-subfaction traits that allow you to augment them, but if a particular subfaction has a rule that synergizes well with artillery, and your Tallarns don't have access to it, the other guys will always be able to out artillery you, because it is part of their culture.

And having said that, the really interesting thing is that even though they WILL always be able to out artillery you, they might not always choose to do so... Because you might decide to use every generic tool at your disposal to make your artillery shine and the combined effect of those might overwhelm the restricted trait that artillery faction has access to and if you did that, the artillery faction would also have to choose to use those same generic tools in order to benefit from the edge that the subfaction trait gives you... And THAT'S the thing that prevents the subfaction from being a meme-army.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

2) Because mixing things up is fun. Even if Cadians are usually fairly static sometimes you just want to change it up and charge at the enemy with a bunch of rough riders and hellhounds. Why should I have to play a completely different regiment to do that?

Yes, it is... which is why you can as described above. But the subfaction trait is the thing that establishes the fact that "Cadians are usually static" - without it, taking Hellhounds and rough riders wouldn't be mixing it up.

And you don't have to play a different regiment to do it. Go ahead, do it.

But if you come up against the folks that typically do it because it's their culture, you should expect them to have the capacity to be better at it than you are, because for them, behaving that way isn't mixing it up- it's their way of life. And rest assured that they too will like mixing it up, and occasionally they'll behave in a way that they don't typically behave, but if the thing that they are doing differently happens to be the thing that is your subfaction's way of life, you will have the capacity to be better at than they are if you choose to use the same generic tools that they chose to use.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

How many LotR players want dwarves with bows?

That's not really comparable, dwarves are a faction equivalent not a sub-faction equivalent. It's like suggesting that LotR should have a sub-faction of dwarves with major buffs to axes (making them the only viable axe faction), a different sub-faction with bows, etc, and that you can only have one of those things at a time.

PS: dwarf bows, been there since the early days of LotR: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dwarf-Warriors-2018

Fair enough- it wasn't meant to be a point for point analogy, but I felt it illustrated the point I was trying to make. I stand corrected, but I hope my responses in this post have done enough to explain my point of view that the analogy is no longer as necessary as it was in the post where it was made.

And if not, that's fine- we don't have to agree. I'm as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours.

Another poster said "You can keep them for Crusade" I meant to quote him in the post that set this in motion, but I was being rushed to cook super so I cut my post short. But this is also a solution that ABSOLUTELY works for me. People who are upset about what the game feels like when they play 2k matched can suggest any changes they want to matched play, and I will simply sit that part of the discussion out because it doesn't touch me at all.

But if you suggest a change that is going to impact Crusade, it is likely to make me want to pipe up and politely remind you that people who play like I do exist, whether we are common or not. GW did their best to create an edition that appealed to as many varieties of player as possible. They might have done a better job of satisfying players with my preferences than have of satisfying people with your preferences. If they can make the version of the game that you like to play better at meeting your needs? Awesome. I just don't want that done at the expense of the game I like to play if it can be avoided.

PS: Even if it can't be avoided, it won't matter too much to me, because 9th is likely my last edition. I think it would be incredibly difficult for GW to make Crusade any better at meeting my preferences than it already is- I concede that it's possible of course, but it's unlikely. It sucks that it doesn't look we're not going to get the Emperor's Children dex this edition because I really wanted them to be a fully realized faction within the context of 9th ed Crusade. Hopefully I'll be able to port the 10th ed EC dex back into 9th.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait until he learns...

I find your tone unnecessarily rude and offensive. I've apologized to you in numerous posts when I thought I went too far. I have yet to see you extend the same courtesy.

I haven't read the new book yet, because it doesn't apply to my character, but since I mentioned D&D in the context of it's impact upon my preferences during my formative years, what came out in a book released less than a year ago hardly invalidates any of the point with D&D.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

People who do narrative (hi, hello) don't want their stories needlessly constrained by rules, if it doesn't make sense.

Yesterday you accused me of telling people they were playing 40k wrong, when the statements made by me which provoked that comment were far less indicative of an "only my way is the right way" attitude than this. Seriously "People who play narrative" as if I'm not one of those even if we don't see eye to eye.

Rules are like writing prompts. They don't constrain me. They are tools I work with- which means they empower me and set me free. I've done 100's of writing projects in my life- some of the ones based on writing prompts have been among my favourites. Which is not to say that I always use prompts, merely that I never saw them as limitations when I chose to use them. My relationship with them, like my relationship with the rules in any of the games I have played, is symbiotic. Do you blame clay for not being wood when you choose clay as a medium for sculpture? No- you recognize the unique opportunities provided by the medium, and you let them influence the art you create, just as you explore pushing the limits of the medium.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Sisters of Battle tanks are gak, because "GW said so" - not for any narrative reason I can fathom.

The static rules for a tank on a datacard are a bit outside the scope of the discussion thus far... though I myself often meander, so I'll indulge you.

You can rest assured that once my Immolator is built and painted I will enjoy the tools at my disposal to grow the tank into what I want it to be- including any availaible equipment upgrades or synergies in game or battle honours. The fact that the tank sucks before any of these synergies are applied will be part of the tank's story... Which will be only one of the stories being told by each battle. If I could just pick the traits I wanted from the dex at list construction, or if it had stats that made it a killer, would that be more or less narrative than starting weak and earning upgrades based on the results of games- you tell me.

And whether it's competitive or not won't matter because I don't care if I win- that's the part of the story that's beyond my control as it should be.

Either way, it sounds like I'm going to have more fun doing that than you're going to have sitting and waiting for GW to wave a magic wand and make it all better or complaing on the internet... But hey, running back to 4th so that it can be exactly what you think it should be at list construction is just as valid as my choice to immerse myself in the ongoing story of the tank's development over time. Just as I wasn't telling people they are playing wrong before, I'm not telling you that you're doing it wrong now.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Eldar tankers can't actually embark on any path at all - in fact, they probably aren't real Eldar! Even the people who don't like the Path system and don't obey it get to walk the Path of the Outcast...

Well since a tank is a non-sentient machine, I wouldn't expect it to have a path. The guardian who pilots it is free to walk a path if you want him to get out of the tank and join the battle in the games where the tank isn't on the field, while the tank itself can grow via battle honours without a path. There's also nothing stopping you from writing a "Path of the Pilot" just like you used to write your own rules in 4th ed, the only difference is that now you have the other paths as a guide to how it might be done and you don't have to ALSO write the Path of the Warrior, Seer or or Outcast, which you would have had to do for 4th since those things didn't exist (to my limited knowledge of 4th ed Eldar anyway).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

... GW's rules used to help you tell the story.

No, GW's rules gave you a rough set of guidelines for tree campaigns and map campaigns, which I personally knew how to do with any game system before I played my first game of Rogue Trader in '89 and didn't need GW to teach me. They also contained three tables with six battle honours each which you would have to apply to your units whether they were humans, robots, pain elves or planet killing bugs. You didn't seem to mind modifying those extremely limited materials to fit your needs then, but now somehow you seem to feel like the presence of actual material prevents you from doing the same thing now. It doesn't. I've made rules for a type of GSC kill team that will allow you to tell the story of a GSC's development from a single fire team of purestrains to a full scale apocalypse army. I didn't let the GSC crusade rules or the kill team rules stop me from doing that- I used them as examples, and created my material to work within the excellent framework they provide.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Now, they ARE the story. "Oh you brought Eldar tanks? There is no story here." - the Eldar Crusade Rules. Thanks GW.

As explained above, eldar tanks do have rules that support a story being told about them, just not path rules. They are still eligible for battle honours from multiple sources, equipment upgrades which can be selected narratively (ie. spend the RP for the crystal targetting matrix or whatever after a battle in which the tank plays a pivotal role in securing an objective which IS that crystal targetting matrix rather than just selecting it when you add the tank to the list). I'm not sure if the crystal targetting matrix is currently an upgrade mind you- I'm pulling a name from memory to illustrate the point. You could achieve the same effect with a weapon swap- the point is you pick an objective on the field to represent the weapon you want to sub in, and you try to claim that objective- if you succeed, you apply the swap. That feels more narrative to me.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

"Oh you brought BR flamer Retributors? Wow what an idiot, should've played Ebon Chalice.

You should have played Ebon Chalice if you want to min max, for sure. But we're story telling, not min maxing. So if I want my BR flamer rets to distinguish themselves, I'll make them use the ret strat every chance they get, I'll tweak their battle honours as they grow, I'll use a requisition to purchase the sacred burden strat so that I can give the superior a relic, I'll make sure they bring armorium cherbs and a simulacra, though since I'm a narrative player, they'll probably have to earn all of those things as part of the story, rather than be equipped with them out of the gate. It won't take long until they're better than Ebon Chalice flamer rets... Unless the Ebon Chalice Rets have a story that causes them to grow in similar ways, and if they do they SHOULD be better than mind because the synergy their order trait provides is representative of a cultural predisposition toward fire that none of my BR possess.

Or I could just have a 4th ed style dex that lets me pick from a list of traits available to every order and select the one that makes flamers cool cause that's SOOOO MUCH more narrative than the process I described above. I mean, I'm not going to do that because it doesn't appeal to me, but again- you do you because I'm STILL NOT TELLING YOU THAT HOW YOU'RE CHOOSING TO PLAY IS WRONG, just in case you get confused and decide to put your words in my mouth (AGAIN).

Was that heavy handed? Have a second apology, because if you're still reading, you've earned it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

And what's this about Argent Shroud Repentia? Should've just handed them to the bloody rose. Deeds not Words indeed."

Well again, if your intent is to min max. But if your intent is to tell a story, what I'd recommend is wait until a non repentia unit does something in a game that requires them to swear a Penitent Oath at which point they stop being whatever they were and become repentia until they redeem themselves, at which point they can reclaim their former designation or, if the circumstances of the redemption suggest it would be more appropriate to come back with a different designation you can do that too. It's a usually a 4 or 5 game story arc that involves an Agenda and two requisitions. But yeah, you're right... being able to just simply choose the BR trait instead of the AR one when you add them to the list would be SOOO MUCH MORE NARRATIVE.

But again dude, if you honestly believe it's more narrative you do you. Whatever makes you happy is right for you.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Alice, human monk, whips her quarterstaff around and bashes it into the goblin's ribs. The goblin screams in pain and rage as it is staggered by the blow but it continues to fight.

vs.

Bob, nezumi monk, lunges at the goblin and bites down hard. The goblin screams in pain and rage as a chunk of flesh is torn from its arm but it continues to fight.

No... I'm not sure you get it.

It's more like:

T'Chak-tik's fur bristles and he kicks up a dominance pheromone as he sights his foe (intimidation check as a free action in 3.5- racial trait, Nezumi Paragon- no 5th ed eqv), then drops to all fours to increase the speed and diminish his silhouette on the charge. As he reaches his opponent he Leaps into the air, flying over the enemy's left shoulder (jump as part of move action- clearly defined in 3.5, vaguely worded so as to to rely on GM interpretation in 5th) catches his opponent under the chin with a knee for his first attack (for bludgeoning damage); as he begins his descent on the other side of his enemy, he coils his gnarled tail around the enemy's neck as a second attack, pulling the enemy down (trip attack- possible in 5th through the use of ki, but available in 3.5 without it- which better suits T'Chak-tik's personality for reasons you'd understand if you were familiar with L5R Nezumi Chitachikan); as he lands, he reverses his momentum and plunges his teeth toward the eyes of his foe's upturned face (called shot, Mochatchikan feat in 3.5, not possible in 5th) for piecing damage (not possible in 5th).

Now, the best I can do is a flurry of blows for the bludgeoning hits- that's right- you read that correctly... I do bludgeoning damage with my teeth, because that's all the rules of 5th allow me to do. I know, pretty fluffy, right? One of those attacks can be a trip attack (but only because of the spiritual power of KI, which, again does not suit a Chitachikkan). I can tell you where I'm trying to hit, but there are no called shots, so it's just words without effect. I do it anyways, because I like to entertain people... But the rules are literally incapable of making it matter.

Now of course, this sequence is actual a T'Kir (the Nezumi word I invented to replace the Kendo term Waza, which is similar to a kata, but much, much shorter). T'Chak-Tik practiced this exact sequence with the other two Monks in the party during a previous session, which was actually a four hour role play without any combat at all. Because to just do it because it was what occurred to me in the moment is more narrative, right?

CadianSgtBob wrote:


This is what I really don't get. You claim to be all about the narrative but instead of role playing you're focused completely on roll playing, to the point that the narrative only exists if the 1d4+2 you're rolling is explicitly called Bite instead of Attack. But to me that difference in description works just fine for portraying the difference in how the characters are fighting, even if none of it ever translates to how the dice are resolved. It's still perfectly clear in my imagination what the two scenes look like.

Role playing vs. Roll playing?

Yeah, let me tell you some other things about T'Chak-Tik:

He has 42 siblings from 4 litters including his own, and I've named them ALL. There were 3 fathers- the first two were killed. His mother is full blooded Chitachikkan and tough as nails. When he left his village, his family gave him gnawed sticks to remember them by- one is the Sister stick and one is the Brother stick. You see, the place T'Chak-tik comes from is toxic, and many Nezumi don't survive their first year- so many die in fact, that Nezumi do not name their young until they've survived a year. On their name day, they gnaw the symbols that represent their names into a stick. As others are born, they add their names to the stick. When T'Chak-tik left his village, the siblings that were still alive gnawed their names into the opposite end of the stick. So one end of T'Chak-tik's sister stick has 19 names. The other has 8. It took five games for a party member to ask me about my sticks; even though T'Chak-tik is TERRIFYING in a fight, his accent and character voice are adorable, and when I told them the story, I let my voice get shaky like I was crying (I did a double major in English and Drama so I can make myself cry at the drop of a dime if I'm in character deep enough)... By the time my story was over, 3 party members were crying. We took 5 so they could recover from the emotional intensity.

It is stunningly presumptuous of you to assume that because I like the combat sequences I narrate to have the capacity to be reflected with rules that I don't role play.

I've actually drawn all of my sticks (BTW, the other two are the mother stick and the father stick). Because of the gnawing, I decided that I would make T'Chak-tik unable to read or write in common (a handicap which I did not have to take- in 5th, if you know a language it's assumed that you can speak, listen read and write- I chose the handicap for RP reasons). One of the characters in the party is a Cobalt Soul archivist, so she eats, sleeps and breathes books. She inspired T'Chak-tik to learn to read. When most people learn skills through down time, they just track the in-game down time hours until they achieve a target. T'Chak-tik went to a store and bought a childrens book written in common (The Pine Cone Book). Instead of tracking hours, I wrote the children's book, then translated it into Nezumi gnaw marks (a written language I developed specifically for the character).

I'm currently trying to decide whether I'm going to make one of my sticks or a copy of the Pinecone Book for my GM's Christmas present.

I've only played in 2 40k tourneys, but I've been to 20 or so RPG cons. You know how you win a session at an RPG con?

Players vote for the best role player. Of all the cons I've been to, I've come home without a prize twice. I've been roleplaying for 41 years- as I said in a previous post, I started in grade 3. Naming your sword? I was doing that when I was ten. And sure, I know, that was just a convenient example, and I'm sure you have plenty of other cool things that you've done while roleplaying, but if you're going to be rude to me and make assumptions without a scrap of evidence, what's my incentive to leave the kid gloves on when I respond?

With all due respect, if you ever suggest again that I am a roll player and not a role player because I like my combat rules complex enough to reflect the scenes in my head, I will spam you with PAGES of character histories until you're forced to put me on ignore or the mods drop the ban hammer. You literally could not be more wrong about me.

I won't belabour the point by responding to the 40k parts of your post, because I believe that the responses that I gave to Unit above will be sufficient to respond to your further "insights" about the way I choose to play 40k, and I've already punished the other readers of this forum with enough text that they deserve a break. Play 40k your way- it's no less valid than mine.

I made the offer to both of you before that we agree to disagree. Either of you ready to take it yet, or shall the tire fire continue, catching everyone who isn't you, me or Unit in the stink of it? Ball's in your court. Penitent out.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So the new points changes really reinforce the argument that GW is going full PL soon. Almost all gear is free, plasma pistols are free, etc. The only things that really cost huge points are relics and traits. Which can be easily assigned PL values.

It's possible, of course... But I really doubt it.

I double checked the document- points changes apply to all Matched Play games, not just Nephilim Matched Play games. So it will affect BRB and Tempest of War missions, as well as all of the missions from any of the other Matched Play Mission packs.

But essentially, in order to further distinguish between play modes, GW needs both points and PL. This doesn't stop players within likeminded groups from choosing the format they prefer regardless of mode- I know there are substantial groups of players who use points in their Crusade games for example. But the intent is that points can be a stronger tool for balance, and so changing them up 4 times a year to try and balance the meta makes sense.

Open and Narrative players, however, are not as likely to respond well to such regular change. For Crusaders, our changes come in the form of campaign resources- a Hardback and two Mission Packs per season. This updates the ongoing story of the 40k universe, gives us new missions and themes to explore- sometimes even customized mechanics like a grudge system or armies of faith... But very rarely changes to the minutiae of PL.

I think PL has been given an overhaul twice since 2016? I mean, obviously, each new dex has the chance to rewrite PL for the faction in question... But PL as a whole are rarely modified across the board. If Matched went PL, those numbers would then be updated more frequently, which wouldn't just destabilize the game for Matched players, many of whom would be disappointed with a lack of granularity- it will also destabilize Open and Crusade by putting us in the position of keeping up with constant change- the lack of which has been a part of our attraction to our chosen game mode.

Again, not saying it's impossible- GW has obviously made some very, very bad decisions before. But I think that as long as we continue to have 3 modes, I think we'll continue to see both PL and points.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
But essentially, in order to further distinguish between play modes, GW needs both points and PL.

Why? The existence of PL (which is just a poorly balanced point system) adds literally nothing to any format that isn't already covered by the normal point system.

It does though- especially in the context of crusade. Because of the tracking that Crusade entails, players don't need values for both troops and equipment and individual upgrades that change every 3 months IN ADDITION to tracking experience, battle honours and scars for every unit in the game, as well as crusade points and long term goal achievements. The improved balance that points provide in matched disintegrates the second one of my units that has achieved its first battle honour comes up against your first squad that hasn't.

In Crusade, the combat efficiency of every unit in your army can change from game to game, and the army as a whole can also grow in such a way as to impact balance. The buy in cost of a Crusade unit has almost nothing to do with how effective it is on the table from game 4 onward, so it is utterly pointless to waste the time costing out wargear.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And why does GW even need multiple play modes? Open Play doesn't need to exist at all, and narrative play worked just fine when you had narrative scenarios and campaigns using the matched play rules.

Open serves some very important purposes: being the simplest, most accessible form of the game, it is absolutely the best learning tool available. If you're a parent and your kid is a nerd, open is probably the most amazing thing you could hope for. Ever notice how many WD letters to the ed are from parents? You can come for Open Play when you pry it from their cold, dead hands.

And look, I enjoyed all previous attempts at Narrative. At the time the original Kill Team and Combat Patrol Mini-games were included in the BRB? I loved that at the time. And it is still a ton of fun if you play it even today. There are even some elements, like equipment options, that I like better about those old prototype systems. But what is available now far exceeds the capacity provided by previous iterations of the game. There is far more product support for Crusade than there is for Matched- our Mission Packs outnumber Matched 2:1, and when you drop White Dwarf content into the equation? I think we've had a Flashpoint article every month since the Codex dropped, Torchbearer Fleets and Index Astartes chapter specific Crusade content on top of that.

I'm not saying Crusade could not be improved, nor

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Open and Narrative players, however, are not as likely to respond well to such regular change.

Why not... and you're already regularly changing your forces to add reinforcements, retire units that take too many battle scars, etc. Why is it a big deal to have the point costs adjusted to improve balance? Are they afraid of losing access to a particular overpowered unit they rely on?

As explained above, it' precisely because of all that constant change and tracking that points are impractical. And because the application if RP and XP have far more impact on balance than points, they're not just inconvenient, they're ineffective.

That being said, I have seen posts by quite a few players who prefer to use points in Crusade, and if that's what they prefer, that's fine too. To each their own... Which of course, is precisely why not only Points + PL as well as 3 ways to play and 4 game sizes provides far more capacity to suit a wider variety of players and therefore a broader audience (and a greater market share) than any laser balanced game that caters to exactly one demographic.

Voss wrote:

Too each their own, but... you just spent a lot of time waxing about how wrong and hard it was to do that. So it doesn't seem quite so accommodating

This is the problem with paraphrasing. Inconvenient =/= wrong. Ineffective =/= wrong.

Keep your words out of my mouth. I choose mine for a reason- they have meaning.

Voss wrote:

Which of course, is precisely why not only Points + PL as well as 3 ways to play and 4 game sizes provides far more capacity to suit a wider variety of players and therefore a broader audience (and a greater market share) than any laser balanced game that caters to exactly one demographic.

Since its neither 'laser balanced' nor has it ever catered to 'exactly one demographic' this seems like no reason at all. People were (and still are, despite attempts to infantilize them) capable of doing narrative or 'open' play without specific Forge Your Narrative scrawls in the margins of the rules.

One rules set (more polished, because they don't have to burn extra development time on the other ruleset or the non-rules ruleset) and a 'play your way' acknowledgement and NO set game sizes seems far more accepting of multiple demographics.

Did you ever try to invent Commorrite territories with in game effects to capture in 4th or 5th ed and then try to find a group to play them with?

Did you ever have a unit of sisters, who had previously accumulated a battle honour fail a break test and decide they should take a penitent oath and become repentia, except you couldn't convince the group you were playing with to let you replace them with a unit of repentia who had the same battle honour since they represented the same group of soldiers?

Did you ever smash a bunch of enemy vehicles with the admech and think to yourself: "Yay, spare parts- now I can build a cool piece of new tech" only to be told by your group that you couldn't just Invent a piece of war gear?

Did you ever convince an entire planet to join the Greater good only to be told that this doesn't or shouldn't confer a tangible benefit to your army thereafter?

These and other problems no longer exist, because the rules for them are printed in black and white, so you don't have to convince anyone that these are all things that make sense in a narrative context and then come up with rules and systems on your own to reflect these scenarios. This is a huge advantage for people who have been looking for a way to make this stuff happen in a game since 1989.

Why not just "polish" the rules as they are and keep the three ways to play and core support for other game sizes? I'm not saying there aren't core rules that couldn't be improved, which would impact all three modes- of course there are improvements that could be made. But eliminating support for Crusade or Open isn't going to make it any easier or harder for GW to make these changes, nor will it improve the likelihood of these changes occuring.

I just have zero idea why anyone wants a rule that neither they, nor anyone else they play with uses to be eliminated. If you and your opponents don't use the rule, I have a very difficult time understanding how your game experience is improved by the rule not being there. For you and your group, it effectively ISN'T there already, because you don't use it. Someone does. I guarantee you, someone somewhere uses all of the rules that you ignore because you feel like they're useless bloat... And while removing it wouldn't affect you at all since you're already not using it, it will affect the person who does.

I play Crusade exclusively, and so far, it's all been PL. If someone wanted to play matched with me, I'd find something else to do. If someone wanted me to use points to play a Crusade game, I could be talked into that. But you won't see me suggest eliminating matched play to make Crusade better, because I know that a) lots of people like matched, and they'd be choked to lose it B) eliminating matched would have no tangible impact on whether or not Crusade did end up being improved and C) the continuing existence of Matched will not affect me in anyway because I don't play it.

I suppose I should add D) I'm not an Edgelord/ Troll who has heard all of the above before and either understands it but chooses to shitpost for the Lulz anyway, or paraphrase into an argument that was never being made in order to justify a negative response, or prefers not to engage with this perspective because that would mean admitting that the discussion is more nuanced than they want it to be.

And before anyone goes making another one of those assumptions that I'm implying something I didn't explicitly write: I'm not saying YOU are the edgelord/ troll... Nor am I even saying anyone is an edgelord/ troll all of the time. Even the trolliest troll will occasionally engage and meaningfully contribute constructive feedback that indicates they have taken the points of view of other players seriously.

 catbarf wrote:


The existence of Open and Narrative sections in the rules doesn't allow you to do any of these things. You're praising Crusade, which could still be around even if the game dispensed with the 'three ways to play' that amounts to 'here are the rules, also you're allowed to ignore them if you want'.

You're certainly correct about Open. It's a bit squishier when we talk about Narrative: I certainly agree with you and Unit and others that not all "Narrative" games have to be, or even should be crusade games. But GW doesn't distinguish between Narrative and Crusade. From their perspective, the three modes of play are Open, Crusade and Matched.

Still, solid and debatable point.

But the selection you quote comes within the context of:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And why does GW even need multiple play modes? Open Play doesn't need to exist at all, and narrative play worked just fine when you had narrative scenarios and campaigns using the matched play rules.

And:

Voss wrote:

One rules set (more polished, because they don't have to burn extra development time on the other ruleset or the non-rules ruleset) and a 'play your way' acknowledgement and NO set game sizes seems far more accepting of multiple demographics.

These two comments, which are the things I've been responding to, clearly do not represent a vision of the game which continues to make Crusade rules available.

If GW dropped the "three ways to play" but kept all of the Crusade content, I don't think that they would actually be dropping three ways to play. It seems like this would imply dropping ONE of the ways to play, and keeping the other two. It's theoretically possible to frame all the Crusade content in the same way as the prototype Kill Team/ Combat Patrol rules in previous editions, where it's included as an appendix rather than being acknowledged as alternative mode of play...

But given the fact that there have been more resources printed this edition that include Crusade content than resources that don't, I think it's fair to say that calling Crusade an appendix would be a tad disingenuous, unless a lot of the content was dropped.

One of the approaches Unit and I had discussed AGES ago involved releasing a Big Book of Crusade- which included not only the existing bespoke codex content for every faction, but also guidelines for creating campaigns of various types. This could have been a better way to go because it would have allowed EVERYONE to start Crusading right away... But even that's not so simple, because bespoke Crusade content does reference Codex rules that aren't Crusade specific.... So for example, the Master Archon/ Haemonculus/ Succubus rules aren't Crusade rules per se... but there are Requisitions in Crusade that allow you to grow into a Master, and it would have been problematic to print the requisitions that allow you to become a Master before the rules for BEING a Master had been printed.

In any case, thank you for envisioning a version of the game that continues to include Crusade and the players who prefer it. Your post strikes me as very reasonable in both tone and content because it suggests ways of improving the game that don't exclude folks with a preference for a particular mode of play that is fully supported by the current rules.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So yo reference my reply to you that you just jumped past:

It's all well and good to like Crusade if it serves your needs, but you need to recognize that Crusade doesn't serve everyone's needs (even if they are a narrative player. It doesn't serve mine for example).

When you make good points, and you frequently do, I do tend to back them up. I supported your idea of having suggested sub-faction traits rather than mandated ones. I continue to support the idea of a Big Book of Crusade, even as I point out that there are some nuances and difficulties with doing so. I support HBMC's AWESOME idea of gathering all of the Crusade content in a campaign season into a single book and all the Matched content for a campaign season. Thank you for recognizing that I absolutely do understand that Crusade doesn't fit everyone's needs, including folks like you who identify as narrative players. There absolutely IS room for improvement to Crusade.

There probably have been specific ideas proposed for the improvement of Crusade that I have objected to for specific reasons, but I have never believed or advocated that Crusade couldn't or shouldn't be improved. I fully acknowledge that there have likely been posts where I could have ben more clear about that- especially since I rely on people to respond to my posts in context... Like the fact that today, I am responding to CadianSgtBob and Voss who are both advocating not for improvements to Crusade, but for it's complete removal.

I have had to respond to both Cartbarf and you, precisely because you responded to comments I made to CadianSgt and Voss WITHOUT acknowledging the context that they don't want to improve Crusade, they want it gone. And to be fair to both of them, they didn't explicitly say they wanted Crusade gone, so I am paraphrasing them, and many apologies to both of them if they weren't in fact suggesting that Crusade should be cancelled.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Saying 40k is the best ever right now and could never change for the better

I may have said something some time ago that you interpreted as this, but I don't think I've ever said this.

I tend to say things like "The game feels better for my particular play style and preferences than it ever has before" or "The decoupling of Agendas from victory points allows for wider variety of Narrative choices to be made during the game." I almost never use vague terms like "better" or "best" preferring instead to speak about the specific elements of the game that support the type of gameplay I prefer.

I've listed two examples above were YOU proposed suggestions to improve both Crusade and 40k in general where I have enthusiastically and consistently agreed with you, and we're about to discuss a third suggestion for an improvement to Crusade which I support...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

So instead of a "feth you, got mine" approach where you vociferously protest any proposed change,

Again, the changes I vociferously protest tend to be the ones that suggest the full scale removal of Crusade. Suggestions to improve it are addressed case by case- some of them are definite improvements, and I support those. Others may have unintended side effects that the person proposing the rule may not have considered. In those cases, I usually attempt to ask clarifying questions.

I think the posts that have given you the idea I have a "feth you, I got mine" attitude are posts that are responses to someone suggesting an improvement intended to deal with a Matched play issue when the suggestion is worded in such a way that it would also impact Crusade. I do also point out that some super unpopular rules decisions don't affect Crusade- this is my attempt to help the folks who hate the rule soooo much that it makes them want to rage quit, because they might actually not know that a given rule doesn't apply to Crusade.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

take an approach where you say "Yes, GW is wrong and probably should change that" unless you have a VERY GOOD REASON why they shouldn't change it.

So, for example, Eldar Crusade rules. They should include tanks and tankers, and GW is wrong and Crusade is less fun for some people when it doesn't. Yes?

Yes.

I went back and reread my responses- I thought I had explicitly said that I thought adding a "Way of the Pilot" was a good idea, but apparently I did not. I should have, because it IS a good idea and I would support it. I'm not sure why I didn't say that in response.

Instead, I pointed out a bunch of ways that the current rules might help you create the desired effect, and I can see how that might have come across as resistance to your suggestion... Perhaps the context of the discussion at the time somehow lead me to believe that you were implying that Crusade shouldn't exist because it doesn't have Path rules for Eldar tanks... Probably an unsubstantiated belief in hindsight, but when you using a single response to reply to multiple posts and posters, some of which include "End Crusade!" others which include legitimate constructive suggestion for the improvement of either Crusade specifically or the game as a whole and still others that came across as outright personal attacks, errors are likely to occur.

So for the record, YES, a path of the Pilot IS a decent suggestion for improving Crusade. The creation of additional Drukhari Territories that exist outside of Commorragh and better support the idea of Drukhari pirates would also be a welcome addition to Crusade that would probably move the ruleset closer to supporting another of your narrative concepts.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
I have had to respond to both Cartbarf and you, precisely because you responded to comments I made to CadianSgt and Voss WITHOUT acknowledging the context that they don't want to improve Crusade, they want it gone. And to be fair to both of them, they didn't explicitly say they wanted Crusade gone, so I am paraphrasing them, and many apologies to both of them if they weren't in fact suggesting that Crusade should be cancelled.

You aren't paraphrasing anything, you're lying and building a straw man argument. Crusade with the normal point system and normal matched play rules is still Crusade. It does not need a separate point system to function and removing PL is in no way the same as removing Crusade.

Well thanks for clarifying. The statement you made was this:

"And why does GW even need multiple play modes? Open Play doesn't need to exist at all, and narrative play worked just fine when you had narrative scenarios and campaigns using the matched play rules."

From that statement, I assumed you were advocating for the complete removal of Crusade: "Why does GW need multiple play modes" does seem to imply that. And if you think that reducing Crusade to just "Narrative Scenarios" and "campaigns" is somehow keeping Crusade, from my perspective- and likely, the perspective, of many other Crusade players, it is not.

Allow me to be clear: Points can be used to play Crusade. I would be okay with that, though I personally feel PL is a better fit for me, for reasons I've already explained. Pretty sure I've said this directly to you more than once. If not, I'm saying it now: Crusade can work with points, and if that's all you're advocating for, I can accept that as a totally reasonable suggestion. I'll still prefer PL, but playing with points isn't unreasonable if that's what you and your group want to do.

If you want to add to the existing bespoke Crusade options in dexes as Unit has suggested, I can probably get behind that too. If you want to tweak certain aspects of the Crusade system to make it work better, that's definitely a discussion worth having as well. In both of those cases, I'd have to evaluate the suggestions individually based on their individual merits before I figured out whether or not they would work for me, just as I'd expect you to evaluate any suggestions I made based on their individual merits.

But if you advocate for the full scale removal of the bespoke content from dexes, which is what I assumed you meant when you said "Why does GW need multiple play modes," that's when your suggestion becomes unreasonable to me and other players with the same interests and preferences. I wouldn't expect you to change such an opinion based on my preferences, just as you shouldn't expect me to change my opinion based on your preferences.

CadianSgtBob wrote:


The Crusade rules very clearly state that the point limit is a limit for each player, they do not include any of the language about "approximately this" or "closely matched in points" or whatever that Open Play often has. Exceeding the point limit in Crusade is no more permitted than exceeding the point limit in matched play or tournament games.

Just wanted to clarify, so there are no misunderstandings:

In Crusade, you have a Supply Limit, which allows you to build an Order of Battle. This Order of Battle is all the units available to you. Once added to an Order of Battle, the load outs and unit sizes cannot be modified without an expenditure of requisition points.

The Crusade rules state a starting Order of Battle is 25PL, but you also get 5 requisition points, and if you spend ALL of them to increase Supply Limit, you could get to 50PL. Beyond that, your Supply Limit can grow as you choose, 5PL at a time, but you burn RP to do it, so it happens according to the needs of the story. Your Order of Battle could start at 25PL, and it could stay there for as long as you want- there are plenty of things you can buy with RP besides Supply Limit.

Game size, however, is a totally separate animal. You build an army by adding units from your Order of Battle. Sometimes using your entire Order of Battle in a game might fit the narrative, but other times it won't. Generally, armies are meant to be matching PL, so the player with the higher Supply Limit will leave units out in order to match the size of their opponent's army.

Some Crusade missions are Asymmetrical, but I don't remember if any of them explicit call for games in which one army is expected to build an army with fewer PL. I think in some of the Planet Strike/ Octarius stuff allows planetary armies to take Fortifications for free, which obviously results in an PL imbalance, but it isn't achieved by raising or lowering an army's PL- it just calls for more or fewer units.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Just wanted to clarify, so there are no misunderstandings:

Just want to clarify your clarification: you start with 50 supply, not 25. And this is what the rules for playing a Crusade game say:

Each player must then select a Battle-forged army. The Power Level of each player's army, and the number of Command points each player starts with when they begin mustering their army, are shown in the table below:
{Table with games at 25/50/100/150 points, corresponding exactly to the standard 500/1000/2000/3000 point game sizes in matched play.}

Now let's see what the current tournament pack says in the same place:

Each player must then select a Battle-forged army. The points limit of each player's army, and the number of Command points each player starts with when they begin mustering their army, are shown in the table below:

The point limit in Crusade is explicitly presented as a hard limit, not a rough guideline, just like the normal point system. The statement about the point limit is word for word identical with the exception of referring to "power level" instead of "points".

Yep, you got me man. PL is 50 to start with no initial RP- it's right there in black and white. I'm not sure how I got 25PL+5RPP stuck in my head- it is how we've built all the Crusades in our campaign. Didn't even realize we were house-ruling the whole time. Many apologies for the misinterpretation.

And yes, Supply Limit is a hard limit to the size of your Order of Battle- but my primary point was that supply limit is not necessarily the same thing as the size of any given game you play. You can never field an army that's bigger than your Supply Limit, but there are plenty of reasons why you might want to use an army that is smaller than your Supply Limit.

nou wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Andykp wrote:

The reason points were shoved at the end of book in a table and PL not is because they knew when they designed them that pints would be adjusted a lot.

Hoe dare you. The notion of adjusting pints is downright offensive and deluded. And completely unnecessary. A pint is a pint and that is the end of it sir.

^hugs emotionally traumatised pint of guinness^



Levity/off

Buckle up, here we go for another 14 pages of discussion about pints vs mls

I prefer mls. When you use pints, you have to pay extra for the straw, but when you use mls it is a part of the cost of the drink.

 Blackie wrote:

Karol wrote:
On the flip side the company makes people buy 15-25 models per army, and not gazylion rotated out on a quarterly schedul.

Compared to other skirmish games, say GW ones like Necromunda or Kill Team, the company makes people buy a lot of models.

Truth be told, 40k doesn't make you buy a lot of models. Competitive matched pick-up games at the local FLGS might.

But 25PL games are there. My 25PL Death Watch army is 12 infantry models. I have plans for it to grow a bit- I've got 20 more infantry models I plan to add and a Corvus Blackstar. But that's as big as it will get.

But you really have to stop blaming GW because they only play 2k matched at the store, and the store is the only place you play. Personally, I have some blame to throw at GW: I think that GT Mission packs should contain Combat Patrol and Onslaught Missions as well as Incursion and Strike Force. Not as many, perhaps- tiny games and massive games are always going to be outliers, while most games will cluster in the middle. Those fringe cases don't need equal attention, but including a few of each might help normalize aspects of the game that many organized players currently seem to habitually overlook.

@Blackie- Totally agree. Like you, I collect and play what I want when I want regardless of its rules.

I've just heard Karol (and possibly a few others) say that 40k makes people play 2k armies, or that it is always a huge investment upfront.

When I see this, I just like to remind the people who feel this way that the rulebook does not say "Thou Shalt play 2k points and only 2k points." Because it seems like some people genuinely forget that.

I get that local metas can be restrictive, and people who have little choice but to play at local stores for whatever reason must often fall in line or go without a game. But there's not much GW can do to solve this, as the ruleset they designed clearly indicates that 25PL games are just as valid as 100 PL games.

(Well, except in GT Mission Packs, where there's only 2 sizes of game... But that might be another topic)

In light of the past five pages or so I'd say this:

I think that both Points and power level are important, and I think both should remain part of the game, because I think that each is best suited to the mode of play for which it is the default list-building resource- in other words, I think that there are characteristics of points that are ideally suited to Matched Play, and there are characteristics of PL that are ideally suited to Crusade.

Matched play, love it or hate it has made points a part of the culture of tournament play. Quarterly changes keep things exciting for people and ideally strive to balance the game, and costed equipment in that environment absolutely makes sense. I think people enjoy points as much as a topic for debate and discussion as much as an actual mechanic in the game. What would content creators and forum dwellers talk about without points?

But Crusade, no matter how much you try and say it's just matched play + a progression system, IS a different beast, because the game was built for progression. In this context, the starting cost of a unit is such a small part of its value over time that PL is far better suited to the game. Designers (and players) want the focus of a unit's value to be the characteristics that it earns, not what it costs to add to the list.

PL has additional value to the Crusader for its relative stability. I'm not sure how many updates points have had since 9th dropped, but I think PL has only been updated twice. And that is very valuable to a Crusader- we have to earn our supply limit increases, so quarterly changes in the value of PL would be ridiculously annoying. You bust your ass to earn the extra 5PL, and you add your unit of choice, having lined up the narrative to support the units arrival; you fight your first battle and the unit bonds with the army, you write up the post battle story... And then some Jackhole spams too many of a unit at a tournament and the next week your unit costs too much to include?

No thanks. Keep PL and never have that problem. Doesn't have the same impact in matched, as the games aren't assumed to be connected. Swapping units in or out between games which are separate is just not a big deal in the same way.

GW likes having their two primary modes of play, and I think a lot of players do too. Matched players don't want Crusade's book keeping and the unpredictable and imbalanced impact of experience interfering with rehearsed tactics and the painstakingly play-tested army list, and Crusade players don't want to feel like the fundamental rules (like the aircraft limit or the subfaction soup ban) and roster values are changing every 3-6 months when some of us are engaged in stories that have been ongoing since our codices dropped.

Might GW blow it all up? Sure... They've done it before.

But GW SHOULD keep Matched and Crusade separate. To recombine the games now would lead to compromises that make no one happy, If you want to staple Crusade to Matched, you have to tone down the complexity of progression and tracking at the expense of nuance and options, and if you try to staple Matched to Crusade, you have to dial back the focus on balance and updates.

They also want to keep it separate because it's money. Each season, we get five books: two hardbacks designed to work for both Matched and Crusade, two Mission Packs designed to work exclusively with Crusade and one Mission Pack designed to work exclusively with Matched.

If they combine Crusade and Matched, they need to drop at least one mission pack from that model.

So I don't think Points or PL are going anywhere, nor do I think they should.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Designers (and players) want the focus of a unit's value to be the characteristics that it earns, not what it costs to add to the list.

Then why does Crusade use the standard points-based list construction where a unit's point cost is the focus of its value in assembling your list, and the only time its advancements are counted up is the "if one player has way more XP" bonus CP mechanic?

As previously explained, (twice) as soon as any unit receives it's first battle honour or scar, the cost paid for it no longer reflects its value. Therefore wasting time on starting cost equalization is pointless. A Crusade player is more concerned about a unit's growth after purchase, because that is the unit's true value in a Crusade game. This doesn't manifest in terms of "How often advancements are counted up" - how often this happens is not particular relevant. What is relevant, is that in every single battle fought, the honours and scars of every unit are far more important to a player than its cost in deciding everything from whether or not the unit is selected from the Order of Battle to participate in the game, to which enemies it should target to which objectives/ agendas/ actions it should be selected to perform.

In Crusade, PL is relevant exactly ONCE- when a unit is chosen to be added to an Order of Battle. From that point forward, PL is a real contender for the least important piece of information associated with the unit. To add an equipment cost into the equation makes little sense.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Spoiler:

PL has additional value to the Crusader for its relative stability. I'm not sure how many updates points have had since 9th dropped, but I think PL has only been updated twice. And that is very valuable to a Crusader- we have to earn our supply limit increases, so quarterly changes in the value of PL would be ridiculously annoying. You bust your ass to earn the extra 5PL, and you add your unit of choice, having lined up the narrative to support the units arrival; you fight your first battle and the unit bonds with the army, you write up the post battle story... And then some Jackhole spams too many of a unit at a tournament and the next week your unit costs too much to include?

If a unit's point cost changing is such a massive problem (implying it's probably not just a 1 PL change) for you then maybe you should consider the fact that your unit was way overpowered and including it at its former cost was going to be a major negative experience for your opponent.

Whether or not my unit was overpowered when added to the list is irrelevant. What is relevant is what that unit can do in any given battle, which changes from game to game. Heck, if you're playing sisters, just as an example, you might buy a unit of Battle Sisters. In your first game, they might do something (like fail a break test or lose a key fight) that makes you want them to take a Penitent Oath- when this happens, they entire unit is removed from your Order of Battle and replaced with an identical number of Repentia AND NO PL ARE ADDED, SUBTRACTED OR ALTERED IN ANY WAY. Five games later, they may redeem themselves, at which point the unit is removed from your roster again, and it can come back as Celestians or Seraphim, again with Zero impact on PL.

What does making the BSS pay PL for their Simulacrum mean once the unit has become Repentia? How does that additional cost continue to be relevant, when the unit has completely changed its identity?

(Caveat: If the new unit has a PL level that will not fit within your supply limit, you have to modify the supply limit to accommodate the new unit in order to use the requisition that makes the unit swap happen- so PL still has some impact upon the rules... But clearly, a unit's starting cost means very little in a game where the entire unit and everything about it can change based on a story event.)

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And TBH this is only a problem because of the broken supply limit mechanic, where you're encouraged to play larger games but can only do so if everyone in the group agrees to spend RP to get there.

The game itself doesn't go very far in terms of encouraging people to play larger games: it makes this possible, of course, but it leaves everyone the choice of how quickly they get there or whether they go there at all. It does this because the stories can be wildly, wildly diverse as we'll see below, and keeping flexibility is the key to empowering that.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

If you use the obvious fix of having no supply limit at all (and why not, total unit pool isn't much of a constraint since idle units don't gain XP)

In some campaigns, this could work. A lot of folks actually prefer a system where you start with a massive order of battle which you could never field all at once... But models die. Like permanently. This approach isn't talked about in Crusade, and it should be. I mean, it's easy enough to tweak it to make Crusade function in this type of campaign, but I think there would have been better buy in from some old school narrative players if this had been discussed as another way of running a Crusade.

But it is worth pointing out that the supply limit mechanic provides a methodology for connecting escalation to the narrative. You want the thing you did to trigger the RP gain that you use to bump your supply limit to be a story event that would have that consequence. So let's say for example, you win a narrow victory; the way to use the rules as a tool to shape the story might go like this:

You won, but it was close because an enemy melee unit just about took the critical objective. High command determines that based on the events of that battle, they should send a dedicated melee unit as reinforcements to ensure that this weakness is addressed, because next time, you might not be so lucky.

Now the events of the battle are narratively linked to the reward that battle provides... and the resulting escalation is not just a rule, but a part of the army's history.

An army shrinking from battle to battle is also very narrative, but the stories told about why/ how it happened tend to be pretty samey- usually it's just "unit X got killed by unit Y in battle Z" but clever narrative players will also add layers of story that arise from the consequences of the unit not being there.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

or having supply limit automatically increase at scheduled points in the campaign (like as in escalation leagues).

I understand the reasons why leagues do this, and certainly, it has a lot of utility- I don't begrudge anyone for taking this approach. For me personally, it isn't narrative enough- forces just randomly growing at regular intervals doesn't feel very fluffy to me, though I'm sure you could come up with a story to fit the rule.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Or you could even just adopt the popular league rule that point changes (and new codex releases, etc) don't apply until the next season.

Again, in some instances, this CAN work, assuming you and your group are following the seasons approach. So far, we've mostly been playing in our own corner of space, but eventually the overall narrative will be impacted by events elsewhere in the galaxy. The seasons in question may be long over by the time the books from that season see use in our campaign. Due to points changes being aligned with seasons, they would be accompanied by all the OTHER STUFF which comes with a new season- new campaign specific missions, theme rules (like grudges, planet strike or wars of faith) and of course honours and scars. Because they're a package deal, adopting the points changes without also adopting all the other stuff seems weird.

And it does seem to be GW's approach that players will run Crusades for each season, giving them a six month window for the campaign and then reset for the next... But that's only one approach. You may have a roster fight at Charadon that represents a collection of detachments from your force, and another Roster fight at Octarius which represents a different collection of detachments... But maybe they're still a part of the same army.

So now, when the fight comes to Vigilus, you might start with a brand new collection of detachments from the same force... But this time, when your roster grows, maybe you're bringing "The Heroes of Octarius" as reinforcements, rather than adding new green units.

I love this approach because I'm a colossal nerd. I don't want to hit a reset button on my Crusades. I just want them to keep growing. There might be years where certain parts of the army can't fight in certain battles because they are locked into certain campaigns in particular theatres of war, but eventually they will be able to reunite and be reassigned according to the needs of high command.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

But thanks for making the very revealing comment that a person making competitive-oriented list building choices in a competitive play environment is a "jackhole" for doing it.

It may have come across as a bit heavy handed, but it really does illustrate a fundamental difference between types of player. And BTW, I'm not saying that either type of player is better than the other, just that they have different priorities.

There is the type of player who prioritizes winning. This player STILL makes a lot of decisions based on fluff or rule of cool, but never decisions that come at the expense of the ability to win. For this player, the army needs to be the fluffiest and coolest it can be within the parameters of having a decent chance to win. And this is absolutely okay- it's absolutely facilitated by the ruleset.

Then there is the type of player who prioritizes rule of cool and fluff. They'll still make some decisions based on competitiveness, but only never decisions that come at the expense of using models which are important to their story. And again, nothing wrong with this approach.

The kind of player that I refer to as a Jackhole above, is someone who strays further than this and fields combinations of units that could be argued to be exploits by folks with competitive leanings, or absolutely fluff breaking according to those with a more narrative bent... And sometimes this player fields things that fall into both categories at the same time. Again, if it's rules legal, the player isn't entirely to blame because GW SHOULD have made a rules set that didn't allow the player to do what they did. I get that. But I also believe that if that player knows that their army is an exploit, or unfluffy, or both... They should be allowed to win the tournament, but they probably shouldn't expect to also be a contender to the sportsmanship trophy.

Hence Jackhole. Again, I admit, possibly heavy handed. The point still stands: the actions of this player may cause the Matched Play overlords to make changes to Matched to fix the exploit, and that makes sense. But it makes far less sense in Crusade, where a) players are less like to field exploits as they have chosen a mode that prioritize narrative over victory and b) such exploit are issues only until various honours/ scars and quest upgrades completely change the way the unit acts or the way other units act relative to it even IF one or two players choose to bring exploits.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

No thanks. Keep PL and never have that problem.

Here's a question: would you support a dual-points system where the matched play points are done as they are now, and the Crusade points use the exact same structure (paying for upgrades, etc) but changes are only applied once per year?

Would I support it? Well, if it was implemented before the end of this edition, I'd consider it. It would be better than forcing Crusade to update as often as matched does, so it's a step in the direction of compromise, which is the right direction.

If it's implemented for 10th, probably not? But it wouldn't be due entirely to this change in particular. Given how much development we've done with 9th, and how ideally suited to our particular needs it is, it's unlikely that I'll play in 10th at all. I am buying up 9th ed dexes for armies I might not get around to playing for another four or five years, because I'm planning for this to be my last edition.

In my mind, no edition of the game has been as bad for the game as the concept of edition churn itself. Since this was the version where the game peaked for me, I have pretty strong reasons to believe it's all down hill from here. Either they do a soft reset and we're hammered by edition inequality across the release schedule the way guard and daemons are being hammered right now, or they do a hard reset where they start with a streamlined, clutter free elegant system, which most Dakkanaughts will prefer and I will personally find empty and vacuous; as time goes on, GW will reply the clutter one dex at a time- bringing it closer to the game I want to play but the closer it gets, the more the zeitgeist will turn against it until edition 11 drops....

No thanks.

So that's the answer to the question about whether I'd accept it. But I think the bigger question, as I'm hoping my posts in this thread have been consistently asking is why is such a change necessary? What would it actually achieve, when any unit I add to my Order of Battle can be so fundamentally altered by the gameplay over time?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

GW likes having their two primary modes of play, and I think a lot of players do too. Matched players don't want Crusade's book keeping and the unpredictable and imbalanced impact of experience interfering with rehearsed tactics and the painstakingly play-tested, and Crusade players don't want to feel like the fundamental rules (like the aircraft limit or the subfaction soup ban) and roster values are changing every 3-6 months when some of us are engaged in stories that have been ongoing since our codices dropped.

But why is PL essential to this?

As I explained in the post you've responded to, it helps keep the play modes distinct, and it is an intentional effort to get people to think more about how a unit will grow over time rather than thinking hardest about it when it is added to the list. The stability issue is huge too, and if we were trying to use one unit of measure for both games, Crusade environments have a harder time staying stable. Because we do have PL, we've seen Crusade governed by a system that has changed TWICE since it's inception, vs. a system that changes every 3 months.

It is easier to just keep both Points and PL as is, rather than cut PL and then invent a bunch of ways to modify points so as to achieve some of the things for Crusade that PL did well. Especially since it would all be done for the sake of solving a problem that doesn't really exist.



What does the aircraft limit have to do with wanting the point system to be less accurate?

If you want to staple Crusade to Matched, you have to tone down the complexity of progression and tracking at the expense of nuance and options

No you don't. GW had Crusade-style progression in previous editions without needing a separate point system and separate core game mechanics. If anything Crusade and narrative play in general would work better because you would no longer have as much of the tension between what is the best option within the rules and which option best represents the story. It's a win for everyone if you don't have to feel bad about taking a laspistol instead of a plasma pistol.

Toofast wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

It is objectively true that points offer more granularity than PL, and objectively true that more granularity offers more precision in the effort towards balancing.

Anyone who refuses to acknowledge this either can't comprehend it or is being willfully ignorant to make their point. They're literally saying that feet are just as precise as millimeters when they really mean "I prefer using feet to measure". Whatever the case, arguing with them at this stage is pointless IMO. Anyone who has made it this long into the debate without figuring it out isn't going to come to any kind of epiphany today because of something you or I say.

I agree with this 100%.

What I'M saying is that because granularity at the list building stage is not a desirable characteristic in a game with a built in progression system which radically changes the combat effectiveness of any given unit after any given game, PL is better suited to Crusade. Even if it wasn't, the status quo would be better than trying to somehow combine PL and Points into a single unit of measure that was ideal for both games, because if you're trying to combine PL and Points, you have the potential to make both Matched Play and Crusade worse, and the impact of a better list building mechanic for Crusade is worth neither the effort or the risk since list building in Crusade is almost a non-issue. It's such a small part of the game compared to how big a deal it is in Matched.

I know there are other people in this thread who may have said points is no more accurate; I don't agree, but I haven't bothered pointing it out because the conclusion they reach based on their point of view is the same as the conclusion I reach based on my point of view, which is that both PL and Points should continue to exist. It is, after all, the path of least resistance, and with two systems, you're free to choose the one that suits you best, whereas with one, you're stuck with it warts and all, love it or hate it.

Keeping both protects people who are supposedly arguing because they are afraid of losing points, or because they fear points becoming more like PL just as much as it protects ALL the people here who have spoken up and said that based on their genuine and legitimate experiences with the game and their genuine, legitimate preferences, would prefer to use PL.

Anyone who has made it this long into the debate without figuring out that two systems serve the entire community better than a single option that tries to work for every taste isn't going to come to any kind of epiphany today because of something you or I say.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
In Crusade, PL is relevant exactly ONCE- when a unit is chosen to be added to an Order of Battle.

What? No. PL is relevant every single game in Crusade. To play a Crusade game you assemble a 25/50/100/150 point army just like you assemble a 500/1000/2000/3000 point matched play army, using army construction rules that are word for word identical to the matched play rules with the exception of using a different point system. And a unit's Crusade upgrades not not have any part in army construction, a unit's point cost remains fixed in every game.

Yes- you're pointing out the piece that I myself called attention to in the parenthetical Caveat section of the post- PL does continue to be the limiting factor in terms of how many units you can include in a game. What I am saying in the rest of the section is that the cost for the unit when you add it to your roster is the only time that the cost is actually a measure of the unit's combat effectiveness. As soon as the unit changes its combat effectiveness as a result of game play, the PL cost no longer represents what the unit is capable of doing.

Subsequent decisions about whether or not to bring that unit to battle do require you to conform to a PL limit, it's true, but the determining factor for whether or not you WANT to include in the battle is no longer based on a cost/benefits analysis of efficiency... Which is ALWAYS a huge determinant if not the standard for inclusion of a unit in a matched play game.

Fair call though... I could have worded my original post better.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

What is relevant is what that unit can do in any given battle, which changes from game to game.

It changes as a modifier on its base stats and point cost. If a unit is so blatantly overpowered that its point cost changing would be a major problem for your supply limit (remember that you get 1 RP for playing a game even if you lose, and that RP can be spent for +5 points of supply limit) then we're talking about a massive balance problem, a unit which is hundreds of points off in point cost in the normal point system. You're talking about something like "I get a 500 point Baneblade for 100 points because GW made a typo in the point cost". Why wouldn't you want to fix that mistake?

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here, but I'll take a stab at responding.

So when I talk about PL no longer accurately reflecting a unit's combat effectiveness, it never rises to the discrepancy of a 500pt Baneblade for 100pts- or at least I don't think it does. I haven't read the Baneblade entry for a while, so I'm not sure what the difference in points as between the base tank and its optimal upgrades. Maybe it is 400 points.

What I'm talking about is the PL cost you pay when you add a unit to your roster is theoretically a reflection of it's combat effectiveness. But that combat effectiveness is going to change over time, while the PL cost is likely to remain constant. There are circumstances where it can change, but this typically only happens when the unit is swapped in or out as in the Repentia example below. I still have to build a 25PL army to play against another 25PL army, so the PL cost of the unit does continue to impact the game, but the actual decision about whether or not I select a given unit will have more to do with its actual combat effectiveness, rather than its PL cost.

Does this imbalance a Crusade game?

Maybe. I mean it certainly will in some cases. But remember, in Crusade, "Victory" is about more than winning a single game. I'd rather lose and have three units complete agendas than win and have none complete an objective- and in than context, if all of the uber, overpowered units arrayed against me are used by my opponent to win the game, then they might not end up being used to prevent me from achieving my agendas, in which case the imbalance was a non-issue.

These factors, and others (we'll get there) are reasons why I don't think it's necessary to modify the PL system. Beyond that, modifying it every three months would just be a colossal pain in the duff, especially since so little would be gained by doing it.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Heck, if you're playing sisters, just as an example, you might buy a unit of Battle Sisters. In your first game, they might do something (like fail a break test or lose a key fight) that makes you want them to take a Penitent Oath- when this happens, they entire unit is removed from your Order of Battle and replaced with an identical number of Repentia AND NO PL ARE ADDED, SUBTRACTED OR ALTERED IN ANY WAY. Five games later, they may redeem themselves, at which point the unit is removed from your roster again, and it can come back as Celestians or Seraphim, again with Zero impact on PL.

Um, what? The requisitions in question do change the point cost of the unit. You remove the original unit entirely and add a new unit which then gains some specific Crusade upgrades based on what the replaced unit has. If you replace a 5-model retributor squad (6 points) with a 4-model repentia squad (3 points) the unit in your Order of Battle will cost 3 points. This is the number which is counted towards your supply limit, and it will cost 3 points in list construction. In fact, the requisition makes this change in point cost explicit because it contains the restriction that you can not use the requisition if the new unit's point cost would cause you to exceed your supply limit.

Again, absolutely not my best choice of words... especially in caps. Seriously facepalm. Sorry man- let me explain what I was trying to get at.

So I buy 10 BSS, and I add them to my list- it's 6 PL, I bring whatever load out I want.

Now in the world where PL doesn't exist, I have to weigh whether or not to bring a special, a heavy, a cherub or a simulacrum... because now there's a cost for those things. So what do I do? While now I have to do math, right? Because I probably can't afford all four of those things, but I can probably afford one. Maybe two if I only take one upgrade on a different unit... But then that's more math. And hey, you know what- for some people that's fun... they want to do that. Heck, there were times when I used to do that, and I always found it fun. So yeah, you suck it up- you put in the time, you do the math, and you get it done. You feel proud, and it's kinda cool. Gee, maybe CSB and all those other guys had a point! This is what the game should feel like.

And then you play your first game. The enemy has an objective. You know your painstakingly crafted BSS squad will save the day: you spent an hour doing math and comparing every possible load out combination. Except this day happens to be THAT "Any given Sunday" and four sisters get taken out, you lose two more to attrition and the opponent maintains control of the objective, costing you the battle.

In shame, you swear the oath.

And the loadout you spent the extra time theorycrafting the perfect loadout? Yeah, it's just... gone. The 6PL BSS becomes a 6PL Repentia squad. So is the game any better because you paid for the gear which you no longer have? And when you redeem the unit and replace them with a 7PL Celestian squad, do they have to pay for their upgrades? What if they're the exact same upgrades the BSS had before they swore the oath?

By now, you're probably thinking "Gee, this could be... Easier." That week, the balance update drops...

CadianSgtBob wrote:

But it is worth pointing out that the supply limit mechanic provides a methodology for connecting escalation to the narrative. You want the thing you did to trigger the RP gain that you use to bump your supply limit to be a story event that would have that consequence. So let's say for example, you win a narrow victory; the way to use the rules as a tool to shape the story might go like this:

Sure, but it shouldn't be necessary to do that.

Well this is debatable. Remember, this is Crusade we're talking about, so ostensibly, if you're playing Crusade it's because you want to create an extended narrative. I mean to each their own- if it isn't important for you to translate mechanics into the story being told, or to use the mechanics to guide the story, then I'm not going to tell you you're playing wrong, as long as what you're doing makes you and your opponent happy.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

If I have a nice 50-point starting Order of Battle because I've been buying unit upgrades instead of supply limit and one of my opponents says "hey, let's play a 100 point game so I can use my new Baneblade squadron" I have two choices: either decline the game and fail to help with their narrative request or play several more games first and spend all of my RP on increasing supply limit.

Okay, 3 things:

1. Theoretically, it takes some time for your opponent to built and paint their new Baneblade Squadron, so you'll likely have enough notice that your friend wants to use it long before the game when it can finally be used, and if you're a collaborative storyteller, you'll likely start working toward raising the supply limit for your friend's sake...

2. But it's Crusade, so maybe you'll say something like "Cool. In the next game, I want to run a recon scenario against you to see if I can get intel about an incoming Baneblade Squadron." And in that game, you might choose to prioritize victory over agenda acquisition to maximize RP yield over XP... But again it's also because in the story, the victory condition is the thing that gives you the intel on the Baneblades. The idea being that you use the Baneblade battle to guide the narrative- you're giving your opponent the whole "I've got baneblades" story by having the battles that lead up to the big fight still be "about the Baneblades" even when the aren't on the table. So maybe in subsequent battles, you go after one of the baneblade's crew, who is filling in for one of the dudes in an infantry squad. Sure, it's about playing games to raise your supply limit, but those fights ARE still a story.

3. There are other options here that you haven't listed. My favourite is for you to team up with an allied Crusader and you each build a detachment in such a way that your combined PL equals that of your Baneblade toting common enemy. But you could also just say "Dude, it's gonna take a few weeks to get my Supply Limit up high enough, so let's just play a one off at a points value that works. Maybe Battle-forged Open War deck, Strike Force?" A third option might be an asymmetrical mission- I haven't studied the mission packs in enough detail, nor do I own all of them; I seem to recall the Goonhammer reviews talking about asymmetry in the Octarius Crusade Mission packs. A custom asymmetrical battle is also an option, though I try to avoid discussing house rules as a solution in forums, not because I'm afraid to use them in my own games if my opponents are cool with it, but more because it muddies the water in a forum where you are explicitly discussing other published rules. One strategy that would be "rules legal" is to allow the player with the lower limit to add PL with fortifications or allies (Imperial Agents/ Agents of Chaos) or unaligned units that are available only temporarily based on the circumstance of the battle.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Being able to play larger games shouldn't be gated behind everyone having to agree to spend resources to unlock them, you should be able to just decide to play any appropriate game size based on the needs of the story.

As described above, there are numerous ways around the problem, but again I stress that the situation you describe IS a part of campaign style narrative escalation games. Most people playing these games recognize that the story of the game IS the actions you take to earn the resources, so doing that in order to get to the point where fighting big battles is possible isn't a chore... It's literally what we signed up to do.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

I don't want to hit a reset button on my Crusades.

But you don't have to! Changing the point cost doesn't change the identity of your force. You can still continue to use all of those units exactly as they are, just with their new point costs. All waiting until the end of the season means is that you avoid the problem where you've arranged the specific details of your 25 point game next week and then a point update hits and your list is now at 27 points and no longer legal. If you wait until the end of your "season" (however that is defined in your group) you handle it all in the downtime while you're preparing the next chapter in the story, people are taking the opportunity to change armies, etc.

So no, it doesn't change the identity of the army, but it does break the immersion of the campaign when a force which you were able to field last week, suddenly can't be fielded this week for circumstances which are outside the story and beyond the control of the players. Constant changes to the value of units do affect the ways in which those units may be fielded, and at that point, it can become a story issue. Sure, you're right... it isn't a big deal... But it's just another one of those things you don't have to worry about at all if you just stick with the status quo and keep both PL and Points. Especially when replacing PL gets you so little in return.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

(Of course in practical terms there's a limit, as the game starts to become too unwieldy with every unit being at legendary rank and piled high with upgrades. At some point you have to hit a reset button to get things down to a manageable scale.)

I'd debate this too. You can build a 5k PL Order of battle if you want to- you're still only fielding 150PL max at a time. In our campaign, the planet we're on right now has 245 territories, and you can only hold a territory if you've got a detachment there. That's a lot of territory.

At a certain point though, of course you're right, you will start to feel like you've achieved everything you wanted to with a given Crusade, at which point you might start growing another faction's Crusade to the same epic proportions.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

It may have come across as a bit heavy handed, but it really does illustrate a fundamental difference between types of player. And BTW, I'm not saying that either type of player is better than the other, just that they have different priorities.

But you said exactly that! You called this competitive player a "jackhole" for playing the game competitively in a competitive context. That's not acknowledging that people have different goals for the game, it's insulting someone because their goals aren't the same as yours.

You're quoting the first line of a three paragraph section on these player types that goes on to clearly explain that the "jackhole" that I'm referring to is not merely a competitive player- it is someone who intentionally includes exploits in their army beyond what would be deemed reasonable beyond reasonable standards of competitiveness.

You can't quote the first line of a three paragraph post to score a point when the point you're trying to score has already been addressed by the parts of the post that follow the piece you quoted. I shouldn't say "You can't" - what I mean is that you shouldn't, because the response I made following the piece you quoted is the same response to this.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

As I explained in the post you've responded to, it helps keep the play modes distinct, and it is an intentional effort to get people to think more about how a unit will grow over time rather than thinking hardest about it when it is added to the list.

But PL doesn't accomplish this goal at all.

It doesn't do the job on its own- it's part of a suite of differences between the modes. Every one of those differences that you take away makes the versions of the game more samey. And this impacts not just Crusade- it impacts all the other game modes too. Better to leave the modal characteristics of the game as they are. This isn't saying "Don't continue to improve each of the modes" - go ahead, do that! Add more balance to Matched, since that's where balance matters most. Add more content to Crusade, like the Narrative Campaigner's Handbook- a collection of ideas for moderated and non-moderate Crusade Campaign Systems. Or change the way Campaign books are organized so that there are only two books per season- one for Matched (with missions AND Rules) and one for Crusade (Missions and Rules). That's the kind of development I can get behind, because it helps the people who have chosen a particular mode of play get more of the qualities that made them choose that mode.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

It's still the standard concept of points-based list construction where a unit has a set point cost and you create a list by choosing units up to a total point limit. It still forces you to build your 25 point list with the exact same process as matched play.

Not really. In Matched the army you build is made from units in the dex.

In Crusade, the army you build is from your Order of Battle- a list of units that you've already paid for when you added them to said order of battle. You pay for them to make them available. The list building stage isn't the stage were units are "purchased" - it's merely the stage where you decide which of the units you've previously payed for are necessary in the current engagement. This difference is mostly conceptual, I agree, but it is very significant in terms of how the game functions.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

The only difference is that, because of its inherent errors, the answer to optimization questions changes and there is a different set of best units/upgrades.

The "Balance errors" that you speak of aren't characteristics of PL. The conscious decision to not cost most equipment ISN'T an error- it is a design choice meant to de-emphasize the act of adding a unit to your Order of Battle in order to highlight the act of growing and changing that unit over time using resources like RP or XP which are connected to the story by virtue of being earned, rather than PL or points, which are not connected to the story in any way.

The other source of imbalance in Crusade is the unit growth that occurs- also not an error but a design choice.

These two factors definitely make Crusade less balanced, but they aren't "inherent errors" - they're design choices that help make Crusade better at telling stories. It's hard to tell a story when you're more worried about balance than you are the narrative- and most Crusade players have Narrative as their priority: that's why they are Crusade players. If balance was their priority, they'd be playing matched.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

2 things: depending on what period of history you are talking about, the Baneblade had appx 250 points of upgrades, so it isn't far off. Nowadays with points cuts (and a whole bunch of the upgrades becoming essentially free, like PL), the Baneblade's stock loadout and the Baneblade's upgraded loadout are only 120 pts apart - though that is often considered to be the equivalent of like 6 PL. Currently, though, the Baneblade's PL cost is way out of whack with it's points, because points have been updated to balance the units but PL less so.

My Legendary Keeper of Secrets (12 PL) is better in combat and more survivable than the GW Exalted Keeper (23 PL) who is also a Lord of War because of Crusade Upgrades fwiw.

Thanks for the heads up- this actually supports CSB's argument. Duly noted- when the discrepancy is that high perhaps there is room for a PL cost associated with an upgrade. See? I can be reasonable... Sometimes.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

So uh, lots of issues here that tout crusade as something that it is not by including unstated assumptions. So let me go in order:

1) Balance is important in Crusade. Not because victory is important, but because fun for both players is important. Playing when badly outmatched isn't any fun for a lot of people - in fact, I would say it is less fun for narrative people if they want their narrative to be more than: "Dear Sector Command: the evil Adepta Sororitas wiped out my Imperial Guard to a man again, for the fifth time. At this point, the fact that anyone is still alive is a miracle."

I agree that balance is important in Crusade. Just because it's not the number one priority that it isn't the number one priority does not mean that I don't think it's important. It's a strong number two priority. And in certain missions, at my even rise to a number one priority.

But keep in mind, that in my discussions with CSB, what I'm also talking about is how battle honours and quest rewards build in a degree of imbalance that PL/ Points or whatever hybrid is being considered will never be able to address. And in THAT context, is it worth blowing up the PL system, or Crusade? The posts that you are responding to aren't objective statements about the general state of PL vs. Points: they are statements made in a very specific context- I've got a guy who is advocating for the wholescale removal of something I love, and I am trying to explain to him why the status quo is a better idea than the wholescale removal of PL or the reduction of Crusade back to the tacked-on appendix that the narrative system in 4th ed was.

PL could be improved. Crusade could be improved. But both are worth keeping- in any post which is a response to CSB, this is really all I'm trying to prove, even if it sounds like I'm talking about more than that when you divorce it from the context in which it was written- which is an ongoing question of whether PL should be removed, and whether or not Crusade should once again become something that is a mere afterthought, rather than being a game specifically designed to work with a progression system.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

2) Crusade is a progression system and doesn't help tell stories at all.

The progression system is an important part of Crusade. Here are some other defining features of Crusade that AREN'T a progression system:

- 150+ missions, designed for ALL sizes of game (unlike Matched, which is only Incursion and Strike Force or Open whose missions are determined by relative army sizes rather than absolute sizes)
- the Planet Strike rules
- the rules for multiplayer games (2+)
- 20+ Flashpoints, which include Theatres of War, additional Agendas, and in some cases
- rules for tree campaigns
- new army lists (Torchbearer Fleets, Armies of Faith)
- Agendas... Which yes, are in fact related to the progression system, but deserved mention because of the impact that they have upon design differentiation. In a matched, or even an open game, every opportunity for a player decision is connected to it improving one's odds to win. Agendas add a feature to the game that asks players to think and make choices about something that ISN'T connected to victory. This adds a narrative thread that simply does not exist in the other systems. So all stories require conflict, but there is more than one type of conflict: Self vs. Other, Self vs. Environment, Self vs. Self. Matched and open are great at representing the first type of conflict. Crusade's core rules, and the concept of agendas specifically, is designed to facilitate all 3 types of conflict.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

There are bonuses and (easily avoided) maluses for units that participate in games. *Some* books, like the Sisters, have other fun rules that add a bit of flavor (the Repentia thing), but that is not always a trait of Crusade, and does not require Crusade to happen in a campaign in the first place.

Sisters, Dark Eldar, GSC, Tyranids, Tau and Eldar have some pretty wicked Crusade content. Admech was decent, but doesn't hold up to these six. The only other dexes I've seen so far this ed are Space Marines and the Deathwatch Supplement... And yeah, their Crusade content is not just a near mis like Admech- it is legit sub-par.

I've heard Orks is bad... Like really bad. I suspect all Marine Supplements (with the possible exception of Deathwing maybe?) would be as weak as Deathwatch.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I need you to understand point 2 especially PenitentJake because I have said it like r
Eight or nine times to you now and you brush it off with "well if you play your army a certain way (the GW Approved Way) crusade is great!" Well yeah, sure, but that's not different than Matched is/was for me in terms of "just follow the rules man, if you want narrative, houserule"

Like I appreciate that you have fun with Crusade, I really do. But it has major flaws and gaps and you need to acknowledge them rather than trying to paper over them and continuing to tout it as some GW triumph that they never have done before.

And I need you to understand THIS because it's my response EVERY TIME and you outright ignore it:

1: This complaint IS legit, and I wish GW could do more to fix it. A Big Book of Crusade could go a long way, and there absolutely 100% should be a Big Book of Crusade. If the edition lasts long enough, such a thing would probably end up getting made eventually... But unfortunately, I am losing my faith that there will ever be a persistent edition.

2: You are correct that if you want to tell a story that can't be expressed in the existing materials, and you have to house rule them, it is very similar to every other version of 40k we've ever had... But the difference is that the content we have gives us exemplars that we can follow to design house rules which fit into an existing set of wildly varied options. In previous lean editions, it was a bit harder to house rule: you had decent descriptions of how tree and map campaigns could be run, you had 3 Battle Honour tables that were expected to apply every army, and you have a prototype of Kill Team. With that as a basis? Sure, you could probably come up with something- I mean, you and I are both old school narrative gamers, so we've got that kin of skill... But it tended to be a harder sell, because the assumption was always one of "House rule for advantage (no GM) or unbalanced and imperfect design, or even favouritism (with a GM)

Now, the presence of all these exemplars doesn't guarantee you won't get the same thing happen if you have to add a bit of content to Crusade... But it does make it at least a little less likely. The example I gave last time was that if you wanted to create an Eldar Path of the Pilot, it's easy to do in a game where the Path of the Warrior, the Seer and the Outcast exist.

3. Related to point 2: being required to house rule SOME things is less of a burden than being required to house rule ALL OF THE THINGS.

The example here was that if you built your Path of the Pilot in any other version of the game, you then ALSO have to invent the Paths of the Warrior, Seer and Outcast. If you build a Path of the Pilot in Crusade, that's all you need to do to get you complete set of steak knives.

4. This point, though valid, DOES have associated issues (which is why I put it in 4th place), but I don't think you're actually very familiar with the magnitude of resources that exist for Crusade. I'm not sure how many Flashpoints you've seen, or how many Campaign books, or how many Crusade Mission Packs. The rules you seek MIGHT exist in a source you haven't checked.

As mentioned above, however, I agree that this is still problematic- because you certainly shouldn't have to play Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency to track down rules either. Goonhammer reviews help... But it's still a pain in the duff even for me, and I love this freakin' game.

So look man, I hope this post sounded friendly and casual. Your last posted sounded that way to me and it was awesome in a thread that has escalated to flame war in places. I have always respected your point of view, even if sometimes I got pushed a bit too far and reacted overzealously. Again, I'm only arguing about this AT ALL because people have suggested getting rid of things.

Personally, I don't know if YOU think that GW should get rid of Crusade, or if you think they should get rid of points. I'll participate in suggestions for rules improvement= there's lots of room for it in all 3 modes of the game. But I draw the line at the wholesale removal of play modes. And while there's SOME wiggle room with consolidation/ modification of points vs PL... I'm very, very reluctant to go down that road too- I think I've already explained my reasons for that elsewhere. The baneblade example was pretty egregious, and it made me think that for sure there are some places where equipment upgrades might be a big enough deal that they need a PL cost. I still think it should be rare.

CadianSgtBob wrote:


PL is not "great for crusade" unless you value the gatekeeping aspect. It adds nothing of value and Crusade would work better with normal points.

Nope.

Already explained why. Many times. As have others. You have proven you won't listen, or even agree to disagree, so I'm not going to bother reposting. Nobody else should bother either.

We aren't gate keepers, because we don't want to remove the rules you like. You are the gate keeper, because YOU don't want other people to have fun unless they're having it your way.

All of us on the PL side? We're fine with you having points. We're fine with you using them- even in Crusade if you want to and can find other people who will agree to it. Therefore, definitionally NOT gatekeepers.

You on the other hand: Only CSBhammer can exist!

CadianSgtBob wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Already explained why.

And your "explanations" fail to hold up to even the slightest scrutiny.

Others on this site have agreed with my points of view, as do the folks with whom I actually play. I think you overestimate your own importance as an arbiter of objective truth... Especially given that objective truth is so incredibly rare, there's a very compelling argument that it doesn't exist at all.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

You claim that "time savings" is important but that time savings is a negligible difference over the entire process of creating a list, and you spend more time than you save arguing on this forum to defend PL.

It's possible that I may have said something that you interpreted as "time savings"... But I don't actually think so.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

You claim that you don't need the accuracy of normal points or don't care about balance

Once again, nuance in diction and language is important to some people. You may think "Balance is not my highest priority" means "balance isn't important" but it doesn't. In fact, I even modified my original stance concerning units (like the Baneblade) where the swing can be particularly egregious. In those cases, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to include some scaling in the PL cost.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

but you can't provide any convincing argument for how having that accuracy would hurt you.

Nobody can provide a convincing argument to a person who has predetermined that they will refuse to be convinced. I started my first Crusade about 3 months after 9th's BRB dropped, and it has been running without a reset ever since. If I was using points, I'd have had to recalculate the cost of everything at least six times since then. As it is, I've done it once. I like that, and so do other Crusaders. We don't want change every 3 months... Or rather, we want our changes to be motivated by story events rather than "Balance Patches" which never seem to satisfy anyone anyways.

Multiple people have told you they feel the same way. You don't care, because you just want it to be your way and only your way. Well I'm sorry bro- this ed? The designers aren't in step with the way you think. There are other games. Go play them. Or go play points. No one is stopping you. When the Guard dex drops, there's a good chance that anything that is scaring you about GW converting to a PL only system will have been nothing but sturm und drang anyway. And even if not, none of us who support PL are actually advocating for the removal of points- most of us recognize that a fanbase can only be as big as it is broad.

Homogenize it, and you alienate and disenfranchise people. Most of us don't want that. We realize that it would have an impact on the company's ability to keep producing the high volume to which we've become accustomed.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

So we have to come to one of two conclusions here: either your reasons for liking PL are weak and not worth considering, or you value PL for gatekeeping purposes and the other reasons are nothing more than an attempt to defend PL without admitting the real appeal of it.

There is a third possible conclusion, but it isn't very diplomatic or kind to you, so I'll keep it to myself.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

You are the gate keeper, because YOU don't want other people to have fun unless they're having it your way.

The same can be said about literally every conceivable change to the game. If you want AoC you're gatekeeping.

Nope. Only if you simultaneously don't believe other people should be able to choose for themselves. And we do. No gatekeeping.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

If you don't want AoC you're gatekeeping.

Nope. Only if you simultaneously don't believe that other people should be able to choose for themselves. And we do. No gatekeeping.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And yet somehow your redundant point system is the only time you consider advocating changes to the game to be gatekeeping.

It makes a lot of sense if you actually think about it: you're talking about the wholescale removal of a mechanic that many people like for different reasons, despite the fact that you've been given other viable alternatives by the company itself, and you and anyone else who hates PL, by conscious design, are not required to use it.

Other suggestions are more constructive and reasonable. I'm willing to talk about those ideas and discus their merits and shortcomings, and how such changes might be most successfully implemented.

The whole scale removal of game sizes, or list building systems is neither constructive nor reasonable given the obvious appeal of those sytems to many people, and again, for wildly varying reasons.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

We're fine with you using them- even in Crusade if you want to and can find other people who will agree to it.

You: "it's not gatekeeping because you can house rule Crusade to use a different point system even if GW doesn't support it."

No, the reason it isn't gate keeping, because I'm not taking anything away from people or preventing them from doing whatever it is that they want to do. ANd GW themselves have published the 20 points = 1 PL formula. They recommend PL for Crusade for sure, but they know that people have always House-ruled and they expect as much out of this edition. It is specifically the reason why they named their company Games WORKSHOP.

Besides, it wasn't all that long ago that you were advocating for the removal of Crusade altogether (more gatekeeping) and you're still advocating for the removal of Open (more gatekeeping).

You have the system that works for you. Use it.

I have the system that works for me. I will use it.

That is what "not gatekeeping" looks like.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Also you: "if GW doesn't give me an official point system where upgrades cost zero points that's gatekeeping."

No- GW HAS given me an official list building system that doesn't have costs for most equipment upgrades. It's you wanting to take it away from us just because YOU don't like it that is gate keeping. If it was in anyway preventing you from playing the way you wanted play, you might have a leg to stand on.

It isn't. You don't.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Nice double standard there.

No double standard. Just your failure to understand that conceptually, the term "Gatekeeping" refers to "Making one's own interests exclusive" - which, when it comes to you and I, clearly only you are doing.