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I agree it's easier when it comes to smaller sized units or larger auras. But take a painboy for instance, the FnP aura is only 3" which makes his positioning and nearby units very important, both for movements phase, charging and piling in. That kind of finnangling wouldn't really matter if you could just attach an IC to a unit as an option still.

Then you have auras that are "wholly within" which are a whole other headache, those can take quite a bit longer than a few seconds.

Yeah. The game didn't actually speed up with the removal of templates.

Roughly the same number of models (or less!) on the board as in 7th, when 2.5 hours was pretty standard, and 2.5 hours is still pretty standard.

If it did speed up gameplay, it wasn't measurably so. A game still takes about the same amount of time.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
I agree it's easier when it comes to smaller sized units or larger auras. But take a painboy for instance, the FnP aura is only 3" which makes his positioning and nearby units very important, both for movements phase, charging and piling in. That kind of finnangling wouldn't really matter if you could just attach an IC to a unit as an option still.

Then you have auras that are "wholly within" which are a whole other headache, those can take quite a bit longer than a few seconds.

Streamlined templates!

I am sure auras never create “friction” in games like those gross templates did.

Pancakey wrote:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
I agree it's easier when it comes to smaller sized units or larger auras. But take a painboy for instance, the FnP aura is only 3" which makes his positioning and nearby units very important, both for movements phase, charging and piling in. That kind of finnangling wouldn't really matter if you could just attach an IC to a unit as an option still.

Then you have auras that are "wholly within" which are a whole other headache, those can take quite a bit longer than a few seconds.

Streamlined templates!

I am sure auras never create “friction” in games like those gross templates did.

Now I want GW to do Warmachine-style acrylic aura-measuring sticks for four times the price.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Pancakey wrote:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
I agree it's easier when it comes to smaller sized units or larger auras. But take a painboy for instance, the FnP aura is only 3" which makes his positioning and nearby units very important, both for movements phase, charging and piling in. That kind of finnangling wouldn't really matter if you could just attach an IC to a unit as an option still.

Then you have auras that are "wholly within" which are a whole other headache, those can take quite a bit longer than a few seconds.

Streamlined templates!

I am sure auras never create “friction” in games like those gross templates did.

Now I want GW to do Warmachine-style acrylic aura-measuring sticks for four times the price.

Funny that you mention that, but i just sent a list of abilities that could probably use tokens to be represented across the game as a suggestion to a popular WMH accessory maker. Maybe they do them, maybe they dont, but it would be a cool idea i think.

 DarkHound wrote:
There's no standardization and that can lead to hugely disparate play experiences; we're often not talking about the same game at all.

Picking this line out because that word - standardisation - is a word that scares me when it comes to terrain/boards.

There actually is some level of standardisation creeping into terrain, specifically the ITC terrain set up (two L-shaped things in the middle, and then mirrored terrain on either side of the board). Those words of set ups terrify me, as as someone who likes making dense thematic boards, they run contrary to creativity. Sure, you can make those standard terrain sets up be anything from ruins to giant trees, but ultimately they just become 'skins' for Default Terrain Setup #1, and I rebel at the very concept of standardised terrain layouts.

 DarkHound wrote:
I think HBMC's are the greatest ever and he should be in charge of the whole world.

Aw! Thanks man.

I agree that standardization is a really risky thing to include or advocate for. I wouldn't want uniform board layouts for pick-up games at my shop. It certainly makes sense to create standardization for tournament boards, and I'm all for that. However, I think 40k could stand to have in writing "we expect a board to contain these many obscuring area terrain, these many obstacles, etc.". There'd still be plenty of room to go off on your own, but at least for casual matched play there'd be some consistency, both in terms of the play experience from match to match, but also in terms of matching the game designer's expectation for balance.

I will say, the "Example Battlefields" section in the 9th edition rulebook is the best material they've had so far on actually setting up boards. It gives examples of good and bad boards for matched play games, and lots of examples of the expected terrain amounts (rather than older editions just saying one piece per whatever size). However, it just provides a picture and says 'this is the right amount of terrain' without specifying.

By the way, I did take your observation to heart when we built the board for tonight's game. It was against Imperial Scions, and they found lots of places to hide in my backline. Made for an extremely close game right up until the end.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Removing template weapons was a huge step in speeding up the game because you didn't have to spend ages fiddling with spacing (could you imagine template weapons in 9th?). Granted they then filled that extra time.

Funny you mention that. 8th took away template to speed up the game where previously you could spend forever fiddling with spacing to make sure each troop is exactly this many inches apart thus making templates harder to use. Then 8th introduced Aura's to make movement all fiddly since you had to ensure your units are within X inches of an independent character. One step forward and one step backwards in my opinion.

They also missed a trick to make command abilities different.

For example astartes auras cover the whole table due to superior command and control. Also easiest for new players.

Ork auras cover 1/2/X different units within 6" shouting distance.

Ad mech auras cover X units per turn players choice to show specific interference in unit subroutines.

Guard abilities affect one unit within X, unless the commander has access to a vox in which case affect anyone also with a vox.

And so on.

Ork's auras already were very different from marines... except for apothecaries, who finally understood that orks are superior and are now identical to pain boyz

The_Real_Chris wrote:

They also missed a trick to make command abilities different.

For example astartes auras cover the whole table due to superior command and control. Also easiest for new players.

Ork auras cover 1/2/X different units within 6" shouting distance.

Ad mech auras cover X units per turn players choice to show specific interference in unit subroutines.

Guard abilities affect one unit within X, unless the commander has access to a vox in which case affect anyone also with a vox.

And so on.

Those sound like fun ways to differentiate auras for each factions lore. Personally I would have preferred we avoid auras in general, unless it's a very large distance like in your SM example just to avoid finnickyness in the movement / charge phases. Your Admech / Guard example, similar to Necron's My Will Be Done, would be the simplest in terms of the movement phase, pick X units to receive this benefit is much cleaner.

 DarkHound wrote:
I agree that standardization is a really risky thing to include or advocate for. I wouldn't want uniform board layouts for pick-up games at my shop. It certainly makes sense to create standardization for tournament boards, and I'm all for that. However, I think 40k could stand to have in writing "we expect a board to contain these many obscuring area terrain, these many obstacles, etc.". There'd still be plenty of room to go off on your own, but at least for casual matched play there'd be some consistency, both in terms of the play experience from match to match, but also in terms of matching the game designer's expectation for balance.

The problem with GW stating a minimum is that then that becomes the standard. I mean just look at their 'recommended' board sizes and how quickly the tournament scene leapt to adopt that table size. Gaming mat companies were offering new sizes virtually over night.

I'm afraid that if they give that level of detail, then stuff like this will become the norm. Even fancy 3D printed stuff in that set layout is still bad.

Note: I said ITC terrain earlier. This appears to be the standard layout for the NOVA tournament.

 DarkHound wrote:
I will say, the "Example Battlefields" section in the 9th edition rulebook is the best material they've had so far on actually setting up boards. It gives examples of good and bad boards for matched play games, and lots of examples of the expected terrain amounts (rather than older editions just saying one piece per whatever size). However, it just provides a picture and says 'this is the right amount of terrain' without specifying.

Giving examples are good, but I'd prefer they kept from specifying.

 DarkHound wrote:
By the way, I did take your observation to heart when we built the board for tonight's game. It was against Imperial Scions, and they found lots of places to hide in my backline. Made for an extremely close game right up until the end.

Looks awesome. Fancy 'Nid terrain too.

I agree I prefer they give examples of good terrain placement on a board rather than putting out a minimum required since that will very quickly morph into a standard.

Oh I missed the picture earlier, that is some beautiful terrain!

To give FLG some credit, when you are building terrain for 250+ tables (I think that was the number, can't remember), making it look "decent" and playable is very admirable. I was impressed at LVO last 2 years, that's no mean feat. Especially if you compare to the LGT pics from a few years ago, that was an absolute disgrace.

For 1 or 2 home tables with friends or your LGS? yeah, go to town, you can do a lot with such minimal requirements.

GW did it well I think with Epic A with its tournament scenario. For a 6x4 board you had 12 pieces of terrain, max 30cm at its widest point. Each table would have a different set up, but broadly similar encounters. Of course in Epic part of the game was to allow certain armies to dictate the battlefield, so say Space marines would always choose the board edge (or corner) when playing Guard, and normally go first each turn as well. Sucks to be guard!

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
I agree it's easier when it comes to smaller sized units or larger auras. But take a painboy for instance, the FnP aura is only 3" which makes his positioning and nearby units very important, both for movements phase, charging and piling in. That kind of finnangling wouldn't really matter if you could just attach an IC to a unit as an option still.

Then you have auras that are "wholly within" which are a whole other headache, those can take quite a bit longer than a few seconds.

Or make the painboy work like ad mecha buffs. Point at a unit, it gets the buff and after the commande phase you don't worry about it till your next turn.

Karol wrote:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
I agree it's easier when it comes to smaller sized units or larger auras. But take a painboy for instance, the FnP aura is only 3" which makes his positioning and nearby units very important, both for movements phase, charging and piling in. That kind of finnangling wouldn't really matter if you could just attach an IC to a unit as an option still.

Then you have auras that are "wholly within" which are a whole other headache, those can take quite a bit longer than a few seconds.

Or make the painboy work like ad mecha buffs. Point at a unit, it gets the buff and after the commande phase you don't worry about it till your next turn.

I would love Command Phase targeted buffs if it werent for the stupidity of never getting to use them if you

A) deep strike

B) disembark from a transport

given that that screws over particular armies, like lets say for the sake of argument I don't know maybe grey knights.

Command Phase targeted buffs have two problems;

1. I need to remember which unit I targeted, and for what, in the phase I use the ability.

2. The biggest issue, I can't use them if I'm in deepstrike or a transport. This massively reduced the usability of the ability and also feels silly, without any realistic justification beyond "he doesn't exist when he's not specifically on this table".

 DarkHound wrote:
I will say, the "Example Battlefields" section in the 9th edition rulebook is the best material they've had so far on actually setting up boards. It gives examples of good and bad boards for matched play games, and lots of examples of the expected terrain amounts (rather than older editions just saying one piece per whatever size). However, it just provides a picture and says 'this is the right amount of terrain' without specifying.

I dunno if this is an unpopular opinion or what but I still think the best terrain guidance GW ever did was specifying a percentage and suggesting a mix of terrain types.

25% terrain coverage is easy. Take your terrain pieces and start piling them up in a corner. When you've completely covered a corner of the board, distribute them out. Voila, a consistent and standardized amount of terrain coverage. The exact sizes and types you use will have a big impact on the game, but I find it makes getting enough terrain much easier than just looking at an example and eyeballing it, and about a million times more useful than the vague '[X] pieces of terrain'.

Yeah. I just played my first game with the Sisters codex and oh my GOD are command phase buffs annoying to remember.

"Did I turn on my miracle thingy from the Beneficents thingy?"
"Which hymn did I intone and who did I put it on again?"
"What unit did I put the stratagem on that gives one unit an extra Sacred Rite?"

Not sure if that last one is the command phase, but playing the new Sisters is not a tactical exercise - it's a memory one.

I found that there was so much going on between my opponents army and mine that I didn't really have the RAM left (as it were) to clearly think through my tactical decisions. I'm probably just stupid, and it was my first game with the book so there was a LOT of flipping around, but every single time myself or my opponent did anything ever I felt like there was some collection of rules governing it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah. I just played my first game with the Sisters codex and oh my GOD are command phase buffs annoying to remember.

"Did I turn on my miracle thingy from the Beneficents thingy?"
"Which hymn did I intone and who did I put it on again?"
"What unit did I put the stratagem on that gives one unit an extra Sacred Rite?"

Aren't such effects represented by tokens with their names put near affected units? In Warmachine an ongoing effect not explicitly represented with a token is considered non-existant - it's just unreasonable to expect your opponent to remember everything.

Cyel wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah. I just played my first game with the Sisters codex and oh my GOD are command phase buffs annoying to remember.

"Did I turn on my miracle thingy from the Beneficents thingy?"
"Which hymn did I intone and who did I put it on again?"
"What unit did I put the stratagem on that gives one unit an extra Sacred Rite?"

Aren't such effects represented by tokens with their names put near affected units? In Warmachine an ongoing effect not explicitly represented with a token is considered non-existant - it's just unreasonable to expect your opponent to remember everything.

Yes.

Which is even more fun when I am blobbed up around a palatine/canoness combo with 40+ bolter sisters in 4-5 different units and the token is just kinda "there".

Oh and I hoped I remembered to move it during a fiddly pile-in, but not too close or else we have to move it back away again for my OPPONENT's fiddly pile-in. And if someone wins we get to consolidate, which is definitely never fiddly.

GW doesn't even provide official tokens, so you need to make or improvise them yourself.

That's not impossible, but it's inconvenient, and when there's so many you run out of different coloured beads or whatever.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Yes.

Which is even more fun when I am blobbed up around a palatine/canoness combo with 40+ bolter sisters in 4-5 different units and the token is just kinda "there".

Oh and I hoped I remembered to move it during a fiddly pile-in, but not too close or else we have to move it back away again for my OPPONENT's fiddly pile-in. And if someone wins we get to consolidate, which is definitely never fiddly.

Well it is the persons job to make their units easily recognisible. So if they plop 40 models in 8 squads, and no one can say, including them, which unit is which, then they are breaking core mechanics of the game. Specially if it actually matters in the case of buffs or different special rules etc. Most people paint each squads base in a specific colour or mark it in some other way. Like all units with ork skulls on bases are unit 1, all with nothing on the base squad 2, grass bases are squad 3 etc.

Karol wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Yes.

Which is even more fun when I am blobbed up around a palatine/canoness combo with 40+ bolter sisters in 4-5 different units and the token is just kinda "there".

Oh and I hoped I remembered to move it during a fiddly pile-in, but not too close or else we have to move it back away again for my OPPONENT's fiddly pile-in. And if someone wins we get to consolidate, which is definitely never fiddly.

Well it is the persons job to make their units easily recognisible. So if they plop 40 models in 8 squads, and no one can say, including them, which unit is which, then they are breaking core mechanics of the game. Specially if it actually matters in the case of buffs or different special rules etc. Most people paint each squads base in a specific colour or mark it in some other way. Like all units with ork skulls on bases are unit 1, all with nothing on the base squad 2, grass bases are squad 3 etc.

I can see which is which. I can tell there are 8 units blobbed up there.

Now, this token that was just near the blob and has doubtlessly been bumped several times - which of the eight clearly-distinct but entertwined units did it apply to?

Well if your opponent says the token is one the "orange squad" then technicaly a bird could swoop in and eat it, and the token would still be there , only just metaphorically. If there are 8 squads on top of each other and you don't know to which squad the token belongs, then they are not marked properly. Or in a rare case, you didn't pay attention, when your opponent was placing it, and now just don't remember which is which. But then it is kind of a your fault not his.

Karol wrote:
Well if your opponent says the token is one the "orange squad" then technicaly a bird could swoop in and eat it, and the token would still be there , only just metaphorically. If there are 8 squads on top of each other and you don't know to which squad the token belongs, then they are not marked properly. Or in a rare case, you didn't pay attention, when your opponent was placing it, and now just don't remember which is which. But then it is kind of a your fault not his.

But if I say "the token is on orange squad" and can remember that forever, then I don't need a token at all - I can just remember "my hymn was on orange squad."

Which, if that worked, would negate my complaint in the first place (which is that I can't always remember).

Karol wrote:
Well if your opponent says the token is one the "orange squad" then technicaly a bird could swoop in and eat it, and the token would still be there , only just metaphorically. If there are 8 squads on top of each other and you don't know to which squad the token belongs, then they are not marked properly. Or in a rare case, you didn't pay attention, when your opponent was placing it, and now just don't remember which is which. But then it is kind of a your fault not his.

No.

This is a bad argument. Seriously, why would you even make this post?

Well the physical representation of the token doesn't change the fact if the buff is or isn't there. And you should be able to recognise easily which squad is which, and which one gets the buff. If this doesn't happen, then your opponent is playing the wrong, and you are allowing it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


But if I say "the token is on orange squad" and can remember that forever, then I don't need a token at all - I can just remember "my hymn was on orange squad."

Which, if that worked, would negate my complaint in the first place (which is that I can't always remember).

I don't understand this line of argument. The game doesn't have rules that cover stuff like that. I don't get social interactions very well, but GW expects to deal with rules problems exactly in the way I am not suited for. There is no rule that says, and in case you don't or can't talk it out with your opponent do this.

Either mark squads and tokens, or have good memory for which marked squads has what. There is now space for unmarked squads, no tokens and bad memory, and something the game still being functional.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
GW doesn't even provide official tokens, so you need to make or improvise them yourself.

That's not impossible, but it's inconvenient, and when there's so many you run out of different coloured beads or whatever.

I always have a pen and block of post-its in my gaming box for this reason. If my opponent doesn't mark his buffs properly, I'll just scribble the name/effect of the buff on the post-it and stick it near the unit.

For my own buffs, I just have cards, for some that I use a lot I just kit-bash some sort of token onto a base.

 DarkHound wrote:
I agree that standardization is a really risky thing to include or advocate for. I wouldn't want uniform board layouts for pick-up games at my shop.

Well, it seems that GW now has an article showing off boring symmetrical terrain.

I would love to know what that terrain is mounted on though...