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 Stormonu wrote:
It's very hard to argue against randomness when the main part of the game involves random rolls to hit, wound and save..

It's really not.

There are places where randomness is appropriate. Rolling to try to kill someone is one of those.

But having, say, a Warlord chart where you have an equal chance of rolling something interesting but not too gamebreaking, something insanely powerful, or an ability that you character already has.. that's bad game design.

If you're going to have random things that affect the game like that, then each of the possibilities should be more or less equal in value. Rolling for random Warlord Traits and Psychic Powers, as they currently stand, leaves us in a situation where you might as well also randomly determine the points limit for each army, because the result of those random rolls can drastically alter the effectiveness of your army.


(Having said that, given the way 6th ed is going, it wouldn't at all surprise me if GW decide to introduce a random modifier to your army list before the game starts, to represent combat attrition or the vagaries of wartime match-ups in a 'cinematic' way.)

 insaniak wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
It's very hard to argue against randomness when the main part of the game involves random rolls to hit, wound and save..

It's really not.

There are places where randomness is appropriate. Rolling to try to kill someone is one of those.

But having, say, a Warlord chart where you have an equal chance of rolling something interesting but not too gamebreaking, something insanely powerful, or an ability that you character already has.. that's bad game design.

If you're going to have random things that affect the game like that, then each of the possibilities should be more or less equal in value. Rolling for random Warlord Traits and Psychic Powers, as they currently stand, leaves us in a situation where you might as well also randomly determine the points limit for each army, because the result of those random rolls can drastically alter the effectiveness of your army.


(Having said that, given the way 6th ed is going, it wouldn't at all surprise me if GW decide to introduce a random modifier to your army list before the game starts, to represent combat attrition or the vagaries of wartime match-ups in a 'cinematic' way.)

This, this, and this.

There always needs to be a degree of dice rolling for things like morale tests or shooting effectiveness. You shouldn't be rolling to see if your warlord's head explodes before the match even starts with no way to counter it.

 insaniak wrote:

 Therion wrote:
. It'll again be bad for balance, and even better for those who just want to have a good time. .

Making the game less balanced isn't 'better' for those just playing casually. It's worse, because it increases the odds of your casual list getting brutally stomped by another casual list that just happens to include something wildly unbalanced.


That's why the current direction of the game is so baffling - Balance benefits everybody. This apparent attack on tournament play that GW are currently on, by seeing just how massively crazy they can make the game, is just cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Exactly. This idea that balance is only important in tournaments is nonsense. If you're gaming with just a few close friends you can do whatever you want, but if you're ever going to play in a wider group or somewhere with pick-up play then balance is key. I'm not bothered about winning a game, but I'd like to start the game feeling like there's a reasonable chance of making my objects rather than realising that it's a foregone conclusion because my opponent (whom I may never have played before) brings out some broken unit I don't have any counter to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Therion wrote:
What you said only holds true only in general. It's not true in GW games. Despite what people try to claim every edition, the game is horribly imbalanced and has been for well over a decade. It's imbalanced to the point of being impossible to be taken seriously. When a game is impossible to be taken seriously, adding more variety to it, no matter how imbalanced, can't be a bad thing anymore. You don't fix 40K by not adding superheavies and new fortifications. You fix it by deleting all of your codices and rulebooks, firing every single one of your game designers and hiring some competitive people and giving them a year or two to work on a better product. Since you can agree that won't happen, I'm satisfied with just some more variety. I don't really blame GW anymore for creating imbalanced stuff, and I think going wild is much better than desperately trying to maintain the poor illusion that your game is all serious, when it never has been and the points costs of everything are all over the place. They don't have the realistic option to start afresh with every codex, expansion, rulebook and supplement invalidated, so they'll just push the game even further into anarchy land with dozens of legal army lists and crazy games.

A few reasons very specific to miniature gaming exist why a lot of players would rather opt to just keep the current state of horrible imbalance and impossibility to be taken seriously, instead of wanting new imbalanced stuff. One of them is that new models cost money, and they rather keep the old bad game than spend 500 additional dollars to play the new bad game. For me, the only excuse to play games as bad as 40K is that atleast new radical stuff keeps getting introduced to it that keeps changing the landscape.

It's definitely got problems, but that doesn't excuse making them even worse or not trying to improve things at all. I dare say it could do with a ground-up re-write though.

Assuming Lords of War makes it into the main rule book I'm quite interested in how this is going to affect pick up games.

Tournaments can of course ban whatever they like and everybody knows that upfront so can plan around it so I do not see this having a major impact on them.

However if it is part of the main rule book it is not so easy to say you do not want to play with something upfront for a pick up game. I really hope GW make Lords of War scale based on the total points value being played as it is in FW's 30k rule books. This means if you want to avoid Lords of War you play one point under that limit as you can do now with the double FOC.

Forcing people to play against things they don't want to is not good for the long term health of the game as if you are unhappy why play?

I'd like to see every extra book/dataslate/codex etc you pick stuff from after the first cost points (100-200 each)

Since allies are basically being taken to plug holes in your main forces capabilities the ability to do so should cost you

It would also cut down on the crazy mixed forces the formations now allow

 azreal13 wrote:
My feelings really depend on the motivation.

It's very easy to be cyncial with GW, but the fact is it appears that they are no longer making money the way they were. If 6th has really seen a decline in sales of product, everything hinges on whether 7th is a cynical cash grab or a genuine attempt to redirect their trajectory.

There are signs that the message is getting through, even if the execution of some of their ideas has been a little clumsy.

I'll remain neutral until we have some more idea of what is actually going to change, hell, they might make the most playable and fun edition of 40K ever completely by accident!

In one sense everything that GW does is a "cynical cash grab". They are a grown-up's toy company whose products are pure luxury and offer few redeeming features. History, strategy, tactics, DIY construction and related hobby skills, are all better served by other companies.

Obviously people like the fluff and the models, and why not? If that's your bag, fair play to you.

The rules, well, IMO they are going downhill.

The Ally rules were clearly a mistake from a gameplay point of view. Ditto the Flyer and Super-heavy rules. If they all were left as options it would be all right but they won't be, because GW's method is to write the rules to promote sales of kits. Thus I have low expectations of 6.5 or 7th edition.

I have no issue with the inclusion of allies, super heavies or flyers in the regular game... It's the implementation of them that I don't like.

Battle Brothers should have not made it past playtesting. Including units from more than one army is fine, but they should be distinct components on the table, not sharing each other's rules.

And if you're going to include super heavy models, or models that can only be harmed by certain types of weaponry, then every army needs ready access to options that can successfully counter such things, without having to specifically tailor a list to them. Skyfire should have been added as an optional weapon mode for all missile launchers, pintle weapons and skimmers, and something akin to the old 'lucky shot' rules from the 3rd(? maybe 4th) ed Armoured Company rules is needed to balance out big vehicles for those armies that struggle against armour.

 insaniak wrote:
I have no issue with the inclusion of allies, super heavies or flyers in the regular game... It's the implementation of them that I don't like.

Battle Brothers should have not made it past playtesting. Including units from more than one army is fine, but they should be distinct components on the table, not sharing each other's rules.

And if you're going to include super heavy models, or models that can only be harmed by certain types of weaponry, then every army needs ready access to options that can successfully counter such things, without having to specifically tailor a list to them. Skyfire should have been added as an optional weapon mode for all missile launchers, pintle weapons and skimmers, and something akin to the old 'lucky shot' rules from the 3rd(? maybe 4th) ed Armoured Company rules is needed to balance out big vehicles for those armies that struggle against armour.

The implementation has always been the problem and thats because of the way GW playtests. They don't spam units, they don't use 'broken' combos, and they wonder, amazed, when people actually do in the game. Its the old 'the way GW intended' the game to be played, versus how people 'actually' play.

GW has never listened to that feedback, or if they do you see the wild swings and roundabouts as things go from useful to useless to useful (rhino rush, min/max squads, assault - 3rd, TAR, now, etc).

For myself, I don't like the use of Lords of War and superheavies in 40k. They don't look right on the table, tend to use up a lot of table space, and suspend my disbelief in the game (such as I'm able to maintain). Couple that with being unable to keep up with the releases - I went from buying every codex and supplement to barely buying the codexes for the armies I do play.

 Therion wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Therion wrote:
. It'll again be bad for balance, and even better for those who just want to have a good time. .

Making the game less balanced isn't 'better' for those just playing casually. It's worse, because it increases the odds of your casual list getting brutally stomped by another casual list that just happens to include something wildly unbalanced.


That's why the current direction of the game is so baffling - Balance benefits everybody. This apparent attack on tournament play that GW are currently on, by seeing just how massively crazy they can make the game, is just cutting off their nose to spite their face.

What you said only holds true only in general. It's not true in GW games. Despite what people try to claim every edition, the game is horribly imbalanced and has been for well over a decade. It's imbalanced to the point of being impossible to be taken seriously. When a game is impossible to be taken seriously, adding more variety to it, no matter how imbalanced, can't be a bad thing anymore. You don't fix 40K by not adding superheavies and new fortifications. You fix it by deleting all of your codices and rulebooks, firing every single one of your game designers and hiring some competitive people and giving them a year or two to work on a better product. Since you can agree that won't happen, I'm satisfied with just some more variety. I don't really blame GW anymore for creating imbalanced stuff, and I think going wild is much better than desperately trying to maintain the poor illusion that your game is all serious, when it never has been and the points costs of everything are all over the place. They don't have the realistic option to start afresh with every codex, expansion, rulebook and supplement invalidated, so they'll just push the game even further into anarchy land with dozens of legal army lists and crazy games.

A few reasons very specific to miniature gaming exist why a lot of players would rather opt to just keep the current state of horrible imbalance and impossibility to be taken seriously, instead of wanting new imbalanced stuff. One of them is that new models cost money, and they rather keep the old bad game than spend 500 additional dollars to play the new bad game. For me, the only excuse to play games as bad as 40K is that atleast new radical stuff keeps getting introduced to it that keeps changing the landscape.

Therion, I think you, the design studio and I are in a similar place. Acceptance.

At this point, I'd rather see some richness and craziness in the ruleset than a blander, more streamlined game in the name of balance that isn't really balanced anyway. (See 3rd ed., 4th ed., 5th ed.) If I can't have balance, drop the pretense and open the floodgates. Bring back the sub-armies like Iyanden, etc. Bring back Legion of the Damned as a playable army. Give me rules for Epic-type vehicles. And then let me decide if I want to use them or not. Hell, give me back my Genestealer Cult rules (are you listening, GW?).

"It is what it is" is a somewhat nonsensical statement, but one that I think applies in this case. Warhammer 40K is what it is, and it always has been. IMO, the reason some of you folks feel like you're beating your heads against a wall is because you haven't accepted this simple truth.

If you can get past that, I think some of you will see that it's actually a pretty good time in the hobby...lots of nice kits and far more exploration of the 40K universe in terms of fluff and rules than we've had in a long time. For structured and tournament play...yeah, sure, it's a bit of a mess. But it always has been...the difference now is only a matter of degree.

Ultimately, people still seem to stick to the GW rules.


Look at the thread on the GW Knights.

A lot of the people over there are excited about the GW Knights, looking to add some to their collection. Fair enough, it's a GW release that seems to hit the sweet spot of many people.

But...

Almost as many people say they are excited about the Knights, but will use DreamForge Leviathans, PP Colossals, etc.. as actual models. In short, there's a fair share of people thrilled about the rules (as in, I get to play this in 40K, not necessarily the specific point-values, combat-stats, etc..), even if they don't plan on buying the model.

Inversely, I don't think I saw a single comment along the lines of "awesome model, I'll be using it to proxy a Warmachine Colossal or with the DreamForge rules, because GW's game is crap).

In short, people seem to be excited about playing the new Knight model in 40K or excited about playing a 3rd party model in 40K. Nobody really is into it for the model, but with another ("superiour") game. The consumer "signal" that sends to GW is pretty clear-cut, no?

So, is this actually going to be called 7th edition? Or is it literally an update to 6th? I ask because if it is an update then the digital book should be updated. Otherwise we have to purchase a new rulebook.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Ultimately, people still seem to stick to the GW rules.


Look at the thread on the GW Knights.

A lot of the people over there are excited about the GW Knights, looking to add some to their collection. Fair enough, it's a GW release that seems to hit the sweet spot of many people.

But...

Almost as many people say they are excited about the Knights, but will use DreamForge Leviathans, PP Colossals, etc.. as actual models. In short, there's a fair share of people thrilled about the rules (as in, I get to play this in 40K, not necessarily the specific point-values, combat-stats, etc..), even if they don't plan on buying the model.

Inversely, I don't think I saw a single comment along the lines of "awesome model, I'll be using it to proxy a Warmachine Colossal or with the DreamForge rules, because GW's game is crap).

In short, people seem to be excited about playing the new Knight model in 40K or excited about playing a 3rd party model in 40K. Nobody really is into it for the model, but with another ("superiour") game. The consumer "signal" that sends to GW is pretty clear-cut, no?

I don't believe Dreamforge have rules?

My experience is that people who play other games are happier to use official models as they want to support their chosen system. It's the same logic as to why it is near impossible to find anyone offering recasts of non-GW models, goodwill breeds loyalty.

Many people will buy an awesome model such as the Knight, with no intention of ever playing it.

Some people will buy one under the misapprehension that they will ever find an opponent willing to let them field it.

Participating in anything does not preclude a person from having an opinion on how it could be better. Nobody is under any obligation to be a rabid, unthinking fanboy just because they use a product made by a company.

Some people live in communities where 40K is the only outlet for them to indulge their hobby and interests.

40K is the most popular system in the world, that doesn't mean it is the best or can't be improved.

 azreal13 wrote:


I don't believe Dreamforge have rules?

Yeah they do.

 azreal13 wrote:

My experience is that people who play other games are happier to use official models as they want to support their chosen system. It's the same logic as to why it is near impossible to find anyone offering recasts of non-GW models, goodwill breeds loyalty.

There's a fairly dedicated "Deazone 40K" project(-community) right here on Dakka.

 azreal13 wrote:

Many people will buy an awesome model such as the Knight, with no intention of ever playing it.

Fair enough. And lots of people bought the DF Leviathan just for painting too.

Still, there appears to be (simply judging from the forum-discussion, ill-advised as it may be) a sizable group of people who will sink money into DF because (!) there are now GW rules for it, but wouldn't have bought a DF Leviathan, if GW never made Knight rules. That means there are people out there who buy Dreamforge (Puppet Wars, etc.., rather than GW), paint it with ... say ... Vallejo (rather than Citadel paints), read non-BL fiction, yet remain rooted in the 40K-hobby solely by the rules (which the internet has marked out as the allegedly "weakest spot" in GW's overall offering).

If people who already "moved away" from GW for paints, miniatures and background-fiction, yet "stick with" GW for (solely?) the rules, these rules must have an intrinsic appeal in and by themselves, as these clearly aren't the (mythical?) "uninformed customers" who don't have a clue that anything beyond GW exists.

 gorgon wrote:
Therion, I think you, the design studio and I are in a similar place. Acceptance.

At this point, I'd rather see some richness and craziness in the ruleset than a blander, more streamlined game in the name of balance that isn't really balanced anyway. (See 3rd ed., 4th ed., 5th ed.) If I can't have balance, drop the pretense and open the floodgates. Bring back the sub-armies like Iyanden, etc. Bring back Legion of the Damned as a playable army. Give me rules for Epic-type vehicles. And then let me decide if I want to use them or not. Hell, give me back my Genestealer Cult rules (are you listening, GW?).

"It is what it is" is a somewhat nonsensical statement, but one that I think applies in this case. Warhammer 40K is what it is, and it always has been. IMO, the reason some of you folks feel like you're beating your heads against a wall is because you haven't accepted this simple truth.

If you can get past that, I think some of you will see that it's actually a pretty good time in the hobby...lots of nice kits and far more exploration of the 40K universe in terms of fluff and rules than we've had in a long time. For structured and tournament play...yeah, sure, it's a bit of a mess. But it always has been...the difference now is only a matter of degree.

It is what it is, but it's not what it was.

People keep saying there are problems for tournaments. Not really. When Grey Knights ruled late 5th, you'd see things like 16 out of the top 20 armies in Adepticon being Grey Knights. Now? Well, now you see Eldar, Tau, Dark Eldar, Space Marines, Necrons, Daemons, and alliances between them at the top. But not just that, you see different builds from those armies too. Tournaments are fine. In fact, they're better than ever.

But casual games? If you went up against one of those transport spam GK armies with your left field super casual army, you'd lose. Sure. But you could at least participate. Unless you'd actively tried to make your army useless, you would kill a decent amount of Rhinos and small squads. But now? You can't play casual armies against Screamerstars, Seer Councils, O'Vesastars, or, worse, Revenant Titans. There's just no point. It's not even a game. It's just dumb.

There's no way you can bring a Revenant to a casual game. Because, for it to even be a game the other player would have to tailor his list to face it. And that tailored list? It's a safe bet it's gonna look a lot like a competitive list. And if you don't tailor? Both players are going to have a bad time.

Casual and competitive games share the same problem: you can't bring certain units. In competitive games, because they suck, and in casual games, because they are too good. And the problem is a result of incompetent game design.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


I don't believe Dreamforge have rules?

Yeah they do.

 azreal13 wrote:

My experience is that people who play other games are happier to use official models as they want to support their chosen system. It's the same logic as to why it is near impossible to find anyone offering recasts of non-GW models, goodwill breeds loyalty.

There's a fairly dedicated "Deazone 40K" project(-community) right here on Dakka.

 azreal13 wrote:

Many people will buy an awesome model such as the Knight, with no intention of ever playing it.

Fair enough. And lots of people bought the DF Leviathan just for painting too.

Still, there appears to be (simply judging from the forum-discussion, ill-advised as it may be) a sizable group of people who will sink money into DF because (!) there are now GW rules for it, but wouldn't have bought a DF Leviathan, if GW never made Knight rules. That means there are people out there who buy Dreamforge (Puppet Wars, etc.., rather than GW), paint it with ... say ... Vallejo (rather than Citadel paints), read non-BL fiction, yet remain rooted in the 40K-hobby solely by the rules (which the internet has marked out as the allegedly "weakest spot" in GW's overall offering).

If people who already "moved away" from GW for paints, miniatures and background-fiction, yet "stick with" GW for (solely?) the rules, these rules must have an intrinsic appeal in and by themselves, as these clearly aren't the (mythical?) "uninformed customers" who don't have a clue that anything beyond GW exists.

Yeah, they're people like me.

People who have a fairly significant philosophical clash with how GW go about their business, find that their models are frequently poor value or unattractive, but a number of the games they would like to try are simply a no go because there aren't opponents.

People who like to reward companies that are making good value or spectacular sculpts with their business, but really need a vehicle in terms of rules to justify the outlay.

You seem to be asserting that people are sticking with GW rules for their quality, when I will tell you in no uncertain terms it is purely for their ubiquity (or perhaps out of ignorance if they've been inducted into wargaming by GW, go read some comments on Bow or something! there are people out there who really don't know what's going on, uninformed/uninterested customers do exist)

I will, ultimately, buy a Knight because I think it is an awesome looking thing and I specifically enjoy working in larger models, and, in this instance, I feel I should reward GW with my business, because they've done it right (via a discounter of course, I'm not loopy.)

The issue is, there are already dozens of purchases I've made or plan to make that weren't with GW because of all the things I thought they got wrong. The only thing I have little choice in continuing to purchase, if I wish to be able to get in regular games at my club, are the rules. Even then, compared to two years ago when it started as essentially a GW club, there are a lot more options on any given week, so I might be able to keep playing regular games without needing a GW option if they continue to feth up as they have been.

Sure, there may be customers who aren't aware of other games/companies than GW. I simply think that if you know what a DreamForge Leviathan is, possibly own one, you're likely aware of other games as well.

The self-perpetuation of GW's ubiquity is surely one factor, but I doubt it can explain all of it.

Quite the opposite, I've seen quite a few clubs (or sub-groups within clubs) go back to GW after a flash-in-the-pan-few-weeks of Warmachine/Infinity/DZC/whatever left them disillusioned about the "fun" to be had with these alternative games (and with sizable investments of non-GW miniatures, rules and expansions gathering dust somewhere).

It amuses me how you're addressing fewer and fewer of my points with each reply!

Ubiquity explains it ALL. People play 40K because people play 40K, and so on and so on.

That stranglehold will take time to break, but everything I see, both first hand and from other sources, suggests it is happening, bit by bit.

7th, should it happen, really could define GWs future, the Knight is a perfect example of how many people are apparently still willing to buy into GW stuff if its good, their financial report is a perfect example of what happens if they keep on their current path.

Thud wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Therion, I think you, the design studio and I are in a similar place. Acceptance.

At this point, I'd rather see some richness and craziness in the ruleset than a blander, more streamlined game in the name of balance that isn't really balanced anyway. (See 3rd ed., 4th ed., 5th ed.) If I can't have balance, drop the pretense and open the floodgates. Bring back the sub-armies like Iyanden, etc. Bring back Legion of the Damned as a playable army. Give me rules for Epic-type vehicles. And then let me decide if I want to use them or not. Hell, give me back my Genestealer Cult rules (are you listening, GW?).

"It is what it is" is a somewhat nonsensical statement, but one that I think applies in this case. Warhammer 40K is what it is, and it always has been. IMO, the reason some of you folks feel like you're beating your heads against a wall is because you haven't accepted this simple truth.

If you can get past that, I think some of you will see that it's actually a pretty good time in the hobby...lots of nice kits and far more exploration of the 40K universe in terms of fluff and rules than we've had in a long time. For structured and tournament play...yeah, sure, it's a bit of a mess. But it always has been...the difference now is only a matter of degree.

It is what it is, but it's not what it was.

People keep saying there are problems for tournaments. Not really. When Grey Knights ruled late 5th, you'd see things like 16 out of the top 20 armies in Adepticon being Grey Knights. Now? Well, now you see Eldar, Tau, Dark Eldar, Space Marines, Necrons, Daemons, and alliances between them at the top. But not just that, you see different builds from those armies too. Tournaments are fine. In fact, they're better than ever.

But casual games? If you went up against one of those transport spam GK armies with your left field super casual army, you'd lose. Sure. But you could at least participate. Unless you'd actively tried to make your army useless, you would kill a decent amount of Rhinos and small squads. But now? You can't play casual armies against Screamerstars, Seer Councils, O'Vesastars, or, worse, Revenant Titans. There's just no point. It's not even a game. It's just dumb.

There's no way you can bring a Revenant to a casual game. Because, for it to even be a game the other player would have to tailor his list to face it. And that tailored list? It's a safe bet it's gonna look a lot like a competitive list. And if you don't tailor? Both players are going to have a bad time.

Casual and competitive games share the same problem: you can't bring certain units. In competitive games, because they suck, and in casual games, because they are too good. And the problem is a result of incompetent game design.

You have far more control regarding your matchup in a casual game than in a tournament, so I'm not sure your point makes sense. If it's a friend, you tell him not to bring the seerstar if you're not bringing a similar beatstick. If it's someone you just met at a store, etc., you make the same suggestion, and/or decide whether you accept or decline the game. Additionally, in a casual setting you can at least build your army to face a given beatstick. In a tournament, you end up with your TAC list against the same beatstick.

Therion is correct...past editions had plenty of imbalance. People just forget that they completely stopped bringing most transports to 4th edition games, or most infantry on foot to 5th edition games, etc. Player adaptations to rulesets and the corresponding decisions about their army builds created the illusion of balance in those editions. Bring many 4th edition-style armies to a 5th edition game, or vice versa, and that illusion would be immediately dispelled.

Now, does it all reflect incompetent game design? Perhaps, although I also recognize that the designers don't have the option of blowing things up. Or limiting changes to fine-tuning. The business demands are many and contradictory (i.e. shake things up each edition to encourage more sales, yet simultaneously keep the rules backwards-compatible with old codicies so players aren't left hanging and forced to leave en masse) and don't lend themselves to creating a well-balanced game. At all.

GW being a public multinational with many business pressures means those constraints aren't going to change, so worrying even less about balance and leaving it to the players to sort out might be the most honest approach from the studio that we've had in a while. I get the frustration, but at some point you have to accept and move on. *shrug*

 azreal13 wrote:
It amuses me how you're addressing fewer and fewer of my points with each reply!

Ubiquity explains it ALL. People play 40K because people play 40K, and so on and so on.

Amuses me how you are not even addressing a single one of my points ever.

How could ubiquity explain whole groups and clubs going back to 40K or Fantasy after/in spite of the investment made into other systems?

 gorgon wrote:

You have far more control regarding your matchup in a casual game than in a tournament, so I'm not sure your point makes sense. If it's a friend, you tell him not to bring the seerstar if you're not bringing a similar beatstick.

And what if your opponent tells you to bring something that can beat his beatstick? it isn't like you have more right to tell people what to bring than anyone else. And remember, the "Please don't play this powerful unit because my army sucks even though it can be better." line is dangerously close to the so-called "victim card" that is easily one of the most d*ckish things you can have in an argument.

Wonder what would happen if they put in some kind of diversity rule?

"Every time you choose a unit after the first in your Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy, or HQ, you lose 1 victory point if it replicates a previous pick. Thus, if you pick a unit of Fire Dragons, then pick another unit of Fire Dragons even if armed different, you suffer this point loss."

Then come out and say, "This is a harsh rule, but we have found over the years that playtesting balanced forces doesn't prepare the game for those who simply spam one thing over and over. To encourage diversity, we have enacted this penalty. We think your games will generally be more enjoyable."

So, you can gamble and still go for "Broken Thing Spam", but if you do, you suffer for it. Kind of a built-in handicap rule.

(Obviously, there are soem holes even in this, such as troops spam, but, you gotta start somewhere.)

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
It amuses me how you're addressing fewer and fewer of my points with each reply!

Ubiquity explains it ALL. People play 40K because people play 40K, and so on and so on.

Amuses me how you are not even addressing a single one of my points ever.

How could ubiquity explain whole groups and clubs going back to 40K or Fantasy after/in spite of the investment made into other systems?

Proof? Because GW's ever declining sales certainly doesn't corroborate any of this and the overwhelming majority of anecdotal evidence out there actively supports that the exact opposite is happening...

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
It amuses me how you're addressing fewer and fewer of my points with each reply!

Ubiquity explains it ALL. People play 40K because people play 40K, and so on and so on.

Amuses me how you are not even addressing a single one of my points ever.

How could ubiquity explain whole groups and clubs going back to 40K or Fantasy after/in spite of the investment made into other systems?

How exactly do you expect me to refute your opinion and anecdotal evidence, except with my own opinion and anecdotal evidence, leading to the sort of circular, thread killing argument you seem so fond of inciting?

I've never experienced what you're suggesting, at least not since around 20 years ago when there were no established alternatives. That doesn't mean you're wrong in your local area, but it sure as hell doesn't make you right either.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
It amuses me how you're addressing fewer and fewer of my points with each reply!

Ubiquity explains it ALL. People play 40K because people play 40K, and so on and so on.

Amuses me how you are not even addressing a single one of my points ever.

How could ubiquity explain whole groups and clubs going back to 40K or Fantasy after/in spite of the investment made into other systems?

Proof? Because GW's ever declining sales certainly doesn't corroborate any of this and the overwhelming majority of anecdotal evidence out there actively supports that the exact opposite is happening...

Possible? Sure.

Proof? No.

There are two observations: (1) GW customers are not happy with GW (especially their rules) (2) GW sales are declining (for reasons other than customer-happiness according to Tom Kirby).

Of course, they could be related, but they don't necessarily must be. Correlation does not imply causation. At least it doesn't prove it, and most companies performance is not affected by customer satisfaction. Of course, GW could be an exception, and there are good reasons to believe it is. But I wouldn't quite call it "proven".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
It amuses me how you're addressing fewer and fewer of my points with each reply!

Ubiquity explains it ALL. People play 40K because people play 40K, and so on and so on.

Amuses me how you are not even addressing a single one of my points ever.

How could ubiquity explain whole groups and clubs going back to 40K or Fantasy after/in spite of the investment made into other systems?

How exactly do you expect me to refute your opinion and anecdotal evidence, except with my own opinion and anecdotal evidence, leading to the sort of circular, thread killing argument you seem so fond of inciting?

I've never experienced what you're suggesting, at least not since around 20 years ago when there were no established alternatives. That doesn't mean you're wrong in your local area, but it sure as hell doesn't make you right either.

I don't need to be right, nor try to be. I simple dispute that you must be right based on your own anecdotal evidence, which lead you to conclude that "ubiquity must explain everything".

All it takes is the insight that your own anecdotal experiences might not be typical, or might not explain the entire phenomenon, even if they are typcial.

It's the difference between the hypothesis of "all Swans are white" and the counterfactual. I only "need" one anecdotal evidence that goes against your claim of "ubiquity must explain everything" to disprove it, just as I only need one Black Swan to disprove the claim of "all Swans are white".

It has nothing to do with my own experience, it is a matter of historical record that market incumbents are incredibly difficult to shift unless they do something really wrong or someone comes up with something utterly game changing.

Neither of these things have happened yet, so GW's ubiquity remains it's strongest asset in maintaining market share.

Can we save this for the latest 'GW shareprice' thread?

 AtoMaki wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

You have far more control regarding your matchup in a casual game than in a tournament, so I'm not sure your point makes sense. If it's a friend, you tell him not to bring the seerstar if you're not bringing a similar beatstick.

And what if your opponent tells you to bring something that can beat his beatstick? it isn't like you have more right to tell people what to bring than anyone else. And remember, the "Please don't play this powerful unit because my army sucks even though it can be better." line is dangerously close to the so-called "victim card" that is easily one of the most d*ckish things you can have in an argument.

Then you either bring the counter to his beatstick, renegotiate, or don't play. All gaming is a social contract, even tournaments where you agree to play by the TOs house rules.

6th edition just requires more of that negotiation at the LGS 'pick up' level, and more work at the tournament level than there has been in the past.

 pretre wrote:
Can we save this for the latest 'GW shareprice' thread?

We, or at least, I, are discussing the number of players, not the financials, it just so happens that the two are inextricably linked.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

You have far more control regarding your matchup in a casual game than in a tournament, so I'm not sure your point makes sense. If it's a friend, you tell him not to bring the seerstar if you're not bringing a similar beatstick.

And what if your opponent tells you to bring something that can beat his beatstick? it isn't like you have more right to tell people what to bring than anyone else. And remember, the "Please don't play this powerful unit because my army sucks even though it can be better." line is dangerously close to the so-called "victim card" that is easily one of the most d*ckish things you can have in an argument.

I think you really need to step back and consider what you're saying here.

OBVIOUSLY, you and your opponent have the ability and right to make any agreements you can regarding the parameters of a casual game. That can include army composition, use of supplemental rules, and even basic rules. That's what makes it a casual game and not a tournament.

Edit: You're not claiming that your best friend who left his Riptides at home is a d*ck for asking if you could keep the seerstar in your case so you can have a more competitive game, are you? And you're not claiming that you have the moral high ground if you're unwilling to budge on that matter, are you?

Just checking.

Wakshaani wrote:
Wonder what would happen if they put in some kind of diversity rule?

"Every time you choose a unit after the first in your Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy, or HQ, you lose 1 victory point if it replicates a previous pick. Thus, if you pick a unit of Fire Dragons, then pick another unit of Fire Dragons even if armed different, you suffer this point loss."

The most fluffy Space Marine army has two Assault Squads, two Devastator Squads and six Tactical Squads - that's the makeup of a Company after all, and arguably the basis for the entire Force Organisation Chart. A ruleset that punishes people for playing themed armies regardless of whether their choices are unbalanced would be rather poor.