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 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
PP has expressed regret over eHaley's design.

Really?? When did that happen.

AFAIK, never.

If PP had any regret about eHaley they could have easily changed it during either the change to MK2 and / or posterior FAQ's like they did with eGaspy.

 Mr Morden wrote:

This isn't a game for whiners

The same with any other caster. PP makes you think and if you're not willing to do that then you should probably just go back to monopoly or even candyland.

Its that sort of comment that tends to be quite depressing to hear and read.............

WM/H is a very precise/technical game that some find less fulfilling - its simply not for everyone - but that doesn't make it "better" or people who don't like "Lesser".

That technical aspect lends itself more to a competitive/tournament meta, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. Casual gamers have been playing less of WMH lately around here. A bit OT but whatever..

I still don't think that a more tactical game needs to be so focused on tournament play. I still don't understand how 40k could be played tournament wise.

With the bloat they've pumped into 40k over the last two editions, I don't think its possible to play a "professional" tournament with the serious time and money investment in behalf of the TOs to clear lists for approval and gather all rules needed for play and the unstable meta that gets upset every month with supplements, new armies, new models out of white dwarf. 40k is madness incarnate.

 Grey Templar wrote:
PP has expressed regret over eHaley's design.

Citation ?

Cuz i respectfully call bs on this. I worked for PP for a while as an Infernal, including the time of transition from Mk1 to Mk2.

Never, ever once heard anything even remotely close to this, and i worked pretty damn close with both Kevin Clark and David Carl, and by proxy via both, Jason soles. In fact, quite the contrary to be honest. I always heard her lauded as a very strong, but dismantle-able caster if you took the right approach, but one that could easily fluster an opponent into making mistakes.

Now, granted that's been a few years, but this would speak more to the development of future pieces and not the caster, if they were developed so they could be abused by her.


Not intending to be a jerk, but i just highly, highly doubt that any PPS'er would publicly state regret for the design of one of their models. Privately... perhaps... but publically ? Under company banner ? No frickin' way. I just know too much about how the development team works to believe that. If there were ANY reservations at all, they'd be uber private, and unlikely to be shared outside a very small coterie of people.

It was roughly the same time they said they also regretted how all the Apotheosis casters were designed. Its why they've been very skittish about new types of casters every since.

Its why all the Battle Engine warcasters before eXerxis were decidedly meh.

They do regret them, but not enough to errata. Haley isn't OP, just bad design from the perspective of trying to make a fun game.

I'd have to go digging through the old PP forums to find the posts though.

The apotheosis sound bite you refer to is (paraphrased) "The development of apotheosis nearly broke the game from an internal process development point of view. We will probably never release another book with 4 casters per faction again."

They did not regret any of the casters, they regretted how much strain it put on their staff by not realizing how much work dropping 16 (.... 16 ? i forget if Apoth had any mercs... so its at least 16, maybe more... been a long time now)... casters would be and to make sure they were balanced, etc. Having been on that side of it, egads, i would not have wanted to be working on a 16 warcaster release. 2 per faction is a challenge enough, 3 is pants on head crazy. I can just imagine what 4 per faction was like.


Fair being fair: i wasn't an infernal at that time, so i have but i was very friendly with Kevin Clark already by the time Apoth dropped.


I don't think you'll be able to find a quote from a PPS'er that out and out states "The company's stance is that we regret this warcaster", or something along those lines. Especially around the late Kevin Clark, early David Carl era's of development. If you can i'd be curious to see who it was from - i.e., was it from one of the guys higher up the ladder, or PPS_TIMMUH who worked for a summer as a caster.

 Haight wrote:
The apotheosis sound bite you refer to is (paraphrased) "The development of apotheosis nearly broke the game from an internal process development point of view. We will probably never release another book with 4 casters per faction again."

They did not regret any of the casters, they regretted how much strain it put on their staff by not realizing how much work dropping 16 (.... 16 ? i forget if Apoth had any mercs... so its at least 16, maybe more... been a long time now)... casters would be and to make sure they were balanced, etc. Having been on that side of it, egads, i would not have wanted to be working on a 16 warcaster release. 2 per faction is a challenge enough, 3 is pants on head crazy. I can just imagine what 4 per faction was like.


Fair being fair: i wasn't an infernal at that time, so i have but i was very friendly with Kevin Clark already by the time Apoth dropped.


I don't think you'll be able to find a quote from a PPS'er that out and out states "The company's stance is that we regret this warcaster", or something along those lines. Especially around the late Kevin Clark, early David Carl era's of development. If you can i'd be curious to see who it was from - i.e., was it from one of the guys higher up the ladder, or PPS_TIMMUH who worked for a summer as a caster.

Look at the name dropper! LOL

I can back up/support everything Haight says about this. PP has NEVER expressed regret over a model (and never will!). They may say how much work, time, and effort they put into something and it nearly broke them. they might issue errata later about a model (which they have done only a handful of times) , but never have they ever said "...wish we hadn't made such a model..." or some such, and if they did, I want to see the quote, time, and place so I can give it to Matt Wilson and watch him go ballistic and probably fire the person that said it.

I have never played warmahordes, and I don't know the rules, but, I have to say, in my experience, while not a hugely tactical game, tactics has a very large impact on 40k,
especially when it comes to what you want to do with units, because of all the elements that have to be considered..

I bet they even love Lord Rock bottom and that one Troll holdin the piglet....

Who doesnt love that troll!

I have never played warmahordes, and I don't know the rules, but, I have to say, in my experience, while not a hugely tactical game, tactics has a very large impact on 40k,
especially when it comes to what you want to do with units, because of all the elements that have to be considered..

But nowhere near as much as WMH. I played 40k for 11 years. My strategy was to take the 2-4 uber units per book, spam them as much as possible to make the most points efficient list. My tactics were to push my models towards my opponents whilst rolling a bunch of dice and win (90% of the time at club level, 70% of the time at tourney level).
I even managed to win a relatively big tourney (40 players) witha really really bent Nidzilla list. I'd worked out the maximal killpower in Excel spreadsheets and in gameplay i simply pushed them forwards and rolled dice. My most serious tactical decision was remembering to park my Carnifexes behind ruins for 4+ cover save.

In WMH my strategy is to take options from the 50%-90% of options that are viable (Some books are better balanced than others) and build them into a balanced all comers list (Or as 1 list of a 2 list pairing to take on all comers). For tactics I then consider what capabilities my opponent's list has and tailor my moves to mitigate his strengths whilst maximising mine. I also need to balance scenario vs. attrition vs. caster kill.

If WMH is like Chess, 3-4ed 40k was like Chequers and 5th ed 40k onwards was like Yahtzee.


Gaz

The Closest that PP will come to saying "oops!" is nerfing a warcaster 3 times.

Gazzor wrote:
But nowhere near as much as WMH. I played 40k for 11 years. My strategy was to take the 2-4 uber units per book, spam them as much as possible to make the most points efficient list. My tactics were to push my models towards my opponents whilst rolling a bunch of dice and win (90% of the time at club level, 70% of the time at tourney level).
I even managed to win a relatively big tourney (40 players) witha really really bent Nidzilla list. I'd worked out the maximal killpower in Excel spreadsheets and in gameplay i simply pushed them forwards and rolled dice. My most serious tactical decision was remembering to park my Carnifexes behind ruins for 4+ cover save.

If that's how you play, I pity you. Also, any game that involves dice to decide most outcomes can be said to be just moving pieces and rolling dice, to a certain extent.
What makes it tactical is how you use the units. Did you ever have to decide what units you wanted to shoot each turn in what order to get the most out of your units? Something tells me you did.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

Gazzor wrote:
But nowhere near as much as WMH. I played 40k for 11 years. My strategy was to take the 2-4 uber units per book, spam them as much as possible to make the most points efficient list. My tactics were to push my models towards my opponents whilst rolling a bunch of dice and win (90% of the time at club level, 70% of the time at tourney level).
I even managed to win a relatively big tourney (40 players) witha really really bent Nidzilla list. I'd worked out the maximal killpower in Excel spreadsheets and in gameplay i simply pushed them forwards and rolled dice. My most serious tactical decision was remembering to park my Carnifexes behind ruins for 4+ cover save.

If that's how you play, I pity you. Also, any game that involves dice to decide most outcomes can be said to be just moving pieces and rolling dice, to a certain extent.
What makes it tactical is how you use the units. Did you ever have to decide what units you wanted to shoot each turn in what order to get the most out of your units? Something tells me you did.

You're talking about extremely basic tactics that every tabletop game has to have. Obviously 40k has to have some tactical decisions or it would literally be a "PEW PEW- I got you!" make-believe game. But that's not to say that WMH isn't significantly more nuanced in applying its tactical decision-making process to the game.

40k largely comes down to list-building. There may be some variants to successful lists and the lists will change as the game evolves, but it always comes back to what you put in your army. Lists will continue to be a more and more important part of playing 40k as the game moves further in the randomness direction, where lists form the most crucial portion of a player's ability to control the game.

The Closest that PP will come to saying "oops!" is nerfing a warcaster 3 times

Or how about the time they actually said, "Oops"?

http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?199452-Force-Wall-NQ-Tier-Dear-DC-Please-Errata/page9

Note that this was within 1-2 weeks of the issue being raised. Not several months, or never, for GW rules issues.

PP are trying to make a balanced game. GW pretty much aren't, as much.

If that's how you play, I pity you.

How should I play oh arbiter of play styles?

Also, any game that involves dice to decide most outcomes can be said to be just moving pieces and rolling dice, to a certain extent.

Yup, especially in 40k the roll for 1st turn whereby 1st player gets to blow loads of his opponents stuff off the table before it gets to move. Moving pieces is a lot less important in 40k as the range of guns is so long and 40k terrain rules so numpty and pointless that you can get shot almost anywhere on the table.

What makes it tactical is how you use the units.

Agreed.

Did you ever have to decide what units you wanted to shoot each turn in what order to get the most out of your units? Something tells me you did.

Yup, I sure did. I decided that I wanted the enemy units with heavy weapons/ plasma guns dead ASAP. I shot them first. I then murdered the rest of the opposing army that lacked any weapons that were a serious threat to my 8 TMCs.
As to where to move units. Who cares? Gun ranges are so long and terrain rules so bobbins that positioning is nowhere near as important. To be fair, if playing an assault army I'd be moving my assault stuff as fast as possible towards the enemy, but that's not really rocket science.
And with the stupid random charge length rules GW has gone out of its way to make both 40k and WFB systems less tactical.

Having played 40k (As I wrote above) and WMH for circa 4 years, I think I can make a fair comparison between the games.

40k is a nice hobby game, which doesn't require much brain power once you've written your killer list as it almost plays itself (Apart from remembering a bunch of stupid unintuitive rules that go against sensible tactics - although that's more a WFB bugbear that I've got).

And you're not going to ever likely see an army as spectacular as 6 Imperial Knights (Obviously people take those for modelling reasons, not cause they're bent).


Gaz

AH the good old leafblower. Longfang spam. Purifier spam. etc etc. Competitive play exposes the harsh realities of 40k's "balance." Sorry Creed, but Gazzor is rather correct in his analysis of 40k. Take the biggest weapons you can, and as many as you can and you will likely win in 40k. Other games have safeguards to prevent this kind of thing. FoW has dozens of lists, but they're highly restrictive. Infinity has multiple forms of limits on heavy weapon spamming: order groups, SWC and ava. WMH limits units and while jacks are unrestricted, they depend on resources in game. Firestorm Armada has the tier system. The list goes on, GW's list building allows for spamming power. Their balance in codexes pushes power spamming. Their balance between codexes is laughable making matchups hard to unbeatable in many situations. Tack this onto a very wild set of rules that's very loose with it's wording, that contains a LOT of random elements and has very poor game design elements as it's core. Units lack facing, individual movement values, cover is easy to obtain and heavily benefits certain armies over others, proliferation of low AP makes power armor near worthless, terrible rules for flanking/deepstrike, and very few mechanics involve anything that isn't attacking or making attacking better. Possibly the biggest sin of all? Dreadnaughts and monsters are BORING! They look awesome and all, but they function just like everything else. DoW made dreads pure awesome. Sweeping their arms, crushing dudes, smashing them into the ground and tossing them around like dolls. Warjacks and warbeasts power attacks do SO much more for the cinematic feel than anything GW has done.

I've played 40k for a few years and have only recently begun my adventure into WarmaHordes, and these are my opinions.

40k whether playing in tournies or casually with friends almost always seemed to be just spam power unit then move your guys and throw dice. I felt like it pretty much played itself.

WM/H just feels like it has so much more depth and decisions to make. From choosing a caster to jacks to units to all mesh and how they will interact and support them. There are so many times when messing up your activation order can cost you the game.

To me 40k is a better hobby as the model customization is easier to do. But WM/H is a better game as its rules are more concrete/clear/actually rules and not more of a suggestion to forge narrative battles.

In the past year I picked up WMH and 12 years ago played 40k. I recently had the urge to consider playing 40k again (Necrons look really cool) but watched a batrep or two from Miniwargaming (whom I largely dislike but they're one of the few who do 40k batreps). I forget the specifics but it looked insanely boring, just everything move up, some things shoot, rinse repeat. Almost no tactical choices at all. It didn't even look fun.

That's why I love WMH. I played a game against my brother's Legion last night and almost everything I did had some kind of tactical maneuver or idea behind it, it wasn't moving up just to get in range, it was moving up to put pressure on this unit or contest this zone or so I could flank around and shoot this key piece that was hiding.

It really boils down to this.

If you think 40k is tactical, you really have never played a a truly tactical game.


But to continue on a metaphor, WMH is chess, 5th 40k is checked. 7th 40k is Sorry.

The board game. Not just sorry.


Tho it is.

Sorry.

I've played 40k for over twenty years and though I loved it, I always felt that it was lacking something. the first time I played WMH I knew I had found my game. Not only did my decisions matter, but I really had to think about every move. I loved it.
With my SOB army, I spammed meltaguns in immolators and Excorcists and just shot the enemy from afar while zooming up to shoot stuff point blank. It was very simplistic. Not easy, but simple.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I've played 40k for over twenty years and though I loved it, I always felt that it was lacking something. the first time I played WMH I knew I had found my game. Not only did my decisions matter, but I really had to think about every move. I loved it.
With my SOB army, I spammed meltaguns in immolators and Excorcists and just shot the enemy from afar while zooming up to shoot stuff point blank. It was very simplistic. Not easy, but simple.

Yeah, that seems to be how most 40k games tend to go, not much tactical decisions but more of where to apply firepower only. The sad part is that I might enjoy 40k if it wasn't for everything else GW does.

Every action in Warmachine has a risk associated it. Mitigating that risk, be it retaliation, poor placement, or death, is a huge portion of the game. One of my factions revolves heavily around model placement to inflict damage and limit return damage. Three of the casters I enjoy have specific feats or spells that involve this very element of "double alpha strike".

Alpha Strike.

That term alone has different connotations. In a GW game, Alpha Strike (post 5E full reserve armies) means he who wins the dice roll to go first (and isn't seized on, a BS mechanic). Outside of essentially hiding, he who goes first usually can pummel a great deal of damage into the opposing army.

In Warmahordes, Alpha Strike is the player who gets the first major punch and is not determined by which player goes first. It is determined entirely by army composition and player skill to judge enemy threat ranges and timing of certain actions (spells, mini feats, regular feats, etc.). Some armies can pull off multiple alphas and others are entirely designed to take it on the chin.

I find a lot of the disparities can come down to a simple analysis:

What's usually a player choice in Warmachine is usually a random dice roll in Warhammer.

It doesn't help that in 40k the range of the weapons spans the entire board. Against a first turn gun line there is no hiding from it. You have no option but to take it in the fact and carry on from there.

As the weapon range in WM/H is far shorter, first turn doesn't always mean first shots fired. You have to get closer in order to attack, so sometimes the first player will be the first in range. But then you have to decide whether you have enough fire power to bare in order to mitigate the return fire. Or does your opponent have the ability to counter attack with what they have the next turn.

Gazzor wrote:
My strategy was to take the 2-4 uber units per book, spam them as much as possible to make the most points efficient list. My tactics were to push my models towards my opponents whilst rolling a bunch of dice and win (90% of the time at club level, 70% of the time at tourney level).

So what you're saying is... you're the reason people think 40k is 99% listbuilding, and the rest is autopilot like FF12 Gambit system.

 Pyeatt wrote:

Gazzor wrote:
My strategy was to take the 2-4 uber units per book, spam them as much as possible to make the most points efficient list. My tactics were to push my models towards my opponents whilst rolling a bunch of dice and win (90% of the time at club level, 70% of the time at tourney level).

So what you're saying is... you're the reason people think 40k is 99% listbuilding, and the rest is autopilot like FF12 Gambit system.

Its like that because that's how you win at 40k.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:

Gazzor wrote:
My strategy was to take the 2-4 uber units per book, spam them as much as possible to make the most points efficient list. My tactics were to push my models towards my opponents whilst rolling a bunch of dice and win (90% of the time at club level, 70% of the time at tourney level).

So what you're saying is... you're the reason people think 40k is 99% listbuilding, and the rest is autopilot like FF12 Gambit system.

Its like that because that's how you win at 40k.

How I win at Pokemon Red is boot up my emulator, search online for "gameshark" codes, and bum rush brock with 6 lvl 100 Mew's. How I "play" the game is I grab bulbasaur and kick butt for 20+ hours. Change "Gameshark" to Netlist, change "Bulbasaur" to "solid fun list"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Get my point?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 HisDivineShadow wrote:

If you think 40k is tactical, you really have never played a a truly tactical game.

.

I imagine you with a neckbeard and an "ironic scarf" smoking clove cigarettes.

 Pyeatt wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:

Gazzor wrote:
My strategy was to take the 2-4 uber units per book, spam them as much as possible to make the most points efficient list. My tactics were to push my models towards my opponents whilst rolling a bunch of dice and win (90% of the time at club level, 70% of the time at tourney level).

So what you're saying is... you're the reason people think 40k is 99% listbuilding, and the rest is autopilot like FF12 Gambit system.

Its like that because that's how you win at 40k.

How I win at Pokemon Red is boot up my emulator, search online for "gameshark" codes, and bum rush brock with 6 lvl 100 Mew's. How I "play" the game is I grab bulbasaur and kick butt for 20+ hours. Change "Gameshark" to Netlist, change "Bulbasaur" to "solid fun list"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Get my point?

you dont need gameshark for 40k. The game is just designed poorly.

Warmahordes is no different. I've seen tourney lists that end the game turn 1 because someone brought TAC, and the other guy brought some crazy ghost cheese that couldnt be touched.

 Pyeatt wrote:
Warmahordes is no different. I've seen tourney lists that end the game turn 1 because someone brought TAC, and the other guy brought some crazy ghost cheese that couldnt be touched.

No, you didn't.

But PLEASE!!! Lets get back to the point of the thread, which is patting yourself on the back for not buying GW, and condescending snipes like "you've never played a tactical game" guy