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@navarro - yeah, I get that, but there is a wide gap between, let's just play beer and pretzels and horse around, and, let's do everything we can to break the game, right?

I mean, there's a lot of middle ground there, and you cam be a gamer without actively trying to abuse the rules to the maximum extent possible, given any opportunity.

Oblivious!

I've been reaching for a word to encapsulate Talys' attitude for weeks, and it just struck me!

Utterly oblivious to problems that exist for other gamers, and apparently unwilling to attach any weight to them.

Fezza213 wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 MLaw wrote:
So scenarios will dictate what sort of scrolls you bring..

Which still doesn't give you any sort of balance when scrolls can be units of unlimited size.

In a points based system the amount of points you can bring is an unlimited size, so before hand you agree with your opponent how many points the game will be and build a list from there. So if scenarios do dictate how many scrolls you can take then i would assume there would be some sort of agreement with your opponent as to how many models. That doesnt really work with horde armies so there would have to be some other type of modifiers built into the scenario.

They could well be built into the unit, a simple special rule on the scroll is all it takes:
"This unit counts as half its actual number of models for the purposes of determining army size."

Slap that rule on goblins, skinks and skeletons and suddenly they're not so bad.

NAVARRO wrote:Tournaments also bring extra layers of fun and even campaigns that enhance the overall game experience.
Ignoring it is not in the best interest of a game that aims to lure in more people.

The inverse is also true in that tournaments can bring out the worst in selfish, win-at-all-cost attitudes. I'm sure that vast majority of posters on here will be able to relate with stories of that guy*. I'm also not sure that campaigns are all that synonymous with tournament settings. Finding the best way to beat the system is, however.

*if you can't, chances are you're that guy

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oblivious!

I've been reaching for a word to encapsulate Talys' attitude for weeks, and it just struck me!

Utterly oblivious to problems that exist for other gamers, and apparently unwilling to attach any weight to them.

This is untrue. How many times have I said, if you're into small competitive games, 40k isn't the best selection?!

You seem to be totally unwilling to consider that a large population of players might actually enjoy relatively casual, entertaining games and that there nay be a market foe such things, centered around miniatures.

Also, as I've asked, pleas attack my positions rather than me, personally.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oblivious!

I've been reaching for a word to encapsulate Talys' attitude for weeks, and it just struck me!

Utterly oblivious to problems that exist for other gamers, and apparently unwilling to attach any weight to them.

Quoting this hypocritical abomination of a post before it gets edited.

Just lib this out as an idea, for tournaments.

Seems armies will be smaller, and perhaps cheaper, assume for the moment this is true.

For your event create a scenario, and then create the lists players are allowed to use, as many or as few as you like, balanced around that scenario.

In effect create a set of fixed tournament formations, maybe a couple for each of the old factions and a few combined ones.

Sort of serious 'comp' I guess but can put the fluffy background round it and also use scenario effects to balance overall. Even with unbalanced forces, trying to do different things.


This is all sounding a lot like what LotR was, very much scenario driven, and perhaps that's what GW will push and sell, scenario and campaign books

 Talys wrote:
... is it so far out of the realm of possibility that some people just not abuse army building and actually have fun? .

No, it's totally possible that some people do that. However, the fact that it is so easily abused is what makes it a poor design choice.


A tight system that keeps everything focused and balanced results in a game that can be played both by those who will take every opportunity to game the system, and those who just play for fun. If those who just pay for fun find the restrictions too constricting, well, it's just for fun, so they can change them to suit themselves.

Making the system more open and relying on people not abusing it fails at the first hurdle... because everyone is going to have a different opinion on exactly where the line is drawn between abusive and perfectly fine. It makes every game against an unfamiliar opponent into a negotiation. And that's just tiresome.



If you have an established group that you play with, and you're all like-minded enough that this won't be a problem, then that's great. There will be others out there in the same boat, for whom this system will be just fine, and probably a lot of fun. But by making the system as open to abuse as they have, they either exclude a whole swathe of potential players, or leave people playing a lot of unfun games.

I do like that stat circle thing - bit like Hackmaster I guess.

How can anyone think that a game with no balancing mechanic at all is a good idea..?

The more that this seems like "Lord of the Rings", the more my interest dwindles.

I've had a few games of "The Hobbit" and it just felt wrong the way it played.

 Talys wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oblivious!

I've been reaching for a word to encapsulate Talys' attitude for weeks, and it just struck me!

Utterly oblivious to problems that exist for other gamers, and apparently unwilling to attach any weight to them.

This is untrue. How many times have I said, if you're into small competitive games, 40k isn't the best selection?!

You seem to be totally unwilling to consider that a large population of players might actually enjoy relatively casual, entertaining games and that there nay be a market foe such things, centered around miniatures.

Also, as I've asked, pleas attack my positions rather than me, personally.

You know tight balanced rules would benifit those casual players as much, if not more, than the competitive players right? And you seem unwilling to consider the flip side, that a large population of players might enjoy a tight competitive game.

 Talys wrote:
[
But seriously, is nobody considering this game as a game just for fun? If it's deployed and played in the spirit of entertainment and enjoyment, it looks like it could be pretty fun.

...

I place a higher level of importance over gaming, fun, and entertainment over winning by loading up on lists. There are more people locally that are like this than I could ever hope to play with, even if i were to give up my day job, and j get invited to groups all the time.

I'm not saying that Sigmar might be a terrible competitive game (I'm not saying it is or is not... Until everything is available, a lot is still speculation). I'm just asking, has nobody considered that this might be a FUN game, taken out of the context of ultracompetitive, win if I can?

If that's so, I think there is a good place for that type of game. Expecting that the people you're playing with are cool people you are or would like to be friends with and enjoy the company of is not gaming utopia. I call it being human and participating in normal social interaction. I mean if you participate in marathon, MUST you try to place first, or is it enjoyable to just do the run, and finish where you finish, and make some friends in the process?

So far, the biggest complaint seems to be, you can abuse army building and wreck the game. Aside from not knowing how that all actually works (we don't have scenarios yet) is it so far out of the realm of possibility that some people just not abuse army building and actually have fun? Or is that totally impossible where you live? It just isn't such a stretch where I live.

In principle, I agree entirely. This is the way the game is set up to be played, and in theory it would work with that attitude. But...

With a complete lack of points, even if both opponents have the best intentions in the world there is the no way of knowing (without having already played a few dozen games) if their forces are even. With points, you can eradicate most if the imbalance just by knowing what's over/under powered and finding a middle ground, but with this system, you can't actually tell, there's no metric by which you can determine how good or bad a unit, and therefore an army, is.

After a few months of gaming you might get to the point you get a feel for balancing forces, but how many people are going to essentially do GW's play testing for then for that long rather than just moving on to a game that provides actual rules for matching armies?

@insaniak - Yes, I know what you mean. It's not immediately clear to me what the advantages or disadvantages of numbers are yet, so, for example, if there is no maximum to a unit size, is there a downside to taking more, or is there an advantage to taking fewer?

My comment really, was just that if there are some obviously a usable mechanics, it would behoove players to both not do that -- though I get that this makes it a bad competitive game. Not unlike RAW 40k, of you compare any army against any army. Which is why asked if anyone was thinking about Sigmar in the context of a more casual, 'for fun' entertaining thing to do with miniatures (presuming one lines the minis).

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Talys wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oblivious!

I've been reaching for a word to encapsulate Talys' attitude for weeks, and it just struck me!

Utterly oblivious to problems that exist for other gamers, and apparently unwilling to attach any weight to them.

This is untrue. How many times have I said, if you're into small competitive games, 40k isn't the best selection?!

You seem to be totally unwilling to consider that a large population of players might actually enjoy relatively casual, entertaining games and that there nay be a market foe such things, centered around miniatures.

Also, as I've asked, pleas attack my positions rather than me, personally.

You know tight balanced rules would benifit those casual players as much, if not more, than the competitive players right? And you seem unwilling to consider the flip side, that a large population of players might enjoy a tight competitive game.

In fairness though, he is right. If you want tight balanced rules, then games workshop probably isn't for you. Like that guy in 'grumpy old men' said: you can wish into one hand and crap into the other and see which one fills up first.

 Talys wrote:
@navarro - yeah, I get that, but there is a wide gap between, let's just play beer and pretzels and horse around, and, let's do everything we can to break the game, right?

I mean, there's a lot of middle ground there, and you cam be a gamer without actively trying to abuse the rules to the maximum extent possible, given any opportunity.

Yes, and thats why a company of such size with the oldest games around is expected to create a professional and robust ruleset that does not allow:

A) A couple guys in a tournament take it a step to far and find loopholes and exploit that, ruining the experience for the other players

B) The incompetent and competent players have exactly the same chance of winning due to the random nature of the game.

The casual gamer is quite more flexible and tolerant to these things and thats cool, but thats only half of the crowd GW should aim for.

Me personally I like simple games but with some depth, X wing, Spacehulk and Songs of blades and heroes... Even looking at one page rules ( good job from those folks there)... This has the potential to be good yet the depth is a bit shallow at the moment. I miss the look of a mass of regiments on a table and all of them with specific points etc building lists is a lot more fun than just "bring your collection".

 Paradigm wrote:


In principle, I agree entirely. This is the way the game is set up to be played, and in theory it would work with that attitude. But...

With a complete lack of points, even if both opponents have the best intentions in the world there is the no way of knowing (without having already played a few dozen games) if their forces are even. With points, you can eradicate most if the imbalance just by knowing what's over/under powered and finding a middle ground, but with this system, you can't actually tell, there's no metric by which you can determine how good or bad a unit, and therefore an army, is.

After a few months of gaming you might get to the point you get a feel for balancing forces, but how many people are going to essentially do GW's play testing for then for that long rather than just moving on to a game that provides actual rules for matching armies?

I'll be the first to admit, no model maximum per unit is baffling to me too. Maybe there is a model maximum per game, based on the scenario size, or perhaps diminishing returns on larger blobs?

I think surely someone thought of the scenario of a FB veteran bringing his 200 painted wood elves and putting them in one unit.

 ImAGeek wrote:
How can anyone think that a game with no balancing mechanic at all is a good idea..?

I swear, some people would laud GW as 'bold and innovative' if they wrapped actual dog poo and sold it for £50.

The only thing that makes sense is that the Design Studio has had some sort of bet, where they try to find out how far they can go before no one will defend the crap they put out.

 Torga_DW wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Talys wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oblivious!

I've been reaching for a word to encapsulate Talys' attitude for weeks, and it just struck me!

Utterly oblivious to problems that exist for other gamers, and apparently unwilling to attach any weight to them.

This is untrue. How many times have I said, if you're into small competitive games, 40k isn't the best selection?!

You seem to be totally unwilling to consider that a large population of players might actually enjoy relatively casual, entertaining games and that there nay be a market foe such things, centered around miniatures.

Also, as I've asked, pleas attack my positions rather than me, personally.

You know tight balanced rules would benifit those casual players as much, if not more, than the competitive players right? And you seem unwilling to consider the flip side, that a large population of players might enjoy a tight competitive game.

In fairness though, he is right. If you want tight balanced rules, then games workshop probably isn't for you. Like that guy in 'grumpy old men' said: you can wish into one hand and crap into the other and see which one fills up first.

Yeah, but there's absolutely no reason for GW (or anyone) to not write balanced rules. A tight ruleset benefits literally the whole playerbase. There seems to be lots of people who like the models, and lore (pre Age of Sigmar reboot anyway) of the GW games but not the rules, is it not understandable that they'd be a bit annoyed at the state of the rules when there's no reason not to have a balanced ruleset? Everyone would win.

 Da Boss wrote:
Smug posters like you are just as bad as any hyperbolic "hater", JohnnyHell. We're making judgements based on the information we have. If you are happy to wait til later to see the full rules, go do that.

What is amusing to me is seeing the acceptance of KOW style rules by many who had decried KOW as "too simple" and lacking in depth. I guess it's different if it comes from GW rather than Mantic, right?

I'm one of those KoW decriers and I'll fully acknowledge that AoS is going to be worse than KoW.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:

In fairness though, he is right. If you want tight balanced rules, then games workshop probably isn't for you. Like that guy in 'grumpy old men' said: you can wish into one hand and crap into the other and see which one fills up first.

Yeah, but there's absolutely no reason for GW (or anyone) to not write balanced rules. A tight ruleset benefits literally the whole playerbase. There seems to be lots of people who like the models, and lore (pre Age of Sigmar reboot anyway) of the GW games but not the rules, is it not understandable that they'd be a bit annoyed at the state of the rules when there's no reason not to have a balanced ruleset? Everyone would win.

I agree with you completely there, but look at gw. The hhhobby is making purchases from them. Their customers are young ocd males who like collecting toy soldiers. This is all stuff from official sources. This is why people talk about games workshop dying. They're not interested in their games *as* games. They're interested in selling minis and think the minis sell themselves. It sucks, but there it is. Years of people asking for better rules, so they squat down and push out this steaming pile. This is games workshop.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Talys wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oblivious!

I've been reaching for a word to encapsulate Talys' attitude for weeks, and it just struck me!

Utterly oblivious to problems that exist for other gamers, and apparently unwilling to attach any weight to them.

This is untrue. How many times have I said, if you're into small competitive games, 40k isn't the best selection?!

You seem to be totally unwilling to consider that a large population of players might actually enjoy relatively casual, entertaining games and that there nay be a market foe such things, centered around miniatures.

Also, as I've asked, pleas attack my positions rather than me, personally.

You know tight balanced rules would benifit those casual players as much, if not more, than the competitive players right? And you seem unwilling to consider the flip side, that a large population of players might enjoy a tight competitive game.

It's not a question of if a balanced ruleset would be beneficial to anyone; of course it would. The underlying issue is that Games Workshop as a company have never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever shown the slightest interest in producing a game like that.
This is what astounds me about the hardcore tournament folks. Games like 40k and WHFB have never been written or intended for that purpose, yet people insist on twisting, tweaking and outright rewriting them regardless to make them fit. It's like buying a motorbike and complaining it's not fit to plough fields with, rather than buying a tractor.

If you want a tabletop equivalent of Starcraft then by all means, find and buy that. But please don't pretend that a company with zero history of interest in this goal is suddenly going to shift direction overnight thanks to the 2,439,397th Internet post on the subject. They're too busy knocking off early to the pub after collectively writing 4 pages of rules for a major product.

 Kimchi Gamer wrote:
I spoke with our GW rep this morning and was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no 9th edition Fantasy. Fantasy as we know it is gone. AoS will be the new system going forward. I've known this guy for awhile and see no reason why he would fib about something like that. Unfortunately or fortunately, this is the future of Warhammer.

Two things.... that guy might be 100% telling the truth as he knows it but the real decision is likely way above his pay grade. Second... remember when a month or two before space hulk was released when one of GW's celebrity game designers said in no uncertain terms that space hulk wasn't coming out? I do. No offense to your rep but ignorance and deceit are the tools of both the Inquisition AND corporate Gw.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:

In fairness though, he is right. If you want tight balanced rules, then games workshop probably isn't for you. Like that guy in 'grumpy old men' said: you can wish into one hand and crap into the other and see which one fills up first.

Yeah, but there's absolutely no reason for GW (or anyone) to not write balanced rules. A tight ruleset benefits literally the whole playerbase. There seems to be lots of people who like the models, and lore (pre Age of Sigmar reboot anyway) of the GW games but not the rules, is it not understandable that they'd be a bit annoyed at the state of the rules when there's no reason not to have a balanced ruleset? Everyone would win.

Yea, ImAGeek, I hear you, and it's not like I disagree. There's no reason they can't at all -- although I'm going to reserve my judgement on Age of Sigmar until next week, when I have the *actual product* to say that it's unbalanced. In the meantime, abuse aside, it looks like a game that COULD be fun (if you strip away things that look abusable at the moment). Some aspects look kind of cool. It's not going to replace 40k for me, but we often play little games of other stuff to fill out time if we're waiting for people or finish early, but not early enough to play another game of 40k.

Speaking of other games that GW makes, maybe it's frustrating that they don't make a really finely balanced game (though I think the rules are pretty tight now) because they have a lot of nice stuff, and maybe it's frustrating that they just cater to a niche of a niche, but at least it's obvious what they are and what they produce, and there's lots of alternatives if you want something else, right? But anyhow, this should be a thread about Sigmar, so I digress

 xttz wrote:
It's not a question of if a balanced ruleset would be beneficial to anyone; of course it would. The underlying issue is that Games Workshop as a company have never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever shown the slightest interest in producing a game like that.
This is what astounds me about the hardcore tournament folks. Games like 40k and WHFB have never been written or intended for that purpose, yet people insist on twisting, tweaking and outright rewriting them regardless to make them fit. It's like buying a motorbike and complaining it's not fit to plough fields with, rather than buying a tractor.

If you want a tabletop equivalent of Starcraft then by all means, find and buy that. But please don't pretend that a company with zero history of interest in this goal is suddenly going to shift direction overnight thanks to the 2,439,397th Internet post on the subject. They're too busy knocking off early to the pub after collectively writing 4 pages of rules for a major product.

I think if you add a couple more evers you hit the next prime number

I've said a zillion times that whatever nostalgic sentiment of 40k being balanced once upon a time is baffling to me, as someone who's played 40k since RT. It's never detracted from the fun for the people who enjoy that sort of thing, and it's endlessly frustrating for people who want to make it something that the authors don't care to accommodate. StarCraft will always be way better at being StarCraft than any tabletop miniature game, because of one simple thing... matchmaking! To me, miniature games suck when you're playing unhandicapped against someone much less skilled, and even if the rules are balanced, they have no chance to win.

 Talys wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:


In principle, I agree entirely. This is the way the game is set up to be played, and in theory it would work with that attitude. But...

With a complete lack of points, even if both opponents have the best intentions in the world there is the no way of knowing (without having already played a few dozen games) if their forces are even. With points, you can eradicate most if the imbalance just by knowing what's over/under powered and finding a middle ground, but with this system, you can't actually tell, there's no metric by which you can determine how good or bad a unit, and therefore an army, is.

After a few months of gaming you might get to the point you get a feel for balancing forces, but how many people are going to essentially do GW's play testing for then for that long rather than just moving on to a game that provides actual rules for matching armies?

I'll be the first to admit, no model maximum per unit is baffling to me too. Maybe there is a model maximum per game, based on the scenario size, or perhaps diminishing returns on larger blobs?

I think surely someone thought of the scenario of a FB veteran bringing his 200 painted wood elves and putting them in one unit.

Skaven......Skaven everywhere

Everybody calm down...

When this steaming pile of gak gets flushed after 5 or 6 months, GW will rush out a rehashed version of WFB. All will rejoice and all will be right with the world.

GW has already committed to this "New Coke" mess, so we all just have to weather the storm until "WFB Classic" arrives.

It will come, because AoS has zero chance of success.

Looks dead in the water to me. No points could be okay, but how's a total new guy gonna know what to play with?

Beyond that, because there's no wound allocation mechanic, hits are rolled on a model by model basis. I can't even..

 Torga_DW wrote:
In fairness though, he is right. If you want tight balanced rules, then games workshop probably isn't for you.

Like that guy in 'grumpy old men' said: you can wish into one hand and crap into the other and see which one fills up first.

Exactly. GW is great BnP fun, but it's not, never will be balanced. It's kinda dumb wishing for some nebulous "balance" when GW has been pretty consistent over the past 20+ years at NOT focusing on balance. I wonder if the "balance" crowd works themselves into a tizzy wishing that they were taller, that the world were more fair, etc.

 xttz wrote:

It's not a question of if a balanced ruleset would be beneficial to anyone; of course it would. The underlying issue is that Games Workshop as a company have never ever shown the slightest interest in producing a game like that.

Given the popularity of competitive wargaming do you not think that, maybe just maybe GW should be producing a game like that? Do you not think that GW should take in the view from their ivory tower and see how the gaming landscape has changed?

A balanced ruleset benefits everyone, from 'narrative' gamers to WAAC types (well maybe not them but that's a good thing), and more importantly from GW's perspective it will lead to a stable and enjoyable game.

I prefer RPGs these days so I am very much interested in the 'story' of a wargame, the little events that stand out and are memorable years or even decades afterwards. For these to occur there needs to be either a third party acting as a GM (far from ideal) or the ruleset should be flexible and robust enough to allow this to happen; in other words in order to "forge a narrative" there has to be solid rules that don't simply revolve around the throw of a pair of dice.

 oni wrote:
Everybody calm down...

When this steaming pile of gak gets flushed after 5 or 6 months, GW will rush out a rehashed version of WFB. All will rejoice and all will be right with the world.

GW has already committed to this "New Coke" mess, so we all just have to weather the storm until "WFB Classic" arrives.

It will come, because AoS has zero chance of success.

Or GW will totally give up on fantasy and just do 40k which I would say it much more likely

 oni wrote:
Everybody calm down...

When this steaming pile of gak gets flushed after 5 or 6 months, GW will rush out a rehashed version of WFB. All will rejoice and all will be right with the world.

GW has already committed to this "New Coke" mess, so we all just have to weather the storm until "WFB Classic" arrives.

It will come, because AoS has zero chance of success.

But that's not how GW, historically, have seen things. If this fails, they'll see it as people don't want to buy fantasy models and just drop it all together.