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 Da Boss wrote:
I've read Jervis' points, I just think he is wrong.

Even if he is wrong, you can't deny that he was purposefully designing the games over the last decade or more to fit his view/vision? The end products are no accident.

If you think he is wrong, fine. Pick a game by game designers who you think have it right.

But if GW's lead designer says he likes green, and the game turns out to be green, you can't pretend that they actually wanted their game to be red, and it only turned out green by accident. They really want it to be green, they are on record saying they want it to be green, and there're really customers out there that like green, even if you aren't one of them.

Diversity is a good thing. I certainly think the Malifaux-designers are doing it wrong. But that doesn't mean I'll go trolling the Malifaux-forums telling Malifaux-fans on every possible occasion that they're all doing it wrong. If they have fun, let them have it. There's more than enough room for everybody.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Fabio Bile wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Up until the last couple weeks, who saw anyone talk about points, as a fundamental concept, as the reason they didn't like Fantasy or anything else? I can't recall a single one.

Right on. Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun.

There are many, very long, very heated threads in the archives here that deal with the issue.

While nobody complained about points as such, many people challenge the claim that the existence of points implies "balance" as a conscious design goal and "lack of balance" inevitably as incompetence or "sales-taking-over-game-design". That assumption has always been wrong.

Correct. The sheer number of complaints about points costs not being "right" or "fair" or "balanced" can be taken as a pretty clear statement that points are a fundamentally flawed concept. Not a day goes by on Dakka in which somebody claims that GW hasn't assigned the "correct" points to something or other. Everything is claimed to be improperly costed, sometimes both overcosted and undercosted at the same time. The lack of precision and consensus suggests that points just don't work, and hasn't worked from the beginning.

What didn't exist was the notion of playing WFB without points at all. That is what AOS brought to the table, as a way to sidestep all of those complaints by simply removing the point of complaint. It's very much akin to how McDonalds "accidentally" knocked over their flagpole when one group threatened to protest if the flag was at half mast, and another group threatened to protest if it wasn't lowered - remove the object of controversy.

And, more to the point, Jervis shared that the internal team isn't much interested in points. If GW's designers themselves don't really care about points, how would anybody imagine they would do a precise job of costing things across an exhaustive range of competitive situations and mirror/reversal play?

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I've read Jervis' points, I just think he is wrong.

Even if he is wrong, you can't deny that he was purposefully designing the games over the last decade or more to fit his view/vision? The end products are no accident.

If you think he is wrong, fine. Pick a game by game designers who you think have it right.

But if GW's lead designer says he likes green, and the game turns out to be green, you can't pretend that they actually wanted their game to be red, and it only turned out green by accident. They really want it to be green, they are on record saying they want it to be green, and there're really customers out there that like green, even if you aren't one of them.

Except that Jervis went on to help design Epic: Armageddon, and Warhammer 4th, both of which reigned in the randomness and more free form systems. He was also instrumental in keeping the Specialist Games and Historical sections alive, many of which had better rulesets than what we see today from the same company.

So what do we believe - a manifesto that was apparently out of date with Jervis' thinking by the time it got published, or the fact that GW has become less concerned with the quality of their rules, as long as it gets you to buy their increasingly overpriced miniatures and terrain?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Correct. The sheer number of complaints about points costs not being "right" or "fair" or "balanced" can be taken as a pretty clear statement that points are a fundamentally flawed concept. Not a day goes by on Dakka in which somebody claims that GW hasn't assigned the "correct" points to something or other. Everything is claimed to be improperly costed, sometimes both overcosted and undercosted at the same time. The lack of precision and consensus suggests that points just don't work, and hasn't worked from the beginning.

Incorrect. It suggests rather strongly that gw implemented a points system extremely poorly.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

What didn't exist was the notion of playing WFB without points at all. That is what AOS brought to the table, as a way to sidestep all of those complaints by simply removing fthe point of complaint. It's very much akin to how McDonalds "accidentally" knocked over their flagpole when one group threatened to protest if the flag was at half mast, and another group threatened to protest if it wasn't lowered - remove the object of controversy.

So then how do you implement what's 'fair' in a game? Cooperation, Coercion, and bullying, essentially. While it can work, it has big potential for headaches, frustration bad feeling. and Really, all you've done is swapped out the point of contention with something else. Give it a year. We'll see those complaints too.

And by the way, playing without points has existed since the dawn of wargaming. It can work, but it takes a lot of effort and co operation to get right along with like minded players. It works for 'basement gsmes' but pick up games and what have you are out in the cold.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

And, more to the point, Jervis shared that the internal team isn't much interested in points. If GW's designers themselves don't really care about points, how would anybody imagine they would do a precise job of costing things across an exhaustive range of competitive situations and mirror/reversal play?

'If you can't do it, find someone who can, and hire him. Support him, believe in him, and encourage him'. That's how.

Beyond that, how about things like Open playtesting utilising the community to explore the game? Communication with the community rather than the ivory tower approach. Apply a quality approach to games design. It's not rocket surgery. And it works for other companies, I fail to see why gw can't leverage some advantage from this methodology.

 Da Boss wrote:
There is a stench around this discussion (across several threads) that people who like points and competition are somehow lesser, somehow engaging in Badwrongfun and need to be re-educated and improved.

OP refers to points based play as "a disease"

At least it's all out in the open now and perhaps that sort of player will confine themselves to AoS going forward.

Did you not read Jervis' article? Maybe you should go back to the original post and re-read it, because Jervis was very clear that tournament play destroyed Fantasy. Re-educate and improve yourself!

I did, mostly to summarize Jervis' article.

I'll play whatever I want, [MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - ALPHARIUS]. As my current stage of gaming, I no longer have the time nor inclination to spend all of my time memorizing ever-increasing amounts of minutiate that replace and/or contradict what I had previously memorized for back-and-forth across 2 or 3 previous versions. To that extent, things like AoS, which let me simply deploy things on the board with a complete, full-page reference sheet of stats and rules tied by a very simple framework, that's good stuff. If more games could be more like AoS than 40k6, that would be great. I really don't need a junior encyclopedia of cross-referenced rules just to push some toy soldiers around while I enjoy a beer and shoot the breeze.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Fabio Bile wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Up until the last couple weeks, who saw anyone talk about points, as a fundamental concept, as the reason they didn't like Fantasy or anything else? I can't recall a single one.

Right on. Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun.

There are many, very long, very heated threads in the archives here that deal with the issue.

While nobody complained about points as such, many people challenge the claim that the existence of points implies "balance" as a conscious design goal and "lack of balance" inevitably as incompetence or "sales-taking-over-game-design". That assumption has always been wrong.

Correct. The sheer number of complaints about points costs not being "right" or "fair" or "balanced" can be taken as a pretty clear statement that points are a fundamentally flawed concept.

Nobody is claiming that points are a perfect reflection of balance, they can't be. However, they can reasonably approximate it.

Once again, the problem isn't that points are a fundamentally bunk concept, it's that GW was really bad at implementing them and actively refused to address issues and mistakes. That's an issue of execution and willful negligence/incompetence, not a problem with the concept of points.

If you look at other games, there's typically fewer issues with points being wonky, and a whole lot more willingness to adjust them, resulting in very functional systems with minimal problems. Look at say, Dropzone Commander, where points values are adjusted about every 6-12 months based on internal playtesting and player feedback along with long trial periods of experimental rules that are available for playtest and are subsequently adjusted for new units, and they make it work very well indeed, with nothing that's considered an overpowered auto-take based on its points effectiveness and almost nothing is left on the shelf due to being overcosted.

Deadnight wrote:
And by the way, playing without points has existed since the dawn of wargaming. It can work, but it takes a lot of effort and co operation to get right along with like minded players. It works for 'basement gsmes' but pick up games and what have you are out in the cold.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

And, more to the point, Jervis shared that the internal team isn't much interested in points. If GW's designers themselves don't really care about points, how would anybody imagine they would do a precise job of costing things across an exhaustive range of competitive situations and mirror/reversal play?

'If you can't do it, find someone who can, and hire him. Support him, believe in him, and encourage him'.

If points exist, then there is a presumption that they will be used. The number of no-points scenarios I've played in 40k is probably less than 1% of my total 40k games played.

GW doesn't hire people to do things that they don't want done in the first place.


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 Vaktathi wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Correct. The sheer number of complaints about points costs not being "right" or "fair" or "balanced" can be taken as a pretty clear statement that points are a fundamentally flawed concept.

Nobody is claiming that points are a perfect reflection of balance, they can't be. However, they can reasonably approximate it.

Once again, the problem isn't that points are a fundamentally bunk concept, it's that GW was really bad at implementing them and actively refused to address issues and mistakes. That's an issue of execution and willful negligence/incompetence, not a problem with the concept of points.

If you look at other games, there's typically fewer issues with points being wonky, and a whole lot more willingness to adjust them, resulting in very functional systems with minimal problems. Look at say, Dropzone Commander, where points values are adjusted about every 6-12 months based on internal playtesting and player feedback along with long trial periods of experimental rules that are available for playtest and are subsequently adjusted for new units, and they make it work very well indeed, with nothing that's considered an overpowered auto-take based on its points effectiveness and almost nothing is left on the shelf due to being overcosted.

No, the issue is that GW doesn't care about points. And they haven't cared in more than a decade.

Please keep in mind that what you want doesn't matter in the least. You're not the designer, so your only choices are to consume or not. As far as GW is concerned, they did a perfectly adequate job of assigning points.

The flawed presumption is that GW would think it's a good use of resources to provide (semi-)annual updates to a dozen Army Books each containing a few dozen units, many with several options and features. For free. When their actual business is to sell beautiful models, not rules or lists.

GW cannot be measured by your wants or desires. GW can only be measured by their own internal objectives. GW succeeded with AOS.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

If points exist, then there is a presumption that they will be used. The number of no-points scenarios I've played in 40k is probably less than 1% of my total 40k games played.

So? Those are the games 'you've' played. Plenty more gamers out there bud. And plenty more non-gw gamers too, thst have been doing thst sort of thing since the 70s.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

GW doesn't hire people to do things that they don't want done in the first place.

So? The question was how they would go about doing it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

how would anybody imagine they would do a precise job of costing things across an exhaustive range of competitive situations and mirror/reversal play?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

No, the issue is that GW doesn't care about points. And they haven't cared in more than a decade.

I would agree they don't care. I would however dispute that it's points they don't care about, but rather, the rules in general.

The idea that points are this singular sticking issue that all the problems GW games have stem from is to ignore everything about GW's rules in general.

The same issues they have with points, they frequently have with rules functionality and clarity. They write rules one way, but mean them another (look at the recent issues with Khorne Daemonkin where a rule was printed that worked one way when read according to standard english concepts, but the writer on facebook claimed was meant to function another way), they write rules with gigantic gaps that don't cover every scenario. They write rules that sometimes don't ever even get used (Missile Lock). They make units that simply don't function properly regardless of points (e.g. IG Ogryns with Stubborn...on LD6) or that are simply fundamentally absurdly overcapable (e.g. Necron Decurion bonuses making 13pt Warriors rouighly as tough as Terminators against most attacks, 7E Fantasy Daemon army mechanics, 6E Eldar Wave Serpent Shields, etc).

We can go on and on, and they never address these things either. Points are simply a *single* aspect of the issue, which is that GW simply is uninterested in rules functionality. Trying to make it out like points are somehow a singular evil breaking point is somewhat ridiculous in that light.

Please keep in mind that what you want doesn't matter in the least.

You're now redirecting down a tangent which is not related to my argument. I'm not making any argument as to what *I* want, rather addressing problems with arguments about Points somehow being fundamentally flawed and other such things. This is an entirely different track you're trying to project here, and I'm not going to follow.

EDIT: in fact, I'm absolutely fine with games without points, but there better be some narrative/scenario tools within the ruleset, which AoS doesn't do either, it doesn't really do anything but cover how the models work.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I've read Jervis' points, I just think he is wrong.

Even if he is wrong, you can't deny that he was purposefully designing the games over the last decade or more to fit his view/vision? The end products are no accident.

If you think he is wrong, fine. Pick a game by game designers who you think have it right.

But if GW's lead designer says he likes green, and the game turns out to be green, you can't pretend that they actually wanted their game to be red, and it only turned out green by accident. They really want it to be green, they are on record saying they want it to be green, and there're really customers out there that like green, even if you aren't one of them.

Diversity is a good thing. I certainly think the Malifaux-designers are doing it wrong. But that doesn't mean I'll go trolling the Malifaux-forums telling Malifaux-fans on every possible occasion that they're all doing it wrong. If they have fun, let them have it. There's more than enough room for everybody.

Pretty much this. It baffles me that people continue to bash GW for simply pursuing a vision of a game that's fundamentally different from what they enjoy. I think folks who believe 5e 40k was some awesome tournament game are either being nostalgic or playing 5e in a different way than it could have been played (and abused).

Like Wonderwolf says, diversity is a great thing, and we're lucky as hobbyists that in such a small niche market there is a wide variety of products that can please anyone.

 Talys wrote:

Pretty much this. It baffles me that people continue to bash GW for simply pursuing a vision of a game that's fundamentally different from what they enjoy. I think folks who believe 5e 40k was some awesome tournament game are either being nostalgic or playing 5e in a different way than it could have been played (and abused).

Nobody thought 5E was an awesome tournament ruleset, it had gigantic problems. The issue is that it had fewer functionality problems, and allowed far for far less abusive options than what we've got now, and is only great in a *relative* sense, but has easier solutions to its problems than newer editions.

Wonderwolf wrote:

Nor did originally. Did for a brief time, but stopped, precisely because the tournaments they ran and the toxic gaming-culture they invited by doing so poisoned the hobby as a whole (which, admittedly, nobody could've predicted at the time).

The toxic gaming culture was actively nourished by GW's piss poor balancing rather than the creation of relatively balanced rules. GW games have always had their powergamers, as does every other activity which involves someone winning, so attempting to blame the existence of WAAC players on balanced games is frankly ludicrous.

GW originally produced tabletop RPGs (complete with points values don't forget) which morphed into wargames over time. If AoS was a RPG I wouldn't mind the complete lack of points costs, I would be looking for encounter levels though.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
What didn't exist was the notion of playing WFB without points at all. That is what AOS brought to the table, as a way to sidestep all of those complaints by simply removing the point of complaint.

Right. So it's not about making a better game, because attempting that just involves work and criticism and icky stuff like that. It's just about dodging complaints.

It's like solving the problem of trains running late by getting rid of trains. Turn the railways into roads. Finally we can just use our own transportation to go where we want to, without being pressured into riding trains. And you won't have trouble getting anywhere on time so long as you're not a stupid lazy jerk.

As a group AoS-supporters really have no right to complain about "toxic environments". There's plenty of you who are using AoS as a platform/justification for being a douche. Maybe that's payback for bad wargaming experiences or maybe it's just part of the eternal fanboy vs. hater divide. But it's a really bad way to represent a game that relies entirely on its players being agreeable and fun.

 Fabio Bile wrote:
Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun.

The issue is, it did not even occur to many people playing miniatures games that you could not have points. It is a really entrenched mechanic. So much so that a lot of people have criticized AoS as being incomplete because it doesn't use points. But point-based list building is not a fundamental part of miniatures gaming. It is actually a pretty novel idea when you consider the whole history of miniatures wargaming. People who never liked points all that much just never felt like it made much sense to post in threads about those games complaining about it. But with AoS, a lot of people feel like it should be WHFB 9th so for them not having points is too much of a break.

 Manchu wrote:

 Fabio Bile wrote:
Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun.

The issue is, it did not even occur to many people playing miniatures games that you could not have points. It is a really entrenched mechanic. So much so that a lot of people have criticized AoS as being incomplete because it doesn't use points. But point-based list building is not a fundamental part of miniatures gaming. It is actually a pretty novel idea when you consider the whole history of miniatures wargaming. People who never liked points all that much just never felt like it made much sense to post in threads about those games complaining about it. But with AoS, a lot of people feel like it should be WHFB 9th so for them not having points is too much of a break.

Points were used because it allows for people to play using whatever mix of forces they wish while maintaining a semblance of order without needing a 3rd party GM or some sort of equivalent. It suited a "wargamer" more than any other system, particularly for one that would involve significant amounts of "pickup" play. .

In Warhammer's oldest iterations, Games Workshop explicitly recognized this and explained such. One can look at the Rogue Trader book and see that they have a system for points values for players if they lacked a GM, but also place an emphasis on having a GM and providing tools for such, as well as example scenarios with predefined terrain and forces.

Now, GW moved away from the GM model as Warhammer moved to becoming a wargame and thus built the game around points. Apparently some within GW bemoaned that, but that was the course they'd plotted for roughly twenty years. With AoS, they appear to backtrack on that, but then fail to re-introduce any of the materials they had in older editions where Points were not a driving factor.

From either perpective, the ruleset appears incomplete.

Hmm, so, before there'd be a GM who was the balancing factor in the absence of points, saying "yeah, those armies look about even" or "today, Marines are going to be making a last stand: pick pick forces accordingly"?

Yep, miniatures games sometimes had GMs in the past. But not always. Sometimes the players just agreed to stuff. Because for them the point of the game was not to play a match to determine who is more skilled.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Fabio Bile wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Up until the last couple weeks, who saw anyone talk about points, as a fundamental concept, as the reason they didn't like Fantasy or anything else? I can't recall a single one.

Right on. Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun.

There are many, very long, very heated threads in the archives here that deal with the issue.

While nobody complained about points as such, many people challenge the claim that the existence of points implies "balance" as a conscious design goal and "lack of balance" inevitably as incompetence or "sales-taking-over-game-design". That assumption has always been wrong.

Correct. The sheer number of complaints about points costs not being "right" or "fair" or "balanced" can be taken as a pretty clear statement that points are a fundamentally flawed concept. ...

Nonsense. It are only proof that GW is gak at balancing points.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I've read Jervis' points, I just think he is wrong.

Even if he is wrong, you can't deny that he was purposefully designing the games over the last decade or more to fit his view/vision? The end products are no accident.

...

Once again you are merely making an assertion with little evidence to support it.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Pretty much this. It baffles me that people continue to bash GW for simply pursuing a vision of a game that's fundamentally different from what they enjoy. I think folks who believe 5e 40k was some awesome tournament game are either being nostalgic or playing 5e in a different way than it could have been played (and abused).

Nobody thought 5E was an awesome tournament ruleset, it had gigantic problems. The issue is that it had fewer functionality problems, and allowed far for far less abusive options than what we've got now, and is only great in a *relative* sense, but has easier solutions to its problems than newer editions.

I can live with it being *relatively* better for tournaments (than 7e) but almost universally, when I say that GW has never been really that tournament friendly, I get "but 4e/5e were great for tournaments!" .. and I just have to shake my head in wonderment. If you measure them by a different standard, then yes -- perhaps for their time, when expectations were different and the mode of play was different, or perhaps just for a local scene that was different, this might have been the case.

But in terms of taking rules as written and then trying to bolt on modifications to make a truly competitive game out of it -- internal and external balance, and clarity of rules all had issues. I mean, it doesn't make the game *not fun* it just makes it require work (and adjustments and limitations) if you want to make a good tournament out of it.

I'd absolutely agree that no WHFB or 40k ruleset has ever been a great tournament set, but I think there's more to it than just "tournaments", but rather a large variety of similar playstyles, that newer editions aren't just making difficult, but are actively wrecking, seemingly to cater to the group that wants a more RPG style of play (but without the rules actually providing RPG style support).

In terms of your average gamer, at least as has been my experience over many editions of 40k and WHFB and in cities from Seattle to San Diego,has generally engaged in what is for some reason referred to as "tournament" style play. I would posit that really what it is more than anything else is "pickup" style play. People show up at the game store on game night or on League night or whatnot, they have army lists of identical points values, and play a mission out of the rulebook. Now obviously there's slight variations and some Leagues introduce mission variations and some clubs have their own House Rules, but ultimately, it's a "grab a 1500/1850/2000pt list and show up" type deal. This is what 40k has been since at least 3E, and really more probably since late RT for the most part, and Fantasy as well for a similar duration.

Now, that's generally been the experience and expectations of the overwhelmingly vast majority of players from my perspective. And there's a reason for that, primarily being that GW's rulesets have been geared toward that kind of play. Now, we know that at least some within GW played things differently themselves and wanted different things, but this was never really reflected in the actual rules. Even AoS still comes at the game from a "pick a list and show up" pickup style functionality, it doesn't provide any of the "narrative' tools that very early GW rulesets provided.

The problem is that if GW really does want a more "narrative' style play, more akin to an RPG, they really have spent the last two decades going the wrong direction, and even with their latest offerings aren't providing the tools for that. What we're ultimately left with are rules that are really very poor for *any* style of play without players having to essentially write half the rules themselves. And while that may work for small groups of very dedicated hobbyists, for people that play amongst many different gaming groups or for very large gaming groups, or anyone trying to run events, it simply results in an unorganized mess that's far more open to abuse than older editions. So, while 40k 5E wasn't a great ruleset (I wasn't a fan of 5E until 6E came out), it was a much better set of rules for for people that don't have small dedicated gaming groups with the time to write the necessary missing half of the rules, and who just want to show up and play with a game "out of the box" as it were, and with a greater expectation of balance than what exists now (even if it's never been good).

It also doesn't help that even when GW does try to put out some "narrative" scenarios, like the old Battle Missions book or the old 4E "back of the rulebook" missions, they were so loose and open as to be highly suspect in value, and defined almost entirely by simple deployment zone changes or tabletop condition (e.g. nightfight), with zero discussion of composition of forces or margins of victory. They keep it so open that there's no narrative to be captured.

 Manchu wrote:

 Fabio Bile wrote:
Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun.

The issue is, it did not even occur to many people playing miniatures games that you could not have points. It is a really entrenched mechanic. So much so that a lot of people have criticized AoS as being incomplete because it doesn't use points. But point-based list building is not a fundamental part of miniatures gaming. It is actually a pretty novel idea when you consider the whole history of miniatures wargaming. People who never liked points all that much just never felt like it made much sense to post in threads about those games complaining about it. But with AoS, a lot of people feel like it should be WHFB 9th so for them not having points is too much of a break.

The points system is one of the reasons (in my opinion) that the various versions of warhammer so significantly outpferormed all those historical games. Historical scenario wargaming is a niche within a niche. Warhammer has been the elephant in the room for so long partly because it's point system made pickup games so easy. With points, all you needed was an advertisement

"Thursday is 40k night! Bring 1500 point armies for battling!"

Instantly people know what to bring. Most anyone could make up a list to match that. You didn't need to already be part of a clique, you didn't need to preplan everything, you just showed up. The other big advantage of points and FOC, is that it creates the entire sub-game of List Building. What is probably 75% of the chatter on any given warhammer forum? Lists and unit discussion. That gives people something to talk about.

X-Wing has followed this method and is seeing dramatic success (plus its a way easier to buy into game). Warmahordes do as well. Every successful game follows this system. Those game systems which do not (such as hail Caesar, as much as I like it's rules), are doomed to sit in the back row. because they're essentially games you can only play with friends.

Point me out one successful wargame that doesn't use some sort of balancing factor, point system, or FOC.

In honesty, the reason 40k sells so well is Space Marines.

I just bought Hail Caesar the other day and... it does have a point system and army lists... In fact, it has a whole book just for army lists. Just wanted to point that out.

I don't think points have anything to do with it's lack of popularity.

Rihgu wrote:
I just bought Hail Caesar the other day and... it does have a point system and army lists... In fact, it has a whole book just for army lists. Just wanted to point that out.

I don't think points have anything to do with it's lack of popularity.

Is that in the basic book? I only have the first book, and I don't remember a points system. My mistake then. I do quite like HC's rules, just never found anyone to play it with.

 argonak wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
I just bought Hail Caesar the other day and... it does have a point system and army lists... In fact, it has a whole book just for army lists. Just wanted to point that out.

I don't think points have anything to do with it's lack of popularity.

Is that in the basic book? I only have the first book, and I don't remember a points system. My mistake then. I do quite like HC's rules, just never found anyone to play it with.

Yup, "Appendix 3: A Brief Guide to Army Lists", pg 175. Goes over Early Imperial Romans and Ancient Britons. There's a book with a whole lot more (that I haven't picked up yet) found here: http://us-store.warlordgames.com/collections/hail-caesar/products/hail-caesar-army-lists-volume-1-biblical-classical and also here: http://us-store.warlordgames.com/collections/hail-caesar/products/hail-caesar-army-lists-late-antiquity-to-early-medieval and there may be more that I'm not aware of.

To stay relatively on topic, I think that Hail Caesar isn't a big name game like Warhammer not because of anything to do with points values, but because it is a) young (2011, apparently!) and b) little exposure. You can walk into most clubs/stores and see some variety of Warhammer, Warmahordes, Malifaux, etc. being played but you'll probably not see Hail Caesar being played in a gaming store (a hobby shop or a historical specific store, perhaps, but then you are seeking it out).

I do concede that points provide an excellent system for pick up games, which certainly can contribute to popularity, but I think that a game doesn't need points as a crutch to garner popularity.

 argonak wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Fabio Bile wrote:
Maybe someone can prove me wrong here, but I don't remember anti-points sentiment being a thing before GW recently declared points to be unfun.

The issue is, it did not even occur to many people playing miniatures games that you could not have points. It is a really entrenched mechanic. So much so that a lot of people have criticized AoS as being incomplete because it doesn't use points. But point-based list building is not a fundamental part of miniatures gaming. It is actually a pretty novel idea when you consider the whole history of miniatures wargaming. People who never liked points all that much just never felt like it made much sense to post in threads about those games complaining about it. But with AoS, a lot of people feel like it should be WHFB 9th so for them not having points is too much of a break.

The points system is one of the reasons (in my opinion) that the various versions of warhammer so significantly outpferormed all those historical games. Historical scenario wargaming is a niche within a niche. Warhammer has been the elephant in the room for so long partly because it's point system made pickup games so easy. With points, all you needed was an advertisement

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The points system was copied from historical competition rule sets like WRG Ancients, published in 1969 (first edition.) There are many annual Ancients competitions. The WRG rules were written to support them.

The reason why 40K was so successful compared to Historicals was because GW was massively vertically integrated. They wrote, printed and published rules for which they designed and manufactured figures. They promoted this stuff in their widely read fantasy game magazine and sold it in their big chain of shops where many players came to look at a massive range of other largely SF/Fantasy related game products. 40K was the only 28mm SF game on the market at the time. Rival games were 15mm which did not look impressive to players brought up on 25mm RPG figures.

Also, it turned out that teenage boys get majorly hot for Space Mariens.

I sure would like the option to have point values. It helps in distinguishing racial attributes beyond wound counts and activated powers.

@Vaktathi - I generally agree with you. Points are wonderful for the pickup game or games-night game sort of play. In addition, they are humongously useful for gluing together two players who don't have large enough armies to play against one player with more (which happens *all* the time, in my experience).

Don't get me wrong: I'm a big fan of points, flawed and all, and I have a lot of fun putting together lists, some wacky and hopeless, others more competitive.

The devil in it all is that points are a terrible representation of the power level of an army, because it's our job as generals to break the system and squeeze more juice out of our 2000 points. In doing so, we marginalize many units, and create many combinations that can be the furthest thing from fun imaginable.

To rectify it in the real world, we deviate from strictly points to points + human intuition & experience.

In an ideal world, you could enter your army into a computer, and out would come a power level rating for the army, such that 2000 power points would ACTUALLY represent the same efficiency regardless of the composition. So if you decided to take an entire army of genestealers, the cost per model would actually plummet. And if you took a DraigoStar, the cost of Draigo and the Centurions would automatically increase. In other words, a system that analyzed your army holistically, and spat out a number that represented how effective you can be on the field, rather than a number that doesn't represent any force multipliers or poor unit choices.

In the context of AoS, if you took 300 peasants with pitchforks the system would warn you that you have a stupid army.

Of course, such a thing will not ever exist I don't think, anyhow.

Im not sure Jervis' ancient article has much to do with points...

Seems more to point to the attitude of tournament gamers in general, more the style of gaming than a mechanic.

Im unsure what relevance an article from 2002 has on 2014/15 games design, it may be a little too much is being read into it. I think financial decisions weigh more heavily in brand choice than points systems...

Im not sure historical gaming is, or ever has been, a niche compared to fantasy/sci-fi. I think it depends partly on age group. Although a massive generalisation, I seem to meet more historical gamers coming to it later in life, often after having played GW in their youth, and now looking for something different. Thankfully though, still a good few younger gamers also getting into historicals these days.

While it may be a niche in certain demographics, I think historicals has always had a large popularity share among generally older gamers, but recently the likes of FOW and more so with Bolt Action, have spread historicals far further among the 40k generation.

Of course, while GW games one for one are vastly more played than historicals, as a whole, there is alot of historical gamers out there... Many who cut their teeth with WFB back in the day.

Though in my club of ten, only two play 40k and only four in total ever did in the past. That leaves six who have only ever been historical gamers. Of course an utterly useless statistic, like most.

And yes... Points based play came from historical games.

@Big P - what do you mean by financial decisions?

I guess it's cheaper to write the game system without points -- but it's not like those units didn't have points before, and GW is familiar with how effective units are, so the cost wouldn't be really high. Even highly playtested, it would certainly nothing compared to all the other development costs for AoS.

Or do you think they believe that AoS would be more profitable without points, than with points?