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Narrative is about creating a story.

What is wrong with this?

I plan on running a narrative campaign with the store I play at. I'll draw up a big map, create some planets, and let the battles tell a story.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

TL;DR: I don't like alpha-strike pod lists any more than anyone else who's ever been on the receiving end, I'm ranting at GW's incompetent/lazy writing in dealing with them.

And I'm simply saying that there isn't really any "null deploy alpha strike" beyond pod lists. I legitimately cannot think of any outside of that criteria.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

TL;DR: I don't like alpha-strike pod lists any more than anyone else who's ever been on the receiving end, I'm ranting at GW's incompetent/lazy writing in dealing with them.

And I'm simply saying that there isn't really any "null deploy alpha strike" beyond pod lists. I legitimately cannot think of any outside of that criteria.

Mass Warp Spiders and Subterranean Uprising Genestealer Cults?

Again, we just don't know. There could be outright exceptions for certain armies, or certain units might not count towards the normal limit. You could possibly take a "unit" of drop pods, with everything inside not counting towards your total number of units, effectively increasing the ratio of ground units to units in reserve. Some versions of deepstrike might give you the option of deploying outside your normal deployment zone, if not held in reserve. Drop Troops might be able to deploy inside flyers, given flyers are likely to use the same rules as FMC this edition, which would certainly still be fluffy.

It'll likely be harder to field such an army, and you likely will have more limitations and will need to work for it a bit. Null deployment may be right out altogether. Given that deep striking looks to be, in many ways, more reliable/powerful, I don't think that's an awful tradeoff.

OMG, MY ArMY HAS bEEN INvAlidAteD BeforE I KnOW THey Are InValidATED!!!!

fresus wrote:
Full drop-pod lists are still fluffy and playable. It's just that now the game starts after half of your troops already landed (and landed in your deployment zone, thank-you-very-much).

sounds like they did a good job of securing the front lines about a mile in front of the enemy so they cant advance.

The problem with null-deploy in a tournament setting is that you get to have the benefit of first-turn while also having the benefit of second-turn.

The benefit of first-turn is you get to alpha strike. The benefit of second-turn is that on the last turn of the game, you get the last chance to secure objectives with no worry about losing them again. If you null deploy and take second turn, you do both. And second turn is easier to get than first turn, because the rules are written with the assumption that first turn is slightly more desirable.

That's why GW is restricting null-deploy in tournaments, but giving it a pass in casual play.

The concept of matched play is balanced play. If your fluffy list is also bent, then adjust it to be balanced for matched play. An entire force of deepstriking alpha striking null deploy army is not balanced, and has no place in an environment where they are trying to focus on balance.

Otherwise yes play narrative play where the point isn't about balanced play, but telling a story.

My personal bet is that narrative play will be the default for most areas because matched play by it's nature has to be more restrictive. Rather than trying to fit everyone into a single bucket, they have effectively two styles of game, one where crunch is the most important aspect and one where fluff is most important aspect.

 Grimgold wrote:
My personal bet is that narrative play will be the default for most areas because matched play by it's nature has to be more restrictive. Rather than trying to fit everyone into a single bucket, they have effectively two styles of game, one where crunch is the most important aspect and one where fluff is most important aspect.

You would think that, but AoS regrettably proved that wrong.

I think there's some pretty disingenuous stuff going on here.

You can literally play 40K any way you want. The only limitations being tournaments - where the hosts have a say in what you can/cannot do. It's likely that most tournaments will be run as matched play (even though that's not entirely necessary). If you can't find someone willing to play a fluffy game based on X, Y or Z...there's something more going on than gaming issues.

I think a lot of people who want to run first-turn-alpha-strike-drop-assassination armies are masquerading under the banner of fluff. Personally I think armies like that produce terrible games and I'm glad to see them nixed in the more competitive version.

No AoS proved people want points rather than trying to guess and getting a horrendously uneven battle. Narrative Play is basically AoS generals handbook style matches, points are ballparked rather than being fine grained, and you'll use scenarios for most matches. That has worked pretty well for AoS.

Matched play will be ultra competitive hyper balanced games like you'd get in Warmachine or X-wing. It's not going to be anything like what 40k has done prior, it will be a living body of rules, that change in response to the meta. There are certainly people who prefer this style of game, but I probably wouldn't go so far as to say it's the majority of 40k players.

 Grimgold wrote:
No AoS proved people want points rather than trying to guess and getting a horrendously uneven battle. Narrative Play is basically AoS generals handbook style matches, points are ballparked rather than being fine grained, and you'll use scenarios for most matches. That has worked pretty well for AoS.

I was the weirdo who wanted Matched Play points for Narrative Play

But seriously, I was waiting for points to play Age of Sigmar. I did not want to see what the WAAC players in my are would do had they picked up Age of Sigmar at the time. The points values listed in the General's Handbook, along with the many other rules and ideas present for Narrative and Matched Play, gave me everything I was looking for in Age of Sigmar, and then some. I hope that they handle the 3 ways to play for 40K as well as they have for AoS.

 Grimgold wrote:
No AoS proved people want points rather than trying to guess and getting a horrendously uneven battle. Narrative Play is basically AoS generals handbook style matches, points are ballparked rather than being fine grained, and you'll use scenarios for most matches. That has worked pretty well for AoS.

Matched play will be ultra competitive hyper balanced games like you'd get in Warmachine or X-wing. It's not going to be anything like what 40k has done prior, it will be a living body of rules, that change in response to the meta. There are certainly people who prefer this style of game, but I probably wouldn't go so far as to say it's the majority of 40k players.

it also doesn't hurt the "majority" of 40k players ether for it to exist.

 Desubot wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
No AoS proved people want points rather than trying to guess and getting a horrendously uneven battle. Narrative Play is basically AoS generals handbook style matches, points are ballparked rather than being fine grained, and you'll use scenarios for most matches. That has worked pretty well for AoS.

Matched play will be ultra competitive hyper balanced games like you'd get in Warmachine or X-wing. It's not going to be anything like what 40k has done prior, it will be a living body of rules, that change in response to the meta. There are certainly people who prefer this style of game, but I probably wouldn't go so far as to say it's the majority of 40k players.

it also doesn't hurt the "majority" of 40k players ether for it to exist.

Exactly so.

 Grimgold wrote:
No AoS proved people want points rather than trying to guess and getting a horrendously uneven battle.

Funny how that still happens with points being a thing, huh?

Putting it rather bluntly, a large portion of the "horrendously uneven battles" that people kept using as examples from AoS were things that would have been invalid(Multiple Celestant-Primes, for example) but wouldn't have been stopped by points.

 Verviedi wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
"The strongest list" is irrelevant. Tau or Eldar armies with 3 Riptides or 90 Scatterbikes or whatever is broken now will work just fine in this edition. It's the fluff lists that are hurting, such as Marine drop pod lists and Guard AirCav. The entire Elysian army list has effectively been invalidated by these changes, unless there's a specific consession in their rules that allows unlimited reserves.

We have no idea whether these units will give you exceptions to the rules just like in 6e. Further full reserve lists are a huge advantage in game if they have reliable delivery. All pod armies look cool, but are frequently not a good play experience for the opponent. I'm willing to sacrifice the idea of all pod, to create more enjoyable games for both players.

My only statement pertaining to that is they'd better. Otherwise you'll be compromising the fluff for "reasons" (I cannot think of a single good reason for forcing half your army to stay on the board).

Balance.

Shadow in the Warp doesn't blanket the entire table top and cause every other players psykers to suffer waking nightmare, go mad, and die. OMG, they invalidated the fluff for "reasons" in the actual game.

"Reasons" = balance.

Boo Hoo, you can always explain that half the drop pods landed to establish a base of operations and those forces have now deployed and engaged the enemy while the second batch of drop pods are now incoming. There is no explanation for why SitW only impacts 12 inches around a synapse creature.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
No AoS proved people want points rather than trying to guess and getting a horrendously uneven battle.

Funny how that still happens with points being a thing, huh?

Putting it rather bluntly, a large portion of the "horrendously uneven battles" that people kept using as examples from AoS were things that would have been invalid(Multiple Celestant-Primes, for example) but wouldn't have been stopped by points.

You say that, but I dare you to find an AoS Batrep that was published prior to the general handbook that went down to the wire as opposed to one side blowing out the other. I've watched dozens of batreps and there might have been one game I thought could go either way. Also, points don't guarantee you a good fight, they just make it more likely, you can still get outplayed, bring the wrong comp, or get a cold streak on the dice at the wrong time.

 Grimgold wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
No AoS proved people want points rather than trying to guess and getting a horrendously uneven battle.

Funny how that still happens with points being a thing, huh?

Putting it rather bluntly, a large portion of the "horrendously uneven battles" that people kept using as examples from AoS were things that would have been invalid(Multiple Celestant-Primes, for example) but wouldn't have been stopped by points.

You say that, but I dare you to find an AoS Batrep that was published prior to the general handbook that went down to the wire as opposed to one side blowing out the other. I've watched dozens of batreps and there might have been one game I thought could go either way.

Because every single time someone played Age of Sigmar, they posted a batrep?

I'm sorry, but I can't get behind your argument in any regards. A large number of batreps published were also done by people who consistently pushed a narrative of "no points matches always end up being one sided".

You genuinely had people talking about multi-Nagash armies as if they were going to be a real thing.

Also, points don't guarantee you a good fight, they just make it more likely, you can still get outplayed, bring the wrong comp, or get a cold streak on the dice at the wrong time.

Then what is the purpose of points?

If your army of Dudemans is pointed fairly but someone else's army of Dudebros is pointed fairly as well but can't actually do anything to you because you "brought the wrong comp", what is the purpose of those meticulously( ) mathed out point values?

Matched play tries to balance the game. Yes, that means limiting gameplay. You happen to be affected by that? There's three ways to deal with it
1) you deal with it as this mode is about the competetive nature of the game and just take it as such.
2) you ask your opponent to agree to ignore that limitation.
3) you play narrative or open.

a competitive mode SHOULD have limitations. Take Overwatch (a team-based shooter with classes like "sniper girl" or "tough guy with a force field") for example - they introduced a "no duplicate heroes/classes in a competitive match in a team" rule after their first competitive season since it fethed up balance. competitive is now a better mode thanks to that, even though you can't play a pure "hero XY 6 times" team anymore there. you still can in arcade mode, but that's not affecting your competitive rating.

It's the same with null deployment forces. It's a balance issue and on top of that: While YOU might think it's super fun to field a 100% drop pod list, always getting the alpha strike in - I can tell you from experience (from both sides, I'm mostly a SM player myself) that it sucks to waste your first turn because your opponent brought a gimmicky list.
Let me guess what your responses up till now were when people complained about that: "Deal with it". Wasn't it?

Oh, and if you haven't noticed: All our armies are going to work different now. We're getting new rules, and I am 100% sure that I won't be able to bring the list I'm going to use this weekend at exactly that point level in 8th edition. I'll have to adapt, so do you.

If you actually care enough about the fluffiness of your drop pod list that you're genuinely upset that it might be gone than you will end up championing narrative play in your area so that the fluff can be preserved and other like minded players will join you.

But since the OP claimed narrative will be DOA I assume that the fluff is probably not what he actually cares about.

 Purifier wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:

That works in one case. What if my narrative is a sudden Apocalypse Now style helicopter assault, or coordinated deep strike with drop pods, or a Mont'ka with two squads of bait Pathfinders on the board and twenty Crisis suits dropping in? Then your argument fails utterly, because AT MOST, only one squad of Scouts would be on the board, providing recon for the strike.

And what if my narrative is that we're floating in weghtless space so I get to set up anywhere on the map as our models have no control!
And what if my narrative is that I win the game and you lose it so we just set up and then you lose!

you don't get to restrict the narrative in matched play to only the exact storyline you want it to be. Unlike what you said from the start, it is fully supported by the fluff that you have half your army on the board so the "fluff"-argument is nonsensical.
And if you just have to have it be your specific narrative... then just play narrative play.

This is exactly what narrative play should be for, Some of the fluff army where a joke to bring into 40k under the normal rules. And Stupid to keep, Without all the factions getting a huge redesigning so they have access to similar design and functionality. If people want to use fluff to forward bad design, all the factions would be utilizing similar tactics suited to there own faction.
Bring the game back down so every faction is playing the same game will be great thing, Rather than some factions getting access to some special snowflake rules to let them do something that all the factions should be getting access to.

Matched play, as Auticus said, wants a balance style of gameplay. You can't have a balance style of gameplay and at the same time allow all the "fluffy" things in the Lore of the game. Thats just a fact.


If I want to play an Army with, I don't know... only special characters up to 1850 points, because they are in some kind of Special mision... that can be totally fluffy, but is obvius that It can't be permited in Matched play.

If people say "Just play narrative to use your heavy narrative list"... is because THATS why narrative play exist

The people who are having their lists "invalidated" are power gamers...in particular, power gamers who were committing fluff abomination.

Meanwhile, here I am with my battle company, and only slightly fewer than half of my squads had rhinos in the first place.

Really, if you didn't want to have your army invalidated, then you should have been "psychic" enough to listen to people like me in the first place when we said: "Thou shalt not power game."

 Traditio wrote:
The people who are having their lists "invalidated" are power gamers...in particular, power gamers who were committing fluff abomination.

Meanwhile, here I am with my battle company, and only slightly fewer than half of my squads had rhinos in the first place.

Really, if you didn't want to have your army invalidated, then you should have been "psychic" enough to listen to people like me in the first place when we said: "Thou shalt not power game."

to be fair every mtg power gamer/ net deckers know this gak happens literally all the time.

 Verviedi wrote:
"The strongest list" is irrelevant. Tau or Eldar armies with 3 Riptides or 90 Scatterbikes or whatever is broken now will work just fine in this edition.

A tactical marine with a multimelta is going to cost 40 ppm.

You think you'll be able to spam scatter bikes?

Maybe.

But I doubt it.

 Traditio wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
"The strongest list" is irrelevant. Tau or Eldar armies with 3 Riptides or 90 Scatterbikes or whatever is broken now will work just fine in this edition.

A tactical marine with a multimelta is going to cost 40 ppm.

You think you'll be able to spam scatter bikes?

Maybe.

But I doubt it.

people will figure out that sweet spot points limit eventually. 3k might be the new 1500k

Desubot wrote:people will figure out that sweet spot points limit eventually. 3k might be the new 1500k

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that spamming scatter bikes will technically be a thing that you can do.

I doubt that it's going to be a particularly competitive option, though.

I'd be surprised to see scatter bikes costing less than 40 ppm.

 Traditio wrote:

Desubot wrote:people will figure out that sweet spot points limit eventually. 3k might be the new 1500k

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that spamming scatter bikes will technically be a thing that you can do.

I doubt that it's going to be a particularly competitive option, though.

I'd be surprised to see scatter bikes costing less than 40 ppm.

im fine with it not being a competitive option. then again we wont know if it wont be.

im honestly excited to see the new meta of there even will be one (there will) depending on how closely balanced the game actually will be.

Traditio, I'd actually be glad to see a general increase in point values across all armies. Games with 70 dudes on each side in 1500 pts are just tiring. I'd rather use a smaller amount of stuff at the same point value. Even small 1k pt games are still soldier-heavy, I could technically run 100 Skitarii Vanguard in 1k.