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Are they really that bad. I played against the tzeench one twice and he seems to solo a whole army. Now am not saying he is better then the same points in DPs, but at least vs GK he seemed powerful.

 Raichase wrote:
With thanks to liam0404 for their input, it actually makes me want to buy this WD and read the battle report.

One thing a lot of people in this thread seem to be forgetting is that this is a hobby, and it's meant to be fun. Like literally any board game you sit down and play, you have an unspoken contract with your opponent that you're there to have fun. I would argue that both casual gamers like myself and competitive gamers like those featured in the battle report have a responsibility to communicate their gaming goals at the start of the game.

There's nothing wrong with how either camp plays the game. Heck, there's probably a very large, very non-vocal group that sit in the middle of the CAAC and WAAC (I've only used those acronyms as outliers, not intended to insult either camp) that just want to play a fun game with units they think are good.

God knows back when I used to play tournaments (we're talking a while ago, 4th/5th ed), some of the best games I played were against people whom that this forum would have you believe have bought their army specifically to match a list they downloaded off the internet, slapped the minimum three colours on and decided they would sweep a tournament. Except they were lovingly painted armies to their owners highest standard, played in a game with laughter, cheering and good-natured "benefit of the doubt" type attitudes. Yes, it was a trademark "power list" of the day, but it didn't matter because we both had a fun game. Heck, if I went down too fast, I often found myself apologising for not giving them the challenge they were expecting, and they apologised for wiping the floor with me. Both of us wanted the game to go on longer because we were having fun.

It's so easy to take the opponent and their character, their sportsmanship and their hobby energy out of the equation when playing a game like this. Which is easy to do given how a lot of people like to argue hypotheticals in determining unit optimization (which is fine, it's a lot better than comparing anecdotes to determine unit viability), but when it comes to how enjoyable a game is?

If you want to shake my hand before and after the game, have a good laugh whilst we yell at our dice and in a few weeks time forget who actually won or lost? You're my kind of opponent, regardless of what list you bring. Otherwise, you can have a masterclass painted, straight-outta-fluff list and be a sour, rules lawyering individual and I'm not going to have a good time.

I started 40k with and ultra competitive Space Wolves list during the tail end of 5th Ed. Didn't like winning without effort, so I sold the army and stopped playing.

Coming back to 8th older, wiser(?), more mature, I've decided to collect what I like and try to match the level of competitiveness of my local meta. I find the game more fun when winning and losing is based more on my decisions during the game than on what list I bring.

I've got Guard, which is supposed to be one of the best armies at the moment, but I also plan on making a Primaris Army, which is considered one of the worst right now. Heck, my Guard army is mostly infantry with two (three?) tanks. I plan on getting Ogryn, despite them not being the ultra competitive choice.

I play for fun.

Arcanis161 wrote:
I started 40k with and ultra competitive Space Wolves list during the tail end of 5th Ed. Didn't like winning without effort, so I sold the army and stopped playing.

Coming back to 8th older, wiser(?), more mature, I've decided to collect what I like and try to match the level of competitiveness of my local meta. I find the game more fun when winning and losing is based more on my decisions during the game than on what list I bring.

I've got Guard, which is supposed to be one of the best armies at the moment, but I also plan on making a Primaris Army, which is considered one of the worst right now. Heck, my Guard army is mostly infantry with two (three?) tanks. I plan on getting Ogryn, despite them not being the ultra competitive choice.

I play for fun.

The best thing about playing for fun is that when the meta shifts and your list gains or loses power, provided you're playing for the right reasons and with the right people, it doesn't really matter to you, thus your enjoyment doesn't suffer.

 Bosskelot wrote:
I think you really overvalue how much ITC changes about the game.

I think it will depend on the terrain layout of the Itc boards. The newest terrain rules have the possibility to change the game drastically. Having a bunker that is immune to direct fire and any non infantry melee hard nerfs knights (everyone cheers yes) all bikers, all monsters, and all non indirect fire vehicles. It hard buffs all melee infantry (including slam captains) and I think boyz and stealers are going to be a true nightmare to fight against. If there’s even just a couple on a table it can and will create dead zones against any army that specialized in assault infantry

It is such a big deal that if genecults book were to release in enough time to make the tournament, they’d probably take the top table. As it is I think several ork armies are going to have a great showing and there will be at least one in the top 8 of the LVO that will be taking advantage of this rule

You are also going to see just endless piles of indirect fire from Guard detachments and a bunch a hive guard. Indeed nids are another army I will predict hit the top eight with the benefits of this ruling, and this is a far more dark horse opinion than orks making it

It does hurt ynnari a fair amount and knights a bit, but the knights are balanced out by having guard detachments with probably the most indirect fire availability in the game to take advantage of this rule to its fullest


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blndmage wrote:
Personally I'm finding PL far more enjoyable in comparison to points.

Points makes me want to break out math and squeeze out what efficiency I can from my inefficient collection.

PL makes me want to make lists and play.

I get too frustrated with how they assumed stern guard squads would just be all Combi weapons under power level ane made them untakable since Bolter stern guard are some of my favorite marine units and currently the heart of my terrible terrible mechanized Victrix guard list

I actually never even looked at the PL of my custodes


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
The very notion that someone who shows up with:

Space marines
Hellblasters
Azrael
DARK ANGELS
Assorted characters

Is a powergamer, in any sense of understanding, is astounding.

All of those things are very, very bad power wise. They're not used, period, in competitive play.

That's probably a very new Primaris player you're choosing to turn into a bad person because, and I'll put this bluntly based on your series of comments, you're bad at the game.

Incredible.

You could get into the top 50 percent at lvo with the hellblaster murder blob. It’s not a bad list. It’s pretty much the good dark angel list. But it’s not top table competitive


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blndmage wrote:

 Horst wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:

 Horst wrote:


Problem is PL makes me want to just take nothing but the "best" options with no regard for cost... Why would anyone take a leman russ without sponsons when playing PL games? Or why would anyone take a baneblade without 4 sponsons? Instead of worrying about efficiency, you'd just end up taking the strongest option without bothering to make sacrifices for it elsewhere.

Mostly because I play the models I have. I try not to proxy unless I'm sure I'll be able to buy what I'm proxying.
The only time I'm 100% behind ignoring that is with my Counts As forces, but they quickly develop their own stock configurations, leading back to my issue above.

Also, I play Necrons. We have very little customization.

Yea, Necrons don't really have this issue. I play guard though, and a 100 PL army can vary wildly in strength depending on wargear and vehicle loadouts... I see using PL as being far more imbalanced than using points because of that. I don't magnetize my forces, so I can't swap things out, but I really enjoy the "puzzle" of messing around in Army Builder or Battlescribe to try to fit all my units I want into a list... I've ended up with some interesting loadouts for a few models for that reason alone, things I'd never have built if I was using PL as a primary method of building lists.

Also, the rules for Matched Play are far more restrictive than Narritive Play.
It's nice to run super thematic games with no summoning/psyker power cap, or to use the Sentry rules, or Preliminary Bombardment, etc.
There's a ton of cool stuff in the game outside of Matched Play and Points.

You can play narrative play for points, and indeed I prefer to as I find it is way easier to accidentally break power level without trying than to do the same with points

Yeah even when we play Narrative games we still use all the matched play rules and points values because it ensures a more balanced game.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Yeah even when we play Narrative games we still use all the matched play rules and points values because it ensures a more balanced game.

Depends, we have done narrative games for special days/events for the store, like 20k points of tyranids vs everyone else in the store, but all gants comes back every turn and everything else every other turn. The games ends and nids win if no one plays them, but if anyone keeps playing until store closes the nids lose.

Not all narrative it meant to be 1v1 try to win, sometimes its literally for fun, like trying to get a single HQ with a super important artifact across the table and off, the game ends if you have no more characters or the artifact walks off the table, this is fun with IG and you always bring back any dead guardsmen, b.c you know thats fluff and fun. But the other side only has there starting force.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Heh, I refuse to call my army "Astra Militarum" and I refuse to call my stormtroopers "Scions". They're Cadian Imperial Guard, and the elite are Kasrkin, for feth's sake.

So what if you aren’t playing Cadians? What are Scions then?

Storm Troopers - like they were up until Codex: Faux Latin came out...

 Cephalobeard wrote:
I was one of the top Daemon players in the entire ITC last year. Doubt I'd classify myself as a "miserable witch".

As a general rule, most people wouldn't classify themselves in such a way.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
I mean, they just printed a 40k preview for the year that basically stated: "Dear Chaos player, through the various publications we will release this year, it is possible you may be inspired to purchase a single model, maybe. Otherwise, please feel free to take the year off."

Would this be the one on WHC that talks about Black Legion and infers more new Slaanesh stuff?

 Amishprn86 wrote:
[

Not all narrative it meant to be 1v1 try to win, sometimes its literally for fun, like trying to get a single HQ with a super important artifact across the table and off, the game ends if you have no more characters or the artifact walks off the table, this is fun with IG and you always bring back any dead guardsmen, b.c you know thats fluff and fun. But the other side only has there starting force.

What if you know that no matter what you do the opposing army will stop your army, no matter what the objective you invent. An eldar army with their s spears charge range can kill a GK HQ objective carrier anywhere on the table end of turn 2 at best. And if it is some odd middle deployment they kill him on turn one.

I tried playing the game with personal objective, but it just doesn't work. Take or hold objective etc Didn't work. try to have a dude alive at the end of the game worked, but to do that I had to play the clock, and for that I was warned that If I try to do that again people will just not play me again. And it is already hard to find people willing to play vs GK.

Karol wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
[

Not all narrative it meant to be 1v1 try to win, sometimes its literally for fun, like trying to get a single HQ with a super important artifact across the table and off, the game ends if you have no more characters or the artifact walks off the table, this is fun with IG and you always bring back any dead guardsmen, b.c you know thats fluff and fun. But the other side only has there starting force.

What if you know that no matter what you do the opposing army will stop your army, no matter what the objective you invent. An eldar army with their s spears charge range can kill a GK HQ objective carrier anywhere on the table end of turn 2 at best. And if it is some odd middle deployment they kill him on turn one.

I tried playing the game with personal objective, but it just doesn't work. Take or hold objective etc Didn't work. try to have a dude alive at the end of the game worked, but to do that I had to play the clock, and for that I was warned that If I try to do that again people will just not play me again. And it is already hard to find people willing to play vs GK.

You are not talking about playing narrative, you are talking about a narrative mission in a match game, there is a difference.

Ok but playing narrative is like playing golf. Technicaly there are rich enough people to take a plane to scotland and play it there, but saying that golf and street football are both games that are played would be a huge overstatment.

Also what would the difference actualy be? I never played narrative. From what I see here, people say that points, stratagems and most of the other matched played rules are used in narrative games. It is hard for me to imagine how it be better for GK. In fact if CP were not used, then demon players could just get infinite free units playing against GK, and where is the fun in that ?


Are there any GK narrative players blogs or podcasts, if there are any I would like to read those.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Yes, and still, one has to ask, how many fething times does the design team need to learn this lesson before we call them idiots? It's been 18 months, really, as you pointed out, this has been going on for 20+ years. There are truckloads of data out there, there are numerous venues online to find this information that don't involve them having to interact with their playerbase at all (which seems to be the real goal).

Prioritising things differently to you is not the same as being idiots.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Which is probably what they are trying to fix right now. Limiting the options marines can take and all that it sacrifices is customization which kind of sucks but is expected after Chapterhouse.

You mean a, GW being incompetent when it comes to IP law; and b, massively over-reacting to a third party parts company that actually called a spade a spade?

 Cephalobeard wrote:
We have narrative, open, matched play and GW event hosts their own Grand tournaments at their own locations.

And yet the GW GT doesn't use any of the variant rules/scenario packs - so why do we listen to balance concerns from those who aren't actually playing 40k?

Karol wrote:
But isn't it because ITC has a painting score? Where I live that is the only difference between tournament and non tournament lists. The tournament ones are for better or worse all painted, while the ones used by people who don't go to tournaments are almost never painted.

Sounds more like an issue with the people in your area.

And which of your characters are you portraying in this thread, btw?

 Dysartes wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Yes, and still, one has to ask, how many fething times does the design team need to learn this lesson before we call them idiots? It's been 18 months, really, as you pointed out, this has been going on for 20+ years. There are truckloads of data out there, there are numerous venues online to find this information that don't involve them having to interact with their playerbase at all (which seems to be the real goal).

Prioritising things differently to you is not the same as being idiots.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Which is probably what they are trying to fix right now. Limiting the options marines can take and all that it sacrifices is customization which kind of sucks but is expected after Chapterhouse.

You mean a, GW being incompetent when it comes to IP law; and b, massively over-reacting to a third party parts company that actually called a spade a spade?

 Cephalobeard wrote:
We have narrative, open, matched play and GW event hosts their own Grand tournaments at their own locations.

And yet the GW GT doesn't use any of the variant rules/scenario packs - so why do we listen to balance concerns from those who aren't actually playing 40k?

Karol wrote:
But isn't it because ITC has a painting score? Where I live that is the only difference between tournament and non tournament lists. The tournament ones are for better or worse all painted, while the ones used by people who don't go to tournaments are almost never painted.

Sounds more like an issue with the people in your area.

And which of your characters are you portraying in this thread, btw?

Yet, ironically, the folks who run the ITC are GW Playtesters, as are a number of individuals who run their own tournament formats and place well at large events.

It's almost as if being able to manage different rule sets translates skill and knowledge within a game fairly well.

If someone plays legacy in MTG, they probably still know the rules well enough to play well in standard, modern or vintage.

Karol wrote:
Ok but playing narrative is like playing golf. Technicaly there are rich enough people to take a plane to scotland and play it there, but saying that golf and street football are both games that are played would be a huge overstatment.

Also what would the difference actualy be? I never played narrative. From what I see here, people say that points, stratagems and most of the other matched played rules are used in narrative games. It is hard for me to imagine how it be better for GK. In fact if CP were not used, then demon players could just get infinite free units playing against GK, and where is the fun in that ?


Are there any GK narrative players blogs or podcasts, if there are any I would like to read those.

what I find so funny about this is that you're saying that "Narrative gaming" is somehow this rich person's pastime but the meta you constantly describe is by far a much, much more expensive game than a casual meta where everyone brings collections they've had for ages.

If everyone's playing Eldar with tons of shining spears and dark reapers, Drukhari, Custode bike spam, imperial soup with castellans and loyal 32, what that's telling me is that every single person at the place you play must have bought their entire army within the last year and a half, dropping thousands of dollars (or euros or whatever) collectively just to play their little tournament-level meta, because every single thing in all those lists was straight garbage tier or didn't exist before 8th edition.

I've played in several places where every person in attendance had started collecting their army over 5 years ago. Half your stuff inevitably becomes good, or bad, depending on the changing tides of the game edition, and it doesn't matter, you play it anyway because you spent hours painting it a decade ago and you can't be bothered to spend 60$ or whatever the kids these days are paying for a single box of dudes.

the_scotsman wrote:

Karol wrote:
Ok but playing narrative is like playing golf. Technicaly there are rich enough people to take a plane to scotland and play it there, but saying that golf and street football are both games that are played would be a huge overstatment.

Also what would the difference actualy be? I never played narrative. From what I see here, people say that points, stratagems and most of the other matched played rules are used in narrative games. It is hard for me to imagine how it be better for GK. In fact if CP were not used, then demon players could just get infinite free units playing against GK, and where is the fun in that ?


Are there any GK narrative players blogs or podcasts, if there are any I would like to read those.

what I find so funny about this is that you're saying that "Narrative gaming" is somehow this rich person's pastime but the meta you constantly describe is by far a much, much more expensive game than a casual meta where everyone brings collections they've had for ages.

If everyone's playing Eldar with tons of shining spears and dark reapers, Drukhari, Custode bike spam, imperial soup with castellans and loyal 32, what that's telling me is that every single person at the place you play must have bought their entire army within the last year and a half, dropping thousands of dollars (or euros or whatever) collectively just to play their little tournament-level meta, because every single thing in all those lists was straight garbage tier or didn't exist before 8th edition.

I've played in several places where every person in attendance had started collecting their army over 5 years ago. Half your stuff inevitably becomes good, or bad, depending on the changing tides of the game edition, and it doesn't matter, you play it anyway because you spent hours painting it a decade ago and you can't be bothered to spend 60$ or whatever the kids these days are paying for a single box of dudes.

You have to have the luxury of people both willing to play and willing to not completely abuse narrative. It’s easy to accidentally break a narrative game. It is trivial to knowingly break a narrative game.

You mean a, GW being incompetent when it comes to IP law; and b, massively over-reacting to a third party parts company that actually called a spade a spade?

Yes.

I mean they are incompetent its why they are changing the names on everything like Eldar to Aeldari, Dark Eldar to Drukhari , or imperial guard to Astra Millitarium etc.

Its stupid no doubt but its understandable hasbro did something similar to protect their IP.

RE: Narrative

You *CAN* treat it like a Matched Play game with a Narrative Play scenario. But honestly, a narrative game is so much more. If that's all you're doing and calling it narrative, no wonder it doesn't seem like much.

For me, the major difference is the mindset. In a narrative game, you aren't choosing units willy-nilly. There is a reason for everything in your army, and most of the time it's not chosen because of effectiveness but logistics (how common would this unit be) or, if you're fighting a battle that is in the fluff, what was physically there.

To understand Narrative Play, you need to understand its roots in historical wargaming in the days of yore. When you would decide to refight Waterloo, or the Invasion of Normandy, or Agincourt, or any other historical battle, and either decide to refight it as it was and see if you could do better/worse than history, or often a "what if" scenario where you explored what might have happened if an army that came late turned up in time, or if a maneuver was made across a different area or attacking a different area than what really happened.

In these situations, you pick an army based on something more than "how well does it play". You might, for example, take an understrength unit just because you feel that unit may have suffered losses in the last battle and not had time to replenish. You might take a mix of weapons, even if it's not as effective, because it's more realistic that the unit would have been equipped with that. To put this into context, you would NEVER see a historical wargamer take all cavalry and cannons because "it's more efficient", unless they were playing a specific scenario where their force had/would have used an all mounted force with artillery support. "Because it's better" is never a factor for a narrative gamer.

In short, to not wax too philosophical here, Narrative requires a very specific mindset; one not born of a desire to win but a desire to tell a story. This is also why true Narrative scenarios often have completely different victory conditions: So even if your forces are outnumbered, you win if you survive until Turn 5 because you can send a distress signal. You ultimately "lose", but in the story, your brave sacrifice enabled the other forces to rally, because you alerted them.

If you ever approach picking a Narrative army with looking at a unit's effectiveness in game, or try to force-fit a min/maxed army into the narrative (e.g. "Well my story army is a depleted platoon of Guardsmen, Mephiston and an Honour Guard, and a Knight House!") then that's missing the point of Narrative completely because you're already approaching it from the wrong point of view.

Sure, you can pretend Narrative is just Matched Play with a different scenario, but it goes deeper than that. Narrative Play is how you play the game just as much as the story surrounding the game. A Narrative player may throw their Warlord into combat even when they should hang back and shoot because their Warlord is hot-headed. It's injecting something of an actual personality and character, other than "do the most optimal thing" and being okay with the fact you're doing it. It's NOT always doing the best action, or taking the best unit, because it doesn't fit. It's playing with Power Level and not immediately thinking "Ah ha, I'll take all the best upgrades because it's all free!" (and again, if that's your immediate thought when the words "Power Level" are mentioned, you're missing the point of it and probably should stick with points because you can't be trusted to not abuse Power Level)

Wayniac wrote:
RE: Narrative

You *CAN* treat it like a Matched Play game with a Narrative Play scenario. But honestly, a narrative game is so much more. If that's all you're doing and calling it narrative, no wonder it doesn't seem like much.

For me, the major difference is the mindset. In a narrative game, you aren't choosing units willy-nilly. There is a reason for everything in your army, and most of the time it's not chosen because of effectiveness but logistics (how common would this unit be) or, if you're fighting a battle that is in the fluff, what was physically there.

To understand Narrative Play, you need to understand its roots in historical wargaming in the days of yore. When you would decide to refight Waterloo, or the Invasion of Normandy, or Agincourt, or any other historical battle, and either decide to refight it as it was and see if you could do better/worse than history, or often a "what if" scenario where you explored what might have happened if an army that came late turned up in time, or if a maneuver was made across a different area or attacking a different area than what really happened.

In these situations, you pick an army based on something more than "how well does it play". You might, for example, take an understrength unit just because you feel that unit may have suffered losses in the last battle and not had time to replenish. You might take a mix of weapons, even if it's not as effective, because it's more realistic that the unit would have been equipped with that.

In short, to not wax too philosophical here, Narrative requires a very specific mindset; one not born of a desire to win but a desire to tell a story. This is also why true Narrative scenarios often have completely different victory conditions: So even if your forces are outnumbered, you win if you survive until Turn 5 because you can send a distress signal. You ultimately "lose", but in the story, your brave sacrifice enabled the other forces to rally, because you alerted them.

If you ever approach picking a Narrative army with looking at a unit's effectiveness in game, or try to force-fit a min/maxed army into the narrative (e.g. "Well my story army is a depleted platoon of Guardsmen, Mephiston and an Honour Guard, and a Knight House!") then that's missing the point of Narrative completely because you're already approaching it from the wrong point of view.

Sure, you can pretend Narrative is just Matched Play with a different stratagem, but it goes deeper than that. Narrative Play is how you play the game just as much as the story surrounding the game. A Narrative player may throw their Warlord into combat even when they should hang back and shoot because their Warlord is hot-headed. It's injecting something of an actual personality and character, other than "do the most optimal thing" and being okay with the fact you're doing it. It's NOT always doing the best action, or taking the best unit, because it doesn't fit.

As a great example you would probably see more tactical marines than a bunch of captains with thunder hammers in narrative play. Thunder hammers are not that common, nor are blood angel captains or mephiston, Mephiston would only come out if there were big fish to fry. And he would not leave the blood angels especially at this time and place and would be accompained by an honor guard.

Tactical marines would act as a shield.

While in a guard army it would be mostly conscript, some vets, and mortars and a huge trenchline, the guardsmen just sitting on their butts waiting for a chargeline.

 Asherian Command wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
RE: Narrative

You *CAN* treat it like a Matched Play game with a Narrative Play scenario. But honestly, a narrative game is so much more. If that's all you're doing and calling it narrative, no wonder it doesn't seem like much.

For me, the major difference is the mindset. In a narrative game, you aren't choosing units willy-nilly. There is a reason for everything in your army, and most of the time it's not chosen because of effectiveness but logistics (how common would this unit be) or, if you're fighting a battle that is in the fluff, what was physically there.

To understand Narrative Play, you need to understand its roots in historical wargaming in the days of yore. When you would decide to refight Waterloo, or the Invasion of Normandy, or Agincourt, or any other historical battle, and either decide to refight it as it was and see if you could do better/worse than history, or often a "what if" scenario where you explored what might have happened if an army that came late turned up in time, or if a maneuver was made across a different area or attacking a different area than what really happened.

In these situations, you pick an army based on something more than "how well does it play". You might, for example, take an understrength unit just because you feel that unit may have suffered losses in the last battle and not had time to replenish. You might take a mix of weapons, even if it's not as effective, because it's more realistic that the unit would have been equipped with that.

In short, to not wax too philosophical here, Narrative requires a very specific mindset; one not born of a desire to win but a desire to tell a story. This is also why true Narrative scenarios often have completely different victory conditions: So even if your forces are outnumbered, you win if you survive until Turn 5 because you can send a distress signal. You ultimately "lose", but in the story, your brave sacrifice enabled the other forces to rally, because you alerted them.

If you ever approach picking a Narrative army with looking at a unit's effectiveness in game, or try to force-fit a min/maxed army into the narrative (e.g. "Well my story army is a depleted platoon of Guardsmen, Mephiston and an Honour Guard, and a Knight House!") then that's missing the point of Narrative completely because you're already approaching it from the wrong point of view.

Sure, you can pretend Narrative is just Matched Play with a different stratagem, but it goes deeper than that. Narrative Play is how you play the game just as much as the story surrounding the game. A Narrative player may throw their Warlord into combat even when they should hang back and shoot because their Warlord is hot-headed. It's injecting something of an actual personality and character, other than "do the most optimal thing" and being okay with the fact you're doing it. It's NOT always doing the best action, or taking the best unit, because it doesn't fit.

As a great example you would probably see more tactical marines than a bunch of captains with thunder hammers in narrative play. Thunder hammers are not that common, nor are blood angel captains or mephiston, Mephiston would only come out if there were big fish to fry. And he would not leave the blood angels especially at this time and place and would be accompained by an honor guard.

Tactical marines would act as a shield.

While in a guard army it would be mostly conscript, some vets, and mortars and a huge trenchline, the guardsmen just sitting on their butts waiting for a chargeline.

The Guard Army would also be mostly regular lasgun infantry, maybe with flamers. Some people tend to give everyone plasma guns and lascannons... these weapons are mythically rare and would not be common in the hands of imperial guard troopers.

 Horst wrote:

Spoiler:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
RE: Narrative

You *CAN* treat it like a Matched Play game with a Narrative Play scenario. But honestly, a narrative game is so much more. If that's all you're doing and calling it narrative, no wonder it doesn't seem like much.

For me, the major difference is the mindset. In a narrative game, you aren't choosing units willy-nilly. There is a reason for everything in your army, and most of the time it's not chosen because of effectiveness but logistics (how common would this unit be) or, if you're fighting a battle that is in the fluff, what was physically there.

To understand Narrative Play, you need to understand its roots in historical wargaming in the days of yore. When you would decide to refight Waterloo, or the Invasion of Normandy, or Agincourt, or any other historical battle, and either decide to refight it as it was and see if you could do better/worse than history, or often a "what if" scenario where you explored what might have happened if an army that came late turned up in time, or if a maneuver was made across a different area or attacking a different area than what really happened.

In these situations, you pick an army based on something more than "how well does it play". You might, for example, take an understrength unit just because you feel that unit may have suffered losses in the last battle and not had time to replenish. You might take a mix of weapons, even if it's not as effective, because it's more realistic that the unit would have been equipped with that.

In short, to not wax too philosophical here, Narrative requires a very specific mindset; one not born of a desire to win but a desire to tell a story. This is also why true Narrative scenarios often have completely different victory conditions: So even if your forces are outnumbered, you win if you survive until Turn 5 because you can send a distress signal. You ultimately "lose", but in the story, your brave sacrifice enabled the other forces to rally, because you alerted them.

If you ever approach picking a Narrative army with looking at a unit's effectiveness in game, or try to force-fit a min/maxed army into the narrative (e.g. "Well my story army is a depleted platoon of Guardsmen, Mephiston and an Honour Guard, and a Knight House!") then that's missing the point of Narrative completely because you're already approaching it from the wrong point of view.

Sure, you can pretend Narrative is just Matched Play with a different stratagem, but it goes deeper than that. Narrative Play is how you play the game just as much as the story surrounding the game. A Narrative player may throw their Warlord into combat even when they should hang back and shoot because their Warlord is hot-headed. It's injecting something of an actual personality and character, other than "do the most optimal thing" and being okay with the fact you're doing it. It's NOT always doing the best action, or taking the best unit, because it doesn't fit.

As a great example you would probably see more tactical marines than a bunch of captains with thunder hammers in narrative play. Thunder hammers are not that common, nor are blood angel captains or mephiston, Mephiston would only come out if there were big fish to fry. And he would not leave the blood angels especially at this time and place and would be accompained by an honor guard.

Tactical marines would act as a shield.

While in a guard army it would be mostly conscript, some vets, and mortars and a huge trenchline, the guardsmen just sitting on their butts waiting for a chargeline.

The Guard Army would also be mostly regular lasgun infantry, maybe with flamers. Some people tend to give everyone plasma guns and lascannons... these weapons are mythically rare and would not be common in the hands of imperial guard troopers.

I'd agree that plasma guns (and pistols) should be rare, but I'd disagree on lascannon being "mythically" rare. If nothing else, Guardsmen would be reasonably familiar with them as a hull mount on a Russ, and while I suspect Infantry lascannon would be more common as Heavy Weapon Squads, I'd say they would still appear infrequently in standard squads if the situation seemed appropriate.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Horst wrote:

Spoiler:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
RE: Narrative

You *CAN* treat it like a Matched Play game with a Narrative Play scenario. But honestly, a narrative game is so much more. If that's all you're doing and calling it narrative, no wonder it doesn't seem like much.

For me, the major difference is the mindset. In a narrative game, you aren't choosing units willy-nilly. There is a reason for everything in your army, and most of the time it's not chosen because of effectiveness but logistics (how common would this unit be) or, if you're fighting a battle that is in the fluff, what was physically there.

To understand Narrative Play, you need to understand its roots in historical wargaming in the days of yore. When you would decide to refight Waterloo, or the Invasion of Normandy, or Agincourt, or any other historical battle, and either decide to refight it as it was and see if you could do better/worse than history, or often a "what if" scenario where you explored what might have happened if an army that came late turned up in time, or if a maneuver was made across a different area or attacking a different area than what really happened.

In these situations, you pick an army based on something more than "how well does it play". You might, for example, take an understrength unit just because you feel that unit may have suffered losses in the last battle and not had time to replenish. You might take a mix of weapons, even if it's not as effective, because it's more realistic that the unit would have been equipped with that.

In short, to not wax too philosophical here, Narrative requires a very specific mindset; one not born of a desire to win but a desire to tell a story. This is also why true Narrative scenarios often have completely different victory conditions: So even if your forces are outnumbered, you win if you survive until Turn 5 because you can send a distress signal. You ultimately "lose", but in the story, your brave sacrifice enabled the other forces to rally, because you alerted them.

If you ever approach picking a Narrative army with looking at a unit's effectiveness in game, or try to force-fit a min/maxed army into the narrative (e.g. "Well my story army is a depleted platoon of Guardsmen, Mephiston and an Honour Guard, and a Knight House!") then that's missing the point of Narrative completely because you're already approaching it from the wrong point of view.

Sure, you can pretend Narrative is just Matched Play with a different stratagem, but it goes deeper than that. Narrative Play is how you play the game just as much as the story surrounding the game. A Narrative player may throw their Warlord into combat even when they should hang back and shoot because their Warlord is hot-headed. It's injecting something of an actual personality and character, other than "do the most optimal thing" and being okay with the fact you're doing it. It's NOT always doing the best action, or taking the best unit, because it doesn't fit.

As a great example you would probably see more tactical marines than a bunch of captains with thunder hammers in narrative play. Thunder hammers are not that common, nor are blood angel captains or mephiston, Mephiston would only come out if there were big fish to fry. And he would not leave the blood angels especially at this time and place and would be accompained by an honor guard.

Tactical marines would act as a shield.

While in a guard army it would be mostly conscript, some vets, and mortars and a huge trenchline, the guardsmen just sitting on their butts waiting for a chargeline.

The Guard Army would also be mostly regular lasgun infantry, maybe with flamers. Some people tend to give everyone plasma guns and lascannons... these weapons are mythically rare and would not be common in the hands of imperial guard troopers.

I'd agree that plasma guns (and pistols) should be rare, but I'd disagree on lascannon being "mythically" rare. If nothing else, Guardsmen would be reasonably familiar with them as a hull mount on a Russ, and while I suspect Infantry lascannon would be more common as Heavy Weapon Squads, I'd say they would still appear infrequently in standard squads if the situation seemed appropriate.

Meanwhile the Tempestus Scions can have just about anything they want for weapons and won’t bother with tanks, preferring Valkyries and Taurox Primes.

 Horst wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
RE: Narrative

You *CAN* treat it like a Matched Play game with a Narrative Play scenario. But honestly, a narrative game is so much more. If that's all you're doing and calling it narrative, no wonder it doesn't seem like much.

For me, the major difference is the mindset. In a narrative game, you aren't choosing units willy-nilly. There is a reason for everything in your army, and most of the time it's not chosen because of effectiveness but logistics (how common would this unit be) or, if you're fighting a battle that is in the fluff, what was physically there.

To understand Narrative Play, you need to understand its roots in historical wargaming in the days of yore. When you would decide to refight Waterloo, or the Invasion of Normandy, or Agincourt, or any other historical battle, and either decide to refight it as it was and see if you could do better/worse than history, or often a "what if" scenario where you explored what might have happened if an army that came late turned up in time, or if a maneuver was made across a different area or attacking a different area than what really happened.

In these situations, you pick an army based on something more than "how well does it play". You might, for example, take an understrength unit just because you feel that unit may have suffered losses in the last battle and not had time to replenish. You might take a mix of weapons, even if it's not as effective, because it's more realistic that the unit would have been equipped with that.

In short, to not wax too philosophical here, Narrative requires a very specific mindset; one not born of a desire to win but a desire to tell a story. This is also why true Narrative scenarios often have completely different victory conditions: So even if your forces are outnumbered, you win if you survive until Turn 5 because you can send a distress signal. You ultimately "lose", but in the story, your brave sacrifice enabled the other forces to rally, because you alerted them.

If you ever approach picking a Narrative army with looking at a unit's effectiveness in game, or try to force-fit a min/maxed army into the narrative (e.g. "Well my story army is a depleted platoon of Guardsmen, Mephiston and an Honour Guard, and a Knight House!") then that's missing the point of Narrative completely because you're already approaching it from the wrong point of view.

Sure, you can pretend Narrative is just Matched Play with a different stratagem, but it goes deeper than that. Narrative Play is how you play the game just as much as the story surrounding the game. A Narrative player may throw their Warlord into combat even when they should hang back and shoot because their Warlord is hot-headed. It's injecting something of an actual personality and character, other than "do the most optimal thing" and being okay with the fact you're doing it. It's NOT always doing the best action, or taking the best unit, because it doesn't fit.

As a great example you would probably see more tactical marines than a bunch of captains with thunder hammers in narrative play. Thunder hammers are not that common, nor are blood angel captains or mephiston, Mephiston would only come out if there were big fish to fry. And he would not leave the blood angels especially at this time and place and would be accompained by an honor guard.

Tactical marines would act as a shield.

While in a guard army it would be mostly conscript, some vets, and mortars and a huge trenchline, the guardsmen just sitting on their butts waiting for a chargeline.

The Guard Army would also be mostly regular lasgun infantry, maybe with flamers. Some people tend to give everyone plasma guns and lascannons... these weapons are mythically rare and would not be common in the hands of imperial guard troopers.

Neither of these weapons are particularly rare

Plasma is rare. It was before cawl came around a dying technology.

While incredibly destructive plasma weapons are a mostly lost technology from the standpoint of the contemporary Imperium of Man, seen as relics of another age. Their workings are a mystery for the most part, and only a select few circles of the Adeptus Mechanicus know how to construct them. Even among the Space Marine Chapters these weapons are considered uncommon, with the Dark Angels maintaining the largest inventory and the knowledge necessary to construct more; Space Marine plasma weapons also use hydrogen in higher quantum state than standard models, pushing the limits of their own resilience. Most existing plasma weapons are hundreds if not thousands of years old and those few new ones constructed are done so individually, requiring extensive blessing and rituals by the Machine God before use.

Flamers are much more common, Grav weaponry is ancient, lascannons, on the other hand, are just beefed up lasguns.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Plasma is rare. It was before cawl came around a dying technology.

It wasn’t. Find a citation stating it’s dying nature.

stratigo wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Plasma is rare. It was before cawl came around a dying technology.

It wasn’t. Find a citation stating it’s dying nature.

Most existing plasma weapons are hundreds if not thousands of years old

Lexicanum http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Plasma_weapon

1: Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition Rulebook, pg. 60
2: Warhammer 40,000: Wargear (2nd Edition)
2a: pg. 32
2b: pg. 37
3: Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, pg. 134
4: Rogue Trader Core Rulebook, pg. 123
5: Deathwatch Core Rulebook

stratigo wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Plasma is rare. It was before cawl came around a dying technology.

It wasn’t. Find a citation stating it’s dying nature.

The current 8th Edition Astra Militarum codex has this to say on Page 51:

Codex: Astra Militarum wrote:Gradually, over the millennia, knowledge of plasma technology has been lost, and the Executioner is now a rare relic.

Obviously, it specifically refers to the Executioner, but is further supporting evidence from the current edition of the game to what has already been provided.

 Asherian Command wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Plasma is rare. It was before cawl came around a dying technology.

It wasn’t. Find a citation stating it’s dying nature.

Most existing plasma weapons are hundreds if not thousands of years old

Lexicanum http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Plasma_weapon

1: Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition Rulebook, pg. 60
2: Warhammer 40,000: Wargear (2nd Edition)
2a: pg. 32
2b: pg. 37
3: Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, pg. 134
4: Rogue Trader Core Rulebook, pg. 123
5: Deathwatch Core Rulebook

Wikipedia is not a citation my friend. There’s a lot of old tech that the imperium makes new versions of regularly. There’s an entire forge world who is famous for its plasma weaponry.

There’s an entire forge world who is famous for its plasma weaponry.

Citation needed

Other than the Dark Angels who have ready access to it whenever its not as common as one would think, and forgeworlds are notorious for withholding resources.

Wikipedia is not a citation my friend.

And Wikipedia especially Lexi is a valuable resource that is meticulously sourced. Its not warhammer 40k wiki which is written poorly and maintained poorly. Lexi does not have that issue at all. They are just slow to update but have very harsh rules.

Obviously, it specifically refers to the Executioner, but is further supporting evidence from the current edition of the game to what has already been provided.

It can be inferred that they are general talking about plasma as well. I doubt guardsmen have nearly as much access to plasma weaponry as space marines do.

stratigo wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Plasma is rare. It was before cawl came around a dying technology.

It wasn’t. Find a citation stating it’s dying nature.

Most existing plasma weapons are hundreds if not thousands of years old

Lexicanum http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Plasma_weapon

1: Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition Rulebook, pg. 60
2: Warhammer 40,000: Wargear (2nd Edition)
2a: pg. 32
2b: pg. 37
3: Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, pg. 134
4: Rogue Trader Core Rulebook, pg. 123
5: Deathwatch Core Rulebook

Wikipedia is not a citation my friend. There’s a lot of old tech that the imperium makes new versions of regularly. There’s an entire forge world who is famous for its plasma weaponry.

Way to move the goal posts, you asked for sources and they were provided. Plasma was until recently fairly rare. Most guard squads are far more likely to have a flamer or grenade launcher than a PG.

Another example RE: Narrative, albeit odd bit it just popped into my head:

In the Badab War book from FW, it mentioned that the Fire Angels chapter don't have a lot of plasma weapons (I think because they were fleet based, I don't 100% remember the reason) and specifically mentions that a lot of their Tactical Squads use a Meltagun and Heavy Bolter for a very "all around" approach.

The Narrative Player would probably build most of their Tactical Squads with Meltagun and Heavy Bolter, rather than go for more optimal options (that's not to say they might not have a squad or two with Plasma, but it would be the minority).

stratigo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Karol wrote:
Ok but playing narrative is like playing golf. Technicaly there are rich enough people to take a plane to scotland and play it there, but saying that golf and street football are both games that are played would be a huge overstatment.

Also what would the difference actualy be? I never played narrative. From what I see here, people say that points, stratagems and most of the other matched played rules are used in narrative games. It is hard for me to imagine how it be better for GK. In fact if CP were not used, then demon players could just get infinite free units playing against GK, and where is the fun in that ?


Are there any GK narrative players blogs or podcasts, if there are any I would like to read those.

what I find so funny about this is that you're saying that "Narrative gaming" is somehow this rich person's pastime but the meta you constantly describe is by far a much, much more expensive game than a casual meta where everyone brings collections they've had for ages.

If everyone's playing Eldar with tons of shining spears and dark reapers, Drukhari, Custode bike spam, imperial soup with castellans and loyal 32, what that's telling me is that every single person at the place you play must have bought their entire army within the last year and a half, dropping thousands of dollars (or euros or whatever) collectively just to play their little tournament-level meta, because every single thing in all those lists was straight garbage tier or didn't exist before 8th edition.

I've played in several places where every person in attendance had started collecting their army over 5 years ago. Half your stuff inevitably becomes good, or bad, depending on the changing tides of the game edition, and it doesn't matter, you play it anyway because you spent hours painting it a decade ago and you can't be bothered to spend 60$ or whatever the kids these days are paying for a single box of dudes.

You have to have the luxury of people both willing to play and willing to not completely abuse narrative. It’s easy to accidentally break a narrative game. It is trivial to knowingly break a narrative game.

Yup. Usually, if you start with people who are

A) old, and don't have any particular need to pretend winning a game is proportional to the size of their pee-pees

B ) cheap, and not interested in rushing out and ebaying 500$ of miniatures

C) more interested in a loss that takes a solid 4 hours and a few beers to get through rather than a 90 minute turn 2 win

then you don't have a problem creating yourself a casual game meta.

The whole "but the game's so imbalanced that if people have random collections one guy will accidentally have the uber-l33t competitive eldar list and will stomp everyone" narrative that gets trotted out is, in my experience at least, incredibly rare. The guy with the super old Eldar collection that includes shining spears and Dark Reapers doesn't win any more or any less than anyone else, because his army list is usually something like

battalion

autarch on foot
farseer on foot
avatar of khaine

dire avengers on foot
guardians in a wave serpent
guardians on foot

3 shining spears
5 dark reapers with a shuriken cannon exarch
5 howling banshees on foot
2 wraithlords

Oh look, you've got two units in there that are used in competitive tournament lists on accident. well, good thing you've got 90% of the points into stuff that's not even close to tournament viable because that's the percentage of the units in the game that aren't, you're not running them as Ynnari because "what? no, they're biel tan. See, they're painted green. What even is that?" and there's not enough of them in the list for most people to even really notice them being particularly powerful.

Sure, if you ask people what they think of the game balance, they'll complain about it, but then they'll complain about things that aren't even close to a balance issue, and they're usually pretty funny complaints. "Yeah, you know what I hate? Terminators. Darn things. Why'd they make them so tough! 2+ armor saves, can you believe it? Anything but a one...jeez."