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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
They invented this type of play right? GW went directly to the ITC circuit for "advise" on how to set up the game in the next edition. OFC they are positive. It is the game they wanted. As few variables as possible.

I mean that's why I've been calling 9th "Tournament Edition" since they started talking about who was involved in the "extensive" playtesting.

Everything about this edition has been done to make it more like ITC/NOVA and so on. Is it any wonder we get gak articles like this terrain one which show off symmetrical tournament boards on GW's idiotic minimum/standard/recommended board size.

DarkHound wrote:If you're playing narrative games, this explicitly doesn't affect you.

And as we keep saying, this isn't strictly true. Look at the board size thing. GW didn't mandate that, but it has become the standard. Every tournament scrambled to introduce that smaller board size. The various mat making companies all fell over one another to be first to market with smaller mats. There's even a mat maker local to Australia, something unheard of given that most of them are in Europe, that exclusively only makes mats in GW's smaller size.

Tournaments inform the rest of the game, and what becomes standard for them spreads out and becomes standard for everyone else. Of course there will be people who never get on that bandwagon, either by choice, disinterest in tournaments, or simply because they have no desire of changing things that they've spent a lot of time and/or money on, but to ignore the influence that these sort of high-level structural changes have to the game is naive.

Why are you always excluding the possibility that people adopted the smaller boards because they actually liked the change? Our group did multiple test games to see which one worked better and we unanimously agreed on smaller boards - and we rarely unanimously agree on anything because we are a rather diverse group.

This is the very same argument that was made back when the rule of 3 was introduced as tournament only rule - it wasn't adopted into regular games because everyone wanted to feel as if they were playing at the LVO, but because people felt like it made their games more enjoyable. Other tournament rules at that time were not adopted into regular games at all, of even completely ignored.

It will be the same here - a lot of people like the smaller boards, that's why they became the standard. From what I gather from this thread, the response to these tables varies between "good enough" and "boring", so I doubt that they will be finding their way into daily 40k any time soon.

 Jidmah wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
They invented this type of play right? GW went directly to the ITC circuit for "advise" on how to set up the game in the next edition. OFC they are positive. It is the game they wanted. As few variables as possible.

I mean that's why I've been calling 9th "Tournament Edition" since they started talking about who was involved in the "extensive" playtesting.

Everything about this edition has been done to make it more like ITC/NOVA and so on. Is it any wonder we get gak articles like this terrain one which show off symmetrical tournament boards on GW's idiotic minimum/standard/recommended board size.

DarkHound wrote:If you're playing narrative games, this explicitly doesn't affect you.

And as we keep saying, this isn't strictly true. Look at the board size thing. GW didn't mandate that, but it has become the standard. Every tournament scrambled to introduce that smaller board size. The various mat making companies all fell over one another to be first to market with smaller mats. There's even a mat maker local to Australia, something unheard of given that most of them are in Europe, that exclusively only makes mats in GW's smaller size.

Tournaments inform the rest of the game, and what becomes standard for them spreads out and becomes standard for everyone else. Of course there will be people who never get on that bandwagon, either by choice, disinterest in tournaments, or simply because they have no desire of changing things that they've spent a lot of time and/or money on, but to ignore the influence that these sort of high-level structural changes have to the game is naive.

Why are you always excluding the possibility that people adopted the smaller boards because they actually liked the change? Our group did multiple test games to see which one worked better and we unanimously agreed on smaller boards - and we rarely unanimously agree on anything because we are a rather diverse group.

This is the very same argument that was made back when the rule of 3 was introduced as tournament only rule - it wasn't adopted into regular games because everyone wanted to feel as if they were playing at the LVO, but because people felt like it made their games more enjoyable. Other tournament rules at that time were not adopted into regular games at all, of even completely ignored.

It will be the same here - a lot of people like the smaller boards, that's why they became the standard. From what I gather from this thread, the response to these tables varies between "good enough" and "boring", so I doubt that they will be finding their way into daily 40k any time soon.

People act like the smaller boards are this big huge deal that limits your tictacs or whatever but the truth is, most boards ended up with massive deadzones around the edges that served no purpose but to accomodate deepstrike charges.

You don't start any closer to your opponent and just about every meaingful gun in 40k can hit the back board edge turn 1 from most deployments so neither of those are affected. Most relevant movement happens around objectives which are almost never in the corners or edges.

The only thing the board change really effects is deepstriking/outflanking and it makes coming in from reserves much more difficult and screening much more doable. You end up sacrificing almost nothing to make dropping in your bomb units much more interesting for both sides of the table.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:


I get the feeling a lot of people who claim they are into narrative play aren't really into narrative play. Have people bought the Crusade books or Warzone Charadon? Because those books are literally made for, and have a lot of rules for, narrative players(a fun campaign in Book of Rust) who want to have fun without the tourney stuff screwing with their day. Hell, even White Dwarf provides missions and scenarios for narrative players.

Plastering rules onto more rules does not a narrative make. 9th is anti-narrative at its core because all the special rules are a generic mish-mash of +1s and rerolls and options within units are becoming increasingly restricted.

If you are restricting your choices to the matched play system then you are not playing narrative. I am having no problem with playing narrative and all this discussion shows is that narrative is such a personal and subjective experience that there are no goal posts available. GW could try their best to please everybody who plays narrative and almost everybody who plays narrative would still complain.

Why are you always excluding the possibility that people adopted the smaller boards because they actually liked the change? Our group did multiple test games to see which one worked better and we unanimously agreed on smaller boards - and we rarely unanimously agree on anything because we are a rather diverse group.

Exactly. My 40k groups love the new mat sizes and the AoS groups were exhilarated to learn that AoS would follow suit. A lot of people love the new mat sizes.

The various mat making companies all fell over one another to be first to market with smaller mats.

That's just smart business. If people want different sizes then there will always be a provider to make them. Even then most of these mat makers also make every other size as there are multiple games out there with different mats. The one in Australia just sounds very targeted at a singular crowd which may or may not be caused by various factors such as scale and what not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Voss wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Yup, after reading this, anti-narrative is how I'd describe the rules.

Stripping away rules from dataslates and making them strats is one of the most anti of them all.

The limits on +/- stuff is boring,

Serious question, how is a limit on dice roll modifiers 'less narrative?'
Especially the way multiple modifiers stack to render certain armies useless.

Some things should be really hard to hit.
Just like it shouldn't be possible to wound some stuff with some weapons.

...or you could, you know, just ignore the hit cap limit in your narrative games and have all the fun.

ERJAK wrote:
The only thing the board change really effects is deepstriking/outflanking and it makes coming in from reserves much more difficult and screening much more doable. You end up sacrificing almost nothing to make dropping in your bomb units much more interesting for both sides of the table.

I agree with you, but I guess we just have different tastes. Our group just found that the game is more interesting when you specifically can't drop your deep strikers or reserves without clearing a path first.

The one other thing it affects (though in much less games) is the ability of slow armies to threaten artillery. On a 6x4 board an ork boy will never be able to touch a fire prism tank, on a 60"x44" the eldar player at least needs to invest some effort to keep it safe.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:


I get the feeling a lot of people who claim they are into narrative play aren't really into narrative play. Have people bought the Crusade books or Warzone Charadon? Because those books are literally made for, and have a lot of rules for, narrative players(a fun campaign in Book of Rust) who want to have fun without the tourney stuff screwing with their day. Hell, even White Dwarf provides missions and scenarios for narrative players.

Plastering rules onto more rules does not a narrative make. 9th is anti-narrative at its core because all the special rules are a generic mish-mash of +1s and rerolls and options within units are becoming increasingly restricted.

If you are restricting your choices to the matched play system then you are not playing narrative. I am having no problem with playing narrative and all this discussion shows is that narrative is such a personal and subjective experience that there are no goal posts available. GW could try their best to please everybody who plays narrative and almost everybody who plays narrative would still complain.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Voss wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Yup, after reading this, anti-narrative is how I'd describe the rules.

Stripping away rules from dataslates and making them strats is one of the most anti of them all.

The limits on +/- stuff is boring,

Serious question, how is a limit on dice roll modifiers 'less narrative?'
Especially the way multiple modifiers stack to render certain armies useless.

Some things should be really hard to hit.
Just like it shouldn't be possible to wound some stuff with some weapons.

...or you could, you know, just ignore the hit cap limit in your narrative games and have all the fun.

Narrative battles is not carte blanche to just make up whatever rules you want under the excuse that "it's thematic to the narrative". People who want narrative games don't want to have to write the entire games themselves. They want a framework with which to enact scenarios and build thematic lists and they want the units in those lists to feel like they represent how the fluff describes them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
The only thing the board change really effects is deepstriking/outflanking and it makes coming in from reserves much more difficult and screening much more doable. You end up sacrificing almost nothing to make dropping in your bomb units much more interesting for both sides of the table.

I agree with you, but I guess we just have different tastes. Our group just found that the game is more interesting when you specifically can't drop your deep strikers or reserves without clearing a path first.

The one other thing it affects (though in much less games) is the ability of slow armies to threaten artillery. On a 6x4 board an ork boy will never be able to touch a fire prism tank, on a 60"x44" the eldar player at least needs to invest some effort to keep it safe.

It's almost like it's artillery and it's SUPPOSED to be far away from where the footsloggers can get to it.

ERJAK wrote:

You don't start any closer to your opponent and just about every meaingful gun in 40k can hit the back board edge turn 1 from most deployments so neither of those are affected. Most relevant movement happens around objectives which are almost never in the corners or edges.

Oh but you do.
You were always going to deploy as far forward as possible. Right up on the line. It doesn't make any difference to YOU how far back your DZ extends. But you have the choice to use that space if you want.
Me? I often like to deploy things as far back in my DZ as humanly possible. Now, no matter what I do, my back line is 2" closer to you. I don't get a choice. :(

 Jidmah wrote:


Why are you always excluding the possibility that people adopted the smaller boards because they actually liked the change? Our group did multiple test games to see which one worked better and we unanimously agreed on smaller boards - and we rarely unanimously agree on anything because we are a rather diverse group.

This is the very same argument that was made back when the rule of 3 was introduced as tournament only rule - it wasn't adopted into regular games because everyone wanted to feel as if they were playing at the LVO, but because people felt like it made their games more enjoyable. Other tournament rules at that time were not adopted into regular games at all, of even completely ignored.

It will be the same here - a lot of people like the smaller boards, that's why they became the standard. From what I gather from this thread, the response to these tables varies between "good enough" and "boring", so I doubt that they will be finding their way into daily 40k any time soon.

I can imagine many tau, tyranid or GK players in 8th ed, who were happy about the rule of 3. People like the smaller boards, because they favour their army, and if they favour the majority of armies, then the rule to use the boards are enforced. It is like point costs. Could people play, theoretically 1250pts games? yes. Will they, of course not, because the majority of people entering the edition have 2000pts or more points, and they have zero entice to play smaller point games.

I play tyranid and I whole heartedly welcomed the rule of 3.

And as we saw in another recent thread, there are quite a lot of hobbyists (myself included) who like to play with less points.

And it might be shocking news to some people, but you can like or dislike changes / rules / policies independently from wether you yourself benefit from it, or not.

a_typical_hero wrote:
And as we saw in another recent thread, there are quite a lot of hobbyists (myself included) who like to play with less points.

And it might be shocking news to some people, but you can like or dislike changes / rules / policies independently from wether you yourself benefit from it, or not.

Totally. And it's worth pointing out that our group agreed on the smaller boards unanimously and only single person was opposed to the rule of 3, which was also the same person spamming 4+ units of ynnari shining spears and dark reapers at that time.

Outside of AdMech, Custodes and Drukhari we have at least two players for every codex.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Voss wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Yup, after reading this, anti-narrative is how I'd describe the rules.

Stripping away rules from dataslates and making them strats is one of the most anti of them all.

The limits on +/- stuff is boring,

Serious question, how is a limit on dice roll modifiers 'less narrative?'
Especially the way multiple modifiers stack to render certain armies useless.

I used to have a post from Dakka saved about this. I can't find it now but the gist was something like this:

If you set up your super sneaky sniper stealth savant Eldar Pathfinders in a concealed position in some terrain vs a Custodes army, the Custodes could jump about about with heavy weapons trying to 720 noscope the Pathfinders and still have the same chance to hit as if they'd just stayed still.

That isn't "less narrative", it's just bad game design. Allowing someone to avoid a penalty that they caused themselves is bad for both narrative and competitive games.

 DarkHound wrote:
This thread is full of weird gatekeeping. 'No, you can't have fun this way. That's not the way the game used to be, and it's not the way I want the game to be. People having fun are wrong and that makes me have less fun.' Look, you can play any way you want, and so can everyone else. If you aren't at a tournament, this literally doesn't affect you.

My experience of Warmachine suggests otherwise - the tournament restrictions bleed out, and almost overnight any variety in games vanishes. Personally, they don't affect me, but that's because I don't have to settle for playing strangers in a shop.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Voss wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Yup, after reading this, anti-narrative is how I'd describe the rules.

Stripping away rules from dataslates and making them strats is one of the most anti of them all.

The limits on +/- stuff is boring,

Serious question, how is a limit on dice roll modifiers 'less narrative?'
Especially the way multiple modifiers stack to render certain armies useless.

I used to have a post from Dakka saved about this. I can't find it now but the gist was something like this:

If you set up your super sneaky sniper stealth savant Eldar Pathfinders in a concealed position in some terrain vs a Custodes army, the Custodes could jump about about with heavy weapons trying to 720 noscope the Pathfinders and still have the same chance to hit as if they'd just stayed still.

That isn't "less narrative", it's just bad game design. Allowing someone to avoid a penalty that they caused themselves is bad for both narrative and competitive games.

Thats a weird way of agreeing with me but I'll take it.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:


I get the feeling a lot of people who claim they are into narrative play aren't really into narrative play. Have people bought the Crusade books or Warzone Charadon? Because those books are literally made for, and have a lot of rules for, narrative players(a fun campaign in Book of Rust) who want to have fun without the tourney stuff screwing with their day. Hell, even White Dwarf provides missions and scenarios for narrative players.

Plastering rules onto more rules does not a narrative make. 9th is anti-narrative at its core because all the special rules are a generic mish-mash of +1s and rerolls and options within units are becoming increasingly restricted.

I'm playing the Behind the Veil missions at the moment, and they absolutely are narrative. We began with an Imperium player (me) and a Necron player (my friend). The Uncover the Answers agenda from that booklet represented my Inquisitor's investigation of Necron ruins coming under attack very well, and the 2nd mission, Anomalous Readings, was likewise a good fit for the Space Wolves arriving in response to their distress call.

None of the special rules provided (all of which are optional anyway) are " a generic mish-mash of +1s and rerolls". Have you actually looked at either of these booklets?

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Voss wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Yup, after reading this, anti-narrative is how I'd describe the rules.

Stripping away rules from dataslates and making them strats is one of the most anti of them all.

The limits on +/- stuff is boring,

Serious question, how is a limit on dice roll modifiers 'less narrative?'
Especially the way multiple modifiers stack to render certain armies useless.

I used to have a post from Dakka saved about this. I can't find it now but the gist was something like this:

If you set up your super sneaky sniper stealth savant Eldar Pathfinders in a concealed position in some terrain vs a Custodes army, the Custodes could jump about about with heavy weapons trying to 720 noscope the Pathfinders and still have the same chance to hit as if they'd just stayed still.

That isn't "less narrative", it's just bad game design. Allowing someone to avoid a penalty that they caused themselves is bad for both narrative and competitive games.

Thats a weird way of agreeing with me but I'll take it.

Well I agree with you as well, poor design tends to effect narrative play the worst. I still shudder at the challenge rules, hurts my narrative soul.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:


None of the special rules provided (all of which are optional anyway) are " a generic mish-mash of +1s and rerolls". Have you actually looked at either of these booklets?

I didn't say they were. I said the special rules at the core of 9th are a generic mish-mash and lumping more rules from scenarios onto them won't fix that.

Abaddon303 wrote:
I had a little play around with what could be shot at from your opponents deployments zone and actually a surpisingly large amount of your deployment zone is either obscured or getting -1 to hit. I think I've done this right anyway...
Yellow is obscured and green is -1 to hit.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
wait the central terrain pieces are obscuring not dense so the entire green space in the middle is obscured too!

Probably the most useful and insightful post in the thread. Really hitting me with a reals not feels vibe compared to the rest of it.

You would in reality have to take into account movement on turn one, which does narrow some of the angles, but you can see some real safe zones in each deployment area to reduce the first turn advantage.

Oh I missed that the middle section is also obscuring. I like obscuring a lot as a terrain rule, but I dislike how much of a crutch it's becoming with game design.

"Weapons are too killy for you? Make every single piece on the board obscuring terrain then so your deployment zone doesn't get shot to pieces. Problem solved."

Again, not opposed to obscuring terrain just wish there was a middle ground available.

Narrative battles is not carte blanche to just make up whatever rules you want under the excuse that "it's thematic to the narrative". People who want narrative games don't want to have to write the entire games themselves. They want a framework with which to enact scenarios and build thematic lists and they want the units in those lists to feel like they represent how the fluff describes them.

Narrative is a carte blanche technically. You are free to modify things as you see fit and everyone in your friend group agrees. It's modification to the existing system why tournament Warhammer exists because a group of players got together and made their own missions and scoring to fill in the holes of a rather broken system that existed before. It's why we have ITC.

So if tournament players were able to modify the existing system why can't narrative players? Hell, ITC events will most likely even ignore the GW terrain layout and use their own, which by some here is a modification to the existing system.

 Eldarsif wrote:

Narrative battles is not carte blanche to just make up whatever rules you want under the excuse that "it's thematic to the narrative". People who want narrative games don't want to have to write the entire games themselves. They want a framework with which to enact scenarios and build thematic lists and they want the units in those lists to feel like they represent how the fluff describes them.

Narrative is a carte blanche technically. You are free to modify things as you see fit and everyone in your friend group agrees. It's modification to the existing system why tournament Warhammer exists because a group of players got together and made their own missions and scoring to fill in the holes of a rather broken system that existed before. It's why we have ITC.

So if tournament players were able to modify the existing system why can't narrative players? Hell, ITC events will most likely even ignore the GW terrain layout and use their own, which by some here is a modification to the existing system.

Tournaments are optional. No one has only the option to play in tournaments because most are run in an established community and when they run one everyone agrees to the conditions of entry. People don't approach narrative play in the same way. Let's take Karol's group as an example. It's pretty clear it's VERY cut-throat and competitive. Say Karol decided he wants to play more narrative games, there is no way on Earth they would let him alter the rules, yet it's his only option for games at all, so he's stuck with the rules as they are. You're approaching this from the usual standpoint of assuming everyone has easy access to multiple, regular, friendly groups where you can test rules to iron out kinks and easily all agree to something.

Even my group is pretty friendly with each other and back when Isabella Von Carstein became a daemon prince during the End Times GW neglected to give her the Daemon rule, making her crap because she couldn't join daemon units or benefit from LoS making her very easy to kill. The guy I regularly played against was obviously not sure about it so even though he agreed I never did try it out because in the event that it would have been over-powered I didn't want him thinking I was trying to be cheesy as he'd be too polite to retract his permission for me to use Isabella because I'd gone to the effort of repainting her to look more Nurgley. Which is another issue with altering the rules, players just aren't good at it, and if someone rocks up with custom rules that turn out to be OP then it sours the group on granting permission again.

There's no reason GW can't design rules that are narratively thematic and somewhat balanced (because let's be honest, 40k will never be well balanced). Dozens of games already do that and have just a fraction of the resources available that GW has, some designers do it in their free time. There's nothing stopping GW from actually improving the game by hiring actually talented designers and dedicated playtester beyond they simply don't want to spend the money to do so. I don't understand why you would have an issue with this as you don't actually lose anything from more thematic rules. If anything you gain a more interesting game.

Right it's unfortunately not a two way street.

More thematic rules gives you flavour.
Less built-in rules & more strats just gives you stuff TO do rather stuff you WANT to do.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

Narrative battles is not carte blanche to just make up whatever rules you want under the excuse that "it's thematic to the narrative". People who want narrative games don't want to have to write the entire games themselves. They want a framework with which to enact scenarios and build thematic lists and they want the units in those lists to feel like they represent how the fluff describes them.

Narrative is a carte blanche technically. You are free to modify things as you see fit and everyone in your friend group agrees. It's modification to the existing system why tournament Warhammer exists because a group of players got together and made their own missions and scoring to fill in the holes of a rather broken system that existed before. It's why we have ITC.

So if tournament players were able to modify the existing system why can't narrative players? Hell, ITC events will most likely even ignore the GW terrain layout and use their own, which by some here is a modification to the existing system.

Tournaments are optional. No one has only the option to play in tournaments because most are run in an established community and when they run one everyone agrees to the conditions of entry. People don't approach narrative play in the same way. Let's take Karol's group as an example. It's pretty clear it's VERY cut-throat and competitive. Say Karol decided he wants to play more narrative games, there is no way on Earth they would let him alter the rules, yet it's his only option for games at all, so he's stuck with the rules as they are. You're approaching this from the usual standpoint of assuming everyone has easy access to multiple, regular, friendly groups where you can test rules to iron out kinks and easily all agree to something.

Even my group is pretty friendly with each other and back when Isabella Von Carstein became a daemon prince during the End Times GW neglected to give her the Daemon rule, making her crap because she couldn't join daemon units or benefit from LoS making her very easy to kill. The guy I regularly played against was obviously not sure about it so even though he agreed I never did try it out because in the event that it would have been over-powered I didn't want him thinking I was trying to be cheesy as he'd be too polite to retract his permission for me to use Isabella because I'd gone to the effort of repainting her to look more Nurgley. Which is another issue with altering the rules, players just aren't good at it, and if someone rocks up with custom rules that turn out to be OP then it sours the group on granting permission again.

There's no reason GW can't design rules that are narratively thematic and somewhat balanced (because let's be honest, 40k will never be well balanced). Dozens of games already do that and have just a fraction of the resources available that GW has, some designers do it in their free time. There's nothing stopping GW from actually improving the game by hiring actually talented designers and dedicated playtester beyond they simply don't want to spend the money to do so. I don't understand why you would have an issue with this as you don't actually lose anything from more thematic rules. If anything you gain a more interesting game.

Even if the "narrative" rules were better - which is btw highly subjective to each and everyone's DNA - it wouldn't change Karol's group. If 40k was super casual ruleset Karol's group would still probably use ITC rulesets and whatnot ruining Karol's enjoyment of the game. Hell, a lot of players in my FLGS went hard into ITC in 7th despite what the ruleset offered and that included casual games. So I doubt the ruleset could have appeased anybody who wanted different as majority of people will shift towards what they enjoy, which at this moment is recommended Match Play offerings and ITC before that.

I do offer my condolences to people who can't get friends or a group of friendly people to enjoy the game with. It appears to be very regional and it appears some zones are friend deserts with not a friendly face in sight. That is what Tolle would prescribe as the pain body of each and every nation, one that must be faced and fought in time. Only time can heal troubled wounds of lonely souls, lest we repeat old atrocities.

I will however say that I am enjoying the narrative content immensely in 9th as well as many others. Again, it's subjective and I am blessed with a great many friendly people who are diverse and fantastic in almost every aspect, and that's saying much considering I come from a small island in the North Atlantic that a US preacher condemned as a feminist hellhole. Which is why I am always flabbergasted by the relatively inhospitable environment elsewhere. Almost everything GW has done in 9th(and 3.0 for AoS) has been an immense boon for us narrative players who are local to me. Hell, even the tourney players are happy so GW has done a lot of good in my neck of the woods except for the usual price hikes that hit us harder every year. Could also do with Aeldari resculpts, but that is the greedy part of me.

I'll be honest. I have seen many complaints about smaller boards and caps on hits, but no argument for why it is more flavorful or better, or even more narrative. Especially considering the fact that me and mine are enjoying the hell out of narrative more now than ever. So whatever arguments I will ultimately make are against a highly volatile and moving goalpost that will never be satisfied, much like the appetite of a great devourer that threatens to consume the sun much like Fenris did in the days of old. This is also perhaps why the gatekeeping argument stems from as this does end up a lot of time being narrative players arguing the "one true narrative playstyle" which is an argument perpetually doomed in infancy as we all have different and varied playstyles.

So my case from this point onwards is simply this: 9th is the best narrative system since I started in 2nd edition.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

Narrative battles is not carte blanche to just make up whatever rules you want under the excuse that "it's thematic to the narrative". People who want narrative games don't want to have to write the entire games themselves. They want a framework with which to enact scenarios and build thematic lists and they want the units in those lists to feel like they represent how the fluff describes them.

Narrative is a carte blanche technically. You are free to modify things as you see fit and everyone in your friend group agrees. It's modification to the existing system why tournament Warhammer exists because a group of players got together and made their own missions and scoring to fill in the holes of a rather broken system that existed before. It's why we have ITC.

So if tournament players were able to modify the existing system why can't narrative players? Hell, ITC events will most likely even ignore the GW terrain layout and use their own, which by some here is a modification to the existing system.

Tournaments are optional. No one has only the option to play in tournaments because most are run in an established community and when they run one everyone agrees to the conditions of entry. People don't approach narrative play in the same way. Let's take Karol's group as an example. It's pretty clear it's VERY cut-throat and competitive. Say Karol decided he wants to play more narrative games, there is no way on Earth they would let him alter the rules, yet it's his only option for games at all, so he's stuck with the rules as they are. You're approaching this from the usual standpoint of assuming everyone has easy access to multiple, regular, friendly groups where you can test rules to iron out kinks and easily all agree to something.

Even my group is pretty friendly with each other and back when Isabella Von Carstein became a daemon prince during the End Times GW neglected to give her the Daemon rule, making her crap because she couldn't join daemon units or benefit from LoS making her very easy to kill. The guy I regularly played against was obviously not sure about it so even though he agreed I never did try it out because in the event that it would have been over-powered I didn't want him thinking I was trying to be cheesy as he'd be too polite to retract his permission for me to use Isabella because I'd gone to the effort of repainting her to look more Nurgley. Which is another issue with altering the rules, players just aren't good at it, and if someone rocks up with custom rules that turn out to be OP then it sours the group on granting permission again.

There's no reason GW can't design rules that are narratively thematic and somewhat balanced (because let's be honest, 40k will never be well balanced). Dozens of games already do that and have just a fraction of the resources available that GW has, some designers do it in their free time. There's nothing stopping GW from actually improving the game by hiring actually talented designers and dedicated playtester beyond they simply don't want to spend the money to do so. I don't understand why you would have an issue with this as you don't actually lose anything from more thematic rules. If anything you gain a more interesting game.

Even if the "narrative" rules were better - which is btw highly subjective to each and everyone's DNA - it wouldn't change Karol's group. If 40k was super casual ruleset Karol's group would still probably use ITC rulesets and whatnot ruining Karol's enjoyment of the game. Hell, a lot of players in my FLGS went hard into ITC in 7th despite what the ruleset offered and that included casual games. So I doubt the ruleset could have appeased anybody who wanted different as majority of people will shift towards what they enjoy, which at this moment is recommended Match Play offerings and ITC before that.

I do offer my condolences to people who can't get friends or a group of friendly people to enjoy the game with. It appears to be very regional and it appears some zones are friend deserts with not a friendly face in sight. That is what Tolle would prescribe as the pain body of each and every nation, one that must be faced and fought in time. Only time can heal troubled wounds of lonely souls, lest we repeat old atrocities.

I will however say that I am enjoying the narrative content immensely in 9th as well as many others. Again, it's subjective and I am blessed with a great many friendly people who are diverse and fantastic in almost every aspect, and that's saying much considering I come from a small island in the North Atlantic that a US preacher condemned as a feminist hellhole. Which is why I am always flabbergasted by the relatively inhospitable environment elsewhere. Almost everything GW has done in 9th(and 3.0 for AoS) has been an immense boon for us narrative players who are local to me. Hell, even the tourney players are happy so GW has done a lot of good in my neck of the woods except for the usual price hikes that hit us harder every year. Could also do with Aeldari resculpts, but that is the greedy part of me.

I'll be honest. I have seen many complaints about smaller boards and caps on hits, but no argument for why it is more flavorful or better, or even more narrative. Especially considering the fact that me and mine are enjoying the hell out of narrative more now than ever. So whatever arguments I will ultimately make are against a highly volatile and moving goalpost that will never be satisfied, much like the appetite of a great devourer that threatens to consume the sun much like Fenris did in the days of old. This is also perhaps why the gatekeeping argument stems from as this does end up a lot of time being narrative players arguing the "one true narrative playstyle" which is an argument perpetually doomed in infancy as we all have different and varied playstyles.

So my case from this point onwards is simply this: 9th is the best narrative system since I started in 2nd edition.

Thats a lot of words to effectively handwave everything I said by saying "It's subjective", accuse me of moving goal posts (which I don't believe I have) and then deciding that from here on your argument will be "I'm having fun so feth you guys, not my problem".

 Sim-Life wrote:
when Isabella Von Carstein became a daemon prince during the End Times

That's... not even remotely what happened, but that's for another thread or PMs.

Thats a lot of words to effectively handwave everything I said by saying "It's subjective", accuse me of moving goal posts (which I don't believe I have) and then deciding that from here on your argument will be "I'm having fun so feth you guys, not my problem".

I am also handwaving my opinion as mine is very subjective due to the nature of the very game we play. Regarding goalposts I am not necessarily referring to you, but the goalposts are highly volatile targets in narrative gaming which I have learned through the entirety of this thread. You are of course free to agree or disagree based on your own terms and there is nothing I can do about that. I think the only goalpost that hasn't really moved is the rose-tinted glasses a lot of individuals have for previous editions, most of which people started when they were bright-eyed and full of wonder for a grimdark world that offered solace in the all too chaotic real world. I mean, I have especially fond memories of second edition - both AD&D and Warhammer - but accept that when I revisit those editions the wonder my childhood held for the property has long since withered and has to get its fix elsewhere.

Regarding my argument from here on now is just accepting the fact that there is no discussion I can make without being in the wrong due to the personal nature of the subject. Whether you read that as a "feth you guys" is a highly subjective take and one I can't prevent due to how personal everyone takes their hobby around here. At the same time, due to me being in the wrong about things, also means I can do the same unto others as subjective takes are after all subjective. So when somebody claims I am in the wrong about narrative gaming being fine - and most of all fun - I can claim at the same time that the same individuals are wrong. Because that's the problem with subjective takes: they lead to a perfect impasse and in the end we are all at the mercy which take GW accepts as the true true.

I mean, do you really believe that I or anyone else is going to change your opinion on a GW property or that your arguments are going change mine? In the end we can only argue into the void and vainly hope that our patron saint we call GW hears the loudest voice, to which my answer would probably be: They probably don't care.

 DarkHound wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
Now, if you do have complaints from a purely competitive perspective, that's fair. I'd, however, point to the top player's opinions like Seigler, Lennon, and Nanavati who've been very positive.

LOL - you know those top players...

They invented this type of play right? GW went directly to the ITC circuit for "advise" on how to set up the game in the next edition. OFC they are positive. It is the game they wanted. As few variables as possible.

That's not a problem, that's how an intelligent organization creates a healthy competitive environment: they listen to the top players. They were among the top players before working with GW directly. It's not a conspiracy where they bend the rules to make themselves personally better at the game (obviously they couldn't even if they wanted)

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The game they want limits variables. Are you implying you'd want a competitive scene with more uncontrollable variables? You can already have any non-competitive format to be anything you want, to be clear.

The battlefield should be a variable. The objective of tournament play is not to make it easier for "top players" to win every game at an event. If anything. The idea should be to make it harder. This game is already in the 2/3s of the outcome is decided by the list - that goes up dramatically when you can design the list to an unchanging battlefield.

The point I am making is they are just making it easier for top lists to win. On that GW board that they just posted. You literally can not win without jetpack/fast melee units - massive indirect fire - or ignore terrain abilities. It is not hard for good players to figure that out.

 Xenomancers wrote:
The point I am making is they are just making it easier for top lists to win. On that GW board that they just posted. You literally can not win without jetpack/fast melee units - massive indirect fire - or ignore terrain abilities. It is not hard for good players to figure that out.

I am far from a tournament player, but the idea of needing to consider things like engaging targets in cover, engaging without LOS, or taking objectives on a cluttered battlefield sounds a lot more interesting than just optimizing for sheer killiness and durability.

Maybe it'll help out armies that have access to effective units that tick all those boxes, but I don't think devaluing the board is ever the right answer.

Edit: To be clear, I 100% agree that having a mix of boards is better, and the game is more interesting when you have to design for and react to a variety of layouts. It's a staple of online gaming and for good reason.

The different types of terrain benefit different types of units and armies.

Ruins primarily just benefit melee infantry and those units that ignore ruins, so if your entire board is just covered in ruins, the meta is going to tilt heavily towards units like terminators, blade guard and similar stuff. If you have no ruins but all dense terrain, heavy shooting units will reign supreme.

Xeno's worries about tournament games being too easily trained could easily be alienated by creating a pool of 12-18 boards and not telling people which ones they are playing before the event starts.

 Jidmah wrote:
The different types of terrain benefit different types of units and armies.

Ruins primarily just benefit melee infantry and those units that ignore ruins, so if your entire board is just covered in ruins, the meta is going to tilt heavily towards units like terminators, blade guard and similar stuff. If you have no ruins but all dense terrain, heavy shooting units will reign supreme.

With how terrain is currently implemented, this is unavoidable to a degree. An army with BS3+ and 3+ saves across the board is going to benefit more from save-boosting cover and be hurt less by -1 to hit than an army that's BS4+ and 5+ saves.

So the quantity of terrain can skew how two armies stack up, in addition to the type.

A set of 'official maps' would be a good way to ensure variety in a regulated competitive environment. Vary the types and quantity of terrain per map. 12-18 might be a burden for TOs to build, but if you had six different types, then in a typical six-round tournament each player would be playing on each map once.

 Jidmah wrote:
Xeno's worries about tournament games being too easily trained could easily be alienated by creating a pool of 12-18 boards and not telling people which ones they are playing before the event starts.

Alright, but that just creates a different, worse problem: your tournament run becomes dictated by luck of the draw for board layouts. It's already an issue that a player can get a streak of easy opponents/army match-ups. You can't realistically accommodate for every possible board. The same way that making a "take all comers" army is a nooby mistake; the best armies pose a problem to their opponent, and don't try to react to every issue. Some factions best strategies are just not going to work on some board layouts.

When you standardize the layout, then the designers can balance the faction toward that layout and the players can plan their strategy toward it. So maybe certain builds of certain factions get shut-out by the standardized board, but ideally that's temporary until they get a balance pass. The alternative, that you get a random draw for the board layout and a random draw for the army match-up, is going to create wild swings in tournament results. The game will become less about player skill and performance.

There is always going to be a metagame. Even if you make a random board layout system, you know what will happen? Tournament armies will skew heavily toward a few builds that can basically ignore terrain layout (like Deathguard and Dark Angels).