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Close combat rules preview:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/16/close-combat-is-a-deadly-dance-of-death-in-new-kill-team/

tneva82 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Is it dumb and pointless? Yes. but it is what it is.

Hard disagree. As an amateur game designer, exploring "proprietary tools" has opened up avenues for me in terms of mechanics design that I either would never have available to me or which would require a lot of additional complexity to accomplish using a tape measure and regular d6 or whatever.
.

Well these symbols have yet shown anything that can't be done with inch or cm that really matter. Or would white circle being 0.957" really open designs?

Same for dice. 6 sides with symbols, nothing reqular d6 couldn't do.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's geometry with extra steps. It takes something that most people inherently know how to operate, especially in the context of a board/skirmish game, and complicates things for... what, exactly?

Im not going to repeat myself any further on this topic as I've written pages about it already in this thread and others. You can go through some of my recent posts to see examples of why you would use symbols instead of numbers and various mechanical concepts that would make the use of a number in their place problematic if you care that much.

Picture of Grey Knights vs Bloodletters in the article certainly implies expanded factions

They revealed in more depth how the movement system works.

Awful.

They should have just used numbers. As user kodos theorized, they used the shapes because they saw others doing it, but had no idea why they were doing it.

chaos0xomega wrote:
They revealed in more depth how the movement system works.

Awful.

They should have just used numbers. As user kodos theorized, they used the shapes because they saw others doing it, but had no idea why they were doing it.

Goddamnit GW....

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Man if someone had told that one day I would lose all interest in a long-awaited game because of the ruler...

I'd have said they were nuts.

Game? What game? Just in for the minis

BTW where are the Nids?!

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Man if someone had told that one day I would lose all interest in a long-awaited game because of the ruler...

I'd have said they were nuts.

Game? What game? Just in for the minis

BTW where are the Nids?!

Honestly, I'll probably still buy it for the models, lol.

Though I would love it if the game was also good, what I'm reading so far makes it just look like a mess.

I guess if the game really is worth nothing I might just wait for the DKOK to come out separately and forego the Orks and Orky terrain.

chaos0xomega wrote:
They revealed in more depth how the movement system works.

Awful.

They should have just used numbers. As user kodos theorized, they used the shapes because they saw others doing it, but had no idea why they were doing it.

Predictably so. Somewhere in those long posts of yours you praised proprietary tools with the caveat, and I'm only going to paraphrase here, if done well. You can save yourself a whole lot of typing in a thread about a GW game and just write that. GW's current rules designers aren't good at their job. Haven't been since they fully took over from the older designers that used to work at GW, and haven't gotten any better since.

That's if you define their job as designing games. More accurately they're there to help sell toy soldiers. They seem to be better at that.

Didn't you even speculate yourself earlier that some GW manager may have seen others use proprietary tools and mandated their inclusion in Kill Team without any game related reason? Well, here we are. And I'll just repeat myself: predictably so.

chaos0xomega wrote:
You can go through some of my recent posts to see examples of why you would use symbols instead of numbers and various mechanical concepts that would make the use of a number in their place problematic if you care that much.

Maybe I missed it, but I flicked through your posts and saw no compelling reason to use symbols that represent distances instead of just the actual distances. Some hand wavy stuff about exploring new concepts (which I don't disagree with, but there's nothing new about using symbols for numbers), then a couple of examples that'd work totally fine using regular Arabic numbers and inches.

It just makes the game harder to learn. Everyone knows 2 is bigger than 1 and 3 is bigger than 2, but know you need to remember that circle is bigger than triangle, and square is bigger than circle (they didn't even make it logical like linking the number of sides to the number it represents).

 Geifer wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
They revealed in more depth how the movement system works.

Awful.

They should have just used numbers. As user kodos theorized, they used the shapes because they saw others doing it, but had no idea why they were doing it.

Predictably so. Somewhere in those long posts of yours you praised proprietary tools with the caveat, and I'm only going to paraphrase here, if done well. You can save yourself a whole lot of typing in a thread about a GW game and just write that. GW's current rules designers aren't good at their job. Haven't been since they fully took over from the older designers that used to work at GW, and haven't gotten any better since.

That's if you define their job as designing games. More accurately they're there to help sell toy soldiers. They seem to be better at that.

Didn't you even speculate yourself earlier that some GW manager may have seen others use proprietary tools and mandated their inclusion in Kill Team without any game related reason? Well, here we are. And I'll just repeat myself: predictably so.

I did, but I had hoped that implementing modern design paradigms had meant there was a shift in thinking within the office, etc. and this wasn't just more of the same old same old.

Also, I will say that GWs old rules designers weren't really good at their jobs either. Andy Chambers was an exception (though I'm not a huge fan of BFG) but he proved himself after leaving GW on some innovative designs elsewhere. James Hewitt (designer of Adeptus Titanicus) is also a real gem who doesn't get nearly as much credit as he deserves, but he also quit GW some years ago.

chaos0xomega wrote:
They revealed in more depth how the movement system works.

Awful.

They should have just used numbers. As user kodos theorized, they used the shapes because they saw others doing it, but had no idea why they were doing it.

GW won't have to make a metric version of the game with 2.54/5.08/7.62/15.24 cm measurements since not everyone uses the superior British Imperial/US Customary system of measurements

 porkuslime wrote:
Picture of Grey Knights vs Bloodletters in the article certainly implies expanded factions

The Kill Team website lists all the units that will feature in the game. Bloodletters and Grey Knights are in the game from the start...

https://warhammer40000.com/kill-team/

...but its giving in one hand and taking away in another; previously Chaos Demons were added later in White Dwarf while Lictors were in the game from the start but noticably absent in the new edition.

SamusDrake wrote:

 porkuslime wrote:
Picture of Grey Knights vs Bloodletters in the article certainly implies expanded factions

The Kill Team website lists all the units that will feature in the game. Bloodletters and Grey Knights are in the game from the start...

https://warhammer40000.com/kill-team/

...but its giving in one hand and taking away in another; previously Chaos Demons were added later in White Dwarf while Lictors were in the game from the start but noticably absent in the new edition.

Hopefully a new plastic Lictor will be round the corner...

I was under the impression that the game is played universally with inches, even in markets that primarily use the metric system.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
You can go through some of my recent posts to see examples of why you would use symbols instead of numbers and various mechanical concepts that would make the use of a number in their place problematic if you care that much.

Maybe I missed it, but I flicked through your posts and saw no compelling reason to use symbols that represent distances instead of just the actual distances.

I jump in here, the main reason would be to avoid problems between Imperial, International and Metric system (1" = 2,5cm International, 2,54cm Imperial and well metric is metric, hence why some boards with 24" are 60cm and others 61cm), it is also easier to use and people don't get into conversions

for example SAGA with 3 sizes, Short, Medium and Long, Cavalry is moving Long but all models need to be within Short of the units leader, no one is arguing about half an Inch or milimeter, or that the tape measure is not correct (or not available)

you can use odd numbers like 6.5" which would help if you don't go for metric as 1" is pretty large on a small Skirmish board

yet how GW used it there is no advantage left of not using numbers


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I was under the impression that the game is played universally with inches, even in markets that primarily use the metric system.

most of them, with some countries still like to use metric even of the rules are all in Inches (the old GW dice sets had artillery dice with metric numbers in it for those countries and the translations for Spain all had metric ranges)
also some like to scale rules down to use the same numbers but centimeters instead of inch for 15mm models (and with 3D printing the 15mm SciFi market is rising)

which is one reason why FFG used fixed proprietary ranges instead of "real" numbers

 kodos wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
You can go through some of my recent posts to see examples of why you would use symbols instead of numbers and various mechanical concepts that would make the use of a number in their place problematic if you care that much.

Maybe I missed it, but I flicked through your posts and saw no compelling reason to use symbols that represent distances instead of just the actual distances.

I jump in here, the main reason would be to avoid problems between Imperial, International and Metric system (1" = 2,5cm International, 2,54cm Imperial and well metric is metric, hence why some boards with 24" are 60cm and others 61cm), it is also easier to use and people don't get into conversions

for example SAGA with 3 sizes, Short, Medium and Long, Cavalry is moving Long but all models need to be within Short of the units leader, no one is arguing about half an Inch or milimeter, or that the tape measure is not correct (or not available)

you can use odd numbers like 6.5" which would help if you don't go for metric as 1" is pretty large on a small Skirmish board

yet how GW used it there is no advantage left of not using numbers

That's not a good reason.

I live in a fully metric country, but still I have no problem going to the hardware store and buying a measuring tape or straight edge with inches on it.

And even if you were in some weird country that didn't have access to measurement devices in inches, the game doesn't need to specify that the movement is in inches. They provide you with a movement template and that template can just say 1, 2, 3, 4... etc, it doesn't have to say 1", 2", 3", 4", etc.

I don't think any games bother to convert to mm / cm from inches or vice versa when selling in specifically metric or specifically imperial countries, and there's no reason the player should have to convert mm to inches either.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 kodos wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
You can go through some of my recent posts to see examples of why you would use symbols instead of numbers and various mechanical concepts that would make the use of a number in their place problematic if you care that much.

Maybe I missed it, but I flicked through your posts and saw no compelling reason to use symbols that represent distances instead of just the actual distances.

I jump in here, the main reason would be to avoid problems between Imperial, International and Metric system (1" = 2,5cm International, 2,54cm Imperial and well metric is metric, hence why some boards with 24" are 60cm and others 61cm), it is also easier to use and people don't get into conversions

for example SAGA with 3 sizes, Short, Medium and Long, Cavalry is moving Long but all models need to be within Short of the units leader, no one is arguing about half an Inch or milimeter, or that the tape measure is not correct (or not available)

you can use odd numbers like 6.5" which would help if you don't go for metric as 1" is pretty large on a small Skirmish board

yet how GW used it there is no advantage left of not using numbers

That's not a good reason.

I live in a fully metric country, but still I have no problem going to the hardware store and buying a measuring tape or straight edge with inches on it.

And even if you were in some weird country that didn't have access to measurement devices in inches, the game doesn't need to specify that the movement is in inches. They provide you with a movement template and that template can just say 1, 2, 3, 4... etc, it doesn't have to say 1", 2", 3", 4", etc.

I don't think any games bother to swap to mm / cm from inches or vice versa when selling in specifically metric or specifically imperial countries.

Infinity uses metric in Spain and imperial everywhere else. I agree it’s not a good reason to use symbols rather than numbers though.

 ImAGeek wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 kodos wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
You can go through some of my recent posts to see examples of why you would use symbols instead of numbers and various mechanical concepts that would make the use of a number in their place problematic if you care that much.

Maybe I missed it, but I flicked through your posts and saw no compelling reason to use symbols that represent distances instead of just the actual distances.

I jump in here, the main reason would be to avoid problems between Imperial, International and Metric system (1" = 2,5cm International, 2,54cm Imperial and well metric is metric, hence why some boards with 24" are 60cm and others 61cm), it is also easier to use and people don't get into conversions

for example SAGA with 3 sizes, Short, Medium and Long, Cavalry is moving Long but all models need to be within Short of the units leader, no one is arguing about half an Inch or milimeter, or that the tape measure is not correct (or not available)

you can use odd numbers like 6.5" which would help if you don't go for metric as 1" is pretty large on a small Skirmish board

yet how GW used it there is no advantage left of not using numbers

That's not a good reason.

I live in a fully metric country, but still I have no problem going to the hardware store and buying a measuring tape or straight edge with inches on it.

And even if you were in some weird country that didn't have access to measurement devices in inches, the game doesn't need to specify that the movement is in inches. They provide you with a movement template and that template can just say 1, 2, 3, 4... etc, it doesn't have to say 1", 2", 3", 4", etc.

I don't think any games bother to swap to mm / cm from inches or vice versa when selling in specifically metric or specifically imperial countries.

Infinity uses metric in Spain and imperial everywhere else. I agree it’s not a good reason to use symbols rather than numbers though.

The game designers should be thoroughly beaten over the head then, lol, that's a terrible idea.

Yeah, thats just bizarre. IIRC BFG was played in CM instead of inches, which seems to be an anomaly in the world of GW games, but at least that was consistent across the globe (though it was a real pain finding a tapemeasure in CMs here in the states).

Spain is the one country were also Warhammer Fantasy is/was played with centimeters

and it is not about using sympols instead of numbers but using a scale agnostic range system

other games use "base width" as basic number, which also allows the game to scale better (as 15mm use smaller bases hence the ranges are smaller)

X-Wing or Legion use Range 1/2/3, instead of cm/inches and it works well as no one ever asked them why they don't use inches or complained that they use R1 instead of X"

the advantage is still to be able to use centimeters for your ranges, and still sell those rules in countries using Imperial (or better said the US as a metric game will have a fair share of problems there)

I'm hesitant to lay it all at the game designers' feet. I'll be interested to see which playtest groups get credited and if this was intended to tie in to the mass market boardgames that have been shown off earlier this year(which all look to be hex-based).

One thing I will say with regards to the symbols v numbers thing...it's a hell of a lot easier to teach someone how to play when they don't feel the need to memorize movement/range values. Being able to just refer to a movement tool that's premarked can make games go quicker for all involved, and having a "cheat sheet" for that kind of stuff is always appreciated by me.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I'm hesitant to lay it all at the game designers' feet. I'll be interested to see which playtest groups get credited and if this was intended to tie in to the mass market boardgames that have been shown off earlier this year(which all look to be hex-based).

I am curious if this time a playtest group got the full rules to test or again just "ideas" to proof the concept

and I am now very sure that no one in the design team ever played the finished game as it is released

Bluntly, if they hadn't posted the stupid "conversion" image? I don't think it would have been as big of a deal. People demanding to know the "hows" and "whys" of the mechanics always seem to pose more issues than the actual mechanics over time.

The amount of FAQs that usually get put out a few days after the so-called relase makes me thing there is a grand total of 0 playtesting groups.

nm

Kanluwen wrote:Bluntly, if they hadn't posted the stupid "conversion" image? I don't think it would have been as big of a deal. People demanding to know the "hows" and "whys" of the mechanics always seem to pose more issues than the actual mechanics over time.

yes, without that pic it would not have been a thing at all
until the article today were they told us in every second sentence that a circle is 2"

Wha-Mu-077 wrote:The amount of FAQs that usually get put out a few days after the so-called relase makes me thing there is a grand total of 0 playtesting groups.

there are, and some of them are active on the web
yet we also have heard from them that they did not get the actual rules to play test, so this is not playtesting as we understand it

The unpacking of the gauge lenghts ("you can also use a tape measure.." ) tells me that even GW themselves are being insecure about the new rules. Not a good look tbh..

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Man if someone had told that one day I would lose all interest in a long-awaited game because of the ruler...

I'd have said they were nuts.

Game? What game? Just in for the minis

BTW where are the Nids?!

Honestly, I'll probably still buy it for the models, lol.

Though I would love it if the game was also good, what I'm reading so far makes it just look like a mess.

I guess if the game really is worth nothing I might just wait for the DKOK to come out separately and forego the Orks and Orky terrain.

I bet if they sold a box set exactly with the same minis but with the minis only with no game dices or cards it would sell like crazy. I think its one of those cases, for me at least, that the "extras" are actually working against the value perception.

 kodos wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Bluntly, if they hadn't posted the stupid "conversion" image? I don't think it would have been as big of a deal. People demanding to know the "hows" and "whys" of the mechanics always seem to pose more issues than the actual mechanics over time.

yes, without that pic it would not have been a thing at all
until the article today were they told us in every second sentence that a circle is 2"

This is a disingenuous statement to make. The article today talked so much about it in what effectively was an afterward, which literally started with the following sentence:

We’ve had a few questions about how movement works in the new edition.

After that, it's just talking about the movement system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tauist wrote:
The unpacking of the gauge lenghts ("you can also use a tape measure.." ) tells me that even GW themselves are being insecure about the new rules. Not a good look tbh..

Yeah, really wish they would have just left the "mystery" in and just shown off the gauge and shown how modifiers work. I was worried about them waffling very quickly on this.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
The amount of FAQs that usually get put out a few days after the so-called relase makes me thing there is a grand total of 0 playtesting groups.

There are, but it seems like GW shrug to their results a lot of the time. I recall a few posts from Iron Hands playtesters warning of them of how broken they were and that GW apparently didn't care because it was 'flavourful' and such.

The whole symbols thing does scream "somebody Upstairs had an idea they thought was genius and now we have to use it".