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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The story I heard was that to be compliant with ISO 9000 or whatever they could not use inches, so rather than come up with a game using centimeters they decided that triangles would equal 4" or whatever.

I don't see how ISO 9000 would apply here. Those standards are for organizational quality management, I can't for the life of me imagine how they would dictate a product design choice like that (especially when every other game in their product range uses inches).

But if every game that comes out after Kill Team (like HH, LI and ToW) uses triangles it will confirm that theory.

Well thats the thing - 2 of the three games you listed are already out, and don't use triangles. And we have no indication TOW will either, so...

yeah, i assume the suggestion was a joke to begin with, but if someone was seriously trying to argue that it was a decision made for the purposes of ISO compliance they were incredibly off base.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
But if every game that comes out after Kill Team (like HH, LI and ToW) uses triangles it will confirm that theory.

If those all used BLACKs, white people would complain

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's no less absurd than the various "special" dice that many games seem to have as gimmicks these days.

You're missing what people are unhappy about: The shapes aren't intuative.

Triangle - a three-sided shape - doesn't equal 3". Square - a four-sided shape - doesn't equal 4". The shapes should correspond to distances, yet they don't.

Get it?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's no less absurd than the various "special" dice that many games seem to have as gimmicks these days.

You're missing what people are unhappy about: The shapes aren't intuative.

Triangle - a three-sided shape - doesn't equal 3". Square - a four-sided shape - doesn't equal 4". The shapes should correspond to distances, yet they don't.

Get it?

Still get a laugh that GW didn't do the obvious smart thing, and base the shape on the number of sides.

They are colors not shapes. I personally never use or know the shapes, theres no need to

Besides, hasnt this horse corpse suffered enough already?

Also “people may not have tape measures so we need to provide a tool” still doesn’t stop you from providing a tool that uses numbers. [beats GW KT authors with a red whippy stick]

 tauist wrote:
They are colors not shapes.

Which is why it comes with a grey measuring too with grey shapes on it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 tauist wrote:
They are colors not shapes.

Which is why it comes with a grey measuring too with grey shapes on it.

Exactly like your Ultramarines in your Leviathan box


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jadenim wrote:
Also “people may not have tape measures so we need to provide a tool” still doesn’t stop you from providing a tool that uses numbers. [beats GW KT authors with a red whippy stick]

Eh, it is very rare that you need to measure anything longer than 10" in KT21. Most of a typical whippy stick would be unnecessary lenght

Say yall never played KT21 in your life, without saying you never played KT21 in your life

 tauist wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 tauist wrote:
They are colors not shapes.

Which is why it comes with a grey measuring too with grey shapes on it.

Exactly like your Ultramarines in your Leviathan box

That would be a bad comparison even if the miniatures weren't generic and meant to be used for any chapter you like straight out of the box. Unlike for instance the Dark Vengeance Marines that are explicitly Dark Angels.

The Kill Team tool is a tool that comes with one of two identifiers for ranges, and relies on the owner to add the second identifier themselves. It's... optimistic to expect that of everyone. That means that by this choice alone GW slanted things in favor of the geometric shapes as the primary identifier for the range bands. Insisting that this role falls to the colors because of the designers' original intent is purely academic.

 Geifer wrote:
The Kill Team tool is a tool that comes with one of two identifiers for ranges, and relies on the owner to add the second identifier themselves. It's... optimistic to expect that of everyone. That means that by this choice alone GW slanted things in favor of the geometric shapes as the primary identifier for the range bands. Insisting that this role falls to the colors because of the designers' original intent is purely academic.

If GW expected people to paint their KT measuring tool, there would have been instructions to say how to get it right. I don't remember one being in any KT box I bought.
How difficult would it have been to put a push-fit cap for the measuring stick's shaped symbols?

But I really see your point. It's an odd way for new GW players to get in to a game, when even the game's 'simplified' measurement mechanism causes its own issues.

 tauist wrote:


Say yall never played KT21 in your life, without saying you never played KT21 in your life

You don't need to play a game to recognise if a tool is unituitive. Obviously, having a grey tool with shapes that don't match the distances in side-number (or even an ascending complexity to match the increasing distances) to represent colour-coded distances is less intuitive than a colour-coded tool with shapes matching the side-numbers.

It isn't a huge deal, humans can adapt to some very unituitive stuff given practice. There is a video on Youtube of someone learning to ride a bike where turning the handlebars makes the wheel turn the opposite direction. But just because it can be done doesn't make it the best option and the symbol choice does make learning the game harder than a more intuitive system. I have played some KT and it was annoying. I've no doubt it was an annoyance that would fade with familiarity.

Really, people raise it more as a sign of insular thinking and poor accessibility consideration in GW than a big issue in its own right. Something this obvious should have been picked up by a big company. My partner works in user-centred design and noticed it immediately. They don't play wargames.

I often find myself saying "maybe I'm simply wired up differently" but I have 0 issues with using a tool where if the rules tell me to use the symbol face value, I use the symbol the face value on the tool? I don't even require the need to stop and consider if the tringle means 3, or if the circle means 1, because those values aren't immediately relevant to me or the game.

If they were intending to make a real effort blending distance I'd agree it's a problem, but I think people are over analysing a game aid that does what it says on the tin to a large degree?

Most people seem to be getting caught up on it being a missed opportunity. 2" is difficult to make a shape for, but 1, 3 and 5 are simple to have done.

Dudeface wrote:
I often find myself saying "maybe I'm simply wired up differently" but I have 0 issues with using a tool where if the rules tell me to use the symbol face value, I use the symbol the face value on the tool?

That's not the point of contention at all. No one's saying that's it difficult to follow symbols.

The issue is why they didn't make it more intuitive at the start, and have the shape sides correspond with the distances.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Most people seem to be getting caught up on it being a missed opportunity. 2" is difficult to make a shape for, but 1, 3 and 5 are simple to have done.

It might be difficult if you need the lines to form a closed geometric shape. If your goal is just to have a logically ascending order to recurring elements in your symbols, it's as easy as giving a single bar ( "I" ) for 1", two bars ( "=" ) for 2", three bars (triangle) for 3" and six bars (hexagon) for 6".

 Skinnereal wrote:
Most people seem to be getting caught up on it being a missed opportunity. 2" is difficult to make a shape for, but 1, 3 and 5 are simple to have done.

Well yes, but does it matter enough to be annoyed by it? If you're working in inches the shapes are irrelevant, if you work in shapes you just use whatever shape the book says?

Could they have made triangle = 3? Yes? Not sure its worth of being annoyed about though.

Yeah, the concept was sound, but the implementation was bad. Most games that have measuring tools and non-inch based movements do something sane, like call them "Range 1", "Range 2", and "Range 3" or whatever, and its intuitive and easy to understand and you still have no idea how many inches you're talking about but nobody gives a damn. The GW implementation was just unnecessarily obtuse and nonsensical.

 tauist wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 tauist wrote:
They are colors not shapes.

Which is why it comes with a grey measuring too with grey shapes on it.

Exactly like your Ultramarines in your Leviathan box


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jadenim wrote:
Also “people may not have tape measures so we need to provide a tool” still doesn’t stop you from providing a tool that uses numbers. [beats GW KT authors with a red whippy stick]

Eh, it is very rare that you need to measure anything longer than 10" in KT21. Most of a typical whippy stick would be unnecessary lenght

Say yall never played KT21 in your life, without saying you never played KT21 in your life

Wasn’t suggesting that you need the whippet sticks for KT, just that they are an example of GW providing a tool in the box to allow you to measure distances without needing any extra equipment. Necromunda came with little transparent rulers for the same reason. In neither case did it they feel the need to use abstract geometric shapes in place of simple numbers.

Blades of Khaine article

As a result, building a Blades of Khaine kill team is a slightly different experience – all you need to do is pick a single Exarch from one of these three shrines, and any combination of seven Aspect Warrior operatives. You can select a full team of brand new Striking Scorpions, or opt for Dire Avengers, or Howling Banshees, or any combination of all three.

Instead of relying on fixed specialists, any operative may instead use an Aspect Technique during their activation. There are five Aspect Techniques associated with each shrine, meaning 15 in total – think of them like Tactical Ploys that you can use for free, allowing operatives to shrug off injuries, leap great distances, and fade into the shadows with preternatural skill

Interesting. Clever way of maintaining the lore of uniform Aspects whilst preventing the team from being quite limited.

Damn. Striking Scorpions just deal 2 mortal wounds every combat? That's a pretty brutal rule.

SamusDrake wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Is Kill Team on life support?

If it is on life support then its getting the fruit and beverage treatment with Bupa. Other games still can't even get an appointment with the NHS.

I doubt the game is on life support. I think KT21 is biggest hit GW has had since LOTR, and I really, really doubt GW is going to drop it, although I've been surprised before.

What I think is striking is that after season 2 was marred by supply issues, it continued to grow. However, this new box is basically a 40k early release box with a single terrain sprue. Into the dark (which was widely available) had two bespoke kill teams and a full board of terrain. this new box has two boxes that aren't even upgrade sprues for new Kill teams, they're just new squads. So, this seems like a pretty mild investment into the game.

Yeah, the "life support" claims are kinda silly to me, but I also think the whole "biggest hit since LOTR" is pure hyperbole. KT does not have a significant community behind it, most of the sales of KT product is going to 40k players snatching it up to get new units for their armies at a discount and parting out the rest. As a product line I think its doing phenomenally well, as a game I think thats not really the case.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, the "life support" claims are kinda silly to me, but I also think the whole "biggest hit since LOTR" is pure hyperbole. KT does not have a significant community behind it, most of the sales of KT product is going to 40k players snatching it up to get new units for their armies at a discount and parting out the rest. As a product line I think its doing phenomenally well, as a game I think thats not really the case.

I hear the game is very popular in Continental Europe, appears to be a big deal there. Maybe not so much in the US.

Local KT event had less than half as many players as the LotR event.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, the "life support" claims are kinda silly to me, but I also think the whole "biggest hit since LOTR" is pure hyperbole. KT does not have a significant community behind it, most of the sales of KT product is going to 40k players snatching it up to get new units for their armies at a discount and parting out the rest. As a product line I think its doing phenomenally well, as a game I think thats not really the case.

,

I don't think it's hyperbole, if anything it's damning GW with faint praise. And, sure, I'm being a little cheeky because I'm not counting new editions of 40k or AOS, which is of course a much bigger game than Kill Team. But after the big two of 40k and WFB/AOS... what's been the biggest #3 game for them?

I see a lot of coverage for kill Team, and when events branch out from 40k/AOS, it seems that Kill team is the third system added most of the time.

I mean, to be fair, I have tons of KT stuff and I've never once actually played KT. Never even read the rules. I just wanted all the stuff that came with KT (models and terrain).

It's not on life support, it's just that GW has realised they can make more money from it (and Warcry) by selling the terrain in a different box to the new factions, and so have changed up the release format.