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The Venn Diagram of people who were against a more granular points system and those that appear to not play 40k by the rules and instead play a homebrew version of 40k seems to just be a single circle. Funny that...

And there's nothing wrong with homebrew versions of 40k that remove all the strictures of matched play and objectives and whatnot - I've done it plenty of times and its tons of fun - but I'm not about to pretend that it is in any way the normal way to play, or that I'm really even playing the game as its written or intended.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
So to clarify, you won't go to the flgs and play randoms in case they're not serious enough for you? Probably do you look at their lists, guffaw and walk away? Or do you just pound them into the dust as they were obviously serious and trying their best? You're painting yourself up as TFG of your flgs with these comments.

Lolwut? How is it TFG behavior to only want to play competitive games? Why are you assuming they are being rude and laughing at people instead of just playing with like-minded opponents? This all sounds like more of a problem with you than with the person you're criticizing.

Because they just said they won't play people who are at the flgs, because they refuse to waste time on anyone who might not be hyper serious competitive players. They won't come down to meet someone in the middle, brags about how much they play, about how competitive they are. If they playa random, it's with the most cutthroat list possible, no negotiation.

It all builds a mental image of being arrogant with a false sense of superiority walking around telling people they're not good enough for a game.

Dudeface wrote:
Because they just said they won't play people who are at the flgs, because they refuse to waste time on anyone who might not be hyper serious competitive players. They won't come down to meet someone in the middle, brags about how much they play, about how competitive they are. If they playa random, it's with the most cutthroat list possible, no negotiation.

It all builds a mental image of being arrogant with a false sense of superiority walking around telling people they're not good enough for a game.

So let me get this straight: Toofast is TFG for saying "our goals for this game aren't compatible, we should play other people" instead of playing a game he won't enjoy? Is PenitentJake also a TFG for not giving up his lore-based army and adding a bunch of competitive stuff to meet a competitive player halfway and give them a game?

And how exactly do you negotiate on this? Are you TFG if you don't bring an extra thousand points of models every time you go to the local store so you can have the option to change your list and meet people halfway? What if it's a situation like 10th edition Eldar vs squats, where even a poorly optimized Eldar list is going to be overwhelmingly more powerful than anything the squats can bring? Does the Eldar player need to bring an entire separate non-Eldar army so he can give the squat player a more engaging game?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Because they just said they won't play people who are at the flgs, because they refuse to waste time on anyone who might not be hyper serious competitive players. They won't come down to meet someone in the middle, brags about how much they play, about how competitive they are. If they playa random, it's with the most cutthroat list possible, no negotiation.

It all builds a mental image of being arrogant with a false sense of superiority walking around telling people they're not good enough for a game.

So let me get this straight: Toofast is TFG for saying "our goals for this game aren't compatible, we should play other people" instead of playing a game he won't enjoy? Is PenitentJake also a TFG for not giving up his lore-based army and adding a bunch of competitive stuff to meet a competitive player halfway and give them a game?

And how exactly do you negotiate on this? Are you TFG if you don't bring an extra thousand points of models every time you go to the local store so you can have the option to change your list and meet people halfway? What if it's a situation like 10th edition Eldar vs squats, where even a poorly optimized Eldar list is going to be overwhelmingly more powerful than anything the squats can bring? Does the Eldar player need to bring an entire separate non-Eldar army so he can give the squat player a more engaging game?

I mean you're blowing this off target completely and it might be that TooFast is being misread in the written format. I understand they opt to play people with similar goals, that's definitely fine. What I pointed out was from the way they wrote they'd quite happily walk around a FLGS lording over how many games they played so people weren't good enough to play them and refusing to play "noobs and casuals" in a dismissive fashion. I'm critiquing the social interactions outlined, which as I say, may simply not be translating well over text.

The TFG part comes in if they then opt to play someone new who has a normal-ish looking army or don't consider themselves CAAC or whatever, then proceeds to dump on them with a tournament winning list whilst saying it's a waste of time and they're not good enough for them etc. but that impression can be given without even playing if the communication isn't good. If they spoke to people how they wrote that post I'd immediately chalk them off as someone to avoid.

Edit: further thought on the negotiation if it was "I've only got my tournament list, you can give it a go if you like?" and the votann player agrees or walks away, ace. If it's "I've got my tournament list but I can use it to teach you some tricks and play it light and breezy", great. If it's "I'll try and swap some untis out to even the field but it'll still be lopsided maybe given the meta" fine. When we get to "This is my tournament list and you have Votann and don't rep events, you're not worth my time" it's a problem.

It's more the attitude behind it than the ability to change your list.

Dudeface wrote:
I mean you're blowing this off target completely and it might be that TooFast is being misread in the written format. I understand they opt to play people with similar goals, that's definitely fine. What I pointed out was from the way they wrote they'd quite happily walk around a FLGS lording over how many games they played so people weren't good enough to play them and refusing to play "noobs and casuals" in a dismissive fashion. I'm critiquing the social interactions outlined, which as I say, may simply not be translating well over text.

That's assuming a lot that is not anywhere in their post. In fact, Toofast even says that the competitive and non-competitive players are two separate groups that don't really interact.

No offense intended to those people who get heated on non competitive players, but I think you simply don't understand because it is not your taste and no matter how hard we will try, you will not. Like trying to explain why you should like X food and you simply don't. There's no argument to be made on tastes. One way or the other: I will don't understand why you'd keep trying competitively playing 40k, but you are just as right if you do and what matters is that it is funny to you. I think that apart from a few loud voices this is the wider consensus.

However keep in mind we do play to win (=achieve our set objective), otherwise nothing would ever go forward, and also may experience the bad state of balance (friend's army struggling so bad you need to up it a bit to let him have fun, etc...). We simply look at the results otherwise and find enjoyment elsewhere.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I mean you're blowing this off target completely and it might be that TooFast is being misread in the written format. I understand they opt to play people with similar goals, that's definitely fine. What I pointed out was from the way they wrote they'd quite happily walk around a FLGS lording over how many games they played so people weren't good enough to play them and refusing to play "noobs and casuals" in a dismissive fashion. I'm critiquing the social interactions outlined, which as I say, may simply not be translating well over text.

That's assuming a lot that is not anywhere in their post. In fact, Toofast even says that the competitive and non-competitive players are two separate groups that don't really interact.

They state there's plenty of people for them to play garage hammer to avoid needing to go to a FLGS and club seals.

They can play their way in their group and I can play my way in mine, and we don't really have to interact much. I don't set out to go seal clubbing at the FLGS because I don't get any better at the game that way.

Which is fair but it doesn't preclude going to a FLGS and interacting with others. At which point telling people these things:

So the onus is on me to get worse rather than you to get better?

I'm not spending money and time buying/building/painting subpar units just to play down to the level of someone who refuses to try to get better. I would rather just not play you.

I can only play tournament games and tournament prep games and play way more 40k than I even want to in a year. There's multiple 100+ person events in my state yearly.

Depending on the tone used with a stranger, might not be cordial.

If they exclusively play in pre-tournament circuits and that's how they get their kicks that's all fine, it's just about the interactions with the people who don't do that and the level of respect for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For what it's worth, if approached with my not competitive army who doesn't play as often as they'd like, by someone who is competitive and playing a higher level. I'll happily get my face kicked in on the condition they don't mind explaining some stuff so I can learn. But that openness and willing needs to be there.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
No offense intended to those people who get heated on non competitive players, but I think you simply don't understand because it is not your taste and no matter how hard we will try, you will not. Like trying to explain why you should like X food and you simply don't. There's no argument to be made on tastes. One way or the other: I will don't understand why you'd keep trying competitively playing 40k, but you are just as right if you do and what matters is that it is funny to you. I think that apart from a few loud voices this is the wider consensus.

However keep in mind we do play to win (=achieve our set objective), otherwise nothing would ever go forward, and also may experience the bad state of balance (friend's army struggling so bad you need to up it a bit to let him have fun, etc...). We simply look at the results otherwise and find enjoyment elsewhere.

Yeah this is all becoming all very us and them again and it doesn’t need to. Both ways are fine ways of playing 40K and I’m sure there’s lots of overlap of groups like H.B.M.C. who play both ways. There needs to be a lot more respect for each other from each side and less sides.

I asked a question that seems to have been ignored about how competitive players go about list building, I hear a lot about this skill and people get very defensive about the idea it’s all net lists (and rightly so)m could someone explain to me what process they go through when building competitive lists because I actually would like to know and might learn some useful things.

This isn’t a trap or a piss take I am trying to get some healthy respectful conversation going where people from different camps in the community can share things.

Andykp wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
No offense intended to those people who get heated on non competitive players, but I think you simply don't understand because it is not your taste and no matter how hard we will try, you will not. Like trying to explain why you should like X food and you simply don't. There's no argument to be made on tastes. One way or the other: I will don't understand why you'd keep trying competitively playing 40k, but you are just as right if you do and what matters is that it is funny to you. I think that apart from a few loud voices this is the wider consensus.

However keep in mind we do play to win (=achieve our set objective), otherwise nothing would ever go forward, and also may experience the bad state of balance (friend's army struggling so bad you need to up it a bit to let him have fun, etc...). We simply look at the results otherwise and find enjoyment elsewhere.

Yeah this is all becoming all very us and them again and it doesn’t need to. Both ways are fine ways of playing 40K and I’m sure there’s lots of overlap of groups like H.B.M.C. who play both ways. There needs to be a lot more respect for each other from each side and less sides.

I asked a question that seems to have been ignored about how competitive players go about list building, I hear a lot about this skill and people get very defensive about the idea it’s all net lists (and rightly so)m could someone explain to me what process they go through when building competitive lists because I actually would like to know and might learn some useful things.

This isn’t a trap or a piss take I am trying to get some healthy respectful conversation going where people from different camps in the community can share things.

You look at the tournament pack and look at what sorts of units and builds are encouraged. You look at mathhammer and see what units can either kill the most for the lowest amount of pts or score the most VP or prevent your opponent from scoring the most VP for the lowest amount of pts and then you look at opportunities for synergies between units. Try out different variations of lists that focus more on killing certain types of units or on scoring. Speculate and test what the weaknesses of the list are and see what the opportunity costs would be for adapting to those weaknesses, sometimes a list is weak to Imperial Knights but the opportunity cost of fixing that problem is making the list a lot worse against more prevalent foes and so the overall effect would be a lesser chance of getting a good tournament record, but generally, tournament players heavily value having a chance at winning and then using their skill to carry them and don't like having matchups that are almost impossible to beat.

 vict0988 wrote:

Andykp wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
No offense intended to those people who get heated on non competitive players, but I think you simply don't understand because it is not your taste and no matter how hard we will try, you will not. Like trying to explain why you should like X food and you simply don't. There's no argument to be made on tastes. One way or the other: I will don't understand why you'd keep trying competitively playing 40k, but you are just as right if you do and what matters is that it is funny to you. I think that apart from a few loud voices this is the wider consensus.

However keep in mind we do play to win (=achieve our set objective), otherwise nothing would ever go forward, and also may experience the bad state of balance (friend's army struggling so bad you need to up it a bit to let him have fun, etc...). We simply look at the results otherwise and find enjoyment elsewhere.

Yeah this is all becoming all very us and them again and it doesn’t need to. Both ways are fine ways of playing 40K and I’m sure there’s lots of overlap of groups like H.B.M.C. who play both ways. There needs to be a lot more respect for each other from each side and less sides.

I asked a question that seems to have been ignored about how competitive players go about list building, I hear a lot about this skill and people get very defensive about the idea it’s all net lists (and rightly so)m could someone explain to me what process they go through when building competitive lists because I actually would like to know and might learn some useful things.

This isn’t a trap or a piss take I am trying to get some healthy respectful conversation going where people from different camps in the community can share things.

You look at the tournament pack and look at what sorts of units and builds are encouraged. You look at mathhammer and see what units can either kill the most for the lowest amount of pts or score the most VP or prevent your opponent from scoring the most VP for the lowest amount of pts and then you look at opportunities for synergies between units. Try out different variations of lists that focus more on killing certain types of units or on scoring. Speculate and test what the weaknesses of the list are and see what the opportunity costs would be for adapting to those weaknesses, sometimes a list is weak to Imperial Knights but the opportunity cost of fixing that problem is making the list a lot worse against more prevalent foes and so the overall effect would be a lesser chance of getting a good tournament record, but generally, tournament players heavily value having a chance at winning and then using their skill to carry them and don't like having matchups that are almost impossible to beat.

Sounds quite in-depth and time consuming, on that site that showed lists that had won comps a lot were similar, is that people coming to similar conclusions, working on themes others have had success with and do people actually try exact copies of lists as a starting point and then tweak it to suit them?

I remember an article about a blood bowl champion recently who won with halflings, I’ve played a bit of bloodbowl and I remember being impressed by that! Do other tournament goers look down on people bringing eldar as the power army choice or is it just accepted as an obvious choice? Personally I’d root for someone turning up with leagues of votann and trying to win. Love me an under dog!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
A few years later, after Apocalypse had launched, we organised a few massive games where we, again, had the lists all ready to go well in advance of the game. The idea was to stop a ritual from bringing a powerful Daemon Prince back into reality (he had been banished during the last big event in 2006). It would be more fun if he was revived, as it would give us greater narrative options later down the line for our evolving story, but our goal was to stop it. I never stopped trying to win. I never just decided to throw the game or agree to not use the forces I had brought with me. In the end we lost, and the Daemon Prince was resummoned. My lead Inquisitor even faced him 1-on-1 in melee, a silly prospect for an squishy Ordo-Hereticus Inquisitor in the days of 3rd-5th, and he died. Didn't care that he lost, but I still tried to do what I could. We played the game, as it and creating narratives are not mutually exclusive.

So I amend my statement:

No one plays to lose.
No one plays to draw.
Everyone plays to win. Anyone who isn't, isn't actually playing the game.

I think the issue is "what is winning"? I.E. in your example you say your Inquisitor faced the Daemon Prince 1v1 even though he'd almost certainly die (and did so). Which sounds great for narrative. But if you could have "won" the game just by walking your Inquisitor behind a wall, would you have done so? Even if narratively it seemed an anti-climax?

Because to my mind that's the difference between playing to win and playing for fun.
And this applies even in a non-narrative setting.

For example, why are DG "bad" in the current game? You can argue the mathhammer - they could be buffed to do more damage and be tougher - but I think the real issue is that they are slow. Especially if you take an infantry heavy force of plague marines and terminators. As a consequence of M4"/M5" they can't reinforce their positions. They can't take advantage/recover from unusual dice rolls. As a consequence you can be halfway through turn 2 and know the outcome of the game. You are going to beat them on primary, you are going to beat them on secondary - and the dice almost don't matter. You can just play keep-away across most of the board while the VP add up.

You could argue doing anything but this is "not playing to win" - but it can also be a bit boring. So instead you might go and fight them. Put your units in a position where they can be shot/charged, have narratively satisfying duels between characters etc. You can still "try to win" the game like this - but its different to the above.

Dudeface wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I mean you're blowing this off target completely and it might be that TooFast is being misread in the written format. I understand they opt to play people with similar goals, that's definitely fine. What I pointed out was from the way they wrote they'd quite happily walk around a FLGS lording over how many games they played so people weren't good enough to play them and refusing to play "noobs and casuals" in a dismissive fashion. I'm critiquing the social interactions outlined, which as I say, may simply not be translating well over text.

That's assuming a lot that is not anywhere in their post. In fact, Toofast even says that the competitive and non-competitive players are two separate groups that don't really interact.

They state there's plenty of people for them to play garage hammer to avoid needing to go to a FLGS and club seals.

They can play their way in their group and I can play my way in mine, and we don't really have to interact much. I don't set out to go seal clubbing at the FLGS because I don't get any better at the game that way.

Which is fair but it doesn't preclude going to a FLGS and interacting with others. At which point telling people these things:

So the onus is on me to get worse rather than you to get better?

I'm not spending money and time buying/building/painting subpar units just to play down to the level of someone who refuses to try to get better. I would rather just not play you.

I can only play tournament games and tournament prep games and play way more 40k than I even want to in a year. There's multiple 100+ person events in my state yearly.

Depending on the tone used with a stranger, might not be cordial.

If they exclusively play in pre-tournament circuits and that's how they get their kicks that's all fine, it's just about the interactions with the people who don't do that and the level of respect for them.

I think the problem is you've assumed a low level of respect or hostile tone when that wasn't present in the original post. I read the original post, and the subsequent clarifications, as simply stating that they prefer to play tournament-style games and there are plenty of people in their area to play against in that style. I don't see how someone deciding how they want to spend their hobby time is a problem. As long as any interactions with others are respectful, why does it matter? I'd actually much rather someone was up-front about not wanting to play me rather than wasting hours of our time on a game neither of us will enjoy.

Slipspace wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I mean you're blowing this off target completely and it might be that TooFast is being misread in the written format. I understand they opt to play people with similar goals, that's definitely fine. What I pointed out was from the way they wrote they'd quite happily walk around a FLGS lording over how many games they played so people weren't good enough to play them and refusing to play "noobs and casuals" in a dismissive fashion. I'm critiquing the social interactions outlined, which as I say, may simply not be translating well over text.

That's assuming a lot that is not anywhere in their post. In fact, Toofast even says that the competitive and non-competitive players are two separate groups that don't really interact.

They state there's plenty of people for them to play garage hammer to avoid needing to go to a FLGS and club seals.

They can play their way in their group and I can play my way in mine, and we don't really have to interact much. I don't set out to go seal clubbing at the FLGS because I don't get any better at the game that way.

Which is fair but it doesn't preclude going to a FLGS and interacting with others. At which point telling people these things:

So the onus is on me to get worse rather than you to get better?

I'm not spending money and time buying/building/painting subpar units just to play down to the level of someone who refuses to try to get better. I would rather just not play you.

I can only play tournament games and tournament prep games and play way more 40k than I even want to in a year. There's multiple 100+ person events in my state yearly.

Depending on the tone used with a stranger, might not be cordial.

If they exclusively play in pre-tournament circuits and that's how they get their kicks that's all fine, it's just about the interactions with the people who don't do that and the level of respect for them.

I think the problem is you've assumed a low level of respect or hostile tone when that wasn't present in the original post. I read the original post, and the subsequent clarifications, as simply stating that they prefer to play tournament-style games and there are plenty of people in their area to play against in that style. I don't see how someone deciding how they want to spend their hobby time is a problem. As long as any interactions with others are respectful, why does it matter? I'd actually much rather someone was up-front about not wanting to play me rather than wasting hours of our time on a game neither of us will enjoy.

I agree entirely and I did mention further up it might be that the written word isn't carrying a tone well or is easy to misinterpret. ultimately as long as people enjoy what they're doing and aren't being arses to each other, that'll do me. If you aren't going to enjoy it, don't do it, just be open and nice about saying no.

Yeah, it's not an insult to turn someone down because you don't feel like it'd be a fun time. Quite the contrary.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Yeah, it's not an insult to turn someone down because you don't feel like it'd be a fun time. Quite the contrary.

This, however, what do you do when confronted by a skew army?
Like knights.

Do you just flat out deny knights? Because knights are THE skew army by design and badly designed form a balance perspective due to that?

It harks back to balance one again.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The Venn Diagram of people who were against a more granular points system and those that appear to not play 40k by the rules and instead play a homebrew version of 40k seems to just be a single circle. Funny that...

And there's nothing wrong with homebrew versions of 40k that remove all the strictures of matched play and objectives and whatnot - I've done it plenty of times and its tons of fun - but I'm not about to pretend that it is in any way the normal way to play, or that I'm really even playing the game as its written or intended.

I've noticed this too. I'm struggling to take people on good faith in the conversation. You can't talk about the game being broken because someone will swoop in and say it's fine, and then when you drill into why they think it's fine you find out they play the game only one step removed from setting their models on the carpet and making pew-pew noises. I mean, it's a thread about meta win rates completely derailed by people that don't follow the meta, and don't even think you should want to win games. It's exactly the same cycle as the points thread. They don't engage with the game in a way that points and meta and GT win rates are relevant, but they have big feelings about it. Or maybe big feelings about the people invested in those thing not being happy with them.

PenitentJake wrote:
Campaign and progressive play really blur the simple win/loss dichotomy.

We're usually concerned with 4 sets of goals:

Mission Objectives, Agendas, Campaign Goals and Long-Term Narrative Goals.

Sometimes these align and sometimes they don't. Games tend to be more interesting when these various sets of goals are in tension, so that pursuing an Agenda might cost you the victory, but might accelerate a Long-Term Narrative goal.

I think that what H.B.M.C. is saying in regards to not playing 40k is that strictly, there is nothing in the 10th edition framework that inherently does any of those things aside from the win/loss dichotomy.

You can manipulate and add what ever you want to get what you want out of the game but once you do, strictly speaking you are no longer playing 40k. You are playing a variation of 40k using house rules to make the game more enjoyable for what your goals are.

Of course there is nothing at all wrong with that but it does reduce the impact that the core rules have in your particular gaming circle. If you are willing to add and modify rules to reach your goal then why do the core rules even matter to your group? You can modify/add/drop anything you want to make it work for what you want. I would love to play with a group with this mindset.

That is why it can be frustrating to talk to people who have this mindset, like Andykp, when talking about game balance and the competitive aspect. If you are already good with changing the rules to fit your needs, then why do you care at all what the rules say? You and your group do you, but for people who want a unified core rule set it is much more important that the core rules be balanced enough for competition to be achieved.

Someone earlier had mentioned managing power level in Magic EDH comparably to 40k. That's apt. EDH is a casual format where the rules committee is a very light touch on balance. Your player group is expected to Rule 0 things and self mange. This is great with established playgroups, but problematic for pickup games where people have different ideas about acceptable power level. This creates the same social dynamic 40k sometimes faces where people can take advantage and be TFGs. Though, competitive EDH exists, and it's a whole 'nother game. There you're expected to be running a $5000 dollar deck with all the OP fast mana cards to go infinite on turn 2. It would be rude to play CEDH and not come prepared to play at that level.

Though this brings up a pretty interesting difference between MTG and 40K. When something is broken in Magic, people blame WotC. When something is broken in 40K people are perfectly fine blaming players instead of GW. Now if you club a beginner with a tournament meta list, yeah that's the player being a jerk. But playing the codex, units, and rules as written by GW and incidentally stomping on your equally experienced opponent because GW printed a broken game? That's GWs fault for shipping a broken game.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Sometimes these align and sometimes they don't. Games tend to be more interesting when these various sets of goals are in tension, so that pursuing an Agenda might cost you the victory, but might accelerate a Long-Term Narrative goal.

Couple of questions:

Why is it better that the objectives are in tension?

Stories can involve multiple instances of conflict, which come in 3 varieties:

Self vs Other
Self vs Environment
Self vs Self

If a story has only the first type of conflict, it's a Black Library/ bolter-porn story. If it has the first and the second, it starts to have some depth, and it may receive some critical acclaim. If it has all three, you're looking at something with literary value. You can get the first and the second without goals that are in tension, but not the third.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Wouldn't it be better to use a purely narrative mission with objectives tailored to the specific scenario instead of a matched play mission that you have to reinterpret into something related to the story?

We do that too, but if that's ALL that's going on, we're bored. Mission objectives are Army-Based- they are achieved through the combined effort of the units that are present for the battle. Campaign goals are Roster-based; their effects extend to units on the roster that were not present for the battle. Agendas are unit based. Put another way, mission objectives, no matter how well they are narratively linked, all work at the same scale. Having Agendas, Campaign Goals and Narrative/ Faction based goals IN ADDITION to narrative mission trees enables a player to engage in stories that occur at both Micro and Macro scales.

The system that you are advocating for is a mission tree system. For my group, a good campaign will include mission trees that are akin to chapters or sub-plots in a novel, but it will also include Agendas (akin to character development), Campaign Goals (akin to the main plot of the novel), and Long-Term/ Faction Goals (akin to the series that the novel is one part).

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

If the in-universe goal of the army is to do X to advance their long-term plan to accomplish Y then how is it a benefit to have a separate mission condition where you win by standing on six arbitrary spots on the table and accumulating VP? Why play with the primary mission at all?

I just opened the Tyrannic War book to a random set of facing pages in the mission section. I got Secure Supplies and Insurrection. The first involves picking up objective markers which represent supply drops and carrying them back to your deployment zone; the second involves an attacker planting explosives in terrain features and a defender trying to diffuse those explosives. Neither of these are standing on six arbitrary spots on the table.

We can play these as is, but we can also tweak them; for example linking the two scenarios by having the supply drops represent explosives to be used in the Insurrection mission, are creating links to the campaign by adding the explosives planted throughout the mission added to persistent maps for use in later battles fought at that location. Notice that tweaking the mission is less work than inventing the mission from scratch.

But while I'm doing that, I'm also thinking about the unit who have been on a Penitent Oath since they failed to hold a different objective from three games ago- they still need to redeem themselves, whether the supplies get to the DZ or not. I'm also trying to hold territories elsewhere in the Theatre of War, which may have affected the units available to secure those supplies or diffuse those explosives; who I bring to achieve these mission objectives may also affect who is avalible to defend those territories. And at the same time, my Canoness may also complete one of the six trials necessary to achieve Sainthood.

There's nothing wrong with simple mission-tree campaigns like City Fight, Planetstrike or Urban Conquest... But you can see how much more nuanced these stories can become when you have Agendas, Long-Term Goals, and Campaign Goals in addition to Mission Objectives.

The other effect of these layers is to break the win/loss dichotomy. If I'm using Agendas and Long-Term Faction goals in addition to Mission goals and Campaign goals, player satisfaction isn't exclusively dependent on victory. I might win the most games and still lose the campaign. I might win the campaign but have a less than 50% win rate for individual games. I might win a few battles, lose the campaign, but come away from that Theatre of War with a Living Saint or a relic, which will help me in the next Campaign in a different Theatre of war.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And how do agendas really help with this? Most of them are just stock matched play style secondary objectives, only with a slightly different reward for accomplishing them. I might see if it agendas were something interesting, like "your warlord must kill this specific enemy character to avenge his defeat in the previous battle", but is "gain XP for killing vehicles" really adding much narrative to the game? Or making it play differently from a tournament mission where you get VP for killing vehicles?

So far in 10th, I'd say you're on to something. I was disappointed in 10th ed Agendas for two reasons: first, as you say, many are boring. But also, they are all campaign specific- none are truly generic.

It remains to be seen whether or not there will be faction specific Agendas in the dexes. In 9th, these Agendas were always the most interesting. A few examples include the redemption Agenda for units that take the Penitent Oath, or Ascendant Lords taking credit for the achievements and sacrifices of the units under their command, etc. Keep in mind that Agendas often interact with other game elements as well- most often, a dex includes at least one Agenda that helps to accelerate achievement of the long-term goal. And Agendas can be linked to the Battle Honour that comes as a reward for achieving the Agenda in much the same way that mission objectives can be linked to the mission that came before or comes after.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The Venn Diagram of people who were against a more granular points system and those that appear to not play 40k by the rules and instead play a homebrew version of 40k seems to just be a single circle. Funny that...

And there's nothing wrong with homebrew versions of 40k that remove all the strictures of matched play and objectives and whatnot - I've done it plenty of times and its tons of fun - but I'm not about to pretend that it is in any way the normal way to play, or that I'm really even playing the game as its written or intended.

Not true, because few if any of the people you're writing about were actually "Against Granular Points" - almost ALL of us were advocates for the two system solution. Both Andy and I are on record saying again and again that we prefer a game were both Points and PLs exist.

People are against PL. Many point advocates won't tolerate the continued existence of PL as a parallel system.

No one is against points. In a system where both PL and points exist, we may choose to play PL, but that does not make us anti-points. Even those who believe PL is better for the game as a whole will typically support a two-system solution as a compromise. And in my case, I don't even believe that PL are better for the game as a whole, despite PL being my personal preference in a two-system environment.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

No one plays to lose.
No one plays to draw.
Everyone plays to win. Anyone who isn't, isn't actually playing the game.

Sure, but winning doesn't have to be the main reason to play either. For me, the outcome of the game has zero impact on my enjoyment of it. What i look for is a fun opponent, a clean game, and finding cool interactions between units.

I'm a Johnny at heart basically.


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Hecaton wrote:

Yup. 40k is a competitive game. Not giving your opponent a good game is bad sportsmanship.

Oh boy, yeah, i cannot agree with that. A competitive game wouldn't have such janky rules and the game developper wouldn't wait months to answer simple yes/no questions that the community has (can you overwatch more than once if you do it via abilities for example). 40k being touted as a competitive game by GW doesn't mean it is.

As someone not competitive and yet participating in the discussion, there are three reasons I do so:

-I like to follow a little on where the game looks headed

-At our level, we too are impacted by balance and rule design in a way.

-It's a discussion. I'm here to have a good chat, to share my thoughts, and to hear the thoughts of others. That I don't play tournaments doesn't mean I, as a hobbyist, am not interested in what these tournaments players think or have to say.


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Not Online!!! wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Yeah, it's not an insult to turn someone down because you don't feel like it'd be a fun time. Quite the contrary.

This, however, what do you do when confronted by a skew army?
Like knights.

Do you just flat out deny knights? Because knights are THE skew army by design and badly designed form a balance perspective due to that?

It harks back to balance one again.

I'd have a hard time answering other than by saying that you are totally correct and ending up with such an army in a game would be due to faulty design.

Although I will not express an opinion as to IK status right now, I don't know.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
As someone not competitive and yet participating in the discussion, there are three reasons I do so:

-I like to follow a little on where the game looks headed

-At our level, we too are impacted by balance and rule design in a way.

-It's a discussion. I'm here to have a good chat, to share my thoughts, and to hear the thoughts of others. That I don't play tournaments doesn't mean I, as a hobbyist, am not interested in what these tournaments players think or have to say.


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Not Online!!! wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Yeah, it's not an insult to turn someone down because you don't feel like it'd be a fun time. Quite the contrary.

This, however, what do you do when confronted by a skew army?
Like knights.

Do you just flat out deny knights? Because knights are THE skew army by design and badly designed form a balance perspective due to that?

It harks back to balance one again.

I'd have a hard time answering other than by saying that you are totally correct and ending up with such an army in a game would be due to faulty design.

Although I will not express an opinion as to IK status right now, I don't know.

If I was playing a knights army I would like to know before hand so I could bring a force that would be able to at least try and damage them, and I f I was a knight player playing pick up games I would guess that most people, would be the same and try and arrange stuff in advance or be open to proxying and the like.

Now if you are playing a competitive game, even as a casual pick up but both parties know it will be a competitive game then you should be able to deal with knights to some extent.

Like jake said, I was never against points and 100% see how the new points system isn’t great for competitive players. And I’m not hugely invested in this discussion as has been implied. I’m here to learn a bit of what goes on in a section of the hobby I have not part in. It’s interesting. I’m learning. Victs answer about list building was very insightful and I E been looking math hammer sites and it’s fascinating the depth available if you know where to look.

If anyone has any good links they would care to share I’d appreciate it. I found “unit crunch” and like it, it’s a bit to get my head around but i enjoy a graph and some data as much as the next paramedic who runs an audit team! (That’s quite a lot).


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And as for refusing to play people or certain armies, it’s tricky but my hobby time is limited by work and family and therefore precious. So I wouldn’t want to waste it but equally trying something outside your comfort zone often brings good results.

Luckily these days not many armies that can't damage knights. Death guard maybe.

tneva82 wrote:
Luckily these days not many armies that can't damage knights. Death guard maybe.

DG
Sisters
Tau
Demons (that isnt monster mash)

and thats not taking into account a "blind" list that doesn't have sufficient anti-tank, for example, if one brought only 1-2 anti-tank units, the knights can kill those first and then be safe for the rest of the game

Everything can damage everything. That's the way the stupid To Wound chart works, and has done for several editions.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Sure, but winning doesn't have to be the main reason to play either.

And I never said it did, only that comments like "I don't play to win!" are inherently dishonest, because no one plays to lose and no one plays to draw.

Personally I hate what competitive play has done to 40k over the past edition, and I routinely refer to "metawatch" articles as the best comedic articles GW ever posts. 9th Edition - Tournament Edition 40k - saw too much a shift towards making everything tournament based, and the "balance" dataslates were just GW lurching to put out one fire after another in the most hamfisted knee-jerking ways imaginable (their attempt at "fixing" aircraft still boils my blood).

But I don't hate tournaments or competitive play, only that GW has learnt all the wrong lessons from it. Caulyn put it perfectly above, so I'll just quote him:

"When something is broken in Magic, people blame WotC. When something is broken in 40K people are perfectly fine blaming players instead of GW."

If 40k isn't working, blaming the players is stupid. They didn't write the game. They're not the ones who fail and fail again to iterate and learn from mistakes. They're not the ones still attempting to balance (read: punish) units for being powerful 2 editions ago. They're not the ones who don't see how raising the prices on all Indirect units across the board can impact those same units with also have non-indirect abilities. They're not the ones for what must be the third edition in a row wrote "Reduce the damage taken by 1" and somehow still forgot to put "to a minimum of 1" in there, so had to FAQ/designer notes it once again. And many more examples beyond that...

Why would anyone blame the players for playing the game GW wrote the way GW wrote it?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Everything can damage everything. That's the way the stupid To Wound chart works, and has done for several editions.

sure, i can plink a wound off here and there, but my Pink horrors and flamers arent doing meaningful damage to an all-knights army.


as for the rest of your comment :

I don't think its blaming the players when people suggest alternate ways to play or even houserules?
I know people get sensitive about the concept of houseruling on here, but does it matter if Joe and his gang decide to add a rule that makes the game more enjoyable to them?

I wonder: could some of the misplaced grudges or outright attacks toward competitive players be caused by, precisely, the feeling of a few people that said competitve players "endorse" GW managing of the game?

Accusing some sort of influencer or whatever (if any exist) that may be debated: are there GW sponsored people advertising the game, if yes, how much do they participate in GW's obstination in handling as it does?

In any case, whether such a thing is or is not, blaming the average player is missing the target as perfectly expressed. If anything, these claims would serve GW good with not caring for their game design since the playerbase itself would argue that it's not their fault as a company that they deliver a broken product.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
I don't think its blaming the players when people suggest alternate ways to play or even houserules?

I don't have any problems with house rules.

I do have a problem when people go "This thing you think is a problem is fine because our group just house rules it!". That doesn't make the problem not a problem, and it's not a real way of dealing with a problem. It's just sticking your head in the sand.

This was all across the points thread, and it's all across here.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Sure, but winning doesn't have to be the main reason to play either.

And I never said it did, only that comments like "I don't play to win!" are inherently dishonest, because no one plays to lose and no one plays to draw.

This isn't quite correct. In a team play environment you can certainly be playing to draw, and in situations where you know you have no chance to win you can play to draw.

You can also be playing to lose - not trying to lose or actively sabotaging yourself - but when your friend who is really into the game and plays Custodes asks for a game, and you play your DG army, you are playing the game knowing you are going to lose. You go into that game for social reasons, or to keep your friend happy, but you know you will lose. So you are no longer playing to win.


I've come back into the game after about 10 years and I play BA against some friends who play GSC and Custodes (and have been playing for the last few editions). This win rate table does help explain the frustration I'm running into.

I think house rules in 40K kinda suck since they almost always are made to fix issues that the game shouldn’t have.

When we play Mordheim, our house rules are almost entirely fun addition to the game.
Things like weather, new characters and boats.

Warmachine is effectively just table set up, it handles terrain super well. And narrative games super fun there as well.

MCP I been having a blast, all narrative, all fun! No house rules needed.

Battletech, is similar to Mordheim. Anything we added on is to expand the game, as the rules itself are fairly clean.

40k honestly I rarely see house rules that expand the game, often it’s to rework issues the base game has. And narrative mostly very basic without going into rewrites.

It’s basically rewarded for the bare minimum of rules to push its own narrative.
Which actually makes sense if you follow GW forge the narrative from years ago, they make the game up to support whatever they trying to sell.
Often to its own narrative detriment.