|
So I've been trying to make reserves work but also clean the game up a bit to help facilitate events and possibly higher than 1k lists.
What we tried today didn't totally work but I think it got us to something that will.
We played 1500pts and both of us made a 1k list and a 500pt list that would start in reserve.
Reserve works like 40k of old, from turn 2 onward in the movement phase you pick a reserve unit and roll, on a 4+ turn 2, 3+ turn 3 and on turn 4 any unit left in reserve no longer rolls but must move on to the board from reserve.
The reserves aren't stacked to the top of the movement phase, so you can roll for them in whatever order you want in terms of activating other detachments already on the board. It gives flexibility, but also neither side knows what will and won't be coming in turn 2/3.
The one problem we ran into to day was, the formations aren't all equally flexible in terms of point limits. Some formations are very flexible, some have big integers like tank formations, you often end up with either a big deficit in points because the remaining point are just too few to add to existing detachments or take another. Anyway, so the point is delineating by points doesn't work too well.
So what we landed on is simply forcing both sides to put 1/3 of their detachments (activations) rounding up in reserve. If you had 18 detachments, 6 go into reserve.
Other likely changes are dropping break point all together, as well as deployment by formation. Each side is one army, deploys at once, also assigning reserves at the same time, anything with like infiltrate would still deploy after the main force.
This is done for speed, we were finding it taking a while unpacking/setting up armies and having to organize them by formation, aesthetically it looks worse and takes longer. What we envision doing is a roll off, winner can deploy first or second but its tied to choosing deployment, so if they force theier opponent to deploy first they might lose out on the deployment zone they prefer.
The last change we wanna make is, allowing all units fleeing one final chance to regroup at the board edge. This is for a few reasons, 1, its fun and considering how brutal the game is its a nice reprieve. 2, there's a weird disparity between fleeing from combat and from shooting, I get what it's there because otherwise losing a combat in your own neck of the woods would always suck more than on the other end of the board, but why o why does a unit of like 2 tanks lose one and then b-line 20 inches off the board. The game is deadly enough.
The goal of all of this is to make it so an event is even possible, we've got such a massive gulf between players who have barely been able to get a handful of games since release and players who are fairly skilled and more "students" of the game, where as many just want a fun mass battle game and find something a lot crunchier and more involved than they expected and I sorta get it. I still think the weirdest aspect of the game is tracking formations and breaking points, I was super excited about leaving AT behind because it meant not having to have as much sideboard for terminals but having to have a damn census graveyard and pen and pad just way too unfun for a supposed mass battle game, it feels like a mass accounting game.
We've played a few games without breaking point at all and they've been better for it. I also think quality of life stuff like only allowing overwatch on first fire outside of point defense to have been a net good so far.
I just can't abide a mass battle game that tells you 3k is the baseline but just assumed everyone has like 5-8 hours to play. I also think the game has sent a really mixed message with all the new units in the great slaughter deviating entirely from the rulebook units in terms of giving some point saving incentive for expanding existing detachments over starting new ones. I feel like a bad guy for running a bunch of detachments of 1 tank but there is zero benefit for any of the new ones to not do that.
Anyway, didn't get any shots of today's game, was able to really focus on playing and that made it all the better. We also played with zero structures but a healthy amount of big los blocking impassable terrain and that also helped speed things up and encourage a bit more maneuver play. I really think people need to start moving away from the urban sprawl of death boards where its just wall to wall structures. It's just too advantageous to infantry/charge/moving 15 inches through structures/ogryns being obnoxiously good on account of all of that etc. It's actually kind of nuts that the only terrain that really even messed with infantry are rivers, like they can b-line clear up and down sheer cliff faces without even being slowed down, its nuts.
|
