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Our very small group tends to focus on off-brand games and those tend to be smaller publisher sets. Reading the ads, back covers and reviews tends to bring up recurring concepts and phrases. These aren’t limited to small publishers or reviews.

Here’s a few:
This promising game sadly devolves into a fight at the center of the table.
Easy to learn rules which take years to master
Innovative mechanics (or mechanisms if they have been around enough folks correcting them)

The center table thing always puzzles me, about why that ruins a game. Pretty much everything I have played ever tends toward that central battle.

What’re buzzwords and phrases have caught your attention?

Any time I see the words "meta", "trash" , "garbage" etc. my mind just goes to sleep and I take no notice of whatever said person has to say.

Happens a lot on this site I must say...

"Innovative mechanics/gameplay" is definitely one I see a lot and is completely over-used IMO, since most of the time that's just a new combination of old stuff anyway.

Also everything seems to have "resource management" in it these days, even where it's really not necessary or thematically appropriate.

One that I don't see often but bugs me every time I do see it is "emergent gameplay." Like, I would hope there are multiple cool things that you can come up with during play to accomplish goals, or it's a simple, boring game.

Also, "competitive skirmish game." Well, yeah, unless it's a co-op game, it's "competitive." But that always seems to try to imply that there's some super-tight, balanced ruleset underlying, when there usually isn't.

‘...you go for a balance between accessibility, preciseness (ensuring that there are no vagaries or areas within the rules that are likely to be misinterpreted) and mechanical robustness (do they work on the tabletop?)’
‘In the first edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar, we erred on the side of writing rules that were as accessible and precise as possible, with the result that the robustness of the rules sometimes suffered.’
- Jervis Johnson's idiot ramblings about 1st edition Age of Sigmar, White Dwarf January 2019

My personal favourites are "fast paced" and mentioned already "easy to learn, difficult to master".

The first one usually means, that the game is so barebones, that it is 99% identical to other "fast paced" D6 rulesets out there and has zero flavour to it.

The second one always means, that designers have delusions of grandeur and expect their game to be the next Go or Chess.

Re: "emergent gameplay" more than once meant, that the game revolved around either pre-installed synergies, or even worse, ones that designers did not foresee, which then broke the game's intent. My favourite example of this is not a wargame, but a deckbuilder "Ascension" - in more than one edition of this game, the player could go on with his turn forever, acquiring all the cards and beating all the monsters over and over again. As this game has a good mobile version it was my traveling hobby for some time to find ways to break a current edition and keep up the turn for the whole travel time

 Grimtuff wrote:
Any time I see the words "meta", "trash" , "garbage" etc. my mind just goes to sleep and I take no notice of whatever said person has to say.

Happens a lot on this site I must say...

Add "Balance" to that list for me.

ccs wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Any time I see the words "meta", "trash" , "garbage" etc. my mind just goes to sleep and I take no notice of whatever said person has to say.

Happens a lot on this site I must say...

Add "Balance" to that list for me.

I don't even know what this word is supposed to mean anymore, after I read a complaint, that a cooperative, story driven boardgame is bad, because it is unbalanced...

 privateer4hire wrote:

The center table thing always puzzles me, about why that ruins a game. Pretty much everything I have played ever tends toward that central battle.

In chess, you call it 'center control'. The more of the center you control, the more you hamper your opponent's ability to bring forces against your king. Of course, most wargames don't have a 'king' to capture. Still, controlling the center of the map does restrict your opponent's mobility and ability to achieve non-combat goals. But merely having forces in the center does not guarantee control. It also allows your opponent to bring forces to bear from three sides.

So complaints about 'push everything to the center and the hardest unit wins' means there's no tactical complexity. Outmaneuvering your opponent means nothing, because you can surround the 'hardest' unit with overwhelming numbers... and that 'hardest' unit just kills everything. The game thus devolves into making an "I win!' button during army construction by having a harder unit than anything your opponents can bring to bear. Now obviously this is not 100% true for any wargame, and it's probably not 0% true for any wargame that doesn't feature fixed lists either. But the closer you get to 0%, the more the game favors tactical maneuver skills over listbuilding skills.

Why is this desirable? Replay. Once you've got the 'hardest' list down and played it against all comers... well, it's rather boring, yeah? Push straight ahead and win. In a mirror match it's always going to be determined by the die rolls, not skill. Might was well flip a coin and skip all the trouble of painting minis and setting up the table.

Also, the more tactics matter, the more terrain matters. Thus, the more the setup of the table matters, and the more the ability to read the table matters. Now there are more variables in play, more complexity, more replayability you get. This can lead to 'easy too learn, hard to master', which in itself is not a bad thing. The same can be said of chess, after all...

Thanks for the discussion on the center thing. Good perspective.

To add to that, it's not just about the balance issues of "make a bigger death star". Even when the game is balanced and you can't just win in the list building phase "meet in the center" can still be a problem with things like bad scenario design. If the game's only scenario is "last man standing" and the other player concentrates all of their forces in the center there's no reason to do anything but concentrate your own forces and meet them there. If you go anywhere else you have a stalemate until you decide to go into the center after all, since nobody can win until the two sides meet and fight to the death. If you split your forces Lanchester's square law wrecks you and you lose. And sure, the fight doesn't have to be in the center but it's not like any other part of the table is more or less appealing as a place to meet. So you end up having both players just line up their forces and advance directly into the center brawl. And it's boring as hell because you have few decisions to make in executing the plan.

Same thing with core game mechanics. If a game has no concept of unit facings and flank/rear attacks or crossfire/suppression then there's no real incentive to maneuver into a better position to attack from. Just move into the spot where you can get within attack range by the shortest possible route and start attacking. With typical deployment methods that means setting up each army and then fighting the entire battle on a line between them. Melee units move faster along that line, artillery stays back at the opposite end of the line, but there's no real incentive to do anything to deviate from the line. Having things like line of sight blocking terrain everywhere or objectives that force you to focus on control of multiple regions of the battlefield can help with this but if those things don't matter enough it's easy for the game to devolve back into sending 90% of your forces to meet in the middle while token objective holders camp in the background.

This kind of thing is a huge problem for miniatures games. Aside from the lack of replay value when the game is nothing more than "meet in the middle and roll dice" it really makes you wonder why you put all that effort into painting, building scenery, etc. At that point why not just play a war-themed CCG with abstract attack and defense mechanics?

CadianSgtBob wrote:
To add to that, it's not just about the balance issues of "make a bigger death star". Even when the game is balanced and you can't just win in the list building phase "meet in the center" can still be a problem with things like bad scenario design. If the game's only scenario is "last man standing" and the other player concentrates all of their forces in the center there's no reason to do anything but concentrate your own forces and meet them there. If you go anywhere else you have a stalemate until you decide to go into the center after all, since nobody can win until the two sides meet and fight to the death. If you split your forces Lanchester's square law wrecks you and you lose. And sure, the fight doesn't have to be in the center but it's not like any other part of the table is more or less appealing as a place to meet. So you end up having both players just line up their forces and advance directly into the center brawl. And it's boring as hell because you have few decisions to make in executing the plan.

Same thing with core game mechanics. If a game has no concept of unit facings and flank/rear attacks or crossfire/suppression then there's no real incentive to maneuver into a better position to attack from. Just move into the spot where you can get within attack range by the shortest possible route and start attacking. With typical deployment methods that means setting up each army and then fighting the entire battle on a line between them. Melee units move faster along that line, artillery stays back at the opposite end of the line, but there's no real incentive to do anything to deviate from the line. Having things like line of sight blocking terrain everywhere or objectives that force you to focus on control of multiple regions of the battlefield can help with this but if those things don't matter enough it's easy for the game to devolve back into sending 90% of your forces to meet in the middle while token objective holders camp in the background.

This kind of thing is a huge problem for miniatures games. Aside from the lack of replay value when the game is nothing more than "meet in the middle and roll dice" it really makes you wonder why you put all that effort into painting, building scenery, etc. At that point why not just play a war-themed CCG with abstract attack and defense mechanics?

Regarding Lanchester's law and wargames, it's application depends solely on activation sequence in a given game. Both IGOUGO and AA do not directly follow this law, because turn order has bigger impact than relative force size. This is especially true in IGOUGO, where you can easily calculate the point difference threshold depending on average damage output, below which first player can still win the game, despite smaller force. For modern 40k those are hundreds of points of first turn advantage. With AA, this point threshold is usually larger than the damage output of single activation, so AA systems folow this law closer. For Lanchester law to apply fully, you have to have end turn, simultaneous damage resolution, because only this way you can quantify dt properly enough. This last option is IMHO the best one to ensure proper simulationinst wargame, but players do not like bookkeeping, so very few games implement this.

nou wrote:
Regarding Lanchester's law and wargames

Yes, I know it's not mathematically perfect (and it's not even perfectly accurate for real-world situations), I'm just talking in very general terms. In this hypothetical "meet in the middle" game throwing your 2000 point army at a concentrated 2000 point force in individual 500 point groups is much worse than sending all 2000 points in at once, whether or not the exponent on the model is exactly 2.0 for a given system.

ccs wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Any time I see the words "meta", "trash" , "garbage" etc. my mind just goes to sleep and I take no notice of whatever said person has to say.

Happens a lot on this site I must say...

Add "Balance" to that list for me.

And "Viable"...

 privateer4hire wrote:


The center table thing always puzzles me, about why that ruins a game. Pretty much everything I have played ever tends toward that central battle.

For me there are generally 2 styles of centre table games. Where it is deliberate (advance the Phalanx!), typically for historical reasons or there are a small number of elements and having them in the centre makes for easier board design as wherever the fight takes place it is effectively the centre (as everyone is there); or where it is lazy. Stuff could be all over the table but a bunch of factors mean a scrum is going to happen in the middle. There are a bunch of things you can do to alter this (the most common is having a number of objective points to fight over that are not int he middle, forcing the fight to spread out) and unless you are using slow armies like say ancients on foot, the ability to move around dynamically and for good reason gives another element of fun.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Any time I see the words "meta", "trash" , "garbage" etc. my mind just goes to sleep and I take no notice of whatever said person has to say.

Happens a lot on this site I must say...

I hate dismissing Meta, as its a really important concept to understand and accept if you want to improve at most games, but when someone follows it up with "trash", "garbage", "broken", etc it's probably not a constructive conversation. Really great players see Meta as a problem to solve and want to discuss things that might counter it. A lot of players see Meta as a final state to chase, when its really something to try and get in front of, but that takes a lot of practice and experimentation that most of the online community just doesn't actually want to admit they're not up for.

The GWs staff on Warhammer TV using the phrase "3up" to describe a 3+ save. Like what the hell? Is that something new or something my gaming group has thankfully been isolated from for over 20 years?

Also Kitbash being used instead of conversion.

I’ve heard 2up, 3up, etc. for about 25 years. U.S. gaming

Memnoch wrote:

Also Kitbash being used instead of conversion.

I always thought those two terms referred to different things. Or at least two ends of a spectrum.

A conversion is when you take an existing model and tweak it. Like changing its weapon or its head or its pose. It might end up counting as a different kind of model in game terms, of course.

A kitbash is when you take several different kits and make something new out of them. Like taking a Star Wars AT-AT walker kit and a TIE Interceptor kit and some random Gundam bits and making a 40K dropship out of them.

Of course, where exactly you draw the line between the former and the latter is perfect pointless internet flamewar fodder. But to me at least, with a conversion, you're riffing on an existing catalogue model. "Ooh, you've put cool new claws on that Carnifex!" Whereas a kitbash is more like, "Let's see, to make that BFG space hulk you've used bits from GW cruiser kits, and metal ships, and an orky prow made out of plasticard, and a Trek space station toy, and Micro Machines, and a slather of polyfilla ..."

But with the move away from metal toward plastic, I can see the term 'kitbash' becoming more common for any kind of modification, because plastic models tend to come in kit form to begin with--unlike classic one-piece metal models that need to be cut up and messed around with.

Zenithfleet wrote:

Memnoch wrote:

Also Kitbash being used instead of conversion.

I always thought those two terms referred to different things. Or at least two ends of a spectrum.

A conversion is when you take an existing model and tweak it. Like changing its weapon or its head or its pose. It might end up counting as a different kind of model in game terms, of course.

A kitbash is when you take several different kits and make something new out of them. Like taking a Star Wars AT-AT walker kit and a TIE Interceptor kit and some random Gundam bits and making a 40K dropship out of them.

Of course, where exactly you draw the line between the former and the latter is perfect pointless internet flamewar fodder. But to me at least, with a conversion, you're riffing on an existing catalogue model. "Ooh, you've put cool new claws on that Carnifex!" Whereas a kitbash is more like, "Let's see, to make that BFG space hulk you've used bits from GW cruiser kits, and metal ships, and an orky prow made out of plasticard, and a Trek space station toy, and Micro Machines, and a slather of polyfilla ..."

To be argumentative though (to me conversions and kitbashing are about 99% interchangeable), if those 'new claws on that carnifex' came from a different kit, surely you are kitbashing, regardless? 'Converting' would only apply, under this definition where you were sculpting things out of green stuff/modelling putty or else using random scraps/odds and ends eg using a brass rod to replace a spear/banner.

Personally I think it's an awful endeavour, reminiscent of splitting hairs to separate the two things out from each other and it gives few benefits - I'd rather just admire the end result and the cleverness that went into it!

Memnoch wrote:
The GWs staff on Warhammer TV using the phrase "3up" to describe a 3+ save. Like what the hell? Is that something new or something my gaming group has thankfully been isolated from for over 20 years?

UK gaming has been using it for a while. I rejoined around 2012, and I remember hearing it being used a couple of years later (once the initial shock of gaming jargon had settled in a bit)

Also Kitbash being used instead of conversion.

As I know it to be:
Kitbashing is just using parts from kits. Headswaps, infantry torsos on bikes, Space Marine weapons used by Orks, etc. But, only parts from kits are used.
Conversions are done using non-kit parts, like plasticard, putty, random objects. They can also use parts from other kits.

The way I heard it was different:

A conversion is when you have a desired outcome and modify existing miniatures to achieve it, such as converting Romans into Space Romans.

Kitbashing is when you have no fixed end goal, but want to see what you can make from a collecting of interesting bits.

The moment I hear or read "meta" I tune out.

Recently, I have grown to utterly despise and get quite aggravated by the word "list"; as in army list. Armies are no longer armies; you now collect and build a "list". Army rosters are no longer rosters, you now play a "list". My "list", your "list", The "list"... IT'S NOT A MOTHER fething MAGIC THE GATHERING DECK! STOP CALLING IT A "LIST"!

Memnoch wrote:
The GWs staff on Warhammer TV using the phrase "3up" to describe a 3+ save. Like what the hell? Is that something new or something my gaming group has thankfully been isolated from for over 20 years?

Also Kitbash being used instead of conversion.

It's always been common when I played, but for non-wargamers it gets confusing. I remember the first time I had a friend watch a game who had never played before and kept asking what 3up, 4up etc meant. Simple concept to understand but definitely wargame jargon.

Memnoch wrote:
The GWs staff on Warhammer TV using the phrase "3up" to describe a 3+ save. Like what the hell? Is that something new or something my gaming group has thankfully been isolated from for over 20 years?

Also Kitbash being used instead of conversion.

It's shorthand for "3 or higher" when looking for the result or "3 and up". I can't think of a time where I didn't know it that way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 oni wrote:
The moment I hear or read "meta" I tune out.

Recently, I have grown to utterly despise and get quite aggravated by the word "list"; as in army list. Armies are no longer armies; you now collect and build a "list". Army rosters are no longer rosters, you now play a "list". My "list", your "list", The "list"... IT'S NOT A MOTHER MAGIC THE GATHERING DECK! STOP CALLING IT A "LIST"!

I mean.... a deck isn't a list either. I find calling a deck a list weirder than an army, but I get your point. Both terms refer to the list of contents I suppose.

Something has come up in certain games that I don't particularly appreciate when I play someone who has to do it... "Curbstomp"
I don't play enough to care if I win or lose, but some people act as if they can only have a good time if they destroy everything of yours on the table.
Hence curb stomp the other player.

 Genoside07 wrote:
Something has come up in certain games that I don't particularly appreciate when I play someone who has to do it... "Curbstomp"
I don't play enough to care if I win or lose, but some people act as if they can only have a good time if they destroy everything of yours on the table.
Hence curb stomp the other player.

There's definitely players that take it too far and need to reel it in. At the same time, I've noticed in recent years that as games get better designed and have more back and forth its harder to judge when you've got a safe lead and when you're about to face a harsh reprisal. One version of this I see when playing against new players is a "flinch" that causes them to get stomped when they really shouldn't. Their opponent will have a good turn, but expect the opponent to come out swinging in response and are braced to take it on the chin. Instead, the new player gets defensive, retreats and really doesn't do anything to help themselves get back into the game, which then spirals out of their control. It makes that first turn seem like more of a game winning curb stomp than it really was, because the psychological impact did more to win the game than the actual assault.

 oni wrote:
Recently, I have grown to utterly despise and get quite aggravated by the word "list"; as in army list. Armies are no longer armies; you now collect and build a "list". Army rosters are no longer rosters, you now play a "list". My "list", your "list", The "list"... IT'S NOT A MOTHER fething MAGIC THE GATHERING DECK! STOP CALLING IT A "LIST"!

Odd hill to die on given that GW themselves have referred to it as a "list" since at least as far back as third edition.

Memnoch wrote:
The GWs staff on Warhammer TV using the phrase "3up" to describe a 3+ save. Like what the hell? Is that something new or something my gaming group has thankfully been isolated from for over 20 years?

Back in Ye Olde Tymes of physical sculpts and casts, "Three-Up" referred to a triple-scale master model that would then be used as a template to create the small-scale product. 3D modelling and printing makes the three-up obsolete.