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Post by GreatBigTree on May 25, 2017 21:48:42 GMT
Ah, but here's the question; When you asked people about Riflemen how did they word their answer? Did they tell you they were not worth playing or did they tell you that there are better models but buy what you want? I'm not saying new players should be lied to, but the tone in which advice is delivered has a huge impact on whether or not they want to stick around. To be honest, it wouldn't have mattered to *me* how they worded their answer. I'm not generally thrown by how a person responds, as much as the content.
If I recall, I was told that for the "X" more points that Invictors were way better, and that even after spending points on the command upgrade and a Thane, that the Riflemen would not be as good as the Invictors in any game that didn't have a Stealth unit to target. Which, at the time, meant nothing to me as I had precious little idea what the game was even about.
It was an honest appraisal, by guys I'd be playing with at the FLGS, and backed by opinion online. I liked that the Riflemen were more of a Toolbox / Support unit, whereas the Invictors seemed more like a shooty unit that was also good at assault [Stupid 40k...] engaging in close combat, but were fairly direct in their use. I chose Ret because I liked the models, but also because I was told they're more of a tool-box army, where they're good at most things [except attrition!] but masters of none, so are best off playing to your opponent's weakness. So the Riflemen seemed to fit that bill as a support fire unit, so I went with them. I got a clear picture of what people thought, but brazenly chose to ignore what is likely very good advice to pursue a play style I think I'd enjoy more.
So I'm grateful for people pointing out that I'd be better off spending money on a 3rd Arcanist, rather than a Ghost Sniper, but I liked the model and want to play a mostly shooty game, so I put 3 points into him rather than 2 with a left-over to a final Arcanist. Again, not pursuing direct power, but after everything else shoots, having the sniper choose to put 3 points of damage into a specific column on a Warjack could cripple it, allowing me another tool in the box. One guy said something along the lines of may as well throw the model in the bottom of my box and immediately shell out for another Arcanist... So I look forward to whomping him with it someday. The advice, whether gentle or otherwise, is appreciated by me, and does not frighten me off by any means. But I'm "resolute" like that, which is a nice way of saying bull-headed, I suppose.
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marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
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Post by marke on May 25, 2017 23:25:08 GMT
Isn't the answer simple right now? "Riflemen aren't used much these days, but PP now has a CID system in place. Eventually they aim to make everything playable in one form or another."
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Post by GreatBigTree on May 26, 2017 3:31:33 GMT
That answer wouldn't have meant a thing to me, two months ago.
"What's a see-eye-dee system?"
"What if they don't change it?"
"So you're saying it doesn't matter at all what I play? That doesn't sound like there's any strategy... I'm moving on."
And it wouldn't have answered my primary question...
"So when would you take Riflemen over Invictors?"
I'm a big proponent of direct communication. So that may be me. I'd rather hear what people honestly think, directly, rather than a wish-wash answer. Which probably comes across as a "higher ground" statement, but isn't meant that way. It's a personality thing, at the heart, and some people find direct communication uncomfortable, while others find indirect communication insufferable. I'm the latter camp. I figure I wouldn't ask, if I didn't want the answer.
Like I said, this is probably a personality preference thing. To the OP's question, my FLGS doesn't seem to have much trouble filling its tables every Friday.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on May 26, 2017 6:46:37 GMT
Isn't the answer simple right now? "Riflemen aren't used much these days, but PP now has a CID system in place. Eventually they aim to make everything playable in one form or another." This actually seems to me to not be a good answer at all. It sounds like you are promising the person that don't worry, PP knows that Riflemen are too weak, as is the community consensus, and they will definitely fix them some day. Which I don't believe in at all. The CID doesn't mean that PP will do anything the community wants. The CID means PP will take community feedback on various design issues that they work on. It doesn't mean that they will agree with the community feedback. Don't believe that because of CID, everything will be playable some day. Because you can't please everyone, community opinion is varied and fickle, and PP and the community will never agree on everything.
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Post by superhappytime on May 26, 2017 12:56:37 GMT
Maybe. Every area is different, but in my local stores I can get a game of WMH in if I ask (Or convince someone to not play 40K that weekend).
Let's pose another question:
Yes, I've stopped using them. The site never remembers my username/password, half the google searches I make that link to the site are gone, there isn't the camaraderie between similar faction players, or the helpful advice, and when you read through why they started CID you can tell that their moves were to actively eliminate the camaraderie, or "Mob Mentality", who were ironically correct about Skorne.
Also a lot of the moves PP have made recently feel very GW (who to this user, seem to be reversing a lot of their old habits and finally "Getting with the Times"). Dictating what retailers can/cannot sell for, appearing to take full control of their community forums (I have my doubts this thread could exist there), and killing the PG program (which "legal reasons" appeared to be the real culprit, instead of the fact that there were a lot of problems with it that were not getting solved). I wasn't as active in the game as I am now, but back then I could still say PP was a respectable enterprise. Now, ehhhh...
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proxy
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Post by proxy on May 26, 2017 21:30:26 GMT
I don't know if it is retention issues or people branching out to try new things or just general burnout and fatigue.
My local meta is still doing well although I have been on a few months hiatus now and will not likely be returning for any more than the casual game here and there but I do think out of the great group we have I am the only one doing so right now and most game nights are usually 3-5 tables going.
As for me I have hit my burnout stage of WMH and I attribute this to two major issues I perceive (this is personal and your views may vary). I hate theme lists. I hate free points and feeling pigeon holed into playing theme lists or miss out against someone who is playing them. The drawback to the good themes never seems to outweigh the gain. Getting 15-20 points of free models seems to shore up the weakness the non theme list iteration may have had and I hate the direction this is taking the game. Again this is personal feeling.
CID. I love what PP is doing with CID but it feels like every time I pop down to watch a game if someone's faction has something in CID I am seeing CIDmachine. I do not want to have to keep up with your rules from CID and what is changing on a weekly basis. Again this is personal and you are free to disagree.
This is just me though. I know I am not alone and that some podcast personalities I listen to share these views as well.
I guess to sum up I don't want to play themeCIDmachine.
I still love the game and I know I will be back. I just want to wait for the dust to settle before I do. And that other game hitting 8th Ed that we wont mention is looking very promising.
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Post by pangurban on May 26, 2017 22:06:48 GMT
As for me I have hit my burnout stage of WMH and I attribute this to two major issues I perceive (this is personal and your views may vary). I hate theme lists. I hate free points and feeling pigeon holed into playing theme lists or miss out against someone who is playing them. The drawback to the good themes never seems to outweigh the gain. Getting 15-20 points of free models seems to shore up the weakness the non theme list iteration may have had and I hate the direction this is taking the game. Again this is personal feeling. CID. I love what PP is doing with CID but it feels like every time I pop down to watch a game if someone's faction has something in CID I am seeing CIDmachine. I do not want to have to keep up with your rules from CID and what is changing on a weekly basis. Again this is personal and you are free to disagree. With regards to CID: I set my games up beforehand. I check who wants to play and what they want to play: strong lists, for fun, 35-50-75 points, what faction, what list type, etc. Helps ensure both players have a fair idea of what's going to happen and the game is interesting. CID is now simply part of that. Some things in CID I'm very interested in, some a little, some not at all. Sometimes trying CID test rules appeals, sometimes we agree it's probably better we each find someone else to play because one of us really wants to do some hard testing and the other really wants to get a regular game in. That's ok. We do what we want and we all have our toy soldiers fun. With regards to themes: some are indeed too strong. By my estimate that's a minority of them though. And they have the benefit of allowing you to bring certain models without feeling like you're handicapping yourself too much, which is damn nice if you like the models in question: they're not the greatest balance tool, but they do help. I'm hoping some (preferably all) of the problematic ones get reviewed and toned down a bit at some not too distant point in the future, but I'm not going to let the bad bits spoil to good for me right now either.
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on May 26, 2017 22:14:37 GMT
That could be because Steamforged are based in the UK, and not the Sue-nited States. And because they're smaller and younger. The financial risk is lower, and they need their Pundit program more to build up a larger customer base. I'm sure the difference in mentality matters, but it's also a very different equation to figure out. The two companies that are actually beating PP in sales, GW and FFG, both lack a volunteer program as well. GW is all fan run events and FFG has their Flight Crew program which is an actual Payed (for money) Program, which you may notice is the route that PP is heading (PP Judges are a payed/contract position now).
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Post by pangurban on May 26, 2017 22:29:06 GMT
And because they're smaller and younger. The financial risk is lower, and they need their Pundit program more to build up a larger customer base. I'm sure the difference in mentality matters, but it's also a very different equation to figure out. The two companies that are actually beating PP in sales, GW and FFG, both lack a volunteer program as well. GW is all fan run events and FFG has their Flight Crew program which is an actual Payed (for money) Program, which you may notice is the route that PP is heading (PP Judges are a payed/contract position now). Yup. It's a matter of quantity, for a major part. SFG has less volunteers working for them and they've been doing that for less long, so even if a case is brought against them and they lose the repercussions will be limited compared to if a GW, FFG or WotC would do the same thing. They may find they have to change their MO down the line as well, but apparently for now they're ok with it.
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Post by Randomdude on May 29, 2017 10:45:05 GMT
For me, the main reason for leaving WMH can be summed up with lack of diversity, how obnoxious the local meta had become (way to competitive) and the lack of new blood (mostly scared away due to said competitive meta).
I know that it is rather pointless to be pointing out local issues as a indicator to the general health of the game. I am sure that with some small changes in the local meta, things would be a lot more dandy. But I feel that still the issue is that the game rewards min/maxing, to that extent that balanced lists are pointless. The last nationals I attended, I was playing Kings of War instead, but I still walked around the WMH tables to see what was going on. It made me sad to see how little variety there was. Basically all the circle players ran almost identical Una2 lists, Cygnar players with the stormlances, Khador with loads of cheap heavies etc.
Once again, a small perspective in the bigger picture. But I guess it is no help that there are communities out there where the meta is not so competitive that it kills the game, when it is the meta I am currently in.
A small rant, by some random dude
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Post by Rork on May 29, 2017 11:55:57 GMT
It made me sad to see how little variety there was. Basically all the circle players ran almost identical Una2 lists, Cygnar players with the stormlances, Khador with loads of cheap heavies etc. I've always found these things go in phases. In a lot of competitive scenes, one or two players hit on a good idea and then everyone either a) follows it or b) techs against it. Storm Lances are already on the way out, infantry is becoming more common...and the cycle will continue. I think if the game is the same now in a year's time, then there could be a problem. But by then I think there will be a lot of changes, maybe even seeing Ghost Fleet start to take a step back.
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on May 29, 2017 13:44:20 GMT
I think the lack of varied formats is to blame. Or rather the community's reluctance to admit other, especially smaller, formats as equally worthy of organising events and playing on a regular basis.
75pts/2 lists is very daunting to newcomers and having no alternative to it may (and most likely is) offputting to many of them. It has multiple barriers of entry - money, time spent painting, taking in so many rules, time spent playing such games.
A set of comp/limitations designed to make small points games more balanced , similar to WFB/WH40K Border Patrol/Combat Patrol would be really welcome. As would be not stigmatising it as "not a proper way to play the game" and avoiding events with such formats because they are "not serious enough".
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Post by Gamingdevil on May 29, 2017 14:48:08 GMT
I think the lack of varied formats is to blame. Or rather the community's reluctance to admit other, especially smaller, formats as equally worthy of organising events and playing on a regular basis. 75pts/2 lists is very daunting to newcomers and having no alternative to it may (and most likely is) offputting to many of them. It has multiple barriers of entry - money, time spent painting, taking in so many rules, time spent playing such games. A set of comp/limitations designed to make small points games more balanced , similar to WFB/WH40K Border Patrol/Combat Patrol would be really welcome. As would be not stigmatising it as "not a proper way to play the game" and avoiding events with such formats because they are "not serious enough". The Rumble format will be in the SR2017 pack.
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Post by Morganstern on May 29, 2017 15:09:57 GMT
For me, the main reason for leaving WMH can be summed up with lack of diversity, how obnoxious the local meta had become (way to competitive) and the lack of new blood (mostly scared away due to said competitive meta). Interestingly I've seen this reason given many times in the past when the question was raised as to why Warhammer Fantasy was stagnant and losing players. Could some of the players be part of the problem, especially when you consider that a lot of players came from the Warhammer Fantasy crowd and brought their attitudes with them.
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Post by Guest on May 29, 2017 20:22:15 GMT
Just as it was in the 2016 pack. That didn't make it any more popular, or stop it from being treated as a lesser way to play the game. It was also fairly easy to break, and that hasn't changed.
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