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Post by Blargaliscious on Aug 17, 2017 3:10:22 GMT
Um, guys. Arguing over a fluff justification for this theme army is rather silly.
I agree with Aegis that the idea of holy knights of Morrow fighting in the same army as Khadoran mob thugs and desert indigenous people aligned with the Protectorate is pretty far fetched. The justification for this theme, that it is possible for an all-Mercenary army to have an unusual variety of troops, is accurate, but the variety allowed in this theme goes beyond what we would expect in the setting.
The problem with the fluff justification for this theme is that it is not really a justification. It is merely an excuse to give a thin veneer of credibility and to give the presentation a nice look. This is a Mercenary warjack theme army. But instead of PP saying "here you go whiny Merc players, here is your warjack theme army," they instead slapped some "The Irregulars... yada yada yada... blah blah blah" text on it for show. The wrapping paper text for this theme army present is not the justification for it, it is merely a nice covering for it.
When you think about it, the idea of a warjack theme army is pretty silly regardless of the faction. Considering how expensive the warjacks are to make and the difficulty in making the cortexes, do you really think some Cygnaran general, Khadoran Kommandant, Protectorate high priest, or Cryxian Lich Lord is going to go up to a warcaster and say: "Hey Warcaster Bob, how about you take a dozen of these bad boys out into the field and go run amok with them? Don't worry about supporting troops, you'll be fine with the just the warjacks! Go ahead, you'll be fine! Hey, kill some bad guys for me while you're at it." (NO!)
The real "problem" with this theme army is that its logic is so different than the other theme armies that people are having trouble accepting it or fully utilizing it. The other theme armies constrain the player in a certain direction but reward with benefits. This theme army is trying to lure players into particular army builds based upon the benefits. If there are any constraints, they are already present in the rather disjointed and hodge-podge nature that encompasses all of what the Mercenaries are.
Look, this is a warjack theme army. Forget the fluff justification for it, it's crap just like it is for all of the other warjack theme armies. Forget the "lazy design strategy" and all of that other snottiness. There is only one real question we need to worry about:
Is this theme army broken, either too good or not good enough?
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Post by elladan52 on Aug 17, 2017 3:36:13 GMT
You know what Aegis? I want to apologize. I was intentionally poking you there. Because as we have argued, I have come around to see it from your point of view. Fluff probably should have some semblance of order and coherency. And if themes should be justified by fluff, then this one doesn't make a lot of sense. The repeated use of "lazy" just gets my hackles up, even though in this case the probably did it as a catch all merc theme to reach the "all models in themes" goal without making an even more ridiculous theme with the models leftover between kingmaker, privateer, and Llealese themes. But I digress. The main point is I want to apologize, trolling you is not something I should be doing.
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Post by gobber on Aug 17, 2017 4:04:09 GMT
That said, don't purposely circumvent my words. What I'm talking about aren't the various pirates, but elfs like Eyriss and dwarves like Thor or Durgen. If we're excluding aiyana, edrea, dahlia, and sylys because they're seekers/not committed to Ret/on some sort of bloody rampage, doesn't that just leave Eiryss and the two nyss? Anyhow now for your friendly local Fluffbunny report: I think you're correct about the Alexia fluff; she mostly disappears from the fluff after the events in Corvis. There are a couple snippets where she's basically working by herself (extorting Cygnarans, etc), but otherwise I can't find her interacting with other characters/the plot after that point. Only fluff 'reference' I can find to her contracting at all under four star isn't remotely specific: "Almost all of the most skilled mercenaries of the present era have worked for the syndicate in one way or another" from forces:mercs. Since four star is run out of five fingers (pirate town) by the four high captains, that could be argued to be a very oblique reference to her working for pirates but that's as good as it gets. I'd be interested in seeing them expand upon the potential thamarite/pirate connections (references to Sea Dogs having "thamar's luck, etc) by adding the tag to Alexia (possessed by a thamarite artifact), the Commodore (haunted by the spirit of the tyrannical pirate lord/the skeleton on the front/shae's former boss who took multiple commodore shots to die and could well have been a thamarite), and the Devils' Shadow Mutineers (unspecified curse). Also Grogspar, who's surprisingly scary/ruthless in fluff and was the executioner of aforementioned pirate lord, yet is the only member of the talion who's wistful about the dude. Maybe Kell as well as he was part of the crew that retrieved the Witchfire. Would be a neat continuation of Fiona's old tier. Other random factoids from the course of research: Sturgis2 (cryx) theme allowed undead, pirates, nyss, boomhowlers, Rorsh, Wrong Eye, Rockbottom/Bokur, and steelheads O.o The upcoming minions beast/super best friends list may also end up allowing the undead/elf/dwarf/pirate combo if the river raiders are in there.
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Post by Aegis on Aug 17, 2017 4:10:39 GMT
You know what Aegis ? I want to apologize. I was intentionally poking you there. Because as we have argued, I have come around to see it from your point of view. Fluff probably should have some semblance of order and coherency. And if themes should be justified by fluff, then this one doesn't make a lot of sense. The repeated use of "lazy" just gets my hackles up, even though in this case the probably did it as a catch all merc theme to reach the "all models in themes" goal without making an even more ridiculous theme with the models leftover between kingmaker, privateer, and Llealese themes. But I digress. The main point is I want to apologize, trolling you is not something I should be doing. Don't worry, I apologize too for being too polemic sometimes. I understand that not all people care about fluff as much as I do. Most people are ok with pretty much anything as long as its balanced ingame, and that is a valid point of view and I accept it. I would just prefer if people said so, instead of trying to find out weird explainations for things that clearly aren't fluffy. On the "lazy" part, I'm sad to say so too. I used to like the decisions of the dev team a lot, but since pretty much the beginning of the year I'm not able to understand them anymore. I find them contraddicting themselves too often, saying a thing and doing the opposite few weeks after, proposing things that are so evidently OP that shouldn't survive 1 hour of internal tests or going against extabilished fluff casually, and I really don't like it. I cannot help but wonder why there was a so sudden drop in the quality of the things that come out from the dev team (at least in my perception), and every few weeks another "strange" decision comes out to bug me even more... Maybe it's because I'm not english native, but I can't find a better way to explain this than "lazy works", since often the same results could have been acheived in an a lot more elegant and fluffy way just doing the things a little differently, and I can't explain why they didn't come up with them themselves. That said, let's continue this discussion putting aside mutual pokings.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on Aug 17, 2017 4:14:15 GMT
I guess the point of a theme is "Stuff you would see regularly work together" in terms of fluff. Not "Forced into the situation by accident or circumstance".
So I guess a "Regular" of irregulars seems kinda smelly.
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Post by mydnight on Aug 17, 2017 4:43:12 GMT
Pagani when asked why devil dogs were not allowed in trencher theme force while forgeguard were: "it's not fluffy"
3 weeks later: "all mercs allowed in all theme forces"
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Post by Aegis on Aug 17, 2017 4:50:37 GMT
Pagani when asked why devil dogs were not allowed in trencher theme force while forgeguard were: "it's not fluffy" 3 weeks later: "all mercs allowed in all theme forces" That's exactly an example of them contraddicting themselves every few weeks.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on Aug 17, 2017 6:40:57 GMT
And an example of how "fluffy" often just means "what we felt like at the time".
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Post by Azuresun on Aug 17, 2017 7:53:46 GMT
I guess the point of a theme is "Stuff you would see regularly work together" in terms of fluff. Not "Forced into the situation by accident or circumstance". So I guess a "Regular" of irregulars seems kinda smelly. You are highlighting the problem that it's very hard to create theme forces for Mercenaries that aren't so subdivided and limited as to be hopelessly uncompetitive, because of how varied the troops are. Of course, this is only a problem in the first place because themes are officially how you're expected to play the game, and any non-theme is at a disadvantage these days. If themes had actually been balanced against non-theme armies instead of being Already Awesome List +1, an obvious and ugly patch like this wouldn't have been necessary.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Aug 17, 2017 7:59:20 GMT
I guess the point of a theme is "Stuff you would see regularly work together" in terms of fluff. Not "Forced into the situation by accident or circumstance". So I guess a "Regular" of irregulars seems kinda smelly. You are highlighting the problem that it's very hard to create theme forces for Mercenaries that aren't so subdivided and limited as to be hopelessly uncompetitive, because of how varied the troops are. Of course, this is only a problem in the first place because themes are officially how you're expected to play the game, and any non-theme is at a disadvantage these days. If themes had actually been balanced against non-theme armies instead of being Already Awesome List +1, an obvious and ugly patch like this wouldn't have been necessary. Easy solution: remove free points from themes. Themes give ONLY rules bonuses to the armies. If a model is free in theme, it is free specifically as a result of a single theme benefit (for example: 1 small or medium based solo may be added to the list for free) in place of another theme benefit. Immediately narrows the gap between theme and non-theme, and gives them waaaay more flexibility to create themes that are more interesting than 'generic subtheme X - take a bunch of X, get some more free X.' Seriously, does ANYONE actually like free points in theme?
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Post by gobber on Aug 17, 2017 8:20:35 GMT
Seriously, does ANYONE actually like free points in theme? I rather enjoy tooling lists to maximize those benefits; I try stuff I wouldn't otherwise.
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Post by jisidro on Aug 17, 2017 8:44:04 GMT
I'm ok with free points but I'd like to benefit to be free points towards X instead of Y models for free. That way the point value of solos still matters (I feel it doesn't now since everyone is expected to play themes and themes give out solos/CAs) and the benefit can be compared across factions.
For example, for every 25 pts of units/warjacks gain X points to spend on small/medium based solos or unit attachments.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Aug 17, 2017 8:47:41 GMT
I'm ok with free points but I'd like to benefit to be free points towards X instead of Y models for free. That way the point value of solos still matters (I feel it doesn't now since everyone is expected to play themes and themes give out solos/CAs) and the benefit can be compared across factions. For example, for every 25 pts of units/warjacks gain X points to spend on small/medium based solos or unit attachments. I mean, it's better, sure. I'd be 'ok' with it that way too, in that it would cause fewer problems...but what's the benefit? Why even have free points if everyone can access them more or less equally?
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Post by jisidro on Aug 17, 2017 8:53:37 GMT
Everyone can acess them but not everyone will. The merc idea opens up a huge box, suddenly BG themes can take a unit but can't get to 100 pts. A mixed infantry/BG caster can take a jack theme and a merc unit and use more of his abilities...
Not a complete fan of the idea but it's not without merit IMO. I think it'll shake out well.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Aug 17, 2017 9:05:30 GMT
When I first started making lists in Mk3 my first thought was 'damn I am strapped for points to spend on solos here', I am a massive fan of free solos and UAs.
Also the irregulars theme is the first time in a long while I have been excited about making lists, yeah Heavy Metal is good, but is bloody boring to build lists for, this new Merc theme is getting my creative juices flowing, so big thumbs up for PP from me.
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