zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690 
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Post by zich on Sept 13, 2017 17:28:11 GMT
Theme lists aren't bad. Theme lists that you need to play at all times are. Would be nice if it was a choice. You like uniformity and more power to you. Honestly.
It's nice that your themes are so permissive. My faction has two themes. One allows only Venators, the other only beasts. There's another coming up that literally relies on ONE unit being spammed. I guess the other upcoming one is permissive, but does require me to buy another faction.
Where's my "Skorne army as seen in the fluff" theme force? One that actually looks like a Skorne army, with forces from different traditions fulfilling their respective roles. Sure you can probably find cases where "all the Venators" or "all the Immortals" happened, but are they really that much more numerous?
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Sept 13, 2017 18:22:20 GMT
Themes are still far from complete. Wait like two weeks and see what you get.
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Post by pangurban on Sept 13, 2017 18:46:48 GMT
Theme lists aren't bad. Theme lists that you need to play at all times are. Would be nice if it was a choice. You like uniformity and more power to you. Honestly. It's nice that your themes are so permissive. My faction has two themes. One allows only Venators, the other only beasts. There's another coming up that literally relies on ONE unit being spammed. I guess the other upcoming one is permissive, but does require me to buy another faction. Where's my "Skorne army as seen in the fluff" theme force? One that actually looks like a Skorne army, with forces from different traditions fulfilling their respective roles. Sure you can probably find cases where "all the Venators" or "all the Immortals" happened, but are they really that much more numerous? Like it or not, theme forces are meant to be thematic. "Completely normal varied Skorne army" is not thematic. Some themes are more restrictive than others, but they're all deliberately restrictive. |
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Sept 13, 2017 19:01:29 GMT
Well then. Here's to hoping for a "combined arms" theme. If Mercs can get it, maybe we can too. Even though PP explicitly denied it.
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Post by pangurban on Sept 13, 2017 20:34:31 GMT
Well then. Here's to hoping for a "combined arms" theme. If Mercs can get it, maybe we can too. Even though PP explicitly denied it. Mercs were always going to be a special case. There's Steelheads and a few other options to go very thematic, but as varied as they are internally it's difficult to give every Merc model a theme to be in without easing up on the restrictiveness or giving them a whole lot of different (and likely weak) theme forces. |
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Post by gedditoffme on Sept 14, 2017 6:17:58 GMT
Well then. Here's to hoping for a "combined arms" theme. If Mercs can get it, maybe we can too. Even though PP explicitly denied it. Mk2: Mercs have compulsory restrictive theme forces Mk3: Mercs are only force that can play with everything they want and still get benefits! Not exactly true since Cephalyx are still separate, and there's a few weird cases like Bokur, Tinker, Gallant, and Rocinante that are excluded, but you get the point  |
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Sept 14, 2017 7:03:20 GMT
I'm happy for them. Especially since I got a friend into Mercs before this theme mess happened. It would really suck to tell him that the stuff he bought is no longer any good. Now I just have to tell myself.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Sept 19, 2017 19:48:21 GMT
On the subject of spam. When the drop of a theme makes people ask around because they "need six more deathrippers", I guess it's safe to say there's themes that entourage spam. I do agree with some however that it's the rules for scenario that should keep that in check.
In general my reservations towards the themes have been growing ever since they have been releasing them, but with the release of the irregular theme that has turned into disgust almost. Things started nice with the farrow theme I believe? That's the first one I remember anyway. "he cool, one unit recieves ambush, that's neat". And then ravens of war dropped and got the very same thing (jea for originality). Legion got their beast theme and for some reasons spellcaster units needed to he part of that. I actually like the theme and run it with Kryssa and all the units; the pot a beastmistress and lessers (go feat), the bfs, hexhunters to feed the pot and recieve ashen veil. The special rule this theme gets is really good and I don't understand why everybody prefers the one solo over the utility of that rule, it's insane. Add in a seraph (which you want anyway) and you can kiss up to 20" away. Add a bloodseer too to bolster the hexhunters and copy slipstream, it practically writes itself. Especially with Kryssa who seems to be born for this theme. Then trolls got their beast theme... with spelcasterunits. What's with these mirror themes, I don't get it?
Some themes are kinda dumb. I was looking forward to a nephilim theme and we actually got that. We even got many of our bests units with them... and then all characterbeasts because the regular ones kinda suck (and they couldn't just fix that so know they kneejerked thos into theme). Especially so because one of the things they and the swordmen need to do is scalping systems, but without access to grievous wounds outside abby+proteus and pSearyn that's off the table, so ye just run the theme without most of the actual nephs. This theme is so restrictive it just doesn't make sense. So what you do is run pThags or abby to get that third characterbeast, granting you some beasts that are quite durable for legion. Proteus and zuriel tagteaming under abby is actually quite decent, but thematically this theme just misses the mark completely.
Maybe other themes handle restriction a bit better? Iv only played legion and there's not a single list I made that translates into a theme... not even remotely. I think that's a shame and other beautifull lists like the one designed in that thread "tao of the twins" will probably never find home in a theme either.
But hey, PP must have seen that problem because recently they did something very "irregular", which basically meant mercs can now bring their regular unrestricted lists, with special rules and all the freebees regardless of armycomposition. Skorne takes it one step further and get their own stuff plus a whole other faction, one who doesn't even recieve that much freedom within it's own ranks. I don't understand these themes at all. Themes come with bonusses to overcome the restrictions on armycomposition but where is the restriction here?
And even before these two themes this problem was there. Some lists that were allready potent and viable in a tournament scene translate perfectly well into themes. In MKii vayl got everything she wanted plus extras, jee how fair was that no? Why are they doing the same thing again? I wouldn't call themes a cancer in the game, because you can allways skip on them, but imo it's just a sodden mess.
Edit: The whole idea of putting themes far ahead of the curve to unthemed lista just doesn't sit right with me. It restricts creative listbuilding while it should have just added more viablity in addition to what was allready there, expand on the meta not replace it.
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cuberic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 129
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Post by cuberic on Sept 19, 2017 22:01:24 GMT
Then trolls got their beast theme... with spellcaster units. What's with these mirror themes, I don't get it? Nobody at PP plays Trolls or champions them, so we get random stuff that doesn't really work. |
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Post by mallios on Sept 19, 2017 22:44:02 GMT
Themes come with bonusses to overcome the restrictions on armycomposition but where is the restriction here? I can only speak for Legion, but none of our themes restrict which warlock we can use. Skorne's does |
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Sept 20, 2017 1:38:13 GMT
Then trolls got their beast theme... with spellcaster units. What's with these mirror themes, I don't get it? Nobody at PP plays Trolls or champions them, so we get random stuff that doesn't really work. 100% truth, undeniable. No tin foil hats here, people. |
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Post by mcdermott on Sept 20, 2017 4:38:41 GMT
Honestly when i see the salt on social media about the game I understand why they nuked their forums
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Sept 20, 2017 11:29:32 GMT
Honestly when i see the salt on social media about the game I understand why they nuked their forums That's fair, I was quite salty when I wrote that. Here's the thing though. PP wants to make this into a competitive game for us, and Im all for that. In that process there's bound to be discussion and disagreement though. These can specific, broad or both. I just don't see eye to eye with the way they use themes to get this game to that competitive level and the effect that view has on some themes. I see no wrong to have discussions on that and wish there was room outside of cid specifics for that on their own forum. |
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Post by pangurban on Sept 20, 2017 15:56:43 GMT
Honestly when i see the salt on social media about the game I understand why they nuked their forums That's fair, I was quite salty when I wrote that. Here's the thing though. PP wants to make this into a competitive game for us, and Im all for that. In that process there's bound to be discussion and disagreement though. These can specific, broad or both. I just don't see eye to eye with the way they use themes to get this game to that competitive level and the effect that view has on some themes. I see no wrong to have discussions on that and wish there was room outside of cid specifics for that on their own forum. I'm fairly sure there are several considerations behind the theme push other than just the balance purpose. |
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joedj
Junior Strategist
Posts: 513
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Post by joedj on Sept 22, 2017 18:30:00 GMT
Theme lists discussions in our venue, almost each night, revolve around:
Parity of Themes within a Faction and between Factions.
Spam enabling and/or encouraging.
Inability to fully 'benefit' from Theme without purchasing multiple copies of the 'IT' model(s).
Veterans balking at expanding their extensive Faction(s) collection to aid a specified Theme (multiple copies of same model(s)).
Newer players and the benefits of limiting Faction purchases to models for one Theme (best?), possibly with multiple Factions of specific Theme armies.
Selling X Faction (often Hordes) to fund additional purchases for Y Theme in another Faction (usually Warmachine).
Buying used or discount for multiples (Veterans selling/Bartertown/online retailers)
I'm not sure if the move to redundant model Themes will be a long term success.
In the short term, 6mos-year, in our venue we have lost veteran players, but have not gained a comparable replacement number of new players. I'm not sure about total WM/Hordes sales within our venue, but have specifically seen Veterans unloading/selling (used models, now 'un-used') factions in MK3 to other players in venue...
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