wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on Nov 9, 2017 20:21:51 GMT
I think the basis for benkei raging that themes aren't fluffy is based on an idea of a conflict between two diametrically opposite forces.
On one hand, you have "competitive", aka a "power list". The defining trait of this is that the primary intent behind the list is "this list needs to be as powerful as possible".
On the other hand, you have "casual", or "fluffy", lists. The defining trait of this is that the primary intent behind the list is "this list feels to me like an expression of artistic creativity, based on a love of the miniatures and the game background".
Even though these two are not technically in opposition in their final result, their motivations are different. One motivation is creativity, where it doesn't matter if the list is good at winning or losing. The other motivation is wanting to win using the most power weapons at your disposal.
This distinction comes from the early days of Warhammer. This is why several people talk about comp scores and gentleman's agreements. The reason is that the rules were written with creativity in mind by GW, and so when someone approached it from a perspective of "how can I make this as powerful as possible?", the armies didn't end up looking like the designers had imagined, and the "optimised" armies wiped the floor with what the designers considered to be "normal" armies. So the designers themselves came out and said that the game wasn't designed to be "optimised" that way, it was meant to be an artistic expression, so the people who took the competitive angle were denounced as jerks ("beardy gits" I think was the term the British designers favoured).
The distinction as created back then still exists today. And it probably will as long as the game involves painted miniatures and a narrative background. As long as there is an aethetic and creative side to the game, some people will feel like playing to "win at all costs" as they say in GW communities is a bad thing to do. Because it doesn't respect the "fluff". And the fluff really means "an attitude where it's important that your army looks good and feels like you made it with love, not that you made it because you want to win".
So if a theme list is powerful and great at winning, it is per definition "beardy" and not "fluffy".
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Post by galrohir on Nov 9, 2017 20:52:44 GMT
Thornfall has the caveat on Battlecollege, they site the change as December, 2016. I think the problem arises that, when you take Moorclaw in Trollbloods, he's a Minion. As such, he'd be a Minion 'Jack Marshal, which means he can Marshal [FACTION] Warjacks (per the rules on 'Jack Marshals in core). Since there's no Minion Warjacks, he can't Marshal anything. Hence the change in Thornfall. I can't find any such ruling in any PP documents though, and battlecollege is far from flawless. Do you know where PP ruled it as such? It took some digging around, but I finally found where the idea seems to have come from. This is the Theme Force Document for June, 2017: files.privateerpress.com/op/2017/6.23.2017/Theme%20Forces%20June2017.pdfNotice the caveat for Raluk in the Thornfall Alliance theme force, which is absent from other Theme Forces. Now compare with the current Theme Force document: files.privateerpress.com/op/errata/Theme_Forces_Sept2017v3.pdfAnd the caveat is gone. Apparently the caveat got rolled and re-applied in the Prime/Primal Errata from September 2017, in the "Theme Force" section: files.privateerpress.com/op/errata/Core-Rules-Errata-Sept2017v2.pdfWhich lets you take non-character Warjacks/Warbeasts for Mercenaries/Minions in Theme. So, sorry for any confusion. It seems it was indeed illegal at one point, but no longer.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Nov 9, 2017 22:23:44 GMT
Thanks Galrohir, you're a lifesaver
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Post by plungingforward on Nov 9, 2017 22:54:28 GMT
The gentleman's agreements required to play a game of Warhammer were only in part about bringing a well-rounded army. Note the distinction between "well rounded" and "fluffy." My wife (to be at the time) tried to play wood elves a few times and we found that her fortunes rose and fell with the amount of forest terrain on the table. Her army was perfectly in line with what you might expect from a wood elf army, but it wasn't very well-rounded and the games were frustrating for both of us without hashing out some sort of scenario to make it work.
It was way more than that, though. The Warhammer rulebook needed interpretation, sometimes on the spot, sometimes in advance, to account for many in-game situations. This exasperated someone like my wife, who took up magic immediately but didn't come from a D&D background of "winging it fairly." The Mk. 2 Hordes Rulebook was a totally different animal, and soon Maulers were throwing Gladiators in a way she could appreciate. Personally, I'm fine with winging it, but I had very similar experiences with at least two other gamers, and possibly more with whom I haven't directly discussed this.
Games of Warmachine can be won or lost at list construction. That's going to happen. However, in such cases the games are shorter, pretty easy to resolve, and you can try again with another matchup within the same evening. Also, the "inevitable" loser might just have a shot at scenario or assassination anyway. Failing that, make a huge gamble with your caster/lock and go down swinging. I find it much more enjoyable than a mismatched game of Warhammer, which tended to amount to the losing army being slowly, inevitably converted into victory points for their opponent over the course of six turns. I could create outstanding scenarios for Warhammer, but that seemed pointless to folks looking for a fun pickup game.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Nov 10, 2017 8:52:38 GMT
Yes terrain is extremely important in warhammer, and not just for wood elves. Too little of it and a fast elite army like that has no way to capitulate on the small footprint of the army and it's excellent manouvrability. Too much of it and orcs and goblins will just get stuck right outside their deploymentzone. However, many armies and especially orcs and goblins had all the means available to make a workaround. Forest could be entered with no penalty by spiderriders, squighoppers and, back in the day, squirmishing units of savage orcs. Said spiderriders could climb buildings, chariots and monsters reduced the width without sacrificing damage potential so could help you when Faced with a bottleneck. Creating a wellrounded army had just as much to do with taking the types of terrain and their configuration on the table into consideration as it does with internal synergie and facing potential enemy units. Given the importance of terrain we did allways ask a third person to set up terrain with the two playing factions in mind, and to give something interesting to think about on both sides of the table to make choosing sides important. In a way I guess we made up a little scenario on the spot. Never thought of it that way but thinking back there was allways a bit of a narrative behind setting up the table. I have on occasion been royally screwed by terrain, and of course that happened during a tournament. I was facing a space marine gunline with lots of tanks, with my footdar (which back in 4th edition wasn't the overpowered bullshit we have today) and lucky me, there was a crater in the middle and some towers in the corners. That was it. Knowing I was never going to beat that army under those circumstances I decided to deny him as much victory points as possible and tokd him so beforehand. He didn't disagree and we had a fun talk and it thought me something important, that a one-dimensional list like the one I took is a terrible idea when you can't excercise control over the lay-out of the terrain. I did not take an open table into consideration because my group loves the look of terrain and that lack of foresight cost me the game, just like having no way to deal with a marchblocking great eagle has cost me a game against woodelves. When you say your games of warhammer felt like grinding away at victory points I think you have been missing out. There's plenty of important decisions to be made, both with regard to terrain, the opposing army and what's going on in ypur own ranks. Where do you deploy your characters for instance? When do they switch to another unit? What charge reaction do you take? Do you go for supportunits first or ignore them? The lure and bait game in fantasy is really strong, and something I learned to tool towards even with orcs and goblins. I learned to love 10-men orc arrer units because back when you could give them crossbows, but later they got even worse with a bow and choppa so everybody ignored them, untill they charges some flank and suddenly those choppas really hurt. Many colourfull descriptions have been posted on that unit but to me it has been the ideal throwaway unit nobody wants to deal with but can't be ignored either. If need be I just use them to flush out a piece of forest. Ill shut up now but I have to admit, this thread has made me excited for oldskool warhammer fantasy again, for the first time in years
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Post by plungingforward on Nov 10, 2017 23:27:57 GMT
Yes terrain is extremely important in warhammer, and not just for wood elves. Too little of it and a fast elite army like that has no way to capitulate on the small footprint of the army and it's excellent manouvrability. Too much of it and orcs and goblins will just get stuck right outside their deploymentzone. However, many armies and especially orcs and goblins had all the means available to make a workaround. Forest could be entered with no penalty by spiderriders, squighoppers and, back in the day, squirmishing units of savage orcs. Said spiderriders could climb buildings, chariots and monsters reduced the width without sacrificing damage potential so could help you when Faced with a bottleneck. Creating a wellrounded army had just as much to do with taking the types of terrain and their configuration on the table into consideration as it does with internal synergie and facing potential enemy units. Given the importance of terrain we did allways ask a third person to set up terrain with the two playing factions in mind, and to give something interesting to think about on both sides of the table to make choosing sides important. In a way I guess we made up a little scenario on the spot. Never thought of it that way but thinking back there was allways a bit of a narrative behind setting up the table. I have on occasion been royally screwed by terrain, and of course that happened during a tournament. I was facing a space marine gunline with lots of tanks, with my footdar (which back in 4th edition wasn't the overpowered bullshit we have today) and lucky me, there was a crater in the middle and some towers in the corners. That was it. Knowing I was never going to beat that army under those circumstances I decided to deny him as much victory points as possible and tokd him so beforehand. He didn't disagree and we had a fun talk and it thought me something important, that a one-dimensional list like the one I took is a terrible idea when you can't excercise control over the lay-out of the terrain. I did not take an open table into consideration because my group loves the look of terrain and that lack of foresight cost me the game, just like having no way to deal with a marchblocking great eagle has cost me a game against woodelves. When you say your games of warhammer felt like grinding away at victory points I think you have been missing out. There's plenty of important decisions to be made, both with regard to terrain, the opposing army and what's going on in ypur own ranks. Where do you deploy your characters for instance? When do they switch to another unit? What charge reaction do you take? Do you go for supportunits first or ignore them? The lure and bait game in fantasy is really strong, and something I learned to tool towards even with orcs and goblins. I learned to love 10-men orc arrer units because back when you could give them crossbows, but later they got even worse with a bow and choppa so everybody ignored them, untill they charges some flank and suddenly those choppas really hurt. Many colourfull descriptions have been posted on that unit but to me it has been the ideal throwaway unit nobody wants to deal with but can't be ignored either. If need be I just use them to flush out a piece of forest. Ill shut up now but I have to admit, this thread has made me excited for oldskool warhammer fantasy again, for the first time in years I think you've got me wrong here. First, I never said all Warhammer games felt like grinding away at victory points - just that a straight-up mismatched game was destined to become a slow conversion of dudes to VPS because that's how the game plays out. It has no escape hatch. I actually agree with you on many points, from having "a little bit of narrative" in table setup, through 10 man arrer boyz units (I used 12 man units, but it's basically the same) to wanting to play some oldskool Warhammer after thinking about it. BUT what I've trying to get at here was this sentiment, as expressed by today's insider on Company of Iron on how there's still bugs in the system: 'The first thing I’d like to say is to reiterate what I’ve been saying for months. There isn’t really a “wrong” way to play Company of Iron. If there is something you want to try that isn’t completely covered in the rules yet, talk it over with your opponent and give it a shot. This can be really simple things like playing a 30-point game, or more complicated things like creating a scenario that uses a gargantuan. The game is designed to be casual, so you can bend the rules as much as you want. ' A bit of a novelty for PP, this is very much GW's language. It is also how you HAVE to play Warhammer, and to be honest it kind of fires me up to read it. It's not basketball or Magic the Gathering. You've got a framework of rules, and the better you and your fellow gamers work together to make a great game, the better your game is going to be. A bit of rules, a bit of story, a bit of old-school battle tactics and you've got yourself a great thing. Communicate less, and simply show up to play, and it can go sideways fast. And once you've started playing, lacking the "escape hatch" available in Warmachine, you either quit or grudgingly play it out. And games are lengthy, so being trapped in a bad one is noteworthy. I can avoid the latter case because I'm extremely comfortable putting in the kind of work required, and had faith enough in my regular opponents to know we weren't looking for bad games just so we could win them. What I've found about the world at large, though, is many people WANT to play basketball or magic the gathering. They want as little interpretation as possible, freedom to straight-up compete, and clear, reasonably balanced rules to enable that. They want something to be played as a pickup, friendly or tournament game. Warhammer only works as a pickup game if you get lucky, and is a disaster in tournaments without entire bolt-on subsystems, rules packages and, even then, liberal third-party judging to help force it into a box it's really not great at fitting into. None of this is to say it isn't a great experience. I love Warhammer Fantasy Battle and maintain my savage orc horde in a combat ready state because I know I'll play it again some day (in retirement?). But "cooperating" with one's opponent before and even sometimes during the game - the gentleman's agreements required to make Warhammer work - is a tricky place to negotiate for many people.
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Nov 11, 2017 8:04:16 GMT
Plunginforward's post is a thing of beauty and explains Warhammer philosophy excellently. I was drawn again to Oldhammer 2(?) years ago, when Warhammer ceased to exist, Age of Sigmar appeared and of course nobody wante to play it. People were trying out comebacks to older editions and I also tried a game of 6th, my best remebered edition. Unfortunately, after so many years of exposure to well balanced, controlled randomness WM&H and finely designed modern boardgames, I found the game a chore of unsolvable situations, little player agency, frustratingly one-sided battles and unnecessary randomness. It turns out dr Frankenstein's lesson is true - some things are better left in your memories, where they are beautiful rather than brought to life from the dead. EDIT: it doesn't stop me from hoping that one day GW is taken over by some German board game company, all the old designers are fired and my three WH and 5 WH40K armies stored in boxes get a decent set of modern rules to be played with again
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Nov 11, 2017 8:31:02 GMT
Hmm yes having fallen in with a crowd that allready had some well thoughtout guidelines in place back when it all started for me I guess I never appreciated how tricky that is. They must have done pretty well because the only horrorstory I have in this regard is playing 6th(?) edition eldar with a list I threw together in 2 minutes against spacepuppies. That book is so overpowered there's just no saving it. Luckily it got al buffs it needed to get overything equally overpowered one book later so at least it's balanced internally? Haven't touched that book yet, nor my eldar since that game because it just isn't fun atm. I suggested going back to the 4th(?) edition book which was amazing and an uphill battle for my footdar most of the time (and I don't mind uphill battles, quite the contrary) but for some reason they didn't like that either. Maybe the less we started playing iver the years as life got in the way, the more difficult it became to maintain that agreement. Not because of any ill intent but because it's hard. We recently played some 5th fantasy which I only have a vague recollection off because I started when that edition came to a close, and decided to bring a big boss on a wyvern. That was completely uncool but all I could think of was that it's just a baby dragon...
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Post by mcdermott on Nov 11, 2017 8:50:49 GMT
We recently played some 5th fantasy which I only have a vague recollection off because I started when that edition came to a close, and decided to bring a big boss on a wyvern. That was completely uncool but all I could think of was that it's just a baby dragon... I was about to comment on how that was basically a death sentence in my meta before you mentioned 5th edition (which im not as familiar with) In 7th and 8th that was just you getting shot off your baby dragon by artillery fire and losing your general top or bottom of T1.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Nov 11, 2017 10:36:17 GMT
Haha yes, a deathsentence for two reasons actually. After 5th editions only lords could ride a wyvern, so in games under 3000 points that meant your general was off somewhere not leading an army. You don't do that in a greenskin army. In 5th heroes could mount them though, and with just light armour I didn't think it was that bad (even if he does have T5).
More importantly, in 5th most flying mounts could "fly high", which meant you took them off the board and landed them anywhere next turn. This is how great eagles got into a marchblocking position and monsters spread terror in the middle of an army, which is why my group "banned" what they called a terrorbomb (and I didn't realise that included wyverns, which are pansies in comparison to any dragon, especially in that edition). Understandable, there were only a couple of spells and items that could target creatures flying high and they had a big impact on the game. 6th ed removed flying high and made the game better for it.
In terms of balance 6th is probably my favourite edition. They greatly reduced herohammer whilst still giving us tons of fun items (still disallowing special characters).
Edit: a death sentence for a thirs reasons. Contrary to earlier editions templates target both the monster and the rider, and since cannons had a really long (albeit it narrow) template ridden monsters were pretty vulnerable, even with all the (ward)saves you could stack.
Of course there weren't that many armies with cannons, so I never bothered fretting about them.
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Post by W0lfBane on Nov 11, 2017 18:01:18 GMT
I find the comparison between CoI and gw games interesting. I think CoI will become more and more set in stone as they take the time to properly find all the weird rules interactions and fix them. But would it be really worth their time to do so. The game is effectively as comprehensive as it needs to be. Some weird rules interactions occur. But like regular warmachine it has that little clause of two people disagree how the rules work roll it off and look it up later. And if CoI really has a GW game feel maybe they want that to drag in some of the gw fanboys. Thething they really meed to do though is put the CoI cards in the card database. That will reduce the amount of rules interactions significantly.
Sadly i can't comment on GW games and how they can or should be more warmachiny
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Post by mcdermott on Nov 11, 2017 18:29:15 GMT
If you want to compare CoI to a GW game it seems likely mordheim or necromunda is a better comparison. It also makes a tougher choice, cause frankly mordheim and necromunda were the best GW games. Way better than their main lines IMO
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Post by welshhoppo on Nov 11, 2017 23:49:03 GMT
If you want to compare CoI to a GW game it seems likely mordheim or necromunda is a better comparison. It also makes a tougher choice, cause frankly mordheim and necromunda were the best GW games. Way better than their main lines IMO Some people say Lord of the rings was the best GW system. I rwlly wish CoI had a progression campaign. Like you pick a small bunch of grunts and they got better as time got on. Starting off as WInter Guard. Progressing to a rifleman or a Widowmaker or maybe a doom reaver. But but that's just me.
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Post by mcdermott on Nov 12, 2017 1:28:26 GMT
If you want to compare CoI to a GW game it seems likely mordheim or necromunda is a better comparison. It also makes a tougher choice, cause frankly mordheim and necromunda were the best GW games. Way better than their main lines IMO Some people say Lord of the rings was the best GW system. I rwlly wish CoI had a progression campaign. Like you pick a small bunch of grunts and they got better as time got on. Starting off as WInter Guard. Progressing to a rifleman or a Widowmaker or maybe a doom reaver. But but that's just me. Ugh, those people are bad and they should feel bad.
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Lanz
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Lanz on Nov 12, 2017 8:42:53 GMT
If you want to compare CoI to a GW game it seems likely mordheim or necromunda is a better comparison. It also makes a tougher choice, cause frankly mordheim and necromunda were the best GW games. Way better than their main lines IMO Some people say Lord of the rings was the best GW system. I rwlly wish CoI had a progression campaign. Like you pick a small bunch of grunts and they got better as time got on. Starting off as WInter Guard. Progressing to a rifleman or a Widowmaker or maybe a doom reaver. But but that's just me. No reason it couldn't. Have a new type of upgrade card called a Veteran card that has several tiers of benefits. Each time you complete a battle you may either upgrade a model who survived the battle with a veteran card, or tick off the next tier benefitof a model that already has one. There can be different cards for different roles abd specializations, allowing you to adjust the way a model performs.
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