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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Apr 11, 2018 17:35:57 GMT
I don't blame you there, but it's also kind of a hole in your argument. Simplicity is what SR scenarios are designed for, they're supposed to be balanced, not too skewed towards certain list builds, and easy to set up. Even if you had a giant 3-ring binder of narrative scenarios on you all the time it would still be easier to set up a SR scenario. Playing narrative games does take more effort at pretty much every stage; there's more special rules, there's asymmetric goals to keep track of, and usually you can't get away with bringing just any old list like you can for SR. Lots of scenarios have weird terrain, or unique model rules, or weird points values.
It would be great if PP put more of the scenarios in one place, for sure, but even when that happens it'll still take less time to slap SR scenario elements down on the table (because you have them in your bag, unlike, say, the manlets required for the Tower Judgement scenario from NQP#2) and start taking out models for the list you made during your lunch break. If you want to play more narrative games you need to do the legwork and arrange it beforehand so you do have those things on hand and you do have the right list built, because it will always take more work to do on the spot.
edit: and this isn't a slight at Warmachine's narrative scenarios, this is pretty universal stuff. I play Dropfleet and Dropzone Commander sometimes and a lot of the scenarios end up dictating listbuilding. If I bring a bunch of surface bombardment cruisers and then we play a scenario that has no surface objectives I've wasted points. Both of those games recommend Tournament Organizers publish the list of scenarios to be used beforehand so that people can tailor their lists, something that is never necessary in WM/H. 40k was the same way (at least back when I played); if you wanted to do a weird scenario you had to find the right terrain, make your non-standard lists, and keep looking up the scenario rules as you played. It's just the nature of non-standardized rules.
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Apr 11, 2018 18:48:16 GMT
That is fair that there are some scenarios that will require a lot more legwork up from than others, but there are plenty that can be played with fairly standard lists and terrain you probably have kicking around in a well-stocked den or FLGS, such as the one from the Grymkin release packet or old Winter Rampage or Longest Night scenarios. Also, unless there are different restrictions in the list like in Summer Rampage last year, you probably don’t need to spend a lot of time in War Room optimizing your list to the scenario to have a fun game.
If these sort of scenarios were collated and compiled somewhere once in a while, I think they would get played more often.
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Post by Charistoph on Apr 11, 2018 21:34:40 GMT
Indeed there are. The hard part is getting the SR-die-hards to look at something else. PP also doesn’t make it easy. Honestly, I’m not crazy about a lot of the SR scenarios. “Stand in this square to score enough points to win” isn’t exactly the most narratively interesting scenarios, and in some sense scoring points doesn’t quite represent the actual ebb and flow of a battle. For example, no one says “Well, Napoleon’s biggest tactical error at Waterloo was when Private Poutine stepped outside of the giant circle on his left flank so that unit couldn’t score a point. Had he gotten someone to shoot Private Poutine in the back, however, he would have scored and won.” A lot of the narrative scenarios are better on this aspect — the scenarios actually represent things that might actually happen in a fantasy battle, and aren’t just “stand in the giant circle to score more points.” The catch is, even if I find another player who similarly wants to play a more narrative scenario, it’s a lot easier to just throw down an SR scenario because it’s easier. We both know the scenario and have the elements for it in our bags, and have a common point of reference. While PP has a lot of really cool and interesting scenarios buried in NQ, old league documents, etc. If they were to go through this and collate then every couple years, then it would be a lot easier to say “okay, scenario package, page 17 looks cool, let’s do that.” Instead, I, and most other players, just default to Steamroller scenarios because we have the packet in our bag. I think if PP put all the old scenarios in one place, people might play them more. And WHY do you know the SR scenarios so well and have all the elements in your bag? Because you play it all the time. If you're not going to go through the effort of looking for new scenarios, then obviously you'll not find many. If you don't go through the effort of trying new scenarios, then you'll never get familiar with them. There are also scenarios in the Prime/Primals, too, did you forget about those? Are you all so hard up on figuring out how to make a scenario yourselves that no one ever considers making one up? All I see is someone hoisting themselves up on their own petard here.
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Apr 11, 2018 22:06:47 GMT
PP also doesn’t make it easy. Honestly, I’m not crazy about a lot of the SR scenarios. “Stand in this square to score enough points to win” isn’t exactly the most narratively interesting scenarios, and in some sense scoring points doesn’t quite represent the actual ebb and flow of a battle. For example, no one says “Well, Napoleon’s biggest tactical error at Waterloo was when Private Poutine stepped outside of the giant circle on his left flank so that unit couldn’t score a point. Had he gotten someone to shoot Private Poutine in the back, however, he would have scored and won.” A lot of the narrative scenarios are better on this aspect — the scenarios actually represent things that might actually happen in a fantasy battle, and aren’t just “stand in the giant circle to score more points.” The catch is, even if I find another player who similarly wants to play a more narrative scenario, it’s a lot easier to just throw down an SR scenario because it’s easier. We both know the scenario and have the elements for it in our bags, and have a common point of reference. While PP has a lot of really cool and interesting scenarios buried in NQ, old league documents, etc. If they were to go through this and collate then every couple years, then it would be a lot easier to say “okay, scenario package, page 17 looks cool, let’s do that.” Instead, I, and most other players, just default to Steamroller scenarios because we have the packet in our bag. I think if PP put all the old scenarios in one place, people might play them more. And WHY do you know the SR scenarios so well and have all the elements in your bag? Because you play it all the time. If you're not going to go through the effort of looking for new scenarios, then obviously you'll not find many. If you don't go through the effort of trying new scenarios, then you'll never get familiar with them. There are also scenarios in the Prime/Primals, too, did you forget about those? Are you all so hard up on figuring out how to make a scenario yourselves that no one ever considers making one up? All I see is someone hoisting themselves up on their own petard here. And WHY do I play it all the time? Because unless it's a (usually poorly attended, because there are a fair number of SR diehards where I live) narrative or league event, that's what everyone else plays all the time. Most of the local FLGSs, if I go there, there is a good chance that someone has already set up wrestling belt or circle and two rectangles when I get there, and I've also gotten negative comments for playing league games or using non-SR terrain placement. So, it's easier to just play SR scenarios than try to persuade someone to do something different in an environment where people at other tables jump down my throat if I do something like line up multiple trench templates in such a way that it looks like a real trench. Doubly so if they don't have a copy of NQ#43 or whatever on them. Also, I have been thinking of making up my own scenarios -- a while ago, I wrote rules for combat in buildings, and I will be working on an idea I had for scenarios for demo and low points games at an upcoming gaming convention. Anyways, I'm not throwing petards at anyone here (okay, maybe a little at the "Warmachine is srs bsns; I don't have time for your fun bullshit" crowd), and I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm trying to attack you or anyone else, or why you're being hostile. I'm just saying that "getting the SR-die-hards to look at something else," as you said, might be a little easier if PP, once in a while, took these scenarios that they put resources into developing, collated them, and made them easier for everyone to find rather than sprinkling them throughout piles and piles of old books and magazines. I know I would buy a book or magazine of just scenarios, and I wouldn't be alone in that.
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Post by Charistoph on Apr 11, 2018 23:27:10 GMT
And WHY do I play it all the time? Because unless it's a (usually poorly attended, because there are a fair number of SR diehards where I live) narrative or league event, that's what everyone else plays all the time. Most of the local FLGSs, if I go there, there is a good chance that someone has already set up wrestling belt or circle and two rectangles when I get there, and I've also gotten negative comments for playing league games or using non-SR terrain placement. So, it's easier to just play SR scenarios than try to persuade someone to do something different in an environment where people at other tables jump down my throat if I do something like line up multiple trench templates in such a way that it looks like a real trench. Doubly so if they don't have a copy of NQ#43 or whatever on them. Ding Ding Ding! We have the answer! Why is hard to keep less experienced players interested? We have the answer right here! Anyways, I'm not throwing petards at anyone here (okay, maybe a little at the "Warmachine is srs bsns; I don't have time for your fun bullshit" crowd), and I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm trying to attack you or anyone else, or why you're being hostile. I'm just saying that "getting the SR-die-hards to look at something else," as you said, might be a little easier if PP, once in a while, took these scenarios that they put resources into developing, collated them, and made them easier for everyone to find rather than sprinkling them throughout piles and piles of old books and magazines. I know I would buy a book or magazine of just scenarios, and I wouldn't be alone in that. It won't help. You can have scenarios in encyclopedias, little pamphlets, whatever, but they aren't going to help until the problem listed above is addressed. That problem leads to a toxic community which kills itself partly because of people leaving, but also because of no new blood coming in.
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Apr 12, 2018 5:44:12 GMT
And WHY do I play it all the time? Because unless it's a (usually poorly attended, because there are a fair number of SR diehards where I live) narrative or league event, that's what everyone else plays all the time. Most of the local FLGSs, if I go there, there is a good chance that someone has already set up wrestling belt or circle and two rectangles when I get there, and I've also gotten negative comments for playing league games or using non-SR terrain placement. So, it's easier to just play SR scenarios than try to persuade someone to do something different in an environment where people at other tables jump down my throat if I do something like line up multiple trench templates in such a way that it looks like a real trench. Doubly so if they don't have a copy of NQ#43 or whatever on them. Ding Ding Ding! We have the answer! Why is hard to keep less experienced players interested? We have the answer right here! You're preaching to the choir on that one. Still not sure why you're getting pissy with me because I think it would be a good idea for PP to compile non-SR scenarios in a convenient manner, though.
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Post by Charistoph on Apr 12, 2018 6:32:15 GMT
Ding Ding Ding! We have the answer! Why is hard to keep less experienced players interested? We have the answer right here! You're preaching to the choir on that one. Still not sure why you're getting pissy with me because I think it would be a good idea for PP to compile non-SR scenarios in a convenient manner, though. I'm not being pissy with you. I'm pissy at the situation where a too significant portion of too many metas are so focused on Steam Roller that getting any other game, including a game for newbies to learn, is next to impossible.
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Apr 12, 2018 11:55:52 GMT
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Post by beardmonk on Apr 12, 2018 12:43:31 GMT
The PP forums are a bit of a joke now but for a whole different reason to how there were in Mk2. If I was a new person interested in joining a game, one of the first things I would do is look for the official websites, forums etc. If I came to the PP forum I would think that the game was dead. :-(
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Apr 12, 2018 13:29:20 GMT
IMO that's a pretty cynical reading of the mod post. New Player Discussion is meant for new players to ask questions and learn the game, having a giant thread where people complain about the pricing and call the game too complicated isn't really conducive to that. And just because they don't want that stuff there doesn't mean they aren't aware of the issues or working on them, but it's not like Wilson is going to come in to the thread and say "You're right, our pricing is too high!" I do wish they hadn't gutted the original forums since I can't stand using the Facebook groups but they have every right to want to keep those sorts of discussions off of what they hope is a new player's first interaction with the community.
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Apr 12, 2018 15:59:45 GMT
I realize my last couple posts here have been very contrary and could be read as hostile, so I want to clarify my position a bit. I'll try to keep it brief.
Warmachine/Hordes has gone through a lot of changes in the last two years, that much is obvious. The first year of MkIII especially were very rough and turned a significant number of people away from the game. Many of them were likely looking for an excuse anyway; something I think we could see coming with or without MkIII. Remember the Australian podcasting group (why can't I remember their name?) that bailed just before MkIII after losing the WTC? A big part of why they very vocally quit the game was that they had spent a lot of time playing it, thinking about it, etc and were just burned out. A lot of other people were burned out too but maybe kept going out of inertia.
So in Spring 2016 I suspect there were a lot of people who took the game very seriously who were probably already nearing the end of their endurance. The amount of time and energy a very vocal portion of the community put in to tournaments was bound to take it's toll. Then MkIII happened, with everything that went wrong during the launch, and it was the perfect breaking point. If you're already getting exhausted and now you have to relearn things and some of the stuff you like has been changed in ways your not fond of it's kind of a perfect storm of reasons to pull back. Even if the launch had been flawless there would be people who took it as the time to leave.
So now we're in the second year of MkIII. Very vocal parts of the community, including a lot of the big podcasts, are bailing on the game and talking about other stuff. That's not inherently bad; there are a ton of other wargames out there, many with very low bars of entry, and it's perfectly natural that people would want to try them out. We're really in a golden age of choice for wargames; far from the early days of Warmachine where it was almost GW or nothing.
With more competition it was inevitable that there would be people who would pick one of those games rather than Warmachine/Hordes. Think about it in terms of mid-2000's First Person Shooters: for a while your choices were pretty much Halo or Call of Duty, but then more and more companies started doing cool things and now you have a resurgent Battlefield, Overwatch, CoD, Halo, Rainbow 6, Titanfall, Destiny, the list goes on. Where before you choices if you wanted quality and a playerbase were Modern (CoD) or Scifi (Halo) there are now a slew of options ranging from realistic to arcadey to cartooney and everything in between.
The point being that Warmachine/Hordes simply exists in a different world than it used to. The era of the GW refugees is over, no single wargame is likely to ever see the kind of explosive growth that WM/H did at the start of MkII when faith in GW was slipping and the only other competition was Malifaux and Infinity. With Fantasy Flight cranking out solid systems on fantastic licenses, a resurgent GW specialty stable, and underdogs like Steamforged, Hawk, and Cool Mini putting out quality product there simply isn't enough userbase to support that.
So what do we do? What does PP do? We play the game we want to play, whether or not that's Warmahordes. We push events, hold our game nights, and enjoy the game with similarly-minded people. There's nothing wrong with disliking the changes made, that's going to happen for some people regardless of how the changes are presented. And that's okay. Falling out of love with a hobby is a natural part of hobbies; I used to live and breathe skiing until I finished college and it just didn't fit into my life anymore. By all means, share your relevant thoughts and feelings with PP on their official channels. I assure you that they are equally interested in making this the best game it can be with as many happy players as they can get.
PP should definitely take those complaints under consideration and they need to constantly examine their business model and figure out what the market will respond to (like any business). But what they aren't obligated to do is let people use their platform to bash their product, nor are the obligated to bow to public pressure from a vocal minority. Remember, none of us actually know PPs sales figures. We may be able to see some sales trends from the outside, or even find numbers an individual store or distributor releases, but as a private company PP has no reason to share global sales data. For all we know the push to "Play Anywhere" from the start of MkIII worked and there are thousands of new players who just never go to shops, we simply don't know.
This didn't end up very short so here's my point. It sucks if you're losing players in your area, and I feel for you, and I will give any advice I can to help you. But complaining that PP doesn't listen or going in endless circles about pricing isn't going to help anyone; in fact I would argue that the instance on keeping this conversations alive actively turns away new players looking to reach out to the community. By all means, have them, but try to remember that if you want more people to play the game with you you need to put in some effort to make it seem worthwhile. Nobody has ever gotten their friends to play a game by starting the conversation with complaints. And if you're one of the people who doesn't want to play anymore then that's fine too, but stop trying to ruin other people's fun by taking every opportunity you can to give them shit. Go enjoy things you enjoy and let other people enjoy the things they enjoy.
TL;DR: The edition change was always going to result in some people leaving, getting tired of hobbies is normal, play what you want to play and give constructive feedback but complaining for the sake of complaining only drives people away, PP should definitely listen to feedback but isn't obligated to just take abuse, if you want your local community to be healthy you're going to have to put in some work.
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kaernak
Junior Strategist
Either pray to Menoth or feel his fury. You'll burn either way.
Posts: 172
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Post by kaernak on Apr 12, 2018 16:48:07 GMT
I realize my last couple posts here have been very contrary and could be read as hostile, so I want to clarify my position a bit. I'll try to keep it brief. Warmachine/Hordes has gone through a lot of changes in the last two years, that much is obvious. The first year of MkIII especially were very rough and turned a significant number of people away from the game. Many of them were likely looking for an excuse anyway; something I think we could see coming with or without MkIII. Remember the Australian podcasting group (why can't I remember their name?) that bailed just before MkIII after losing the WTC? A big part of why they very vocally quit the game was that they had spent a lot of time playing it, thinking about it, etc and were just burned out. A lot of other people were burned out too but maybe kept going out of inertia. So in Spring 2016 I suspect there were a lot of people who took the game very seriously who were probably already nearing the end of their endurance. The amount of time and energy a very vocal portion of the community put in to tournaments was bound to take it's toll. Then MkIII happened, with everything that went wrong during the launch, and it was the perfect breaking point. If you're already getting exhausted and now you have to relearn things and some of the stuff you like has been changed in ways your not fond of it's kind of a perfect storm of reasons to pull back. Even if the launch had been flawless there would be people who took it as the time to leave. So now we're in the second year of MkIII. Very vocal parts of the community, including a lot of the big podcasts, are bailing on the game and talking about other stuff. That's not inherently bad; there are a ton of other wargames out there, many with very low bars of entry, and it's perfectly natural that people would want to try them out. We're really in a golden age of choice for wargames; far from the early days of Warmachine where it was almost GW or nothing. With more competition it was inevitable that there would be people who would pick one of those games rather than Warmachine/Hordes. Think about it in terms of mid-2000's First Person Shooters: for a while your choices were pretty much Halo or Call of Duty, but then more and more companies started doing cool things and now you have a resurgent Battlefield, Overwatch, CoD, Halo, Rainbow 6, Titanfall, Destiny, the list goes on. Where before you choices if you wanted quality and a playerbase were Modern (CoD) or Scifi (Halo) there are now a slew of options ranging from realistic to arcadey to cartooney and everything in between. The point being that Warmachine/Hordes simply exists in a different world than it used to. The era of the GW refugees is over, no single wargame is likely to ever see the kind of explosive growth that WM/H did at the start of MkII when faith in GW was slipping and the only other competition was Malifaux and Infinity. With Fantasy Flight cranking out solid systems on fantastic licenses, a resurgent GW specialty stable, and underdogs like Steamforged, Hawk, and Cool Mini putting out quality product there simply isn't enough userbase to support that. So what do we do? What does PP do? We play the game we want to play, whether or not that's Warmahordes. We push events, hold our game nights, and enjoy the game with similarly-minded people. There's nothing wrong with disliking the changes made, that's going to happen for some people regardless of how the changes are presented. And that's okay. Falling out of love with a hobby is a natural part of hobbies; I used to live and breathe skiing until I finished college and it just didn't fit into my life anymore. By all means, share your relevant thoughts and feelings with PP on their official channels. I assure you that they are equally interested in making this the best game it can be with as many happy players as they can get. PP should definitely take those complaints under consideration and they need to constantly examine their business model and figure out what the market will respond to (like any business). But what they aren't obligated to do is let people use their platform to bash their product, nor are the obligated to bow to public pressure from a vocal minority. Remember, none of us actually know PPs sales figures. We may be able to see some sales trends from the outside, or even find numbers an individual store or distributor releases, but as a private company PP has no reason to share global sales data. For all we know the push to "Play Anywhere" from the start of MkIII worked and there are thousands of new players who just never go to shops, we simply don't know. This didn't end up very short so here's my point. It sucks if you're losing players in your area, and I feel for you, and I will give any advice I can to help you. But complaining that PP doesn't listen or going in endless circles about pricing isn't going to help anyone; in fact I would argue that the instance on keeping this conversations alive actively turns away new players looking to reach out to the community. By all means, have them, but try to remember that if you want more people to play the game with you you need to put in some effort to make it seem worthwhile. Nobody has ever gotten their friends to play a game by starting the conversation with complaints. And if you're one of the people who doesn't want to play anymore then that's fine too, but stop trying to ruin other people's fun by taking every opportunity you can to give them shit. Go enjoy things you enjoy and let other people enjoy the things they enjoy. TL;DR: The edition change was always going to result in some people leaving, getting tired of hobbies is normal, play what you want to play and give constructive feedback but complaining for the sake of complaining only drives people away, PP should definitely listen to feedback but isn't obligated to just take abuse, if you want your local community to be healthy you're going to have to put in some work. What podcasts have bailed? I haven't been able to listen to any in a while.
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Post by NephMakes on Apr 12, 2018 18:08:36 GMT
I'm a new player, with only a handful of games in so far, all under 50 pts. At this point I'm still learning some of the basic mechanics and a lot of the basic strategy/tactics.
The thing I appreciate most is when my opponent talks through their goals and decision process while playing their turn. Like: I know your models have strong assassination plays so I'm moving my caster here and camping this much focus. Or: I'm moving my models here so I can hopefully get the first strike on your high-damage heavy to swing the attrition game. This kind of talk rarely happens, even when I played the designated "ambassador" for new players who I think used to be a press ganger. But seeing and hearing experienced play from the inside, so to speak, helps me understand the game much more than playing in silence and having a bunch of things go wrong for me for reasons that are only kind of clarified in a brief after-game discussion. I try to talk through my decision process, as well, so that my opponent can address or correct anything wonky I might be thinking. This happens sometimes.
Almost all of my opponent's models are things I'm seeing for the first time. There are a great many special rules. Way too many for me to remember, even after having played against them once. I try to sum up my opponent's models in terms of archetypes -- high-damage melee heavy, buffing solo, squishy ranged infantry, etc. It would help if my opponent did that when I asked about their models, instead of just reading off all the rules. I think most of the model-specific rules can be introduced and discussed while the game is playing. It'd probably also save time.
Speaking of time, games with new players take longer because there's lots of talking: talking about rules, talking about what models do, and hopefully talking about strategy and tactics. Eventually you learn and practice playing more quickly. That's just part of the process. So when I had an opponent's father (himself not exactly a veteran) repeatedly come over to our table and make comments like "oh my god, longest game ever" or make snoring noises, it was kind of a turn off. Dude wasn't even depending on our game finishing for a ride or anything. Don't be a dick.
I'm playing lists that are definitely not top tier. I bought some models back in MkII mainly just to assemble and paint things I thought looked cool. I did some research back then to make sure they played okay together, but the game has shifted since then. I know this, and for now it's okay since I'm mainly playing to learn. It seems like playing middle-of-the-road casters/themes, or lists my opponents are also learning, would make for games that are more "normal" in flow and round length. I don't need to play with or against meta-bending skew lists yet.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Apr 13, 2018 8:14:52 GMT
The thing I appreciate most is when my opponent talks through their goals and decision process while playing their turn. Like: I know your models have strong assassination plays so I'm moving my caster here and camping this much focus. Or: I'm moving my models here so I can hopefully get the first strike on your high-damage heavy to swing the attrition game. This kind of talk rarely happens, even when I played the designated "ambassador" for new players who I think used to be a press ganger. But seeing and hearing experienced play from the inside, so to speak, helps me understand the game much more than playing in silence and having a bunch of things go wrong for me for reasons that are only kind of clarified in a brief after-game discussion. I try to talk through my decision process, as well, so that my opponent can address or correct anything wonky I might be thinking. This happens sometimes. I try to do this even at tournaments when I notice my opponent isn't the most experienced. It's kind of appalling that people don't even care to do this for new members of their community. I mean, I don't tell my game plan during the game, though I might go over it after. But I do try to say things like "these guys hit hard, but are slow, watch out for X special rule", "these guys won't do much, but watch out for X", etc. I don't know if you ask your opponent for this kind of advice or they just assume you don't want/need it?
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crow
Junior Strategist
Posts: 310
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Post by crow on Apr 13, 2018 11:09:49 GMT
First off this thread makes me happy! I just discovered it and just read a few of the responses... but I think is the place to ask for help!
My local Meta is pretty dead. The only gaming group for warmachine in the city consists of like 5 guys and they don't deviate from the following: -No one plays until everyone shows up. -Everyone has to have written at least two 75 point lists (though you can bring one, and just play the one) -Opponents are rolled for, and you can't play the same person two weeks in a row -Terrain is set up in standard Steamroller fashion, but is set up by everybody before the game begins. -Dice are hitting the table usually around 7:00 pm.
Needless to say I attended for a bit until I couldn't take it anymore, and haven't had time or motivation to return since I left. On top of that while I was going, I saw four or five new players show up, and then watched as they never showed up again. It's maddening! When I tried to set up a seperate day, I got no help from the store, the guys, or anyone else but my dad (the only person I have played in the last few months!). We need a different gaming group or I might give up man... it's not bad playing my dad, but he only plays legion, and it's the same opponent over, and over... and it's getting hard. Suggestions?
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