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Post by jisidro on Aug 25, 2018 19:26:48 GMT
I am convinced the player is a lot more important than the list (within limits ofc).
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Post by Charistoph on Aug 25, 2018 22:55:56 GMT
I am convinced the player is a lot more important than the list (within limits ofc). Very true. Someone new to the game may not how to use Asphixious3 with 9 Slayers. Bad placement choices can doom a list more easily then a bad list. However, at tournaments like WTC, there is little chance of that happening.
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Post by Azuresun on Aug 25, 2018 23:51:35 GMT
I just don't see it as actually increasing skew. "i'm a well balanced list that has all kinds of aspects" has been hit-or-miss for as long as ive ever played the game and usually hinged on an "op" caster to carry it.
It's pretty simple. Anything that adds new special rules is one more thing that can be stacked into a super-skew. Carapace is not an insignificant part of the bogeyman du jour's power and elsewhere, you have things like mass Takedown being handed out to armies.
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Post by mcdermott on Aug 26, 2018 1:53:10 GMT
Except that was all skew that already existed..it may have been new with faction X but lots of jacks with a ton of boxes and armor was already a thing, and mass takedown is the sort of thing that PREVENTS skew (via recursion, all tough lists etc) not something that qualifies as skew itself. High arm/boxes is a thing that requires tech, High def skew is a thing that requires tech. My opponents entire army has takedown doesnt affect you for anything unless you were already skewing with recursion.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on Aug 26, 2018 7:34:39 GMT
This doesn't seem new to me.
All through MKII you had some casters that played well with Skews (Grim2, Caine2, Skarre1 etc) and some casters that did really well as toolbox casters (Saeryn1, Vayl2, skarre2 even denny2 before her OP theme). Skew has always been the easier list styleto discuss and debate online because it's much less dependant on play-style, but that doesn't make it more viable than toolbox-style casters.
What is interesting is whether themes hurt toolboxy casters by limiting the versatility they require to function properly. I haven't really given that one much thought, but I'd be curious to hear other takes while I give it some consideration.
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Post by Azuresun on Aug 26, 2018 8:43:48 GMT
Except that was all skew that already existed..
Yes, and (again) adding a new source of special rules that mostly wasn't there before* can make a skew even more pronounced (in the 9S list, it decisively removes the weakness to guns). Am I explaining this concept poorly? Because it really doesn't seem that complex or controversial a statement!
And the problem with across-the-board Takedown from a theme is that it's another bit of non-interactivity that pushes the focus away from tactics and onto list building / selection. Your defensive measures, which were probably a big part of the functionality of your list, stop working. They just do. No, there's no workaround or clever tactics you can use, guess you should have dropped a different list.
* Yes, there were a couple of themes in Mk2 that gave gamelong special rules, but they were very much the exception.
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Post by Lord_Randall on Aug 26, 2018 10:57:38 GMT
RFP for every single model of an army is abusive as much is abusive a retarded recursion ghost fleet style.
This kind of extreme hard counter shouldn't be a thing.
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Post by gargs454 on Aug 26, 2018 15:35:38 GMT
It's been a while since I played Infinity, but I seem to remember it's pretty hard to get to that level of non-interaction. And in Malifaux, you can choose your list after you know what faction you're playing against and what the scenario is, and focusing on the scenario rather than killing the enemy team is much more workable.
Interesting. I guess one of the big differences is that in Infinity, you always have a chance to react, immediately, to whatever your opponent does. He moved out into a firing lane after being in cover? Great, take a shot. Doesn't matter that its his turn. Now you can stack bonuses/penalties in Infinity (up to a max of +/- 12) but the thing is, if you can shoot at them, then they can still shoot at you. There's no "Sorry, you are too far away to hit back." It might be a really, really, low percentage shot, but you can still always shoot back and your opponent can still miss (usually). So yeah, I think I see the issue. In general, a good plan in Infinity can still frequently be executed (depending on terrain which in my experience plays a much, much larger role in Infinity) but everything you do is subject to an immediate reaction by your opponent as opposed to just sitting back and checking off damage boxes while your opponent takes his turn.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Aug 26, 2018 21:29:19 GMT
Cryx was still terrible into gunlines back then. And gunlines were basically 80% of the very early meta. Stuff like Ossyan or VladRockets. Cryx wasn't generally bad, just into what everyone played. Then the gun lines got chased away by their natural predators and decent terrain rules. It also helps that Cryx got a +2 Arm Aura into shooting, mass caster independent stealth and a whole theme with Carapace.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Aug 26, 2018 21:34:13 GMT
On a related note though, one thing that it seems has pretty much always been the case is that Warmahordes is a game where the list makes a huge, huge difference in the outcome. It seems that way but it really isn't. There are handed where your list is far more important. Practice and understanding of matchups is still what wins games in WMH. However, at the top levels of play everyone (generally) practices a lot as understands their matchups well. So lists matter a lot more.
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Post by mcdermott on Aug 26, 2018 21:35:46 GMT
RFP for every single model of an army is abusive as much is abusive a retarded recursion ghost fleet style. This kind of extreme hard counter shouldn't be a thing. No it isnt. RFP for every single model of an army (its just the warrior models) does nothing vs a huge % of the field. The recursion is a strategy that doesn't exactly care what you play against as long as it doesnt HAVE RFP in any meaningful numbers. In other words. RFP on warriors matters in SOME matchups. Recursion works in every matchup save those where RFP is plentiful. The recursion can be oppressive to an entire meta (ghost fleet), the RFP is only oppressive to lists relying heavily on recursion.
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Post by oncouch1 on Aug 27, 2018 1:57:21 GMT
On a related note though, one thing that it seems has pretty much always been the case is that Warmahordes is a game where the list makes a huge, huge difference in the outcome. My question is: What is it about Warmahordes that leads to this? Is it a reflection of the Warcaster/lock model? Something else? I ask because I don't have a ton of experience in other wargames on which to draw from or even knowledge as to whether or not this is common. The only other game I have much experience in is Infinity which, curiously enough, doesn't have this same issue despite having numerous different factions that each tend to have a unique feel to them.
I think it comes down to how extreme skewing and crazy stat bonus / special rule stacking in Warmachine is not only possible and encouraged by themes, but is actually the best way to play the game. You want your list to be as low-interaction as possible, and stuff like 9x Slayers is simply the current logical extreme (and not even the worst, historically) of that principle. They're lists that say "I'm going to execute my plan and win, and it doesn't really matter what you're doing unless you're skewing harder than me."
It's been a while since I played Infinity, but I seem to remember it's pretty hard to get to that level of non-interaction. And in Malifaux, you can choose your list after you know what faction you're playing against and what the scenario is, and focusing on the scenario rather than killing the enemy team is much more workable.
I believe the cause of the extreme matchup swings come from the lists people bring. I have seen/heard many people with similar opinions to yourself, saying things like, "the list makes a huge, huge difference in the outcome" and "it doesn't really matter what you are doing unless you're skewing harder than me". Many of those doomsayers have been the source of their own frustration. By themselves bringing lists with polarized matchup profiles and getting smashed when people have the correct tools to counter their skew and getting frustrated that they feel like they lost the game in the matchup process. Skews by definition are inflexible and are trying to win the game at the matchup selection process. They are designed to narrow the playable options into them by stretching a normal lists ability to combat them by stressing a specific resource. That makes them easy to exploit. Your list gets to ask questions as well and they have far fewer model types to answer back with. The game is very rarely about winning the game during the matchup process. That greatly downplays the decisions you make on the table, which in my opinion matter ten times more than what you are playing.
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Post by oncouch1 on Aug 27, 2018 2:08:35 GMT
They're lists that say "I'm going to execute my plan and win, and it doesn't really matter what you're doing unless you're skewing harder than me."
This is why I have a love/hate relationship with WM/H (and probably why I need to really dabble more in 40K). That kind of gaming to me is anti-social (or at least "meh-social"). It encourages deep netlisting discussions (which I guess are interactive) and then gaming that is inwardly focused - do I properly execute my opening. It is VERY competitive chess like. I tend to be a gamer that enjoys more back and forth - mutually agonizing over dice rolls and imagining big stompy robots smashing each other. That attitude does lead one toward 40K. I enjoy warmachine for the converse side of the argument, your play can make dice rolls matter much less. Your example of "do I properly execute my opening" being an inwardly focussed aspect of the game is true and doing that well will win lots of games at the lower end of the spectrum. The real game of warmachine lies in both players knowing what the other list does and playing around it, with your opponent doing the same. The gambles in positioning and percentages is what makes warmachine interesting not the dice rolling.
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Post by sand20go on Aug 27, 2018 3:46:38 GMT
This is why I have a love/hate relationship with WM/H (and probably why I need to really dabble more in 40K). That kind of gaming to me is anti-social (or at least "meh-social"). It encourages deep netlisting discussions (which I guess are interactive) and then gaming that is inwardly focused - do I properly execute my opening. It is VERY competitive chess like. I tend to be a gamer that enjoys more back and forth - mutually agonizing over dice rolls and imagining big stompy robots smashing each other. That attitude does lead one toward 40K. I enjoy warmachine for the converse side of the argument, your play can make dice rolls matter much less. Your example of "do I properly execute my opening" being an inwardly focussed aspect of the game is true and doing that well will win lots of games at the lower end of the spectrum. The real game of warmachine lies in both players knowing what the other list does and playing around it, with your opponent doing the same. The gambles in positioning and percentages is what makes warmachine interesting not the dice rolling. I am guessing that less than 5% (maybe 1%) of Warmachine players know everything that everything does. I play in an EXTREMELY competitive meta - the guys won ATC. They know probably 50% of what other stuff does. They have their openings down cold. But I agree - the most interesting warmachine is when both players have a deep familarity of everything on the table.
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Post by oncouch1 on Aug 27, 2018 5:33:13 GMT
That attitude does lead one toward 40K. I enjoy warmachine for the converse side of the argument, your play can make dice rolls matter much less. Your example of "do I properly execute my opening" being an inwardly focussed aspect of the game is true and doing that well will win lots of games at the lower end of the spectrum. The real game of warmachine lies in both players knowing what the other list does and playing around it, with your opponent doing the same. The gambles in positioning and percentages is what makes warmachine interesting not the dice rolling. I am guessing that less than 5% (maybe 1%) of Warmachine players know everything that everything does. I play in an EXTREMELY competitive meta - the guys won ATC. They know probably 50% of what other stuff does. They have their openings down cold. But I agree - the most interesting warmachine is when both players have a deep familarity of everything on the table. You don't need to know what everything does, that is not the point. At a certain level you have developed a macro for dealing with specific factions and their most commonly played models. Adding on matchup specific details based on heuristic inferences will become secondhand. That isn't to say that you will not be surprised anymore, but simply being able to anticipate how a game will play out isn't too difficult. As well as how the new model/s they have added will influence the normal play pattern. You have two options when you encounter someone better than you 1) Learn from the experience and make designs to beat them later or 2) Be awed by their accomplishments and not seek to improve. I see which option you have chosen to take.
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