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Post by tjhairball on Feb 25, 2019 22:54:52 GMT
From there, a few of the Themes are a little... off in how they provide benefits. When a Theme provides bonus models for units, but provide benefits to the Warjacks/Warbeasts, it is a bit disassociative. Unfortunately, the current CID process is not well geared to balancing them out in a rapid manner.
I disagree. One of my top criteria for a good theme list is one when I can build 2 (or even 3) lists within a theme that look nothing alike, and themes that offer free points on units + a BG gameplay benefit almost always do this effectively. It let's you change the BG/units ratio freely (as the OP noted is a positive thing).
Look at faithful masses. I can do (1) jack heavy with Amon (monks to trigger hand of vengeance works just fine), (2) gun heavy (idrians, zealots, deliverers) with Reznik 2 or F3ora, (3) weaponmaster heavy e.g. with Harby. The fact that some solos and even merc units count towards free cards just opens things up a lot, and I won't get bored of playing lists in that theme for a long time. Exemplar interdiction also let's you have a large variety of viable ratios between jacks and units.
Don't get me wrong, some themes with gameplay benefits for the models that also count towards free cards can also give you this variety. But sometimes stacking benefits on the one thing yields poor build variety.
As far as I am concerned, this isn't just 'one of the purposes', it is THE purpose. It is impossible for a newer player to toe in to such bloated factions without themes, so they are necessary.
That said, I am skeptical of the balance argument. I'd like those who have more complete collections to have the extra option to play out of theme, but the current system is too punishing for that.
I would disagree on that.
New players don't really know what part of a faction they like yet. Or even what faction. And it is in general a huge buy to add a second theme (or to switch from theme A to theme B). From my perspective, it's easier to toe-in when non-theme play is prevalent; you can test the waters buying into a mixed force, and then slowly add more of what works for you.
I talked about this with regard to mercs in faction lists before in the Khador section, but for a lot of us who aren't at the comfort level of routinely buying, swapping, and selling entire armies at once, we collect gradually. With themes, half an army's worth of a given theme is unplayable. This is literally why I haven't bought mercs since Mk II and why I haven't bought into Crucible. Big all-at-once purchase points in order to branch out are a daunting obstacle, and I don't like taking a risk of buying that many models all at once that I might end up storing or selling off.
Now that the Mk III dust has settled and I've gone poking back into the game to see who's still playing, I picked up a couple of new models here and there within Khador that already clearly fit with models I already have, but the number of people who have exited the game make me skeptical of wanting to buy into the game further, much less take a big risk on a large batch of models all at once.
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Post by challenger on Feb 25, 2019 23:29:22 GMT
Infinity's theme forces (Sectorials) blow Warmachine and Hordes out of the water
They don't give out any free models. They have essentially two universal theme benefits, which are Fire Teams and increased FA. Fire teams are universally applicable between factions as there is both a variety of them, and a variety of ways of implementing them. You then get to field more of the models you like in that sectorial.
Sectorials are also given solid amounts of choices, Warmachine themes sometimes are absolutely anemic. Look at Scourge of the broken coast. you have legit like 3 units to choose from. then look at the Tartary Army Korps, 24 separate units, each of them with access to potentially multiple profiles (ie - is your Veteran Kazak wielding that AP HMG from a distance or is he a short range brawler with a T2 rifle). There are so many WMH themes where you have less than 5 real choices, whereas in Infinity having over 20 units is standard, all with separate profiles.
What ends up happening is Infinity sectorials end up being fluffy, filling out your force with pieces that match a common theme, sometimes is extremely fluffy in the gameplay (Imperial Service - your real go-getters are elite imperial agents and everyone else is fodder for them, such as the political prisoners Kuang Shi), and due to the universal fireteam buff sectorials can stand toe to toe with the vanilla factions on their own strengths.
Neither is better than the other, making player choice king. List building is open and diverse. Warmachine should take notes, if you want to fix themes look at a game that did them infinitely (heh) better
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Post by chrisbatson on Feb 25, 2019 23:42:22 GMT
One thing that I think would make theme forces better is that nearly every caster gets :irregulars (x). Whatever their fluff is.
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Post by Charistoph on Feb 26, 2019 0:44:30 GMT
Infinity's theme forces (Sectorials) blow Warmachine and Hordes out of the water They don't give out any free models. They have essentially two universal theme benefits, which are Fire Teams and increased FA. Fire teams are universally applicable between factions as there is both a variety of them, and a variety of ways of implementing them. You then get to field more of the models you like in that sectorial. Sectorials are also given solid amounts of choices, Warmachine themes sometimes are absolutely anemic. Look at Scourge of the broken coast. you have legit like 3 units to choose from. then look at the Tartary Army Korps, 24 separate units, each of them with access to potentially multiple profiles (ie - is your Veteran Kazak wielding that AP HMG from a distance or is he a short range brawler with a T2 rifle). There are so many WMH themes where you have less than 5 real choices, whereas in Infinity having over 20 units is standard, all with separate profiles. What ends up happening is Infinity sectorials end up being fluffy, filling out your force with pieces that match a common theme, sometimes is extremely fluffy in the gameplay (Imperial Service - your real go-getters are elite imperial agents and everyone else is fodder for them, such as the political prisoners Kuang Shi), and due to the universal fireteam buff sectorials can stand toe to toe with the vanilla factions on their own strengths. Neither is better than the other, making player choice king. List building is open and diverse. Warmachine should take notes, if you want to fix themes look at a game that did them infinitely (heh) better
In order to properly replicate Sectorials in to Themes, though, we'd pretty much have to take almost everything non-Character, with a couple of exceptions per faction, and drop them to an FA of 1 or 2, so that you'd only be able to spam one unit and one or two Jacks (with Cryx, that'd probably be the bone chickens, not the Slayer) without a Theme. The Theme would then only allow what they allow now, but jump their FA to current or higher, with the Jacks/Beasts only going up with the dedicated Jack/Beast Theme of the Faction.
One thing that I think would make theme forces better is that nearly every caster gets :irregulars (x). Whatever their fluff is.
Not entirely on board with this. As it is, there are only a few Warcasters and Warlocks which depend on another purchase to literally work and are only available in one Theme (Zhaal1's Khovaas requiring an Ancestral Guardian to die in order to appear on the board, for example). Some are dependent on some units being taken in order to get full personal use of their abilities (hi, Fiona), but this isn't as strong as Zhaal's cross to bear.
And then there are the ones who just make something a lot better just by being there (such as Mordikaar's Void Spirits and Makeda2's Praetorian Swordsmen). While not a lot of people are complaining about Mordikaar (yet), could you imagine Makeda2 bringing Swordsmen in to every Theme she goes? And she's not even the most abusive case I could think of as I know there are far more abusive combinations out there.
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Post by jagius021 on Feb 26, 2019 4:23:40 GMT
I'd like to see some greater incentive to take mercs and minions. DoA is a great look at a positive change, they moved it to all units counting towards freebies. The only problem, is there are like, 3 available free models to choose from, one of which costs 3 points.
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Post by challenger on Feb 26, 2019 4:50:26 GMT
Infinity's theme forces (Sectorials) blow Warmachine and Hordes out of the water They don't give out any free models. They have essentially two universal theme benefits, which are Fire Teams and increased FA. Fire teams are universally applicable between factions as there is both a variety of them, and a variety of ways of implementing them. You then get to field more of the models you like in that sectorial. Sectorials are also given solid amounts of choices, Warmachine themes sometimes are absolutely anemic. Look at Scourge of the broken coast. you have legit like 3 units to choose from. then look at the Tartary Army Korps, 24 separate units, each of them with access to potentially multiple profiles (ie - is your Veteran Kazak wielding that AP HMG from a distance or is he a short range brawler with a T2 rifle). There are so many WMH themes where you have less than 5 real choices, whereas in Infinity having over 20 units is standard, all with separate profiles. What ends up happening is Infinity sectorials end up being fluffy, filling out your force with pieces that match a common theme, sometimes is extremely fluffy in the gameplay (Imperial Service - your real go-getters are elite imperial agents and everyone else is fodder for them, such as the political prisoners Kuang Shi), and due to the universal fireteam buff sectorials can stand toe to toe with the vanilla factions on their own strengths. Neither is better than the other, making player choice king. List building is open and diverse. Warmachine should take notes, if you want to fix themes look at a game that did them infinitely (heh) better
In order to properly replicate Sectorials in to Themes, though, we'd pretty much have to take almost everything non-Character, with a couple of exceptions per faction, and drop them to an FA of 1 or 2, so that you'd only be able to spam one unit and one or two Jacks (with Cryx, that'd probably be the bone chickens, not the Slayer) without a Theme. The Theme would then only allow what they allow now, but jump their FA to current or higher, with the Jacks/Beasts only going up with the dedicated Jack/Beast Theme of the Faction. Honestly that wouldn't be a bad thing for the game. Discouraging spam is a good thing IMO. the big hurdle would be managing the players upset that they say, own 9 slayers and they are now FA:2. But i dont think there is an "easy" fix to themes right now, it'd be a big big task to fix everything and make non theme play viable AND theme play viable like Infinity
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Post by Charistoph on Feb 26, 2019 6:01:19 GMT
In order to properly replicate Sectorials in to Themes, though, we'd pretty much have to take almost everything non-Character, with a couple of exceptions per faction, and drop them to an FA of 1 or 2, so that you'd only be able to spam one unit and one or two Jacks (with Cryx, that'd probably be the bone chickens, not the Slayer) without a Theme. The Theme would then only allow what they allow now, but jump their FA to current or higher, with the Jacks/Beasts only going up with the dedicated Jack/Beast Theme of the Faction. Honestly that wouldn't be a bad thing for the game. Discouraging spam is a good thing IMO. the big hurdle would be managing the players upset that they say, own 9 slayers and they are now FA:2. But i dont think there is an "easy" fix to themes right now, it'd be a big big task to fix everything and make non theme play viable AND theme play viable like Infinity. Well, the Sectorial is one track to take and it would make for an interesting experiment to try out. While I wasn't being against the idea, I was just listing one of the reasons why the Sectorials were actually created, i.e. altering the AVA of the models, and one of the current mechanical challenges of the implementation.
Realistically, unless PP felt that they didn't want to have a faction with Heavy 'Jack/'Beast spam, there is always that Theme to use as that go to, but honestly, I think keeping 'Jacks limited in FA would actually encourage list building diversity challenges akin to Highlander. Slayers being what they are, I could see them being the most spammable of Cryx's Heavy Jacks, much like Titan Gladiators would possibly be for Skorne (if not the Rhinodon), Dire Troll Maulers for Trollbloods, Crusaders for the Protectorate, etc., but they probably wouldn't have an FA of more than 3 or 4 in this arrangement rather than the 9 I've seen.
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