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Post by netdragon on Jan 27, 2019 10:23:19 GMT
Several of us have already said that we want to play it. It's a matter of perspective. I could just as easily call 75 Points Steamroller "Bloated Warmachine." You could call it that, but you would be definitively wrong. 75 points warmahordes is the point level suggested by the creators and developers. You don't have to like it and smaller point games are totally viable for play despite the lack of attention they get. This is not just smaller points warmachine, though. It's a nipping a community idea to push as some alternative competitive format that is fewer points less a bunch of other stuff. Not to mention that crafting a format that caters towards competition AND brand new players creates goals that necessarily work against one another. This game already has a fantastic competitive format (albeit with uninspired missions). What it lacks is a popular casual format. Axing feats is also just stupid. Mechanically feats are very simple to understand. The individual function of a feat differs wildly in complexity from warlock to warlock as does the power level and scalable effect. Feats as a "class" of ability are mechanically simpler even than casting a spell. The effects of some feats are even just as simple some spells. Canning them outright makes no sense and is totally arbitrary. It destroys any semblance of balance thus making it a poor competitive format at conception and it conceals a core game mechanic from new players that is one of the most crucial things about the game to learn thus teaching them how to play a different game than WarmaHordes as such (this I think obviously makes it a bad format to introduce players to the game with especially since no one has a problem using feats in battlebox games).
Consider that the original warmachine was designed to be around this size of game. 75-pts Themed warmachine is not warmachine, is what the company has pushed but not what was originaly designed. The core rule's abstraction level were not meant for this size of game.
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crow
Junior Strategist
Posts: 310
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Post by crow on Jan 27, 2019 16:30:57 GMT
naw, I agree... I don't think I'd ever play this version. I like playing competitive, but I also know how to have fun introducing players to the game with the current rules. Feats are pretty easy to teach, and heck I've even taught them before spells sometimes as I find spells can actually be more confusing for new players. Many of the people I've taught catch onto feats faster then they do spells, but I just take extra time to teach spells is all. All it really takes is for people to get excited about other people's hobbies, and to play the game for fun. It also takes some time to get used to, but knowing what rules will be to much can really help new players. I'd never suggest this as a "new" format though, but rather just stages that people play at before they start to get the hang of the game. For instance, I've had a few people that have NEVER touched a war game before that are now part of my meta. So there first few games all we worried about was moving, and preforming basic attacks. After a couple of games I introduced basic Focus and Furry mechanics (how to charge, how to boost, how to buy attacks). This progressed until they learned feats, and then spells, and now they've started building 75 point lists and are able to play fairly well on their own. I still don't bring "s" tier lists with the intent to crush them, but I do find myself able to play stronger and stronger things as they learn and grow.
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midas
Read Page 5
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Post by midas on Jan 27, 2019 17:37:06 GMT
sounds like company of iron to me
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Post by netdragon on Jan 27, 2019 18:40:23 GMT
sounds like company of iron to me
Oh no, company of iron has cards, alternate damage and activations rules on top of the existing ones, making it pretty confusing.
I wish people here could stop saying "this is for newbies" as the "right" way of playing WM/H is with a big army.
Warmachine started as a skirmish game, people seem to like skirmish games (Infinity, Malifaux, Underworlds, Kill Team, etc, etc, etc), so if something is designed to be played at that scale. is totally valid.
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seul
Demo Gamer
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Post by seul on Jan 27, 2019 19:06:52 GMT
when you say things like" "Consider that the original warmachine was designed to be around this size of game. 75-pts Themed warmachine is not warmachine, is what the company has pushed but not what was originaly designed. The core rule's abstraction level were not meant for this size of game."
You are ignoring that the rules were overhauled in Mark 2 and mark 3. It would be like complaining that no one plays with 1000 point armies even though the game was designed to play with 1000 point armies.
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Post by dogganmguest on Jan 27, 2019 20:28:21 GMT
I would much rather play something like this if it turned out to be fun. A 75 point game now is a situation where people proudly proclaim they spend their opponent's turn checking their dogganm phone. It's practically two player solitaire, and it's not fun to sit there and watch someone else take a long turn, especially if that person is either much better or much worse than you.
Company of Iron is completely different, and while it had more potential than this does, it turned out to be quite shitty in both execution and the fact that no-one was interested in playing it. At least for now, this has the latter covered.
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midas
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Post by midas on Jan 27, 2019 20:35:58 GMT
i grasped netdragons sarcasm
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Post by Big Fat Troll on Jan 28, 2019 1:03:33 GMT
TLDR: For the purposes of a different format, make the game manageable but mess with the basic rules as little as possible.
Feats need to say, but more peripheral things like FA can be changed, and banning certain models or even classes of models is not the same thing as having, say, different throw rules in one format. That would be daft.
But when you look at the core rules with a critical eye, this is indeed basically a skirmish game. Yes, it has been streamlined twice and could stand to be again, but there is still just too much stuff on the table for this game engine to handle in tournament play, especially with the need to plan everything out with a level of precision that seems downright absurd at times.
Someone earlier in this thread pointed out that a 1000 point army in Mk1 would be only slightly larger than a 75-point army in Mk3 and I can believe it. Especially with point cost cuts being the easiest way to balance many models that are not as good as comparable options, this trend will only continue.
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on Jan 28, 2019 1:47:03 GMT
Tl;dr on the thread and on the arguments about who is playing Warmachine wrong, but I actually had a similar idea, and my working title was "Rumble, but good." Basically, I wanted smaller scale battles that are good for new players or for just shorter games, but also something that, even if it's not conducive to top-tier competitive play, at least doesn't get completely broken because someone chose caster X with unit Y and autowins top of two every game.
The basics were:
35 point armies No huge bases Old-style scenario elements where they didn't have to be scored or contested by a certain model type (just to avoid issues where you can't win because you could only take one model of a certain type and it died) Possibly some more narrative scenarios, but that may come later Casters are limited to battlebox casters and maybe three or four others from each faction that are relatively "fair and balanced"
Where I ended up getting hung up was that I wanted to be able to fit it on a 30" wide table, so that it could be played without squeezing two tables together, but then I was concerned with shooting into deployment zones.
So, that left me with a few options: - Shrink deployment zone size (if it doesn't have to fit a huge base in it, and considering we just line up on the deployment line about 95% of the time, we could probably bring it down to 3 or 4 inches) - Do rumble-style deployment - Have a diagonal deployment, where you start in a triangle in each corner and take advantage of the diagonal on a 30x30 being about 42" - Do a 30x48" and deploy on the sides - Restrict Ambush and possibly Advance Deploy/Advance Move
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shiver
Junior Strategist
Posts: 150
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Post by shiver on Jan 28, 2019 5:29:06 GMT
Tl;dr on the thread and on the arguments about who is playing Warmachine wrong, but I actually had a similar idea, and my working title was "Rumble, but good." Basically, I wanted smaller scale battles that are good for new players or for just shorter games, but also something that, even if it's not conducive to top-tier competitive play, at least doesn't get completely broken because someone chose caster X with unit Y and autowins top of two every game. The basics were: 35 point armies No huge bases Old-style scenario elements where they didn't have to be scored or contested by a certain model type (just to avoid issues where you can't win because you could only take one model of a certain type and it died) Possibly some more narrative scenarios, but that may come later Casters are limited to battlebox casters and maybe three or four others from each faction that are relatively "fair and balanced" Where I ended up getting hung up was that I wanted to be able to fit it on a 30" wide table, so that it could be played without squeezing two tables together, but then I was concerned with shooting into deployment zones. So, that left me with a few options: - Shrink deployment zone size (if it doesn't have to fit a huge base in it, and considering we just line up on the deployment line about 95% of the time, we could probably bring it down to 3 or 4 inches) - Do rumble-style deployment - Have a diagonal deployment, where you start in a triangle in each corner and take advantage of the diagonal on a 30x30 being about 42" - Do a 30x48" and deploy on the sides - Restrict Ambush and possibly Advance Deploy/Advance Move Rumble style deployment was awful, so I wouldn't go back to that. I would honestly remove all theme benefits but still force players to play in theme. I know, that sounds stupid as hell, but honestly, I think it would prevent people from buying stuff that won't work in their themes that they'll be playing, but prevents stupid stuff on smaller boards like AD, AM, and Ambush. I also really like the idea of dropping the deployment back a bit. Without huge bases, there isn't need for more than 4" (two back to back large bases) anyway.
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Post by cainuslupus on Jan 28, 2019 10:58:43 GMT
TLDR: For the purposes of a different format, make the game manageable but mess with the basic rules as little as possible. Feats need to say, but more peripheral things like FA can be changed, and banning certain models or even classes of models is not the same thing as having, say, different throw rules in one format. That would be daft. But when you look at the core rules with a critical eye, this is indeed basically a skirmish game. Yes, it has been streamlined twice and could stand to be again, but there is still just too much stuff on the table for this game engine to handle in tournament play, especially with the need to plan everything out with a level of precision that seems downright absurd at times. Someone earlier in this thread pointed out that a 1000 point army in Mk1 would be only slightly larger than a 75-point army in Mk3 and I can believe it. Especially with point cost cuts being the easiest way to balance many models that are not as good as comparable options, this trend will only continue. From my experience with lower points games - leaving Feats would be a mess. And new players constantly forget about using them, use them incorrectly or gets screwed up by other people feats. So I get why they're doimg it this way.
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Jan 28, 2019 11:15:48 GMT
Definitely - it's not as much the complication that feats add, it's their disproportionate impact in such a small game.
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Post by cgdeth on Jan 28, 2019 11:25:51 GMT
So, since it's a competitive new format and all. Anyone got ideas how to break it? My guess would be a caster that gets long threats without feat, i.e. Haley2 for example. Or maybe caster that can sphread threats wide like Vlad2 with his "use focus on solos" spell or just a Synergy caster. Anon+ Dervish. The Indictor with its 5" no magic. Sevy1+BoV+Ashes 2 Ashes
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Jan 28, 2019 19:02:46 GMT
Definitely - it's not as much the complication that feats add, it's their disproportionate impact in such a small game. I for one would rather see all Feats evolve into cost 3 or 4 Signature Spells, with a limited scope and more controlled impact on the game. A very simplified example would be that if a Feat would give you an explosive 30 point damage swing in one turn, tweak it to fit into a spell that spreads those some 30 points of damage over 3 turns, netting you a 10 damage boost each turn, or something Of course, this would require a whole new edition of the game For the current edition though, I think I would lean more towards keeping Feats as is, but just white list options into the format that are inherently well balance amongst each other at the lower points.
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Post by netdragon on Jan 28, 2019 19:15:48 GMT
when you say things like" "Consider that the original warmachine was designed to be around this size of game. 75-pts Themed warmachine is not warmachine, is what the company has pushed but not what was originaly designed. The core rule's abstraction level were not meant for this size of game." You are ignoring that the rules were overhauled in Mark 2 and mark 3. It would be like complaining that no one plays with 1000 point armies even though the game was designed to play with 1000 point armies.
Oh, I'm not. The "overhaul" streamlined certain aspects fo the game, but the core mechanics, the level of abstraction of the game has remained the same since MKI: you still activate model by model, you still roll 2D6 for every attack, you still measure model by model, you still declare targets to an individual model or spot. I'm talking about the basic original design and abstraction level, not the tweaks PP has done over the years like simplifying power attacks or power up mechanics.
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