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Post by tjhairball on Apr 15, 2019 19:21:49 GMT
Basically it sounds like CoI with Specialists. Kill Team used to be different, though. You had one list at 200 points and you brought the lot.
Let's not mix up things here. We are not talking about running smaller warmachine games, but using other ways for list building for the current size. Like "bring 100 pts of models and choose 75pts for every match". OF COURSE the current themes make this a very complicated issue.
Yeah, given that list chicken basically is already in play for some theme match-ups, you can be guaranteed an un-fun match as soon as you plopped down the wrong theme-specific model - either playing down the 10-20% point advantage themes give or by playing into a bad theme force match-up. If you don't have to decide on a theme until after you build the list, it does help put a slider on that - you can at least start with some models available in multiple themes - but some people will have collections or simply factions much better suited for branching between different types of list partway through the draft process.
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Post by challenger on Apr 15, 2019 22:24:10 GMT
Comparing Company of Iron to Games Workshop's skirmish games feels really bad, and shows how little effort they really put in.
shadespire and kill team are actually really solid games, and in particular shadespire (Warhammer underworlds) did what CoI couldn't with the deck based play.
Hearing that kill team moved away from just dropping a list too just feels bad. but WMH has screwed itself out of getting to implement a more elegant system for list building because of theme-machine. if you use a "bring a larger force and build a list out of it" style that Guild Ball and Kill Team use, you'll already be signalling which themes you can create right out of the gate.
The games that do "bring 2 lists and drop 1" for their competitive play like Infinity also don't have the sheer amount of gear checks and hard counters that WMH has. Infinity tends to reward generalist lists with deep toolboxes that are custom designed for specific missions (as tournament missions are public info before the tournament). So both sides get a game no matter what.
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shiver
Junior Strategist
Posts: 150
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Post by shiver on Apr 16, 2019 5:18:25 GMT
Comparing Company of Iron to Games Workshop's skirmish games feels really bad, and shows how little effort they really put in.
shadespire and kill team are actually really solid games, and in particular shadespire (Warhammer underworlds) did what CoI couldn't with the deck based play.
Hearing that kill team moved away from just dropping a list too just feels bad. but WMH has screwed itself out of getting to implement a more elegant system for list building because of theme-machine. if you use a "bring a larger force and build a list out of it" style that Guild Ball and Kill Team use, you'll already be signalling which themes you can create right out of the gate.
The games that do "bring 2 lists and drop 1" for their competitive play like Infinity also don't have the sheer amount of gear checks and hard counters that WMH has. Infinity tends to reward generalist lists with deep toolboxes that are custom designed for specific missions (as tournament missions are public info before the tournament). So both sides get a game no matter what.
its weird isnt it? I would have thought that PP's skirmish level game would be incredible given the system and the mechanics, but it turns out that WH:U Shadespire and Nightvault are just, better, in every way save for squad selection (though deck manipulation and construction kind of makes up for that). Kill Team is absolutely great. Every edition or add on for that game has been great, and I'm very glad I own all of them. All of them have been fun and great to play. Does anyone know if PP has said if they are going to do anything else with CoI, maybe a 2nd edition or something? It would be nice to see that system given some love, and maybe a complete redesign of the deck mechanics, cause, they, ya know, are god awful.
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Post by Charistoph on Apr 16, 2019 6:05:52 GMT
Riot Quest may end up taking its place, even though it's more board game than tabletop game.
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Post by beardmonk on Apr 16, 2019 8:07:52 GMT
I'm interested in what Riotquest brings to the table (no pun intended). But I have a feeling that it will another one of those "other PP games" that nobody really plays. If its meant to be a squad level game etc, much like CoI, there is no way it can compete with Malifaux, Infinity, Killteam etc.
I really think that PP would be better off keeping their development efforts focused on continuing to fix the issues that they can in WM/H rather than diverting time, effort and manufacturing to a games that will have very little impact on the gaming community.
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Post by netdragon on Apr 16, 2019 15:49:43 GMT
Comparing Company of Iron to Games Workshop's skirmish games feels really bad, and shows how little effort they really put in.
shadespire and kill team are actually really solid games, and in particular shadespire (Warhammer underworlds) did what CoI couldn't with the deck based play.
Hearing that kill team moved away from just dropping a list too just feels bad. but WMH has screwed itself out of getting to implement a more elegant system for list building because of theme-machine. if you use a "bring a larger force and build a list out of it" style that Guild Ball and Kill Team use, you'll already be signalling which themes you can create right out of the gate.
The games that do "bring 2 lists and drop 1" for their competitive play like Infinity also don't have the sheer amount of gear checks and hard counters that WMH has. Infinity tends to reward generalist lists with deep toolboxes that are custom designed for specific missions (as tournament missions are public info before the tournament). So both sides get a game no matter what.
its weird isnt it? I would have thought that PP's skirmish level game would be incredible given the system and the mechanics, but it turns out that WH:U Shadespire and Nightvault are just, better, in every way save for squad selection (though deck manipulation and construction kind of makes up for that). Kill Team is absolutely great. Every edition or add on for that game has been great, and I'm very glad I own all of them. All of them have been fun and great to play. Does anyone know if PP has said if they are going to do anything else with CoI, maybe a 2nd edition or something? It would be nice to see that system given some love, and maybe a complete redesign of the deck mechanics, cause, they, ya know, are god awful.
Well, Warmachine MK1 until Escalation was actually a skirmish game. That was it was designed to be. Later in Apotheosis the game size increased with the introduction of 750pt armies with epic warcasters, so only designing a proper small-size WM game would solve a lot of problems XD The thing is that character and unit design has been blown so out of proportion that points don't reflect abilities and synergies anymore, and warnoun power levels do not scale down appropriately to the army size level. So unless there's some design simplification and warnoun redesign to fit different army sizes, I don't see it working.
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Post by Azuresun on Apr 16, 2019 16:29:06 GMT
Basically it sounds like CoI with Specialists. Kill Team used to be different, though. You had one list at 200 points and you brought the lot.
Let's not mix up things here. We are not talking about running smaller warmachine games, but using other ways for list building for the current size. Like "bring 100 pts of models and choose 75pts for every match". OF COURSE the current themes make this a very complicated issue.
I think Malifaux got "themes" right--there are no outright restrictions on taking stuff within your faction, but most Masters have obvious synergies with certain models in their faction based on their abilities affecting models with certain keywords--Ramos obviously wants Constructs, you'll need at least a few Spirit models to fuel Kirai's abilities, Colette synergises with Showgirls, etc. So you're naturally guided towards having a synergistic and themed crew, but you're not punished or forbidden from mixing in other stuff to cover weakness or cover bad matchups. Some Masters work with pretty much anything, or just a bare minimum of their synergistic models if you want to step off the beaten path.
WM themes kind of have the worst of all worlds--they're inflexible, have poor balance between them, add an extra layer of special rules to a game that was already creaking underneath them, raise the bar of entry, make listbuilding more solved and predictable, and locked some themes out of needed abilities until the "include one Mercenary" patch was added.
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cain
Junior Strategist
Posts: 243
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Post by cain on Apr 16, 2019 20:51:54 GMT
Infinity has also done themes in a good way. FA are changed up and down. Some units or models are not available. If you play in theme some of your models get access to a powerful bonus. This bonus is the same for all themes and factions.
Usually Its a real choice If you want to be playing in theme or not.
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Post by Charistoph on Apr 17, 2019 0:03:00 GMT
The issue being that Malifaux and Infinity rely more on model purchases than unit purchases like WMH does. I can't just buy 3 Steelheads, I need to buy 6, and THEN decide if I need more, even as far back as Mk 1. It's a little easier for Infinity to do their Sectorials because of that. That actually makes creating a low model number skirmish game easier to achieve. WMH, really isn't set up for that low a model number, though, and never really has been, unless you count complete dedication to 'Jack/'Beast builds. They were smaller than Warhammer, though, but others came out even smaller.
That being said, many of the Warlocks and Warcasters in Mk 3 are set up to favor certain lists than others than they have ever been.
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Post by challenger on Apr 17, 2019 3:24:18 GMT
It doesn't need to carbon copy Infinity or Malifaux's themes, which are both done way better than WMH. but WMH needs to bring the magic back to list building. WMH list writing is so restrictive and bland that they may as well just prescribe lists for you when you pick certain themes.
I saw a discussion in the discord the other day where people were trying to theory craft out a Tharn baldur1 list, they carefully justified each model in and then realised they had made literally Iona's list just with a different battlegroup. Turns out when the majority of your list is populated with auto includes like Ravagers and free value solos like LOTF, you end up with the same list unless you deliberately shoot yourself in the foot to be a snowflake.
Thememachine was probably the worst mistake PP ever made when it comes to warmachine
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Post by NoSuchMethod on Apr 17, 2019 3:32:14 GMT
WMH needs to bring the magic back to list building. WMH list writing is so restrictive and bland that they may as well just prescribe lists for you when you pick certain themes. seconding that
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Post by Charistoph on Apr 17, 2019 4:32:35 GMT
I saw a discussion in the discord the other day where people were trying to theory craft out a Tharn baldur1 list, they carefully justified each model in and then realised they had made literally Iona's list just with a different battlegroup. Turns out when the majority of your list is populated with auto includes like Ravagers and free value solos like LOTF, you end up with the same list unless you deliberately shoot yourself in the foot to be a snowflake. Thememachine was probably the worst mistake PP ever made when it comes to warmachine. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part I agree. It doesn't need to carbon copy Infinity or Malifaux's themes, which are both done way better than WMH. but WMH needs to bring the magic back to list building. WMH list writing is so restrictive and bland that they may as well just prescribe lists for you when you pick certain themes. While true, WMH comes with its own situations which make it... difficult to copy Infinity's Sectorial system. (I am completely unfamiliar with most of Malifaux's intricacies, so I won't bother going there.) That is because of the fact that you can buy units which are multiple models, of which are rare in Malifaux (I believe) and largely non-existent in Infinity (with the exceptions like TAG pilots getting out of their TAGs and some of the small Remotes, I think).
An average WMH Infantry list usually has what? 2-3 units of 6-10 models, 3-4 Solos, the Battlegroup commander, and their 3-5 models, ending up at 9-12 selections? I've seen a few of Infinity lists which average about 16-20 selections. Sure, some entries write themselves in for Cheerleaders, Links, and Specialists in their combinations, but that's true of any war game where synergies occur. But also, Infinity allows very few number of models in a faction to be taken beyond 3 total, and Sectorials change that aspect. In WMH terms that would be the equivalent of being stuck with everything at FA: 1 or 2 and minimum-sized unless you take the Theme they are central in. Even then, that doesn't quite set it properly in reference.
As it is, WMH is in that middle ground between the massive unit-centered game of Warhammer and the independent models of X-Wing, Infinity, and Malifaux, and always has been. It is more of a skirmish game than Warhammer (not including Kill Team, obviously), but more of an army game than those others are. Any army-building magic is going to have to incorporate that middle ground aspect of itself to do it.
Is ThemeMachine good? No. Offering free models for a massively restricted list is a poor system, and caused outrage in a more easy-going game system. Would Sectorials be better? Not without changing some very fundamental aspects of WMH to be even more model-centric and massively down-sizing the game.
If Themes were altered to be a little more like Mk 2 Themes, but instead of being as absolutely restrictive in their first tier and as open to 'Caster/'Lock as in Mk 3, yet just provided a rule bonus here or there on the Themed models in each Tier, it would open up army list possibilities even more, I would think. There would still be some "writing itself", but that would be in efforts to take advantage of the synergies more than because that's all one can realistically do.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on Apr 17, 2019 9:32:12 GMT
All themes need in order to be a much better system is the removal of the free points mechanic.
Limited model choice in exchange for nifty free rules is the perfect trade-off without ham-handedly forcing people into using themes, and without the implicit restrictions placed by theme math, even playing in theme becomes less dull as you can move that slider of battlegrou-vs-units/solos around freely without gimping yourself. Similarly more expensive mercs (full units, Wrong-Eye plus Snappy etc) become viable again as they're not eating into that precious free-points-maths.
Even better, it would force PP to make the themes appealing on their own merits - Satyxis theme benefits are uninspiring? Just play out of theme with your beloved Saties then. No more consigning models to the shelf because their available themes are poor, so the system is even more robust to poor theme design.
Even better, players with smaller forces who want to mix-and-match for variety (and this goes double for new players who want to start the game without selling a kidney to finance it) can just play out of theme without crippling themselves until their collections are large enough to play in a theme.
Finally, we can put an end to the never-ending cycle of complaining about high-impact models that come in via free points (current poster-child being LotF)
Really, just end free points and the game takes a huge leap forwards in almost every way.
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crow
Junior Strategist
Posts: 310
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Post by crow on Apr 17, 2019 11:23:25 GMT
While I'm not entirely sure that Warmachine has the best "theme" mechanic out there, it is a HUGE improvement on anything mark 2 had. I am so glad not showing up to game night and seeing the same 2 casters every night, in the exact theme, and with basically the exact same list (something that happened often in mk 2). If I was playing a Troll player, I was playing massively meat mountain, with Calandra, and I knew (at the time) exactly how many lights I was looking at. I knew if I was playing Cygnar I was playing one of two casters, Nemo or Haley. Heck I didn't even know Kraye was thing until mark 3. Meanwhile I've been able to play most my dwarves, Cephalyx, and Convergence and I've seen different casters in most the factions I play. Sure I've seen a ton of tharn models, but I see them under Iona, Wurmwood, Baldur, Krueger, Kromac. I also have never run into a moment where I'm like "I had no answer to that" like meat mountain used to. I may be alone on this, but the current themes aren't terrible. I'll also add in that they have plenty of wiggle room most of them, but you gotta figure it out. I love finding out a new combination of models in a theme, or finding out how to turn a "bad" theme into a decent or good one. Then again I'm just a filthy casual who plays the game as a game, so what do I know
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Post by elladan52 on Apr 17, 2019 12:03:32 GMT
Model diversity is at an all time high across the player base, for sure. The fact that a couple of casters have not been dominant for the current duration is already a dramatic improvement to mk2.
Of course, model diversity can be at an all time high and still people can feel pigeonholed into certain things at certain times due to current competitive environment and list building restrictions put in place by themes.
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