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It's been a while since I checked in on this thread. When did GW remove the specialist games from their website entirely? The links on the first page just redirect to the GW main page. It seems kind of short-sighted to kill off product lines that still have some kind of fanbase, especially with Mordheim getting a PC release in the near future. Wouldn't it have been more profitable to update the rules with various new factions that coincide with existing model lines, like Chaos Cultists or something? You could buy a set of troops from just about any codex and put together a Necromunda campaign. That would give them a current competitor to skirmish-level games like Infinity and another reason to buy existing kits.
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# ? Nov 16, 2014 17:47 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 11:30 |
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Earlier this year. They've pretty much abandoned supporting the "lesser" fanbases because they don't sell enough models. Small runs and dedicated fans are apparently not worth the effort.
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# ? Nov 16, 2014 18:03 |
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Having smaller games to give people a cheaper in to play with their models is a good idea and thusly not something GW will ever do. Inquisimunda is a really good idea it's just not very well implemented, not that GW could write it any better.
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# ? Nov 16, 2014 18:05 |
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Panzeh posted:Having smaller games to give people a cheaper in to play with their models is a good idea and thusly not something GW will ever do. Inquisimunda is extremely poo poo in execution. Necromunda has a relatively simple army building plan, because you have four types of troops (Leaders, Gangers, Youths, Heavies) and a weapons that are basically shared across the board. Inquisimunda throws that through the window in favor of making Guard teams of psykers and mutants, and making up a team for every faction ever, including the loving Hrud. If you want to play skirmish-ish level, I'd say try the Heralds of Ruin Kill Team rules. Teams of up to 25 (35 if IG) models, mostly troop choices lead by a beefed up sarge equivalent, and some elites/heavy support. It's great. But the thing about skirmish level games is that you can hardly force the existing customers to buy more and more minis, because, well, there aren't that many to begin with, plus it's hard to push vehicles (especially superheavies). At the same, if you're not making super special factions for your skirmish level game (like Necromunda), you can't sell them at extortionate prices, because people can use regular troop minis (like in GorkaMorka, Mordheim and fore mentioned Kill Team). Epic has one extra reason to get dropped: it the cheap way to have mass battles and makes Apocalypse redundant. Current GW plan seems to be "fleece the existing customers" instead of "attract new people", because that's hard.
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# ? Nov 16, 2014 19:04 |
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JcDent posted:Inquisimunda is extremely poo poo in execution. Necromunda has a relatively simple army building plan, because you have four types of troops (Leaders, Gangers, Youths, Heavies) and a weapons that are basically shared across the board. Inquisimunda throws that through the window in favor of making Guard teams of psykers and mutants, and making up a team for every faction ever, including the loving Hrud. I mean yeah if you're desperate to play a small game, you can play kill team but it's still the 40k ruleset and it doesn't really make for good skirmish gaming.
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# ? Nov 16, 2014 19:50 |
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Does the mass skirmish system Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit count here yet? It's a fair amount of fun for what it is.
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# ? Nov 16, 2014 20:09 |
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JcDent posted:Inquisimunda is extremely poo poo in execution. Necromunda has a relatively simple army building plan, because you have four types of troops (Leaders, Gangers, Youths, Heavies) and a weapons that are basically shared across the board. Inquisimunda throws that through the window in favor of making Guard teams of psykers and mutants, and making up a team for every faction ever, including the loving Hrud. Do you mean that Inquisimunda, being rooted in Necro, is ruined by all that poorly-designed variety being shoehorned into a relatively constrained game. If that's your argument I agree. Or are you suggesting that games which have a limited selection of options and common ranges of wargear are better? If so, I totally disagree. It's true that often in GW games there are balance issues as a result of the huge spread of options but that's no surprise for GW. Have a look at games like Infinity, which has a huge variety of units (albeit with a wargear selection that is a lot more constrained), is extremely well balanced and has a fantastic list-building metagame as a result. To be clear, that's not a metagame a la 40K where your selections have a huge bearing on your chances of winning, as Infinity rewards good play much more than good list building. I like Infinity but it's far from my main focus, as a non-competitive player. For me the attraction of Skirmish-level games is the freedom and level of detail that allows you to immerse yourself in your characters, both gameplay and modelling-wise. Nothing comes close in my experience to the GW games for this. Mechanically solid games like Infinity have attempted to add campaigns and development and it doesn't quite work. The progression of characters can upset finely-balanced games like that. The variety afforded by eg. Mordheim is superb, and it strays a long way from your Leader/Heavy/Grunt model, for example. Inquisimunda had stretched way beyond its ability to provide well thought out warband options, no doubt, but the intent behind it is solid in my opinion. That may be a whole lot of against an argument you didn't make, in which case, sorry!
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# ? Nov 16, 2014 22:55 |
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ineptmule posted:Do you mean that Inquisimunda, being rooted in Necro, is ruined by all that poorly-designed variety being shoehorned into a relatively constrained game. If that's your argument I agree. Mostly this, yes. Mord/Necro/GoMo have a very elegant system where you have few varieties of troops and a lot of options to kit them out. Just lovely. I would definitely make a 100pts character in Kill Team if the meta wasn't "dudes before guns". Infinity can't do a campaign well because of their fixed quality troops being very rigidly balanced against each other, something that letting them get access to a wider variety of guns and gears would upset. Though I think that having a system with values raging 1-20 is a lot easier than one where 1-4 is cover the whole spectrum of human capability and everything higher is stuff of legends. Panzeh posted:I mean yeah if you're desperate to play a small game, you can play kill team but it's still the 40k ruleset and it doesn't really make for good skirmish gaming. Are you referring to vanilla KT or HoR? Also, there's not much choice if you want to play Space Marines. Unless you're willing to convert the rules to, say, Infinity...
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 06:03 |
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I converted and painted around a dozen gangers for my Goliath gang even though it was only 9 men strong. So while I've got a couple fairly generic folks in there (juves with CCW and pistols, gangers with lasguns) they're mostly guys with really specialized equipment that reflects what they have. Gangers don't die all that often in Necromunda, so those bespoke conversions will probably stay useful as long as I play that gang. I haven't played in a while, but I dig my Goliaths:
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 07:30 |
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SRM posted:I dig my Goliaths Those look real neat! The lasguns are a little strange, tho. Conversions or just old?
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 09:53 |
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That's a lot of bolters, well it's more than I usually go for. Had luck with them?
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 11:35 |
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Cross post from another forum asking about How to build a pact Dark Elf:Redvenom posted:I've got past the 3 spoons full of spite, a bag of nails and a sprinkling of immense dislike, and now I want to have a think about what I do with this guy. Team is: http://slobb.talkfantasyfootball.org/index.php?section=objhandler&type=1&obj=2&obj_id=299
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 11:39 |
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JcDent posted:Also, there's not much choice if you want to play Space Marines. Unless you're willing to convert the rules to, say, Infinity...
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 13:21 |
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Panzeh posted:I mean yeah if you're desperate to play a small game, you can play kill team but it's still the 40k ruleset and it doesn't really make for good skirmish gaming. There is Tomorrow's War which is a new and fairly cool looking skirmish rule-set which had about half a dozen 40K conversions floating around last I checked. Sure these are fan-made conversions (mostly just to stat out your mans and give them point costs in the game's system) but the great thing is that you can just change whatever you and your gaming partners don't like.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 14:23 |
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Pierzak posted:And this poo poo right here is why I absolutely refuse to play any self-made units. Lack of rifle or not, that costs at least 70 points before ATSKNF/Asstartes armor doing who knows what. This is quite the same reaction that I got on /tg/. I only made it as a mock up (still took a bloody long time) with 0 thought put into balance: ATSKNF/Astartes Armor are there just so they could look fluffy, for one. Kind of disheartening to see the bloody rage it induces. Numlock posted:There is Tomorrow's War which is a new and fairly cool looking skirmish rule-set which had about half a dozen 40K conversions floating around last I checked. ...everyone upcheezes their dudes to invincibility?
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 14:57 |
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Numlock posted:There is Tomorrow's War which is a new and fairly cool looking skirmish rule-set which had about half a dozen 40K conversions floating around last I checked. Tomorrow's War has the single most mind bendingly awful rulebook for actually trying to learn and understand the game. I bought it last year and I'm still to much of a wuss to try and introduce it to people who picked up epic Armageddon no problem.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 14:59 |
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JcDent posted:Kind of disheartening to see the bloody rage it induces. But now? You have BS 16, i.e. better than ANY unit in the game, including the Avatar. You've got 5 ARM, 2 W HI, PH 16 with AD3. For ~50 points. That's a mini-Caskuda dropped on the enemy backfield. Why would I want to take any other short-range AD unit in the game for that price? Another big problem is that the very concept of Space Marines doesn't fit in Infinity. As it is, they're a power fantasy, something larger than life. Cut them down to size and suddenly they no longer feel like Space Marines. I think the most balanced approach I've seen was Epic (E:Armageddon I think): SM feel like elite special forces, with top tactics and training, they're obviously superior in any kind of equal engagement, but they lack the straight force of the Imperial Guard and they're always outnumbered. If I had to compare this to Infinity, the closest thing would be CA fighting against a horde spam Ariadna army.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 15:17 |
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JcDent posted:...everyone upcheezes their dudes to invincibility? I actually had this discussion last night with some of the guys I regularly play table top games, though more about Full Thrust, BFG and other such spaceship games. Those that had tried Full Thrust reported bad experiences because of guys doing exactly that. Full Thrust is like Tomorrow's war or Battletech in that you can design your own ships and such in it. Naturally this means you can break the gently caress out if it and have super-cheese units fighting other super min-max cheese units (Doubly so when you ignore half the rules). Which quickly resulted in everybody in their previous groups quitting the game (keep in mind my group skew's older so we may be talking about poo poo that happened in the 80's). You and your group simply need the maturity to realize that if you want to play a game that gives you some freedom to design your own stuff (units, missions, rules, whatever) that you are going to have to take the other's player's experience into consideration. Sure you can upcheese to hell and back, and you opponent can too, but it won't be fun and you will all quit SO DON'T DO IT. I know that this hobby is overflowing with people who have serious social disabilities that simply can't handle that kind of freedom so it may be something you have to spend some effort seeking out with your friends. I seem to be fairly lucky that my group is a bit older and most of the real assburger types have long since dropped out of the hobby for MTG or full on basement hermitage.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 15:48 |
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Numlock posted:I actually had this discussion last night with some of the guys I regularly play table top games, though more about Full Thrust, BFG and other such spaceship games. Full Thrust v1 had size cutoffs at which engine costs, weapon capacity, and a number of other formulas changed; meaning a ship just under the cutoff was way better than one just over it for the same point cost. It was blatant enough that they acknowledged it in the rules and basically said "please don't do this, OK?" FTv2 used the same formula regardless of size so that problem went away (though there are still plenty of other minmax opportunities).
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 16:07 |
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Numlock posted:Sure you can upcheese to hell and back, and you opponent can too, but it won't be fun and you will all quit
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 16:09 |
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JcDent posted:Those look real neat! The lasguns are a little strange, tho. Conversions or just old? lenoon posted:That's a lot of bolters, well it's more than I usually go for. Had luck with them?
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 16:09 |
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The other thing with full thrust was that the different types of human all had the same technology, so the differences between fleets were purely there for flavour. If you really want to steal another faction's units there's nothing to stop you putting together a fleet of the most OP ships in the game (except, as mentioned, you will quickly run out of friends). That's without even doing blatant cheese like putting all the guns on one side of the ship (because you can flip upside down whenever you want). Still a really fun game though.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 16:13 |
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Pierzak posted:I think the most balanced approach I've seen was Epic (E:Armageddon I think): SM feel like elite special forces, with top tactics and training, they're obviously superior in any kind of equal engagement, but they lack the straight force of the Imperial Guard and they're always outnumbered. If I had to compare this to Infinity, the closest thing would be CA fighting against a horde spam Ariadna army. The idea that I want Space Marines inside Infinity The Setting was also suprising to me when I posted it on /tg/. Maybe that's lack of communications or people assuming the worst (not like I can blame you for that, I always assume the worst). But no, I don't want to 40K in Infinity the Setting because, well, why? Crossovers are evil! I do like your last point. The problem with posterboy Marines is that GW wants to sell a whole lot of them, so they're not that powerful and everybody has them. Doesn't look like an elite, super powered force of masterful warriors. Unfortunately, I can't image how that can be done: how do you show them powerful and awesome (but without making them easy mode) yet requiring skill to use (wihout making them into glass cannons)? I really don't know. Tho I would like to see Marines closer to lore/Movie Marines, but that's untenable withing 300 pts Infinity. Reasonably priced fluffy marine would be a 150pts Avatar+ monstrosity. Probably one of the reasons why I don't have a miniature games kickstarter in the works! At any rate: sorry! SRM posted:They're the ones that came with the metal Goliaths back in the day, I like the look of them. The angled magazines are neat bits. The barrel:receiver ration is kind of weird. Bolters are capricious about their ammo rolls, right? Lowest bidder underworld quality and whatnot. Wolfsbane posted:The other thing with full thrust was that the different types of human all had the same technology, so the differences between fleets were purely there for flavour. If you really want to steal another faction's units there's nothing to stop you putting together a fleet of the most OP ships in the game (except, as mentioned, you will quickly run out of friends). That's without even doing blatant cheese like putting all the guns on one side of the ship (because you can flip upside down whenever you want). I think someone mentioned that early 40K "make your own vehicle" rules were also a little crazy in regards to the stuff you could make.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 18:14 |
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Had a game of Man O' War this weekend: I learned a couple of things: 1) No matter what the game, I still roll dice like poo poo. 2) Sailing into the wind doesn't mean you're dead in the water, it just means that you have to turn out of it. 3) Ironfists are waaay undercosted. GW apparently updated the catapult rules for the Ironfist, but neglected to send the memo to the Bretonnians. As a result, the Empire gets a ship that shoots up to 18" over intervening terrain or ships while the Buccaneer shoots 9" as long as there is no LOS blocked. Also, the Ironfist gets an additional hull point and the ability to use oars to swing about or move against the wind - all for the same points as the Buccaneer. Awesome! We're going to houserule that for the next game - Buccaneers will have the same weapon abilities as the Ironfist, but will retain their 9" move, while Ironfists will retain their oars and extra hull point. I still think Ironfists are undercosted, but I can live with it. In addition, I played a game of Necromunda - I bottled at the beginning of the third turn. That should give you an idea of how badly things went for me that game... SRM posted:Goliaths berzerkmonkey fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Nov 17, 2014 |
# ? Nov 17, 2014 19:25 |
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JcDent posted:how do you show them powerful and awesome (but without making them easy mode) yet requiring skill to use (wihout making them into glass cannons)? Elite-but-not-OP stats of a standard tactical marine could be: Mov 4-4, CC 15, BS 13, PH 13, WIP 14, ARM 3, BTS -3, W 2 Regular, Not Impetuous, Cube V: Courage Bolter (combi range, dmg 15 N, E/M vulnerable), Pistol, Knife (I could add more fluffy things like grenades or bioimmunity, but each of these makes them more expensive and less feasible) The kicker: You have no cheap cheerleaders. At all. No LI. Specialists (Assaults, Devastators, Terminators, Apothecaries, Captains, Librarians, etc.) are all HI (Terminators could operate on Sogarat rules - ARM 6, PH 15, Automedkit). Scouts are Irregular camo infiltrators like Nagas (V: Dogged or V: NWI to represent toughness from incomplete marine implants? I forgot how many they're supposed to have). I'd allow only Tacticals (with spitfire, ML option) to link, others would be considered separate units. You could play around with unit variants like PanO or Ariadna have (loadouts get not only different weapons but also equipment like MSV, Mimetism, TO Camo), but it's more things to check for OPness. Pulling an army list out of my rear end, these come to mind: -assume base marine stats as above -Tactical Marines as above: bolter, spitfire (1.5 SWC), ML (2 SWC), combi+LFT, combi+LGL, linkable, paramedic option, Number2 option -Assault Marines (AD/Superjump (choose one), DA or EM CCW, boarding shotgun or assault pistol, MA3? -Devastator Marines (Mov 4-2, +1 BS, HMG, HRL, ML, Feuerbach loadouts, sapper?) -Scouts (irregular, Naga-like stats, V:Dogged, camo, infiltration, VSR(needler)/Bolter/Shotgun loadouts, mines, hacker option) -Terminator (ARM 6, PH 15, Automedkit, weapons ?) -Dreadnought (heavy ARM 9 TAG, possibly based on Szalamandra?) -Captain (WIP 15, Strategos 2) -Officer(Chaplain?) - Chain of Command? -Techmarine (hacker/engineer, G:Servant Servitors with e.g. shotguns) -Servo Skull - irregular, impetuous, helperbot stats including mimetism/electric pulse, sensor Here you go, tweak to taste. The basic bolter marine could cost something like 33? points. Of course this all falls apart with larger scales, so you'll be left with Deathwatch squad missions and the like.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 19:38 |
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Those are some really nice looking ships.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 19:44 |
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I mean if we go by the actual fluff all marines are going to have Achilles/TAG caliber stat lines. In one story I read (might be Soul Drinkers?) a marine is captured and disarmed by PDF forces and he escapes because his skin is almost bullet proof and he is strong enough to rip a human being apart bare handed. If you wanted to realistically stat out 40K forces in Infinity stuff like Tau and IG are going to fall in line with standard Infinity trooper stats but SM are going to be a whole new level of rear end kicking. Just go look at, for example, the statline for Marines in Inquisitor when compared to every other thing ever, IIRC if you make a dude with cybernetics and all the bio drugs his stats for melee fighting end up being about the same as a naked marine.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 19:49 |
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goatface posted:Those are some really nice looking ships. Thanks - I pretty much exhausted my supply of masts and yards in their construction. Don't know what I'm going to do now...
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 20:21 |
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JcDent posted:The barrel:receiver ration is kind of weird.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 20:22 |
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I love it when you post bezerkmonkey. Condolences for your rolling. My group are restarting Mordheim so I'll probably have some pics to share in a few weeks. Two of the players are adamant and about playing elves so I have been toying with the least broken elf lists I can find to make them into pretty .pdfs that match the rest of the official rules.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 21:28 |
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I've absolutely dedicated myself to finishing what's left of my BFG Imperial Navy cruiser squadron, and have a game against the Chaos Incursion fleet I assembled for my brother. I was complaining about not being able to get cool ships like Battleships, but this Chaos fleet has a BB and a Grand Cruiser, so it'll be interesting. Technically we'll be bringing the same number of capital ships to the fight, 6 a side. I'm hoping that my Cobras and Swords will be able to screen enough of the incoming fire so the combination of my Overlord-class Battlecruiser + everything else can at least take down a few Chaos cruisers before I engage the Desolator-class Battleship.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 21:42 |
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dishwasherlove posted:I love it when you post bezerkmonkey. dishwasherlove posted:Condolences for your rolling. dishwasherlove posted:My group are restarting Mordheim so I'll probably have some pics to share in a few weeks. Personally, I liked Mordheim - I find it much more satisfying to actually make it into hand to hand, rather than get shot up like in Necromunda.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 21:48 |
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The only way I managed to get my group to look at the rules was because we have 4-7 people turn up for WFB every week they are all sick of playing multiplayer battles. Now that they have actually seen the rulebook they all think it sounds pretty sweet. I just hope letting in all the unoffical warbands isn't a mistake, I have prefaced it by telling people running unofficial stuff that they are potentially broken as and that we may need to tweak them down the track.
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# ? Nov 17, 2014 21:59 |
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dishwasherlove posted:I love it when you post bezerkmonkey. Condolences for your rolling. My group are restarting Mordheim so I'll probably have some pics to share in a few weeks. Two of the players are adamant and about playing elves so I have been toying with the least broken elf lists I can find to make them into pretty .pdfs that match the rest of the official rules. Speaking from experience with my group we tend to have elf players play them as a counts-as for either Horned Hunters or Outlaws of Stirwood Forest, the Cathay warband from Bordertown Burning would also probably work pretty well. dishwasherlove posted:The only way I managed to get my group to look at the rules was because we have 4-7 people turn up for WFB every week they are all sick of playing multiplayer battles. Now that they have actually seen the rulebook they all think it sounds pretty sweet. I just hope letting in all the unoffical warbands isn't a mistake, I have prefaced it by telling people running unofficial stuff that they are potentially broken as and that we may need to tweak them down the track. In my personal experience the tier is something like: S Tier: All Lustria Warbands, Carnival of Chaos, Clan Pestilens, Beastmen A Tier: Marienburgers, Dwarfs, most stuff from Border Town Burning, Skaven. Middle of the Road: Most official mercenary lists, Former Guardsmen, Circus, Halflings, Pirates, Tileans, Mages, everything from Relics of the Crusades, Nemesis Crown and Moussilon. Sub Par: Vampires, Witch Hunters, GW Brets, Albion Barbarians, . Bad: Possessed, Orcs.
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# ? Nov 18, 2014 02:32 |
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Pierzak posted:So basically, all warfare in the long run? Yeah but with warfare you don't particularly care about still being friends with the guys you are trying to murder. Part of the deal is that we are openly discussing our designs with each other well in advance of us playing the game, so that nothing is a surprise. Both our fleets are strongly themed for the particular universe (fluff) we are creating.
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# ? Nov 18, 2014 03:54 |
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Like Bonito points out, Marines are really really cool in fluff, so it's a pain in the rear end to show them on the battlefield. And I just found out basically nobody plays specialist games in my home LGS.
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# ? Nov 18, 2014 07:10 |
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Play BFG with me on VASSAL, that's almost the same!
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# ? Nov 18, 2014 10:10 |
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ElBrak posted:Play BFG with me on VASSAL, that's almost the same! Point me to material and tutorials, and I'll attempt not to cry (VASSAL is one those things I always wanted to try, but was a little intimidated by use)
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# ? Nov 18, 2014 11:20 |
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JcDent posted:Like Bonito points out, Marines are really really cool in fluff, so it's a pain in the rear end to show them on the battlefield. They come off as someone trying to write the BADDEST BEST SOLDIERS EVAR. That being said, trying to show intricate tactics is not really possible in a game like 40k because there's generally too many 28mm dudes on a too small board. Even the 'finesse' armies come off as gunlines trying to find a way to get away more than anything else.
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# ? Nov 18, 2014 11:45 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 11:30 |
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Looks like Mordheim is about to hit early access on Steam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o1H-qXAnO8
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# ? Nov 18, 2014 12:20 |