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Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Warmaster was also supposedly not too bad, and it was specifically written for a large-format battle game, e.g., what Warhammer Fantasy should be when you play with like 3k points.

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Cyberpunkey Monkey
Jun 23, 2003

by Nyc_Tattoo
I've liked actually playing their specialist games more than anything else that they've done. I almost regret selling my copy of Blood Bowl. BFG seemed like a good game, but never had enough players in my meta, same with Warmaster, once I left the store where I played in a campaign around '00. Honestly, thinking back I started to like GW less after Andy left...

Leperflesh posted:

Also most of them have never even tried a different tabletop wargame ruleset. Even just playing another (better-designed) GW game like Epic or Bloodbowl can add a lot of perspective.

When I was a kid, me and my sister thought Monopoly was just the best fuckin' game. It turns out, we were just attracted to the trappings of the game: the paper money, the houses, etc. We had no perspective on how the rules create a terrible game. Hell, we used to play War (the card game), and Tic Tac Toe, and Chutes and Ladders. Probably most warhams just don't have any reason to understand how a wargame could be so much better.



Yep, but Monopoly doesn't come with a thousand dollar price tag before they pull the rug out from under your feet and say, "HAHA, gently caress you, nerd!" with the next release.

Cyberpunkey Monkey fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Jan 26, 2015

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

osirisisdead posted:

Yep, but Monopoly doesn't come with a thousand dollar price tag before they pull the rug out from under your feet and say, "HAHA, gently caress you, nerd!" with the next release.

This is not an argument for monopoly, though.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

S.J. posted:

That's very true. BFG really opened my eyes up the first time I played it. Reading through the Epic: Armageddon rules some time later made me wonder why in the hell was the 40k game I was playing so flat and uninteractive.

Epic Armageddon is a genuinely actually-good-ruleset, and I still play it every week.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

Leperflesh posted:

Warmaster was also supposedly not too bad, and it was specifically written for a large-format battle game, e.g., what Warhammer Fantasy should be when you play with like 3k points.



Warmaster rules survive as the Blitzkrieg/cold/whatever War Commander, and as version two as Black Powder/Heil Caesar from Warlord Games and yes, were/are once again actually-quite-good.

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

Joe_Richter posted:

Epic Armageddon is a genuinely actually-good-ruleset, and I still play it every week.

I wish I could. I'm just gonna sell my Orks :(

Cyberpunkey Monkey
Jun 23, 2003

by Nyc_Tattoo

S.J. posted:

This is not an argument for monopoly, though.

No. Monopoly is bad. Warhams is bad, too, but costs a few orders of magnitude more.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

S.J. posted:

I wish I could. I'm just gonna sell my Orks :(

If you live in the UK, there's quite possibly someone close to you to play.

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

Joe_Richter posted:

If you live in the UK, there's quite possibly someone close to you to play.

I do not, middle of the USA here. And honestly, my gaming time is taken up by WMH and board games/card games as it is.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Joe_Richter posted:

Epic Armageddon is a genuinely actually-good-ruleset, and I still play it every week.

Agreed, although even EA has a lot of room for improvement. There's too many fiddly different classes of weapons: learning the differences and interactions between macro weapons, titan killer weapons, invulnerable saves, etc. is annoying. I'd much rather just have a sliding numeric scale of armor and weapon class, with some easy blanket rule like "two classes or more difference means either the armor is ineffective (when the weapon is +2 classes above the armor) or the weapon is ineffective (when the armor is +2 classes above the weapon). EA also still has dozens of keywords with abilities that sometimes reference other keywords with their own abilities, and the places in the rulebook where these are defined are all mixed around. It has rules that don't make a lot of sense (skimmers have to land after each move segment, so they take dangerous terrain tests when they've just moved from point A to B to C in a single double-move, and point B is rubble), and it has stuff that can be fiddly on the tabletop (cohesion rules, the rules for how much of a formation is in cover, who can shoot at who when one unit is partially behind an obstacle, "infinitely tall forests" vs. titan line of sight, etc.).

Once you memorize all that poo poo, though? The I-go-you-go formation by formation battle, the blast marker mechanic, the excellent risk/payoff mechanic of retaining the initiative, the sensible objectives rules for game victory conditions, and the aerospace rules all make a lot of sense and provide a game with a lot of interesting strategic and tactical choices that genuinely matter on the tabletop. Monkeycheese random bullshit is at a much lower degree than in warhammer/40k, too, so genuinely superior play is usually rewarded with victory.

EA is improved with the various fan-sourced modifications, too: NetEA in particular works really well. Imagine what a really good rules designer could do with the basic bones of EA, organized and written like a modern ruleset.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

osirisisdead posted:

No. Monopoly is bad. Warhams is bad, too, but costs a few orders of magnitude more.

Yeah, but the point was, despite being bad, Monopoly has endured as one of the best-selling games for what, 75+ years? A lot of people buy bad games because, at least in part, they don't know any better. This is a reasonable description of warhammer 40k players. Ignorance of better games leads to people who are understandably confused when they first hear someone describing the game they play (and have invested in and seem to enjoy) as having really terrible rules.

BeigeJacket
Jul 21, 2005

Leperflesh posted:

Why Games Workshop didn't recognize that sort of equation as being much more fun & interesting, having used it in their own game since the mid-late 1980s, I can't imagine.

I was listening to a podcast interview with Rick Priestly recently, and he elaborated on the original sin on why their core games are the way they are. When Priestly and co were given the brief for WFB and 40k they were specifically told by Bryan Ansell (who was running GW back then) to use a D6 based system as schoolboys in England would have these already from Monopoly, Cluedo, etc whilst D10/20s were hard to come by. That's it. That's one of the reasons why, 25 years later, that GW core systems have become such bloated messes because they've locked themselves into a system with little room for manoeuvre - two of the mechanics that appear over and over is add more dice or re-roll the failures.

The games nowadays are remarkably dice heavy compared to the original editions.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.
Ohh, absolutely, EA would really benefit from a properly written version 2 ruleset; maybe even incorporating some new rules from other wargames.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

That's cool, and actually a good plan. However, you can use D6es to just generate six equally-probable values, or you can roll them and add the results to generate values on a probability curve. There are a number of highly-successful and good game systems based on D6es.

Renfield
Feb 29, 2008

BeigeJacket posted:

I was listening to a podcast interview with Rick Priestly recently, and he elaborated on the original sin on why their core games are the way they are. When Priestly and co were given the brief for WFB and 40k they were specifically told by Bryan Ansell (who was running GW back then) to use a D6 based system as schoolboys in England would have these already from Monopoly, Cluedo, etc whilst D10/20s were hard to come by. That's it. That's one of the reasons why, 25 years later, that GW core systems have become such bloated messes because they've locked themselves into a system with little room for manoeuvre - two of the mechanics that appear over and over is add more dice or re-roll the failures.

The games nowadays are remarkably dice heavy compared to the original editions.

Have you got the source for this, as 1st and 2nd 40k used all sorts of dice (Multi-melta was 4D4 damage, later adjusted to 2D8 to be less predictable) - was this for the 3rd edition redesign maybe ?

(I'd also like to listen to the interview :) )

Renfield fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jan 26, 2015

BeigeJacket
Jul 21, 2005

Renfield posted:

Have you got the source for this, as 1st and 2nd 40k used all sorts of dice (Multi-melta was 4D4 damage, later adjusted to 2D8 to be less predictable) - was this for the 3rd edition redesign maybe ?

(I'd also like to listen to the interview :) )

Sure, it's this one here. Interview starts at 53m.

http://podbay.fm/show/542665571/e/1399242070

I'd forgot they used funky dice in 2nd ed. I believe he may be talking about the basic To-Hit/To Wound tables.

He's created a new Sci Fi game, Beyond The Gates of Antares, which I'm keeping an eye on. Free rules download on the Warlord Games site.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

BeigeJacket posted:

Sure, it's this one here. Interview starts at 53m.

http://podbay.fm/show/542665571/e/1399242070

I'd forgot they used funky dice in 2nd ed. I believe he may be talking about the basic To-Hit/To Wound tables.

He's created a new Sci Fi game, Beyond The Gates of Antares, which I'm keeping an eye on. Free rules download on the Warlord Games site.

It's boltaction v1.5, with D10 rather than D6 for slightly more variance. All of which makes it really good.

Jeb Bush 2012
Apr 4, 2007

A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Leperflesh posted:

the excellent risk/payoff mechanic of retaining the initiative

I've never had the opportunity to actually play epic, but this and the general "roll a dice to see if your formation moves or just sits around like losers" mechanics sound pretty awful! Maybe there's something about the way that epic plays out that makes them more tolerable, but I've never seen that kind of stuff work out well in any other game. It definitely looks like a much better ruleset than GW's main ones, though.

TheCosmicMuffet
Jun 21, 2009

by Shine

Leperflesh posted:

Yeah, but the point was, despite being bad, Monopoly has endured as one of the best-selling games for what, 75+ years? A lot of people buy bad games because, at least in part, they don't know any better. This is a reasonable description of warhammer 40k players. Ignorance of better games leads to people who are understandably confused when they first hear someone describing the game they play (and have invested in and seem to enjoy) as having really terrible rules.

My version of this was thinking that Epic, Warmaster, and Blood bowl were all just more of the same bullshit and not giving them a look until the last few years. I saw the similar stat lines and basic setup, and assumed it would be just like 40k and fantasy; you spend more time cross referencing and trying to make a working list, and rolling to determine results, than you do moving your pieces.

Years later, I see that the stupid GW stat line could be used as the jumping off point for a half decent game.

Also, on the subject of dice, the idea that you need more than a single d6 to have an interesting game with useful randomness is grandiose. D10s and 12s exist because nerds like geometry, not because it adds anything to a typical experience. If you want to model chances smaller than 16%, break out a deck of cards, and at least thereby reign it in a bit by having a pool of results that refreshes when you shuffle discards for a new deck.

Avalon hill made a shitload of incredible games, and their random element basically always boiled down to '"compare attack and defense factors to determine odds--then roll 1d6 on table, and cross reference the odds column for your battle". They even integrated morale and unit destruction in that table! In some cases, they used an element like flanking values, preferred enemy types, or in 1776--a set of orders you could pick from, blind, against your opponent (who also picked) that would sometimes give one or the other force a boost (for instance, you might try a recon in force to be cautious, but your opponent just did a regular frontal assault, and you were caught flat footed, without enough of your troops moving down field to meet them--so you had like a -1 odds column on your results roll or something--I forget the details).

And furthermore!...

What I can't fathom is why people won't just buy the minis and play another game with them. I certainly bought other minis to play 40k and fantasy with.

It's like it's the farmville or World of Warcraft of table top wargames. It eats, other, better games. It swallows them whole. Look ye, Goons, all tabletop games are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. GW tasks me; it heaps me. Yet it is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"
I also kind of agree that you can make things work just fine with d6s but not the way GW has done stats. I think the point of the way GW does stats and resolution is to allow players to roll 40+ dice at once, whereas that's not possible in 2d6 systems. It does, however, mean that you get the "every value ends up being 3-4" problem because the probabilities are really swingy.

Honestly though a lot of the problem with 40k is that it's a ruleset with a very Napoleonic sensibility, but it lacks the maneuvering that makes Napoleonic warfare interesting.

Also being 28mm with as many and as huge a models as they can get is kind of a problem.

Thirsty Dog
May 31, 2007

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

I've never had the opportunity to actually play epic, but this and the general "roll a dice to see if your formation moves or just sits around like losers" mechanics sound pretty awful! Maybe there's something about the way that epic plays out that makes them more tolerable, but I've never seen that kind of stuff work out well in any other game. It definitely looks like a much better ruleset than GW's main ones, though.

They don't just sit around.

If you don't bother to retain the initiative, you don't roll any dice and it's a simple alternative activation system. Obviously when you're alternating, having two activations in a row - without your enemy getting one - is hugely powerful. So there's a risk attached to it, which is that you might fail the roll and the unit gets a limited activation instead of a full one. It's a "hold" activation which means 1 of Move, Shoot, Regroup, and the formation receives a blast marker (blast markers are an amazing concept).

In some cases it's very very rare to fail (usually with low-activation count armies like Space Marines) and in others it's just a throwaway gamble (ORKS!) that's worth the payoff if you succeed.

Jeb Bush 2012
Apr 4, 2007

A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Thirsty Dog posted:

If you don't bother to retain the initiative, you don't roll any dice and it's a simple alternative activation system.

I dunno if the rules have changed, but that's not what the ones I'm looking at say. (instead, they say you roll either way, but at a penalty if you're retaining the initiative) What you're describing sounds better, but still not a very good game mechanic.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

I dunno if the rules have changed, but that's not what the ones I'm looking at say. (instead, they say you roll either way, but at a penalty if you're retaining the initiative) What you're describing sounds better, but still not a very good game mechanic.

you're right, but space marines activate on a 1+ (so, automatic) unless retaining (-1 to roll, so 2+ to activate) or with a blastmarker (again, -1 to 2+ to activate). Those stack (so could be 3+ to activate) so putting blast markers on enemy formations (suppressing them) is a big thing to do with board control. Suppressed formations are easier to assault as well, and have their firepower degraded.

Apollodorus
Feb 13, 2010

TEST YOUR MIGHT
:patriot:

TheCosmicMuffet posted:


It's like it's the farmville or World of Warcraft of table top wargames. It eats, other, better games. It swallows them whole. Look ye, Goons, all tabletop games are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. GW tasks me; it heaps me. Yet it is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

Tell us how you really feel, Ahab.

krushgroove
Oct 23, 2007

Disapproving look
RE: Rick Priestly, he demos his Beyond the Gates of Antares at game shows around the UK, I'll be looking out for him just to get his autograph (and use it for Hackmaster-style fame rubs for my dice). I spoke with Jervis Johnson at Warhammer Fest last summer about the origins of the Horus Heresy, and it basically came from Rick (and the need to come up with a reason why there are two different colors of space marine in an old GW game). Then he said he was pretty jealous of Rick's gaming room and make a joke about how BtGoA is his 40K...but I'll let the snide comment about Rick's game slide, you can't expect a lifer like Jervis to say it's a great system at a GW event, now can you?

TheCosmicMuffet
Jun 21, 2009

by Shine

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

What you're describing sounds better, but still not a very good game mechanic.

Well, and because of GWness, maybe. But it's actually got some great elements. For one thing, in a game of odds, your low-unit-count dudes generally have a severe disadvantage, if for no other reason than a round of attacking tends have less overkill. But by making unit coordination part of an army's capabilities, you can have small unit counts go against larger unit counts and still have an interesting game.

So, for example, you have to now consider a space marine assault force in light of the idea that they can take advantage of the field as it stands, let their troops await an enemy move to counterpunch, or simply proceed as normal to allow battle to evolve for a bit while they wait for something to get burdened with blast markers or move out of position.

The orks, as previously mentioned, are now a horde force that you can think of as being functionally at half strength, but with this built in incentive to try to 'make something break loose'. Like an army revolving around exploiting the erratic brilliance of individuals. How you deploy and play has to do with being *ready* to follow up on any advantage you start to bring to the table.

Then there's all the armies that fall somewhere in between. Can you arrange to push enemy units into prearranged traps where your intiative won't matter as much, or at any rate, when you spring your trap you're not relying on full effectiveness? Do you want to try to live dangerously, doubling up on your moves to see if you can close off an opportunity to your enemy and then sit back and grind them down with your more reliable alternatives? Are you IG? All set to pound them into dust, and trying to keep the squirrelier armies from crushing you in pieces before you have a chance to really bore the poo poo out of everyone with your stupid loving tank swarm that goes far as the eye can see that's half camo, which on 15mm is like just... gently caress you I guess just splatter it with paint or whatever, rear end in a top hat. I hate you. loving IG player.

Sorry. Epic IG is triggering.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHADOWSWORD SQUADRON gently caress YOU.

Prefect Six
Mar 27, 2009

TCM :allears:

I AM THE MOON
Dec 21, 2012

TheCosmicMuffet posted:

Well, and because of GWness, maybe. But it's actually got some great elements. For one thing, in a game of odds, your low-unit-count dudes generally have a severe disadvantage, if for no other reason than a round of attacking tends have less overkill. But by making unit coordination part of an army's capabilities, you can have small unit counts go against larger unit counts and still have an interesting game.

So, for example, you have to now consider a space marine assault force in light of the idea that they can take advantage of the field as it stands, let their troops await an enemy move to counterpunch, or simply proceed as normal to allow battle to evolve for a bit while they wait for something to get burdened with blast markers or move out of position.

The orks, as previously mentioned, are now a horde force that you can think of as being functionally at half strength, but with this built in incentive to try to 'make something break loose'. Like an army revolving around exploiting the erratic brilliance of individuals. How you deploy and play has to do with being *ready* to follow up on any advantage you start to bring to the table.

Then there's all the armies that fall somewhere in between. Can you arrange to push enemy units into prearranged traps where your intiative won't matter as much, or at any rate, when you spring your trap you're not relying on full effectiveness? Do you want to try to live dangerously, doubling up on your moves to see if you can close off an opportunity to your enemy and then sit back and grind them down with your more reliable alternatives? Are you IG? All set to pound them into dust, and trying to keep the squirrelier armies from crushing you in pieces before you have a chance to really bore the poo poo out of everyone with your stupid loving tank swarm that goes far as the eye can see that's half camo, which on 15mm is like just... gently caress you I guess just splatter it with paint or whatever, rear end in a top hat. I hate you. loving IG player.

Sorry. Epic IG is triggering.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHADOWSWORD SQUADRON gently caress YOU.

Can someone post this with real people words

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Once again TCM makes an interesting point and then shits up his own post for no loving reason.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

BaylonGreyjoyDies posted:

Can someone post this with real people words

You have to build around the initiative of your units. Marines have small numbers, but almost always activate, so you have to think in terms of their flexibility. Orks are less likely to activate, but there's a fuckton of them, so you build your plan on them on them either not activating and be ready to press advantage if they actually do.

Imperial Guard has a ludicrous amount of tanks.

At least that's my interpretation.

Recoome
Nov 9, 2013

Matter of fact, I'm salty now.
A long time ago, in the mists of time, TCM got hosed really, really hard by Imperial Guard

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



TCM, show me on the Titan where the Leman Russ touched you.

lilljonas
May 6, 2007

We got crabs? We got crabs!
I agree that the D6 is not the problem, it's all the other bloat of the WHFB/40K systems. Bloated rules, bloated stats, too many rolls. They are two ponderously slow systems with way too much stuff in them, which makes the games drag on too long and also make them hard to learn for new players. I can play a four player Big Chain of Command (the Chain of Command version of Apocalypse for 40K) using only D6s in around the same time as a 2000 pts WHFB game.

Speaking of Chain of Command, the stats that I need to know for infantry on both sides is if they are Green, Regular or Veterans. That's it. If I want to get fancy I can remember which forces (i.e Germany) has a HMG that has slightly higher firepower than other HMGs. The roll to hit depends only on range and if the targets are Green, Regular or Veterans (almost all shots are against regular troops in short range, so it's usually a 4+). Then I roll to kill or shock, which is only modified by cover. That's pretty much it. A new player will have that figured out after a few turns. But the game is still more tactical than 40K, because the tactics are about competative, delayed and hidden deployment, it's about moving and using terrain, and about using the unpredictable choices of activations that you're given each turn.

I absolutely believe that the emphasis on a large scale wargaming ruleset should not be about how to resolve a ranged or melee attack, and it should not involve too many modifiers and rolls, because that bogs down things like crazy. It's just rules bloat. I personally believe that Warmachine/Hordes is guilty of this as well, but instead of bloating the core game mechanics, they have bloated the entire game through giving everything special rules. This requires just as much dedication from a player to keep up with what is happening on the board. So I don't play Warmachine anymore either.

But regardless, it is very true that a player that doesn't try out many different kinds of rulesets won't know the difference. It's amazing to see how stuck some rules are in an ancient style of game design, when smaller publishers put out revolutionary games every year. Games that have both simpler and fewer rules, yet are either far more "narrative" (look at Muskets and Tomahawks for example) or tactical. Some are even larger in scale yet play out faster, because they use what we've learned the last three decades about game development.

lilljonas fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jan 27, 2015

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

lilljonas posted:

I agree that the D6 is not the problem, it's all the other bloat of the WHFB/40K systems. Bloated rules, bloated stats, too many rolls. They are two ponderously slow systems with way too much stuff in them, which makes the games drag on too long and also make them hard to learn for new players. I can play a four player Big Chain of Command (the Chain of Command version of Apocalypse for 40K) using only D6s in around the same time as a 2000 pts WHFB game.

Speaking of Chain of Command, the stats that I need to know for infantry on both sides is if they are Green, Regular or Veterans. That's it. If I want to get fancy I can remember which forces (i.e Germany) has a HMG that has slightly higher firepower than other HMGs. The roll to hit depends only on range and if the targets are Green, Regular or Veterans (almost all shots are against regular troops in short range, so it's usually a 4+). Then I roll to kill or shock, which is only modified by cover. That's pretty much it. A new player will have that figured out after a few turns. But the game is still more tactical than 40K, because the tactics are about competative, delayed and hidden deployment, it's about moving and using terrain, and about using the unpredictable choices of activations that you're given each turn.

I absolutely believe that the emphasis on a large scale wargaming ruleset should not be about how to resolve a ranged or melee attack, and it should not involve too many modifiers and rolls, because that bogs down things like crazy. It's just rules bloat. I personally believe that Warmachine/Hordes is guilty of this as well, but instead of bloating the core game mechanics, they have bloated the entire game through giving everything special rules. This requires just as much dedication from a player to keep up with what is happening on the board. So I don't play Warmachine anymore either.

But regardless, it is very true that a player that doesn't try out many different kinds of rulesets won't know the difference. It's amazing to see how stuck some rules are in an ancient style of game design, when smaller publishers put out revolutionary games every year. Games that have both simpler and fewer rules, yet are either far more "narrative" (look at Muskets and Tomahawks for example) or tactical. Some are even larger in scale yet play out faster, because they use what we've learned the last three decades about game development.

Yeah, but Chain of Command deal with regular humans fighting other regular humans. No aliens, no Power Armor, no power of the warp.

I also think that 40K shouldn't be Large Scale. Infantry and two-three tanks should be enough. Go larger and you're diluting the importance of your heroic sized plasticmen and characters.

lilljonas
May 6, 2007

We got crabs? We got crabs!

JcDent posted:

Yeah, but Chain of Command deal with regular humans fighting other regular humans. No aliens, no Power Armor, no power of the warp.

I also think that 40K shouldn't be Large Scale. Infantry and two-three tanks should be enough. Go larger and you're diluting the importance of your heroic sized plasticmen and characters.

Sure, it's a different subject material, but Veteran troops in Chain of Command are pretty much Space Marines who are very lethal and resilent in both shooting and close combat, while also tactically fast and dangerous. The difference? You roll one more die for activations, and they are one step harder to hit, and they get bonus dice in close combat. That's it. Those small changes means that they'll rack up all kinds of activations and special activations, get double turns, outlast enemies in firefights and mow down enemies in close combat. A carefully designed rules system doesn't need a whole bucket of modifiers and stats to make sure that units behave differently on the table. The point is that GW games have a huge number of factors that boils down to "you're 16% more likely to kill an enemy trooper", so why not just chuck those factors out and make the game run twice as fast?

You can probably find a middle ground where you add a little bit more "spice" to differentiate aliens and technology, but do you need a huge number of stats and special rules? I don't think so, and I'd be happy to try out a sci-fi version of CoC similar to how the Lardies did Quadrant 13 as a Sci-Fi version of I Ain't Been Shot Mum.

lilljonas fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Jan 27, 2015

Azran
Sep 3, 2012

And what should one do to be remembered?
Out of curiosity, since we're talking about new mechanics that replace shittier ones, what's the best replacement for the "point system" style of army construction you've seen? Warmachine/Hordes kind of gets it right with lower numbers (so stuff tends to be 5-9, with higher and lower being outliers) but I guess there could be other stuff out there.

I seriously love learning about new and better game mechanics but I never know which games to check when it comes to wargames.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Warmahordes uses a lot of special rules for a lot of their units, but on the other hand Privateer seems a lot better about doling those out in a drip feed to every faction over time rather than chunking down a new codex that changes all sorts of poo poo for one army while everyone else languishes, and they have those unit cards which means that when you assemble your army you have a little stack of pre-written reference cards for you to pull out so you and your opponent aren't thumbing through a textbook to see how this or that Warjack works.

Dulkor
Feb 28, 2009

Really, the only wrench I ran into when I played warmahordes was getting my head around power attacks. Everything else was super simple to learn just from the unit cards.

enri
Dec 16, 2003

Hope you're having an amazing day

lilljonas posted:

I personally believe that Warmachine/Hordes is guilty of this as well, but instead of bloating the core game mechanics, they have bloated the entire game through giving everything special rules. This requires just as much dedication from a player to keep up with what is happening on the board. So I don't play Warmachine anymore either.

This! I've tried to get into warmahordes on a couple of occasions, I love the core mechanics, they're solid as a rock... but I just feel at a complete loss playing a game because I don't have the time or dedication to learn what my opponent's 'trick' is. My regular gaming buddies have tried to explain it away to me each time it comes up in conversation but I just simply don't have the time for it.

I think it's one of those games where you're greatly benefited if you're there from day 1 and able to keep pace with the factions.

The few games I've played where mostly me moving my dudes and then my opponent unleashing some bizarre effects on me which crippled my dudes. The only way for me to counter that is to know about it the gimmick in the first place.

It does have its plus points, I just find the hurdle to entry too great to bother with.

JcDent posted:

I also think that 40K shouldn't be Large Scale. Infantry and two-three tanks should be enough. Go larger and you're diluting the importance of your heroic sized plasticmen and characters.

This as well. Something went wrong when they started releasing big kits and flyers, a 6x4 / 8x4 board is simply too small for those kind of elements in 28mm. Smaller scales suit these kind of things infinitely better.

I mean look at apocalypse, if someone drops a reaver titan on the table, it basically stands still and just shoots.. where's the fun in that? It's basically an expensive ticket to roll bucket loads of dice.

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lilljonas
May 6, 2007

We got crabs? We got crabs!

enri posted:

This! I've tried to get into warmahordes on a couple of occasions, I love the core mechanics, they're solid as a rock... but I just feel at a complete loss playing a game because I don't have the time or dedication to learn what my opponent's 'trick' is. My regular gaming buddies have tried to explain it away to me each time it comes up in conversation but I just simply don't have the time for it.

I think it's one of those games where you're greatly benefited if you're there from day 1 and able to keep pace with the factions.

The few games I've played where mostly me moving my dudes and then my opponent unleashing some bizarre effects on me which crippled my dudes. The only way for me to counter that is to know about it the gimmick in the first place.

It does have its plus points, I just find the hurdle to entry too great to bother with.

"Oh, but it's spelled out clearly on these cards!" *shoves a bunch of cards in your face, each with several spells and a bunch of stats*

GW is bad at game design, but they are not the only ones. I like to play a game, not a lifestyle choice.

Bloodbowl is great at this, actually. Just by looking at a 3-4 numbers I can grasp how a model behaves. S3, M8 and Block? Ok, now I know how that guy works. S4, M3 and Frenzy? Cool. GW has managed to do this before.

lilljonas fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Jan 27, 2015

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