|
Played 9th Age Empire vs Brets and it was a mixed bag. I recreated my 8th edition all-comers list as faithfully as I could given the new book. The results were not really pleasant. The Brets are awesome now. The Lance gives impact hits (so anyone with 4 ranks is hitting with S8 impact hits). Under the current rule set, 5 Impetuous knights in a tiny Lance are 85 pts, do a 4d6 swiftstride roll (take 3 highest) and get 3 S4 impact hits. That's pretty drat effective for chaff coming from core. The new unit in the book is Foot Knights, who are rocking S4 base and 4+ Armor with parry rules (-1 to be hit, WS4) as well as the Blessing. Anybody engaged with the Foot Knights that gets hit in the flank loses stubborn. Grail knights can get a 4+ ward all the time via virtues (and a 3+ ward vs non-magical shooting via items), and Questing Knights got WS5 S4 base, access to halberds, and do double wounds to Monsters/Monster Cav. Grail Knights now can attack with all their attacks when supporting, meaning a Grail Lance puts out like 25 S6 attacks or whatever on the charge from their 75mm frontage, and force any successful ward saves to be rerolled. By comparison my Empire felt like somebody just went through and systematically kneecapped everything the 8th book actually did well, then gave me watered-down IG orders from 40k and said "good enough." All artillery was moved to rare (both mundane and experimental) along with the tank and now Demigryphs, which was just frustrating for list construction. Cannons are explicitly worse (as a conscious BRB decision), mortars are better, the experimental stuff is about the same. Steam Tank was made into a simple rubric of 3 stages of damage, where at start it does 3d6 movement and 3d3 impact/grind hits, and then progressive to 2d6/2d3 and 1d6/1d3 as it accumulates wounds. The steam gun was changed to a single-shot breath weapon. Demigryphs got more expensive, are now Rare. Greatswords are only stubborn with a character in the unit, gained S4 base, were made cheaper. Can't take detachments of State Troops, militia or ranged units only. The Special section is basically Greatswords, Pistoliers, Inner Circle Knights, and Flagellants- which has an extremely awkward effect on list construction. Pistoliers got better but they're not going to blow anyone's socks off. The secret winners are anybody who ran Flagellants in 7th edition. They are now perma-frenzied, flails in the BRB were changed to +2 str at initiative at all times with a "penalty" that enemies gets +1 to hit them in close combat. An Arch-Lector unlocks "apprentice priests" as unit champions for the Flagellants, giving them Hatred and access to warrior priest buffs. The unit max of 40 Flaggies with unit champion warrior priest buffs comes in at under 400 pts, and they're by far and away the best unit in the Special section now. It feels a little too... personally motivated. I did like the fresh take on the Steam Tank, but nothing about this book made me want to play my existing collection and there's no real incentive to go out and acquire more. My Bret buddy was over the moon though, he got to field almost his entire collection and they're all ballbuster units now. TL;DR not impressed and wouldn't play it again, although it was nice to see Brets getting some love
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 17:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 08:24 |
|
|
Well it is still in the beta phase but I agree some armies still need some work. Empire is a hard one to juggle and I don't really envy the job of the book committee. I'm glad to see someone happy with brets. Everyone else seems upset about it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 18:09
|
|
|
I actually thought the new Empire stuff looked pretty good. Popemobile getting combined profile so 4+ ward is back for the Arch Lector (though light council got toned down which is fine by me), new Steam Tank being not completely garbage once it took a few wounds, new parry rule (the -1 to hit) making Swordsmen good again along with Greatswords being able to take hand weapon/shield. IC Knights now have 2 attacks and are only like 26 pts/model. Like you said, Pistoliers got better. I dunno, it got less sweeping changes than Brets, but 8E Empire was also just a stronger book than the old 6E Brets so they needed a lot less triage. I have a game scheduled for Tuesday against my friend's Empire list with my VC so I'll report back on how that goes and how he feels about the new book. Like someone said though, this is still beta and they are currently in the beta phase of balancing all of the books against each other so we will definitely see some changes. I believe the next big army update is coming either tomorrow or next week also, so be sure to check that out. EDIT: Pash posted:From what i can tell, listening to some people talk, it seems everyone thinks their own army sucks and everyone elses armies are overpowered... See, they're already capturing the spirit of Warhammer!
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 18:28
|
|
|
jonnyman posted:Well it is still in the beta phase but I agree some armies still need some work. Empire is a hard one to juggle and I don't really envy the job of the book committee. I'm glad to see someone happy with brets. Everyone else seems upset about it. From what i can tell, listening to some people talk, it seems everyone thinks their own army sucks and everyone elses armies are overpowered...
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 18:28
|
|
|
Pash posted:From what i can tell, listening to some people talk, it seems everyone thinks their own army sucks and everyone elses armies are overpowered... Oh man. We have that in abundance everywhere. Luckily, we got undying dynasties (tomb kings) to be in a fairly good position balance wise, but we definitely have some hurdles to cross yet. Overall I'm very happy with how 9th has turned out but we still have some time to go until the main product is actually ironed out and finished.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 18:41
|
|
|
Brets in general are a tricky concept. The longest heavy cav charge ranges in the game with the most attacks per limited frontage in the game, but on a T3 human chassis. If you don't give them enough oomph, then you can realistically expect to commit all of your army's fighting potential and not even break a unit (which was the reality of 8th edition for cav-heavy Bret players due to the Stubborn crown and deathstar play). However, if you make them more cost-effective or stronger, it exacerbates the frontage issue big time. The enemy is extremely limited in strikebacks due to base contact, and the Brets will most likely have full ranks to deny steadfast and provide static combat res. I don't really have a good answer for how to balance what really seems like was fundamentally cooked up as, "what if the whole army was knights????" back in 1989 or whatever. One thing that needs to be mentioned in this context is that the BRB also changed, so that Spears receive the equivalent of Killing Blow against frontal Cav charges now too. Also I feel like it should go without saying, but I understand these are beta rules undergoing constant revision and so forth and I wholeheartedly support the writers and committees doing so for no reason other than love of the game etc. I think I'm crankier than need be because I had to play beta-warhammer instead of malifaux, and my old list/collection is now p. bad (because it was intentionally changed for balance). frest fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Nov 20, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 18:58
|
|
|
El Estrago Bonito posted:I was saying in 8th. Clanrats weren't good but you had to take some of them and they were cheap enough that it was worth tossing a gaggle on the table occasionally. Honestly slaves would be pretty balanced if they lost their "disadvantage" that's actually a huge advantage (the one where they can break and run back into your own troops). Clanrats lost their "mainstay" rule in the (end of) 7th army book. In 8th ed the skaven army's core was usually as many slaves you we allowed and a horde of stormvermin to push the bell.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 19:32
|
|
|
frest posted:Also I feel like it should go without saying, but I understand these are beta rules undergoing constant revision and so forth and I wholeheartedly support the writers and committees doing so for no reason other than love of the game etc. I think I'm crankier than need be because I had to play beta-warhammer instead of malifaux, and my old list/collection is now p. bad (because it was intentionally changed for balance). I don't think that's just being cranky, but rather one of the core problems that people have with the Warhammer games in general. For example when the new Eldar codex came out it fundamentally changed the way I had to build my lists if I wanted a chance to win with my IG because my group contained two Eldar players. A constantly shifting meta based on what is played in your area and what army book was just released, and what rules were changed in the newest edition is something that Warhammer players had gotten used to. It was one thing when GW did it because everyone could kind of shrug their shoulders and go "well they are a company and they have to make money" and then pretend it took some great tactical acumen to adjust to the new meta (ie: buy counters). Since it is now a fan committee adjusting the way your models/army work, and since GW made it harder to purchase new minis for 9th Age by repackaging their minis with round bases the frustration makes sense. For 9th Age to be successful, it needs to implement the kinds of changes the majority of the players wanted and it needs to not change the efficacy of the models that people already own (because many people won't be buying more). Otherwise it's just going to alliterate people and push them towards Kings of War (if they even want to continue with ranked fantasy games), or to new systems. It's an admirable project, and I'm sure some people will really enjoy it and stick with it. But it has such lofty goal posts due to people having their own wishlists for rules changes, nostalgia for how fun Warhammer actually is/was, and an inability to easily replace their models for the game with mini's from the GW line. Time will tell, but I'm not optimistic, especially with Mantic having just released their rules for the rest of the Warhmmer exodus.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 20:12
|
|
|
Sir Teabag posted:For 9th Age to be successful, it needs to implement the kinds of changes the majority of the players wanted and it needs to not change the efficacy of the models that people already own (because many people won't be buying more). I don't know if that is even possible, because lots of people will have bought their armies based on whatever stupid crap GW had skewed in the edition. Like if you are writing rules for Skaven you know that people bought fuckloads of slaves, and very few clanrats. But is that actually something you want to keep as the army design? If you are trying to make a better game you want to do your best to remove GW's trap choices and provide a more even selection among units, and that necessarily means that the people who bought armies based on GWs failures in balancing are going to end up in a weaker place.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 20:17
|
|
|
Ashcans posted:I don't know if that is even possible, because lots of people will have bought their armies based on whatever stupid crap GW had skewed in the edition. Like if you are writing rules for Skaven you know that people bought fuckloads of slaves, and very few clanrats. But is that actually something you want to keep as the army design? If you are trying to make a better game you want to do your best to remove GW's trap choices and provide a more even selection among units, and that necessarily means that the people who bought armies based on GWs failures in balancing are going to end up in a weaker place. Yeah, I don't think it's actually possible for 9th Age to succeed in what it set out to do. There are simply too many expectations of it and too many constraints on design. Then you factor in that the GW line itself is less accessible than before, because people will need to provide their own square bases to use new purchases to shore up any radical changes in how their army functions. So if you want to rebalance your collection, you're down to the second hand market or re-casters. I think that these issues just highlight the ease of totally switching systems to KoW and/or why you would just try out an entirely new game. If you're switching systems, it's a little easier to go "oh hey, my reikland greatswords no longer function the same way I thought they did, but they are still generally an offensive threat" compared to "wow, my greatswords suck and I bought a lot of them instead of spearmen - this really sucks." Maybe I'm just too cynical, but honestly they whole exercise of 9th Age seems self defeating to me. I'd give it a shot one of these days though, I wasn't able to sell my lizardmen army for what I thought was worth it. So I'll be trying KoW with them, and there isn't a good reason not to try 9th since I already have the models. That'll be a while down the road though because I've been having a blast painting up and learning how to play Infinity.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 20:38
|
|
|
I think the key thing with 9th age will be the old saying "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." 8th edition Warhammer was a deeply flawed game, but it was playable. And there were a few key places that, if fixed, would have made it significantly better. The 9th age team can fix those key things - stuff like how badly Steadfast skewed the game, or how some of the key spells in the spell lists were broken - and come up with a better game. It still will not be as good as a game that was designed from the ground up by competent designers, but that's (hopefully) not the goal. An improved Warhammer Fantasy game can still be a popular and fun game to play, even if it still has significant flaws. As I see it, the main goals for the teams revising the army lists will be to try to preserve the most important character of each army, give players reasonable options to still use the bulk of their existing collections, and close the yawning power gap between various armies somewhat. If they accomplish that, then fans of the Old World will get to keep playing in it, and I believe that's a big part of its attraction compared to Kings of War. It's true that buying new models to expand a Warhammer Fantasy army will get more difficult as time goes on. But it's been impossible to buy new Epic Armageddon models from GW for years now... yet, the community has managed to keep Epic alive as a playable game, including with major tournaments. If the game can be revised enough that it becomes a little better balanced, that's good enough. Meanwhile, Kings of War has taken the other path, a ground-up new fantasy tabletop battles game, and that has its own appeal. Personally I'm willing to try both paths out and see which one fits me best. Probably each will attract their own sets of players with some overlap in the middle. It's actually really exciting to think that I might be able to play two different games using the same model collection!
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 20:52
|
|
|
My perception (which may be inaccurate) is that a Venn diagram of the GT-attending population of the last year of 8th Edition, the ETC and Swedish design communities, and the 9th Age design community are probably a perfect circle.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 21:00
|
|
|
I'm surprised 9th Age isn't just a dozen or so pages aimed at unfucking 8th.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 21:37
|
|
|
frest posted:My perception (which may be inaccurate) is that a Venn diagram of the GT-attending population of the last year of 8th Edition, the ETC and Swedish design communities, and the 9th Age design community are probably a perfect circle. A friend of mine on the Norwegian ETC team told me he is playing against people on universal battle that never played FB before, but I'm not sure how many of these would convert over to buying actual models.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 07:42
|
|
|
Bit of an odd question, but does anyone have a good source for cheap GW style bases? I've pretty much run out of Chariot and 40x40mm squares and could do with some more for various monsters. I know there's stuff like the Renedra flat bases but I'm really after ones which have the same height and edges as the GW ones as I prefer the style. I'd be tempted to order them from GW except it'd mean giving them money.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2015 23:27
|
|
|
Zark the Damned posted:Bit of an odd question, but does anyone have a good source for cheap GW style bases? I've pretty much run out of Chariot and 40x40mm squares and could do with some more for various monsters. Just get the GW ones off of eBay.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2015 00:13
|
|
|
Zark the Damned posted:Bit of an odd question, but does anyone have a good source for cheap GW style bases? I've pretty much run out of Chariot and 40x40mm squares and could do with some more for various monsters. I just ordered some strips of acrylic off McMaster Carr, then scored and snapped to length. It worked really well.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2015 04:15
|
|
|
The eBay route is probably the best (especially if you're a stickler for consistency), but Hasslefree has lots of plastic bases that at least look like GW ones: http://hfminis.co.uk/shop?category=accessories~plastic-bases e: Although a part of me likes the idea of GW becoming a company that people only buy bases and washes from.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2015 04:18
|
|
|
Sadly Hasslefree don't have any of the big bases I'm after, just the 20/25mm ones I already have a ton of. I've tried eBay too, not sure if I'm doing the wrong search but aside from one set of second hand bases that'll need stripping all the sellers were charging more than GW! As in GW = £3 for 5 40mm squares, eBay = £3.50 for the same. I did see some GF9 magnetic bases which were slightly cheaper, but I don't know how well they compare against the GW ones and how noticeable the difference will be.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2015 11:06
|
|
|
AoW is gonna sell me 20mm bases for 0.12 euro moon dollars per base. I emailed them to ask cause I couldn't find it in their webstore. Waiting on a paypal invoice, atm, but $13 for 100 is gonna be just what I want. Plus their 20mm bases have no slots and a center spot for gluing a magnet which I love.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2015 23:37
|
|
|
Interesting story from a very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products in Nottingham. I heard rumblings of this shortly after I was made redundant myself - this would be around 1998, just after the move to Lenton if it was the same situation and the same redundancy wave.quote:This week, reader "James" has shared a story “from my days as a Sysadmin, at the dawn of the broadband area, when I worked for a very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products.”
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 17:53
|
|
|
Hahahhaha love it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 18:14
|
|
|
Helen Highwater posted:Interesting story from a very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products in Nottingham. I heard rumblings of this shortly after I was made redundant myself - this would be around 1998, just after the move to Lenton if it was the same situation and the same redundancy wave. A pre-Christmas story to warm your heart.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 18:46
|
|
|
Haha, there's not understanding the Internet and then there's this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 18:55
|
|
|
Who has security escort someone out of the building immediately after a routine layoff? (I'm sure the answer is "a lot of companies, since treating your employees as potential adversaries is the way business is done now," but permit me my rhetorical question.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 19:01
|
|
|
As I understand, that is standard procedure at a certain very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products in Nottingham. Edit: You can't even go to your office to get personal effects, if I remember correctly. They mail them to your home some days later.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 19:02
|
|
|
JerryLee posted:Who has security escort someone out of the building immediately after a routine layoff? I've been laid off three times, and we were never big enough to have security, but my boss was always the one to walk me out. They at least let me go collect my poo poo under their watchful eye before they walked me out the door though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 19:05
|
|
|
JerryLee posted:(I'm sure the answer is "a lot of companies, since treating your employees as potential adversaries is the way business is done now," but permit me my rhetorical question.) Every Silicon Valley tech company I've worked for. Which is four. It's standard procedure at most big companies now, becuase it's what their corporate lawyers tell them to do. Lay them off on a Friday, escort them out with their belongings. This has some possibly-statistically-significant effect of lowering the chances that said employee will commit corporate sabotage, suicide, or go on a murder spree at the office. Apparently having the weekend to deal with being laid off is better than having to face an abnormal weekday the very next morning, when it comes to suicide rates; and the rest is mostly about supervision of someone you've just burned as they have one last opportunity to burn you back. The fact that this practice has a noticeable negative effect on overall employee satisfaction, productivity, and loyalty is not as easily measured by corporate lawyers, so it's gone inexplicably unnoticed for over a decade now.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 19:10
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Every Silicon Valley tech company I've worked for. Which is four. My second layoff was on a Monday. This was because they had been planning to do it the Friday before, but it was Friday the 13th, and my boss (also 1/2 owner of the company) was really superstitious.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 19:14
|
|
|
So they fired someone as absolutely fast as they could once they thought they had everything the guy was able to do? No understanding, no explanation, no planning, just "get a web link and liquidate him". That's incredible. They then repeat the process for an IT manager immediately. I can't believe they've been around this long with that kind of slash and burn employment idiocy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 19:18
|
|
|
They've long survived on the fact that there's a very long line of enthusiastic fans that see working at GW as their dream job waiting to take the place of the poor bastard who's own fantasy has been mercilessly crushed by the reality.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 19:41
|
|
|
Soulfucker posted:Haha, there's not understanding the Internet and then there's this. It's more about how greed cares not for continuity of service. I wanted to pull my hair out because one company I was directing kept firing critical team members without warning, so I had no time to tell that member to train the new hire. That new person was dumped into a position he or she knew nothing about, with no way of picking up all the in-progress work and problem customers. Good luck! In the name of slashing costs, these capitalist buffoons end up costing tens of thousands in losses. JerryLee posted:Who has security escort someone out of the building immediately after a routine layoff? Yes. The worst company I ever lent my skills to had employees routinely screaming complaints about killing "every man" and how she hated her job. The boss slept at his desk, snoring loudly, and his "employees" were actually his friends or children of friends. The "marketing" specialist just hung out on Facebook all day and gave us garbage leads. Guessing by my competency alone that I would be sacking them after my umpteenth promotion in less than two months, the leeches conspired to have me fired. The boss said, "What can I do? What can I do?" because he had no idea what he was doing, tried to fire me over the phone in breach of contract. I showed up to the office to state my case, they treated me like a security issue, had one of the dead-weight employees "escort" me out after I calmly explained what was wrong with the decision. "Is it poo poo?" "IT'S poo poo!" I can't imagine how irritating it is at GW. Post 9-11 User fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Dec 4, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 20:04
|
|
|
Helen Highwater posted:Interesting story from a very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products in Nottingham. I heard rumblings of this shortly after I was made redundant myself - this would be around 1998, just after the move to Lenton if it was the same situation and the same redundancy wave. I think I can get how this company has a hard time realizing why the imperium is bad.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 20:43
|
|
|
This needs to be posted in the Death Thread immediately. edit: Copied it, hope you don't mind Helen Highwater! TKIY fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Dec 4, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 20:50
|
|
|
Well I didn't get the specialist games brand manager interview. Still hoping to see an all plastic Adeptus Titanicus though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 22:05
|
|
|
Post 9-11 User posted:It's more about how greed cares not for continuity of service. I wanted to pull my hair out because one company I was directing kept firing critical team members without warning, so I had no time to tell that member to train the new hire. That new person was dumped into a position he or she knew nothing about, with no way of picking up all the in-progress work and problem customers. Good luck! Spending a pound to save a penny is something i've seen at a lot of companies.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2015 22:14
|
|
|
In other GW news, there are unconfirmed reports that the Sigmarine statue has been removed from outside GW HQ:MonumentOfRibs @ DakkaDakka posted:I've seen a few comments about AOS being the main game due to the statue at Warhammer HQ in Nottingham. I visited the place less than a month ago and I can say that there is no statue in sight now
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2015 20:31
|
|
|
Now let's be fair, it might not be a sign they've abandoned their new golden baby on which they pinned hopes enough to displace their iconic Space Marine. It might have been removed because they erected it without the city's permission instead!
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2015 20:55
|
|
|
Rulebook Heavily posted:Now let's be fair, it might not be a sign they've abandoned their new golden baby on which they pinned hopes enough to displace their iconic Space Marine. It might have been removed because they erected it without the city's permission instead! I've heard that rumor too; specifically, they didn't get a permit and neighboring businesses complained. Though I've also heard one person say that it's still there (but he could be a GW plant  ).
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2015 20:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 08:24 |
|
|
They had a very specific permit for the space marine statue (Apparently management even took mock-ups of the Space Marine to the planning meeting), they replaced it with the Sigmarine without re-applying for permission, and there are enough people that hate GW who'd report it just because they can, even if other local businesses where fine with StormFront style imagery replacing the not-quite-so-openly-fascist ones that used to be there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2015 21:02
|
|
