Brofessor Slayton posted:

I get that letting the new guy win is good for demo games but the lopsided starter sets aren't a good way to go about this.

Atlas Hugged posted:

Your friend who gets stuck with the Dark Eldar is never going to get excited about buying his own army and getting into the hobby.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Chill la Chill posted:

Wait what, was this an official PowerPoint from GAMA?

Ashcans posted:

Yea, the 2ed starter was decent. The marines were the only ones with heavy or special weapons, but they just had tac squads so the orks could do without and rely on volume of fire. The cardboard dread was actually a cool idea, it was a good way to show what orks could get to new players.

They were also decent places for an army to start. With two tac squads you could basically buy a couple characters and a vehicle and be at the low end of actual games.

Cardiac posted:

If I recall the Marines had flamers and missile launchers, which made them kinda bad for 2ed.
The template for the flamer was kinda small and had only str4, whereas the missile launcher fired krak missiles and frag missilies with a 2" template.
Versus orks I guess it was fine, but heavy bolters and lascannons would have been better options. Frag missiles were only str4 versus T4 of the orks.
I guess they could take plasma missiles which were kinda hilarious, since they had a smaller template, but had str5, remained in play while shrinking and could explode to a 5" template on a lucky roll.

My only TT experience of Wh40k was 2ed and if I recall, it was relatively balanced?
I could take a mainly Guardian filled Eldar army and beat any army with it.

Which might say more about Eldar than anything else. If I recall, the psychic powers of the Eldars with Mind War and Guide was basically cheating, as well as the Swooping Hawks, Warp Spiders, Howling Banshees and Wraith Guard either getting free, non counterable attacks or instant deaths.
But I remember 30+ numbers of jump pack Death Company, all Assault Cannon Wolf Guard and unkillable Tyranids with psychic scream, regeneration and warp fields + hugely expensive characters.
I also have a vague memory of turn 1 being entire armies in hiding, constant overwatch mode as well as making sure to keep every model separated to minimise splash damage.

Cardiac posted:

If I recall the Marines had flamers and missile launchers, which made them kinda bad for 2ed.
The template for the flamer was kinda small and had only str4, whereas the missile launcher fired krak missiles and frag missilies with a 2" template.
Versus orks I guess it was fine, but heavy bolters and lascannons would have been better options. Frag missiles were only str4 versus T4 of the orks.
I guess they could take plasma missiles which were kinda hilarious, since they had a smaller template, but had str5, remained in play while shrinking and could explode to a 5" template on a lucky roll.

My only TT experience of Wh40k was 2ed and if I recall, it was relatively balanced?
I could take a mainly Guardian filled Eldar army and beat any army with it.

Which might say more about Eldar than anything else. If I recall, the psychic powers of the Eldars with Mind War and Guide was basically cheating, as well as the Swooping Hawks, Warp Spiders, Howling Banshees and Wraith Guard either getting free, non counterable attacks or instant deaths.
But I remember 30+ numbers of jump pack Death Company, all Assault Cannon Wolf Guard and unkillable Tyranids with psychic scream, regeneration and warp fields + hugely expensive characters.
I also have a vague memory of turn 1 being entire armies in hiding, constant overwatch mode as well as making sure to keep every model separated to minimise splash damage.

TKIY posted:

Ur-gold? Aether-gold!

Coming soon, Aqua-gold!

TKIY posted:

Ur-gold? Aether-gold!

Coming soon, Aqua-gold!

Ashcans posted:

It worked out fine though because the Orks all had bolt pistols and the gretchin had autoguns, so the Marines had a decent amount of time to whittle them down with bolter and missile fire, while facing only autoguns from grots. Yea, when you moved to real games you would probably want to switch those guys out for heavy bolters of plasma guns or something, but there were decent for the starter and picking up a couple blisters was all you needed to do.

Eldar were actually kind of crazy in 40k; their base level was a lot more powerful than present day, so like you said an army of guardians with catapults was actually pretty scary. Also they had a bunch of weird and dangerous weapons like D-cannons and vibrocannons, and were generally much faster than any other race. The only thing was that they didn't actually have any transports until very late on when the Falcon finally arrived, just before 3rd edition.

There was lots of stuff in 2ed that was broken, particularly as it developed. Like you could wipe out most of an IG or Ork army with a virus grenade or the Virus strategy card, and you could similarly annihilate the enemies best model/squad by chucking a Vortex grenade at it. On the other hand, there was also just a shitload of random stuff and tables for more random stuff, so there was reasonable chance that shooting an enemy tank could kill the driver, and have it zoom out of control and plough into your lines before exploding and killing everyone around it. I shot a tank with a D-cannon once and it ended up being teleported into the air upside down above some of my guys, so it fell down, crushed them, and then exploded.

Bad Moon posted:

They harnessed their farts?

mcjomar posted:

I started in 3rd ed, so I never got to experience any of this, but posts like this are the reason I tracked down a fully complete 2nd ed starter set and rules, plus the Dark Millennium stuff, simply because this sounds like actual fun (as opposed to the tedium I experience with "standard" games of 6th or 7th ed 40k, which is why I stopped playing).

Atlas Hugged posted:

It's tedious and frustrating in its own way. There were a lot of random tables, layer upon layer of special shields resulting in attacks doing nothing, and the aforementioned special abilities that could instantly destroy anything they contacted. Melee also took for-loving-ever to resolve and could get seriously confusing when you had multiple characters in contact with multiple attackers. A game of 2e with half as many models as a standard game of 3-5e could take as much time or longer. I would never recommend it as a competitive game, but it could be "fun" with the right people and the right mindset.

Bad Moon posted:

Aether-gold? So magic metal gas? They harnessed their farts?

DO IT TO IT posted:

So that's what those giant metal balloons are full of, golden fart gas.

mcjomar posted:

Welp, I stopped wanting to play 40k competitively around the time 5th edition was a thing - the only killy mans sci fi game I would want to consider playing in a tournament scene is Infinity (and I'm not really interested in tournaments anyway), so that stopped being a consideration a good while back.
I'm more interested in narrative stuff, campaign stuff, or just general shenanigans, and given how much I've enjoyed Necromunda, Mordheim, and others like them, I figure small scale to medium scale 40k 2nd ed would be palatable. Not so wild about large games in general, so I doubt I'd go for anything beyond a mid-size 40k game in 2nd ed anyway.
Also, I like playing Classic Battletech, so if the tedium of 2nd ed is closer to that than the kind of tedium you get from 6th/7th, then I guess 2nd ed will be right up my alley.

MikeCrotch posted:

Battletech nerds can be their own little terrible bubble though. Never, ever agree to a game with someone who insists on using level 3 tech and their own custom mech designs unless you want to watch someone get tumescent over pulse laser shots.

Alpha strike is the poo poo though.

Atlas Hugged posted:

I love me some Battletech, but as far as I'm aware the Clans still haven't arrived, no one can take a custom mech, and points are by BV2.

mcjomar posted:

I tend to play this mostly because I like to know what I'm doing, and I'm not entirely sure I'm familiar with 3050+ tech yet - I do find myself intrigued by alternative ammo types for the LRMs and ACs though.
I started by enjoying Mechcommander Gold, and got into it from there, so I have a soft spot for those terribly balanced clan mechs, and other weapons that are floating around in 3058, like the equally terrible Bushwacker, which could be fixed by upgrading to an LBX10, dumping the MGs, sticking the ammo in a single torso so you only have one case, and then giving it 5 JJs to radically improve that movement curve, and possibly still have weight to spare for improvements to the armour. Not to mention double heat sinks if it doesn't have 'em already, so as to cut down more weight there.
It goes from being dead weight to being a nicely flexible mobile medium.

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

I don't understand the tic where people talk about terrible balance and garbage mechanics as if they're primarily a problem for people who play in tournaments

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Atlas Hugged posted:

The way I look at it, there are three ways you can play a game. The highest tier is at the tournament level where there are rankings and prizes involved. Obviously balance and mechanics that focus on player agency and reward tactical decision making matter the most here. The second level is competitive, be it with friend or some guy at the FLGS, but not in the sense that winning means anything. You still don't want to feel like you wasted your time, but if someone is being a dick or fields the same broken list every week even when people encourage him to try something different, you can just avoid playing him.

Then lastly is casual gaming with other like minded people. Points may not matter and the game is secondary to the social aspect of hanging out with people with similar interests. Winning and losing take a backseat to interesting events unfolding on the table, so people are more likely to make intentionally bad tactical decisions because maybe the dice or lovely mechanics will work out in their favor and it will become a legend in the local club.

So when I say "competitive", which is what I said in my previous post, I don't strictly mean in the sense of a tournament. If your goal is to play and win a game and to feel like you accomplished something because you outsmarted your opponent and were the better general, then obviously the game needs to be balanced with solid mechanics. This is true if you're playing a friend or playing in a tournament. But if like I described above the game is just something to justify a get-together, then the balance and mechanics are less important.

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

you're mushing together "caring a lot about whether you win" and "wanting to make interesting decisions". this is why it's ridiculous to talk about it as if it's an issue for "competitive" players. if I'm playing games with my friends I want to actually be able to, you know, play a game, there's plenty of non-games stuff I could do with them otherwise!

Atlas Hugged posted:

I guess I don't see those as distinct. Either the interesting decisions that I make affect whether I win or not, playing with friends or otherwise. That's why I said it didn't matter who the opponent was in a generic "competitive" game. If the point of getting together is to play the game for the sake of playing the game, then it's competitive in my book.

Southern Heel posted:

Please tell me that poofy sleeved toothless empire mans still exist in AoS and it's not all golden robo statues

Southern Heel posted:

Please tell me that poofy sleeved toothless empire mans still exist in AoS and it's not all golden robo statues

Southern Heel posted:

Please tell me that poofy sleeved toothless empire mans still exist in AoS and it's not all golden robo statues

Guy Goodbody posted:

There are regular humans who live on the back of a giant worm. They live in buildings carved out of the worm's giant petrified hair, and domesticated the fungus and giant parasites that infested the worm's skin

They're being very slowly chased by a tribe of Khorne worshipers who live on the back of another giant worm