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Skinty McEdger posted:Actually I would like those models if the lore was that the steam that powers them is the lingering remains of the lost souls of the dwarves of the old world, the army being made up of cogwork machines that mirrored what the dwarves had been once in life, but were now merely automatons powered by a million grudges that would never be settled. That's a loving awesome bit of fluff. Like amazing.
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Mar 16, 2017 19:44
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Why do they even make up a new resource. Just have them be super-boilers using elementally pure water powered with ur-gold. Give them a reason to BE traders and fight other dwarves using something already established in the fiction of the setting. Nah fuckit just make some new poo poo up who cares how it all fits
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Mar 16, 2017 22:24
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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 Stop making me want to play Age of Shitmar 
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Mar 17, 2017 00:24
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The giant worm can't be real that would be intresting and GW is very militant against that.
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Mar 17, 2017 01:00
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GW loves it some giant worms it seems. The 4th campaign book for AoS had a 3-way brawl between Stormcast, Chaos and then Ironjawz over a realmgate that was contained inside a giant sandworm. It's not a bad little story to be honest. The Stormcast get continuously dunked on, the Ironjawz boss accidentally foils a Chaos attempt to control the Orruks when he backhands a lesser boss who was a demon in disguise and then goes on to unleash the worm who smashes all 3 armies into paste before burrowing away.
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Mar 17, 2017 01:12
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tankfish posted:The giant worm can't be real that would be intresting and GW is very militant against that. It's the setting of the Age of Sigmar novella Skaven Pestilens. A bunch of Skaven tunneled their way up through the worm and took over the city. They want to kill the worm so they can use it's rotting body to brew lots of new poisons and plagues. There's also a Skaven city that the worm ate centuries ago, was rebuilt on an archipelago in the worm's ocean sized digestive system, and then died out, which the modern Skaven think may still hold an ancient Pestilens book that they want
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Mar 17, 2017 01:23
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I think this is the first legitimately interesting thing I've heard about AoS.
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Mar 17, 2017 02:28
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:then you're very confused because they're obviously different things! a well-designed game will have interesting decisions, and the effect they have on the victory conditions &c are an important part of what makes them interesting. but it's the decisions themselves that are the main point, not the end state where you "feel like you accomplished something because you outsmarted your opponent and were the better general" Either we fundamentally disagree on how we see games or we're having a failure to communicate effectively. For instance, I'm not really talking in binaries but in shifting gradients with conditionals. Like, I think in a broad sense there are two major approaches to games, competitive and casual, but just because you're playing something casually doesn't mean you aren't playing with the aim to win. You just care a lot less about the result and if the game is broken then winning and losing are meaningless and secondary to the event itself. Let me try to explain by way of analogy because we seem to be getting hung up on the idea that people would use games to justify socialization, but I don't really see it as any different than movie night. You and your friends arrange a movie night, but it's not like you sit there in silence and deeply appreciate the film on a technical and artistic level. I mean, you can, but I don't think that's the norm. You're going to enjoy some drinks, snack on food, gossip, catch up, make fun of or otherwise comment about the movie, and potentially miss huge chunks of it. You might even talk about the movie when it's over, but maybe you move on to another activity and forget it completely. Watching a good movie can enhance the experience, but you can have just as much fun watching a lovely movie because the event is not about the movie. The movie is just an excuse. Like I've said before, when people say, "Age of Sigmar is fun," this is really what they mean and when people say they want to try out old games with broken mechanics and no balance, my assumption is this is the experience they're really aiming for. I don't think they're intending to do a thorough review of the game. They just want to have some beers and have a laugh. "Remember that time your tank fell from the sky and crushed my general, that was hilarious." "Remember that time we watched Batman and Robin and Bill choked on his chicken wings because he was laughing so hard? Good times." I also don't really get what you mean when you describe decision making for the sake of decision making. I don't want to play a decision making simulator that opens up new decisions. I want to play a miniatures game where my decisions are competing against my opponent's decisions to lead to my eventual victory. Unless I'm intentionally playing a game without caring about the results, then interesting decisions that don't advance my agenda of winning seem incoherent. And yes who you play does matter. I don't think it's necessary for me to explain that there are lovely opponents and fun opponents who affect the atmosphere without affecting the game itself. But in so far as I care about balance and mechanics, if I'm playing because I want to engage with a particular game, then those things are important regardless of if I'm playing some random guy or a friend.
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Mar 17, 2017 03:35
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Southern Heel posted:Please tell me that poofy sleeved toothless empire mans still exist in AoS and it's not all golden robo statues Turns out they now exist just north of the Low Sea of Suan facing the mountains of Tragar, where they now refer to themselves as the Knights and Brotherly Survivors of the Destruction of the End Times, or The Brotherhood for short.
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Mar 17, 2017 04:05
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 GBS has an opossum appreciation station thread lots of people hating on the opossum in there, gotta defend this honorable creature.
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Mar 17, 2017 04:22
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NTRabbit posted:Turns out they now exist just north of the Low Sea of Suan facing the mountains of Tragar, where they now refer to themselves as the Knights and Brotherly Survivors of the Destruction of the End Times, or The Brotherhood for short. Oh, you.
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Mar 17, 2017 04:27
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All that worm poo poo if true is way too dense for me to ever care about - the old world was so gritty and basic, plans were enacted to collapse dwarf tunnels and invade empire provinces, not build cities on worms and poo poo
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Mar 17, 2017 05:06
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Atlas Hugged posted:I also don't really get what you mean when you describe decision making for the sake of decision making. I don't want to play a decision making simulator that opens up new decisions. I want to play a miniatures game where my decisions are competing against my opponent's decisions to lead to my eventual victory. Unless I'm intentionally playing a game without caring about the results, then interesting decisions that don't advance my agenda of winning seem incoherent. And yes who you play does matter. I don't think it's necessary for me to explain that there are lovely opponents and fun opponents who affect the atmosphere without affecting the game itself. But in so far as I care about balance and mechanics, if I'm playing because I want to engage with a particular game, then those things are important regardless of if I'm playing some random guy or a friend. and neither watching movies I don't enjoy nor playing games I don't enjoy sound like enjoyable social activities! that said, I don't have anything against people doing that if they're into that kind of thing, just don't go around claiming that movie quality is irrelevant to people who only go to movies casually?
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Mar 17, 2017 05:12
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I'm really curious about this new game GW's releasing at the end of the year that's supposed to support "organized, competitive play". It's going to be a goddamned train wreck 
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Mar 17, 2017 05:15
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:yeah the point you seem to be missing is that you can play to win, without caring a huge amount whether you win, because a good game makes trying to win fun. that's why it's silly to act as if game quality doesn't matter if you're not being "competitive" No one ever made the claim that game quality couldn't or shouldn't matter to people playing casually. If we go all the way back to what caused this little tangent, we were talking about 40k 2e, a game with broken mechanics and little balance, and said that it was not ideal to be played competitively, but that playing it casually presented less problems, but it was still frustrating and tedious. I've also said several times in this thread, the AoS thread, the Warhammer thread, and the Special Games thread that if you and your friends are going to get into a game, then you might as well get into a good one because it will improve the overall experience. So why you think I said that quality is completely irrelevant to casual gamers I'm not sure. Ultimately I think we agree on this at least. Whether or not you win or lose is irrelevant in a competitive, non-tournament setting and in a casual setting so long as you enjoyed the experience. However, enjoying the experience is going to mean different things to different people. In a competitive setting, I'm not going to enjoy the experience if the game has lovely mechanics, and for me competitive can be a 1v1 game against a friend of mine on a Tuesday evening. But you asked why people tend to say balance and mechanics matter more in tournaments/competitive settings and I gave several examples and scenarios where I felt that was the case. I guess I'm the one left scratching my head because I watch movies I don't enjoy all the time because the point of the activity isn't to bask in the glow of the movie but to be with people I enjoy being around. When it's my turn to pick, of course I go for the better movie, but it's not always my turn and the social aspect trumps my taste because I'd rather watch a bad movie with good friends than not see my friends. Now, I'm not going to go out of my way to watch a bad movie just to watch the bad movie, and likewise I'm not going to go show up at a Warhammer store on AoS night to play with people I don't know just to play a lovely game.
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Mar 17, 2017 05:31
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muggins posted:All that worm poo poo if true is way too dense for me to ever care about - the old world was so gritty and basic, plans were enacted to collapse dwarf tunnels and invade empire provinces, not build cities on worms and poo poo I agree, but worm world is still pretty loving rad. It should be its own setting for its own story, if you ask me. It would be an excellent setting for something other than Warhams.
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Mar 17, 2017 06:04
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Atlas Hugged posted:No one ever made the claim that game quality couldn't or shouldn't matter to people playing casually. If we go all the way back to what caused this little tangent, we were talking about 40k 2e, a game with broken mechanics and little balance, and said that it was not ideal to be played competitively, but that playing it casually presented less problems, but it was still frustrating and tedious. I've also said several times in this thread, the AoS thread, the Warhammer thread, and the Special Games thread that if you and your friends are going to get into a game, then you might as well get into a good one because it will improve the overall experience. So why you think I said that quality is completely irrelevant to casual gamers I'm not sure. Atlas Hugged posted:Ultimately I think we agree on this at least. Whether or not you win or lose is irrelevant in a competitive, non-tournament setting and in a casual setting so long as you enjoyed the experience. However, enjoying the experience is going to mean different things to different people. In a competitive setting, I'm not going to enjoy the experience if the game has lovely mechanics, and for me competitive can be a 1v1 game against a friend of mine on a Tuesday evening. But you asked why people tend to say balance and mechanics matter more in tournaments/competitive settings and I gave several examples and scenarios where I felt that was the case. *well, not everybody, since people like all kinds of weird things. but competitive and non-competitive players alike Atlas Hugged posted:I guess I'm the one left scratching my head because I watch movies I don't enjoy all the time because the point of the activity isn't to bask in the glow of the movie but to be with people I enjoy being around. When it's my turn to pick, of course I go for the better movie, but it's not always my turn and the social aspect trumps my taste because I'd rather watch a bad movie with good friends than not see my friends. Now, I'm not going to go out of my way to watch a bad movie just to watch the bad movie, and likewise I'm not going to go show up at a Warhammer store on AoS night to play with people I don't know just to play a lovely game.
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Mar 17, 2017 06:10
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o good, now were to the point of the dumb argument where theyre breaking posts up in to parts to create even more lame arguments so it spirals even further into whothefuckcaaares!
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Mar 17, 2017 06:45
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:you were making the imo pretty bad recommendation that 2e 40k is fine if you're not looking to be competitive, which is how it came up My recommendation was that it was frustrating and tedious and maybe not worth playing but if you are aware of that hey go ahead and then maybe try the same armies in Firefight to see the differences. But otherwise I think you're talking nonsense and I'll just agree to disagree with you so that we can make room for monthly Star Wars chat.
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Mar 17, 2017 07:57
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Atlas Hugged posted:My recommendation was that it was frustrating and tedious and maybe not worth playing but if you are aware of that hey go ahead and then maybe try the same armies in Firefight to see the differences. Can we not have monthly star wars chat? Can we make it, like, quarterly star wars chat, or once every six months star wars chat? I mean, unless we're talking about the board games this time or whatever, like Imperial Assault or something? (Is IA a good game, goons?)
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Mar 17, 2017 09:39
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Chill la Chill posted:Uh it's called Vespene gas. There's an entire lore built around the fierce competition for this material built over the last 20 years. Cadia should have constructed additional pylons.
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Mar 17, 2017 09:57
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mcjomar posted:Can we not have monthly star wars chat? Can we make it, like, quarterly star wars chat, or once every six months star wars chat? I mean, unless we're talking about the board games this time or whatever, like Imperial Assault or something? (Is IA a good game, goons?) I wasn't actually interested in talking about Star Wars, just commenting that we were having an actual conversation on game design and game theory and recommending games in a thread about games but someone complained about that fact so hey, Star Wars.
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Mar 17, 2017 10:08
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Atlas Hugged posted:I wasn't actually interested in talking about Star Wars, just commenting that we were having an actual conversation on game design and game theory and recommending games in a thread about games but someone complained about that fact so hey, Star Wars. Eh, true. For my part, I'm mostly interested in a combination of reasonably interesting rules and good background (or something approximating that). Battletech, for me, is clunky and slow, but still has potential to throw interesting experiences my way, and unlike modern 40k, it's clear when something is or isn't wrong 98% of the time. I can play it, and have to work and try to out-think and out-predict my opponent, even while fighting the dice as well. And for me it's more interesting than, say, chess, purely because it involves abstracted large stompy robit destruction. On the flip side, Mordheim and Necromunda are nice for TLOS and small scale, but in the case of the former, shooting as reiklanders often felt ineffective due to the way GW wrote their hit/wound/save/OOA mechanics, and random rolls in the after battle phase can really screw you over. But campaigns with fantasy/sci-fi gang warfare are still fun and good, even if the rules do need an overhaul. Both sets of games have campaigns, though whether or not they're good depends on your preference for varying levels of mind numbing detail vs the "lolrandom" factor of GW design. This is why I think 2nd ed should have evolved a little differently. 3rd ed streamlined things, which on the one hand is great if you're looking for a faster paced game. However, as more editions of that design style rolled on, we got more entrenched with the whole "first turn carves up a chunk of your army, and if you don't know what you're doing you've already lost from that point on". 6th and 7th just added to the weight of that painful design with the super heavies, fliers, gargantuans, and other obnoxious stuff which just further highlights how that style of game can get increasingly lovely. 2nd ed still had a lot of lolrandom at the higher levels of gameplay (1500 points, and all the Dark Millennium stuff) based on what I've read/seen so far, including batreps. But if you carved that shite out, and got rid of most of Dark Millennium, it began to get manageable (as I understand it?). I think that's the design space they should have taken forwards, rather than the oversized, overhyped monster it has become (this is why I was asking, as I'd like to play it to get personal experience, and hopefully have some fun with it, rather than rely on second-hand information). Frankly, 2nd ed evolved with design tips from infinity, and other sources (I've not read warpath or firefight so I'll have to take your word on that one) would likely have potential to be an unterrible version of 40k, as I've increasingly come to like the ARO and d20 style of infinity, along with the IGOUGO of Battletech initiative, vs 40k's "my turn I wipe out half your force, good luck ~noob~". I do prefer (for smaller games) the cover system of things like Necromunda reducing your chance to hit, however, although I do admit the silhouette system from Infinity is much clearer and cleaner. Perhaps a combination of those two things would be preferable. I'd also want to remove some of the more lovely "make a roll or gently caress you" systems from 40k or similar systems, because those things existing merely to gently caress the player over is not interesting game design, and just shafts the player good and proper for picking units they like (yes I'm taking a hard jab at the 40k Gets Hot rules as my primary example here, but there's a lot more lovely examples just like it). There are no interesting decisions there, just an excuse to gently caress the player over for making the "wrong" choice (see: making a 'choice' between Grav and Plasma in the current meta). And yes, the previous discussion on the removal of the wound roll vs the save roll (etc etc) to streamline the "bucket'o'dice" stupidity, and allow players to feel like they have a real effect on the battle is a good idea too. I would also suggest adding in things like flanking having an effect, but that would probably be re-introducing too much detail all over again (unless it was considered a purely optional rule or something?). But for all that, 2nd ed had some things which made sense purely from a background perspective. Things like Terminators having an unterrible armour save (but needing to be at least twice as expensive as they actually were), or like tactical squads actually being able to split fire properly in 2nd ed, rather than half your squad holding fire to play cheerleader while the rocket dude tries to kill a vehicle in 3rd ed. poo poo like that is why 40k should have been a smaller game, and GW should have pushed epic for the big "apocalypse" style poo poo. maybe at 15mm rather than 6 or 8 if they really wanted to attract attention from the painters.
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Mar 17, 2017 10:57
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From what I've read of Firefight (I still haven't played it), it takes a lot of what people actually liked about the streamlining in 3e and then takes it into a modern game with sensible mechanics. For instance, it has an activation system much more akin to Battletech, which is hilarious given that Battletech is from the loving 80s but now basically every modern game not made by GW uses that approach. You can split fire between weapons and even ammunition types, so a squad with four missile launchers can have two fire armor piercing missiles at a tank and two fire blast weapons at some infantry. Stats are target numbers rather than values to be cross referenced on a chart, most units are purchased as a set number but things like core troops can be expanded with additional troops, and force organization itself is loose with only a few restrictions. As of right now, there's nothing really at all like the psychic phase, but it does have a unique orders mechanic that you have a limited resource pool to trigger and is based on what commanders you have in the field.
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Mar 17, 2017 11:26
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I'm not yet entirely convinced about order pools. While it works in a way for infinity, the one thing I'm not wild about is the idea that the rest of your army becomes cheerleaders for the big units to go on a crazy rampage. Similarly, I've seen a few other games, where you can only operate one or two units a turn rather than the entire force moving and reacting as appropriate - the worst offender I can recall being the WizKids Age of Destruction game for MechWarrior, where players not only were forced to operate one or two units per turn, but were also penalised for doing so too often to prevent the cheerleader issue. Stuff like that where control of your own dudes is taken away from you, or curtailed (where in Battletech, or most GW games you can at least give every guy in your army an order, even if it's just "sit there and wait") bothers me on a gut level. In a gaming arena where things are abstracted, it seems a little too arbitrary to me, even if it's done for the sake of abstraction or balance, and I keep thinking "there must be a better way". On the other hand, I do like the idea that your unit leader or commander or whatever actually has more of an effect on a battle outside of merely being another HQ choice like in GW games. In infinity it matters if you lose your leader, for example, and I like that that's a thing, even if I'm not sure what the right way to represent that actually is. Similarly I like the idea that your choice of leader can affect your ability to claim initiative, or alter what orders you give to your troops, or something along those lines. It means that they actually have a reason to be on the tabletop, to a lesser or greater extent.
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Mar 17, 2017 11:53
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I just didn't describe the order mechanic in Firefight properly. In Firefight, you can play the game without order pools at all. It would then be basically like Battletech. I give a unit an order, you give a unit an order, back and forth until all units have activated. What the order pool allows you to do is to declare that you'll be doing a special order and then you take dice from your pool and roll to see if the order is successful. If it is unsuccessful, it may or may not use up your activation depending on the order you gave. Some orders will let you move multiple units at a time or take additional activations before your opponent can respond. If you roll really badly, your opponent gets a chance to give his own order.
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Mar 17, 2017 12:03
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Okay I'd probably have to play a few games of that to get the hang of it I think. It seems interesting. Reminds me a little of the Orders system for Imperial Guard that GW tried.
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Mar 17, 2017 12:29
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Re: Order Pools I like the activation system in Pulp City a lot. It's a superhero skirmish game with maybe four to six full fledged heroes/villains per side and maybe a few additional robots/minions/etc. You get a pool of action points and alternating activation of minis. Actions have different costs from 1 AP for just punching someone to 4 or 5 for a big AoE signature move. Each mini also has a limit on how many AP it can spend a round. Some figures might spend their whole allowance in a single activation to walk and set of their nuke, others might activate multiple times for weaker attacks and/or utility powers. Per activation a mini can oerform up to two actions and there's a system similar to long order/short order determine what action you can combine with others. All in all, i really liked that game but it suffered from a terrible local distributor and died out when no one could actually buy it for several months.
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Mar 17, 2017 12:55
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I know Orders are a completely different thing, but it just reminded me of the Doctrine rules that Imperial Guard had in at least one book. Did they drop that forever like the custom Tyranid stuff or was that folded into Formations?
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Mar 17, 2017 12:59
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I think the Doctrines (you mean stuff like some Guard having Move Through Cover, while others had Grenadiers, etc right?) stuff only came up during... what, 4th? 5th? Then it vanished, and the most you can see of what's left of it is in the use of Veterans paying for upgrades for an IG Veteran squad. A far cry from 2nd ed where you can apply a veteran upgrade to almost any IG squad to give a bonus for a set points cost. Things like improving your melee in certain terrain, or improving your to-hot rolls under certain circumstances, etc.
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Mar 17, 2017 13:25
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What 40K needs is simultaneous turns with pre-battle plans, written orders, and actions/time taken to change orders. I mean it doesn't need that at all, but it's not like throwing that level of groggery in would automatically be bad. Might need a referee but I'm sure two players could work it out between themselves.
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Mar 17, 2017 14:02
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Atlas Hugged posted:But otherwise I think you're talking nonsense and I'll just agree to disagree with you so that we can make room for monthly Star Wars chat.  Check out this fine piece of Wookiee technology was previewed to the x-wing community: The Auzituck Gunship. Meet the new EU, same as the old EU:  Let's take a closer look:  This thing was in one scene of the Rebels cartoon. It's not too offensive as far as EU designs go. Heck, it even looks like the Hind. But you see that little layout above with nothing pointing to the middle of the body? That's because it's made of wood. It's glued together by sap. That's right, some EU fanboy decided it would be really cool and good to describe Wookiees as having such superior technology and woodworking skills that this thing is held together by wood and sap. 
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Mar 17, 2017 14:04
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90s Cringe Rock posted:What 40K needs is simultaneous turns with pre-battle plans, written orders, and actions/time taken to change orders. Honestly, I could see some sort of idea like this working, in much the same way as TacOps or StratOps does for Battletech. A bunch of interesting rules that add depth to the game, but you aren't strong-armed into playing if you just want to hurl toy soldiers at your opponent.
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Mar 17, 2017 14:21
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Chill la Chill posted:Thanks for the segue. Earlier this week, the next wave of ships was announced for the x-wing game: It was cool when Hyperion did the tree spaceship thing. This, not so much.
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Mar 17, 2017 14:33
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It's just referencing Joss Whedon's true vision for Alien 3. Actually, wasn't the ship in Urth of the New Sun made of wood?
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Mar 17, 2017 14:37
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Ashcans posted:It was cool when Hyperion did the tree spaceship thing. This, not so much. True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen agrees
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Mar 17, 2017 14:58
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GW already knows how to do good activation systems, Epic Armageddon exists
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Mar 17, 2017 15:20
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Thirsty Dog posted:GW already knows how to do good activation systems, Epic Armageddon exists But hasn't been supported for a decade, and now we're getting "Adeptus Titanicus" as a Heresy era replacement sometime in the near future, like in the next few months supposedly. But if they've done it before, it would be nice if they did it again.
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Mar 17, 2017 15:36
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My favourite thing about Adeptus Titanicus is that 6mm and 10mm are out there so let's make it 8mm. I guess theres that Travel Battle game too now but other than that i'm not aware of anything.
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Mar 17, 2017 15:44
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mcjomar posted:But hasn't been supported for a decade, and now we're getting "Adeptus Titanicus" as a Heresy era replacement sometime in the near future, like in the next few months supposedly. Of course it's been supported! It's had regular army list updates, major playtests, cool offshoot stuff created, expansion books released, and even entire new ranges of models designed to bring old armies up to modern standards! Just, you know... not by GW.
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Mar 17, 2017 16:10
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