|
StashAugustine posted:Yeah what I mean is more that the game is very fun in the best or even the average case but the worst case really sucks, which is kinda problematic in a campaign game. But very much agreed the rules are infinitely more playable than 40k Why do you play campaign games if having your best guy snap his loving neck after tripping isn't the experience you want?
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 03:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 00:23 |
|
|
Lovely Joe Stalin posted:Blood Bowl is the second best game GW ever made. What's the first?
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 09:07
|
|
|
GorkaMorka, obvio
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 09:11
|
|
|
Major Isoor posted:Pah, clearly you're one of those weird people who just can't take a game with a high 'random factor' and enjoy it for what it is, as Blood Bowl is a great game. You need to fully embrace the chaos! the random factor is the least of the reasons it sucks rear end tbh Ballbot5000 posted:GorkaMorka, obvio jesus christ
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 09:11
|
|
|
Angry Lobster posted:What's the first? Adeptus Titanicus is the way and the truth and the life.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 10:17
|
|
|
Ballbot5000 posted:GorkaMorka, obvio This is the only right answer, but in Orktober, it's definitely the only right answer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 11:09
|
|
|
Safety Factor posted:Blood Bowl is a beautiful game and I will not stand for this slander. Praise Nuffle. Not sure if this is a hot take, but from my experience of GW over the years I'd say their best game systems have always been their skirmish systems, or at least where neither player has no more than fifteen-to-twenty'ish at max models per side.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 11:39
|
|
|
Blooming Brilliant posted:Praise Nuffle. So what you are saying wh40k is good if both players play custodes?
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 11:53
|
|
|
Covermeinsunshine posted:So what you are saying wh40k is good if both players play custodes? This unfortunately requires people to play Custodes, a fate worse than death.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 11:54
|
|
|
Safety Factor posted:Blood Bowl is a beautiful game and I will not stand for this slander. Blod Bowl is a beautiful game... FOR ME TO POOP ON! ... I never found a local scene to play it with and my normal play group didn't want to give it a chance when I had a copy. My only experience has been the computer games.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 11:58
|
|
|
kill team lets you play orks AT is cool too, I just wish it didn't cost a million dollars. nobody wants to play it except people with a 3D printer
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 12:05
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:kill team lets you play orks Absolutely untrue. It is on the pricy side for a Specialist Game but nothing close to a full sized 40k army and tons of people have multiple of those. It does seem expensive, but either one of the later starter boxes are like 80 percent or more of a force. Unless you choose to go Warlord heavy it's pretty reasonable. And the rules are the best game GW has made. No hyperbole.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 12:12
|
|
|
a $150-200 starter being 80% of a force for one player is what i mean about it being a million dollars, yeah. and the kits were outrageous for one model, usually with build options sold separately.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 12:31
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:a $150-200 starter being 80% of a force for one player is what i mean about it being a million dollars, yeah. and the kits were outrageous for one model, usually with build options sold separately. The Imperial Guard combat patrol is like $160 for less than 400pts. I don't play AT, but got a ton of AT models for epic and they are amazing. The level of detail and dynamic poses possible, as well as the wealth of 3d printable custom parts makes them a ton of fun to build and paint. They absolutely are expensive, but are good value for a GW product. I should really try the game, I have enough titans lying around.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 12:44
|
|
|
Blooming Brilliant posted:Praise Nuffle. No way, this isn't just some hot take - it's the absolute truth! Lovely Joe Stalin posted:Adeptus Titanicus is the way and the truth and the life. Also this - AT and BB are great. I haven't played the current iteration of KT (since doesn't that version still fail to include ogryns? Blasphemy!) but the previous one was pretty drat fun, too
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 13:15
|
|
|
Titanicus rules. I'll echo that it's GW's best game and I've had some of my favorite tabletop experiences ever with it. You don't even mind when it's your titan that gets killed because something funny is probably about to happen. As far as price goes, AT is one of those games where you can build a 2k force and comfortably stop there. The same titans can work in a number of different maniples which can considerably change how they play. With Legio Solaria I've been pretty good with a warlord, a reaver, and four warhounds with some knights as additional/optional support. Not saying I don't own more titans (I definitely do), but that core force has been enough for every game I've played with more than a few viable maniple options. You'll probably want some resin weapons from FW, but even that's limited in scope and a little magnetization goes a long way. The warlord is the chassis that needs them the most and one or two will round out your options pretty nicely. They're hardly necessary for the warhounds or reavers and the plastic kits cover a wide range. The warhounds are even about to get another weapon sprue. 3D printing is not required in any way. The kits themselves are excellent and the models are great canvases for painters. The level of hobby in the AT community tends to be very high. Painting a warlord is a chore with all of its trim, but it is absolutely worth it when you see it all come together. I love tiny titans.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 14:21
|
|
|
AT is great. Had a game just last week with someone else also sad about not having Epic yet, and wanted to scratch that itch by fighting a Warmaster instead. It was the only survivor In related news, we are finally getting tiny land raiders! 
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 15:01
|
|
|
Angry Lobster posted:What's the first? Warhammer Underworlds. GW even agrees right there on the box: "The Ultimate Competitive Miniatures Game"
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 17:04
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:the random factor is the least of the reasons it sucks rear end tbh Nah blood bowl is a masterpiece of top quality game design and I say this coming dead last in my current league due to some failed crucial GFI's. Dungeon Bowl is pretty good too, I still think Dungeon Bowl would be better as a variant if it was much easier to kill everyone because I've only ever played 4p dungeon bowl and boy does it turn into a slog
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 17:56
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:did you have your heart set on playing poxwalkers? because there's no reason you couldn't play plague marine models as mono nurgle legionaries or durable/whatever intercessors Yeah buy your Death Guard and paint them, but then in play just use the rules for Intercessors tuned to being hard to kill. The guys on Mountainside Tabletop did that to get a close-enough World Eaters warband once; look like Khorne Marines, use melee aggro Chapter Tactics.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 18:37
|
|
|
Blood Bowl is a fantastic implementation of a "push your luck" game design. Many people have bad experiences with it either because they do not recognize that this is the core of the game design, or, because they cannot resist... pushing their luck, over and over, which has guaranteed bad outcomes. Blood Bowl only vaguely resembles american football, but it has this subtle commonality with that game - do you "go for it on 4th" or do you punt? Some NFL teams push their luck more on 4th down (and build for it) but no team goes for it on 4th and 15 unless the game is on the line, because they know they'll usually fail. American football is, for most of the game, about cutting your losses and temporarily giving up, but trying to do so in a way that forces your opponent to do the same a few plays later. If you're accustomed to playing tabletop minis games that reward maximal aggression, you may find Blood Bowl confusingly punitive and weird. "When I try hard to win, I always lose? WTF?" You need to kind of seriously grok the fundamentals of probability. Even if you're only going for 5/6 success rolls, you have to expect to fail one in six of those on average, and maybe three in a row occasionally. At the same time, when you're down a score and the clock is running out, you have to balance taking big risks to win this game, vs. keeping your players healthy for the next. When you embrace this fundamental game design, you're still faced with the typical Games Workshop imbalanced force thing where some teams are just joke teams and some are serious and some are dominant. That's also potentially offputting. But I think most people who dislike Blood Bowl aren't just mad that their hobbits suck compared to skaven, they're mad that the game is completely cold-blooded about making you pay for taking risks. But that's what makes it so good. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Oct 12, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 18:53
|
|
|
Angry Lobster posted:What's the first? It's clearly Warmaster.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:00
|
|
|
Spacefarers, everything since then was all downhill.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:12
|
|
|
I’m thinking about getting into Heresy because my brain is too broke attempting current 40k. It’s not about to change rule sets is it?
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:14
|
|
|
Blood Bowl has the aesthetics of a fun beer and pretzel game of fantasy American Football and is instead actually a game about order of operations and minimising risk while still getting hosed by RNG. It can genuinely be one of the most frustrating games to play, particularly in campaign mode where a few bad turns can collapse multiple games worth of progress. I know I came up (circa 1998) trying to play humans in a league where I'd probably have to play multiple Dwarf teams, or one turn touchdown Skaven or people spamming fouls every turn. It can be very rough if you aren't eased in and taught how to handle things like the cage. This is all while GW would periodically try to add more randomness to the game with the community revolting in response. I'm still not sure if its a well designed game or not or if the community has curated the rules to the point they are better balanced. It compels me though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:16
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Blood Bowl is a fantastic implementation of a "push your luck" game design. Many people have bad experiences with it either because they do not recognize that this is the core of the game design, or, because they cannot resist... pushing their luck, over and over, which has guaranteed bad outcomes. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:34
|
|
|
Crab Dad posted:I’m thinking about getting into Heresy because my brain is too broke attempting current 40k. Epic is just around the corner...
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:41
|
|
|
You can also try playing Goblins, where the goal is figuring out the stupidest possible ways to achieve victory. Although they were pretty badly hit by the last FAQ/Errata (Sneaky Git nerf made sense for how oppressive fouling could get, bomb fixing went a bit too far when increasing the cost of the most egregious Stars providing bomb issues could help), I still managed 4th in my previous league season thanks to fouls. Season ended when my ‘ooligan, lovely Dave, managed to avoid getting eaten by a troll (re-rolled Always Hungry!) and was then immediately tossed into the crowd.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:47
|
|
|
This last errata makes me think that someone at GW was personally slighted by a goblin at one point.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 21:49
|
|
|
Floppychop posted:This last errata makes me think that someone at GW was personally slighted by a goblin at one point. Part of me respects someone hating goblins that much. Like, even pre-nerfing they had the lowest win percentage, but drat. It was even worse before they did some corrections, because for a brief time, any armor break with a chainsaw would cause a turnover. The Sneaky Git change makes sense just for how great fouling is in 2020, and also because every team could do horrifying, nearly unstoppable removal via fouling and then retreat their fouler immediately to protect them. Still, goblins - and only goblins - should be able to use the original Sneaky Git rule.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 22:09
|
|
|
Crab Dad posted:I’m thinking about getting into Heresy because my brain is too broke attempting current 40k. Since I know resin is a bugbear for a lot of people, the plastic range is to the point now that you really only need FW for the legion specific units and characters. Basic infantry is pretty much covered with some outliers like breachers (I'm expecting a conversion kit to go with the new plastic mkIII) or veterans (kitbash the heck out of them). Vehicles are well represented and the dreadnoughts are completely covered with excellent kits. It is entirely possible to make a viable army out of generic plastic kits, but you'll lose some of that legion flavor that makes the game so appealing. The $300 box is still a great place to start. If you keep everything you can easily get 1750-2000 points out of it and depending on your legion you may be able to convert the terminators to make a unique unit. A special or heavy weapon box will also open up options for all the mkVI infantry. Safety Factor fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Oct 12, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 22:09
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:This is the only right answer, but in Orktober, it's definitely the only right answer. I'm working on converting mounted muties right now so that I can play another game of Gorkamorka in, uh, probably 2025.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 06:31
|
|
|
dmnz posted:It's clearly Warmaster. Warmaster is an amazing game indeed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 09:29
|
|
|
Virtual Russian posted:The Imperial Guard combat patrol is "it's moderately cheaper than 40K" is agreeing with me, not disagreeing spartans, ACKTUALLY, but it does seem odd they haven't mentioned land raiders yet. TheDiceMustRoll posted:Nah blood bowl is a masterpiece of top quality game design strongly disagree it takes for-loving-ever to play. it is realistic that players will spend as long as it takes to play an actual game of football as it will to finish a single match, if every turn is one that involves actual decisions. this is especially so if the match is a league game and thus involves inducement purchases and after-match bookkeeping. this is not an inherently terrible thing but it is going to make a lot of the later problems worse. the game is random in a way that is often frustrating, because it incentivizes many high-% tests in sequence, creating a low-% success chain that is not obviously a low-%. this causes poor play to often appear to be failing due to getting "diced," making it both harder to learn to play better and creating bad feeling. this bad feeling is heightened by the fact that your turn immediately ends, so you have plenty of time to brood on your bad luck while your opponent takes their turn, performing actions that pile insult onto injury. this odds management is the heart of the game and a large part of the appeal, but it aggravates some other concerns and isn't an obvious part of the game on a cursory glance. this is not sold as "the high-stakes game of odds management" but "the goofy football parody of elves and orcs and ogres where sometimes the ball is actually a grenade." the sports aesthetic confuses as much as it enhances. knowledge of football or rugby is as likely to confuse as it is enlighten because many terms are re-used to mean something entirely different from what they mean in one of the corresponding sports. "turnover", "block", "blitz", and "foul" are particular offenders. this unnecessarily limits the appeal of the game, both in that people think they have to like football to play fantasy football, and in that football fans just get a confusing funhouse mirror game. the game strongly incentivizes creating frozen game states to pass time or farm opponents. this problem is poison and one of the reasons i think blood bowl is completely irredeemable. slower teams often want to stop progressing toward scoring to deny offensively-oriented "agility" opponents the ability to participate in the game at all. alternately, in league play, if a team is damaged badly enough that they cannot interfere with scoring, there's a strong incentive for the opponent to damage the weaker team even worse while fiddling around with pointless passes or handing off the ball to players who can barely pick it up. some of this is crudely patched with house-rules-turned-official but there's still the incentive to seek whatever the weak spot is in your "delay of game" rules to delay the game. this aggravates and is aggravated by playtimes. there are many game states where one player is basically a passive observer, or best served not trying to affect the board state at all. again, just pure poison. if you have no plays that could affect the scoring at this point, oftentimes the best play is not to move anyone at all. again, another problem aggravated by playtimes. conceding from these game states is also discouraged in league play, since it deprives your opponent of the opportunity to farm you for skill points. these problems with mismatches are aggravated by poor balance overall. there are many versions of this: some teams are just bad, some teams were made wrong as a joke, some teams are strong early in a league and some are strong late in one, some teams are inherently frustrating to play into, etc. this is just typical wargame stuff but you also have the league rules where teams grow irregularly, based on how well you maximize various unintuitive methods of building up your guys. the tools for making up mismatches put the burden of navigating a dizzying array of confusing options on the player who is behind, increasing the cognitive burden on the player who's more likely to be the one inexperienced or discouraged to begin with. and if the game is a mismatch in practice, you are much more likely to end up in the toxic game states above. there's some other problems with blood bowl i could pick out, but those are the big ones. it's a really messy and limited cult game for a reason.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 09:48
|
|
|
i feel like i've made that blood bowl post a lot of times
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 09:56
|
|
|
NFL games are like 3.5 hours. Most Blood Bowl games I play are around 2 hours. Post-game bookkeeping is also pretty painless now that computers/smartphones exist. At its core BB is a risk management game. Most people I know that get mad at and hate BB are the ones that aren't comfortable with a failed roll meaning something bad happens, instead of most games where a failed roll means something good doesn't happen (eg: your guy just misses a shot instead of face-planting and potentially hurting himself).
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 10:41
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:i feel like i've made that blood bowl post a lot of times You definitely have, and as someone who has LOVED Blood Bowl in my relatively recent past, I now always appreciate reading it. I don't disagree with you on any important detail, and your analysis is exhaustive and thorough. I come out the other end still enjoying the game, but otherwise you're absolutely correct. Cease to Hope posted:this is not sold as "the high-stakes game of odds management" but "the goofy football parody of elves and orcs and ogres where sometimes the ball is actually a grenade." I think this line is a good summary. Squibsy fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Oct 13, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 10:50
|
|
|
I was comparing BB's playtime to an actual football match, not a televised match with lots of timeouts for advertising and commentary, so that's fair. But Blood Bowl is so punishing and narrow that even the proponents of it have a common reason why so many people don't like it. That's not something you should be able to say about "best game ever" material. Blood Bowl is a janky niche game with a devoted following, and I think once you've played dozens of matches of it and run leagues for multiple seasons you should be allowed to slander it whenever you want.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 11:07
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Blood Bowl is a fantastic implementation of a "push your luck" game design. Many people have bad experiences with it either because they do not recognize that this is the core of the game design, or, because they cannot resist... pushing their luck, over and over, which has guaranteed bad outcomes. The game forces you to push your luck. The high variance dice mechanics are tied to pretty much every meaningful thing you can do bar positioning (assuming you're not already in a tackle zone). You can "play it safe" in blood bowl and get turbo-hosed to an insane level because you do not have an option to not engage with the high risk / high variance decision making if you want to actually play the game and not just passively allow your opponent to walk into the end zone or beat you up (or both). Being able to take bigger risks in an already very risky game is not a push your luck game, and nor is it at all the reason why some people bounce off it. It's the opposite: it's the relatively high chance of failure when attempting to do almost anything that can aggravate some people, particularly when there's a potentially devastating cost to failure (again, all high variance) and when it can happen when simply trying to do the fundamentals of the game with no other choice and a limited number of ways to mitigate bad luck.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 11:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 00:23 |
|
|
Safety Factor posted:Since I know resin is a bugbear for a lot of people, the [Horus Heresy] plastic range is to the point now that you really only need FW for the legion specific units and characters. Basic infantry is pretty much covered with some outliers like breachers (I'm expecting a conversion kit to go with the new plastic mkIII) or veterans (kitbash the heck out of them). there are some other things missing from horus heresy's plastic line besides legion-specific toys or non-marine armies. melee guys in power armor are weirdly missing from the 30K plastic line. if you want melee guys who aren't terminators, scouts, or guys with bayonets, you're going to need to get them in resin or use 40K models. GW previewed a jump-pack assault squad but it's a while off, and they discontinued their only plastic 30K box set with footslogger chainsword guys (the old mk3 tactical squad) with no planned replacement. bikes and hover vehicles are also 40K or resin only. unhelpfully, GW just cancelled basically all of the corresponding plastic models for 40K. jetbikes are available in (expensive) plastic but everything else is a pain. many characters are going to involve kitbashing, 40K, or resin. a lot of the characters are just marines on a bigger base with one of the tools you can find on the 30K tactical squad sprues, like scanners or antennas, so they're no big deal. however, apothecaries, techmarines/forgelords/mortifactors, heralds (bannermen), and arguably moritats, librarians/esoterists, and vigilators are all not terribly practical to build using only plastic 30K models. if you can snap up the recently-cancelled Space Marine Company Command box set for 40K at a reasonable price, i recommend doing so.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2023 12:25
|
|