The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Rhoderic]

I think this is also why there was such a backlash against AoS.  If most of the decisions in WFB were in list building then what happens to the game if it doesn't have any army lists?

That's where I have conflicting thoughts about AoS. On the one hand, I'm very much into freeform-style games that focus on the crafting of narrative scenarios instead of list-building, points-based game balance and symmetric battles/skirmishes. So, that aspect of AoS does not offend me because frankly it's the sort of thing I like in a game. On the other hand, I find it very difficult to imagine that GW would want to shed its old customer base of list-building metagamers and powergamers in favour of "hippie" storyteller-gamers like myself (or "carebears" to borrow a term from the MMORPG scene). It just doesn't compute. Not with GW.

Add to that the fact that when GW destroyed the Warhammer world and made the AoS world in its place, their intention was clearly to make their proprietary fantasy setting more similar to 40K. This on the assumption that because 40K outsold WHFB by far, the obvious way to make their fantasy line sell better was to reshape it in the mould of 40K. So I really don't believe the story that AoS is an attempt by GW to replace its customer base with a different one.

And that raises the issue of how that existing customer base is going to approach AoS. Even if, for the sake of this discussion, we take AoS at face value to have been designed as a loosey-goosey, freeform, narrative-driven type of game, that's just not how the existing customer base will treat it. They'll find ways to bring back the competitive "tournament-style" aspect, the metagaming, the list-building, the powergaming and all the rest of that. Only it will be more messy in the absence of a game balance structure superimposed from the top down, which if anything is likely to make the prevailing mood and tone of the GW "core game" player community even more acrimonious, harsh and generally obnoxious than it is today.

[jon_1066]

That's where I have conflicting thoughts about AoS. On the one hand, I'm very much into freeform-style games that focus on the crafting of narrative scenarios instead of list-building, points-based game balance and symmetric battles/skirmishes. So, that aspect of AoS does not offend me because frankly it's the sort of thing I like in a game. On the other hand, I find it very difficult to imagine that GW would want to shed its old customer base of list-building metagamers and powergamers in favour of "hippie" storyteller-gamers like myself (or "carebears" to borrow a term from the MMORPG scene). It just doesn't compute. Not with GW.

Add to that the fact that when GW destroyed the Warhammer world and made the AoS world in its place, their intention was clearly to make their proprietary fantasy setting more similar to 40K. This on the assumption that because 40K outsold WHFB by far, the obvious way to make their fantasy line sell better was to reshape it in the mould of 40K. So I really don't believe the story that AoS is an attempt by GW to replace its customer base with a different one.

And that raises the issue of how that existing customer base is going to approach AoS. Even if, for the sake of this discussion, we take AoS at face value to have been designed as a loosey-goosey, freeform, narrative-driven type of game, that's just not how the existing customer base will treat it. They'll find ways to bring back the competitive "tournament-style" aspect, the metagaming, the list-building, the powergaming and all the rest of that. Only it will be more messy in the absence of a game balance structure superimposed from the top down, which if anything is likely to make the prevailing mood and tone of the GW "core game" player community even more acrimonious, harsh and generally obnoxious than it is today.

I suspect GW as an entity were not self aware enough to realise that most of the "game" in WFB was in the pre-game list building.  So they easily took a decision to not bother with points/competitive play since that is a lot of up keep (and therefore money) to stay on top of develop, play test, etc.

[Rhoderic]

I suspect GW as an entity were not self aware enough to realise that most of the "game" in WFB was in the pre-game list building.  So they easily took a decision to not bother with points/competitive play since that is a lot of up keep (and therefore money) to stay on top of develop, play test, etc.

Is it? I've always heard the GW rules design studio is run on a pittance.

[Elbows]

I agree fully that the 40K game itself as well is in the force creation, namely if you're planning on attending a tournament.  While I built my old Eldar lists for fluff and fun, I won perhaps 10% of the games I played over a 14 year span because of it.  But that truly is the game.  Listening to a podcast a little while ago about a big tournament in Australia it was pretty revealing.  The gentleman who attended and was running a team of 8-10 players spoke about the tournament much like you would a Magic the Gathering tournament.

His players agreed before hand to bring commonly used formulas (they had nicknames for the formulas too).  In addition, when they showed up, he stated that all of the teams brought an X-army, and Y-army, and Z-army.  Certain formulas were built to defeat other formulas and short of a dice disaster, they'd do so routinely.  While this is interesting and definitely a different side of the wargaming hobby, it's not for me.  I do remember crawling through my Codex trying to figure out cool combinations (not the best, but the coolest).

It was the cheesy/beardy/meta gaming stuff that inspired the way I build most of my games now.  They're built to the opposite end of the spectrum, full of random units, random equipment, random activation, and special cards intended to throw the game on its ear.  Everything that 40K/WHFB are not.  I don't criticize people who enjoy that stuff, it's just a wholly different type of game than what I really enjoy.

Nothing ruins a game for me more than mathematical impossibilities or assurances.  If, during a game where you must capture an objective, you realize on turn two you can't mathematically reach it with any of your units because of poor deployment - why bother finishing?  I really like there to almost always be a chance of something changing.  I guess, as much as I enjoyed 40K (more the painting/modeling/social aspects of it) back in the day, it really did forge what I like in wargames, which is EVERYTHING else. 

[jon_1066]

Is it? I've always heard the GW rules design studio is run on a pittance.

It's not just the design studio - it's the printing costs of codexes, inventory, play testing (if that actual occurs!), layout, and all the other ancillary things.  Without the points they don't need loss making codexes being released in order to sell models.  Just bang out a Warscroll and don't worry about balance.  A very easy decision for an accountant to make.

[nullBolt]

Is it? I've always heard the GW rules design studio is run on a pittance.

I think GW is the type of company to save a penny and somehow lose a pound.

[Major_Gilbear]

Nothing ruins a game for me more than mathematical impossibilities or assurances.  If, during a game where you must capture an objective, you realize on turn two you can't mathematically reach it with any of your units because of poor deployment - why bother finishing?  I really like there to almost always be a chance of something changing.

See, this is the true in the other extreme - why spend time trying to think and play tactically in a game if at the end it comes down to a 50-50 dice roll or a random table? Your decisions up to that point are rendered meaningless if you can instead just roll a dice a the beginning to determine who wins, shake hands, and spend your afternoon doing something else - you don't even need to learn rules or buy models for that.

A wargame lies somewhere between these two extremes. It needs enough randomness and rules permission to keep players in a game, without the players feeling like they have no control over their decisions. I think that if you are not going to have tons of special rules and combos, then you need a broader range of possible outcomes to differentiate the various units instead. You also need more opportunities for your models in a game, so that players can still have options and not be shut down early by their opponent or luck.

It's pretty difficult, but I think having too many uneeded army list options does make this an impossible thing to acheive. I also think that having deliberately broken stuff in an army book, and requiring players to invest several hundred pounds in models alone each, is a receipie for people have strong reactionary outbursts. You know, the kind that lead to the sort of behaviour that gets labelled as "That Guy".

Just bang out a Warscroll and don't worry about balance.  A very easy decision for an accountant to make.

I quite agree!

I think GW is the type of company to save a penny and somehow lose a pound.

Or that askes you spend a hundred pounds on a model, and then is surprised that they can't sell you enough models to make a profit.

"Don't scalp now what you can shave for years".  

[Cubs]

A wargame lies somewhere between these two extremes.

I must admit, even as a previously occasional browser of White Dwarf, I was taken aback to see the deliberately beardy articles, where various GW staff members would share their loopholes and guaranteed win secrets. Jebus guys, really?

It's not that the information wasn't out there (even more so, now that social media is so much more prevalent than back then), it's more that it was getting not only official sanction, but rather official encouragement!

I love writing lists for stuff. Not power-gaming, more just planning a nicely rounded force so I can react to different stuff and not just be a helpless spectator because I've overlooked something. It's also a good way of planning what to buy next.

[Elbows]

Major,

I agree that it's true in the other extreme.  I believe in the middle area theory as well.    That's what I strive for.

[Rhoderic]

Funnily I think that the "random chance" extreme can still provide for at least some enjoyment in a game. The preclusion of strategy and tactics may not be ideal, but at least you're still seeing a story play out on the tabletop, and you can still hope to be able to "roleplay" your army a bit (having your Orc army behave "Orcy", and so on).

I see much less value in the opposite exteme, the "cold maths" extreme, which is why I'm a miniature wargamer even when most of my RL friends are more into strategic boardgames. What especially ruins a game for me is when other wargamers use mathematical impossibilities, assurances and statistical probabilities with the ruthless, logical persistence of a card-counter at a blackjack table, and expect their opponents to do the same, lest they be ruining the game by behaving like "carebears". Even when they're trying to be helpful, they often detract from the game for me. "Oh, that's a bad army list you've built. Not competitive at all. Here, let me fix that for you...". Seriously, back when I played WHFB and 40K, there were times when other players would - unbidden! - try to re-write my army lists for me, and think they were helping me have more fun by doing so. Such is the prevailing culture around the GW core games, and I don't see AoS being able to somehow "cure" that.

The ideal for me still lies between the two extremes, but closer to one extreme than the other.

[Vermis]

Although it could be tedious to have a whole second meta-game of list-building (especially if you just want to play a quick, fun, fair game), it was a big part of GW's games. It also provided a structure for players to plan what they wanted to buy and model next for their forces.

The main problem I have with GW is that their flagship game is totally uninteresting to play.  As a game it is very much showing its age.  The decision points within the game are so few and far apart that it has principally become all about the meta-game.  That is the game is mostly played out in selecting your force and once they hit the table you see how it did and tweak your list accordingly.  ie most of the meaningful decisions are made before and after the battle.

Jon's answer is pretty much how I wanted to respond. (Also agreed with Nullbolt, Elbows, Rhoderic, and yourself, Gilbear) There's a place for both strategy and tactics, but GW's core two became too much about stategy in the form of listbuilding.
40K was eventually like a wind up toy to me. Put in all the effort winding up, writing the list, then let it go to run itself. Warhammer was a bit better, 'cos it still had the likes of flank attacks making manoeuvre important, but only a bit. Towards the end I think that might've been whittled away by all the monsters, big spells, and the horde and steadfast rules needed to survive against them.
I still can't stand the fact that 'mathammer' became a thing, either: building units and lists based on the mathematical probabilities of how each option would perform against a standard, like 'MEQs'. (Marine Equivalent Units) Good thing it seems to have died down again, but maybe it only seems that way because I avoid any so-called 40K 'tactics' topics these days.

Case in point:

See, this is the true in the other extreme - why spend time trying to think and play tactically in a game if at the end it comes down to a 50-50 dice roll or a random table? Your decisions up to that point are rendered meaningless if you can instead just roll a dice a the beginning to determine who wins, shake hands, and spend your afternoon doing something else - you don't even need to learn rules or buy models for that.

I've heard of games in tournies where that happened without even a dice roll - the opponents simply looked at eachother's lists and decided it there and then. It's 40K, and Elbows' example of list formulas, taken to it's logical conclusion. It really was a game about listbuilding!

Even if, for the sake of this discussion, we take AoS at face value to have been designed as a loosey-goosey, freeform, narrative-driven type of game, that's just not how the existing customer base will treat it.

I don't know if there's enough stuff in it to spark off much narrative, scenario, quasi-RPG gaming. Granted, I haven't read many of the books (that would necessitate buying them), but reports don't sound promising (fantasy bolter porn) and there's this one official campaign download I've latched onto. It involves the tribes of the Oighear, who live on a snowy plane in the realm of Metal. All we know about the plane is that it's constantly wracked with snowstorms and covered in snow, except once every thousand years there's a... storm... that... covers the plane in snow... All we know about the Oighear is that they're shapeshifters, that conveniently look and behave like any models you have, and fight eachother after each millenial snowstorm.

There's such a thing as a sandbox setting, and then there's a desert.

Funnily I think that the "random chance" extreme can still provide for at least some enjoyment in a game. The preclusion of strategy and tactics may not be ideal, but at least you're still seeing a story play out on the tabletop, and you can still hope to be able to "roleplay" your army a bit (having your Orc army behave "Orcy", and so on).

The way I see it, the thing I enjoy, is being able to reduce the random factor through tactical choices. Even things like orc animosity in WFB. I'm not entirely sure if going much more random than that, or than basic stats, unit types and army structure, (like, say, the enormous list of effects for a Skaven screaming bell) is necessarily more 'orcy'. (or skaveny) I'd say your ability to 'roleplay' might be taken off you and acted out for you by such rules, too.
Anyway, it wouldn't be to my tastes.

[Dim_Reaper]

And that raises the issue of how that existing customer base is going to approach AoS. Even if, for the sake of this discussion, we take AoS at face value to have been designed as a loosey-goosey, freeform, narrative-driven type of game, that's just not how the existing customer base will treat it. They'll find ways to bring back the competitive "tournament-style" aspect, the metagaming, the list-building, the powergaming and all the rest of that. Only it will be more messy in the absence of a game balance structure superimposed from the top down, which if anything is likely to make the prevailing mood and tone of the GW "core game" player community even more acrimonious, harsh and generally obnoxious than it is today.

I really like this post, Rhoderic. However, I would assert more that GW's move and attitudes with this genre switch is more about hollow rhetoric and responsibility-dodging than it is about creating a new gaming experience. I view it much like the Finecast fiasco. I've come to expect it from GW. There is a possibility I'm paranoid, but I cannot escape the feeling that GW is motivated too often by cold sales and throws in a bit of "positive spin" that occurs by accident. Hence why I mention Finecast. The name is a bit of spin, reflecting the fact that resin has crisper details. But GW didn't move to resin for that reason (it's perfectly possible to make very good quality metal casts, just look at Rackham), it's blatantly obvious they moved because of the spike on metal costs, and thus were making a saving. They then decided that it absolutely had to be pitched as a 100% improvement.

It's GW's bloody-minded arrogance that cost them here. Other companies, upon moving to resin, were honest, and made some simple gesture to keep customers on board such as freezing the pricing for a while (as they made a saving on shipping anyway). This was further exacerbated by GW not only phasing out metal, on the proviso of launching a premium product, but unlike with, say, Hasslefree, this was not a choice, but the only option, and GW basically declared their resin the best in the industry. For the first 3 years of production, they proved just how full of shit they were. Utterly awful casting. I am still loath to pay for any resin product from GW and I boycotted the range for about 4 years. This was all because they simply had to make it look like something else that fitted with their over the top premium attitude, whilst typically, there was more corporate polish applied than any basic quality control. Even to this day, their resin sculpts are pathetically bad. I've ordered resin from a few other companies: Hasslefree, Infamy Miniatures (most recently), Khurasan, Maxmini, Puppetswar, and Kromlech. In every case their resin quality was massively better. Even a cheap budget resin company, like say Ramshackle Games manages to bypass bubbles and warping to a greater extent. Yet GW still act like their resin product is worth something. In fact, the range's launch coincided with a price rise, in spite of the fact that the first 6 months of casting was so bad that they received a massive amount of complaints and returns, an entirely justified Internet Flame Campaign that is still charring parts of BoLS, Warseer and Dakka, and led to stock companies such as Wayland games refusing to stock Finecast because it failed their quality control standards.

What has this got to do with AoS? Well it's exactly the same. End Times is about IP. They have decided to tighten and redefine their brand to be more distinctive, and easier to defend in terms of IP. GW are not entirely at fault, the British and US legal systems don't seem to help much (such as failing to encourage companies in seeking ethical solutions to problems) and thus Chapter House brought this about. Nevertheless, this is still classic GW spin. All of the Oldhammer fans lose out, and the only people who benefit are GW. Some fans also win entirely by accident if they happen to like the new product. But I don't think GW will give one remote toss whether they have to recruit an entirely new fanbase for the game, and they're certainly too far up their own arse to analyse if destroying a game so many invested years of their lives and imaginations into was a bad move.

GW like to go with hollow rhetoric and spin. They spend a lot of time talking of narrative wargames, of forging narratives, of arbitrary fun generators and gimmicky "cool" names. Or "McCool" names, because the names are awful. They don't actually care about that, them being awful simply ensures their being unique, and thus easier to aid the vindictive lawsuits and unrelenting persecution of any small fry company that so much thinks of even slightly diminishing their carefully crafted monopoly, which wouldn't be depressingly funny if it wasn't for the fact that in spite of all this effort, and indeed, often because of it, that they do more damage to their own commercial value than any bits company that most people haven't heard of until GW takes them to court.

Much of the reason why GW has removed the pricing, and army construction/balance elements is probably spite. They're criticised constantly for their awful writing (pretty much most of it being justified notwithstanding) and this is very likely a big "fuck you" in the direction of their critics. Most of whom, are or were fans. Quite an amazing feat, really. To make the people who want to love your stuff, utterly, utterly despise you. That kind of talent needs to be placed in a museum. It's been a few years since I had something that stupid to stare at.

I mean, GW do know they have to put something out. In a way, I half like their hands off attitude, and just wish they actually wrote less. That at least encourages fan alterations. My local GW's Manager has already let me write additional rules for campaigns (working on a Dogs of War system for January) and we've adopted a fan-made points system that includes important elements that make the game much more accessible for those with no clue of what is fair.

I just don't buy the idea that fundamentally unfair or imbalanced games are worth playing. Having read through the scenarios, I also don't feel very many of the objectives offer equal opportunity to an underpowered force. Even those that do, if you need scenarios specifically designed to try and make your game fair, there is something fucking fundamentally wrong with it. Any kind of game that has a "playing it any way other than this way is wrong" attitude is often adopted by systems that themselves are so flawed that they need these attitudes, and thus it seems to me an endeavour of defending poor design. It's why I've struggled to be part of the GW community for the last decade, and it's affecting my capacity to actually enjoy wargames.

Age of Sigmar's insistent but no help on balance approach reminds me of Inquisitor, a game for which I have no diminishing amount of loathing for. Age of Sigmar may have been intended as a new kind of game, but the term "Narrative Skirmish" is certainly more present in Inquisitor than here, and yet Inquisitor still failed to do this well, so you can imagine what that implies about AoS and 40k. It's just hollow rhetoric. The games don't tell much of a story.

What really gets me about this is I actually like the idea of Forging the Narrative, and playing Narrative focussed games. The problem is, GW just doesn't deliver. It's just an excuse for them, from having to do anything. Sure, players can intervene and try to enact that intention, but GW didn't do much with that intention other than put it in a word box as filler and to excuse the games from having much more substance above the level of their token filler. Given that GW have in recent years patronisingly and dogmatically controlled all aspects of gaming, they have bred generations of inept, socially awkward (and I mean more than usual) and positively self-centred, rude and abrasive gamers, who think winning is everything, rules shouldn't actually be read in the same way as the rest of their native language, and the only bit of sportsmanship you do is say "good game" after making their carefully built/painted and fluffy/themed army all but actually disintegrate from the gaming table.

To then replace all of that control, with effectively a wargaming construction kit with no instructions, or working tools. Thus the game presents the issue of playing games (and thus enacting their "narrative" focus on gaming) without any help is not only an utter cop out, but entirely unprofessional, completely ridiculous and hilariously pathetic. Especially when you consider that GW charges more than anyone else in the entire industry for rules to play their game. Me and a friend created our own 10mm wargame, got models casted (including the cost of making our own spin-moulds) and 4 factions printed off in less than the money that it costs me to update to a new edition for ONE faction in 40k. That's just rules, not models. And you can forget about AoS having free rules. There's already 3 hardback books out, and I doubt they're available for free (I presume the Seraphon is sufficiently different from the free Lizardman book).

If the narrative aspect was truly embraced, GW could do wonderful things with it. But GW are perfectly willing to palm off responsibility, but not to dish out power and influence to the player. If players want a narrative in 40k, they have to roll on arbitrary tables. Or in AoS pick scenarios that "tell the story", because the game certainly fucking wont. Yet it wouldn't take much to give the player the tools to build scenarios, to add narrative devices or modifiers that help customise their games. I've done that for a free ruleset I cannot hope to make money off. How the fuck has the biggest wargaming company in the industry failed to even consider it?

The fact is, GW is only interested in complete political and financial control of their aspect of the industry, and most likely the whole industry in general. They'll say and put out whatever helps them achieve it, even if that includes exaggeration or outright fabrication. They'll claim to support ideologies that they don't give one toss about, and they'll ultimately facilitate what makes them money: i.e. the same powergaming bullshit they've overemphasised since Andy Chambers departed with all the good ideas. There's little point expecting GW to do anything else. They're a basic corporate entity and that's all they'll ever be.

If video killed the radio star, the sales department killed the design studio. With Nagash's stupid fucking hat. In the billiard room.

It's pretty difficult, but I think having too many uneeded army list options does make this an impossible thing to acheive. I also think that having deliberately broken stuff in an army book, and requiring players to invest several hundred pounds in models alone each, is a receipie for people have strong reactionary outbursts. You know, the kind that lead to the sort of behaviour that gets labelled as "That Guy".

I know you weren't using it in this way, but I'm rather tired of the "That Guy" defence. It seems GW's attitude to balancing and writing is that it's not their problem, and anyone who takes it too far will be labelled "that guy" and wont get games. Quite a few of GW's defenders use it frequently, and I find it far too context dependent to be a sufficient excuse for GW's practices. It too often overlooks gaming communities where these sorts of quite cheesy, tailoring, and outright powergaming nonsense are not just tolerated, but normalised. A large part of GW's community has been that way for a very long time (I put a lot of blame on 5th and 6th Ed 40k for this) and I doubt it will improve any time soon.

It's not as if GW are consistent with this. As I say above (amidst... that... up there) they will throw in all sorts of powergaming bullshit if it sells the models they want to sell at that time. AoS is not divorced from this process, it's just barely got going. It wont take long either.

It does lead to a very controversial point to end on...

I honestly am on two minds on whether or not GW can fail. Of late it has led me to conclude that the entire industry depends on whether or not the Wargaming Community is sufficiently intelligent and of sufficient taste. Now, take this for someone too far in the GW bubble, but I worry that they don't. I have a very strong inclination, due to the fact that GW are still miles ahead of everyone else, that rules writing, and quality in terms of depth, options and fairness are just not things gamers care about, which as a writer of wargames myself, makes me want to jump off a bridge.

Hopefully I'll turn out to be wrong, and these are two very bad years for GW once the initial spending trend falls (I expect alongside the rising cost of AoS rules), and either they spring into action or start to sink under their own weight. It's harsh to wish it on them. But I've given them many, many chances, along with every other disenchanted fan.

P.S. Sorry for the rather partisan tone, but this has been on my chest for far too long.

TLDR: GW using narrative driven games is a misnomer. It's hollow rhetoric. GW is ultimately a corporate entity and is not interested in making good games, which any literate person has probably already noticed.

[Hobgoblin]

Funnily I think that the "random chance" extreme can still provide for at least some enjoyment in a game. The preclusion of strategy and tactics may not be ideal, but at least you're still seeing a story play out on the tabletop, and you can still hope to be able to "roleplay" your army a bit (having your Orc army behave "Orcy", and so on).

I agree. For me, one of the chief joys of miniature gaming is the unfolding story: "like a little film," as my son says. I love, for example, the way that in Song of Blades and Heroes, a goblin warband with the Gregarious rule can be tremendously effective until the leader is slain - at which point they become scattered and craven (if any remain on the table at all).

And shouldn't a wargame be, above all, a risk/reward gamble? Boldness might win you the game, but then again, it might not pay off. So, in the SBH example above, you get rewarded for keeping your leader close to the action, but with the risk that he'll get picked off. You could play it safe by keeping the leader back, but then your troops will be less effective. If you're clever, though, you might find ways of keeping him near the front but out of danger. And that's where much of the fun comes in.

[nullBolt]

Just flicking through the Khorne Daemonkin codex and I have to wonder: How the fuck is the company that puts out really good stuff like this capable of making trash like the rest of the rules?

Then again, there's a rumour going around that this codex was made in 24 hours so the question really is if GW's QA department just ruins everything that they get their hands on.

[Elbows]

Thought I'd interrupt my usual complaints about GW to post something I stumbled upon this morning (may be old news, dunno).  A gorgeous customized Knight by a fella.



From this blog post:

http://taleofpainters.blogspot.com/2015/04/showcase-space-wolves-themed-imperial.html

He did a crap-load of customization to it.  Really brings an old school epic feel.  It's a bit over the top, but for a Knight I can deal with it.