General's Handbook 2017 Announced

[rokapoke]

44 minutes ago, Jharen said:

Point costs, number restrictions on models, etc though should be an online, dynamic, easily adjusted and updated, part of the rules that can be modified as needed during the course of the year, available for free.  If GW was interested in keeping the balance of the game fluid and up to date based on the current metas etc, then this is what would work best.  Surely they have considered this option internally, but maybe they have reasons why they feel it's not a viable option for them.

Look at the community response to what GW is doing right now with this annual update. People are already furious about point changes and we don't know what they are yet. If GW goes to a "live updating" points system, then people will get all antsy that it takes two days to update something when they want it now. 

GW is in a can't win position. I agree that a constantly up-to-date database of point values would be great. They do indeed have the various tools to do it. But there are plenty of users even just within this site that don't have access to the apps (I've seen a number of people posting to that effect) and there are those among us that just plain like physically-printed materials. But I can't (personally) foresee GW ever switching to a living document for points.

I'm also rather convinced that GW never intended Matched Play to drive everything the way it certainly seems to. It seems to me that they've set up a phenomenal groundwork for a game that can be a lot of things. However, it is far from "balanced" at a tournament level, because GW is less concerned with tournament viability of every army and more concerned with making money. The problems with balance are not, the way I see it, GW's responsibility to fix. They're issues with the player base. If GW perfectly balanced the points for every unit and battalion (somehow), then the folks who are maxing out on the "underpointed" units in the current system will just do tricky stuff with their dice or something else to "solve" the game. "Win despite your opponent have no fun" is a disease and GW can't cure it for the community.

[wayniac]

6 minutes ago, Auticus said:

I don't see how they don't know that matched play would drive everything.  Pretty much everyone on every forum or fb group came to the conclusion that as soon as GHB came out last year that matched play would be the only mode that a giant swathe of people would use.  If I had a dollar for every person I hear or write "the other stuff in GHB might as well not exist" I'd buy GW.

You forgot that AOS was largely panned pre-GHB precisely because there was no points/balance, that was basically the most common complaint (with a few about the "joke rules").  So yeah.. I agree.  I don't get how they couldn't have thought it would take over everything else.

[someone2040]

1 hour ago, rokapoke said:

Look at the community response to what GW is doing right now with this annual update. People are already furious about point changes and we don't know what they are yet. If GW goes to a "live updating" points system, then people will get all antsy that it takes two days to update something when they want it now. 

GW is in a can't win position. I agree that a constantly up-to-date database of point values would be great. They do indeed have the various tools to do it. But there are plenty of users even just within this site that don't have access to the apps (I've seen a number of people posting to that effect) and there are those among us that just plain like physically-printed materials. But I can't (personally) foresee GW ever switching to a living document for points.

I'm also rather convinced that GW never intended Matched Play to drive everything the way it certainly seems to. It seems to me that they've set up a phenomenal groundwork for a game that can be a lot of things. However, it is far from "balanced" at a tournament level, because GW is less concerned with tournament viability of every army and more concerned with making money. The problems with balance are not, the way I see it, GW's responsibility to fix. They're issues with the player base. If GW perfectly balanced the points for every unit and battalion (somehow), then the folks who are maxing out on the "underpointed" units in the current system will just do tricky stuff with their dice or something else to "solve" the game. "Win despite your opponent have no fun" is a disease and GW can't cure it for the community.

I don't think any of the issues you raise can't be solved in a digital system.

You can make it a quarterly update rather than something that can happen at any time to solve people getting antsy about it.

You can publish the points in a free pdf rather than relying on apps/warscroll builder for the updated points. And people can print said pdf. There's no excuse for being completely removed from anything digital in this day and age.

Quarterly is probably too frequent to update. The big difference between something physical and with so many models like AoS and a digital game like a MOBA is cost of investment. It's a huge investment to build, paint and play an Age of Sigmar army. It's not such a huge investment to buy a digital game, or a hero within a digital game.

I wouldn't want to have an idea for an army, start said army, and before I even finish it, find out that the army has been changed or nerfed into the ground. Would be pretty unappealing. But it's a lot more reasonable to do in a MOBA, because I can just drop $5-10 on a different character (or maybe not even have to drop any additional money at all), but it does cost me time to re-learn a new Hero if I want to be at the top of my game.

 

Perhaps, a good middle ground would be that the Generals Handbook becomes the official points for the year, but a balance update or 'trial' points are dropped in January. Build upon what they did last February in releasing Trial Points, but release something that addresses more than just two factions. So it's not so much a sneak peak at a few things, but a list of all things that are truly on their radar.

You could perhaps even argue, that the Trial points didn't care that much about balance, in so much as nerfing a compendium army they can't make money on anymore and raising the ability of a newer army they can... But... that would just be overly cynical right?

[Mirage8112]

To be fair, almost nobody at my local plays points (except for me, but only because I often ask for pointed matches so I can get an idea of how a 2k point army can be expected to accomplish on the tabletop). It's almost all open play with some skirmish.

[RuneBrush]

Reading through the more recent posts, one thing that strikes me is that quite a few of you play with people who are either unable to gauge what units/lists/armies/abilities fall into the "powerful to the point of not being counterable or fun to play against" or simply don't care.  Since joining TGA this is something I've observed more and more and am curious if it's something new or if it's always been there, but hidden away?  I can recall my first game (pre-GHb) and the discussion with what we'd each do to try and balance our forces for the next game, this seems to be pretty uncommon now that we're all working to a points scheme.

8 hours ago, Jharen said:

My opinion is that the annual GHB are a good idea being executed in a bad way.   We live in the age of digital media, and GW needs to come more to grips with that.  We have the power to send and receive updates in the blink of an eye and yet that power isn't being used at all.  Instead what we're being given is a printed version of points and rules that once on paper is hard to correct because it's out there, people have spent money on it, and it's difficult to justify changing too much of something someone just purchased from your company.  I understand they need to sell stuff, and physical products have a certain appeal to a section of their market.  I think they just need to find a better middle ground.

I'm not sure digitising this would be a massive benefit and would very quickly become a mess, we're already seeing this on updated warscrolls where there isn't any form of version control.  It would be a logistical nightmare to try and have a living points system - the Thursday before you're due to play a game and your army is suddenly under strength because GW has dropped 20 points off your battleline units, or bumped up the cost of a behemoth meaning you're having to drop something to fit them in.  TO's would need to take a copy of the points at a specific date and get people to build lists based on that.

An annual publication also allows GW to recoup the cost that's gone into changing those points - I'm sure we'd all be shocked at how much time GW staff put into this process.

Also, I'm going to be "one of those people".  I like a hard-copy book, I like the option to sit on my sofa and flick between pages without needing a wire plugged in.  I like the ability to bring a £15 book with me to a game rather than a £350 tablet and yes, this is coming from somebody who has made a career out of working on a computer.

[Nico]

Nothing worse than having to watch your battery icon on your device in the middle of game 3 of the first day of a tournament. I use the app primarily for the enemy armies rather than my own. 

That said I am astonished by how the Order Grand Alliance book weighs more than two whole armies.

[wayniac]

To be fair though, I thought one of the biggest benefits of the approach they went with for AOS (and later chose NOT to do for 40k...) was having all the warscrolls online.  It meant they could easily do like Privateer Press (and probably most other miniature games) do and release actual legitimate errata, I mean change a warscroll if they needed to.  Instead, it seems they will only really touch points and not change the actual unit rules, which is a shame.

[chord]

13 hours ago, Jharen said:

I'm sure there's man hours to consider in doing something like this and maybe they just don't feel it's financially viable for them to put work hours into maintaining viable and competitive point costs/restrictions for the competitive side of the game.  

Set the point system up as a web api that you allow app builders to pay for subscription/api keys (like twitter), this way you foster a healthy third party app ecosystem that they can charge for to balance out the costs. 

[wayniac]

I also think in general there is, has been and probably always will be a fundamental disconnect between GW's vision of the game and a large swathe of the community.  GW wants something loose and malleable, where you don't really care too much about rules quips or something that might contradict, you just kind of roll with it.  A large portion of the community, however, wants a tightly-tuned game suitable and even customized for tournaments and competitive gaming, and things like vaguely-worded rules up to interpretation or not having things well balanced sticks in their craw.  So from the get-go there is a difference of how and what the game should be, so it tries to cater to everyone and often fails on either side because it's neither thing.

[Trout]

4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

It would be a logistical nightmare to try and have a living points system - the Thursday before you're due to play a game and your army is suddenly under strength because GW has dropped 20 points off your battleline units, or bumped up the cost of a behemoth meaning you're having to drop something to fit them in.  TO's would need to take a copy of the points at a specific date and get people to build lists based on that.

I think you're right. Changing them on the fly would be a nightmare. But I think something like a quarterly update would work. If everyone knows points are updated on the 15th of: January, April, July, and October, then they can be on the lookout for it. Tournaments that know they are going to take place too soon after the last change can specify that they will use the previous quarter's points.

[BunkhouseBuster]

13 hours ago, Jharen said:

My opinion is that the annual GHB are a good idea being executed in a bad way.   We live in the age of digital media, and GW needs to come more to grips with that.  We have the power to send and receive updates in the blink of an eye and yet that power isn't being used at all.  Instead what we're being given is a printed version of points and rules that once on paper is hard to correct because it's out there, people have spent money on it, and it's difficult to justify changing too much of something someone just purchased from your company.  I understand they need to sell stuff, and physical products have a certain appeal to a section of their market.  I think they just need to find a better middle ground.

The General's Handbook IS the middle ground.  The extremes on either end would be an app that gets updated on a much more frequent basis and is required to play (in which case your units can change in points without you realizing it), or you have the points come out once in a printed book, never to be changed until the next edition comes out (which is what we saw previously with mainstream wargames for years).

I think that the GH release schedule is probably the best option at this point in the game.  I do not have the time to constantly check an app on my phone, and I much prefer printed materials over having to carry electronics and worry about keeping them charged.  I also don't have enough money to afford several new books (I still can't get the new 40K Indexes [Indices?]).  One book a year is perfect for me in my situation and preferences.

12 hours ago, rokapoke said:

GW is in a can't win position. I agree that a constantly up-to-date database of point values would be great. They do indeed have the various tools to do it. But there are plenty of users even just within this site that don't have access to the apps (I've seen a number of people posting to that effect) and there are those among us that just plain like physically-printed materials. But I can't (personally) foresee GW ever switching to a living document for points.

Isn't that what the Warscroll Builder is for?  A way to make your armies in one location? GW could update the points there (though I prefer the GH yearly updates).  The Warscroll Builder could definitely be used to release test point values for public testing.

12 hours ago, rokapoke said:

I'm also rather convinced that GW never intended Matched Play to drive everything the way it certainly seems to. It seems to me that they've set up a phenomenal groundwork for a game that can be a lot of things. However, it is far from "balanced" at a tournament level, because GW is less concerned with tournament viability of every army and more concerned with making money. The problems with balance are not, the way I see it, GW's responsibility to fix. They're issues with the player base. If GW perfectly balanced the points for every unit and battalion (somehow), then the folks who are maxing out on the "underpointed" units in the current system will just do tricky stuff with their dice or something else to "solve" the game. "Win despite your opponent have no fun" is a disease and GW can't cure it for the community.

Many people are unwilling to accept that it is a player problem, and want to pin the blame on the big corporation for allowing these things to happen. 

[sarcasm]  Besides, it takes too much effort to figure out your game for yourself, and they want GW to handle it all.  After all, the only thing that matters is winning, right?  Why should the players have to put out effort in making the game enjoyable for themselves and others?  [/sarcasm]

I have already played against enough WAAC players in my life to know that, if the points values won't help them win, then they will start doing trick dice rolls, or using weighted dice, or mis-remembering rules in their favor or against yours.  I have seen it happen already even with previous editions of 40K, and I'm sure it hasn't gone away with those particular players.

12 hours ago, wayniac said:

You forgot that AOS was largely panned pre-GHB precisely because there was no points/balance, that was basically the most common complaint (with a few about the "joke rules").  So yeah.. I agree.  I don't get how they couldn't have thought it would take over everything else.

In my area, it wasn't panned so much as derided and mocked, even by the GW fanboys.  In hindsight, I wish I had jumped in completely instead of playing Warmahordes, and that I hadn't given in to my fear of the local WAAC players bringing out the cheese and shenanigans and paying whatever money they needed to fill the board up with anything they wanted (and knowing the local players, I know that they absolutely would have done that).  But that gets back to core problem with the game, and any other game (or ANYTHING in life, really) is that the biggest problems come from the people involved -the players.  Nothing in the rules says that the players HAVE  to take a certain army build or optimize their lists to be super powerful, that's just the players.

Age of Sigmar was perfectly valid upon release, and I regret being one of those concerned with it and for criticizing it way back when.  I now know what my problems with the game are, and it isn't the game anyways.

12 hours ago, someone2040 said:

Perhaps, a good middle ground would be that the Generals Handbook becomes the official points for the year, but a balance update or 'trial' points are dropped in January. Build upon what they did last February in releasing Trial Points, but release something that addresses more than just two factions. So it's not so much a sneak peak at a few things, but a list of all things that are truly on their radar.

That would work for me.  Keep in mind that some of us who enjoy the game don't have the time or energy to spend being beta-testers, and just want to "push plastic and roll dice", as my friend recently put it.

[Sleboda]

17 hours ago, Bjarni St. said:

If they don't address broken warscrolls (good or bad) and dysfunctional rules we're going to be stuck with the same proven bad balance cycle

I'd be ok with adjustments to specific war scrolls (after they have been out and in use for at least a year - no knee jerking or listening to initial overreacting whines, please), but changes to the rules of the game itself really need to wait for edition changes.  Since new core rules invalidate the structure on which all battletomes are designed,  it would (and should) mean redesigns for all battletomes, and that's not something I want to see regularly.

Once every four years or so in the old game was pushing it for me.

Points changes, though crude, are at least a suitable way to fiddle with things mid-edition, especially since they are not tied to the tomes themselves.

[Sleboda]

14 hours ago, rokapoke said:

I agree that a constantly up-to-date database of point values would be great.

Agreed,  but only if it reflected only the most recently printed points. On-the'fly overreactive points changes are bad. 100,000 gamers each have their own gripes and anecdotes. The temptation to shift weekly must be resisted by GW, and a more measued approach should prevail.

Good thing for us such a database does exist in the form of scrollbuilder.

Yes, digital exists, but not with the same universality and steadiness as print.

I use and embrace both, but believe firmly than an annually printed points update is the better course. 

[daedalus81]

Constant points would require versioning or else no one would know what the heck points each were using and TOs would lose their minds checking lists.

[Jharen]

Wow, perhaps I should have been a bit more clear that I didn't mean they should go to the extreme and be updating points every day, or week, or even month in large sweeping changes.  I just meant that specific problem areas within the points system can be more easily balanced out and fixed by catering more towards a digital release version than a physical version.  It allows itself to be more fluid and dynamic AS NEEDED.  That need is of course based on when the game needs it or the community demands it.

I'm also not sure who these players are who only ever have access to physical copies and never have access to digital media or access to the internet at all. I'm sure they're out there, but someone, somewhere, a TO or local shop etc, would more than likely still be able to supply a digital version of points to these players as needed, right?  I hardly see that as a real problem to a digital points system.

I'm not going to claim that going digital with points would fix every problem there is, or that it would make everyone happy, or even that it would somehow magically 'balance' the game.  That wasn't my intent.  I do believe it allows a less concrete system that can adapt to the community though as any major problems arise throughout the year.  It also provides a solid source for that information instead of it being spread out between multiple battletomes, soon to be 2 generals handbooks,  and the forgeworld pdfs.  This isn't of course just limited to points either.  AoS has this 'scattered' look about it lately, and the bloat seems a problem if it isn't contained in some manner going forward.

I also disagree that competitive gamers make up the majority of the warhammer community though.  I believe they make up the vocal majority, and they're more out going by means of publicly playing games at shops, tournaments, etc, but that's all.  There are a great deal of gamers who play at home, or within a small circle of friends or family, that rarely if ever play outside of those circles.  Some just collect the models to paint and hardly play, if ever.  These are all paying customers to the GW, and GW is going to cater to them no matter how silent they are.  The release of matched play didn't necessarily mean that the AoS launch failed or missed its mark.  It could mean GW simply saw enough outcry from the competitive gamers to justify the creation of matched play to generate even more sales from AoS.  The non-competitive launch also greatly helped attract an entirely new set of players, and in many cases attracted older players who had left the hobby to come back into it.

Maybe I'm wrong on all counts, and I can admit that I'm coming at this completely blind to what's going on behind the scenes at GW, and to what their overall goals are.  These are my opinions and speculations based off the information I have.  I don't know who they think, or don't think, they are marketing to other than that they say "they make models".  I do know they've been doing this a long time, and have been very successful as a company in a market that is very difficult to be successful in.

[Carnelian]

10 hours ago, wayniac said:

 Instead, it seems they will only really touch points and not change the actual unit rules, which is a shame.

Let's be fair to geedubs- they did just change the scrolls for vandus and khul within days of them coming out! 

However it would be great if they would be more willing to do that to warscrolls that started life in books rather than digital

[daedalus81]

2 hours ago, Carnelian said:

Let's be fair to geedubs- they did just change the scrolls for vandus and khul within days of them coming out! 

However it would be great if they would be more willing to do that to warscrolls that started life in books rather than digital

It didn't take terribly long after disciples for the mutalith to be modified either.

[someone2040]

1 hour ago, daedalus81 said:

It didn't take terribly long after disciples for the mutalith to be modified either.

Important distinction is that technically both versions of the Mutalith are legal and valid. I believe they have slightly different warscroll names "Mutalith Vortex Beast of Tzeentch" and "Slaughterbrute of Khorne".

Neither warscroll is available in the app either  (Although, in some ways, the app is a piece of c**p which is really inconsistent in which scrolls it presents).

So they didn't insomuch as change those warscrolls, just published an additional one I guess.

 

Overall, GW don't tend to change warscrolls unless it's specifically to fix something missing on it. They have an approach of "If it aint broke, don't touch it for 5-10 years".

[angelust]

Infinity regularly updates points costs and no one minds. Because there's a universal sanctioned army-builder, the TO can check the tournament legality very easily.

[Kirjava13]

I like this idea of patching the game more regularly given that the process of having the rules onlime for free seems to invite that! If you can afford to Warhammer you can afford an internet connection, and the worries I'm reading about people showing up to a game to find they have 200 points less than they thought seem absurdly easy to address. Just have relatively regular updates- announce them in advance, have them advertised in stores, WD and on the community sites and then nobody can complain about not being in the know. Use version numbers so it's easy to know which set you're using ("Everyone got 1.05? No? Ok let's just print out Ted's Seraphon scrolls quick." Or bring them up on a phone or a tablet!). 

The internet can be this amazingly flexible tool for ensuring matched play stays as close to balanced as is possible to get, taking into consideration who considers what 'balanced', of course. Not taking advantage of this seems insane to me.

[Marc Wilson]

1 hour ago, Kirjava13 said:

I like this idea of patching the game more regularly given that the process of having the rules onlime for free seems to invite that! If you can afford to Warhammer you can afford an internet connection, and the worries I'm reading about people showing up to a game to find they have 200 points less than they thought seem absurdly easy to address. Just have relatively regular updates- announce them in advance, have them advertised in stores, WD and on the community sites and then nobody can complain about not being in the know. Use version numbers so it's easy to know which set you're using ("Everyone got 1.05? No? Ok let's just print out Ted's Seraphon scrolls quick." Or bring them up on a phone or a tablet!). 

The internet can be this amazingly flexible tool for ensuring matched play stays as close to balanced as is possible to get, taking into consideration who considers what 'balanced', of course. Not taking advantage of this seems insane to me.

All the arguments for 'patching' or regular updates omit the fact that it takes a good while to build, paint and collect an army; an investment in both time and money. Surely no one wants a scenario where their army is 'nearly there' or 'just need to change one model'.... 'doh, need to change it again... and again.' It would turn the system into a giant hamster wheel, which in my view would be a tremendous short-term commercial success followed by a very large slump as people tire of the total uncertainty, the invalidation of armies, and the need to constantly react to change. Once a year is enough for me, thanks. Be careful what you wish for.

[shadowgra]

53 minutes ago, Marc Wilson said:

All the arguments for 'patching' or regular updates omit the fact that it takes a good while to build, paint and collect an army; an investment in both time and money. Surely no one wants a scenario where their army is 'nearly there' or 'just need to change one model'.... 'doh, need to change it again... and again.' It would turn the system into a giant hamster wheel, which in my view would be a tremendous short-term commercial success followed by a very large slump as people tire of the total uncertainty, the invalidation of armies, and the need to constantly react to change. Once a year is enough for me, thanks. Be careful what you wish for.

 without mentioning costs, age of sigmar isn't properly a cheap hobby... i am a student and between time and costs i couldn't keep up with regular patches

[wayniac]

All the arguments for 'patching' or regular updates omit the fact that it takes a good while to build, paint and collect an army; an investment in both time and money. Surely no one wants a scenario where their army is 'nearly there' or 'just need to change one model'.... 'doh, need to change it again... and again.' It would turn the system into a giant hamster wheel, which in my view would be a tremendous short-term commercial success followed by a very large slump as people tire of the total uncertainty, the invalidation of armies, and the need to constantly react to change. Once a year is enough for me, thanks. Be careful what you wish for.

 

But other miniature games are similar and don't have a problem doing it. warmahordes does it fairly regularly I think a couple of times a year maybe more recently now since they started essentially having community beta testing for things. Nobody has a problem with it there because you can either go print the cards on demand or use the official app and get immediate updates.

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

 

 

 

[chord]

46 minutes ago, Auticus said:

I would 1000x prefer a regular update than what we have now.

Yes that means someone that sits down with a spreadsheet or who goes to a forum and finds the #1 winning build from LVO and builds it may be put off by them correcting the points a month later, but that means for the rest of us that the game can be regularly correcting itself and we don't have to live with things like Rukk for a year with the only option available to us is either not playing, or taking it down the throat every game like we're in an adult warhammer film.

Probably the most fun I had with AOS was when the community comps were out (not even just mine) because we were all constantly adjusting things and all my games were close and engaging.  

With the right modeling all changes could be tested out pretty well to determine impact (including keywords, etc).

[daedalus81]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

I would 1000x prefer a regular update than what we have now.

Yes that means someone that sits down with a spreadsheet or who goes to a forum and finds the #1 winning build from LVO and builds it may be put off by them correcting the points a month later, but that means for the rest of us that the game can be regularly correcting itself and we don't have to live with things like Rukk for a year with the only option available to us is either not playing, or taking it down the throat every game like we're in an adult warhammer film.

I think that's terribly fast.  If the meta changes and someone is clever then all of a sudden the points change?  People can't use their heads to figure it out first?

I wouldn't advocate for changes more than every 6 months.  Kunnin Rukk is one thing, but a singular data point is no way to balance a game.