The New FAQ (23/07/2018)

[amysrevenge]

4 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

But GW's weakest asset has always been concise rules language and over the years there have been way too many cases where the inferred intent has ended up being the case when GW finally settled a dispute.

Even the recent normal/charge/pile-in move thing has been a relative revelation.  Now that "move" is cleared up, they  just need to tidy up around the words "wound" and "damage".

[Ravinsild]

7 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

The problem is that GW has always been more on the side of sloppy rules than most other game companies.  GW has always been very amateurish in that regard.

I have never seen another game system where the whole "Rules as Written (RAW)" and "Rules as Intended (RAI)" debate even existed - let alone to the degree that it does within all of GW games.  In just about every game system "rules as written" is pretty much an oxymoron since obviously written rules work as they are written.  But GW's weakest asset has always been concise rules language and over the years there have been way too many cases where the inferred intent has ended up being the case when GW finally settled a dispute.

I appreciate that they are now much faster at addressing many of these issues than they have in the past.  I also appreciate the thematic effects that they try to accomplish with their rules.  But if there is one area where GW still has a lot of room to improve it is in making their rules more concise.

Have you ever played dungeons and dragons? There’s a whole RAW vs RAI debate in that game too.

[Skabnoze]

1 minute ago, amysrevenge said:

Even the recent normal/charge/pile-in move thing has been a relative revelation.  Now that "move" is cleared up, they  just need to tidy up around the words "wound" and "damage".

They really need to embrace the concept of consistent use of explicitly defined key word terms throughout their rule sets.  They have kind of sort of started to explore that - but they have not fully embraced it within the structure of the core rules yet.  Their products would end up better if they did.

[Skabnoze]

Just now, Ravinsild said:

Have you ever played dungeons and dragons? There’s a whole RAW vs RAI debate in that game too.

Is this recent?  I never really ran into that in the older versions when I played.

But RPGs have an advantage in that by design each game has a judge that determines how a rule works - or even if it does.  The Game Master in just about any RPG can make whatever rules in the game behave in whatever manner they choose - and part of that is their assigned job.  A 2-player competitive game does not often have that luxury (GW games have not used judges since Inquisitor and Rogue Trader before that) and so they greatly benefit from more concise rules writing.

[Ravinsild]

Just now, Skabnoze said:

Is this recent?  I never really ran into that in the older versions when I played.

But RPGs have an advantage in that by design each game has a judge that determines how a rule works - or even if it does.  The Game Master in just about any RPG can make whatever rules in the game behave in whatever manner they choose - and part of that is their assigned job.  A 2-player competitive game does not often have that luxury (GW games have not used judges since Inquisitor and Rogue Trader before that) and so they greatly benefit from more concise rules writing.

3rd/4th/5th edition. 

[Skabnoze]

Just now, Ravinsild said:

3rd/4th/5th edition. 

I never ran into that in 3rd edition, but then again I never really poked around online for D&D in regards to rules.

But again, I feel that RPGs can get away with being a bit sloppy in regards to some of their mechanics because they are designed primarily as cooperative games and the game design incorporates a judge.

[sal4m4nd3r]

22 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Don’t be so salty ... it kills off all the Nurgle slugs ... I’d recommend going for a strawberry margarita ... you’ll find life much sweeter with a spoonful of sugar around the rim .... and I’m sure they’d be much happier with a touch of sugar ...

Perhaps something more like this:

http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/strawberry-margarita-299856

GW be like:

 

[Mephisto]

23 minutes ago, Ravinsild said:

Have you ever played dungeons and dragons? There’s a whole RAW vs RAI debate in that game too.

I've GM'd for literal decades from 2nd Ed. to now 5th (with Pathfinder in between as well as Rifts/Palladium and some others). The RAW v RAI in D&D is no where near this for two reasons. The first being D&D has a Rule Zero. As GM you just say "Well, that's dumb. This is how it is." to keep the game moving. GW tries to have a similar rule with the Roll Off thing but this is a bad way to solve disputes in a game in which there are win cons.

Player A: "I think my warscroll says these units can move 10"" 

Player B: "No it doesn't it clearly says 6." 

Player A: "Guess we're rolling off then."

This has been a hyperbolic example but I think you get the point. Basically Player A, if they're a particular sort of human, is encouraged to be as fast and loose with the rules as they feel like because they are 50/50 rewarded for doing so.

The other half of this is that D&D really is a much better written system. Most of the RAW v RAI debates occur in D&D when players/GMs try to bring reality into the game. "But in physics..." I don't care what physics say. You just fought a dragon that breathed acid from its face and cast a spell to turn your friend into My Little Pony, reality's got nothing to do with it. People try to angle-shoot, they're usually wrong. If we move to D&D's cousin, Magic the Gathering the rules get even more poignant. 

Please don't mistake me as saying "better" or that these games are "better" but their focus is on the actual rules themselves more whereas GW focuses on the models and business more. I don't think they're mutually exclusive is where I seem to have the most contention with others. Back to D&D I freaking love GMing. I love the interactive storytelling. I tell some pretty out there stories (last two year campaign I blew up two moons and had a lich slay the world's deity) but I can tell those out there stories because we all come into the game from a common ground of rules. We don't have to argue about every rule every session or go online each day for clarification or check literally 3 dozen PDFs on a FAQ page. Sometimes you thumb out a Tweet to sage advice when you encounter a niche interaction but overall the game works on basic levels of movement, interaction, and combat. GW only recently got movement right...

[Boss Salvage]

15 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

Even the recent normal/charge/pile-in move thing has been a relative revelation.  Now that "move" is cleared up, they  just need to tidy up around the words "wound" and "damage".

Ah the dreaded Semantics Phase, most trying of the phases of Warhammer, only occasionally outdone by the Terrain Phase

Significant portions of 7th and 8th edition WHFB devolved into debates about what the words "pick", "target" and "choose" meant. Not the best tabletop experiences I've had, but you know forge the narrative and all that.

[Mephisto]

8 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I feel that RPGs can get away with being a bit sloppy in regards to some of their mechanics because they are designed primarily as cooperative games and the game design incorporates a judge.

I actually don't run RPGs that fail to meet a certain threshold of rules elegance. That said, you nail that second half. D&D is cooperative. "Adversarial GMs" really grind my gears. It's not about GM versus the players. Making interesting encounters? Building suspense and raising stakes? Absolutely but you can do that without a "me v them" mentality as a GM. But yeah, the judge is incorporated. The GM is arbiter and storyteller. "Rule Zero" helps you round toward fun without a bunch of push back.

I do think that GW has this like "Well we want everyone to have fun and we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings" approach to rules that is more harmful than if they just took hardlines on things. Look at how they're dancing around CA stacking. Seems every couple FAQs they're going to go into each Battletome and say which units can't stack their CPs until they've covered all of them. Wouldn't it have just been easier to have a single line in CAs or CPs that said that to begin with? No, you're going to wait until people exploit each and every one of them and waste time going in individually nerfing them as opposed to setting the hard line and making exceptions to the hard line? Cool. You do you, GW.

[Overread]

Yeah DnD because there is no actual competition between player and the DM (besides the eternal quest of players to totally destroy the GMs gameplan ;)) and no "win" there isn't the same level of issue with regard to rules. The DnD rules are a skeleton that expects a good DM to put the meat on the structure to make it work. Plus a good DM balances the game based on the players - some want a game where their characters will die off and they roll up new ones etc.. whilst others want a more casual adventure where there's risk but the DM can pull them out or help them out etc.... Ergo its basically an entire game of casual play without a competing aspect. 

 

 

Warhammer is the opposite. Even in narrative and open play the core of the game is a competition. It's built like that from the ground up. So as a result when there's an argument in the rules it can affect the game outcome. The roll-offs do matter; the sloppy writing or the confusing writing (esp since a lot of abiltiies basically rely on breaking the rules - which gets really annoying when two opposing abilities break the same rule and you then have to work out which supersedes the others). 

Also there is the style of writing and the layout of information. Take Endless Spells. The dedicated Endless Spell page in the Core rules and the Malign Sorcery book are the same and does not in any way tell you that, in matched play, you can only take one of each spell. In fact the example on that page very specifically states that you can only use as many of one type of Endless Spell as you own models for. Meaning that you could cast two, three, four, or however many of any one spell as you want so long as you've got a model for it.

The spell limit does not appear on that page, where you'd expect it too. Instead it appears later in the main rules in the Matched play army composition pages. It's not where you expect it to be; there is no index to help you find the reference nor notation on the Endless Spell page to check that following page later in the book (which is in a totally different section) 

 

 

Same again with some terrain and close combat rules. The Close combat rule page suggests that so long as you are within weapon range you can attack your opponent even if you don't have line of sight to them - eg there is a wall between you. Clearly this is not intended and later in the book it does give mention that some terrain can block close combat attacks. And its such a logical expected rule that most players wouldn't think about attacking through a wall. It's not intended, it is covered elsewhere, but when checking the close combat rules there is no mention of it. 

 

So its not just casual writing its also how GW lays out their rules which adds to the confusion. It actually makes the game harder to learn and harder to resolve issues with because the layout isn't logical; nor does it have internal references to other key pages to aid people finding the info.

 

In contrast to say magic the gathering its a night and day difference. Now granted MTG actually has very few rules to it; in that its not so mcuh the rules but spell combos and the combination of those spells and their resolution. So in that its not so much rules as it is puzzles that revolve around the rules. 

[Skabnoze]

After playing GW games for a very very long time I take the position that "Rules as Intended" is the better way to play your own rules if there is a dispute, and in my experience it turns out to be the correct resolution 9/10 times.  When GW finally issues an errata or clarification it usually follows those lines.  The more of their game systems that you have played, and the more editions that you have played, the easier it is to get the general sense of what sorts of things they are trying to do and what they like to do.  After a while it is not too hard to suss out their intent.

But, when it comes to competitive events that script gets flipped.  The only thing you have to work with in these situations is the rules as they are written and any clarifications that may have been issues.  If the verbage for a rule says a thing - then that is what it does.  If it is ambiguous then you can try to get a judge to make a ruling - otherwise let your opponent play their rules as they are currently written. 

I have no qualms with someone taking the side of an argument over rules interactions based on the actual wording of the rules - even when they are doing something obviously weird.  The responsibility for that falls on GW for writing their rules that way.

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, broche said:

Now you have 30+ FAQ to consult in addition of all addionnal rules to figure out what something do.

While I'm not as disappointed as you are, I do very much find it exasperating to try to build a list legally.

 

Does anyone know of a good flow chart that steps you through building a list?  Being serious.

[Lord_Skrolk]

19 minutes ago, Mephisto said:

Look at how they're dancing around CA stacking. Seems every couple FAQs they're going to go into each Battletome and say which units can't stack their CPs until they've covered all of them. Wouldn't it have just been easier to have a single line in CAs or CPs that said that to begin with? No, you're going to wait until people exploit each and every one of them and waste time going in individually nerfing them as opposed to setting the hard line and making exceptions to the hard line? Cool. You do you, GW.

I agree. And I don't want to get cynical, but it does seem like this might be motivated by increasing sales to have occasional periods where certain random models are totally OP and a must-have for power gamers

For example, Seraphon summoning spam with Engine of the Gods that was obviously broken to any competent player that glanced at them for a second. GW releases AoS 2.0, and suddenly if you're a Seraphon power gamer you *must have* multiple Engines of the Gods and 6 boxes of Skinks to beat other power gamers. 

And once the competitive gamers have had time to overreact and spend their money on whatever is broken, GW releases an update that drastically changes the power levels of some units.

Idk. Wouldn't shock me, because the end of the day GW aren't your personal friends and they don't owe you anything. They're a company trying to maximize profit like every other company in both the short term and the long term. 

[amysrevenge]

I think that probably the Power Gamer with Unlimited Budget and Instantaneous Painting is an over-estimated segment of the market.

Just competitive gamers are a small segment of the customer base.  The subset of meta-chasers within the competitive scene is an even smaller slice.  Maybe 10-15% of the tournament players I know (yes, it's those 10-15% of players that are usually at the top of the results haha) chase after the latest current "broken" stuff.  Everyone else just tries to get better with what they have and like.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, Skabnoze said:

In just about every game system "rules as written" is pretty much an oxymoron since obviously written rules work as they are written.

This should be framed, turned into neon, players on billboard along the highway/Mway, or otherwise etched into the minds of GW players and designers both.

I abhor the term RAW because all it really is used for is a way for players to be snooty and is enabled by sloppiness.

[Vextol]

RIP starseer.  Loved you for so many years.  Now you shall just witness my battles from afar. ?

[Skabnoze]

3 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

I abhor the term RAW because all it really is used for is a way for players to be snooty and is enabled by sloppiness.

This is fair.  The counter-point to this I think is that the term generally got mixed in with the "win at all costs (WAC)" term where you found people specifically looking for obvious loop-holes & poorly written rules specifically for exploit. 

I fully support hunting for synergy, thinking outside the box, and otherwise using things in creative ways.  Finding crusty rules and broken interactions in a game system can be fun, but subjecting another person to those is another story. 

Honestly, I will be happy the day that GW realizes that it only takes a couple bad apples to ruin the bunch and solves most of the RAW, RAI, WAC issues simply by making better rules products.  If they wanted to they could put an end to most of these issues - even with a complex system with as many moving parts as Age of Sigmar or 40k.

That said, I find that I don't encounter problems in their games very much because I tend to play with like-minded players and I typically avoid people who I know have a different mentality than what I enjoy.  And when I do go to an event I take the position that I should be ready to face off against the most broken rules-filth possible.  And in that situation as long as the other opponent is a pleasant person and not a smug ****** while playing the game then I am satisfied.

[Gecktron]

32 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

While I'm not as disappointed as you are, I do very much find it exasperating to try to build a list legally.

 

Does anyone know of a good flow chart that steps you through building a list?  Being serious.

I dont see where the problem is in list building. Open scrollbuilder, take the units you like and you are good to go. 

Sure, artefacts and spells can be a lot to keep in mind when writting a list but that has nothing to do with accidently making a "illegal" list.

[Overread]

Well you can use the Warscroll builder on the GW website to help; all you'd need on top of that is the battletome/generals handbook so that you know what units are in what army you're taking and your battalion options etc....

Spells and equipment is more variable as not everyone uses all the parts there*. However outside of Endless Spells, its mostly picking gear for an already established force so you can adapt a bit here without having to remake the whole army. 

 

Otherwise its not too hard; your points are in the Generals Handbook for updates from previous releases; and the units are in the Battletome (And if your force hasn't got a Battletome then the Warscroll builder has the details plus every unit has its warscroll on its unit page on the GW store). I'd say its only complicated when you're new on the outside without any resources; although even then you can keep it simple by just going for a Battletome released faction. 

 

*Eg Realm spells/items are not always used and even when they are not everyone fights in a realm either. Endless spells are a little different and are seeing far more table time; whilst the extra spells and items are a bit hit and miss, but this is soething you can agree on with your opponent in advance of the game. 

 

[Thostos]

 Not sure if they meant this to be this way but it appears that in the pitched battleplan "Places of Arcane Power" named characters such as Gordrak cant control any of the objectives because they arent wizards and dont count as having an artifact of power.
 

 This is due to the faq QnA of the core rules commentary,,bottom of page 7  

 Q "Is a named character assumed to have an artifact of power for any rules purposes?"

 A   No

 

 

[Skabnoze]

1 minute ago, Thostos said:

 Not sure if they meant this to be this way but it appears that in the pitched battleplan "Places of Arcane Power" named characters such as Gordrak cant control any of the objectives because they arent wizards and dont count as having an artifact of power.
 

 This is due to the faq QnA of the core rules commentary,,bottom of page 7  

 Q "Is a named character assumed to have an artifact of power for any rules purposes?"

 A   No

That ruling surprised me as well.

I'm not sure what the logic is in removing the ability for a certain subset of named characters to control objectives in some scenarios.

[Vextol]

Also the new ruling on Curse of the Years is extremely confusing with the previous ruling.  It's either a direct contradiction to a rule that is 9 paragraphs above it or completely unnecessary.. 

Well done. 

[Charles]

Karanak has rightfully been corrected. 

He can now only make an Enemy Hero his quary. I played it that way all weekend at Throne of Skulls.

However Karanak’s warscroll still has one blatant error, he has two Maw attacks but three heads . . . 

[Overread]

7 minutes ago, Charles said:

Karanak has rightfully been corrected. 

He can now only make an Enemy Hero his quary. I played it that way all weekend at Throne of Skulls.

However Karanak’s warscroll still has one blatant error, he has two Maw attacks but three heads . . . 

One of the three is on a diet!

 

 

 

Actually what happens is for each of the bite attacks the two heads either side grip onto the target (like arms would) and then the middle head takes the actual power-bite.