Army specific Scenery (OP?)

[Belakor]

I think I made my points clear I, I will sum them up here:

• Not all reces have acces to it.
• The 0pt feels like they are laughing at you. Like if they are giving you the chance to not play it. ""If you are poor you can not have this benefit to your army.""
• I clearly see that GW has put Money over Game experience (which is something they are known for)
• Auto includes of any kind are bad for  a game.
• If it had a cost, people would not feel bad for no having the money to play them. They just would think their points are invested somewhere else.
• If the cost of this scenery is "divided" among each model of the army, again, the guy who can not buy it will be paying points for nothing.
• The allegiance ability is something intangible, you pay for it in points cost, but it costs no money.
• Forcing to take a scenery in every single game makes the board "illogical" sometimes.
• The only limitation that is stopping you from playing the scenery is money.
• They havent even given the sizes of them so people have to play with the exact model they are selling.

[robinlvalentine]

32 minutes ago, Belakor said:

I think I made my points clear I, I will sum them up here:

• Not all reces have acces to it.
• The 0pt feels like they are laughing at you. Like if they are giving you the chance to not play it. ""If you are poor you can not have this benefit to your army.""
• I clearly see that GW has put Money over Game experience (which is something they are known for)
• Auto includes of any kind are bad for  a game.
• If it had a cost, people would not feel bad for no having the money to play them. They just would think their points are invested somewhere else.
• If the cost of this scenery is "divided" among each model of the army, again, the guy who can not buy it will be paying points for nothing.
• The allegiance ability is something intangible, you pay for it in points cost, but it costs no money.
• Forcing to take a scenery in every single game makes the board "illogical" sometimes.
• The only limitation that is stopping you from playing the scenery is money.
• They havent even given the sizes of them so people have to play with the exact model they are selling.

Ok, let's take this point-by-point then...

-Armies are balanced with the terrain piece in mind, just the same as allegiance abilities, summoning, whatever, so it's irrelevant that some have it and some don't. 

-Every unit in Warhammer costs loads of money - it's an expensive hobby, and some units cost more than others. A horde of Witch Aelves costs more than a small elite army of Stormcast - does that mean Witch Aelves are pay to win? 

-Yes, GW are a business and as many people have said in this topic there's definitely a conversation to be had around the idea of armies having a scenery tax. But that discussion isn't about game design or 'pay to win', it's about GW's business model.

-Why are auto-includes automatically bad? AOS is full of them - Soulsmite Greatmaces are an 'auto-include' weapon upgrade for Sequitor units, for example. Battleline units are auto-include. Hell, battletomes are auto-include.

-Who are these people who can afford a Warhammer army but are too poor for a terrain piece? If they're that price-conscious, go with an army that doesn't have a terrain piece, or a smaller, cheaper army. 

-Same again...

-The allegiance abilities do cost money - you have to buy the battletome. By your logic, the battletome has the exact same problems and is just as 'pay-to-win', as it literally adds more power to your army vs someone who doesn't have it.

-This is a lore issue, and it's ultimately just personal taste. For what it's worth, I totally get people finding it weird that, say, Beasts would erect a Herdstone for an ambush, but I think it's a fine enough trade-off.

-Every unit costs money. Lots of money. If Warhammer were a free-to-play video game, people would say the microtransactions are insane. And, again, the battletomes cost money too.

-Loads of people are posting the sizes online. Obviously GW does want you to use their models... but that's true of every model in the whole range. It's always been cheaper to go third-party with everything. 

 

There's lots of things here I totally get being upset by - as I say, it's basically a tax on certain armies, and particularly if you don't like the terrain piece, that's rough. And as you say there are potentially lore issues, as well as transport issues. But there are constructive ways to talk about those things, rather than just declaring that it's objectively bad game design and other nonsense. It's a matter of personal taste, and there are upsides and downsides to the system. 

Ultimately, Warhammer is expensive. Ridiculously expensive. This makes them slightly more expensive... but so does GW raising the price on paints, or Start Collecting boxes, or all sorts of other things. Cost is just an aspect of the hobby you have to accept if you want to get deep into it. If terrain pieces are one step too far for you, play an army that doesn't have them. 

[Ruhraffe]

Even if it is probably pointless, I try to sum up everything already said and try to bring you a list why the above is, frankly said, ******.

34 minutes ago, Belakor said:

I think I made my points clear I, I will sum them up here:

• Not all reces have acces to it. Most factions have access to battletomes and their own allegiance abilities. The terrain is just a visual token for the effects of these abilities. Factions who do not have their own battletome can take their respective allegiance, even if I have to admit, the GA bonuses are not that strong. But GW works to bring battletomes for the armies they want to support.
• The 0pt feels like they are laughing at you. Like if they are giving you the chance to not play it. ""If you are poor you can not have this benefit to your army."" As mentioned, they put the terrain on 0 points to stay consistent with "has a warscroll"-"gets a point value".  At least in the past, don't know about the present, you could bring wyldwoods for 40pt into your army, when not in Sylvaneth allegiance. Wyldwoods are part of the battletome, and to stay consistent with the possibility to take it in GA:Order they reduce the points as soon as you are in Sylvaneth allegiance, because the woods are already priced into the faction. 
•  I clearly see that GW has put Money over Game experience (which is something they are known for) We all know that this is not a cheap hobby, and gw puts a premium on everything. But giving a visual effect for the abilities to bring them onto the battlefield as models, not just as plain text enhances the game in my opinion
• Auto includes of any kind are bad for  a game. Nope, autoincludes set a foundation to build on. The armies would be much less flavorful without the autoincludes of the allegiance abilities. You dont want to play your army without them.
• If it had a cost, people would not feel bad for no having the money to play them. They just would think their points are invested somewhere else. Again, these are at 0 cost because they are tokens for playing with a specific factions allegiance abilities. The costs for that are already priced into the model. The whole game works around allegiance abilites whice define the playstyle of the faction. Gameplaywise it does not make a difference, if you had an ability that says "At the start of the game, pick a point on the table. In a radius of x'' around that point your army gets following bonuses" or "At the start of the game, set up [scenery piece]. In a radius of x'' around that [scenery piece] your army gets following bonuses". The terrain is just a token to show where the ability takes effect.
• If the cost of this scenery is "divided" among each model of the army, again, the guy who can not buy it will be paying points for nothing. Yeah, right. And the guy who can't pay for models can't play the game. You can't ride a skateboard without buying a skateboard. If you can just afford the deck but not the rolls, axis and bearings you got a piece of wood and not a skateboard. Or you build the skateboard youself (or in game terms making a proxy for the terrain yourself) to save some money. 
• The allegiance ability is something intangible, you pay for it in points cost, but it costs no money. It costs the money for the battletome. The terrain is, again, just a modeled marker on the battlefield for these abilities.
• Forcing to take a scenery in every single game makes the board "illogical" sometimes. Therefor the scenery is embedded into the lore. Sylvaneth grow woods whereever they walk, so having woods grow around them does make sense.
• The only limitation that is stopping you from playing the scenery is money. Nope, the rules stop you as well. You can't setup infinite amounts, just the amounts the rules allow you to. Some can put up more (yay, Sylvaneth!), some can put up less. But this is very much regulated.
• They havent even given the sizes of them so people have to play with the exact model they are selling. Or you ask in a forum for the size, or you measure a friends model.

 

I hope this could clear this mess up a bit. 

 

All the abouve points were already mentioned. You just seem to be to lazy to actually read the replies, or you don't want to read it because you had to face, that you were wrong from the beginning. There is no shame in being wrong, but your answers read like a little kiddo not getting his lollipop.

[JPjr]

Yikes!

Ok... just to try and work through those points...

4 minutes ago, Belakor said:

Not all reces have acces to it.

Sure. That's just one of the things you have to deal with with Warhammer. If you're totally new to the game and come from systems where tight balance is the focus then maybe it seems alien, but here's the thing this game has never been 'balanced'. And we've had multiple discussions about this but it's just the way it is, there's a rough semblance of balance through points etc but it's never going to be perfect, or is even that desirable a goal. 

There are something like 20+ different factions all with wildly different playstyles, strengths (& weaknesses) and abilities, and it's a living game system with new ideas being incorporated all the time. So whatever is newest, and most in lune with the current game philosophy will inherently have some kind of advantage. Faction specific terrain is still a relatively new idea, so of course older factions don't have access to it yet, but pretty sure by the end of the year most will in some way, shape or form. Is that then fair to those shop don't, well no, but these things take time to design, model, and roll out and fairness and balance aren't a key concern here.

10 minutes ago, Belakor said:

The 0pt feels like they are laughing at you. Like if they are giving you the chance to not play it. ""If you are poor you can not have this benefit to your army.""

Problem here as I see it, is you're doing what a lot of people in this cultural sphere do and both presume the worst, then overreact and take things personally. No one is laughing at you, get over it! GW aren't sat there going how can we make our players feel bad. I mean in a sense I can get it, I've certainly been in a position in my life where buying food at the end of the month required some hard thinking, but then I wouldn't have presumed to be running a tournament ready army of toy soldiers at that point either.

This is an expensive, luxury hobby, no two ways about it. But in a sense it's no different to me spending £150 on running shoes instead of £50 now that I can afford it and if I wasn't just a middle aged plodder and was hoping to win races then I'd probably spend even more.

15 minutes ago, Belakor said:

I clearly see that GW has put Money over Game experience (which is something they are known for)

Well this depends on what you mean by game experience. For example I find games that are played on well designed tables crammed full of amazing looking terrain to be a much, much better experience than a game played without. In that sense what GW are doing is pushing the game experience in a direction that I, and many like me, prefer. Now of course that they also get to make money is just a prerequisite of a company doing good business.

But terrain doesn't need to be bought and they've also done much to encourage people to scratch build terrain (not enough in my opinion but can't have everything), but amongst your foam hills and what not some big really plush terrain pieces, like a Warscryer Citadel or the Loonshrine, really bring the game to life.

18 minutes ago, Belakor said:

Auto includes of any kind are bad for  a game.

To be fair, this has some merit. But as many people will loudly and longly tell you the start of AoS where you could just bring anything to the table was viewed as a hot mess, and its the players who have been demanding more structure, army lists etc that led to things like battle line/leader requirements.

20 minutes ago, Belakor said:

If it had a cost, people would not feel bad for no having the money to play them. They just would think their points are invested somewhere else.

I think you need to substitute 'people' here for 'I' as these faction specific terrain pieces have been, as far as I can see, almost universally loved as they give armies something really interesting looking to plonk down and base an army around. I think the key thing here is, if you ask people whose armies are without terrain if they want a piece, the overwhelming majority would probably bite your hand off.

Again though this only applies to official tournaments, and if you're competing and hoping to win at these I would guess you've already spent several hundred pounds, at least, on models (not including ancillary costs). A £25 model is a drop in the ocean here.

24 minutes ago, Belakor said:

If the cost of this scenery is "divided" among each model of the army, again, the guy who can not buy it will be paying points for nothing.

True.

25 minutes ago, Belakor said:

The allegiance ability is something intangible, you pay for it in points cost, but it costs no money.

Well you can argue you've had to buy the Battletome, and possibly certain models to unlock certain abilities. For example the Bad Moon allegiance ability has different effects on different models so what you've bought and paid for will affect what abilities you can benefit from.

27 minutes ago, Belakor said:

Forcing to take a scenery in every single game makes the board "illogical" sometimes.

As soon as you start to apply logic to something like Warhammer you're on a hiding to nothing. We're dealing with a game of space frogs and flying turtles, we're not in Kansas anymore Toto.

Anyway if you're all about the matched play tournaments then who cares about logic, you do what you have to do to win. And if you're a hardcore narrative player you either use those finely honed story telling skills to com up with a good reason a certain piece of terrain exists or you play games without terrain. After all in the actual Gloomspite Gitz Battletome there's at least one very specific narrative battle plan that explicitly says you're not allowed to take a Loonshrine.

31 minutes ago, Belakor said:

The only limitation that is stopping you from playing the scenery is money.

Like the only thing stopping me from having Nagash lead my 2000 pts Death army is money. It doesn't seem like the most earth shattering of revelations.

But except it isn't, my current little band of bones brothers are led by a lowly Necromancer and Cairn Wraith, because I've developed a story around them and that's how I've chosen to build them up.

And again you can build your own, you can put a mug down on the table and say it's a Loonshrine if your opponent agrees. Like many things in this game I think so much of it would be easier if people just made actual friends with people and played them at home like we used to! Then you can do what you like.

We used to play with books piled up covered in a green cloth to make hills and valleys and random objects as castles and whatever, no one got arsey because we were all friends just having fun together.

37 minutes ago, Belakor said:

They havent even given the sizes of them so people have to play with the exact model they are selling.

I mean this is fairly easy to find out but again, play at home with friends and none of this matters. And then put aside £2 a month and after a year you can buy that terrain piece for when you go to a tournament.

The annoying thing here is in a sense I get your point, even if I'm sure you're just on a wind up now, but you're playing a game where balance is a nice goal not a stated reality and where any genuinely competitive tournament army will have cost several hundred quid in money plus time and effort to put together. Getting worked up over an, actually I'd say, relatively cheap model seems a very weird hill to die on.

As others have said, what about summoning? You have to buy the models you want to summon but you don't pay for them in points as such.

What about other price discrepancies? 

Archaon costs £100 in real money and 660 points in game terms.

Nagash costs £65 in real money and 800 points in game.

Witch Aelves £35 for 10, Stabbas £20 for 20, but both battle line.

There isn't a direct £->pts 

[JPjr]

All I can say is thank god the world isn't turning into an uninhabitable furnace, led my murderous savage liars, whilst, personally, I clearly don't have a million incredibly important, and urgent, work things to do on my list today so allowing us the luxury of time to spend debating this important stuff at painful length. God we're all terrible creatures.

[Belakor]

I'm not lazy, I have been listening to all of them, I just disagree. I feel like it's a wrong system and I gave rational points of view. If we can not disagree I don't know what is the point of a forum. Shall we all praise GW for doing the best things ever always? Nope, this discussion is good for the game. About what you are saying of the scenery being a token representation of an Allegiance ability, I can see it like this. But this is just another way for GW to take more money from you, just like if you had to buy another Battletome for example. Obviously I'm always talking having in mind the most competitive scenarios, in your home, of course you can just place  a token to represent a Loonshrine for example, but not in a official tournment or in a GW Store.

And I have been polite all the time and have been giving reasonable points to my argument, don't know why you have to call anyone a lollipopless kiddo.  And as I told you, there's no wrong or right answer, just oppinions.

Cheers

 

 

[Belakor]

@JPjr The problem I find here is that GW is already taxing you the scenery, without even "asking" if you have the model. They give you no choice. If you create a list of 1000pts of gloomspite, you have already paid the cost of the loonshrine. But what If I hate the model? What if I can not transport the model? What if I don't have the money for the model. 

For instance, imagine you have no space, don't like or can't pay a Nagash. Is your army paying for nagash cost? Nope, you just don't field him, you spend your army value somewhere else.

That linear non-optional concept is what I feel like it's wrong. Just my oppinion, again, everyone feel free to think what they want.

[Overread]

@Belakor you can convert your own terrain item. Just head to your local club/store or ask online and you can get teh size measurements from the community in a few moments for any bit of terrain. Heck you could even try asking GW in an email for the measurements of the base size. 

 

Also lets not forget this is a once off for each army. I very much doubt that GW will use this trick more than once, maybe twice for some armies (I can see armies like stormcast or dwarves perhaps getting more than one structure type in time). Plus Wood Elves/Sylvanath have had the option to use multiple terrain features for well over a decade or so now and they've mostly settled with it as a feature for their army without much complaint save transport aspects. It's just part of their faction and faction flavour that they need to use woods to summon to the table. And heck its a terrain item if you want you can make a token up out of cardboard and put that down on the table (it needs no 3D aspect to the model what so ever). Back in the day GW boxes did come with cardboard cutouts - heck I recall one boxed set had an org gargant added to one army which was just a cardboard cutout of the model in a slotta base! 

 

A simple card cutout of the base size would give you everything the current terrain model lets you do; has no impact on transport and almost negligible cost. If you're not that arty you could even ask around and likely another gamer might mock one up for you for no cost. 

[Belakor]

@Overread Yes you can convert. Or place a cardboard, when you play in a club or at home, not in a GW or Tournment. I still remember when they gave you cardboard templates  How things have changed. But again thats not my point, as I told you, the non-optional thing is what I feel is wrong. Maybe i'ts my bad english which is not leting me express well enough or maybe I'm just wrong.

Cheers!

 

[Overread]

I think the point is once you start talking about a tournament you're shifting to a subset of players who are generally expected to pay a "tax" to pay. They have to use the latest rule's they've got to have the battletome and the main rules with them; they've got to have a legal army; got to have official models (or approved conversions); must have paint on the models; must have a case to transport (and at most some form of tray to move around the event with). 

 

Ergo there's a load of things they are required to have which all come with a cost and are all part of attending the event. The terrain feature is just one item of many. Sure if you then shift to home or club play the thing broadens out as to what is and isn't required. 

 

 

I think if GW had introduced £100 terrain features like this or had introduced half a dozen that you had to use at the same time then we'd be there with you in saying its not a good idea. A once off per army isn't a bad idea and in the end the main driving force from GW's end is mostly to get the quality and appearance of the table up. They've done terrain and rules for terrain for years but many were still happy with their shop terrain and/or the tablecloth over books approach. So GW is "forcing" the players hand a bit. Hoping that once they get one of these they'll also get other bits of GW approved terrain .

[Belakor]

@Overread Yes I agree, and I love scenery being important, I just would have given them a point cost to let the player decide. I come from far more competitive game environment. This is why this rules feel weird to me maybe. 

[JackStreicher]

@Belakor the issue with your argument is: all of them have been proven to be some kind of wrong as people tell you over and over. You practically bring up the same argument over and over which is in turn invalidated by too many answers already.

 

you react like one of the  „flat earth people“ who believe in a flat earth no matter how many facts you present to them. You could even send them to the moon and they still would „disagree“ with a spherical earth. It‘s stubbornness and the unwillingness to accept that you are wrong. 

Sincerely this topic should be closed. If he won‘t believe it, let him, but let us stop this debate which goes in circles.

⏰🤖

[Gaz Taylor]

+++ Mod Hat On +++

I think this topic is done and dusted to be honest as it's just going round and round, so I'm locking it. No more please!