Path to Glory 3

[NinthMusketeer]

Shackles are game-breaking regardless of mode of play.

[Ahriman]

11 hours ago, Nasrod said:

Played The Trap against Kharadaron Overlords today.

They deployed in the corner and popped Spell in a Bottle Soulsnare Shackles. 

I'm Soulblight Gravelords.

Our Path to Glory campaign officially starts in August and I think I went from being fantastically excited to dropping out of it before it even starts. 

The idea of PtG is awesome but tying win conditions to killing things exclusively amd eschewing the objective based gameplay is such a bad idea...

You can play any type of mission you like for Path to Glory though, so it’s a pretty easy fix to stick with the Matched Play mission, or objective based Narrative one’s, and avoid the kill point missions if you don’t find them fun.

[Enoby]

With a bit more time behind us, what do you guys think of the system? I'm hoping to start a PTG campaign soon and I'm wondering if there's anything we should look out for, or any important homebrew rules?

[Blood0Tiger]

4 minutes ago, Enoby said:

With a bit more time behind us, what do you guys think of the system? I'm hoping to start a PTG campaign soon and I'm wondering if there's anything we should look out for, or any important homebrew rules?

I have a hard time explaining it, but my personal tests with the system was not enough time to understand how to make improvements myself, but its just okay I feel. I just think they needed more time making this feel like a campaign than a fairly barren system with too many words and little impact. I feel if you are someone who wants to build off this system, this is exactly what I'm doing, so far its hard but I'm getting somewhere. But if you use this exactly as intended, it leaves a lot to be desired for narrative fun. 

[NinthMusketeer]

This time around more experience has not altered my initial impressions (posted last page). I would add that the biggest difference I have found is the scenarios--they don't play or feel the same way matched ones do (which is good). But overall PtG3 just feels like Matched with extra steps.

Also high model count units are handled badly by the system because they rake up casualty counts since they lose tons of models every game. Sure they can recover for a glory cost, but one is far better off just dropping them and paying to add a new unit at full strength.

[Enoby]

1 hour ago, NinthMusketeer said:

This time around more experience has not altered my initial impressions (posted last page). I would add that the biggest difference I have found is the scenarios--they don't play or feel the same way matched ones do (which is good). But overall PtG3 just feels like Matched with extra steps.

Also high model count units are handled badly by the system because they rake up casualty counts since they lose tons of models every game. Sure they can recover for a glory cost, but one is far better off just dropping them and paying to add a new unit at full strength.

Thanks for the rundown Do you think some of these issues would be easily fixed by houserules, or are they intrinsic to the system and so not really easy to edit out? 

Also, while it may be a little hard to say, do you think the 'matched play but with extra steps' feel is firmly planted within the rules, or do you think it comes from a lack of rules? E.g. would more battletome PTG pages help fix this issue (ignoring the balancing), or are the fundamentals 'broke'? 

When trying to play narrative games in the past, it's often devolved into people trying to one up one another by taking the best thing on their PTG roster and ending up with a few hundred points over everyone else. While a lot of that is a player issue, it does seem like the new system may fix some of this with its points values of battles, but on the other hand is does encourage people to take the matched play way and just bring the best 600 points they can. I think we may keep in the 'growing army' theme (as in, you can't switch out units unless it's an upgrade - e.g. Chaos Sorcerer Lord becoming Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore), but I'd really like it if there was a way to make the warlord better than just sticking artefacts on them.

One thing I noticed, and this could have just been be misreading something, but you seem to get loads of enhancements as points/tiers increase but it doesn't seem like there's any support in using those enhancements. E.g. If you only have two heroes, one will have an artefact and trait already, and then I guess you can stick an artefact on the other one with an enhancement, but after that when army size and tiers increase are you just expected to put a load of heroes in the army who can benefit from these enhancements (otherwise you just can't use them)? Am I understanding this incorrectly?

Just on a glancing read, I'd have really appreciated more customisation for every unit to make it feel like an evolving narrative. 

[NinthMusketeer]

I think the fundamentals are great--the best thing about PtG3 is the fundamentals. A few rough spots but nothing that can't be fixed with house rules. The biggest drawback to the core of PtG3 is outside the system itself; by using the same army building as matched play it will be host to all the same paradigms and imbalances.

That OP character will still be OP. The auto-take artifacts will still be taken. The best sub-faction will still be the one everyone uses. When I play narrative it is specifically because I want to get away from all that, which leads to my personal dislike of PtG3 even though I recognize the quality of the system. But this also isn't a problem with the rules of PtG3 but rather a problem with GWs legendary incompetence at balancing.

The real problem with PtG3 is that while it has a great set of fundamentals, that's it. There is nothing built on those fundamentals. All those fun and thematic ways to gain renown don't mean much when progression barely exists. Lingering casualties stacked on your favorite unit lack impact when the most efficient way to clear them is to delete the unit and re-add it to clear everything. There is structure for running a campaign but no campaigns to use it in. Players are just left with a system to track the progression of their force but with nothing to progress towards be it for individual units or the army as a whole.

But there is still fun to be had. Campaigns goals can be created by individual communities. Extra ways to spend xp can be house rules in. And every army is coming in at the same level so there is camaraderie in making the 'wild west' of PtG3 work. For now.

Soon there will be 3rd edition battletomes packed with content to give flesh to the skeleton of PtG3. And that will make things so much worse. Because then there will be haves and have-nots with a sharp divide between the two. When everyone is dealing with the same content issue there is still parity and a shared experience. Once battletomes hit some armies will, in a practical sense, be playing an entirely different game system. Even if they are by some miracle not getting a massive power boost from it, that disparity of status is a massive fun-killer. Players feel left out to dry for showing up with the army they like. The entire idea of forging a unique identity goes out the window because only those with new battletomes get the chance. It tears out the heart of what makes a narrative system fun. And we know this because that's where 40k Crusade is at.

Ultimately my message is to enjoy what you can while you can and keep fingers crossed that GW will step in with White Dwarf and/or supplements to make sure everyone gets their extras in short order.

2022 EDIT: Nevermind, they just opted to not add any substance with subsequent releases.

Edited June 13, 2022 by NinthMusketeer

[Blood0Tiger]

Path to glorious paper work 3.0 for me.

I have gone through the book so many times, roughly 48 or so pages back to back of making adaptations, but as usual, the fundamental core system does not want this because its going to bog down any chance to get a game in. Spend more time reading how to play and what even to do vs the short gameplay feels intentional to me. I would just like this looked at by GW and to listen to the people who give feedback:  I want to play this system and ultimately enjoy it more than once, but until I can make  a whole new one or update  PTG3.0, Either way I have this on hold because I don't have the time for it sadly.

[NinthMusketeer]

Well there's always Road to Renown!

[bonzai]

I like the concepts of PTG3, but I do have some issues when I look at it from a league style campaign perspective.

1. There are no victory conditions. It is completely open ended. The original AoS PtG was a race to a set Glory point Total. This one makes no mention of how it is intended to end. Without a set victory condition or set time limit, these things tend to fizzle out over time.

2. It is too self contained. Kind of related to the first issue. But there are only 2 ways you opponent can impact you; casualties and limiting the points you earn. There is more potential for disruption, like sacking or taking over territory. You get trounced? Just play a few a few games against some random and you will be ahead of your opponent in the next rematch.

3. Outposts. Don't mention it without covering what they do.

I think there will be some campaign supplements that might address these issues. Lots of potential, but ultimately it's incomplete.

 

[NinthMusketeer]

Having seen what the battletomes are offering, I'm now firmly in the 'dissapointed' category. They made a great base to build on, but if SCE and OWC are any indicator there isn't much being built. And to some extent it's lose-lose; add the depth needed to give the system an identity and it becomes haves vs have-nots with new 'tomes, or go with a more balanced approach and end up with no depth at all.

I am starting to think making it cross compatible with Matched was a bad idea, contrary to my initial opinion. It seems to be too much of a restraint.

[Enoby]

Just looking at upgrading models with renown points, which is available in the new tomes and tome celestial. Initially I thought it would be a way to save considerable numbers of glory points to add a unit into the roster. But it seems like it saves you about one glory point if that - and the only other benefit is keeping an enhancement if applicable.

I may be missing something, but it seems like the 'upgrade' system is a bit half baked? To the point where, if you wanted to upgrade a hero, you'd just be saving time to retire them and replace them. 

[JackStreicher]

Alright, here we go.

I mainly play PtG and I'll sum up my opinions, praise and criticism below. Suggestions for improvements will be marked with *.

Army Generation
The army generation is straigth forward and not very complicated. That's good, yet it could be made more interesting.*
The ressource used is Glory Points as this is the main ressource for everything (except leveling up units).

Army/Settlement Progression
This one is twofold: You can expand your army via spending glorypoints and in order to do so you occassionally have to upgrade your Fortress so can add more units or reinforcement points. While this is also straight forward it sadly becomes repetitive and I wished it was a little deeper in terms of building new structures and the likes.
Building structures: You basically can't. First you have to discover new lands in order to upgrade them. The only buildings you can build are garrisons and your keep, which is a shame. This part also lacks depth**.

Hero Progression
Your general can't progress, period. Smaller heroes can get Command Traits and Artefacts, which is cool. This part also lacks depth***.

Post Battle Consequences
This step is not meaningful (sadly). The only case in which one might lose a unit is if this unit consists of a single model. In every other case the recovery is rather simple though costly.****

Scenarios
While these are fun they are mostly re-writes of the 40K narrative Scenarios. The biggest issue with these is the abundance of Missions that basically want you to simply slaughter the enemy. This makes these missions feel uninspired and repetitive. There are at least two missions which are almost impossible to win: In one you keep half your army in reserve, yet you are allowed to shock within 9" to the enemy - it's an auto-lose for the enemy. In the other the defender gets points for surviving models - which makes him auto-win at the end of turn 2 if the enemy hasn't killed enough of his army by then. In my opinion the Scenarios are the part of Path to Glory with the biggest creative freedom and the need to be expanded*****.
 

Suggestions

* Make certain units only accessable after the creation of certain buildings. They used to have a categorisation of Soldier, Guard, Elite etc. units. Reuse that one.

** Make buildings have an impact on Scenarios, army composition, playstyle etc. currently they lack meaning. For example: building a Tavern could grant +1 Bravery to yur heroes. Or one's settlement could be attacked unless a wall is build etc.

*** If heroes could inspire one unit around them would be interesting. Nothing game breaking, simply: Add 1 to rolls for redeploy for "Unit" while the unit is wholly within 12" etc. I'd also love a Title-Table: Depending on what factions you fought and how many enemies that hero has slain he can roll on a table granting him a title or a minor special rule.

**** Maybe a Unit-Title generator would be nice or the possibility to grant a unit access to a special weapon after reacing a certain level: Unit champions can get an artefact or a command trait? Badly wounded units could get a malus or a boon

***** Since these scenarios don't need to be balanced it would be nice to see staged scenarios with incoming enemy waves or monsters that disrupt the battle, siege battles, attempt at raids which destroy or damage buildings of the enemy player. There is so much possibility for cinematic battles which hasn't been tabbed into at all.

[JackStreicher]

I played 1250 pts of Stormcast vs Slaves to Darkness. The Khorne Xhaos Lord on Karkadrak with eternal vendetta and the Amulet of Destiny killed my entire army (including my general, priest and Knight Judicator) 🥲 I was tabled by a single model (and the fact that rolling 1s and 2s for Armour isn’t any good)

mit was still a good game since the last dice roll decided who would win.

[BryJDee]

Does anyone have a guide of how to run a campaign?

Ive volunteered to run one at my club but I've never even played a campaign before lol

[NinthMusketeer]

On 5/18/2022 at 9:49 AM, BryJDee said:

Does anyone have a guide of how to run a campaign?

Ive volunteered to run one at my club but I've never even played a campaign before lol

Honestly (and this is going to sound like me tooting my own horn but hear me out) my best suggestion is to use the Road to Renown system I wrote instead (see my signature). It isn't similar to 3rd edition Path to Glory (it is based on 1st-2nd edition PtG) but is straightforward, flexible, and importantly comes with campaign structure laid out ready-to-use. I could extol my perspective on the virtues of RtR over PtG but what makes me bring it up as a suggestion is really that last part; Road to Renown has an inherent campaign structure while Path to Glory does not.

Having originally come from house rules I used when running leagues in my local community I can certainly vouch for it being enjoyable in that respect, though obviously community cultures are different and it is a rather subjective topic.

[wayniac]

In my (albeit inexperienced) opinion, what I like about the new PtG system is that it IS "Matched Play + Extras".  In my area at least it's basically if it's not Matched Play, nobody cares or will give you the time of day because it might be unbalanced, so the rule of the day is GHB pitched battles only (even the rulebook ones are considered bad), constantly changing based on what the GHB seasons are whether or not it's tournament games.  it might as well be every game is a tournament practice game.  I hate it; it's boring, it's stale, and daring to suggest not using the GHB you might as well be saying go back to launch-day rules with funky "My beard is bigger than yours so I get a bonus" and "I'm playing 10 Nagashes" rules with how people will, politely sometimes, tell you to buzz off.

Having something that feels similar to matched play but allows for extras is, IMHO, amazing and was the big thing missing previously.  It would be much easier in my locale to convince someone to play PtG if A) it still retained what was basically a Matched Play core and had extras, and B) allowed for use against people whether or not they were doing it (although I could see some complaints here about it being "not fair" to get extras for PtG by not playing PtG; I could definitely see a situation where someone has played more non-PtG games but applied PtG rules and ends up with a bonus over someone who hasn't).  That definitely was not the cases in the previous systems where people would spend more time complaining about how the games COULD be unbalanced than trying to make it not unbalanced, when it's easier to just say "2k pitched battle on Friday night" and have that be the entirety of the conversation.

That said though I wish they'd expand it.  It bothers me constantly that GW only focuses on what are essentially tournament rules, and those rules affect the entire game not just tournaments.  It would be one thing if people only used the GHB plans for tournaments, but just like it's always been the GHB is considered the game by the vast majority of people, not just something for tournament play; it's like they are still in an AOS 1.0 mindset where it's either GHB rules or it's "put whatever you want" and there is no in between.

Edited June 27, 2022 by wayniac

[NinthMusketeer]

7 hours ago, wayniac said:

In my (albeit inexperienced) opinion, what I like about the new PtG system is that it IS "Matched Play + Extras".  In my area at least it's basically if it's not Matched Play, nobody cares or will give you the time of day because it might be unbalanced, so the rule of the day is GHB pitched battles only (even the rulebook ones are considered bad), constantly changing based on what the GHB seasons are whether or not it's tournament games.  it might as well be every game is a tournament practice game.  I hate it; it's boring, it's stale, and daring to suggest not using the GHB you might as well be saying go back to launch-day rules with funky "My beard is bigger than yours so I get a bonus" and "I'm playing 10 Nagashes" rules with how people will, politely sometimes, tell you to buzz off.

Having something that feels similar to matched play but allows for extras is, IMHO, amazing and was the big thing missing previously.  It would be much easier in my locale to convince someone to play PtG if A) it still retained what was basically a Matched Play core and had extras, and B) allowed for use against people whether or not they were doing it (although I could see some complaints here about it being "not fair" to get extras for PtG by not playing PtG; I could definitely see a situation where someone has played more non-PtG games but applied PtG rules and ends up with a bonus over someone who hasn't).  That definitely was not the cases in the previous systems where people would spend more time complaining about how the games COULD be unbalanced than trying to make it not unbalanced, when it's easier to just say "2k pitched battle on Friday night" and have that be the entirety of the conversation.

That said though I wish they'd expand it.  It bothers me constantly that GW only focuses on what are essentially tournament rules, and those rules affect the entire game not just tournaments.  It would be one thing if people only used the GHB plans for tournaments, but just like it's always been the GHB is considered the game by the vast majority of people, not just something for tournament play; it's like they are still in an AOS 1.0 mindset where it's either GHB rules or it's "put whatever you want" and there is no in between.

But HAVE you been able to convince them to try PtG? Have you been able to use the PtG content in a meaningful way?

Also, them making out like Matched is anything resembling balanced... Well I'd equate it to standing in the shallow end of a swimming pool saying not to go to the deep end because it might be wet XD

[wayniac]

11 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

But HAVE you been able to convince them to try PtG? Have you been able to use the PtG content in a meaningful way?

Also, them making out like Matched is anything resembling balanced... Well I'd equate it to standing in the shallow end of a swimming pool saying not to go to the deep end because it might be wet XD

I haven't yet because I haven't really been able to play for several months due to a myriad of things in real life. My local store is having a league but they're treating it like a tournament which isn't my preference but it means guaranteed games so I will take it however I plan to gauge the other players and see if a few of them would be open to something more than standard games afterwards.

I suspect that I would have to do it on the down low because My experience has been if the store isn't running it then people don't want to do anything that's not "officially supported" by the flgs. But the downside of this of course is that then it becomes open to anyone whereas I think a PTG would be better suited by a smaller close-knit group, Even if we basically have to act like we're just going to the store to play a game and nobody really needs to know that or actually doing a campaign because, honestly, it's none of the game stores business. 

And yes, I never understood the attitude that matched play is somehow balanced at all when it's very clearly not the best reasoning I've seen given is that it's more straightforward in setting up a game and that's the main thing people care about. 

[Clan's Cynic]

I've not turned towards Path To Glory in 3.0 despite my desire to, but it looks like an opportunity to do so will be coming up soon. I have a question I've been trying to wrack my head around.

General's Handbook content isn't relevant to PtG outside of points changes/warscroll tweaks etc, right? I know Thondia has a load of PtG-specific content, but outside of that I don't need to look up anything beyond the core rulebook and my Battletome?

Cheers.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Clan's Cynic

[NinthMusketeer]

Correct

[StePava]

Hi All,

in my gaming group we are starting a PtG campaign from the ground up, with 600 points order of battle.

Is the first time we play narrative after years of matched play.

After some games I can say that is a very interesting formats.

I have a rule question, if someone could help:

My hero was slain in battle, so I need to roll on Injury table, i Roll a 6 = Major Injury.

So my Spirit Torment with 5 wound characteristics starts the next battle with 4 wounds (not healable in that game).

My question is: what happen next?

I don't found any rules to recover (recuperate) this wound, so in the next - next battle my Hero has 4 wound or 5? If it is slain again and I roll again I will have 3 wound?

In other words, this Hero Injuries are temporary (just for one game) or permanent throughout the all campaign?

I know it can be a silly question, but I don't find any explanation on the rule for Heroes, instead for the Units this aspect is very clearly explained (recuperating rolls and so on).

Thank you.

 

[NinthMusketeer]

As I recall it is just the next game then it's gone.