Finding a better way to review our hobby: the Warhammer Onion

[KrrNiGit]

Finding a better way to review our hobby: the Warhammer Onion

Stolen from Warhammer Community... artist not credited L

 

When looking at our hobby most people simply react to it on a personal or emotional level. When something gets  released that makes us happy it is “good”, when makes us mad it is “bad”. Something we don’t enjoy can easily become “NPE” and “bad for the game” instead of just being something we don’t like. Using this type of emotionally laden language when we talk about our hobby is dangerous. If word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising then we should be careful what our mouths say to advertise our hobby. Who would want to spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours building and painting to join a hobby that is “bad” and full of “NPE”? Talking this way is a fine way to express your enjoyment of a thing, what it fails to do is serve as a way to evaluate the thing itself. This talk can be fun but not always helpful.

 

If we want to avoid this pitfall but still talk about changes to our hobby what can we do? What sort of framework can we use to evaluate our game and help keep us from making sweeping and emotionally driven statements?

 

Building a critical framework would help guide us in our evaluations and avoid the worst pitfalls. One possible framework available to us is what I like to call the ‘Warhammer Onion’. In this approach we break our hobby down into its component parts before reconstituting them to give a holistic evaluation. So what layers do I think there are in our onion?

 

For me there are 4 layers to my Warhammer Onion. The physical, mechanical, social and narrative. Most games have the first 3 of these. There is a physical component; the ball/field/card, the mechanical in which rules that define the game are laid out and the social experience between the players. Warhammer, like other roleplaying games has a forth layer, the narrative world in which the game takes place.

It’s got layers, like an ogor.

 

Now that I have defined my layers, let’s break them down individually and see how we can use them as lenses to evaluate our game.

 

 

The Physical 

Our game has a physical aspect to it. It uses physical models and takes place in the three dimensional space on the table.

 

The models themselves need to be put together and painted physically. They can be converted and customised. This act is a major part in the overall experience of Warhammer and the wider hobby in general. For some the building and painting and miniatures is a hobby unto itself. Conversely playing without the miniatures the overall experience of our game would be diminished. Without miniatures you could play the game but I don’t think it would give you the full Warhammer experience.

 

Not only can you critique the miniatures as games pieces but as sculpture or art pieces. How is the eye drawn to this particular piece? What is it trying to communicate to you? How successful is it in doing so?

 

Moreover than just using an artistic lens, our physical lens also has connections to the mechanical. Warhammer is played in three dimensions. Not only does the game have physical miniatures but those miniatures play in a physical space. The table is populated not with templates, but with terrain. If you are playing around a tower, there should be a tower on your table for your miniatures to play around. Lots of games have pieces that represent the players or other abstract concepts but Warhammer has physical miniatures that 1 to 1 represent your models in the game. They do not simulate as much as they create the game we play. Miniatures move in real space, not abstracted squares or via points on a board. Line of sight is draw from the miniature to another miniature across the board. There is a physicality to the game play.

 

Warhammer exists in the physical space and is a physical game. This needs to be considered when evaluating it. Do we make the most of this physical nature? What could be changed to better suit its physicality and what are the limitations it imposes?

 

 

The Mechanical

 

Every game has rules. These rules set the boundaries around the play experience and guide how the players interact. These rules when put into action are the mechanics of the game. Most reviews focus on these mechanics and their perceived potency. This is so common terms like ”math-hammer” have been developed as short hand for working out the odds of a given rule and make value judgements around it based on that.

 

You would think that mechanics are the safest area for reviewers to focus on. The assumption is that it has to be objective, you are remarking on the words on the page. If you have ever had a debate over RAI vs RAW or met a “rules lawyer” you know that things are never that simple. Our game is not simple mechanically. We have rules layered upon rules layered upon rules that all may or may not be applicable depending on the varying game state. A good review of the mechanics should help make the reader aware of these potential contentious readings. Mechanical reviews should also aim to bring out interesting interactions between different mechanics. Reviewers should aim to make people aware of not only the pitfalls but the potential of these mechanics. This mechanical chain of rules interactions should be at the heart of any good mechanical evaluation.

 

Reviewing army lists demonstrates this kind of analysis. Not only are the units considered for what they can do in the game but how they interact with each other. A good list review is a good mechanical review.

 

While this is a valid way to analyse a game, but it is not the only way. Since this mechanical review is so widespread and accepted it would be a good basis to build a more holistic review off of. Start by analysing the list and its mechanical capabilities then building out to remark on how it effects the social or physical aspects of our game. Good reviewers tend to do this instinctively. When remarking on the strength on playing a 90 Pink Horror list a good reviewer will also note how non-interactive a social experience it can be as the horrors simply stand in the way. A good review will use the mechanical lens at some point but it is not the only way to evaluate our hobby and should not be used in exclusion of the others.

 

 

The Social

Warhammer is a social experience. You need someone to play against. The game is a vessel for social interaction. It sets the boundaries with the rules and requires the two players to work it out together. This interaction at the table often leads to further social interactions. Communities are built around it. People talk to each other about it. Participating in the Warhammer hobby is participating in it with others.

 

One of the questions you often hear from people getting into the hobby is what army should I play. They ask what is not only good but also fun for their opponent. Their considerations are not only for game mechanics but also social ones (nobody wants to be seen as a “that guy”). They are aware if not straight out concerned with how others in the hobby will perceive them. Choosing to play Warhammer, building an army, getting involved with our hobby is an inherently social activity. That is one of its draws. People want social interaction and this game creates an experience that helps drive social interactions (which is great for those of us who aren’t the best at all this social talky stuff).

 

So if our hobby is inherently social what does that mean for us analysing it?

 

When reviewing an edition, an army book, a supplement or any change a perfectly valid lens of critical thought can and should be how this will impact our social interactions when playing the game. Does a change cause players to have better/more/worthwhile social interactions? Then this is a good change. Does the change remove these opportunities or make them more contentious/negative? Then it is not.

 

Looking at the majority of the changes to 3^rd edition AoS one of the desing goals seems to be increasing the interactions between players. Players are active and involved throughout the game rather than just on their own turns. Players are able to react in their opponents turn increasing the opportunity for social interaction. When evaluating it from this social lens we need to go deeper than there simply being more opportunities, we need to ask are they opportunities for good social interactions? Do they enhance the social experience I have with my opponent? Or do they get in the way of it?

 

Warhammer should be a place where people can come together and share a worthwhile social interaction. The rules should actively support and encourage it. Things that get in the way or create negative social experiences should be removed.

 

 

The Narrative

Finally there is the world within the game. This layer exists as the narrative told by the players through the game they play. The game aims to be more than just a collection of miniatures in a space, an abstract event or a social experience but an immersive experience where the players interact within the narrative world of the game itself.

 

Built upon all the preceding layers, this is the immersive quality where we get sucked into the world of the game. Our toys become our soldiers and we become the general. I believe this narrative element is a deciding factors for many players when choosing Warhammer as a game to play. This marriage of narrative and game has been around since the beginning of GW games. First edition Warhammer fantasy required a third neutral player to “DM the game.” It was a RPG experience set within a wargame’s mechanics.

 

So how do we evaluate the narrative or immersive qualities of our game?

 

I think the easiest way to see this in our reviews now is in cases of ludo-narrative dissonance (ludo = game, narrative = story of the world – i.e. when the narrative of something and its effect in the game do not match). When a miniature is described as giant fierce dragon but its rules mean its attacks do little this dissonance occurs. The problem with this dissonance is that it ruins the immersive experience for the players pulling them out of the world of the game. Now ludo-narrative dissonance is not always bad but it needs to be considered and intentional to risk the breaking player’s immersion. If a character is described as a powerful warrior that leads from the front but its rules say it should be played cautiously from the back then that dissonance should be used to tell us about the world. The narrative could be propaganda and our experience of the game should show us how silly something like that is. Now do I think this is the case for most occurrences of this? No, probably not but there is potential for the designers to use it in interesting ways.

 

When we review from a narrative perspective we should ask ourselves does this help draw us into the world? Does it help create a holistic and immersive experience? Is it consistent with the world they have presented? If not is it our understanding should change or is it just bad writing?

 

 

Putting all together

Using the physical, mechanical, social and narrative lenses we can look at our game and evaluate it in a more rounded way. While deep diving from one lens can provide interesting insights, ensuring we have them all in our toolboxes helps us balance out our biases. It can give us new ways to appreciate our hobby. As our game is multi-faceted so should our reviews. When a new unit comes out we should talk about how the models look and interact on the table, the rules it has and synergies it could have, the ability for it to create cool and engaging situations with your opponent and its narrative place within the world of the game.

 

Most of us do this implicitly already (at least partially). When we talk around things we discuss the rules and the lore and the models. Making it explicit helps us round out our personal tendencies and provide more thoughtful inputs into our hobby conversations.

 

Being more intentional and thoughtful is the goal. Our hobby is supposed to be fun, talking about it, thinking about it and playing it, should be fun. A community in a negative spiral, or that dismisses parts of the game that appeals to others but not ourselves is not a good community. Having an explicit framework helps us divide the “hot takes” from the considered reviews will help us evaluate what opinions we should listen to and value.

 

 

 

[KrrNiGit]

A practical example:

 

 

This is a Stormcast Prosecutor.

 

 

Aesthetically it follows the design cues of the original chunky stormcast and might clash with the newer sleeker stormcast designs. The unique look of their “wings” might be off putting to some players but fits with the wider aesthetic of their armour. The models have large wings and flimsy connections to their bases. They might benefit from some reposing and creative basing solutions.

 

They are faster than the average stormcast unit and fly. They also have an unique rule which allows them to stay within 3 inches instead of the usual 1 inch for coherency. This allows them to make interesting screens for your army and their points coupled with their 3d6 charge makes them excellent bait units to take an unleash hell instead of your hammer units.

 

Their speed helps keep the stormcast player more engaged with the game. They provide them the ability to interact on a wider proportion of the board allowing them to get into more action than the standard foot troopers. They give the player more options to interact with their opponent.

 

As flying relatively fast stormcast they keep to the lightning strike elements of the armies theme. While they do not contain the raw output, very few stormcast units live up to their descriptions in the lore.

 

Overall the Stormcast Prosecutors are a fun unit within the army book. They give the stormcast player a fast and responsive unit, which while not unique definitely rare within the army. They are worth considering, complimenting most stormcast lists if you don’t mind the potential dissonance between the older sculpts and the newer models.

 

[Kadeton]

3 hours ago, KrrNiGit said:

When looking at our hobby most people simply react to it on a personal or emotional level. When something gets  released that makes us happy it is “good”, when makes us mad it is “bad”. Something we don’t enjoy can easily become “NPE” and “bad for the game” instead of just being something we don’t like. Using this type of emotionally laden language when we talk about our hobby is dangerous. If word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising then we should be careful what our mouths say to advertise our hobby. Who would want to spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours building and painting to join a hobby that is “bad” and full of “NPE”? Talking this way is a fine way to express your enjoyment of a thing, what it fails to do is serve as a way to evaluate the thing itself. This talk can be fun but not always helpful.

While I can get behind what you're driving at in terms of a formal review structure when trying to "evaluate" a unit or an army, I'm not convinced that stodgy, formal reviews of this nature are interesting, or even particularly helpful. Trying to avoid or remove "emotional language" is an anti-goal for engagement - the emotional content of a post is what makes it interesting and sparks further discussion.

A case in point: your review of Prosecutors is very well-rounded but not very interesting. I didn't care about Prosecutors before, and I still don't care about Prosecutors having read it. There's nothing in it which grabs my attention and makes me want to know more about them, and I have no response to it other than "Yeah, okay."

If I instead saw a post talking about how the poster loves Prosecutors because they're so much fun to play, or loathes them because they're so overpowered, that would be a much stronger draw to read about that person's experiences and discuss them. I didn't care about Prosecutors before, but they're clearly capable of stirring some strong emotions - now I'm intrigued and want to find out why!

[nuttyknatty]

Now I’m the opposite. I like the clinical approach. Different strokes…..

[Maogrim]

6 hours ago, KrrNiGit said:

A practical example:

 

 

This is a Stormcast Prosecutor.

 

 

Aesthetically it follows the design cues of the original chunky stormcast and might clash with the newer sleeker stormcast designs. The unique look of their “wings” might be off putting to some players but fits with the wider aesthetic of their armour. The models have large wings and flimsy connections to their bases. They might benefit from some reposing and creative basing solutions.

 

They are faster than the average stormcast unit and fly. They also have an unique rule which allows them to stay within 3 inches instead of the usual 1 inch for coherency. This allows them to make interesting screens for your army and their points coupled with their 3d6 charge makes them excellent bait units to take an unleash hell instead of your hammer units.

 

Their speed helps keep the stormcast player more engaged with the game. They provide them the ability to interact on a wider proportion of the board allowing them to get into more action than the standard foot troopers. They give the player more options to interact with their opponent.

 

As flying relatively fast stormcast they keep to the lightning strike elements of the armies theme. While they do not contain the raw output, very few stormcast units live up to their descriptions in the lore.

 

Overall the Stormcast Prosecutors are a fun unit within the army book. They give the stormcast player a fast and responsive unit, which while not unique definitely rare within the army. They are worth considering, complimenting most stormcast lists if you don’t mind the potential dissonance between the older sculpts and the newer models.

 

I'm also not of @Kadeton 's opinion. I like that you included things that most people on forums often don't bother talking about, like how they fit the army's aesthetics and what visual aspects might not be everyone's cup of tea and especially why. 

Now, you kind of skipped over your own narrative category but I still think it's a way better and far more interesting approach than the usual 'lmao unit X is bad; play unit y!!'. Great job! 😊

[Gitzdee]

Its kind of refreshing not reading the mathhammer approach for once. 

[KrrNiGit]

4 hours ago, Kadeton said:

If I instead saw a post talking about how the poster loves Prosecutors because they're so much fun to play, or loathes them because they're so overpowered, that would be a much stronger draw to read about that person's experiences and discuss them. I didn't care about Prosecutors before, but they're clearly capable of stirring some strong emotions - now I'm intrigued and want to find out why!

I too like passionate people. They’re generally more entertaining. Hot takes are fun. The danger is when they devolve into passion with no substance. 

I remember hearing of a persons first entry into the hobby. They picked Slaanesh when it first came out for no other reason than how pretty the models are. They painted 1000 points and went to their local club for a one dayer. This new player spent the day listening to people whinge and moan about their army as they lost every game. They did not have a good experience. 

As a community we need to be careful what we talk about and how. Having a framework like this hopefully gives us boundaries to play within. At worse it gives us an opportunity to think about the takes we consume and evaluate which are just passion and which have something valuable to say.

[KrrNiGit]

1 hour ago, Maogrim said:

Now, you kind of skipped over your own narrative category but I still think it's a way better and far more interesting approach than the usual 'lmao unit X is bad; play unit y!!'. Great job! 😊

Thanks! 

Personally I find the narrative review the most difficult. It’s the lens I am newest to. I like Doug from 2+ Toughs ‘what makes this so cool?’

What sort of approaches or questions do you think would make good driving points for a narrative review? 

[Overread]

I think I see the flaw in your review - you don't own any Prosecutors. Or at least you don't give the impression of owning any. 

 

I understand the concept of your review in breaking down a model into different aspects so that you can review each aspect in itself without letting one override the other. However you've boiled it down so much that I think you've moved away from a review to a blurb, like the one on the back of a book. A summary that's so short and quick to the point that you lack the space to go into detail on any one aspect. Eg the first section on building you make potential suggestions on what might be weak connections, however the way its worded sounds like you've looked at a photo, but not actually built, held or played with the model. There's no mention of how easy it is to actually build; any tricky or confusing parts; no mention of sub-assemblies for ease of painting; no mention of hard to reach spots or of cool little detail features on the model or variation or optional parts (or lack there of) in the kit. 

This carries through into the other sections; the comments are generalise based upon the stats but not really going into actually using the models on the table or in armies. Not even just your own experiences of using them. It's one thing to have good or bad stats, but to actually use something within the context of games is essential to any review. Math-hammer is very important, but context is also critical. You also make little to no mention of any combos, interactions, buffs/debuffs etc... within the review. 

Again this comes off more as a review based on a photo and warscroll than of actual model experience. And this taints the review because it ends up so basic that it lacks depth in itself. Even if you remove all flare and "lore/fluffy/personal" aspects from a review there is still room for a lot of engagement in the small details of each aspect. 

 

 

Granted I accept that your review is a quick demonstration of your theory, however I think that its important to note that a big critical part of any review is trust in the reviewer themselves. That comes across in the writing and for many that might be someone really hyped up about a model. Who sounds excited and interested and fired up - that carries a lot of weight because that's how we gain the impression that what that person says is "true". They are interested and that means the positive parts of their review regarding the model gain extra importance whilst the negative lose importance. 

If you remove the emotional aspects then you've got the small details; things that give confidence that you have held it and used it. That you have experienced and tested the model and thus are a valued source of information.

This is a sub-text to reviews that some forget and yet its critical to the overall uptake of any review. Especially when the reviewer is otherwise an unknown person to the person reading the review. Some "long established" people within a community can have very brief and "to the point" reviews and get away with it because they've built a fanbase who trust their word. The demonstrations of the reviewers skill, validity and more have been done, just in the past. 

[Kamose]

I definitely can appreciate this kind of review but, not gonna lie, I saw the title of this post and really hoped someone had made a Warhammer version of The Onion.

😁

[Enoby]

5 hours ago, Kamose said:

I definitely can appreciate this kind of review but, not gonna lie, I saw the title of this post and really hoped someone had made a Warhammer version of The Onion.

😁

That's what I first thought initially - though TableTop Enquirer is worth a look at if you haven't already

[Noserenda]

Im sadly untechnical, is there a reason the text of this is black on a black background?

[Maogrim]

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

Im sadly untechnical, is there a reason the text of this is black on a black background?

Don't know the cause, but you can switch the forum by clicking on the light bulb up on the header. Then you should see black text on white background.

[KrrNiGit]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

That's what I first thought initially - though TableTop Enquirer is worth a look at if you haven't already

@Kamose you can try Azyr Weekly too

[Fairbanks]

[Zappgrot]

You know what.  Movie reviews in news papers are not done by a critical frame work. Because nobody that is that invested in the work would get it's review from the newspaper.

Same whit  reviews of the warhammer products.  I think a critical framework is verry intresting. And probably usefull for studieing warhammer as a culture or as a game. 

But as a review. Kind of pointless. 

It's the emotional part that's what intresting.

Will this product make me feel .......

That's what matters 

The how and why not so much. 

And yes that makes it hella subjective but that's part of the fun.