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Open Play? "Let's read" the General's Handbook


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But the fear of those problems is exactly what keeps people from being willing to try non-Matched Play games. I absolutely agree that things should be a problem before you look at solving them, but the fact remains most people are going to already be afraid of an open play game because there are no restrictions. I maintain that the major issue is that people do not want to take responsibility they want to point to the points and say I'm allowed to take this because it's within my point limit regardless of how good it is. Open Play removes that cushion and if somebody brings nothing but the most overpowered things they cannot hide behind anything other than the fact that they are a ******. But it is the fear of showing up to a game that uses open Play and being massively outnumbered or facing some ridiculous game breaking combination or the dreaded I'm going to fill my entire board age with the most powerful units in the game because I can that keeps people from even wanting to do it because that is considered a waste. I know for a fact that I only tend to play one game a week and I would not want to show up to a game and have it be a bust because it feels like I just wasted my time and I do not feel like adding things mid-way through the game to balance it out is something that should be done.

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@Trout Obviously I can't talk about how to solve a problem in situ without a situation to use as an example.  I know you think you've done something rhetorically clever by pointing out a theoretical example or musing on the shortcomings of points systems in the same post as an appeal to only concentrating on actual problems is some how self defeating, but it really isn't.

And the caricature of Open Play is not a theoretical problem.  It's a real one.  People actually experience massive resistance to even trying Open Play because of the wrong ideas their potential opponents have about it in their minds.  And those fears certainly don't need to be reinforced.

Furthermore the line by line parsing of my posts and then quoting my own words back to me as some sort of "gotcha" came across very poorly.

For the record, I'm not against having the next Open Play section having some sort of "how to use points" section.  I don't think they do what other people think they do, but if people want to use them as a tool, then I'm fine with that.  I like that Open Play in the new 40k has a simplified "power" system that people can use.  While still maintaining the notion that they don't always have to be equal (see the command rerolls in the Only War scenario in the free rules briefing PDF for 40k).

This is a Let's Read thread about the Open Play section of the General's Handbook.  If you could keep future posts in this thread about Open Play itself rather than advocating for abandoning Open Play for a version of Matched Play with fewer restrictions, that would be awesome.
 

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6 hours ago, wayniac said:

Open Play removes that cushion and if somebody brings nothing but the most overpowered things they cannot hide behind anything other than the fact that they are a ******. But it is the fear of showing up to a game that uses open Play and being massively outnumbered or facing some ridiculous game breaking combination or the dreaded I'm going to fill my entire board age with the most powerful units in the game because I can that keeps people from even wanting to do it because that is considered a waste.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." 
- H. P. Lovecraft

Quote

I know for a fact that I only tend to play one game a week and I would not want to show up to a game and have it be a bust because it feels like I just wasted my time and I do not feel like adding things mid-way through the game to balance it out is something that should be done.

It's basically just the equivalent of an emergency break.  In decades of gaming, it's only been used to fix an issue like maybe twice for me.  It's been used to extend the fun a few times though.  Where my opponent brought out another force and declared that the flanking force has arrived.  Doing so basically meant I won the initial scenario and now we're doing a new thing.

Stuff like this isn't really a defining characteristic of Open Play but is simply a tool.  One that might be used by players who are open.  Just a technique I thought I'd share.

I know there are loads of people out there who don't get the gaming they want out of the same points pitched battle type games that have come to dominate many local gaming scenes.  It's actually sad that those who would enjoy a more open approach to their gaming are afraid to do so because they've been told that the problem play from their least favorite games of matched play is what the open play approach to play produces, when it doesn't.

There is no real solution other than to keep talking to people and finding like minded individuals.  There really is nothing that can be done about people who literally believe that all their nightmares will come true if they stray out of a rigid approach meant to protect them from other players.  As long as they hold that belief they are not very likely to even consider putting models down on the table the second they see or hear a hint of the dreaded "open play" bogeyman.

Probably the best approach (and this only works when the game is growing locally) is to play with new players and do what you can to set the tone.  It's one of the reasons I'm concentrating so heavily on skirmish in my own gaming.  I want a vibrant local community that embraces all manner of play and the way to do that is to have relaxed and open gaming for new people.  There will definitely be enough opportunities for matched play in most locales, so those who would enjoy matched play will not be prevented from doing so by having a wider array of initial experiences.

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The Fog of War

Page 17: "Two forces march through the night to a foggy battlefield. As the mist lifts, the armies find that they have become intermingled with units from the other side…"

And we have another multiplayer scenario.  Though the fact that this divides things into teams should be a clue that it would work for 2 players as well, even if it loses out on a cool feature.  If you want to see a two player version of this the first battle in the Age of Sigmar: Skirmish book is basically an adaptation of this scenario to two players.

The basic idea is that players will take turns deploying their armies in one of six territories on the table top, 6 inches away from the models of other players.

Here's the twist though:  you won't know who is on your team when you deploy.

Page 17: "After all players have set up, they must split into two coalitions."

You draw coloured dice from a cup until both teams are decided.  Any random way of splitting up the players into teams will work.  There's a little table of how to split up odd numbers of players.

The victory conditions are basically to kill heroes (you get more points if it's a general and even more if it's the warlord for an entire team) and inflict the most wounds in a battle round.  You keep track of wounds inflicted and after both teams have had their player turn, the player with the most scores some points for their side.  And finally the centre ground is worth victory points if your coalition has the most models within 6" of the centre point of the table.

So what about the 2 player version in the Skirmish Book?

You take turns deploying units rather than each player deploying their whole army.  And units are deployed in table quarters determined randomly.  But not close to the centre of the table and not within 9" of an enemy model.  Models that can't deploy (all space they would fit in is within 9" of an enemy model) come in later as reserves.

My experiences with both the full sized scenario and the skirmish one have been positive.  Especially the skirmish one.  Deploying unit by unit and closing off certain parts of the table to the opponent is a neat addition to the scenario.  Though it does lose out on the surprise of only finding out who the enemy is after all deployment is complete.  Maybe a hybrid is worth trying?  Unit by unit deployment and then find out who your enemy is in a multiplayer scenario?

What do I wish they did differently here?

Make both multiplayer and two player versions of each of these multiplayer scenarios right in the book.  Multiplayer is fun, but a lot of these scenarios would work great for two players and they could have done a bit more to make that obvious.  This is true for pretty much all of the multiplayer scenarios in the Open Play section.

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A note on the Clash at Dawn (Skirmish scenario) since I've played it a lot as the "basic" Skirmish scenario at 50 Renown.  It can be VERY random; if you roll to where you have a bunch of models in one quadrant, you can easily gang up on the enemy if they are spread out, and since the victory conditions are the Skirmish version of "kill everything" (reduce to over 50% of total models) most games end very fast even by skirmish standards.  I've heard a few complaints about the random deployment, but overall I find it to be a really fun and fast scenario that usually ends within 3 turns or even sooner.  You can also sort of game it by deploying your first model right in the middle of the square, and then force opponents to deploy on the outskirts more than 9" away.

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I definitely consider it an introductory scenario where you'll get to all the phases of the game happening right away.   I've been running it mostly for people who are new to AoS and it tends to get to the action immediately.  I tend to have a couple pieces of terrain per quadrant and usually if I go first I open up by taking a terrain piece and explaining how the 9" bubble means they can't deploy into it.  

I always sort of thought the point of the 9" bubble was so you could claim territory and have at least some semblance of a common place to gather the models who ended up in the same quadrant.  The new players seem to get the decision making right away when I start putting models in quadrants so they can link up/gather together.  I guess going right in the centre might be gaming things, but usually terrain means there's a better move.  I might actually try putting a terrain piece that models can't really go on in the centre of each quadrant.  A crag or a building with a steep roof and no entrances.  Something to make each quadrant also have a small "no go" area at the centre like the larger scenario.

The 50% dead victory condition also does end things very quickly.  And if the hero dies then it goes from a minor victory to a major one.  I usually am pretty aggressive putting my hero out early as part of explaining the scenario.  It's probably the wrong move in terms of trying to win, but it helps to be able to say "to win you need to kill half my models, but to get a major victory you'll also want to kill this guy."

One thing I am looking forward to is playing the multiplayer version from the GHB with the skirmish rules.  With the six territories and no one knowing which player will be on which team.  On Saturday we should have multiple players with 50 renown a piece painted up.  I'm going to bring an extra warband and ask another player to do the same and maybe we can rope in a couple x-wing players and I'll finally get to try the scenario with the full six players.

The GHB scenario has no models placed with 4" of the enemy while the skirmish one has 9 inches.  If I'm doing the GHB one using the skirmish rules, what distance do you think I should go with?  Is the 9" only needed because the models get within the same quadrant or do you think the extra space might be a good idea even when the table is separated into 6 territories?  Now that I think of it, there might also be something to be said for sticking with a 4x4 and quarters and not doing 6 players.

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  • 10 months later...

Actually no.  That group got mostly taken over by 8th edition 40k.  That game actually didn't happen on that Saturday (everyone brought their 40k stuff and built and painted and talked instead).  I've played a skirmish game here and there, but our multiplayer monthly day switched to 40k, until tomorrow.  I guess the "ooh shiny" took 10 months to wear off!

I think the time spent playing 40k has been a boon for my AoS play.  The Open Play of 40k is just great.  The three scenarios in there are the perfect thing to introduce new players to the game.  They also start off assuming unequal armies.  If a player gets 8th edition 40k, plays the scenario in the free rules and then plays through the open play content they'll have a great foundation for wargaming and will experience both equal and unequal forces with attackers and defenders and different objectives.

I'll be continuing this thread with page 18 forward:

Page 18: "This is a scenario for three to six players, each with an army consisting of up to six units. The units being used cannot be larger than double the minimum size shown on their warscroll, and only one model in each army can have a Wounds characteristic greater than 10."

Interesting army build requirements.  I think this is a good place to consider the different ways you can approach this.  When you read that do you think that the goal is to make the strongest army possible given those restrictions?  Would you take 5 of the most powerful unit at double size and a hero with greater than 10 wounds?  Or would you take what you think is cool or want to try and not pay any attention to what the most powerful option is?

Now imagine some of the people in the multiplayer game go with one approach and some go with the other.  I think this both shows the importance of being on the same page as the other players in the game as well as the role of politics in multiplayer games.  If someone at the table has a tournament level army then you're going to need to rely on the nature of multiplayer games to help.  And you enable this by talking about it and pointing it out to the other players who have stuff deployed near the super strong army.

There will also be some natural mitigation of unequal armies.  If someone has a huge outlay of mortal wounds or ridiculous shooting and they wipe someone out, the other players are going to go "hmm... maybe that's the real threat here."

I think it's important to keep in mind though that the scenario is probably meant to be played with people with the same approach so it doesn't have to be people banding together to defeat the guy who brought the tournament style army to a friendly multiplayer game.  

At the same time, maybe go for it?  I think it could actually be fun if one army was obviously the strongest right from the get go.  The doomed defender type scenario from earlier in the section certainly works.  So maybe there's something to having one player be on a stronger footing at the beginning of the game. 

"All the units that a player sets up must be placed in one unoccupied territory, and must be placed more than 3" away from any enemy models, and more than 12" from the centre of the table."

There can be massive amounts of turn 1 fighting in a scenario like this one.   Multiplayer games can take longer so it's probably a feature rather than a problem.

"Laurels of Victory are awarded throughout the battle for slaying enemy forces, accomplishing heroic deeds, and capturing the centre ground."

Basically you get victory points for inflicting the most wounds (or second most), for holding the centre of the table and for killing heroes.  Game goes for five battle rounds and then if there's only one army left, that player gets a major victory, otherwise major victory goes to the person with the most laurels.

I've only played this once.  And it was around a year ago, so I don't remember enough details to comment from experience other than I remember there being a ton of politics.  Especially after someone took the lead.

Applicability for Skirmish:  Seems like it might be better in Skirmish as you'll simply have more room and you can cat and mouse a bit more.  Moving away from and towards certain opponents is a lot easier when you have less models compared to the size of the space.  The centre should probably be shrunk from a 12" radius down to 6".  Or accept that scoring it will be very hard as you likely won't have the models needed for area denial like in a full sized version of the scenario.

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