Sleboda

I'm in a similar place. Yes, I understand the "over a beer discussion" excitement of the idea. I get the actual things it provides. What I don't get is the rabid enthusiasm and supreme emphasis a lot of players seem to place on it. In other words, it seems highly overvalued. I place a ton more value on being able to react to my foe's positions on a unit by unit basis, and to be and to hold off revealing the position of my key pieces until after my opponent is committed. I just really think one-drop "advantage" has reached almost unquestioning meme level of undeserved importance. I'm happy to be shown how I'm wrong, though.

I'm headed into a team tournament in a few months. We're both taking Sons. There was absolutely zero discussion about what our first artefact would be. Taking a giant from 35 wounds up to 47? Yes, please! This item should not be allowed on characters with 10 or more wounds.

I use them both in my Ironjawz army, and use the actual names given to them by the creative folks who work hard to bring us awesome stuff with which to play games and stimulate our imaginations as we immerse ourselves in a super fun fantasy world.

The Caldwell/Elmore style is definitely a golden era, as were the Grenadier Dragon of the Month series 1 models. I know these new guys are a little bit different from those, but to my eyes they capture the essence of those classics. These are really hitting the nostalgia button for a guy like me who was in his early teens in those old times. I really feel the pull to my formative fantasy days looking at them. This is just fantastic.

I have been a liker (not lover) of dragon models for 30+ years, but so very rarely have their aesthetics been to my exact liking. The last one that was was the GW Red Dragon (shown here) that celebrated some sort of anniversary of TSR. I think that was about 25 years or so ago. Maybe more. Most of the time they are too serpentine, too 'beastie', too ... whatevs. They are just off somehow. This glorious creature is perfection. It blows the TSR one away. The proportions, the pose, the regal demeanor without over the top arrogance, the intelligence while still maintaining the ferocity and strength... just fuh-reaking nailed it 100%. I'm sure I will get one for my Most Holy and Sacred Order of the Knights of the Jade Griffon Stormcast/Cities army, but if they give me any excuse to add to other armies, I will be getting at least one for each. Hot damn, this is an amazing model - and anyone who says even a minor word to the contrary is clearly both a crazed lunatic and a Cleveland Browns fan (redundant, I suppose). This is draconic perfection. Edit: BTW, I really, really like the Sons models, but felt that, even though I could afford them, $195 was just too much to ask for what I was getting. (I've since picked up four at $145 each, which is more l in line with my expectations.) These dragons will be, I'm going to guess, $235* each, and I will gladly buy a minimum of two. * I recently read on this forum (no memory of who posted, sorry) that if you are guessing the price of a new big GW release, make your guess and add $50, so I suppose these will be $285 each ... and I'll still get them. Edit Edit: Added the picture (credit to Stuff of Legends) of what was once considered, by GW, to be the pinnacle of plastic dragon tech. It was from the Talisman Dragon expansion and got used for several other kits afterward, including Malekith, if memory serves. It was curvy and goofy and bad and awful and everything silly about dragons. My goodness is the new one a leap forward.

I fully expect this to be the case.

I don't really have heroes (other than Darth Vader, Spider-man, and TV's Lucifer), but if I did, you'd be in the running just for this. I haaaaaaate ego and arrogance. Hate. I like squid's content, but hot damn you nailed it perfectly.

As a side note (maybe another thread?), I've always scratched my head over this use of "support." The company needs to "support" the game. A customer needs to "support" a YouTube channel. A gamer "supports" a business by purchasing its products. To me, these are all nonsense. Entity X produces an item (model, podcast, airplane, article, whatever). People pay for it or they don't. There is no connection beyond that. It's especially irksome when a YouTube channel - almost always a thing making money or trying to - asks for support. No, I will not "support" you. Make a thing I value enough to purchase and I'll purchase it. Transaction over. If you fail, that's not because you were not "supported." It's because what you produced was not worth me buying. End of story. In this context, buying and using a product from GW is not supporting them. It's buying something under the terms the seller proposed. I support my mom when she's emotionally troubled. I support my friend by helping him move. I support my junk with nicely fitting undies. I buy a product when the manufacturer creates a thing I value enough to buy. It's a transaction. Incidentally, this is why I believe gamers are entitled whiners when they get mad at a company for not "supporting" a game system. When the game comes out, you buy it for, say, $100. The company owes you ZERO "support" for the game after that. You got what you paid for, and that's it. My lawn has too many people on it.

I just have to say, @Overread, I'm really appreciating your comments on this thread. Not only the the content, but also the tone. You are setting a fantastic example. Thanks for your contributions.

I don't know that it's being a white knight specifically for corporations. At least not in my case. As I've mentioned here and there, I believe in fairness. Simply being large and successful should not remove protections from things you create. If I were to make a Cool Thing, I would have the right to control it's use and distribution. I'm just saying apply the rules fairly. As you may have seen, I go full harshness in GW when I feel like they deserve it (you should have seen me in Twitter over Cursed City and, just last weekend, Beast Snaggaz!). It's not white knight. It's defending fairness.

Indeed, Mr. Kettle, it would be. I wasn't jumping on him. I was pointing out a common point that people often do stumble over. You know, helping to clarify w discussion point ... on a discussion forum. So, in other words, your assumption about my intent was also incorrect. As a wise person here recently said - Perhaps the lesson is not to jump on people in the first place, it's not pleasant even when you're correct, and it leaves one looking very foolish when one isn't.

Of course they have a strong position. It was not obvious to me that he meant that. I've seen the word monopoly used incorrectly so many times over the years that it felt worth pointing out. I acknowledge that may not have been his intent. I'm just saying it was not clear to me. Sort like when people here in the US get on TV or other outlets and claim "censorship" or "freedom of speech" but don't actually know what those terms mean in our system of government. (For example, the forum mods here are not "censoring" or limiting your "freedom of speech" when they edit or delete our posts.)

Perfectly summed up. It really is that simple. You think you're good enough to make films? Then make them using your own work and creations, not someone else's. 👍

If you say so. Because I sure didn't say any of that. At all. Please, disagree with me if you like (that's part of why we have these forums), but keep your attacking words - your utter mischaracterization of my view - out of my digital mouth. I didn't say those things.

Interesting tidbit: Did you know that early action figures from the Aliens film had to have a notice on the packaging to the effect of "Space Marines owned by GW? Yup. Context. While the term "space marine" might not be generally protected, in the context of a small model (action figure) of a space-going combat trooper fighting xenos ... totally protectable.

Not even close to true. In fact, it fails a very simple test, one that shows the inherent value of an IP, even if the fan film maker is not directly making money: If this person who is "getting a start" gets more attention to their work because it made use of someone else's IP, then that IP has value. If the film had featured actual original content, content that didn't rely on freely using the work of others, without their permission, to boost its numbers, would as many people have noticed? In other words, if you feel your skills are good enough to try to get noticed, to 'get a start', then use them to create your own stories, characters, etc. If you have to use someone else's stories to get attention, you are not as good as you think you are, or at the very least you need to recognize that you truly do see value in using what someone else owns, and you don't get to just take that and use it for free.

A company can not have monopoly on its own product. Nobody says McDonald's has a monopoly on Big Macs. The "market" for GW is everything GW makes. They own it all. Something simply being huge is not grounds for it being a monopoly.

Thank god. I never understood how those were ok. It's nice to see the creators protecting their work. If you are a small one-man operation or the biggest guy on the block, you still have a right to protect what you have created. If I support the little guy (and I do), then ethically and for consistency, I need to support the big guy as well. Besides, maybe this will encourage creative reviews. Reading the book to me is the bottom of the creativity and effort barrel. As to fan films ... duh, right? Of course you can't use someone else's IP just however you want without permission. Fan effort or otherwise, it's still protected. For profit or not, it's still protected work. You don't get to make the decision about how to use something someone else owns. The owner does. The thing is, in order to protect their IP rights against genuine predators, they *must* pursue protection in other cases they spot. If they allow some things to slip, they weaken their case to defend other cases. This is something they really have to do, and I'm surprised it's taken this long. One more thing here is that by aggressively pursuing protection of their IP, GW increases its value in negotiating contact pricing for folks wanting to license it. If you can prove your product is controlled tightly, limited access rights become more valuable. They could easily be looking to prove to bigger players that it's worth buying what they are selling. 40K Hollywood movie, anyone? I don't want it, but this way of protecting IP makes that license worth a lot more. Also, I don't buy the "this will only hurt them" argument. You don't see "fan films" of Mickey Mouse either, and last I checked, Disney is not exactly hurting.

Well, seeing people both in my family and not have significant health declines over 60, it's always been my plan to check out well before then, so I'm in my twilight years now. It's the frog in the warming water thing. We don't think we are falling apart at 50 because we compare it to 49. 49 to 48. 48 to 47. And so on. I take a longer view. In my 20's I was getting published in painting books, writing White Dwarf articles, winning tournaments and painting competitions, giving lectures on the hobby, having more, ahem, "quality time" with partners, and so on. Now I'm 50. My painting is waaaay worse than 25. My ability to recall is waaay worse than 25. My typing speed is waaay down. My eyes are waaay worse than 25. My brain takes waaay longer to find the right words. So, really, it's just perspective. Sure, some folks, the outliers, are still vital at 50. Most of us are not, at least not anywhere close to as vital as we were at 25 or 30. It's natural. I'm on my way out, just like most 50+ year olds. I'm really ok with that overall. Death comes to us all. Life is not precious or special. It's all good. We now return to our regularly scheduled non-depressed thread.

Agreed. I have not seen the news yet, but it sounds like it's not going to be the 6mm "epic" game I was looking forward to, which means any enthusiasm I could have had for it will be shot.

I have. It's basically an automated version of the cheat sheets I've been making for years. I'll go back to making my own (I prefer my own format, though theirs is certainly helpful) soon. We played one AoS game in the last 1.5 years up until the the three we've just done. It's been mostly Blood Bowl and Super Fantasy Brawl during lockdown. For sure! I actually find that making tokens for my armies is one of my great hobby joys. See the picture below for what I did for spells in my old silent film vampire army. I'll definitely be making some for my Bonereapers. I don't know why, but it really, really doesn't feel that way to me. WFB was second nature to me. AoS 3 feels like I've gone from being an NFL left tackle to a whatever it is that's nuts in cricket. I've been a weird sleeper all my life. And a drinker, too. Now I'm in retirement so it's even more easy to get into my natural flow. I tend to sleep from 8 a.m. to about 5 p.m., get up, have steak and tequila, grab a shower, and get hobbying. Sometimes that shifts around. It's like I'm on a 30 hour day clock instead of 24, so it cycles around oddly. Anyway, I take your point - more water! I did 1000 of Khorne at first. No wizards or priests. Four different warscrolls. Then 2000 of Ironjawz. Still only five or six scrolls. Last night was 2000 Bonereapers with about 10. They all felt equally tough, which is, oddly enough, a good sign - If I can handle 10 like five, maybe I'm progressing. Thanks for all the thoughts so far.

Ha! It's a Halloween decoration from a pet shop. We use it as a shaman's hut.

So, I'm now in my 3rd game of the new AoS, and I'm really struggling to come to grips with the overload of stuff to track. It's daunting just to build a list (thank you @warscrollBuilderfor your aid with that!), but at the table I'm just overwhelmed. Now, in fairness, I'm old now. Just turned 50. The brain isn't as sharp as it once was. That said, I've been wargaming, with GW stuff in particular, since I was 14. Won tournaments, ran events, taught games. The whole shootin' match. These systems are not new concepts to me. I've learned to use quick reference sheets and other tricks, and that's always been enough. I'm just finding all this start of, during, end of, but careful about timing conflicts, your hero phase vs the hero phase, buff but not all things as much as some things, etc. stuff so darn ... tedious. Is anyone feeling this way, with this game in particular? If so, got any advice? Dunno. Maybe father time is catching up with me. Could be.

Exactly. I always used to try to my anti-dispel scroll opinion across by pointing out that there is no "negate combat" scroll, for example. Howv annoying would it be to move into position, accurately guess your charge distance (old days), make the roll, pick up your 20 attack dice, and then hear your opponent say "I use my negate combat scroll. All of your attacks miss." No thanks. Dispel scrolls were awful.

A subtle detail that is easy to miss, as explained in my earlier posts. People often make assumptions or add things that simply are not there, as you've shown. Well stated.