Saxon
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Posts posted by Saxon
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8 hours ago, Mirbeau said:
Basically that, some of the AOS armies with cards are just better (on paper) than the warcry-specific cults in some scenarios. The new grand alliance books/abilities in the catacombs book might rebalance that for some scenarios at least, I haven't looked at the stats./abilities yet but they have been leaked so others may know if there have been changes made.
Interesting. I played just the one game against an idoneth list and there was just no chance of me dealing enough wounds to kill anything.
Im disappointed GW has failed in this respect because the original warbands seem relatively balanced.
Once again though, if they nerf or boost anything it's another set of cards that have to be purchased because they either intentionally or not write rules poorly.
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2 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:
It is not only the rules, it is the attention they generate. As I said, if you are painting (maybe even have a commission service), you'll likely get more attention if you focus on models that are taking the spotlight. Recently warcom featured a selection of the new void necro models (very powerful IG, btw), showing what "elite painters" crafted. That's big publicity for the people featured.
GW is a big company and they make a deliberate effort to sell you models, attacking from all fronts. It is not just WAAC people they target, they have tricks to get to all of us.
Indeed. The new space marine sculpts are absolutely terrible. They look like multiple kits frankensteined together. But give space marines stupid rules and now these things are viable. I saw on instagram some hate for some of the melta rules that are just off the charts.
I must be broken because in the last 12 months GW has made it almost impossible to sell me new models. In 12 months I've purchased 1 box of models to finalise my nighthaunt. Whilst I didn't mind some of the newer models, you see the buzz online about how great they are and like clockwork the inevitable rage when their singular builds get the nerf stick.
I think I'm traumatised by how quickly LoN became virtually unplayable when I spent the best part of a year building an army.
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2 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:
There is, without much doubt, a deliberate effort by GW to switch around what armies are better and, within armies, the units that are better. There is little to no sublety in the way this is done. So why is GW doing this? Why aren't they balancing wulfen and thunderwolf cavalry to be both viable? Because they stand to benefit from a switching meta. People will gravitate to powerful options, and away from weak ones. When a new player asks for advise on a list the first thing he gets are the meta choices. But we now know those won't stay always relevant, so the player will either accept being "weaker" in an obvious manner, or get the new "meta" units. And then the meta army will change altogether.
Whilst im not super familiar with 40k i have seen a lot of references to these sorts of things. The interesting question is why?
Is it to make people chase the meta and thus buy more models at the expense of the rest of their customers? Do WAAC players outspend the rest of us?
I see a lot of contempt for arguments that suggest that rules that create a negative reaction from the community are intentional on the basis that not every new set of rules is broken.
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1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:
This sort of imbalanced meta seasons will continue for as long as GW has the market power to enforce it. There aren’t that many obvious alternatives to their rules, specially with the all around mainstream package they provide (support, recognizability). I have seen people quit wargaming because of legends shenanigans or big meta switches because they thing there isn’t a true alternative.
Isn't this an indication of either a) accidental poor rule writing and play testing or b) purposeful poor rule writing?
I see nerfs as an admission that their new rules interact poorly with existing ones.
Its extremely poor for a leading company to make books useless within several months.
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My group hasn't played much warcry yet but we have had a bit of a go at it and really enjoyed the game using the starter set models which seem fairly balanced. Im curious, what are peoples thoughts on the specific warcry warbands vs. The ones adapted from existing AoS armies?
We have only played a couple of games with models from AoS armies and probably need far more to form an opinion but they seem very strong. What are others experiences with this?
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16 hours ago, jeremym said:
Too many unknown factors, what other armies were played at the tournament. what match ups they got, what scenarios, etc. LoN is definitely a weaker army in comparison to current meta heroes. but they're far from being unplayable. A good player can win the attrition war
Too many ways to ignore battleshock these days. Attrition wars are long dead:(
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3 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:
I do not think any of us are disagreeing, I simply suspect that @RuneBrush and @Sleboda , like myself, place more weight on the "hobby" than the gaming. As all of us have admitted, some people do care quite a bit about the "gaming". To them, the rules are very important and so they are very affected by the meta swings. Then, naturally, the rules are part of what GW uses to "create value" for their range and is part of the pricing decisions.
100% correct. Some of us aren't the best painters so have to rely on our tabletop skills (or lack thereof in my case).
Recent releases ( Slaanesh and Bonereapers top the list) concern me on the basis that the rules are strong to push models. I say this because there is the inevitable nerf after they've made bank. Both slaanesh summoning and petrifex elite have been hit with a stick.
I dont know if that is a good business model personally. People who buy models for rules tend to get upset when those rules get changed.
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10 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
I'm sorry, but how is setting up the Imperium as a satire of fascism not already political? Not to mention stuff like the original characterization of ork stormboyz, where they are portrayed as idiots for acting like militaristic skinhead punks.
That's not even getting into the matter of stuff that I suspect you would view as political I would want to argue should not be viewed as such, like female representation in the model range.
Funnily enough my last idea for an army was a chaos army of marauders using females as shield maiden's as a Viking theme. There was a lack of available alternative heads that weren't extortionate expensive.
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1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
I'm sorry, but how is setting up the Imperium as a satire of fascism not already political? Not to mention stuff like the original characterization of ork stormboyz, where they are portrayed as idiots for acting like militaristic skinhead punks.
That's not even getting into the matter of stuff that I suspect you would view as political I would want to argue should not be viewed as such, like female representation in the model range.
Its not explicitly political. It wasnt until about 5 years ago I realised the imperium was satire.
I support female models and female options. Probably my favourite recent models are the Sisters of battle ( or whatever GW calls them for IP reasons these days). Would be nice if they made alternative sprues for most factions as well as doing more work to encourage different skin tones on their boxes
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1 minute ago, Greybeard86 said:
I think the thread is already doing cross-country, no worries (at least on my end).
It is certainly easier in current times, IMO, to sell the story about "heroes" and "villains". I bet the market they were selling to in the 80s was pretty different and the "counterculture" approach was both closer to the original writers and the other "geeks".
The problem is that their "sugar coating" of the empire, which is inherently an authoritarian xenophobic thing, is in line with the current political debates / issues far too much for its own good.
"Culture" may attempt to distance itself from the rest of society (in the case of GW, they likely just care about selling and "good" vs "bad" sells more now) but it going to fail. If you write stories about "good" fascist regimes, you are contributing to a narrative whether you want it or not. "In bad times, we need strong men and xenophobia" is certainly one side of the political debate.
Funny how it is radically opposed to the original spirit of 40k. Can I get a LoL?
You're not wrong. I had a good laugh at the Imperium being created as a p*ss take.
I would resent anything GW related becoming even remotely political. It was bad enough seeing social media blow up and demand GW become socially involved in the wake of their inclusively statement. Thats a road that leads only to trouble.
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1 minute ago, Greybeard86 said:
Yes, but you see how you did reference that reading? Because this is modern GW canon:
"The imperium is besieged from all fronts and needs strong men (yes, mostly men) and to be xenophobic because otherwise it would perish; also, kids respect fatherly figures because they are ultimately doing what's best for humanity (the emperor our savior)"
It is not random that people, including yourself, read it this way; it is GW's doing via the "newer" publications.
In the past, it was more like:
"The imperium is a freaking fascist mess, xenophobic because of fanaticism, ignorance, and greed. It is lead by riot-police-like fanatic / hooligans who workship a megalomaniac old man rotting in a chair"
Is it not easier for them to do it this way? Consistent even?
I have also derailed this thread and I apologise haha.
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3 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:
That's the modern reading and likely what triggers some people.
This is the crux of my entire argument.......
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1 minute ago, Beastmaster said:
I do find it upsetting that more and more people in real life think being xenophobic and hoping for a well-meaning dictator is a completely unproblematic, even, considering the circumstances, necessary way of seeing things. Those are the people who don’t get the satire that 40k tries to be imo.
The word dictator has been thrown around a lot in my country due to harsh restrictions to control Covid-19.
Politics in general seems to be a race to the bottom worldwide.
I find it sad that some people cannot separate a game and real life. When I actually used to play 40k as a teenager it was so much simpler.....
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1 minute ago, stratigo said:
Actually most of the not fine statues were put up because they were not fine and were a useful tool in reminding a downtrodden minority how the majority viewed them and their place in the world. The vast majority of those civil war generals were raised in opposition civil rights. The shouldn't be at street corners, campuses, and in front of government buildings. People remember why they were actually placed there and the equivocation of "but but history" is mostly nonsense.
The morality that changed was "oh, maybe black people should have equal rights and not be abused". Sadly, for some, still a controversial statement.
The problem being that the Imperium was never supposed to be the good guys. They were a satire on how fascist the original game writers thought thatcherite england was.
So, uh, yeah, being problematically xenophobic was one of the ways to show the imperium was bad that people have started to take as good. Which is bad.
Just like how statues that were raised to glorify slavers (the vast majority of confederate generals and politician statues) as a tool to scare black people was bad when they did it.
Yeh im not going to wade into anything related to the disaster that is the USA. Nothing beneficial comes from discussing such a polarising and chaotic country.
Its game lore and it's meant to be dark and confronting. The imperium is authoritarian and xenophobic because its the only way it survives. Getting upset by people seeing this in a way different to your own is the most concerning thing.
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55 minutes ago, Grimrock said:
"Sorry, to get the heresy cheese you need to buy the wrath of the everchosen condiment set. Also we've found the terminator fries are too popular in most meal orders so we've cut the number of fries per order in half. We have released a new primaris apple pie though if you'd like to pay extra to add it to your combo"
Hahaha nailed GWs business model there!
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7 minutes ago, Kramer said:
Oh that’s where we 180 degrees disagree.
it’s so much better in AoS. Yes most chaos warshippers at the low level are forced into the service of the dark gods because it’s the only way to survive.
It’s a recurring theme in plenty of books. It’s so much better than good vs evil.
just like those stormcast, exact hammers of sigmar, are all a bit dark. They all overdo it.I want the grey. I want the witch hunter who is a cold blooded devil who burns villages of innocents but in the next saved a little dracoline from a tree for its owner.
just good vs evil is boring.having read most of the aos books release last three years, the lore is already very strong. But it will always feel thin compared to not only the older brother. But also 40k gets more attention. So aos will never catch up. but if you forget the comparison the narrative is so good.
every good guy is a little bad, and plenty of bad guys have sides you can identify with. And of course depending on the story there is always room for the more simple good vs evil
Oh of course 40k dominates the lore. It's been around longer so of course.
Personal preference but I have had a hard time getting into the AOS lore because I was such a huge fan of the old world lore and also because I cant get past my dislike for stormcast haha.
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1 hour ago, Kramer said:
A lot of statues weren’t fine until recently. They were wrong all the time but people didn’t know. Or phrased differently they were accepted in previously held morality by society.
and in the same manner we do things as a society now, that will be viewed as wrong later.
morality changes, that’s natural.
removing statues instead of using them to teach why their morality is now viewed as wrong is not the best solution imo. It creates a wrong sense that things and people are right and wrong. That it’s fully black or white. that doesn’t work. Also dismissively calling one side of the argument something doesn’t help either.Morals do change you are right and I completely agree that removing statues is wrong. I used this example because funnily enough the same people upset at the portrayal of the imperium are the same people upset because Winston Churchill was a war mongers racist.
It greatly concerns me that the strong lore the game has does come under criticism for darker elements. I dont want games where space marines try and talk it out with Abbadon before invading the planet or that chaos is just misunderstood. AOS needs to develop strong lore to engage people in the game for the long term also.
its hard not to dismiss this side of the argument when its so poorly informed and reactionary.
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Just now, zilberfrid said:
It may be a bias by small sample, but I think that there has been a shift from the comically fascist empire in Rogue Trader to a more understandable one more recently.
Though on the other hand, just today I read a few Regimental Standards, and they are quite funny in that "your lives don't matter" kind of way. The one equating grots and guardsmen while encouraging them to still think of themselves as better had me laughing out loud.
I like that depiction, but it's a challenging one to write long form fiction in.
See i agree i love that kind of thing. The lore surrounding the seized of Vraks which was a meat grinder was cool. The 40k future is dark and bad. It may just be my circle but seeing people get upset at the way it's all portrayed just irritates me.
I do recognise that being consistent for so long in writing style would be difficult.
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25 minutes ago, Enoby said:
I think the criticism of 40k's writing isn't because the so-called 'woke generation' doesn't get satire, but because 40k's lore is a mess and so sends multiple messages.
There are no shortage of people who unironically think that the Imperium are the good guys (or at least justified), and that's partially down to the toning down of the Imperium's silliness (compared to Rogue Trader days). I don't think I have ever seen someone from the 'woke generation' ask for 40k to become more sanitised - in fact, I have seen quite the opposite. Most seem to wish that 40k would go harder on the Imperium's bad aspects (and lose any of the good) to hammer home that they are the bad guys too.
As the books are written by so many different people, the message gets confused. It only takes one author to write "there are some nice and fair places in the Imperium" for certain fans to latch onto it and declare the Imperium isn't as bad as everyone claims. The best example comes from the Emperor, who I believe in Rogue Trader days was a malicious tyrant, who is now seen in the community as a wise and super-intelligent leader (all of his mistakes were either 5D chess or bad writing) who still resides in mind on the golden throne and wants the best for humanity (and would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for his meddling kids). Changing the Emperor from a mysterious skeleton on a chair that people worshipped and sacrificed innocents to for possibly no reason besides thinking it worked (a great microcosm of the Imperium), to a skeleton of an actual god (in 40k's terms) who can grant powers and does actually hold the astronomicon together as well as commune with his son was possibly the change that brought about the most confusion as it partially justified the Imperium's cause and made them look less stupid. When the 'god' they worship has been described by authors to have the best in mind for humanity and there's a massive book series describing how other people messed it up for him, as well as this god granting powers (living saints) I think the original satire of religious dogmatism gets lost. It's now not about humanity being hilariously wrong and corrupt, blinded by misguided faith to sacrifice to a rotting carcass on a chair but instead about worshipping an actual god who can do things - the faith is no longer misguided.
Judging from fan groups and lore discussion, there are those who (unironically) believe the Imperium is justified, that the god Emperor is a good person, that there are mostly nice places in the Imperium (we just see the bad places), that the Salamanders are good, that the xenophobia in lore is a good thing (ignoring the fact that the Imperium are just as bad as the aliens), and that there is no other way the Imperium could possibly operate. From what I've seen, it's not this mysterious 'woke generation' who doesn't understand satire...
I guess experiences are different. The last time I made the mistake of venturing into games workshop related social media there was a lot of opposition to how the imperium operates in the lore and how it apparently encourages right wing extremist views.
Its one of the reasons I avoid the community on social media. My favourite part was when GW posted an inclusion statement but didn't post it on instagram and everyone lost their minds until new smurfs came out 2 weeks later and everyone stopped caring.
Keeping lore in any game on track has to be hard. Everyone has their own ideas and perspectives. 40k fans in particular are demanding and unforgiving. Id hate to be a black library author.
The woke generation is not mysterious.... put a conservative opinion on social media and await the hate haha
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1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:
I could imagine that the aim at religious fundamentalists fighting demons was at least in part making fun of the people who thought D&D would teach their kids to summon the devil. 😄
But.
With all those heavy themes, it’s really important how they are represented. For example, you don’t see environmentalists criticizing 40k for endorsing the building of industrialized megacities, while poisoning whole planets. Why is that? Because it’s shown as really detrimental to all inhabitants involved. The xenophobia is a bit more complicated, because it’s shown to be generally justified: Many, if not most of the alien species really are a danger to the humans and their imperium, the humans often „only defend themselves from the invaders“. In this day and age, those are arguments that sound all-too familiar, especially in the last 18 months. We should be very aware of that.
The lore of 40k has more or less been consistent in its xenophobia from the start. It's tiresome that all of a sudden its bad to show good guys as problematically xenophobic. Hence my reference to statues. Fine until recently and now they're offensive. Please.
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6 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:
It’s because for some people, that xenophobia is reflected in the rules too, with imperium armies generally getting better rules than the xenos armies even when the lore supports it being the other way around. That probably has something to do with it
I think that's just a reflection of 1) how that game was made - centered around the imperium and its fight for survival and 2) the customers bases appetite. It's a heck of a lot easier to sell smurfs to teenagers than the complex world of the Dark Eldar.....
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On 10/20/2020 at 10:45 PM, zilberfrid said:
I get that it is described as satire originally, but the tone has become too serious. And too many of its players take it too seriously as well. It reads a bit too much as Schrödinger's jokes used by the utter right.
I really absolutely resent that the satire aimed at the dogmatic religious organizations around when 40k was created has come under attack from the woke generation who get mad at statues.
I've seen criticism of the xenophobia of the imperium far too often in lets say the last 18 months in particular. It's upsetting that the people getting upset by this are too stupid to realize the intention of it and ironic that they can't see how silly they look trying to get rid of it 😆
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On 10/20/2020 at 6:32 AM, JackStreicher said:
Here we go again:
The new Warcry set costs 160€ (120-125GBP - that‘s about one billion AUD by GW‘s conversion rate 🤣
Agreed. The page before this comment i was praising Warcry and how much fun our group had playing it the other week only to see GW slap on a massive price tag for the new box which has instantly put us all off.....
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People getting priced out of frustrated with potato rules should have a crack at Warcry. I've been having a lot of trouble in my local gaming group with WAAC players and rules/mechanics available to newer armies i don't enjoy playing against as well as my general declining enthusiasm for AOS.
First game last weekend and loved it. Quick, simple, quirky missions. Love the missions, the models and the random generation of terrain and twists. Picked the game up quickly and we got 6 people to play 4 games in a few hours which was also nice. Good change of pace from AOS.
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Metawatch article highlighting the total lack of balance
in Age of Sigmar Discussions
Posted
It's hard to give a company credit when the rules in their very expensive battletomes become very redundant very fast. Printing Errata all the time and taking it to games is really irritating.