Active isn't the same as vocal. People talk ABOUT the competitive scene a lot, but the top players aren't on forums exposing rhetoric about how the game should be balanced. But i think it also depends on what you mean by "competitive players." Unless the discord or group i'm on is specifically for competitive players, I often find that it's more casual players or "light" tournament players that are driving most of the conversation. However, i'll concede that i'm not exactly sure how that would be proven one way or the other outside of pointing to this very forum as a good example. To each their own, but I personally haven't found this to be too difficult to accomplish in practice. No one is going to play "far above their own level" by sheer virtual of having a min-maxed list. The game just doesnt work that way, and its why in other discussions i've talked at length about how conversations like this minimize the impact of player agency over the outcome of any given game. When i go to a tournament, i'm worried about players not lists. There also are gradations in competitiveness of tournaments, as i listed out below. There are narrative tournaments, beginner tournaments, fat middle tournaments, tournaments that involve ban steps, or commander tournaments. There's a whole host of tournaments catering to every type of player and competitiveness level. You just need to spend a tiny bit more effort to find them or do your community a solid and put the effort in to start hosting them yourself. They've been around for a long time across 40k, WHFB, and AOS. I'd maybe start seeking them because you're essentially vehemently arguing for GW to do something the community is already doing. Discussion on how to optimize your list is not tournament players being vocal. Its conversation ABOUT tournament players/play. As i said to Canas, i just don't necessarily know if the top level players are really driving most of the conversation. I think top level play does, but i think the literal conversation is happening among more casual players. as mentioned tho, i'll concede its really impossible to tell. I do think its interesting to note that it seems like just a short time ago the constant gripe was "aos content producers" weren't competitive enough. That the battle reps were using unoptimized lists, that rules were gotten wrong, the list goes on and on. Just seems odd that we've gone from "theres no good competitive content" to apparently competitive players driving all of the conversation. What changed?
From my point of view, nothing has changed. youtube and white dwarfs BatReps are rarely made with optimizied lists, they are much more oriented toward narrative, the use of certain models because cool factor, experimental lists. However, many gaming forums revolve around optimizations; the links I've provided were a small example of the contents about the game that push toward a "tournament mentality". Goonhammer is a site filled with competitive tactics and tiers for various units. So, we could say that there is a mix of approaches.... But in the end, willing or not, competitive meta impacts the game. The "points adjustments" and the FAQ, don't happens because of casual play. They (often) happen because of competitive play. And it's GW that admits it: In one of the first "Warhammer 40k - the Big FAQ" for 8th edition, if I recall correctly, they fixed the rule of "Battle Brother", specifying that a Detachment must had a common keyword, but that keyword couldn't be generic, as "Chaos", or "Imperium", explaining in the commentary that the change was forced because people at tournament were playing Detachments incredibly strong, mixing different codexes with just the common generic keyword, and that was not what was intended. The same can be said for 40k "rule of 3": leaving aside troops, you cannot include in the army more than 3 times the same warscroll of a certain model.... that was introduced (also here, IIRC) because at tournaments people were playing 8 daemon princes shielded by 8 Rhinos, so the daemons were not an eligible target by shooting, and they were free to reach your lines and wreck your army. I don't doubt for AoS is the same... the old version of the Mourngul was so strong that they nerfed it. And the Nerfhammer went down when competitive lists were made with 2 or even 3 of those monsters. The nerf to Umbral Spellportal was because of lists with Nagash blasting tons of spells through it. The "no range increases" for Endless spells was made because of Morathi at tournaments. And these changes to rules, impact also on casual games. That said, i don't think it's a big issue.
That's a framework for a game. Even a format if you extend it to multiple rounds of play. And I suggest you look at the battleplans that are presented in multiple times and campaign books. Even refer to the older AoS 1.0 campaign books for these. You're getting far too specific in your mindset to allow for the "Soul of the game" to be a concern in my opinion. I'm still waiting on that definition by the by. I don't believe that to be the case. While I don't have my books on hand, most of the battleplans do provide a paragraph at the start stating how armies should be picked, no? What kind of forces might be present. And if not in the rules, than in the lore/flavor text. That should be ample for abstracting what you might need. Anymore and you're straying into matched play. I'm at a loss for what you want. You're being pretty uncooperative to what is provided, which is vastly more malleable than what your asking for. Frameworks let you fill in the blanks and build of them. What you want is a step by step recipe for the perfect flavor of game you want. They actively engage with the community by and large, and ask for feedback pretty often. Sure, they're not having us playtest stuff in the way Privateer does, but thats not how they do things. What, specifically and with examples, would you have them do? And why, if I might ask, do you not express this consistently to them? This is assuming you consider yourself a casual player who doesn't actively look to give feedback, as you said most do not. You didn't ask me what they are. Read your own words. You asked what I expected of them. We can play pedantry and word games while you look for a gotcha, but it's pretty boring to do so. No, it was quite clear. I responded in kind. Your intention though was not expressed. Assuming that the only variable to err in is shoving him to combat. There are others, hence the character being complicated to play. For someone concerned with flavor and the soul of the game, you ignore what spells are flavored as. Or how they might appear. Just because two spells have the same mechanical effect doesn't necessarily mean they appear and act the exact same way in the narrative. That's pretty narrow thinking. Each character is there own, and pulling from the narrative portion of the game, each would likely have more magic at their disposal, and likely make different choices. And even then assumptions abound about how spellcraft actually works, as if on a binary basis. Collegiate wizards for example come in many flavors. Sure, they follow a theme in the lore, but for mechanical restraints/on the tabletop they're played as one sort of wizard per lore. No two wizards or magic users is so alike that they'd always attempt to cast the same spell. That's my assumption though. It's really a shame that a fluffy game shouldn't be allowed to also be mechanically pleasing and balanced by this. There are plenty of fluffy mechanics within the game that allow for crazy and fun things, and I believe that the balance to that is also having some reliable restrictions on those so they're just that, crazy and fun, but not rampant or oppressive. This isn't even coming from a competitive standpoint, but as someone who enjoys casual environments to play a relaxed game. @Erta Wanderer To be frank, I don't count Gordrak or Archeon, hence excluding Archeon. They may have similar power mechanically/be centerpieces, but they're not gods.
Very fair. Just to clarify, i have no problem with the general idea that the competitive meta impacts the game or drives a lot of the conversation around the game. My general issue was with "competitive players being the most vocal" specifically, that it is the most competitive players that are consistently making the most comments about the game, its balance, the meta, etc. For me, it gives the impression that when you go to discord, facebook, individual forums, the ones that are posting the most about those topics are the "best" or "most competitive" players. I just personally haven't found that to be the case in the experiences i've had. I've found that the top tier players generally avoid the reddits and discords of the world in favor of smaller, tighter knit communities of specific, like minded people (channels for specific WTC teams, etc). You just don't see a lot of posts by Bill Souza or Luke Morton or name-of-prominent-GT-winning-player-here on these types of more public, general threads. The "most vocal" people seem to be the casual or tournament-light crowd that take the tier lists and optimization videos, overanalyze ever word thats said before taking to their forum of choice to voice their displeasure or unwavering opinion on something they've more or less learned second hand. It's this kind of "information over experience" type of discussion that i think leads to a lot of the things we are sort of talking around in this thread. It creates a more drastic, black and white picture of the game because the information thats being relayed starts to become removed from the context and the experience that originally informed it. Hopefully that helps clarify my position a little bit better!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/04/11/sunday-preview-rise-of-the-first-prince/ We're getting a new box, plus lore in the new Be'lakor book. Looks like ill get all my Stegadons after all
This box will be around 120€ I dont think it'll be less. If you buy them alone is 150€. I'm curious about the rules of the box/battalion, since it's the same unit composition of Thunderquake but the scort.
I hope the Basti isn't compulsory in a battalion named "Celestial Stampede". Unless they make the Sotek Basti more attractive somehow. I'm not too hopeful we will have a good showing in BR. It's a book named after a Daemon character after all, and the Stormcast character is apparently leading the Order effort, by their words. Hopefully we get to do something neat/impactful.
I think there are two options for the Skink Chief's head in the Stegadon kit, I've definitely seen that one before.
It's one of the build options in the set. Looks like they gave him a javelin instead of the spear that he is equip with on the warscroll. Or is that spear, just at a weird angle... hrm.
It seems like the Seraphon part of the conflict might be like the FEC/Bonereapers plot from BR: Teclis. That's a double edged sword because the WD story about that conflict was really good, but also amounts to like a paragraph summary in the actual book lol I'm just happy we get a cool little story about a completely mundane skink either way, it's not often you see any fluff focused on just a particularly brave skink or something
well fluff focusing on a skink is 100% of our first person stories so far so the not often is just that we never get stories in the first place.
perfect time to do a new stegadon kit and do they? nope. everyone else gets a new model, we get a repackaged box of old models most seraphon players already have. hopefully the rules are good at least.
I don't think the Stegadon kit is bad. Yeah it's old, from 2007, but there're worse minis from the same year in our book, like Kroxigors, Razordons or Derpy Ones. I'd say Stegadons have aged well. Overall our Behemoths are fine. Also, making a Battalion out of them is not a signal of making a new kit.
I'm just happy to get new stuff, even if it's a repackage. And we're getting a new campaign in the new White Dwarf. We're getting a lot more support then some factions.