The return

[John]

Apr 22, 2009 12:41:52 GMT mike said:

Scoring table quarters is possibly one of the must unbalancing aspects of the victory point system... So I say -- take 'em out and be done with it

First, you choose your special feature, so you get one that benefits your army ... you place your marker anywhere on the table you like

This sounds like a recipe for abuse by gunlines. Consider the following:

I can stick a Arcane Monolith (+1 dispel dice) in a corner, surround it with 20 Quarrellers, 20 Thunderers, Organ Gun, 2 Bolt Throwers, a Cannon and a Grudge Thrower and not move?

I wouldn't lose any VP by not contesting the other 3 quarters, and with the Monolith and a Runesmith I'll be on 7DD&Scroll + opponent loses a PD.

Or I could abuse with a deathstar unit:
Juggernaut riding exalted champion of Khorne (general)
Juggernaut riding exalted champion of Khorne (BSB Stubborn + terror banner)
Barded Steed Riding Sorcerer with 2 Scrolls
20 Knights of Chaos (4+ ward against shooting)

2 x Units of 10 Marauders (worth 80 points).

To score more than 80VP against that army you would have to kill 10+ Chaos Knights who have MR2 and a 4+ ward against shooting, or wound the characters (2 of which have 0+ saves and 6x STR6 + 3x STR5 attacks each inc steed).

[John]

Apr 22, 2009 12:14:03 GMT Mark Wightman said:

I'm not a fan of the SC's. There's only a couple of the Hero level ones that are a problem and most of them are in the Demons book (Blue Scribes, Masque) - which wasn't published before the cut-off last year.

My problem with them is that they are generally under costed for what they do, or represent a hero that couldn't be built legally from the normal section. Mannfred is a good example of this - but perhaps not the worst. They are just another advantage for the newer army books that they don't really need.

I'm not a big fan of Stegadon mounts not filling a hero or rare slot, Juggernaut riding Khorne herald BSBs or Dark Elf Hydras... Banning special characters is banning specific choices in the army book, some of which are weaker than other things in the army book that aren't being banned.

Although it may be your opinion that special characters are under-costed, I do not agree that is the case (with exceptions, but then many non-sc choices are under-costed). It is true that SCs either have new abilities, or combinations of abilities that could not be bought on a normal hero. This is balanced by points cost, and the fact that many combinations are not ideal.

[Mark Wightman]

Apr 22, 2009 15:10:00 GMT John said:

Apr 22, 2009 12:41:52 GMT mike said:

Scoring table quarters is possibly one of the must unbalancing aspects of the victory point system... So I say -- take 'em out and be done with it

First, you choose your special feature, so you get one that benefits your army ... you place your marker anywhere on the table you like

This sounds like a recipe for abuse by gunlines. Consider the following:

I can stick a Arcane Monolith (+1 dispel dice) in a corner, surround it with 20 Quarrellers, 20 Thunderers, Organ Gun, 2 Bolt Throwers, a Cannon and a Grudge Thrower and not move?

I wouldn't lose any VP by not contesting the other 3 quarters, and with the Monolith and a Runesmith I'll be on 7DD&Scroll + opponent loses a PD.

Or I could abuse with a deathstar unit:
Juggernaut riding exalted champion of Khorne (general)
Juggernaut riding exalted champion of Khorne (BSB Stubborn + terror banner)
Barded Steed Riding Sorcerer with 2 Scrolls
20 Knights of Chaos (4+ ward against shooting)

2 x Units of 10 Marauders (worth 80 points).

To score more than 80VP against that army you would have to kill 10+ Chaos Knights who have MR2 and a 4+ ward against shooting, or wound the characters (2 of which have 0+ saves and 6x STR6 + 3x STR5 attacks each inc steed).

Got to agree with John here, removing table quarters from the equation will just bring on the gunlines and deathstars. Or in the case of the Dark Elves - their Shadestar, which is a bit of both.

Thinking about it I don't think that any of the games last year were decided on table quarters. It's just that the prospect of an army being designed to sit back and just shoot the other one is a bit dull.

[Matt]

Of course on that basis if table quarters don't impact games there's still nothing to stop you sitting back and blamming away with your gun line ;D

[dave3]

I am all for just doing as we have been. Tweaking one rule in a system will invariably throw up unbalanced reactions elsewhere,and without playtesting, this could be problematic mid tournie. The Special Character thing...it's a bit gimmiky, (are we sticking to 1500 pts?) and would probably mean fewer units to buy, instead of, anyhow. So I vote we just do like we have been!
Dave

[dave3]

Oh and next Monday I will be giving out the trophy!!
Dave

[daiv]

What about the wooden spoon, or will you be keeping that

Anyway, I would need to see the full official rules we are using before I can say yes or now.

Its likely that I will take part with my Lizardmen

[Prince Ethilanel]

Hi Folks,

i dont want to change any of the rules. i dont mind if people bring special characters. all i want is more realistic scenery. the table with the two bigs hills parallel each other was useless. Some armies rely terribly on the scenery to protect there own troops from shooting/magic. i personally struggled with some of the table setups and if that means nerfing gunlines i would do it in a instant. Gunlines make for boring games.

[ralkr56]

Lots of debate and issues excellent, and nothing is fixed yet - except the dates for Army and Army list submissions.

Why have changes - well for a start I agree with Mark special characters are becoming more and more broken it started with the VC last year but is getting more frequent (e.g. various Daemons, Shadowblade etc.) and I want to try to encourage better generalship rather that gamesmanship and list building ability. You can still have tooled up heroes but they have to be built from the basic army book options which are less extreme.

I do not know why some people are gettting very excited about terrain maps not being available until after they choose their army. In real life most military leaders do not get to choose their force composition let alone where they are sent!

I also cannot believe people will ditch their existing projects and start building a new army on the basis of a few 6x4 maps?

we could ditch maps - the rule book says you build terrain for each game so we could use that as is or how about instead of pre set maps each player when they choose their army gets 3 terrain peices from a set list each as well. 2 of which get placed in the opponents table half, 1 in their table half. The placement could be partially modifed by dice roll offs using factors such as magic, leadership and number of light troops in an army.


As for table quarters scoring - sorry I do not see why holding a table quarter with a unit is worth 100 points. Why not say anyone holding the centre of the table gets 250 points, or anyone hiding in a wood the whole game gets 50 bonus points. Or how about any infantry unit of yours that gets to the opposition table edge turns in to a queen? (note heavy sarcasm without the coughing)

Getting rid of this means you only get points by damaging or destoying your enemy in battle.

[Stephen Mawson]

The table quarter points are there purely to stop people from being able to win games by doing a few hundred points of damage to their opponent’s army with shooting or magic and then hiding their army in a corner of the table to prevent their opponent from scoring any points back.

With a hundred points available for each quarter it means that unless you are confident of devastating your opponent without combat you can't afford to sit your whole army in one small portion of the table.

Removing table quarters directly benefits heavy shooting/ranged magic armies as keeping your opponent at arms length is of great benefit with minimal risk.

Personally I don't see why you see the need to tinker with the standard warhammer rules at all. If you start, where do you then stop? If you don’t think the points for table quarters are justified, then the points for banners or army generals are no more so. Nor is the rule that you only get half points if you get a unit under half strength if you think about it, why not allocate points based on the actual figures you kill?

I would suggest you leave the rules as they are, they’re reasonably balanced and familiar to all players.

I also don’t particularly like the idea of banning special characters. Yes some of them are unbalanced, so what, so are a number of armies. I personally think the current High Elf, Vampire Counts, Dark Elf and possibly the Daemons of Chaos armies are a little unbalanced in comparison to other armies. Perhaps you should simply ban the use of those armies as well.

If you’re going to go down that route, why not go the whole hog and simply get all the players to use the same standard army so that everyone gets exactly the same units and characters!

On the maps question, I would personally like to see the prospective maps in advance, not particularly because I want to design my army around the terrain I’m likely to be fighting over, but purely as it gives us a chance to have a look at the terrain and perhaps make some adjustments, if necessary, before anyone has actually played a game.

As a final point, I still don’t really see why it would be necessary to get people to select an army in advance of having to submit an army list? I’m currently not entirely sure which army I want to use, and I think I’d may well want to get a game in with each in before making my mind up. I’m certainly not going to have done that by the 10th of May.

The only way I can see that determining which army you are going to use in advance of the specific list being written will make any difference is if your intention is to announce what armies everyone will be using at that point. So that people can build their lists with some idea of what they will be facing.

That might make things more interesting if that is the intention, but probably will get everyone to lean a bit towards more building of killer lists, as you can predict more easily what your army needs to be able to cope with.

[John]

Apr 26, 2009 23:50:07 GMT ralkr56 said:

I want to try to encourage better generalship rather that gamesmanship

You use Shadowblade as an example, yet practically anyone who's played with or against them, when was asked to rate options in the DE book would put Hydras, Black Guard with Banner of Hag Graef and the Pendant of Khaeleth above Shadowblade. The Daemon SCs are nice, but nearly everything in that book is pretty horrendous to face including the vanilla Heralds.

Removing SCs will do absolutely nothing to encourage better generalship or limit gamesmanship, instead it will reduce diversity and like any change to the basic rules reduce the authoritativeness of any results.

What I don't understand is where the perception that SCs are so broken is coming from. I think I may of been the only person to use a Special Character in the last year? I found very quickly that I would of preferred to have a generic vampire because the SC (Mannfred) provided an ability I rarely needed (more spells) but could not be well protected.

The Vampire Count army book was easily one of the top couple when the last Auctori started and this will have played a part in them doing so well. If the VC special characters really were so much better than the generic vampires then why weren't all 9? Vampires in the tournament could of been special characters (3 Hero choices in book) instead of just one? Do you think Matt and Mark both handicapped themselves?

Apr 26, 2009 23:50:07 GMT ralkr56 said:

As for table quarters scoring - sorry I do not see why holding a table quarter with a unit is worth 100 points.

Because that is what the game was balanced around, removing it encourages a more shooting and less aggressive style play. Besides, as far as 'realism' goes, it is not like most battles are fought to inflict casualties. D-Day is still seen as an Allied success even though we lost twice as many troops.

[ashleigh]

"Do you think Matt and Mark both handicapped themselves?"

I think it was myself and Mark!!!

A phrase springs to mind with all the discussions about this topic:

"if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it!"

It worked fine last time with no major grumbles that i heard (apart from certain terrain maps!), so why don't we just go with that???

[John]

I'm very sorry Ashleigh, I did of course mean you and have no idea why I got it confused.

[Mark Wightman]

I'm one of the people firmly in the "No SC's camp".

I'll agree, that most of the ones that are available at 1500 pts aren't as broken as those available at 2000 pts (*cough* Thorek *cough* Kairos *cough*), but I'd like to have a consistent approach to the issue - at least within my own brain ;D

As I'd find it hard to argue that they are broken at 2000 but not at 1500, and I firmly believe that they are broken at 2000, I've got to vote for no SC's at 1500 too.

Last year we had three SC's

Mannfred (John), Bugman (Steve) and Luther Huss (Dave) - none of whom I'd rate as completely broken, but they are all under-costed.

Since then there's been quite a few added in the released books: Daemons, Dark Elves, Warriors, Lizards. Does anybody know if they are all balanced, and/or fairly costed? I don't think the Daemon ones are. Skulltaker and the Masque are fairly evil for a start. There could be worse in the Warriors book, I've not looked though - but there's loads of them.

Rather than go through arguing which are and aren't broken - I think it's just easier to ban them all.

[John]

Apr 27, 2009 16:53:11 GMT Mark Wightman said:

Rather than go through arguing which are and aren't broken - I think it's just easier to ban them all.

The Dark Elf army book is on average far more powerful than SCs, so rather than pick DE units that aren't broken - I think it's just easier to ban them all. While we're at it the same is true of Lizards, Vampires and Daemons.

It is supposed to be a Warhammer tournament, not a Warhammer without the bits a couple of players don't like tournament.