Increasing Confusion

Today’s post will be a collection of short rants that may or may not be worthy of a longer treatment, but this way I can touch on everything in my head and get it out.

Games Workshop is betting the house on 6th Edition

6^th Edition: WTF?

I rarely comment on the business end of things for Games Workshop.  I usually leave that to the people on other blogs with MBA’s, and people who wish they had MBA’s and still comment anyway.  However, I feel compelled to comment on the handling of 6^th Editon, or lack thereof.

Except for Apple, every other company (especially entertainment companies) hype their products before launch.  Even other game companies preview their new stuff before launch.  Why does GW not?  WotC sends out preview cards of new sets to the various fansites and blogs to show off.  This builds hype and anticipation, and allows people to make purchasing decisions today for things that won’t be happening until later.  Games Workshop could easily allow the bigger news blogs access to rule snippets and art work that would build anticipation while allowing people to make slightly better informed decisions.

From a personal standpoint, I am not (and have not) made any 40k purchases since the fake (or not?) 6E rules leaked.  There is far too much uncertainty.  Are vehicles going to be as good as in 5th?  Or bad now?  Is plasma going to make a comeback and melta catch a nerf?  WHO KNOWS?  This uncertainty has killed any sales they may have got from me since my last 40k purchase in November, and I suspect I’m not alone.  If a new player decided to get into the game, and asked me what to buy, I would tell him to buy as little as possible so in 6 months he won’t find half his good units reduced to unplayable.

Or worse, the game itself reduced to unplayable.  It could very well be that the game changes so radically from 5^th that a great many players are alienated completely.  Right now, these are all valid possibilities.  It would certainly assuage some of the more extreme fears if the design team used the GW blog to discuss even the basic philosophies of 6^th Edition, if not provide some rules snippets.

‘Ard Boyz

‘Ard Boyz for Fantasy sucked, I’ll admit it gladly.  3k points in Fantasy is like playing Apocalypse 40k.  It was unnecessary and gave a lot of people the wrong impression about the game.  Had they made it 2.5k, you may have seen a lot more participation.  Then again, maybe not because the people who were going to play played anyway and those that weren’t weren’t.  I don’t know that there were that many fence sitters.

40k though was always fun, in my experience.  In the four years of ‘ard Boyz prelims and semis I’ve played in, I’ve only encountered minor and infrequent douchebag moments and dick moves.  Am I lucky?  Nah, I think that what I encountered good and bad is fairly representative of the whole tournament scene and players associated.  If 10% of my opponents in ‘Ard Boyz were dicks, my guess is that the percentage is about the same at other local/regional/national tournaments I’ve attended.

My only big complaint is the unpainted armies.  I love playing with and against painted armies.  I won’t play a unit or model that is unpainted, even at ‘ard Boyz.  Maybe I’m OCD a bit, but it irks me to have my models be unpainted.  And if I’m going to lose to somebody at a tournament, I want to lose to a painted army that they clearly love and labored over.  So the unpainted thing bothered me.

So all in all, I’m sad to see ‘Ard Boyz go.  This makes me one of the few ‘competitive’ bloggers to say/admit that.  Most opinions have been ‘good riddance.’  I’m not going to shed any tears over it, but I’ll miss it nonetheless.

NOVA 2012

I’m doing my best to make it again this year.  It will be the last hurrah for 5^th Edition, and likely the last hurrah for my Black Templars’ list before 6^th Edition and a new codex changes them radically.  I’d love to make a run at the 4-0 day 1 bracket and see how well I could do playing a list that is truly competitive.  The stars would have to align financially for me to go again, and other activities around that time that I would rather do would have to fall through, but I’d say it’s 40:60 at this point.

I’d also like to point out that there has been some backlash against MVB for the terrain.  Personally I had 0 problem with the terrain rules, but some tables were admittedly pretty bad to play on.  A lot of vocal bloggers have said the rules don’t match what they feel the rule book says they should be.  I’m not going to debate that one way or the other, but what I will argue is that the NOVA rules –if different- are superior to the rule book rules.  In 8 games at NOVA I had zero arguments about terrain or cover saves.  That doesn’t ever happen in local games where the rules for area terrain are less defined. 

Mike did a smart thing: he simplified the rules for cover and terrain to the lowest common denominator in order to create a simpler, more understandable and faster game play.  Part of the reason why 7 turns at 2k points in 2.5 hours was possible was due to the uniformity of the terrain rules.  With the terrain rules so streamlined, the biggest cause of arguments and misunderstandings and room for shenanigans was removed and people could just play.  I was so impressed with the way it ran, that I have suggested that tournaments at my LGS be run the same way.  Not because it’s the closest way to the rule book, but because it eliminates a lot of the problems that often lead to unhappy players.  So kudos, Mike.  Whatever changes you make (or don’t make) I’m sure the interests of fairness and speed will be kept in mind.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?