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S.J. posted:Oh, uhm... well, other than the clix, none of those are collectible, but okay Bingo, when comparing the cost of WH to other games, you have to consider that legally playing your army usually involves buying an $85 core rulebook + a $50-$60 army rulebook and then possibly the $50 escalation book and/or a $50 Day 1 DLC supplement. The "Supplement" concept is one of the most toxic and hateful things I've ever seen a company do, especially GW's execution of it where they actively remove options from a main book to include them in the supplement.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:13
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I think the green Pokemon is talking about Star Trek attack wing which is practically close enough to heroclix anyway. X wing also has promo cards but unlike attack wing they don't change the functionality of the unit. And I'm trying to envision how x wing could be turned into a deck building game like dominion.  in any case I sometimes whine about the number of chits in x-wing but I'd much rather have that than rely on a third party to make chits (lol 40k didn't have them for years even after GF9 made theirs back in 2006) or use easily toppled dice to mark things.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:14
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Broken Loose posted:my absolute favorite part of the picture is that it's only 2 photos, copy-pasted 3 times each, with the photoshop motion blur filter turned on Their teaser videos are usually generic bullshit LOTR style music where they pan slowly across the photos that they're printing in White Dwarf or on packaging. Their marketing is so halfassed, I don't really understand how they ever get a logo or colors together.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:14
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JerryLee posted:Also, say what you will about PP's prices, but when they change to a cheaper material (e.g. metal->restic) they often lower the price of the models in question. See: warpborn skinwalkers and whatever the recent new gatorman resculpt was. Um actually you forgot that GW models are very pretty and well designed and far exceed anything anyone else is making now and till the end of time so...
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Oct 1, 2014 22:17
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BULBASAUR posted:I have no problem with cards being used to streamline our games, I just worry that it will turn into a deck building experience. I don't want that level of randomness or 'collecting' in a game with plastic miniatures. I guess I have a stigma against card games. I've not seen any games go down that route. Cards as in-game references are awesome. Sod rulebooks - unit cards are where it's at. I'm so used to the concept now that not having unit/model reference cards in a game is a black mark for me.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:22
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Chill la Chill posted:I think the green Pokemon is talking about Star Trek attack wing which is practically close enough to heroclix anyway. Attack Wing uses the exact same release style that X-Wing does. There is nothing collectible/random about it, but both systems do only put a single copy of any given card in an expansion, so if you want more than one of the card/upgrade in your list, you need to buy multiples of whatever ship the card comes with, regardless of whether or not you want the ship.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:22
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Nothing stopping you from just "proxying" cards too. Well, I guess official tournaments require the right/real cards, but A) Who cares B) some goons have reported getting away with (not even amazing) photocopies.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:25
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Cards are good at keeping track of things, but as a pessimist I have little faith that they’ll stay that way. I don’t want to be put in the situation where I have to buy packs of cards to build a command deck just to compete with the guy across the table from me in some commander mini game.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:27
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BULBASAUR posted:Cards are good at keeping track of things, but as a pessimist I have little faith that they’ll stay that way. I don’t want to be put in the situation where I have to buy packs of cards to build a command deck just to compete with the guy across the table from me in some commander mini game. Games Workshop is the only game that has a large enough player base that could survive coming out with randomized card packs and not care about the number of players that would immediately quit and sell their stuff. Games like Warmahordes that use cards for rules/damage tracking could literally never use cards in the way your describing, and none of the games with command decks (Dropzone Commander and all of the Spartan Games lines) actually require command decks for you to play. Basically, the only company who doesn't give enough of a poo poo about their game and their customers to do what you're describing is Games Workshop 
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Oct 1, 2014 22:29
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Natrapx posted:I don't get why people seem to whine constantly about GW pricing, but I never seem to hear much hate for the privateer press prices in comparison. Basically I put it down to PP behaving like gamers, GW behaving like dicks. The first point is I can think of two common PP tournament spam-lists (Banes and Doom Reavers) Each has fewer spammed models than the average orc horde has basic orcs. I can't think of more than a small handful of must-have models - and most of them came out in Prime (Prime Mk1 at that). Almost everything has its place and little is pointless. The second is the PP release model cycle - where they release models for all four/five core armies to the game at the same time. Which means everyone's buzzing about what cool stuff they are getting. You don't ever suddenly find out that your entire army has been made obsolete by the release of a new one. And almost no one ever tries to buy an army all in one go which is when the cost really mounts up. So how do PP get you to spend ridiculous amounts on their warmans? 1: By producing balanced models. It's entirely possible to pick your force as the first stat cards that come out and have a fun game. 2: By buffing the weak. The most obvious version of this is the Warpborn Skinwalker. Skinwalkers without it are terrible, PP noticed, and gave them a superb and very overpriced UA. Result: Skinwalkers are now a very competitive unit. (The most evil version of this is the Iron Fang Black Dragons UA - you can hardly have your Black Dragons painted Khadoran Red unless you're on a very tight budget). 3: By keeping one eye on the metagame. When infantrymachine was dominant in Mk1, they produced Krueger. When it was dominant a couple of years ago and that wasn't enough they produced the Collossi/Gargantuans. Kazazy are terrifying in infantrymachine but die to blast damage. But Colossi aren't especially overpowered; there's plenty that can deal with them. Mostly the stuff that people weren't playing against Infantrymachine because there were almost no hard targets to destroy. And things that break armour tend to be heavily armoured themselves. They tipped the metagame on its head with the Stormwall. 4: By teasing you into new factions. Mercs (and to a lesser extent minions) are a work of diabolical marketing genius. "I'm going to start Cygnar. Start with Stryker and the Battlebox. Get Junior, the Squire, and Gun Mages. Mix it up with a couple of other warcasters. Get Boomhowler's because you want something to screen your gun mages, and Eryss, Gorman, and Rhupert because they rock. Realise you've got Gun Mages+UA, Boomhowler's, Eiryss, Gorman, and Rhupert. That's 24 points worth of Highborn you've got there. The Madhammer sounds cool and plays as well as he sounds. I can use all my infantry with him. So I'm going to go there next. And get the Nyss because I want more melee models and they work really well with Madhammer. At this point I realise Madhammer would work really well with Kazazy rather than Gun Mages. Which means I have the backbone for a Khadoran list in Nyss, Kazazy, and Boomhowler's. Both Butcher (any of them) and the Old Witch work really well with mercenaries - and the Kazazy are even Friendly Faction. If I'm feeling like massively mixing up my playstyle I even have 19 points of Trollbloods (as well as 26 points of Cryx). And Grim's fun to play and Borka's a blast. So your PP warmans collection is going to end up being more expensive than your GW one - but at no point did you ever find that PP forced you into it.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:33
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dat #4, yeah ugh, i love this game though 
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Oct 1, 2014 22:36
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S.J. posted:Attack Wing uses the exact same release style that X-Wing does. There is nothing collectible/random about it, but both systems do only put a single copy of any given card in an expansion, so if you want more than one of the card/upgrade in your list, you need to buy multiples of whatever ship the card comes with, regardless of whether or not you want the ship. I take it you weren't disappointed by the Gencon only exclusive cards? Or the special attack dice and pilots that came out a year ago - hope you were playing then! That is the only definition of collectible I think would even fit what the pokemon was saying so I used it.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:37
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Chill la Chill posted:I take it you weren't disappointed by the Gencon only exclusive cards? Or the special attack dice and pilots that came out a year ago - hope you were playing then! That is the only definition of collectible I think would even fit what the pokemon was saying so I used it. Uhm, alternate art versions of existing stuff? As prizes for competing in events? That's the only stuff I've ever seen with those games. HeroClix is the only game I've ever seen where a company will release playable miniatures that you can only get by going to a con or winning a tournament or w/e. Actually, maybe Star Trek does that too? I've not kept up with that game, and they are made by WizKids also. S.J. fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 22:48
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All that the collectibility system means in a practical sense is that a company can charge X per unit and guarantee that return, because an aftermarket will stabilize around buying in bulk, and charging whales for certain valuable units, while the less valuable units either get sold off in bulk or at a discount. The aftermarket also forms a metagame. In this way, GW is closer than PP, Malifaux, or Infinity to fitting that description. The latter 3 companies are still in a phase where you tend to buy direct, and they offer their stuff a la carte. GW is the one where you buy 5 boxes of something to get the 2 guys in each box you actually care about and then try to sell the spares. The only problem is that all the quantities are known, so GW doesn't come off particularly as looking good when someone sees that they will have to buy X number of units to field Y number of units with the right equipment/models. In the end people work harder to get around GW than they do to buy bulk and winnow out the stuff they want. You also miss out on some features of the collectible market that can be really great. MTG Land cards are free or a few cents a piece. Why? Everybody only needs a few of the things, and far far far more are printed than needed. Can you imagine 25 cent battle brothers or IG troopers? WotC also did this with Axis Allies packages (and DnD minis). You get a random assortment of stuff and you trade or buy and sell to try to get a few of the less common units. It's not just a way to be slightly entertained, it's a way to keep the relationship between the publisher and the customer healthy. In Pokemon and Magic, you get to choose how deep in the woods you want to go. With GW, they make it pretty clear that effective forces cost a lot. Players hoard rhinos or heavy weapon bits over time so that when the day finally comes that a new unit needs a transport or a guy needs a conversion to carry the weapon he should have been sculpted with (because the rules are so much more favorable to that weapon), you've got the piece on hand. You could argue that converting isn't pervasive, but I'd say that people who play GW games treat converting similarly to how MTG/Pokemon players treat deck building. Pervasive or not, it's still a substantial part of the model and the experience of the players. Plus White Dwarf's constant army converting porn is a strong message that 'net decking' is encouraged, at least in terms of the hobby side. In terms of the game side, as previously mentioned, they don't care. Edit: WD also promotes the complete loving fantasy of the slow growth league or the pick-up game where you fight with 'whatever you have'. True, you do fight with 'whatever you have', but the list building element is so hoary and hosed up, that you're by far better served by trying to figure out an army and then buy it out, rather than buying a piece at a time and getting it to fit. The only reason it looks like it works is because the guys who write those columns don't give a poo poo about winning or losing, and in some cases, don't even seem to know how to play. Meanwhile people all over continue to make it competitive because, hey, it is a rule set, and hey, yeah, you can win or lose. So one could construe that there's an element of competition involved. TheCosmicMuffet fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 23:11
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Moola posted:Um actually you forgot that GW models are very pretty and well designed and far exceed anything anyone else is making now and till the end of time so... God dammit Moola I can't sneak anything past you!! 
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Oct 1, 2014 23:27
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For casual play Star Trek is great. You really need none of the cards save the ship cards/maneuver wheel. Everything else exists in apps or simply writing them down on a piece of paper. 90% of anything in a Fantasty Flight game is just reference tokens
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Oct 2, 2014 00:09
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:Edit: WD also promotes the complete loving fantasy of the slow growth league or the pick-up game where you fight with 'whatever you have'. True, you do fight with 'whatever you have', but the list building element is so hoary and hosed up, that you're by far better served by trying to figure out an army and then buy it out, rather than buying a piece at a time and getting it to fit. The only reason it looks like it works is because the guys who write those columns don't give a poo poo about winning or losing, and in some cases, don't even seem to know how to play. If you go and look at 40k, it's a sort of compromise. They would never go Rogue Trader-style and just enjoy being an RPG with a lot of dudes and other players, because that might convince people to play other games for competition. They won't actually write a real competitive ruleset, either, though, because it would offend their sensibilities as largely British wargamers, who simply don't play games for that. 40k walks and acts like a competitive game. You have a force organization chart, a complex points system that demands a calculator and a lot of book references. If you put in a points system and let people pick their stuff, some people are going to use this as an optimization exercise and I honestly don't blame them. If people just wanted tactics in set-piece battles, they'd play ASL or something like that. A lot of the other minis games embrace the force customization aspect, because to be quite honest, that's the most interesting thing in minis rulesets, but the 40k designers seem to think people in for that are Playing It Wrong yet they include it.
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Oct 2, 2014 00:26
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To be fair (somewhat) GW is hardly alone in being a tradgame publisher that makes games which tacitly encourage players to do things one way, then editorialize about how doing that thing is bad and wrong and against the ~spirit of the game.~
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Oct 2, 2014 01:26
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S.J. posted:Uhm, alternate art versions of existing stuff? As prizes for competing in events? That's the only stuff I've ever seen with those games. HeroClix is the only game I've ever seen where a company will release playable miniatures that you can only get by going to a con or winning a tournament or w/e. Yes. If you were not playing from the beginning you are missing a cool large star base outpost thing, some nifty dice, and probably a few pilots that are more powerful than their retail counterparts. I don't play the game but know of those that do and they along with me agree that x wing just does it better.
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Oct 2, 2014 01:33
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El Estrago Bonito posted:The guy who wrote In a Wicked Age and Dogs in the Vineyard wrote a game for fighting LEGO robots that's basically just a Gunpla wargame if you scaled it up. Hey, I remember seeing that on Kickstarter a while back! GW does not have a monopoly if you go by their ~official~ list of substitutes for their products, which include Risk, Lego and World of Warcraft Calico Noose posted:Suffer not aerodynamics to live! HiveCommander fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Oct 2, 2014 |
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Oct 2, 2014 02:49
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Chill la Chill posted:Yes. If you were not playing from the beginning you are missing a cool large star base outpost thing, some nifty dice, and probably a few pilots that are more powerful than their retail counterparts. I don't play the game but know of those that do and they along with me agree that x wing just does it better. Oh right, I think I do remember hearing about those. At any rate, the X-Wing stuff you mentioned is definitely just alternate art versions of things. That sucks if you couldn't get them, but then there are only so many promos and top 8 prizes that get made. And they don't affect game play at all. I have no problem with vanity stuff like that, because they almost always just serve as an incentive and reward for playing the game. The way WizKids does stuff has always been pretty awful though, there are specific sets that you can't even get unless you show up to play sealed events with them. Ugh.
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Oct 2, 2014 03:08
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40k used to involve a lot more cards than it does now. Now I wanna go dig out my Dark Millenium box from storage.
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Oct 2, 2014 03:16
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DeimosRising posted:40k used to involve a lot more cards than it does now. Now I wanna go dig out my Dark Millenium box from storage. Yeah, you used to randomly determine certain wargear and poo poo right?
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Oct 2, 2014 03:30
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S.J. posted:Yeah, you used to randomly determine certain wargear and poo poo right? They had Wargear cards in 2nd Ed. for quick reference but the majority of the cards were for the Psychic phase. You had a card for each psychic power your psykers had and then a 'hand' of power cards to fuel your psykers or negate the opposing psykers.
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Oct 2, 2014 03:51
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There were also some tactics cards of some kind that I only vaguely remember, and vehicles actually had unit cards with all their stats a la Warmahordes for a short while there. I think there may have been some kind of optional objective system, too.S.J. posted:Yeah, you used to randomly determine certain wargear and poo poo right? There were lots of random tables in Rogue Trader but by 2nd all the random stuff was Orks, psychic powers, or optional rules. I do think semi-random wargear was one of the optional rules in Dark Millenium, though, yeah.
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Oct 2, 2014 03:53
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Dark Millennium introduced Strategy cards, which were randomly drawn before the game and were completely broken. Virus outbreak was the worst offender, as not only an insanely strong effect, but one that only worked on like, 4 armies, including Orks and Guard. They were terrible.
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Oct 2, 2014 05:09
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JerryLee posted:Also, say what you will about PP's prices, but when they change to a cheaper material (e.g. metal->restic) they often lower the price of the models in question. See: warpborn skinwalkers and whatever the recent new gatorman resculpt was. My favorite example of this is when they rereleased Winter Guard Infantry and Rocketeers, in plastic, as one box. Used to be one Infantry core thing, plus two boosters, plus three individual boosters of Rocketeers. It also cost like 30 bucks more that way. They gave you more poo poo, for less money. Amazing. BENGHAZI 2 fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Oct 2, 2014 |
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Oct 2, 2014 07:48
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That being said PP is still insane price wise and is just as equally expensive as WHFB or 40k. They just trick you into thinking it's cheaper by making the buy in low but you still need to spend a similar amount of money if you wan't to be competitive. In ways it's more insidious than GW because at least they make no illusions about costing huge amounts. GW has a much more fragile revenue than WM because you can buy in semi permanently with GW games. If you bought a Space Marine or Eldar army in 1998 you'd still have a decent force today, and the cost to add in the occasional new model every five years or so is high but it's no where near what PP does. Because PP has an option grind, similar to lovely Facebook games. Sure you can play with your initial figures and guys but more options is always better. Because of how relatively balanced they have made the game when PP releases a new piece for your faction it's likely to open up huge amounts of options or make things that no one would previously buy highly desirable. Malifaux has the same issue, but at least it's really cheap as opposed to the prices on stuff like Man O Wars and Bane Knights.
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Oct 2, 2014 09:12
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El Estrago Bonito posted:That being said PP is still insane price wise and is just as equally expensive as WHFB or 40k. They just trick you into thinking it's cheaper by making the buy in low but you still need to spend a similar amount of money if you wan't to be competitive. In ways it's more insidious than GW because at least they make no illusions about costing huge amounts. GW has a much more fragile revenue than WM because you can buy in semi permanently with GW games. If you bought a Space Marine or Eldar army in 1998 you'd still have a decent force today, and the cost to add in the occasional new model every five years or so is high but it's no where near what PP does. Because PP has an option grind, similar to lovely Facebook games. Sure you can play with your initial figures and guys but more options is always better. Because of how relatively balanced they have made the game when PP releases a new piece for your faction it's likely to open up huge amounts of options or make things that no one would previously buy highly desirable. (A) Making the units all equally desirable isn't "tricking you" or anything, it's not punishing the player for buying the wrong models (or buying models that were better when they were released but nerfed in a future rulebook). (B) Warhammer Nova 1st place winner's list (1850 points) Las Vegas Open 2014 Warmachine 1st place winner's list (50 points) code:Edit: As a bonus, 1998 was 2nd edition. The Autarch was introduced in the 4th edition Eldar book. Night Spinner was halfway through 5th edition in White Dwarf. Wraithknight in the 6th edition book. That army isn't even remotely backward compatible. Broken Loose fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Oct 2, 2014 |
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Oct 2, 2014 09:49
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Broken Loose posted:And it's even worse because 1850 is the equivalent of 35 points of WM/H, whereas 50 points of the latter is closer to 2000 points of the former. I agree with you, but just curious how this can be figured out?
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Oct 2, 2014 10:35
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Game size / length I would guess, not having played warmahordes
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Oct 2, 2014 10:44
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Broken Loose posted:
Lets pick random points values to compare prices with! Except the Eldar list has 7 tanks, on top of the fact they've got more infantry models, along with a cheaper super unit. Hard to compare value when you don't need as many models overall. I just threw together a rough 2400 fantasy army (latest release, Wood Elves) and it came to, with book (but not BRB) to $528. That's nearly 100 models compared to the 36 models in the Hordes one, for close to the same price. And since when were all units equally desirable? I picked up the Warmachine starter set, and oh look, my man o'war stuff is trash, better spend some money to replace them!
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Oct 2, 2014 11:27
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El Estrago Bonito posted:Sure you can play with your initial figures and guys but more options is always better. Because of how relatively balanced they have made the game when PP releases a new piece for your faction it's likely to open up huge amounts of options or make things that no one would previously buy highly desirable. Wait, are you trying to spin this as a BAD thing?
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Oct 2, 2014 11:30
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Natrapx posted:And since when were all units equally desirable? I picked up the Warmachine starter set, and oh look, my man o'war stuff is trash, better spend some money to replace them! Aren't the Man o'Wars and Exemplar Cinerators essentially free in the 2-player starter?
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Oct 2, 2014 11:39
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Natrapx posted:Lets pick random points values to compare prices with! Considering they were the points values for the major tournaments, i think it's a pretty fair comparison to make when measuring how affordable each system is in terms of competitive gameplay.
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Oct 2, 2014 11:46
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NTRabbit posted:I agree with you, but just curious how this can be figured out? You look at the tournament play and you can get a feel for how the points go. Natrapx posted:And since when were all units equally desirable? I picked up the Warmachine starter set, and oh look, my man o'war stuff is trash, better spend some money to replace them! The units in the Warmachine starter are a lot worse than the ones in the hordes starter for sure. PP picked units generally for their ease of use and low model count, and to be quite honest both of those units are fairly simple(Bastions are a lot better and not a hard conversion from the cinerators if you wanted them, but including their HP pool thing would be a bit crazy in a starter set). I think it's probably not correct to say WM/H has all units be equally viable, but it has a far greater variety of competitive options(and promotes the GW-approved "1 of a bunch of stuff" armies a lot better than the GW games promote them). NTRabbit posted:Considering they were the points values for the major tournaments, i think it's a pretty fair comparison to make when measuring how affordable each system is in terms of competitive gameplay. To be fair, in warmahordes you're expected to bring two or three lists to a tournament(of course if you want to have any ability to customize your army in 40k you're expected to buy more, too). You end up paying more money(not more than 40k from my experience), but a lot of money nonetheless. It's expected that you buy in to get more options, more different synergies to try out, etc. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Oct 2, 2014 |
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Oct 2, 2014 11:49
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Natrapx posted:Lets pick random points values to compare prices with! the eldar list has 45 infantry, 1 giant model, and 7 tanks the cryx list has 44 infantry, 1 giant model, and no tanks but i'm sure that 1 eldar model makes all the loving difference in the world
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Oct 2, 2014 11:54
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Lord Of Texas posted:Wait, are you trying to spin this as a BAD thing? 
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Oct 2, 2014 11:55
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"you still need to spend a similar amount of money if you want to be competitive" (40k national-level tournament list costs twice as much as wm/h) "pp has an option grind because i only need to buy new gw stuff every 5 years" (gw ignores 80% of their players for 5 years at a time, sometimes longer) "well if we compare 'random' bullshit then this fringe example comes out cheaper than this other one!" (chooses an elite army to contrast against a high-model count army)
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Oct 2, 2014 12:04
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i dare somebody, i loving triple dog dare you to say that "giving your players options regularly is like a lovely facebook game" to any of the necron or dark eldar players who got stuck with the 3rd edition books and completely boned for, respectively, 9 and 12 years edit: or the genestealer cults players edit 2: or the squats players
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Oct 2, 2014 12:08
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