|
Post by N.I.B. on Oct 13, 2014 11:11:19 GMT
I don't know exactly why: I can't put my finger on it, but 'nids are starting to win more (notice the 'nid finish at Brawl in the Fall). I don't think we are top shelf by any stretch of the imagination, but I see us making some incremental improvements. I just don't know what to attribute it to. Forgeworld (Malanthrope & Hierodule). Not a big secret. if you guys haven't tried the BAO style missions, i really recommend them. You know what is more fun than BAO missions? Straight Maelstrom. Add a house rule that objectives must be placed 12"+ from the board edges and impossible cards can be discarded and replaced, and you have yourself some simple, yet fun and dynamic missions that encourage army interactions, and are difficult to list tailor toward. This is basically how my local TO rolls, and it's great. Maelstrom with discardable cards and kill points mixed in.
|
|
|
Post by tag8833 on Oct 13, 2014 14:23:07 GMT
straight maelstrom is (please do not swear) awful. Maelstrom Missions are won based on a player's ability to build a dynamic list and respond tactically to in-game developments. That isn't random. It is tactics. Random is when a game is won or lost when a matchup is determined as many of the Eternal war missions are. Because of their lack of dynamism, people build static lists with static strategies. Static strategies win or lose based on matchups. Maelstrom allows you to overcome a bad matchup with superior gameplay. BAO is a step above Eternal war because they include a Maelstrom table, but it is a minority component, and it is written in such a way as to be more accessibly to a less dynamic list. For instance, "Kill a unit in Assault" is not present, but "Kill a Unit". It was part of BAO's approach to 7th, in which they attempted to soften the transition by writing faqs and missions with the mantra of "Save the Gunline". They wrote these missions to allow armies that only participate in the shooting phase of the game to remain somewhat viable, because those armies are very, very popular among their tournament going audience. They didn't skew everything to keep the gunline as dominant as it was in 6th, but they did soften the transition by keeping the gunline more viable than it would have been had they fully embraced 7th. A immobile gunline is a good, and viable way to play 40k, however it isn't fun. Either to play or play against. The most fun games are always 2 lists facing off that compete in nearly every phase of the game (Psychic, reserves aren't required). That is why straight Maelstrom is more fun than BAO. Two things BAO did well was they prevented scenarios where cards are impossible to complete, and they set objective placement rules for Maelstrom objectives. Though this isn't equal in all of the missions, specifically Mission #3 which is the weakest by far because it is Hammer and Anvil and all of the Maelstrom points involve being in one Deployment or the the other. I'm running a Tourney in 2 weeks, and the only BAO mission that is out of consideration is #3. ETA. I swear the original comment I was responding to said something like "There is nothing fun about pure randomness."
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Oct 13, 2014 14:32:45 GMT
Maybe if you ignore the amount of terrain on their tables kicking gun lines in the junk. W/e, agree to disagree. Modified maelstrom is fine, out of the book it's garbage.
|
|
|
Post by FTGT-BeeCee on Oct 13, 2014 16:20:55 GMT
honestly for me, placing objectives before choosing table sides is so cool. I hope the tourneys i got to adopt this soon.
I agree completely with Tag in the fact that I clobber a bunch of armies, beat a bunch more but auto-lose to the top tier it feels like. so honestly right now, playing Tyranids is not fun for 2/3 of the games. I love a well fought close game so creaming someone and getting creamed is not that fun for me.
|
|
|
Post by gman25639 on Oct 13, 2014 16:56:21 GMT
Shoot, I haven't played 7th yet. I'm a bit low on funds at the moment, so don't have the $ to drop on the new rulebook. I don't really need the other 2 books included in the box with the rules, so when I can I'll get just the rules from eBay. From what I hear 7th ed screwed nids over in a couple key areas (VS and Smash) but improved the balance of the game as a whole. Smash got nerfed because you had Tau players that already wreck everybody's face with shooting (myself included, Tau is my second army) that would assault vehicles with a Riptide and smash it to bits. Heck, I saw a battle report where a Riptide went up against 2 blood angels dreadnoughts in CC and won combat! Problem is that we relied on Smash to be our only reliable vehicle killer. VS took a hit for one reason, Heldrakes. The things would fly in a straight line across the board and kill anything in its path, and being a vehicle not a FMC you couldn't ground the thing. This inadvertently screwed over our Hive Crones as their real power was in that huge S8 VS.
Heldrakes and Riptides are still great units, but now they do what they're meant to do without overlapping into other roles that make them cheesy. This just inadvertently messed with us. These are just 2 examples, I'm sure there are others.
|
|
|
Post by seanster3000 on Oct 13, 2014 20:57:00 GMT
I for one am happy with 7th in general. Do I think its perfect no but I feel the rules are moving in the right direction. I love the new Maelstrom of War missions (I like them as is too, I know I will catch flak from that). I like the new Psyker Phase though it can use a tweak. I personally believe that as this was like a "hot fix" edition the next one will address more of the bigger topics, CC I'm looking at you. All in all I am very optimistic and wish more people were, though I understand the gripes. As for our codex I like it much better over our last one. I feel that GW has Space Marines (most of the varieties), Eldar and Tau where they want them but there are a few armies us, CSM, DE, and even Orks that still need to be tweaked and I feel that that will come in time. Until them I'm really enjoying 40K.
|
|
|
Post by tylertt on Oct 14, 2014 0:08:49 GMT
I like 7th overall. Some changes are kind of questionable, but on a whole I think it fixed the vast majority of issues that 6th had.
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Oct 14, 2014 4:42:25 GMT
random psychic powers in 6th? universally panned, still in.
random charge distance. universally hated, still in.
assault armies having a total uphill climb, still the norm.
hero-hammer/ally bro-boxing. still in.
what did they fix, exactly, from 6th to 7th?
|
|
|
Post by macdaddyt on Oct 14, 2014 5:06:47 GMT
random psychic powers in 6th? universally panned, still in. random charge distance. universally hated, still in. assault armies having a total uphill climb, still the norm. hero-hammer/ally bro-boxing. still in. what did they fix, exactly, from 6th to 7th? They nerfed smash and vector strike? Those were the most broken OP rules in the game... *cough cough sarcasm*
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Oct 14, 2014 5:09:00 GMT
you've cut me to the quick ; ;
|
|
|
Post by Jabberwocky on Oct 14, 2014 18:04:58 GMT
Gman, if you have access to eBay you have access to a pdf of the rules for free, if you are willing to look. Just don't download any .exe files, only pdf. It may be clunky and hard to learn from but you can at least start to learn the rules while you save up for a hard copy to play with.
|
|
|
Post by mattblowers on Oct 16, 2014 16:01:49 GMT
Modified maelstrom is fine, out of the book it's garbage. You and I have done a few rounds over this and I'm not trying to return there, but malestrom is gaining in popularity and I think your opinion is quickly becoming the minority one (which doesn't make it wrong). The quick acceptance, even if you play a modded version, points the fact that for many it is a move in the right direction. As to what is fixed, I think a lot of things are better, not perfect, but better. Giving the starting player the chance to deploy first and go second I find to be nice tactical improvement. Drop pod armies can no longer hide off the board and give you no targets. 4+ jink is better and a fair exchange for snapshots and no longer requires movement to get it. 4+ in ruins is better as it really helps armies that rely on cover. I think overall psychic powers are less reliable to get (no longer automatic for some armies) and you can easily run out of dice. The seperate phase I think is an improvement. Challenge sub-phase is improved as wounds spill over so IG sarges no longer eat all a high point models attacks. No restrictions on % in reserves is an improvement. The nerf to D-weapons makes them more fair in regular 40K games. The allies matrix is much improved. The way army lists are chosen makes a lot more sense now. The durability of vehicles is a huge bonus to the game. They are worth taking again and dedicated transports are very good without causing the parking lots of 5th. The biggest improvement in my opinion is the last one I'll bring up: all units scoring and objective secured in the right type of lists. This has remarkably changed the game for the better. Objectives have to taken from your troops choices if you want to hold them late game, which makes troops even more valuable. This makes the game much more tactical. I have found a lot of people returning to the game because it is now more fun again. That is a big "fix" but I don't know how to quantify or measure that (and it's largely anecdotal). That's off the top of my head. I think the game still has a long way to go, but it's better.
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Oct 16, 2014 18:41:02 GMT
I know of no one that uses and no major events where unmodified maelstrom is used. Not debating this again.
Changes to jink could be good or bad I guess it depends on where you sit on the issue.
Vehicle durability went way too far. It's fine on transports but does not scale well on av12+, often paired with jink.
Scoring is another contention. It's great everything scores, until you run up on OS wave serpents or AV13 crons. Dunno it's so great then.
|
|
|
Post by tag8833 on Oct 16, 2014 21:09:08 GMT
I generally agree with your sentiment, but you highlighted 3 things that were clear failures in 7th edition, not fixes. 4+ jink is better and a fair exchange for snapshots and no longer requires movement to get it. Should have been 4+ for Zooming / Swooping things, and 5+ for everything else. This change created as many problems as it solved. The way army lists are chosen makes a lot more sense now. I'm not clear at all where you are coming from here. It is a mess right out of the book. How do you build an army list that includes Farsight Enclaves? Riptide A is Farsight, and thus can take Earthcaster, Riptide B is Tau, and can't? What if you decide you are using a space marine army. So you take some White Scars Bikes, with some Imperial fist Tactical marines accompanied by Vulkan all within your Iron Hands Land Raider. Would you ever play someone trying to pull this BS? How about unlimited detachments? Does it make more sense to build an army with 9 annihilation barges or an army with 3? The way army lists were chosen in 6th didn't work great, but 7th made an utter mess of it. This is a change that made things worse. The durability of vehicles is a huge bonus to the game. They are worth taking again and dedicated transports are very good without causing the parking lots of 5th. I'm definitely seeing parking lots. The last 5 games I've played (Necrons, Marines, Dark Eldar, Tau, Marines), the only models not inside vehicles were Necron Scarabs, Talos, thunderfire cannons, and Riptides. Everything that can go in a tin can does. Vehicles are king. The vehicle pen table was a mess before, and instead of fixing the mess, they just rebalanced it in a way to sell big expensive walker kits that ignore the messy chart. This is an example of a change that has a significant effect without actually fixing anything.
|
|
|
Post by mattblowers on Oct 17, 2014 0:43:01 GMT
Should have been 4+ for Zooming / Swooping things, and 5+ for everything else.This change created as many problems as it solved. I haven't found that to be the case. I haven't hear anyone screaming about jink being OP. Rerollabel invuls? FNP handed out like candy? GoI? Invisibility? Those seem to be much more of an issue. I have found a lot of things much more usable now because of the change in jink. Forcing the snapshots makes you chose between survivability and damage output, that is an improvement. Without the increase in jink, it would be a hard nerf. I'm good with it, but understand if you are not. You can't actually do that. They can't take different tactics unless they are taking more than one detachment. That get's pricey really quickly. While I can understand your point, this is no worse than it was before. Before we couldn't even have allies, now we can ally with ourselves. Space marines cannot take the same chapter tactic in more than one detachment. Your example would require 4 detachments. If someone wants to take 4 HQs and 8 troops, have at it just to get 4 tactics, have at it. They won't know what their army is trying to do. Still can be reliably glanced out on hull points. I'm seeing more drop pod armies and biker spam lists. If people are taking that many vehicles in your area then consider more hive guard. Other than AV 14+ they are very good and they won't get jink or cover.
|
|