Tabletop Community Watch

[Kofi Drinka]

Oh no, you changed out a half dozen cavalry models for 20 archers and maybe had to tweak something else.

Do you even play tabletop games? This isn't dawn of war where you click another button and it appears. Building and painting 20 archers is a 20 hour project if not more. It takes time and effort to build units. Unless you're some slap chop faggot who doesn't remove the nubs.

I wonder how expensive it would be to make an e-ink reader for your rule book and have a way to update it remotely. Just make a cheap Kindle-like device with an update method and now you can do frequent updates while not having to worry about outdated books and shit.

Most modern games use digital rules. The army builder is usually free but the core rule book costs. So the rules are always up to date because you print your list out or you have it on a tablet/phone. There's no need for an e-reader when phones and 5G exists.

 

[p1138]

View attachment 8425817
If it's good enough for Stillman, it's good enough for everyone else, apparently, regardless of ruleset and even system. Who would possibly collect more than the bare minimum?

Holy shit. Looking this up quickly it seems there's people wanting to take this nonsense seriously and claiming they're getting away from "the meta" by doing this boring nonsense.

"it gets to the heart of how I've always viewed wargaming, whenever you see battles in movies and books or on TV between historical armies and fantasy ones things are never equal" so then come up with some asymmetrical scenarios? It's not like generals have historically never deployed troops differently, changed doctrines over even short spans of time, or would have made different choices if they had different information... oh wait that's all things they would actually do.
"It allows more freedom in how you approach your battles on the tabletop" self-imposed restrictions add freedom to tactical and strategic decisions made during the game?
"because not only then from that point are you looking to embrace the amazing moments that happen when something fantastic happens with your army" As if interesting shit can only occur in a game when you've played the same thing 100 times? He talks about not tabling somebody and winning through attrition... but that has nothing to do with an eternally static list. Holy shit my head hurts after hearing this garbage. It reminds me of the idiots who think you can't optimize a D&D character and still roleplay, or have combats and still roleplay during combat.

Do you even play tabletop games? This isn't dawn of war where you click another button and it appears. Building and painting 20 archers is a 20 hour project if not more. It takes time and effort to build units. Unless you're some slap chop faggot who doesn't remove the nubs.

And how is this an issue if you've been playing for years? 20 hours to paint a unit of 20 archers, sure, what's the issue? Seems reasonable, unlike someone who wants to spend 20 hours on every individual model as if it's going to end up as a painting competition entry. Oh no, rules changed, now I've got to paint some archers over the course of the next couple of weeks and then not have to paint whatever it was I swapped out again if I decide to switch back to that from the archers because it's already been painted. And then because now I've painted the archers, if I ever put them back in a list... they're already painted.

Are you just throwing away models not currently in "the list" or something? Have you never picked up some different models and painted them just so you could change things out for some variety regardless of the rules or anything else changing? This has nothing to do with competitive games, tournaments, or a meta. How do you not get bored just repeating the same shit for ages?

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Holy shit. Looking this up quickly it seems there's people wanting to take this nonsense seriously and claiming they're getting away from "the meta" by doing this boring nonsense.

Holy shit my head hurts after hearing this garbage. It reminds me of the idiots who think you can't optimize a D&D character and still roleplay, or have combats and still roleplay during combat.

Are you some e-sports zoomer? You really do talk like someone who has never built a rank and flank army. Who has no passion for any of their models of their legacy on the table top. His fixed army has hundreds of stories to tell. Single goblins killing a giant. His Orc champion and the rival Dwarf king who always battle to the death every game.

"It's boring" "you need to min max your DnD character" sounds like some brain dead e-sports fueled zoomer. Fuck dude, learn to use the enter key and enjoy the game.

 

[p1138]

Are you some e-sports zoomer? You really do talk like someone who has never built a rank and flank army. Who has no passion for any of their models of their legacy on the table top. His fixed army has hundreds of stories to tell. Single goblins killing a giant. His Orc champion and the rival Dwarf king who always battle to the death every game.

"It's boring" "you need to min max your DnD character" sounds like some brain dead e-sports fueled zoomer. Fuck dude, learn to use the enter key and enjoy the game.

His single goblin killing a giant doesn't have anything to do with running a static list. His orc champion and the rival dwarf king if that player also only ever plays the same list sounds fucking boring. Even the rest of the shit from the post about naming your models doesn't require having a static list. A model can do a badass thing in a game that you'll remember for years, while you play something else for a bit. Since you seem to be having some trouble today let me make this as simple as possible for you.

It has nothing to do with being competitive/tournaments/meta/balance/whatever. Repeating the same shit weekly or monthly for a decade is fucking boring.

How do you not grasp the idea of changing out some units to add some siege engines, or going for a ranged focus instead of melee or cavalry just so something different can happen? It has nothing to do with changing a list to win, it has to do with simply trying different shit. Do you eat the same dinner every day? Most people would get bored with that. Do you just watch the same movie once a week? It's boring. Do you read the same book every month for years? Probably not, because it'd be boring. Let me guess, you've played a human fighter with a sword and shield in every TTRPG campaign or some other class/weapon/race combo for the past 20 years and never changed anything about it? Doubtful unless you're just the world's most boring autist in a sea of autists like the rest of us who play tabletop games. I'm talking about playing tabletop wargames for years, decades even, and you come up with "e-sports zoomer"?

I also never said anything about a "need to min max a DnD character" so I have no fucking idea where you got that from or what you read. If you're just going to make shit up that wasn't stated, or even implied then you have no intention of discussing anything.

Fuck, even from just the painting perspective. You got your army, painted it, and then aren't interested in painting anything else? And if you do paint other things because you enjoy the painting part of the hobby, maybe you want to actually play the additional units you've spent time painting?

 

[Sunflower Samurai]

"it gets to the heart of how I've always viewed wargaming, whenever you see battles in movies and books or on TV between historical armies and fantasy ones things are never equal" so then come up with some asymmetrical scenarios? It's not like generals have historically never deployed troops differently, changed doctrines over even short spans of time, or would have made different choices if they had different information... oh wait that's all things they would actually do.
"It allows more freedom in how you approach your battles on the tabletop" self-imposed restrictions add freedom to tactical and strategic decisions made during the game?
"because not only then from that point are you looking to embrace the amazing moments that happen when something fantastic happens with your army" As if interesting shit can only occur in a game when you've played the same thing 100 times? He talks about not tabling somebody and winning through attrition... but that has nothing to do with an eternally static list. Holy shit my head hurts after hearing this garbage. It reminds me of the idiots who think you can't optimize a D&D character and still roleplay, or have combats and still roleplay during combat.

I have a feeling the list is partially tongue in cheek considering it was seemingly posted to a magazine and clearly just a random bloke's personal way of doing it, i can see why people are drawn to more flavorful lists that are not really entirely meta. Especially in current year+x where the internet and the over abundance of info on it caters to armchair list-fags who chase metas

 

[p1138]

I have a feeling the list is partially tongue in cheek considering it was seemingly posted to a magazine and clearly just a random bloke's personal way of doing it, i can see why people are drawn to more flavorful lists that are not really entirely meta. Especially in current year+x where the internet and the over abundance of info on it caters to armchair list-fags who chase metas

Sure, and what I've been saying has nothing to do with a meta.

"Hmm, I want to give this a try instead this week" apparently equates to being an e-sports meta chasing zoomer I guess? I find it fascinating that people appear to have taken something tongue in cheek from a magazine, as if it's some kind of regained lost knowledge of the ancients or some shit.

Fuck, from the 40k thread I posted I'm working on some necron destroyer models. The new detachment that supports them will probably get nerfed before I get it all painted(and I personally don't play unpainted models, just my thing, someone else can play with gray shit if they want) but I don't care so I'm not going to do the rattlecan/wash/drybrush get it painted in 2 hours bit. But then because they're painted, regardless of "the meta" then I'll be able to play them at the local game nights simply because I feel like it in 2 months or 2 years from now.

 

[Sunflower Samurai]

Sure, and what I've been saying has nothing to do with a meta.

"Hmm, I want to give this a try instead this week" apparently equates to being an e-sports meta chasing zoomer I guess? I find it fascinating that people appear to have taken something tongue in cheek from a magazine, as if it's some kind of regained lost knowledge of the ancients or some shit.

I mean, i get it being treated like some pirate software esque nugget of knowledge is annoying, but the core idea even if it was partially jokey is appealing to retards who didnt get to experience wargaming before the information overload of current year

 

[p1138]

I mean, i get it being treated like some pirate software esque nugget of knowledge is annoying, but the core idea even if it was partially jokey is appealing to retards who didnt get to experience wargaming before the information overload of current year

lol, mald and his 20 years of wargaming like his 20 years of everything else couldn't come up with something like that without using at least 20 ellipses and a mostly irrelevant MS paint drawing. But yeah, I guess at the same time the idea of changing things around because you feel like it(or simply painting more shit because you like the painting aspect and then using it) can also escape some people. But I also mentioned just coming up with some asymmetric scenarios, and people coming up with their own scenarios is I guess a lost art now as well if the company isn't doing it for them(another reason I wish shit like White Dwarf would be gone already and they just post shit to warcom because then people might actually realize they can come up with ideas as well).

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Fuck, from the 40k thread I posted I'm working on some necron destroyer models. The new detachment that supports them will probably get nerfed before I get it all painted(and I personally don't play unpainted models, just my thing, someone else can play with gray shit if they want) but I don't care so I'm not going to do the rattlecan/wash/drybrush get it painted in 2 hours bit. But then because they're painted, regardless of "the meta" then I'll be able to play them at the local game nights simply because I feel like it in 2 months or 2 years from now.

You're already plagued by modern thinking when you start to bring modern terms like meta into this. It's a completely modern gooner idea that doesn't understand what the article is saying. And no, it's not tongue in cheek. This is from the era where you didn't have 30 men box sets in plastic you can easily convert. Terminators came in a single blister and you needed 5. Hormagaunts were 3 a blister and you needed like 30. And they weren't cheap. So the idea you can just knock up a whole new army just isn't realistic back then. Modern consumerism isn't around the same way in the 90s.

This attitude is a lot like historical wargamers attitude where they make an army and see how it will work against other people's armies. It's a specific "my army" situation and it's what they want to field. It's the models they enjoy and it plays the way they want it to play. And they want to see how far that army can do and make it's own story. They will fight handicapped battles, they will try weird scenarios it's not designed for.

To put it in a way a zoomer might understand. Pokemon challenge runs using only Charizard exist. Why not use all 151 pokemon, it's way more diverse and interesting. But Charizard solo runs exist, With Minimum battle stipulations. Move limitations. Route changes and all the different ways you can beat the game using Charizard. The point isn't that 151 pokemon exist, it's what Charizard can do and finding it's limits. They want to explore Charizard, they want to solve problems with Charizard, not adding in Blastoise to beat Brock. That's the point. It's a "challenge run" and they don't care what else exists because it's their army and they want to see what it can do and what odds it can over come.

 

[p1138]

You're already plagued by modern thinking when you start to bring modern terms like meta into this.

Ah yes, enjoying the painting part of the hobby(a very significant portion of wargaming as a whole) and then wanting to play games with the minis I've painted is "modern thinking" and I guess is exclusive to zoomers. I'm done. You can keep yelling into the void about having to paint different things, and argue at whoever about wanting to do the same shit for years on end with no change. If I wanted to play chess, I'd just play chess(which hilariously has also had people come up with different challenges over the years for the sake of variety, but whatever).

 

[MazonLabs Recruitment Rep]

Building and painting 20 archers is a 20 hour project if not more. It takes time and effort to build units. Unless you're some slap chop faggot who doesn't remove the nubs.

*looking down at current project of painting four squads of Urbana Blackwing mercs and solemnly nods*

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Ah yes, enjoying the painting part of the hobby(a very significant portion of wargaming as a whole) and then wanting to play games with the minis I've painted is "modern thinking" and I guess is exclusive to zoomers. I'm done. You can keep yelling into the void about having to paint different things, and argue at whoever about wanting to do the same shit for years on end with no change. If I wanted to play chess, I'd just play chess(which hilariously has also had people come up with different challenges over the years for the sake of variety, but whatever).

I would love to know what's going through your head that you can't understand the mentality of someone building their dream army and wanting to see how far they can push it. What has rotted your brain so hard? 40k?

*looking down at current project of painting four squads of Urbana Blackwing mercs and solemnly nods*

Takes time to paint stuff, and even more time to do it right.

 

[MazonLabs Recruitment Rep]

Takes time to paint stuff, and even more time to do it right.

And being the neurotic fuck that I am, it takes even longer since I always keep thinking I see one little spot that's not quite right, one eye that needs a little more narrowing, ect.

 

[Ghostse]

I have a feeling the list is partially tongue in cheek considering it was seemingly posted to a magazine and clearly just a random bloke's personal way of doing it, i can see why people are drawn to more flavorful lists that are not really entirely meta. Especially in current year+x where the internet and the over abundance of info on it caters to armchair list-fags who chase metas

I get both sides of the argument. I get wanting to not bother chasing the meta and having your army be YOUR army, and just playing to have fun. I also get people wanting to try out new units/formations/tactics/etc.

I guess I just keep thinking of Min-maxers in D&D who only chase power scaling and specific scenario optimisation and spend more time breaking the game than playing it.

I guess I think its poor game design if both play styles can't co-exist. If the 'meta' is changing so rapidly and to such a degree that previous armies are no longer viable and can't win (unless they were meta meme armies) I think your game is broken and sucks. On the other hand, if you don't introduce ANY shake ups things will get very stale, especially given the usual small pools of players for wargames.

The meta changes are ever more galling when, as @Kofi Drinka points out, its not just clicking buttons and swapping out load out in a videogame, the large shift of meta means real dollars and real time.

Building and painting 20 archers is a 20 hour project if not more.

20 hours to paint a unit of 20 archers, sure, what's the issue?

Wait I'm confused here. How would you know it know it takes 20 hours? Who has ever actually painted their minis?

 

[p1138]

Wait I'm confused here. How would you know it know it takes 20 hours? Who has ever actually painted their minis?

Frankly I think 20 hours for 20 archers from a rank and flank is a bit excessive considering the basic color blocking could be done in batches saving a lot of time, but if someone really wants to put out an hour a mini for a troop rather than a centerpiece, siege engine, officer, etc. it's not entirely unreasonable nor am I going to tell them they need to speed up or slow down as it's their minis, and their hobby.

But at the same time, if you're painting 1 troop model an hour and you actually like the painting portion of the hobby, after a few years how could you not have more shit than what is playable in an individual list? But I guess if someone doesn't paint, they wouldn't be able to understand that, or grasp that a "dream army" doesn't need to be a specific bare minimum list and can include additional units for variety or even continuing to paint models for that specific army going forward simply because you like to paint no matter what your pace is on a per model basis. If you started the shit recently and it isn't a 10 model skirmish game, yeah it's going to be a concern if an update comes out the moment you're done with an initial list worth of units. Long term? It's a non-issue unless you're constantly jumping from army to army(so there goes the dream army or this is my individual guy that did some cool stuff idea) or game to game never to return(again, the silly arguments go right out the window due to no longer making any sense).

 

[Kofi Drinka]

I guess I think its poor game design if both play styles can't co-exist. If the 'meta' is changing so rapidly and to such a degree that previous armies are no longer viable and can't win (unless they were meta meme armies) I think your game is broken and sucks. On the other hand, if you don't introduce ANY shake ups things will get very stale, especially given the usual small pools of players for wargames.

The problem is these constantly changing rule sets really bar the "your army" aspect of the game. It's not really your army if the rules change every other week. It becomes a constant churn where even if you use the exact same models within 6 months they have changed so many times you're no longer playing your thing. It's a problem treating tabletop games like they're live service games. It's okay to rebalance a MOBA class or nerf a gun in a multiplayer FPS. But Tabletop is supposed to be a slower paced hobby, with different power levels built into the system. Halflings probably suck in most systems, they're worse goblins for spamming and weaker than every other race. But people love them and want to play them, they want to play the under dogs so they play the underdogs. Having constant meta churning makes that sort of design very weird. And it comes from copying video games and all the tournament chasing crap.

Your dream army can still swap out units of replace things occasionally. It's not even a fixed thing entirely. But constant churn can make or break the "legal list" in ways older editions didn't. You got your yearly or every 3 year rule book update and kept on chugging.

Frankly I think 20 hours for 20 archers from a rank and flank is a bit excessive considering the basic color blocking could be done in batches saving a lot of time, but if someone really wants to put out an hour a mini for a troop rather than a centerpiece, siege engine, officer, etc. it's not entirely unreasonable nor am I going to tell them they need to speed up or slow down as it's their minis, and their hobby.

I am convinced you do not paint or you just slap on contrasts. An hour to paint a model is fast. If you're doing 3 layers you're going to take at least an hour on a speed paint. If you're doing it properly 3-5 hours per miniature would not be unreasonable. Decent paint jobs take time, even when batch painting. Not display quality, just good quality. If you're painting something from GW it can take double that per model because they're covered in details you need to pick out.

 

[Inquisitor_BadAss]

Frankly I think 20 hours for 20 archers from a rank and flank is a bit excessive considering the basic color blocking could be done in batches saving a lot of time, but if someone really wants to put out an hour a mini for a troop rather than a centerpiece, siege engine, officer, etc. it's not entirely unreasonable nor am I going to tell them they need to speed up or slow down as it's their minis, and their hobby.

But at the same time, if you're painting 1 troop model an hour and you actually like the painting portion of the hobby, after a few years how could you not have more shit than what is playable in an individual list? But I guess if someone doesn't paint, they wouldn't be able to understand that, or grasp that a "dream army" doesn't need to be a specific bare minimum list and can include additional units for variety or even continuing to paint models for that specific army going forward simply because you like to paint no matter what your pace is on a per model basis. If you started the shit recently and it isn't a 10 model skirmish game, yeah it's going to be a concern if an update comes out the moment you're done with an initial list worth of units. Long term? It's a non-issue unless you're constantly jumping from army to army(so there goes the dream army or this is my individual guy that did some cool stuff idea) or game to game never to return(again, the silly arguments go right out the window due to no longer making any sense).

20 hours? I've bought paints to create non metallic gold and silver on my rank and file chaos warriors. Self inflicted I know but I can't help but wanting my guys to look great.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

20 hours? I've bought paints to create non metallic gold and silver on my rank and file chaos warriors. Self inflicted I know but I can't help but wanting my guys to look great.

NMM looks shit. Use proper metallics and paint them red like a 90's chad.

 

[Ghostse]

The problem is these constantly changing rule sets really bar the "your army" aspect of the game. It's not really your army if the rules change every other week. It becomes a constant churn where even if you use the exact same models within 6 months they have changed so many times you're no longer playing your thing. It's a problem treating tabletop games like they're live service games. It's okay to rebalance a MOBA class or nerf a gun in a multiplayer FPS. But Tabletop is supposed to be a slower paced hobby, with different power levels built into the system. Halflings probably suck in most systems, they're worse goblins for spamming and weaker than every other race. But people love them and want to play them, they want to play the under dogs so they play the underdogs. Having constant meta churning makes that sort of design very weird. And it comes from copying video games and all the tournament chasing crap.

Your dream army can still swap out units of replace things occasionally. It's not even a fixed thing entirely. But constant churn can make or break the "legal list" in ways older editions didn't. You got your yearly or every 3 year rule book update and kept on chugging.

I don't Miniwar game, but if I did I wouldn't go full Stillman, but closer to what he does than meta-chasers. I would have general core of my army stay the same with a few 'special units' you swap in and out.
I wouldn't have the patience to go full meta like some people do and autistically comb rules for that magic game breaking unit/tactic combo and then go spend the cash and time to paint them imagine and talk about painting them but never get around to it.

Just in my mind, for a mini wargame, I would have factions with a list of set formations (i.e. Dwarven armies always have 5 units of hammertroops and 1 units of crossbowmen), and then - borrowing from real life - a list of mercenary units your commander might hire to make it so your army is different and give some options for more varied play.
So the main armies would be changed rarely if ever, and if changed it'd be more like "here is a dwarven army with more ranged units", but the mercenary units would see more regular shakeups and additions.

Anyway, headcannon autism aside, I think we can all agree that "rule updates every 6 months" is way too fucking fast of a cadence and if they are doing all it tells me is their rules are broken with vastly insufficient playtesting that they are farming out the players to pay to be a part of.

 

[Penne Dreadful]

Anyway, headcannon autism aside, I think we can all agree that "rule updates every 6 months" is way too fucking fast of a cadence and if they are doing all it tells me is their rules are broken with vastly insufficient playtesting that they are farming out the players to pay to be a part of.

The Warhammer community (or, at least, the parts that actually play the game more than once an edition) are by and large pretty happy with quarterly updates, but that's a big game with a constant stream of tournament data. It seems either optimistic to assume that Trench Crusade will see enough play to really warrant that or, as you said, betrays a complete lack of confidence in their ruleset.