Gaining Grounds 2018

[santaclaws01]

59 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

As some of you are elaborating on, the game is getting far too complex, more than it needs to be. Some characters abilities and actions are so complex that it is more confusing and frustrating than anything else. 

Like:

"When "x" models are within "x" range, you may take a test with TN "x", and with a tome, you get "x" ability until your next activation if "x" models have already activated this turn, and no enemy models are within "x" range of "x" scheme markers. After resolving, you may push "x" inches." ...........When you do get everything aligned and finally pull off this feat with the 20:1 odds it took to do it, your opponent has a model that negates "x" ability and it was all for nothing.

 

Now, admittedly that's a little sarcastic in nature, but that's how it feels sometimes. I would prefer to see more models like Perdita that are simple and straightforward, instead of all these other models that are way convoluted. After looking through my model stat books, the new models continue to become more and more convoluted. Things were better when it was just Perdita, Lady Justice, Lilith, Seamus, etc. 

Again, I feel a new edition is needed to clean up the models and simplify the strats and schemes. 

It's interesting that you choose Lilith when she still has one of the most complicated wordings in the game for an action with Tangle Shadows...

[Adran]

14 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

As some of you are elaborating on, the game is getting far too complex, more than it needs to be. Some characters abilities and actions are so complex that it is more confusing and frustrating than anything else. 

 

Again, I feel a new edition is needed to clean up the models and simplify the strats and schemes. 

 

19 hours ago, Pikciwok said:

I think now we have to cope with creeping complexity in new models' rules. Look at the 'damage reduction' departament: at first, we've got a nice, elegant Armor +X ability. There were also few attacks that could ignore the ability. Then we've got things that worked almost exactly like Armor +X, but they had different name, specifically designed to counter armor-ingoring skills. Finally, we've got attacks that ignore all armor reduction, including armor, armor-like abilities, and other, less powerful things that got hit by a rebound, like incorporeal. It's like devs started an arms race with themselves. What's next? Damage reduction skills that ignore 'ignore damage reduction' attacks? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Terracotta Warrior has damage prevention ability - a term previously limited for soulstone ablility only.

 

Having played both editions, and not found either too complicated I might not be an ideal person to speak, but I don't think an edition change will do what you want it to do. 

First edition discovered this Armour/ ignoring armour arms race during the first book, and Book 2 introduced a relatively simple seeming fix called Object. Armour stopped damage, and Object stopped wounds. Most attacks did damage that after reduction became wounds. A few attacks did wounds, so bypassed armour and other similar conditions. 

But lots of people found it hard to follow the difference between damage and wounds, and there were lots of questions. M2E tried to simplify it but we are back to a stage where it is as complicated if not more so than the first edition. 

[tmod]

I think there are two equally important sides to this coin: Models and objektives.

Whenit comes to models I agree that a cleanup should be getting nearer; "ignore abilities that ignore" is starting to become hard to grasp. On the other hand we got Leveticus and cannot be reduced already in 2014 with Crossroads. Also increasing model complexity is kinds inevitable with an expanding range and older models not rotated out. How many different stat 5 4ss models could each faction take? The arms race could probably have been handed better, and can be reset with a new edition, but there will always be a need for new abilities and tricks, and increasing complexity will inevitably follow.

When it comes come to s&s I only partly agree. There is a significant complexity increase from book 1 to gg15, but I don't think the complexity increases all that much from gg15 to gg18. All the gg changes tend to be to promote varied play and listbuilding, and remove exploits. I may not like every single scheme and strat, but I think this is the only way of keeping the game fresh and alive, and I sincerely hope that the book strats/schemes when next edition hits will be closer to gg18 than the M2e book ones!

On a related note I think the game could easily take a few more years before a new edition is needed. Elevation rules are wonky, but that could be fixed with a rules update. If they want to clean up the models that could be done through errata, and if they (for example) moved all stat cards in M2.5E to the foil style they could pretty easily replace all cards needed. A proper new edition is needed for two things: a full rules rework and a full on rebalancing of all models. Neither is needed right now, and for example reworking all model stats in one go is easier, cheaper and less costly (in terms of lost sales) than reworking all model stats AND AT THE SAME TIME rework the rules and withdraw a lot of products from sale pending updates. At some point I'm guessing Malifaux will move to 100ss games with increases in cost to increase granularity (and slightly increase model count to increase profits), but unless they are planning that now I can't see a compelling reason for M3e right now. I for one would be all in favour of a 2.5 rules manual being the new book this GenCon, with maybe one or two mew models per faction, and a 2.5 reworked models book being the core of next year's release.

Oh, of course they might want to release M3e to rework factions and or a fluff reset, the above deals with minis and rules...

[bedjy]

3 hours ago, tmod said:

Oh, of course they might want to release M3e to rework factions and or a fluff reset, the above deals with minis and rules...

The TTB second edition book was just released, i don't think they will rework the fluff that soon

[tmod]

50 minutes ago, bedjy said:

The TTB second edition book was just released, i don't think they will rework the fluff that soon

I know, I've got it, but they might still want to adjust faction/do something about dual faction that's not directly in conflict with TTB Core. (Not advaocating it, just mentioning it because I've heard people talking about it)...

[Merchant]

How does big jake/bone pile’s counts as 2 models interact with “ours”. Do they count has having 2 identical models thus double SS cost for scoring or is it just count as multiple bodies for something that cares about number of units?

[Fetid Strumpet]

There is a good deal of argument over that. Until an official FAQ is released you and your group or TO is going to have to agree on how they are personally going to rule it.

I’ll be ruling it you only count model presence, not SS cost. There are others that feel the opposite.

[Gnomezilla]

On 1/9/2018 at 9:04 AM, edopersichetti said:

Ok I totally missed it in the book! I hope it leads to a model, it's very cool.

This picture is blurry, but does that look like her on the front of the box? I won’t be able to get to an FLGS distributor magazine for a few days to see.

 

[edopersichetti]

2 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

This picture is blurry, but does that look like her on the front of the box? I won’t be able to get to an FLGS distributor magazine for a few days to see.

 

Sure looks like it's her! Bad Things are about to Happen to my wallet...

[Nicoderm]

Could someone direct me to any reference about the condition summoned models get? I believe it's called "Unplanned". I found a few mentions of it but I can't find it in any official Wyrd document. This is likely me looking directly at it and not seeing it. Any help is muchly appreciated.

[Gnomezilla]

6 minutes ago, Nicoderm said:

Could someone direct me to any reference about the condition summoned models get? I believe it's called "Unplanned". I found a few mentions of it but I can't find it in any official Wyrd document. This is likely me looking directly at it and not seeing it. Any help is muchly appreciated.

Due to summoner feedback and any number of completely uncalled-for comments (*glowers at someone who knows full well what he said*) the conditional debuff was removed. You can see what it became in the rules for ‘Ours’ strategy, only affecting that strat.

[the tick]

8 minutes ago, Nicoderm said:

Could someone direct me to any reference about the condition summoned models get? I believe it's called "Unplanned". I found a few mentions of it but I can't find it in any official Wyrd document. This is likely me looking directly at it and not seeing it. Any help is muchly appreciated.

I think the "Unplanned" condition was in the GG18 beta test for a while. I don't think its in their anymore, the one strategy that cares about summoned models just says it doesn't count models that were summoned. The main rulebook will tell you that summoned models gain "Slow" and may not interact the turn they are summoned. Don't have a page number in front of me though.

[DonCheadle]

So now that the dust should've settled, what's the verdict on gg18?

I think paired schemes were a success, and definitely an improvement over having an Always scheme. Overall very happy with the pools, which led to a lot of exciting games, although I'd like to see a bit of a move back towards interaction and scheming, with perhaps 1-2 more marker related schemes. 2018 was a pretty kill-heavy year.

[PirateCaptain]

18 minutes ago, DonCheadle said:

So now that the dust should've settled, what's the verdict on gg18?

I think paired schemes were a success, and definitely an improvement over having an Always scheme. Overall very happy with the pools, which led to a lot of exciting games, although I'd like to see a bit of a move back towards interaction and scheming, with perhaps 1-2 more marker related schemes. 2018 was a pretty kill-heavy year.

I'd go a step further and say more incremental schemes, too many schemes that score at end of game are better for kill-first-scheme-later.  a few more schemes that score across every turn of the game would go a long way

[Nikodemus]

My main issue with gg18 has been that it feels like there's more pools where killing all/most of your own models is beneficial. I like that that works as an occasional tactic in Malifaux (eg. deducing opponent's Take Prisoner and killing it), but it's felt a bit too common this year. I've won a few games where I just killed my own guys to stop opponent from scoring late in the game.

Paired schemes are great and overall gg18 has been really fun.