Older copies of the rulebook

[Raintar]

I have an older copy of the rulebook and I was wondering if there was a changelog kind of thing where I can write them in my book so that I am getting these rules right. I have the version that has Guild Guard under Family/Unique I don't know if other people have similar versions of the book.

[Justin]

I have an older copy of the rulebook and I was wondering if there was a changelog kind of thing where I can write them in my book so that I am getting these rules right. I have the version that has Guild Guard under Family/Unique I don't know if other people have similar versions of the book.

I was under the impression there was only one version of the book...

Mine is the same as yours.

[EricJ]

The 2nd printing had a very few minor changes to editorial mistakes, the main one of which was removing Family/Unique from guild guard. I believe the only other 2 changes was adding a Ram to the Df for Perdita and a Crow to the Cb for Hans. Everything else was fixing improper line breaks and other spacing issues, oh, and removing the immune to influence wording from hunter

[Justin]

The 2nd printing had a very few minor changes to editorial mistakes, the main one of which was removing Family/Unique from guild guard. I believe the only other 2 changes was adding a Ram to the Df for Perdita and a Crow to the Cb for Hans. Everything else was fixing improper line breaks and other spacing issues, oh, and removing the immune to influence wording from hunter

Oh, cool.

Will you continue editing the book with subsequent print runs?

I may have to pick up another copy in a few months.

[Raintar]

Also on another note, I think wording should be improved on certain spells to keep up with the FAQ if there is another printing of the rulebook. Although it is a difficult task, it is an important one for the professionality of a game such as this. I know that the makers of Warhammer 40k, a very similar game, suffered alot of that kind of thing before they got it down correctly.

I like using this example in looking at rules explanations, look at this sentence:

"I didn't say you stole my wallet."

One sentence, six words. Say the sentence out loud emphasizing the first word, "I". Next say it again except this time emphasizing the second word "didn't". Keep going until you emphasize each different word. Each time you say it with different emphasis it will have vastly different meaning but will still be relevant to the subject matter of the missing wallet.

This is what game rules systems suffer from because gamers can use wordings of game rules to manipulate the game system to produce unintended results.

[Justin]

I know that the makers of Warhammer 40k, a very similar game, suffered alot of that kind of thing before they got it down correctly.

"Got it down correctly."

Funny.

You funny.

[Raintar]

They still struggle to this day.

[Justin]

They still struggle to this day.

Oh yeah they do.

Don't get me wrong, I like GW. At least, that is to say, I like warhammer 40k and I judge the company by its product, because that's all I really care about.

However, they seem to have an almost childish stubbornness about making rulings. Some of the most debated rules interpretations (can death rollers affect vehicles? can you gate of infinity out of close combat?) go completely ignored, even though they released FAQs for the relevant codices while the arguments were going on. Why on Earth not address the issue and end the arguing?

Wyrd, on the other hand, does seem to have made more simple printing mistakes. (obviously Hans should have a suit on his combat, otherwise he would have abilities he couldn't even use) But, it's a newer and smaller company with less time and resources for editing. It has nothing to do with professionalism. And those typos that were made were fixed with a relatively quick errata. Even better, it seems that issues that are more than a typo, but an unclear writing of the rules which lend to multiple interpretations (Nicodem's zombie control) and broken combos (sommer's infinite draw) are being dealt with in an upcoming errata, or have already been dealt with.

I by no means intend to brown nose, I have my own issues with Malifaux. I think the game balance could be a bit better. Not paying for your master presumes that all masters are equal and that's just...not the case. And I'm not a huge fan of a mechanic or two. But, those things that I disagree on were, at least, intended by the creators. By far, Wyrd has been the most responsive and interactive miniatures company I have ever purchased a rulebook from. I ask a rules question and get a ruling in a matter of hours. Rules which are unclear or abusive receive errata without hesitation. I mean, one of the owners of the company responded to your thread.

GW, on the otherhand, responded to an outcry from their customers by shutting down their forums. (anyone remember strength 9 weapons instant killing tyranid warriors because 9 isn't, technically, double their toughness? It's more than double...)

Edited January 8, 2010 by Justin

[Raintar]

I by no means intend to brown nose, I have my own issues with Malifaux. I think the game balance could be a bit better. Not paying for your master presumes that all masters are equal and that's just...not the case. And I'm not a huge fan of a mechanic or two. But, those things that I disagree on were, at least, intended by the creators. By far, Wyrd has been the most responsive and interactive miniatures company I have ever purchased a rulebook from. I ask a rules question and get a ruling in a matter of hours. Rules which are unclear or abusive receive errata without hesitation. I mean, one of the owners of the company responded to your thread.

GW, on the otherhand, responded to an outcry from their customers by shutting down their forums. (anyone remember strength 9 weapons instant killing tyranid warriors because 9 isn't, technically, double their toughness? It's more than double...)

I knida agree with the balance part, other then Ronin, my only concern is being able to trigger on a trigger with Trigger Happy/Overpower/Whirlwind and so on which is absolutely insane. Other than that thought most of the things I've seen played were pretty balanced.

GW is a different kind of company because it's a widely accepted game common worldwide and when you have that many people complaining about every minute detail of the rules on their forums it will get irritating for anyone. What makes it worse is that gamers are not so....how do you say "social", which is a definite contributing factor.

[Justin]

I knida agree with the balance part, other then Ronin, my only concern is being able to trigger on a trigger with Trigger Happy/Overpower/Whirlwind and so on which is absolutely insane. Other than that thought most of the things I've seen played were pretty balanced.

GW is a different kind of company because it's a widely accepted game common worldwide and when you have that many people complaining about every minute detail of the rules on their forums it will get irritating for anyone. What makes it worse is that gamers are not so....how do you say "social", which is a definite contributing factor.

It's true that, as a larger company, GW will react very differently from Wyrd. I mean, if they did have a forum I doubt that the creators could really respond much just because of sheer volume of posts. However, it doesn't explain their odd refusal to clarify the most hottly debated rules issues, or their decision to shut down their forums. While people complaining about every little thing may be annoying you can always just...not read it. That decision basically illustrates their philosophy on how to deal with their customers. No matter how big the company, it doesn't come across well.

Sorry, I don't mean to rant at you, and I hope I don't come across that way. But I think Wyrd is on just the right track, as far as rulings/customer interaction is concerned. GW...not so much.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Justin

[Raintar]

Their problem is that they are a very "corporate" company. As companies get more corporate they get more concerned with profits more then anything else. So as a direct result customer service will take a hit because as a company gets more and more into that corporate mindset they realize that customer service costs resources and eventually they figure out that its just a waste of money, the GW forums cost money to keep up, and why waste money that you don't need to waste. There's plenty of other forums to talk about GW products, Dakka Dakka, bolter and chainsword, etc., go there and we'll save money.

That's a huge benefit of being a smaller company like Wyrd, having a more customer oriented business with a business model based on enjoying the game and having fun instead of being corporate douches and being so concerned with making profits.

[Justin]

Their problem is that they are a very "corporate" company. As companies get more corporate they get more concerned with profits more then anything else. So as a direct result customer service will take a hit because as a company gets more and more into that corporate mindset they realize that customer service costs resources and eventually they figure out that its just a waste of money, the GW forums cost money to keep up, and why waste money that you don't need to waste. There's plenty of other forums to talk about GW products, Dakka Dakka, bolter and chainsword, etc., go there and we'll save money.

That's a huge benefit of being a smaller company like Wyrd, having a more customer oriented business with a business model based on enjoying the game and having fun instead of being corporate douches and being so concerned with making profits.

I think I have wandered from my point.

It's not just about corporate douche baggery. You initially said that maybe Wyrd should look to GW to see how they word their rulebooks carefully to avoid loopholes and varying interpretations. And my point is: games workshop rulebooks are full of those...they just don't fix them.

They mix their fluff directly in with the rules, causing all kinds of confusion for newer players, and they have as many or more loopholes or stupid RAW situations as Wyrd does. (strictly rules as written an independant character may never leave a transport if he's the only one in it since he must deploy within 2" of it, he automatically joins any squad he is within 2" of, and he may not join a vehicle)

And then they come out with official FAQs that ignore people's most frequent questions. (gate of infinity)

All that has nothing to do with being a bigger company.

Despite everything I have said here, I do like GW. Their games are fun, and I can work out any rules situations that arise, but I wouldn't suggest using their rules as a model.

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

I knida agree with the balance part, other then Ronin, my only concern is being able to trigger on a trigger with Trigger Happy/Overpower/Whirlwind and so on which is absolutely insane. Other than that thought most of the things I've seen played were pretty balanced.

It's not being able to trigger off of a trigger. It's always a trigger off of a Duel.

As in Trigger Happy, each Duel generated can have a trigger assigned to it. Be it Attacker or Defender.

Hardly insane...

[redstripe]

Not paying for your master presumes that all masters are equal and that's just...not the case.

Just a note, here. Masters do not "cost" the same amount. Each Master is packaged with a soulstone refund that, I believe, is intended to subsidize their differences.

[Tadayen]

although this is going further off topic. I believe the victoria's are the only master with no soulstone cashe.I havent goten a game in yrt still painting them up, but pretty girls should get some stones too

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

although this is going further off topic. I believe the victoria's are the only master with no soulstone cashe.I havent goten a game in yrt still painting them up, but pretty girls should get some stones too

None of the current Outcast Masters have any starting Soulstone Caches.

Leveticus, Som'er Teeth Jones, or the Viktoria Twins.

[EricJ]

Just to reply to an early post, we won't continually update the rulebook, because it causes all sorts of problems for people tryign to play with different versions of the main book. We will be shortly putting up the FAQ and Errata nicely designed in PDF so you can print and keep it with. There are difficulties with both methods, but I think this one is the best solution to keep down confusion, and also not force people to keep buying updated books

[Raintar]

Just a note, here. Masters do not "cost" the same amount. Each Master is packaged with a soulstone refund that, I believe, is intended to subsidize their differences.

Then there's masters like McMourning who is arguably one of the best masters in the game who has a soulstone cache of 6 which is the highest in the game.

It's not being able to trigger off of a trigger. It's always a trigger off of a Duel.

As in Trigger Happy, each Duel generated can have a trigger assigned to it. Be it Attacker or Defender.

Hardly insane...

What I meant is that you trigger a trigger off another trigger creating a loop as long as you keep fulfilling it. It's insane on Rasputina when she has 7 hand size (8 in a brawl!) and has an Essence of power/Bite of Winter. So she's doing 3/5B/6BB with an additional flip with overpower.

Against a minion all Rasputina needs is a mask, and then you drop a soulstone if you get a somewhat low total (if you don't get a 12/13 is somewhat low for me depending on the defenders Df) and nobody will be able to resist the cast with her Ca 7 and you cast again. Rinse repeat dead next target. Dropping soulstones like water is only a side effect to killing most of your opponents army.

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

What I meant is that you trigger a trigger off another Duel creating a loop as long as you keep fulfilling it. It's insane on Rasputina when she has 7 hand size (8 in a brawl!) and has an Essence of power/Bite of Winter. So she's doing 3/5B/6BB with an additional flip with overpower.

Fixed that for you.

[Justin]

Just a note, here. Masters do not "cost" the same amount. Each Master is packaged with a soulstone refund that, I believe, is intended to subsidize their differences.

See, that's what I originally thought too. But after playing I noticed that the level of soul stones didn't really relate to the effectiveness of the master. Sommer has a cache of zero, and I think he is probably one of the less powerful masters at this point. A cache of zero would indicate that he is the most powerful possible. And Marcus, my other candidate for least powerful, has a cache of 4. Decent, but not the highest in the game. Meanwhile McMorning has 6 and he's...perfectly fine.

My other issue with using the cache as a balancing act is that zero is the lowest you can go. So you can never make a master more powerful than sommer teeth (assuming that he deserves his zero cache) in subsequent additions. At least not without having a master with a negative cache and, at that point...well, you're paying for your master.

However, judging by how ill fitting the cahes seem to be when compared with power, I think they were assigned with the story line more in mind than the game balance. It makes sense that a guild funded mad scientest has more cash to burn than a pig farming gremlin. And, that's fine. If the creators want their game to be more about the story than about the balance, that's cool. Not entirely my cup of tea, but I can see who it would appeal to, and there are plenty other aspects of the game that I love.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Justin

[Justin]

Just to reply to an early post, we won't continually update the rulebook, because it causes all sorts of problems for people tryign to play with different versions of the main book. We will be shortly putting up the FAQ and Errata nicely designed in PDF so you can print and keep it with. There are difficulties with both methods, but I think this one is the best solution to keep down confusion, and also not force people to keep buying updated books

Very cool.

Thank you.

Although I personally think an updated book would be worth my money, that's perfectly understandable other people wouldn't.

[n0signal]

I'm sure that McMourning just has a big Cache so that he always has a decent amount of soul stones to swap for body parts.

[Justin]

I'm sure that McMourning just has a big Cache so that he always has a decent amount of soul stones to swap for body parts.

Yeah, I've heard that argument. But soul stones are useful, no matter how you use them. McMorning could take fewer models to have a larger cache to swap for body part counters.

And Lilith has the same cache as Marcus. Are they really equal? Hell, should Lilith have a larger cache to swap for blood counters?

Game balance just...doesn't seem like the intended purpose of the cache to me.

[n0signal]

Game balance just...doesn't seem like the intended purpose of the cache to me.

True. I was playing devil's advocate.

[acid_gaming]

I always thought the cache related more to fluff than anything else.