The more I play the scenarios the more I enjoy 8ed.
While there is some grumbling that not all scenarios are internally balanced, I personally think that any shortfalls are down to list design by the participants. Sure you can get a bad draw but if tournaments run the scenarios as a block rather than try to "pick winners" then I think that given average player skill the balanced army will win out over an extreme build. And to be honest that's how it should be.
Over the past month my approach to each of the scenarios has evolved. This is reflected in both the tactics I deploy and in list construction itself. If I'm looking to play the full gamut of scenarios then my list needs to be broad-based than if I was only going to play "Battleline".
Playing games other than "Battleline" increases the meta in Warhammer 8ed. for instance, there has been a lot of comment that with "The Watchtower" scenario the game is normally decided by the die roll to see who occupies the tower. The inference is that it is impossible to dislodge an opponent if he deploys there at the outset. I believe that such analysis is overly simplistic and that as long as youhave design your list to deal with this scenario as well as the others then you can get an extremely challenging and exciting game.
Last night I had a 2000 point game against Dwarfs. The scenario was "Blood & Glory". My Fortitude level was 6 while that of my opponent was 7. Seeing that my opponent had spread his FP out across a variety of units so I knew it was going to be difficult to win via scenario. Similarly I knew that if I concentrated my FPs in a single unit which I protected then the Dwarfs probably lacked the mobility to break me. This meant that we probably both realised that VPs were going to come into it at the end but that we needed to be careful not to overcommit - especially in my case. In the end he got one of my FPs and I got none of his. The game did come down to VPs and I made sure I had hunted down easy points in his list when they were on offer. I also tried to look for kinghits if possible. The game did eventuate in a draw but it was on a knife-edge in the last turn where I was close to scoring some big VPs for what I saw as calculated risk. My opponent also had opportunities in the last round but these had a more limited payoff profile versus risk.
Immense fun.
I agree that 8th is an improvement, and I don't want to play a game of 7th edition again. Some things could have been done better (counter-charge as a Charge reaction, elimination of some of the broken magic items, tighter rules definition in places), but generally this is a big step up.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the game, I learned a lot, not so much from the shunting of figures on the table, but in setting realistic goals and developing a plan to achieve these. I also realised afterwards that, as you stated above, you set the conditions of the game with a much better risk/return ratio than I did. I was much luckier with the dice, hence the close result, but the combats were such that a single bad roll would have been a big loss. I think I'll be a better player for that one game, so thanks a lot. And as you say, it was immense fun.