Most of the comments over the past week - especially mine - have been based on reading of the rules and theoryhammer.
Last night I came across an analysis of the new rules based on playing experience. The writer had made his analysis based on the experience of 12 games. You can find that here
A lot of the observations made fit with my initially take - in particular around where the game is sped up and more importantly where it is slowed down.
Obviously we have dimetrically opposed opinions on the suitably of some mechanisms - he hates anything random and wants certainty whereas I think there is a skill in planning for and managing those random elements.
I think it is an excellent read and urge anyone interested in 6th Edition to read it.
wow - 12 games, and they didn't pick up that focus fire destroys any hope of chain look-out-sir wound splitting and IC firepower soaking?
ReplyDeleteThey need to rejig their initial statement to reinforce that they're all terrible players.
"What you get with this is a situation where you can plan for the average, but the long and short of it is that getting the charge is just a crap toss. In our first game, a Black Templar unit failed its charge from 4.5” away and the unit was subsequently destroyed and that decided the game…on turn 1. Now of course, anecdotes do not make statistical evidence and the majority of the time you will roll a 6, 7, or 8 on the roll, but no amount of skill mitigates this. It really does just come down to getting as close as you can and hoping you roll a high enough number….skill is diminished greatly in this system. People will call it risk management but it really isn't, it is just throwing the dice and hoping. I think a superior system would have been choosing to either take 6” OR roll if you wanted to."
ReplyDeleteNo you asshole, it is risk management. It's called not putting yourself in a situation so risky that one slightly below average roll will throw away the entire game.
That really grinds my gears!
Well as you know Charlie, I'm Mr. Risk Management!
DeleteThat to me is the great appeal of 8th Ed WHFB....so I'm clearly in the RANDOM = CHALLENGE rather than RANDOM = BAD camp.
I hate certainty. If you want certainty play Chess.
However I think there is merit in some of his points around where the game may slowdown - at least initially. As I said in a previous post I think good players will rise above this but for the casual player things may be slower for a while.
Also, their understanding and dislike for wound allocation and the Look Out, Sir mechanic is based on a flawed reading of the rule, From the article:
ReplyDelete"Armies that have access to resilient, good save (particularly when you can give said model a reroll on armor and/or FnP) characters can place that model out front, and just take saves on him and him alone until he fails one, and then use Look Out, Sir! to soak the wound on a chump on a 2+."
From my understanding Look Out, Sir is done when a wound is allocated, prior to taking the saving throw (if it is different from the unit), not when the character fails one.
Speaking of risk management, played a game on Tuesday where my Avatar threw the Wailing Doom and killed the closed model, then rolled snake eyes for charge range, only to find that the target unit was now 2.5" away. Hilarious!
May I point out that this is Reecius, whilst he may be a good player of the game, he is like DashofPepper in that they know how to play the game but don't know how to confer it in writing in such a way that they don't seem like idiots
ReplyDelete