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Post by phreedh on Apr 2, 2010 10:06:11 GMT 1
So what you are saying is you have designed a tournament format that favours one side over the other. No. What I'm specifically saying is that it's NOT a tournament. =) taking any group without a leader doesn't make any sense what so ever A shambling horde of zombies. 37 (and a half!) of the blighters shuffling about in a 300 pts game. =) Hm... I sense a battle report coming up of this! Let's see if I can sucker the Mrs into playing the heroes in this scenario.
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Post by The Beer Ogre on Apr 2, 2010 13:46:33 GMT 1
So what you are saying is you have designed a tournament format that favours one side over the other. No. What I'm specifically saying is that it's NOT a tournament. =) Fair enough... you've created a format that places one side at a disadvantage... taking any group without a leader doesn't make any sense what so ever A shambling horde of zombies. 37 (and a half!) of the blighters shuffling about in a 300 pts game. =) Hm... I sense a battle report coming up of this! Let's see if I can sucker the Mrs into playing the heroes in this scenario. I have to disagree with Rich as well... not all groups require a leader (see the 5 Steam Hulks printed above)... however, it is very easy to see which groups should have a leader. I would place Q:4+ Orcs firmly in the latter group.
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Post by richjones on Apr 2, 2010 15:20:50 GMT 1
I said it doesn't make sense unless they are a high quality squad with low numbers - I'd class the steam hulks as a high quality (not HIGH Q value) group. The discussion is more (I thought) about taking warband with a lot of average characters with no leader - where people will run into the problems the have said are a failing part of the rules .... taking masses (as in the zombies) will also work (although I would think a tad boring for the zombie side). So you don't have to disagree mate Rich
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Post by The Beer Ogre on Apr 2, 2010 15:52:43 GMT 1
I said it doesn't make sense unless they are a high quality squad with low numbers - I'd class the steam hulks as a high quality (not HIGH Q value) group. The discussion is more (I thought) about taking warband with a lot of average characters with no leader - where people will run into the problems the have said are a failing part of the rules .... taking masses (as in the zombies) will also work (although I would think a tad boring for the zombie side). So you don't have to disagree mate Rich Right... I get you now... In that case... yes... I agree with you Rich. -------------------------------------------------------------------- OK... I have suggested 2 potential house rule fixes... neither of which will unbalance a (non-competative) game too much. @ phreedh are the two suggestions I posted sufficent to fix your problem?
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Post by charger3604bbl on Apr 2, 2010 16:21:05 GMT 1
Oh... and just because I like posting it... If anyone thinks low Quality troops are bad... then field 5 of these (in a 300pt battle)... Steam Hulk Pts:60 Q:4+ C:5 Special Rules: Artificial; Big; Heavy Armour; Shooter (long); Short MoveThe Steam Dwarves (from my little Fantasy setting) use these things as walking field artillery. They are monstrous... and had to be limited to only two (maximum) per warband! Enjoy... ;D A whole warband of just those, and they couldn't be beaten? What size base are they on? If they are big they should have a bigger base and therefore be easily surrounded and beat to a pulp. Chris
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Post by charger3604bbl on Apr 2, 2010 16:55:37 GMT 1
The discussion is more (I thought) about taking warband with a lot of average characters with no leader - where people will run into the problems the have said are a failing part of the rules. Rich I thought the discussion was about the extreme disadvantage of low Q models vs. high Q ones, leader or no leader. Reading through the rest of this thread, I think it really comes down to playing with a group of reasonable people who will play in the spirit of the rules and your gaming group. I personally prefer pre determined scenarios where someone has made the forces and balanced them out. That way you know it will be a good game. I'm drawing my conclusions from the 38 games we played in our campaign over an 8 week period. There is another campaign on the horizon. It sounds like it will be the same cast of characters, but all with different warbands, so we'll see what happens. We've been talking about eliminating Q and C advances this time around, so that will affect how people choose their warbands. Chris
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Post by phreedh on Apr 2, 2010 20:03:22 GMT 1
@ phreedh are the two suggestions I posted sufficent to fix your problem? "Press on" could help, however I'm discussing this from a general discussion point of view - not because I have an orc warband I want to dominate the local school tournament with. I'm just a 35 year old guy who is playing this with his cousin in the man cave every now and then, and I think there could be some improvements to how the rules work - without turning it into the "igougo" snooze fest Rich is fearing.. =) We'll have a test run or two with different variants on house rules. So far, my impression is that I'm the only one who think the Q-system could use a little TLC - with Chris being slightly behind me on it. BTW, Rich - the warbands we've played have all contained leaders or in one case a champion where it made no sense having a leader from a "fluff" perspective. I played a group of automatons guarding an ancient pyramid. I could've fudged a humanoid leader into this, but it would just feel wrong from a story point of view. I didn't like the idea of having an automated leader. I blame the failings of this partly on the rule system... I also blame my champion for being killed, and me for putting him in a situation where he could be killed. =) I did not have a lot of average characters, but all except one (the automagician) were Q4.
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Post by andrea sfiligoi on Apr 5, 2010 3:01:51 GMT 1
I think the discussion stems from an attempt to use the rules for something that is is not what they were designed for. I'm not saying you can't, and I'm pretty sure you will find the system in Tales of Blades and Heroes useful. It's just that SBH is used by most people as a pick-up battle system. And campaigns are a connected series of pick-up games.
The profiles in the basic book are MY own version of fantasy critters and are NOT balanced against each other. I do not expect, nor do the rules expect, a 300 point squad of elves to be 100% equal to an equal point value squad of orcs no matter what. It all depends on the warband composition, the scenario, and the profiles you use.
To have the profiles balanced on a racial basis would require years of testing and rematching. Warhammer has been around for ages and they are still tweaking things...
Low quality creatures like orcs are, in my vision, stupid and cowardly unless they are well led. Boss them around, and they will be more or less as powerful as men (well the upper profiles, heroes and trolls etc are actually superior to men-- that's Tolkien, more or less). So in a competitive scenario I would generally use a leader with them.
The turn over problem is a bit preposterous. You can always choose to roll only one die, have a hero who rolls an auto success, and roll three dice with the last creature. So if you want to do wonders with your troll, just activate him last. Trolls are stupid and slow but eventually dangerous when they do get in a fight. Isn't that a Tolkien troll?
I don't win often, but I have even won battles with a mainly Q4 kobold warband. I even killed a dragon once (in a 1000 pts scenario so yes I had a lot of kobolds but most fled anyway). In any case, evcen the all kobold warband used a pseudodragon for air support or maybe a troll or a couple savage orcs for muscle.
Cowardice can be expressed by taking the Coward special rule (which is just a -1 to Morale rolls).
You can use experience in a campaign to enhance the creatures' Q (after 3 games, either Q or C goes up by one).
To keep your models on the table, use a standard bearer.
Another suggestion is to use higher point totals. I have run games up to 2000 points. With more points, you can use different mixes of profiles, have a backup leader in case the first one is killed.
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Post by andrea sfiligoi on Apr 5, 2010 3:06:39 GMT 1
I must add, the 200 points is an extreme. Already at 500-600 points it becomes a completely different game. And the point cost differences for low Q troops are getting proportionally better because it will be easier to surround a higher cost foe and swarm over him.
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Post by theswlion on Apr 5, 2010 16:04:39 GMT 1
We'll have a test run or two with different variants on house rules. So far, my impression is that I'm the only one who think the Q-system could use a little TLC - with Chris being slightly behind me on it. Looking over your pyramid scenario, while the terrain was fanatstic, I don't think the scenario was balanced. The whole purpose was to challenge the winner of the first 2 scenarios as they tried to get into the pyramid, and you defended it with a group of automatons that couldn't stand up to the attacks of the opposing warband. How much did you playtest the scenario before running it live? Did you tweak the automatons at all before you ran the scenario "live?" I would have played it through once with a test warband and worked out how I wanted the automatons to react. I would have tweaked them (giving them better Q's or stats) depending on how I wanted them to play, balancing them so that they aren't too strong, and always dominate. Also, I may have added a special rule that the automatons were considered under leadership as long as they were in medium or short distance to the pyramid. Since it's a narrative scenario, I think you have more leeway in the setup to reflect what's happening in the game. I think SBH and FL may be a new concept for a lot of players. It's not an "out of the box" system (like LotR SBG, Warhammer, Warmachine, etc. - actually it's better because you can customize)), and I took the examples in the books to be guidelines for building the figures for the games. Lilnewbie and I have converted a ton of figures over to SBH. I worked on the D&D figures, and he worked on the LotR figures. I don't think any figure has a match to the stats in the SBH books, but we have tweaked the stats many times to balance out the figures. Also, we have made sure the figures reflect the settings that we are playing. However, other players may disagree how we have interpreted the figures, and would make them stronger or weaker for their own games (which is why I wouldn't cross the street to play in a "competitive" SBH tournament, unless I knew the players, and knew that they took the time to develop balanced rosters for the games).
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Post by andrea sfiligoi on Apr 5, 2010 18:06:42 GMT 1
Probably the only way to do SBH tournaments would be to make official tournament army lists
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Post by theswlion on Apr 5, 2010 22:56:14 GMT 1
Probably the only way to do SBH tournaments would be to make official tournament army lists True, and even for a campaign. I think step 1 is to create a balanced roster that players can draw from for either a tournament or campaign. I approach the game with an RPG mindset (even though it's a miniatures game). One of the SBH's biggest strengths is that you can create your own stats, however, one of SBH's biggest weaknesses is that you can create your on stats. It's a double edged sword (like any RPG system, we've all run into the power gamer).
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Post by The Beer Ogre on Apr 7, 2010 9:00:29 GMT 1
Oh... and just because I like posting it... If anyone thinks low Quality troops are bad... then field 5 of these (in a 300pt battle)... Steam Hulk Pts:60 Q:4+ C:5 Special Rules: Artificial; Big; Heavy Armour; Shooter (long); Short MoveThe Steam Dwarves (from my little Fantasy setting) use these things as walking field artillery. They are monstrous... and had to be limited to only two (maximum) per warband! Enjoy... ;D A whole warband of just those, and they couldn't be beaten? What size base are they on? If they are big they should have a bigger base and therefore be easily surrounded and beat to a pulp. Chris They're on 50mm round bases... surrounding them is very difficult... especially when they stay in a clump and use thier long range (shooting at x3 range gives them an effective combat score of 3, enough to have a decent chance of knocking down average enemies at that range, thereby slowing any advance). They are artifical, therefore they do not fail morale (and only have to roll a morale check when out of the 5 are destroyed) and terror is ineffective against them. In melee, Heavy armour means you need to beat their score by more than 1 (and they are Combat 5) to have any effect on them... get in combat with 2 or more and all-but the toughest opponent is sunk. We have played many games with these models and even the spritely (Q:2+) Elves can't field enough firepower to beat more than one, before they are either overrun or picked off by long range fire. But rather than derail this thread with talk of Steam Hulks... I'll start another... ;D
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Post by The Beer Ogre on Apr 7, 2010 9:07:43 GMT 1
like any RPG system, we've all run into the power gamer. Are you looking at me? Cos I don't see anyone else here....
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Post by theswlion on Apr 7, 2010 17:41:39 GMT 1
I don't know... You did start that whole Steam Hulk thing...
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