40K: Designing a rules package

Let's do this thing.

Updated: 3/12/15
Now looking for ways to break Imperial Guard! (or AM)

Can everyone access this?
https://drive.google.com/drive/#folders/0B7_TofINQVJafmRjQTI2SkFTaTRZREo2eHVHRjFBUXUwMFV1R3VYWkVoeUh2TUhiQzNfbkE

Hey guys,

I want to reach out to you on a community project.  Are you familiar with how ETC is done for Warhammer Fantasy? It's a very intuitive rules packet that aims to promote game balance while still allowing players to take powerful options in their book.

I've been developing something similar for 40K (geared for 1v1, championship format), in the attempt to get better quality games in instead of playing the rock-paper-scissors style of play in tournaments. I am already in touch with several community leaders with large connections to the competitive blogosphere and I would like to turn this rules package into something that's designed for the competitive gamer. I have already reached out to Reece from Frontline Gaming, Kirby from 3++, Larry on BoLS, and several contacts managing Adepticon and east coast majors that I have been involved in in the past.

You might not know my gaming history, but I've been playing GW games for 14 years. I have a ton of competitive tourney experience, including competing in majors on the east coast, and now work in the computer game industry. I'm a competitive RTS player, ex-pro CS player, former balance designer (for said RTS games), and enjoy doing multiplayer balance-related projects on the side.

Just some food for thought before you begin on this journey with me. The design goals for this document is as follows:

• You can still take the good stuff, but in moderation.
• We're out to limit powerful armies and combos, but not outright ban them.
• The idea here is to promote equality among all armies in the game.

You might think this is impossible to do because 40K has a billion supplements, data sheets, formations and whatnot, but this is a fallacy.  Warhammer 40K might be more expansive than WHFB, but it is not more complex.  Its rules are much simpler, the units are more streamlined, the combos are more defined, and most importantly, is less random.  I think we should give it a shot, I know I need all the help I can get because there's just so much out there!

Anyways, this project is supposed to be something fun, as well as challenging and I would like to get your input. Let me know what you think, and please, break it as much as you can. This is just a preliminary draft to showcase what the rules package is designed to do.  Maybe at the end of this all, this won't be a competitive rules package and will be instead, a fairplay one.

GDS: A good RTS game

Creating a good RTS is difficult.

I'm really feeling this deep emptiness inside that is the lack of a good RTS games. I just feel there's so many out there these days that have been a disappointment one way or another. Let me use this time to vent, and express what I'm looking for in a modern-day RTS. I believe that in order for an RTS game to be successful, it needs to be built with the modern-day business model in mind. What does this mean? This means you take the best from all the games you've played in the past, highlight it and bring it to light. Then, and only then, you innovate and take it to the next level. I believe that that is the recipe to creating a modern-day RTS that can accommodate the needs of the modern gamer (which frankly, has ADD).

1. Focus on the action, the fight, the grand strategy, tactics, and execution of said tactics. What does this mean? Limited base building. The focus should be on the combat. E.g. WiC, CoH/DoW2, Ground Control, Wargame, MOBAs.
2. Depth. This would also mean that there's depth in the actual units that you're using. Everything should feel unique and have its own purpose, or why else are you taking it? The games that I enjoy the most are the games where you're able to get mileage out of the units that you're purchasing, either through superior positioning, micro or unorthodox use. This is one of the things that StarCraft does especially well, and one of the reasons why certain units that should lose on paper, win through skill and placement. E.g. StarCraft, CNC Generals/RA3, CoH/DoW2, MOBAs.
3. Map control for resources. My favorite model of map control for resources for me is CoH/DoW2. You have multiple resources (as a game should have, luxury resources), but you fight for control of it by going out and acquiring land, capturing this land, and holding this land. The fact that you can cut off enemy resources depicts the cutting off of supply, which not only captures the fantasy that is WW2 warfare, but adds another layer of strategy for the player.
4. Build your own army, army customization. What makes players really excited? Player options. I'm talking about player decks. Can you see two competitive players argue for hours about what is the best options to take? Sure, me and Tri do it all the time in ALB and in Red Dragon. I used to argue with Parfait for hours in AoE3. Player decks that allow a player to customize his army the way he wants is one of the most fun and infinitely challenging things about any game. It stems from DND and table-top games in general, and it works really well because it sings soundly to the OCD competitive player. There's nothing that compliments the feeling that you are truly in control than designing your own army. E.g. DND, Warhammer, Wargame, Total War, Age of Empires 3.
5. Get in the fight, now. You have X amount of starting resources and this should be enough to get you into the game fighting, participating and having fun right away. I'm not talking about 6 SCVs here, I'm not talking about building starting buildings and more workers, I'm talking about the fact you have enough resources to start fighting, controlling territory and capturing ground. Then, you capture more land, gain more resources, and share in the momentum that is truly warfare. War is about momentum, and only the winners know it. E.g. Ground Control, DoW2, Wargame, all MOBAs.
6. Lastly, the game should be built with spectators in mind. It needs to be exciting, energetic and explosive. Visually, it needs to be impressive and interesting in a way that's easy to understand, even if you have never played the game before. This is how you capture interest. In terms of gameplay, it needs to be easy to understand, but difficult to master. That is the hallmark to a successful game and the lifeblood to future success. eSports is free marketing in today's social media-driven environment. More people will buy and play your game if they're exposed to it, and they will only be exposed to it if people play it, stream it, and share it. E.g. SC, Hearthstone, LoL.

This is my list for now guys, thanks for reading. I'm not in the position to start my own gaming company, but you can bet your ass in hell that if I did, I will make an RTS game and take it to the next level.

The importance of theory and experience

The tree of knowledge is infinitely tall.

I found a discussion the other day about something that has come up time and time again.  Just recently, I wrote an review on Dark Eldar that got a ton of flak.  In fact, after 5 years of running this blog, this was the first time I received hate mail!  I was literally labeled "Betrayer of the Dark Kin" after what I wrote about the new book.

By now, you folks know that I dislike the new book, a lot.  But at the same time, tons of people posting all over the net has made one audible remark: "How do you even know?  You haven't played any games with it yet?"

This, my dear friends and readers, is called theory.  Theory, its hypothesis and predictions are exactly what it sounds like:  A well-educated guess.  After 14 years of playing 40K, WHFB and several other game systems in both a competitive and casual setting, I feel pretty comfortable with my state of knowledge and experience.  I might not play as much as I used to, but I'm very up to date with the meta and the new army books.  This is evident in the fact that I have many friends that play in the tournament circuit, I purchase and thoroughly read every new book that comes out, and I sometimes write a review for them.  At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself who you're reading the article from before questioning the predictions.  After all, you wouldn't go to a car salesman for financial advice would you?

Here is the discussion I'm referring to.  It's by AbusePuppy on 3++ and I don't usually agree with what he says.  However, he was criticized for making a review on the new Dark Eldar just like I was, and he was forced to justify his assumptions.  I quote:

Commentator: And to address Abusepuppy directly: Though I'm not the hugest fan of your attitude, I like your articles and appreciate the candor to a certain degree. I recognize that you're an intelligent player and come from a long background of competitive play and respect your opinion even when I don't agree. This comment is more stemming from the fact that there's been a steady increase online to rush and declare a codex weak and stupid and garbage before players even have a chance to play it. The least that authors can do is be straightforward at the beginning of the article and note that it's all speculation and theory.

Commenter: Its not hard to tell if a unit is good or shit at first glance most the time. especialy when youve played the game alot and are aware of the power level of other options. if you had to pay 20 pts for a guardsmen statline with a 5+ but he has ws 5 and ini 4 you wouldnt need to play test it to know he is shit

AbusePuppy: No, you just don't understand- those theoretical models are theoretically very skill-based. You can't just dismiss them because they are terrible, you have to lose game after game with them before you are allowed to have an opinion, just like you can only tell whether or not you like doing anything by actually doing it. This is why I placed my hand inside the garbage disposal and turned it on yesterday- I didn't know whether it would be enjoyable or not.

(It turns out that it is not very enjoyable, and neither is the emergency room. But that was only my left hand, so I'm gonna give ol' Righty Righty a shot tomorrow and see if it's any different, so wish me luck!)

Commenter: It's not about "being allowed to have an opinion." Obviously people can have opinions and can express them however they like, but that opinion should at least be put in the proper context. Making the definitive declaration that the DE are "really, really shitty" without ever having actually rolled a dice just feels premature and a little defeatist to me, especially since the rest of your article does a good job of identifying the strengths in the codex.

What it comes down to though, is that these articles and other similar ones are actually beginning to brand these armies before people have actually played them. Like I said above, there may be something in there that people aren't seeing because it isn't obvious until it plays out on the tabletop, but less people will be eager to search it out if they feel that there's no point since their army is just awful and that's the way it is. To make wide reaching blanket statements without at least some scientific evidence or testing doesn't sit well with me personally, so I'm expressing my opinion on it.

AbusePuppy: And what I'm saying is that _not all propositions need to be tested_. Even if you're being wholly rational and scientific about things, you don't have to sit down and test literally every possibility on the off-chance that it is true; in fact, that is an idiotic method of understanding things. Instead, you typically take a look at your new data point (in this case a codex or unit) and compare it to existing ones, taking note of the differences and similarities and extrapolating your expectations of what it will be like based on your previous theoretical models of the phenomena.

Yes, at some point you do want to put rubber to road and make sure your predictions are right. But in many cases this is essentially a formality, if it's even done at all- scientists don't need to test how 11.1kg of uranium decays as compared to 11.7kg because our models tell us that the difference between the two should be inconsequential. Likewise, I can look at a unit like Wyches and say "this unit is bad because it is fragile, ineffective, and not cheap enough" and be reasonably sure that my conclusion is correct because I can base it on other, similar units.

Commenter: You don't really go in depth into the synergies the units provide with each other or with the army wide special rules

AbusePuppy: I don't think it's realistic to expect every article to cover every possible consideration, point of importance, or angle. You're right, I don't talk about those things because this is an _overview_ of the codex. If I talked about how every other unit interacted with all the army's special rules and strategies I'd have hundreds of thousands of words of text and most of it would just boil down to "this unit isn't good enough to be worth it." I did that with the Tau codex, breaking it up into many smaller parts (that were each 2000-6000 words long, not exactly brief) because most of the units in that codex are good enough to consider using. That isn't the case for Dark Eldar- Wyches simply aren't worth my time to write about.

Commenter: I simply can't believe that the community as a whole should completely write off an entire codex the day before it's even released

AbusePuppy: Do you think people aren't going to play with Dark Eldar? I don't like the GK book, but I still used it to see how it worked. There were a few little interesting twists on things, but for the most part it came out just about how I expected from reading it initially. An initial verdict does not forever commit one's opinion to that stance and yes, playing with a book will give you a more in-depth understanding of things. But you consistently seem to think that there is NO legitimacy to assessing a book before having... well, I dunno, how much experience do you need before forming a valid opinion? If I play with the book for a week, couldn't you just say that I need a month to "truly" assess it? If I play for a month, couldn't you say it takes a year? Etc.

Playtesting and experience should inform your opinions, to be sure- but you need a theoretical framework to hang your experience on or it's not going to do you a lot of good. When a new book comes out, using that theoretical framework to point out the aspects of the book that are most worthy of notice- unit A looks like it has a lot of potential, unit B is going to struggle with these problems, unit C has a very useful niche in the current metagame, and so on- is important. Collating many different points of view and understandings of the book and particular insights is very critical to making a good judgement of things, and that's why I do my best to read and discuss things with people every time a new codex is released because there's inevitably things I miss, or misjudge, or flat-out read incorrectly. That's why I try to be active in the comments section and discuss things with people, because I realize that my own particular assessment of the codex is hardly going to be all-encompassing. But I can't compare my assessments with those of other people if I- or they- don't say what those assessments are, and that's why I do these articles.

So please, if you have a difference of opinion on the book by all means speak up and explain why and about what. We've got half a week with the new book in circulation now, so if your experiences with it contradict some of my thinking, then certainly write a response- or even a whole post, as I know Kirby is generally happy to accept guest posts if they are reasonably well-composed and intelligent- and explain how you see things differently. But if the only issue you have is that I am putting my opinions out for others to discuss and debate, then I'm afraid there's not really any way I'm going to give ground in that respect, because doing so is the very reason I bother to write these sorts of things.

+++++

As you can see guys, at the end of the day, I don't tell you you have to read my material and agree with it.  Just know that what you're reading is backed by over a decade of experience and is coming from a guy who generally knows what he's talking about.  If you disagree, I implore you to discuss it with me and together, we can figure out some loophole that I might have missed.  I have made very accurate predictions about the impact of army books in the past and I encourage you guys to check out those reviews as well.  Having worked in professional game design (multiplayer/balance) in the past, and actively working in the gaming industry has given me fresh perspectives to all games.  I don't think I need to say that I really think things through before writing it on the internet.

In fact, I loathe people who post garbage just to get views.  Hence why I don't post unless I have something to say.

Daemons of Chaos rework?

Oh man.. where to begin?

This pertains to Warhammer Fantasy!

I haven't responded in this thread for a while now ever since this post a while back:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/wyrmling_x/inde...post&p=22110171

I find it quite amusing that the thread goes dead quiet after I respond with actual industry experience calling GW out on their shenanigans.

Even though I've been playing my Deamons still, because you know, they're one of the armies that I own and love, I can't help but feel sadness, contempt and frustration over a lot of the design mechanics.

One recent quote in this thread upset me more than it should have:
I found myself mainly agreeing with Phazaels points. We are top tier army and have many good builds we can use, so overall the book is very good stuff.

Do you think just because the book plays well at competitive levels with a few builds (Nurgle, beasts, khannons, choir) means it's a good book? In all my years of game design, this is the number one fallacy that competitive players, pro players or those heavily involved in WAAC play present over and over again. Hey, the book is super strong in the meta, it must mean its a good book.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is the worst mentality to have! You have to look at the big picture, the product as a whole and weigh it against others of its kinds (in this case, other army books). What you have here, in the 8th Ed. army book, is a piece of garbage unlike any other. You see some good design ideas that brings Chaos back to its roots, but what you have here is poor implementation, demonstration of poor or no internal testing, and awful execution in relation to big picture. Chief among those design ideas is the universally loathed Reign of Chaos table which not only takes tactics out of the players hands constantly without any form of negation, double-punishes the player, and draws out the game. Every single aspect of that table is a negative, even the benefits that it could possibly offer the Daemon player still needlessly prolongs the game (which is a negative in itself).

The area that they did alright in was the magic items. Sure, it wasn't the best implementation, but it wasn't the worst either. It's actually quite difficult to analyze the cost-effectiveness of all the BRB items while designing new daemon-specific gifts and weighing the effectiveness of both if you included all the items. Weapons should of been available to all, and maybe it would of been good to make Arcane as a secondary for Tzeentch, Armor to Khorne, Talisman to Nurgle and Enchanted to Slaanesh like some of suggested, but this is some serious item combinations to consider, and much more playtime and analysis needs to be done before its called good.

This ultimately brings me to my point, so in the case of the 5 biggest misses in the entire book, I don't have 5 I only have 3. The last one is internal pricing. External balance aside, there's just absolutely no justification to have ridiculously weak Heralds be overpriced and have what appears to be randomly priced locuses at the same time. There's no reason why a GOOD design feature such as the flexibility of heralds and different locuses should be priced to an extent where no one would take them, ever. Why are Beasts their price or Khannons their price? If they are going to be that good, why price them the way they are?

Enter the post I made months ago, sometime around our army book's release. NO ONE with any sense of intelligence did any playtesting with this book. As a industry professional who has been focused on multiplayer gameplay and game balance for the last 12 years, I can say with confidence that no respectable game company could release such a product if they did any playtesting or implemented feedback from intelligent people. No one with a sane mind would say that that Skull Cannon is well-priced at 135 if they actually played the game, and that's a fact.

So for the folks they did playtesting for this game, I can only say that they're either lying, or outright bad, or GW deliberately ignored your feedback and released an unfinished, unpolished product.

Let's talk about the top 3 things they did right, from a broad, design overview perspective without regards to how it was actually implemented.

Good idea, poor implementation:

• Bring Chaos back to its roots, random tables for gifts with the ability to default to 0.
• Introduction of different Loci that provides players with more options, customization and playstyle.
• Bring back mono-God viability and re-implement God rivalries.

Bad idea, even worse implementation:

• Reign of Chaos table is a negative in every way, function and form. If something of this must be implemented, it should look similarly to the HE Phoenix table where it only affects the Daemon player, should not be a giant kick in the balls if you roll low already, and is not punishing to the extreme. Numbers wise, it should not the outcome of the army the player purchased, designed, painted and fielded, and should not affect battlefield tactics at all. At least 40K was sane enough to mitigate the effects of a bad roll with Instruments, exactly how disconnected was the design team in this regard? Do musicians not exist?
• The internal pricing of some of these units and upgrade options are beyond laughable. It's to a point where some units are unplayable and a perfectly good design idea (different Loci) isn't even used! That's just awful.
• There was no visible playtesting that took place with this book (bad idea). No experienced player would say Khorne is fine, Tzeentch matches their fluff, Nurgle is perfectly balanced compared to everyone else, and Caco Choir shouldn't be 6-diced in every game. I can't even say model sales are the cause of this, considering they have piles of Slaaneshi chariots building up because they're garbage ingame but good looking models otherwise. The 135 point Skullcannon though, that raises some eyebrows because maybe 1/10 people I've talked to actually liked the model.

How I would of done things:

• If Reign of Chaos has to exist, I would of built it with 3 must-have design clauses in mind: It will not affect player tactics, it will not apply a double negative, it will not draw out the game.

Quick idea:
Either make it resemble the HE Phoenix chart, or have it only affect the game if the rolls equate to 6, 7, 8 or 9 for the corresponding God's unholy numbers and effects. Notice how that's only 4 results and not 11? 6-7-8 is more towards the average roll and thus, the results that happen the most. For this reason, the player should have things happen, but not an exaggerated or harsh result. 9 is the furthest of the spectrum, so it should be slightly more powerful, but not to the extent where it gives a overwhelming double positive to the Daemon player. Hell, if this isn't fast enough, we can even say that 6 only powers Slaanesh units and hates on Khorne and that's it. No rolling for other players units because these already benefits yours.

• Internal pricing of units and upgrades will be reworked and given better prices to increase viability and Loci.

Quick idea:
Let's not make 135 point Skull Cannons and focus more on overpriced Slaaneshi Chariots.

• The Random Gifts table will have god-specific gifts if they choose to go with a 0.

Quick idea:
There's a million and a half unused Daemonic gifts that are obviously god-specific that are unused from the last book. For some of you who did not play the previous edition of Daemons..
Bloodthirsters could take..
Awesome Strength, Dark Insanity, Obsidian Armor, Axe of Khorne, Firestorm Blade, Immortal Fury, Spellbreaker, Armor of Khorne, Collar of Khorne
Lord of Change..
Twin Heads, Tzeetnch's Will, Staff of Change, Spell Destroyer, Power Vortex, Dark Magister, Daemonic Robes, Flames of Tzeentch, Iridescent Corona, Master of Sorcery
Great Unclean One..
Balesword, Nurgling Infection, Staff of Nurgle, Trappings of Nurgle, Noxious Vapours, Pestilent Mucus, Nurgle's Rot, Soul Hunger, Stream of Bile, Slime Trail
Keeper of Secret ..
Spirit Swallower, Etherblade, Temptator, Allure of Slaanesh, Daemonic Robes, Enrapturing Gaze, Siren Song, Soul Hunger, Soporific Musk, Torment Blade

So to sum it up really quick, I would eliminate the doubles, fine-pick some of these to be used as alternative Exalted, Greater and Lesser Gifts for players can choose from that are God-specific.

1 Exalted, 2 Greater, 3 Lesser that are God-specific for example, so someone like Tzeentch can default 0 to a choice of Tzeetch's Will (just the name) as an Exalted Choice, Mastery of Sorcery as a Greater choice, or Flames of Tzeentch as a lesser choice. This will ensure that someone like the Bloodthirster, will always be able to default to Armor of Khorne or Obsidian Armor if he so chooses.

Daemons of Chaos rework anyone?  Should I?  I think it would be a fun side-project!

Army books and game balance

Honestly, now that I've seen the Tyranid codex in all its "glory",  I think it's time for me to say it:

I think Games Workshop needs to hire a community manager and or balance designer immediately.

I just can't see how this book turned out the way it did if GW paid any attention to its fanbase. I know a lot of people are in the camp that GW are a miniatures company and their job is to sell minis first, but that's horseshit.  The second they decided to start writing rules to go with the models they create, they became a game company. They put out physical product that have rules attached and thus, they need to honor the gamer as well as the hobbiest.

Having combed through the book, I don't think they have a community manager at all. If you had someone who monitors the forums, read fan blogs and filters through the Internet, GW would know this codex is not what players wanted. The truth is that while some people will be happy,  the majority of them will be highly disappointed. This includes myself as I think the new book is hastily put together, poorly executed and lacks all forms of character. It's uninspired,  unoriginal and it's more of a WD update to streamline the old book for 6th ed. more than an actual codex. In fact, to call it an update would be to give it credit. The book makes tons of meaningless changes that doesn't improve the quality of the army but detracts from its original 3rd edition design even further. In terms of design, this book was a disaster. Not in the sense that the internal balance is poor, or because the power level is completely underwhelming, but it's simply not what players wanted. This seems to be an ongoing tread as of late and I'm not sure what the issue is.

Whenever I do game balance for any of the game systems I'm responsible for, I pay very close attention to the community. I am always heavily involved with the competitive players and the min-maxers without losing focus of the original design content. You also have stats of model sales, which common threads pop up, and which units are commonly taken to tournaments. There's just no excuse when you can pull hard data as well as gather feedback from trusred sourcces. You see, many people think in order for a game to be successful you need to appeal to the casual. This is false. If your background, your universe and the fantasy you provided for your players is good enough, the casual players will come and buy your models. They might enjoy the look, the art or the modeling potential. For them, this is enough since they casually play the game as a secondary hobby element. If you design the game to be balanced, only the competitive players will notice. The casual players are not into the hobby for the gaming element so what do they care about the state of the game. I think this is where GW has its disconnect. Because their targert is the younger, casual player who has disposable income, they think it doesn't matter if the game is poorly balanced. In truth, a properly balanced game does not hurt you in anyway, it only helps you. The reason why is because competitive gamers are usually the most vocal: they blog, they register on forums, and they're the ones who kick and scream when they get handed imbalance. This is negative publicity for your game instead of free, positive marketing. Imagine a world where GW gamers from all over the net praise each books release, or avidly promote their game at every convention. This type of free marketing cannot be bought, and it's one of the key driving forces for building a unified, successful gaming community. Currently, this is not the case.

Balance design is something of a niche field. It's essentially taking the idea of something and making sure it works with everything else. I'm pretty sure that the design department over at GW has no such field or anyone who specializes in the balance of army books. By now, I'm not even sure if they really have play testers or if they're making that stuff up. Or they have play testers, but their focus is purely to see if the models don't break when you handle them and if everything looks visually impressive when you put them on a mock battlefield. The reason I'm being this harsh is because there's no way a design studio can put out the Skullcannon, Heldrake, Wave Serpent, and the Tau codex with educated and experienced play testers providing you feedback. It's just not possible in the gaming industry, and this is coming from someone who started his professional career at 16. The only way this is possible is if GW deliberately doesn't care about game balance even when they know balance issues exist. This hurts me beyond measure because I know how successful they can be with one. Their games would be more fun for the ones who play it, for both casual and competitive players. In turn, this will lead to a more positive community, a more unified community with more tournaments, who would have no problem providing free marketing and publicity for your game system. This ultimately results in higher revenue and sales.

I wrote all this from my phone. Please don't kill.

GDS: Warhammer and Total War

It's hammer time!

One of the most exciting game concepts that I've been looking forward to is the thought of Warhammer being played on the Total War engine.  Personally, I think these two work perfectly with one another because of all the similarities they share.  From a game design standpoint and from a systems/engine standpoint, both games are intrinsically the same.

Let me throw out a few examples.

• First, WHFB and Total War share the same design philosophies and game engine.  Both game systems are based around large-scale combat via troop formations, charging, arrows, and applying swords to face.  Once combat happens, what makes or breaks the army is combat resolution through morale mechanics.  How these morale mechanics are applied depends on how well you maneuver your forces and employ your strategies to the fullest.  This is just how both games were designed on a surface level.
• What do I mean by this?  I mean that armies fight and break depending on morale.  This is active in the Warhammer system via combat resolution and leadership, and this is active in Total War through different morale modifiers.   Being charged in the flank is not as bad as being charged in the rear, outnumbering your enemies (think 7th Ed. WHFB), being surprised via ambush, being on higher ground, are all examples of different modifiers that exist in the Total War system.  Being able to translate Warhammer's combat resolution system would be like a walk in the park because the system is already in place.
• If we look even deeper into the combat system itself, all the necessary components to make a full transition is already there.  Look at Rome2's combat engine for example:  The Melee Attack stat is comparable to Weapon Skill, Melee Defense to Toughness, Weapon Damage to Strength, Armor to Armor, and Health to Wounds.  The concept of Initiative and Attack is lost in the mix, but I wouldn't think it would be too hard to hard-code one unit attacking more frequently than another.  How this would play out with High Elves' having ASF or a Dwarf Lord sporting multiple, slow-attacks because he has a Great Weapon is up to the designers' imagination.
• Both games work off of points calculation in terms of army design.  I would say a 2500 point game of Warhammer is similar to a medium funds army in Shogun2 or Rome2.  It's a fairly medium sized game, but the point is that I have a certain amount of "points" or "funds" to work with to buy all the units for my upcoming battle.  Right now in 8th Ed. Warhammer, we're using a percentage model:  If we're playing 2500 points, 25% of that has to go into Core, or 625 points, 50% is the max allowed in Special, so on and so forth.  This checks and balance system allows us to build more balanced armies than we could in 7th Ed.  Unfortunately, something like this does not currently exist in Rome2 because I can take an army of nothing but Praetorian Guard.  If this was translated into WHFB terms, it would be like taking nothing but Black Guard in my army.  My point here is that if WHFB meets Total War, there would be a checks and balance system already in place, thus simplifying balance design on top of the fact that both games already use the same army purchasing system.
• To expand upon the above point a bit, one of the interesting things that Warhammer can add to the Total War series is variable unit sizes.  Say you have a unit of 160 Royal Spartans for 970 points.  In Warhammer, that would be like taking a unit of 40 White Lions no matter where you go.  Since Warhammer has a unique system where you can take however amount of guys you want to pay the points for, maybe we'll see W:TW adopt something similar.  Instead of 160 Spartans for 970, how about I take 80 for half the points?  That would be an interesting idea as it would appeal more to the casual hobbyist.
• Speaking of causal, let's add customizable colors back into the game.  True to Games Workshop hobbyists everywhere, the army painter system was one of the best things about Dawn of War.  Having this in Total War would not only help tell one person's army from another ingame, but it will help add individuality and uniqueness.

Now, let's talk about some more interesting WHFB concepts that I think will be a challenge for the TW design team:

• How will they address the question of magic items and weapons?
• Or the concept of a mighty melee hero such as a Vampire Lord vs. a magic lord like Teclis?
• How will magic work in general?
• How will monsters work in the game?  Or flying monsters particularly?

These are some of the things that came to mind when I was thinking about how WHFB will translate to the Total War engine.  I can share with you some of my ideas.

The concept of Magic Items and Weapons is a little more straight forward since you were able to customize your units pretty extensively in Shogun2's Avatar system.  Since most of the magic items in Warhammer can only be held by powerful heroes and lords, it wouldn't be too hard to translate some of these items as upgrades to your general.  For example, if you choose a Vampire Lord as your general, he will have access to say 10 different magic items.  He can take a max of 4, and depending on what he takes, his price will go up in price.  The same could be done with heroes and such.  Since you can only take one of the same magic item per army, if the Vampire Lord grabs something like a Blood Drinker, the next hero Vampire won't be able to take it.  To make things even more uniform, we can put in magic items that only the most powerful lords can take.  In Warhammer terms, these are 55+ point items that's only available for Lords because they can take 100 points worth of magic items.

Speaking of Lords and Heroes, how will they play out ingame?  Well, I thought about this long and hard, mainly during the days when I wished there was a Total War: Three Kingdoms.  As you guys might have guessed, Shu is my favorite faction and Dynasty Warriors was a huge game for me in the past.  However, the concept of bringing one hero singling himself out in a fight vs. thousands of warriors seems cumbersome in a game where there's tons of fighting going on already.  So how do we fix this?  I think the current General and Bodyguard system works perfectly.  If I want to select a High Elf Prince as my General and I want him on a horse, I would customize him as a Dragon Prince general.  Right now in Rome2, I can have a Hellenic Royal Guard (elite pike unit) as my general, so why not apply the same principles to Warhammer?  If I want my Prince to hail from Chrace, I would simply elect White Lions to be the general.  Hero units would also have a bodyguard to go with them, and we all know how we love to have that BSB hanging around in the army.

So what about magic and wizards?  We all know how important magic is in WHFB so I'll try to translate it to the current TW system.  Right now, we have no idea what they're planning to do with the system.  The easiest way to make a direct transition would be simply allow you to take Lord-level and Hero-level Wizards and just pick the spells you want.  More destructive spells can only be taken on more powerful lords, and that's the end of it.  There is a way to increase ranks and experience in this game, so you might be able to level your Wizard up to different levels, but I think this just adds unneeded complexity.  Warhammer is already a complicated game and I don't think it needs anymore when constructing a game purely based off maneuvering and application of tactics.  Remember:  Where magic is vitally important on the table-top, this does not mean it is so in REAL-TIME strategy.  You don't have 10 minutes to think about what spells you're going to dispel because the battle was over 5 minutes ago.

Alright cool, so how does it work?  Well, I think it would be similar to casting special abilities.  Let's pretend we're playing with High Elves and we have a lord-level Prince.  He would have something standard like Inspire and Rally as default abilities.  If we want to play more about Rome2, let's pretend he has the Commander abilities.  Say we decide to go with an Archmage instead:  Because he's our lord-level spellcaster, he has access to all the cool spells that High Elves will have.  Even though HE have access to all the spells in the game, let's say they only use High Magic because that's an easy example.  Where a normal Mage-level caster will not have access to Fiery Convocation, the Archmage does.  He simply elects to take up this spell out of the FOUR that he can take.  Let's say there's 10 spells that he can choose from because High Elves know all BRB spells anyway.  Moving on, he takes 4 spells from the list whereas a Hero-level mage can only take 2.  Once we load up the game, he's sitting there in his unit of Sword Masters and he casts Fiery Convocation on a unit of Skaven Slaves.  The entire unit starts burning for massive damage and you're very happy with the results.  Due to its devastating power, the cooldown is 120 or 180 seconds.  Realistically, you'll probably get one shot with this so you want to choose carefully.  To make things even more interesting, he puts an Internal Cooldown on the rest of your spells because it shows he just spent so much imaginary power dice on this all-powerful spell.

I haven't really thought of a good way to implement a well-designed Dispel, IF and Miscast system just yet.  Where these are pivitol in how a player plays out his magic phase, there's simply no "phases" in a real-time battle.  I mean sure, it sucks if your best unit is going to be set on fire by Fiery Convocation, but what's stopping the opponent from lighting you up with Flaming Arrows?  Nothing.  As long as cooldown, range and power is appropriate, I don't really see a problem with not having dispels, IFs or Miscasts.  If anything, it's just adding more chaos to the chaos that is a live battle.  You'll see that we'll constantly go back to that saying:  Just because it works on the table-top does not mean it'll work in an RTS.

Lastly, we'll talk about the prospect of having monsters, Steam Tanks and Star Dragons in a game like Total War.  Don't get me wrong, but I don't think it'll be too hard to implement a creature with crazy high stats, be neigh invulnerable to simple melee attacks, and will be incredibly tough to take down (either by armor or wounds).  I can perfectly see a Prince on Star Dragon flying across the battlefield, breathing fire and wrecking face in close combat.  Do I think this will be balanced?  Sure.  Why?  Because the idea of factions with artillery pieces, overwhelming combat res (morale modifiers), and magic spells will exist in the game. We can go as far as making Spear units more effective vs. the like of monsters such as this.  The mightiest Star Dragon might rout 1-2 units, but if you get a good surround and isolate him away from the rest of your opponent's army, you might be able to rout him due to morale.  After all, you just need to balance the stats on the Star Dragon so he doesn't destroy everything he touches.  I'm more concerned about engine limitations and whether or not it's possible to add a flying, fire-breathing dragon, who can transition from air to ground and vice versa.

That's it for now.

GDS: Rome II MP Balance Proposals

Fix the game man.

Aside from the SP glitches, crashes, progression blockers, and optimization issues, Rome II has some MP issues as well.  I'm talking specifically about the gameplay and how some things are just.. off.  Having played MP since day 1, I'm still sitting comfortably in the Top100 but the game is getting a little stale.  Needless to say, there are some problems.

Pikes are just too good.  They pretty much kill everything in the front and units don't even have a chance to get close.  The major ones that really stand out are Foot Companions and Hellenic Royal Guard.  As if Elite infantry don't already dominate the game, elite pikes simply rule it.

My suggestions, can be a mix, one, or just some.  These are all viable fixes while keeping their intended functionality intact.  The main goal here is to keep pikes the way they are, but make them more vulnerable to flanking and good micro.  Things are a little tricky here because if you press a button, or make an action, the player expects to see movement from his troops.  If the animation and art is already there, the fix post-production has to be smart enough to get the job done with the least amount of time/resources.

My suggested fix will be in green, if I had to choose one.

• Reduce their turn rate in Phalanx formation.
• Reduce their overall speed and acceleration.
• Increase the time it takes them to setup in Phalanx formation.

Being able to take an unlimited amount of "elite" infantry is just strange.  I'm not quite sure what the design decision is about this, but I find it odd that you can take an entire army of Praetorian Guard.  Considering how these units were essentially the Emperor's Bodyguard that stood outside his tent all day, taking an entire army of these guys is just wrong.  Not to mention all Elite Infantry are just insanely good, and make their standard counterparts look like dead weight.

I'm not a personal fan of unit caps because I believe that's a lazy solution to address a generic army building issue.  If some guy wants his army to be super elite, he should have the right do so.  Likewise, if said guy wants his army to be made of nothing but Hoplites, he should.  Player options mean everything in a game where you're told to design your army, and I intend to keep it that way.  The fix here would be something more subtle, with hard caps being the last resort to a tricky fix.  It is indeed the safest way to limit a unit's presence on the battlefield while preserving its function and power.  Increasing the price of said units would be a good soft cap instead of hard cap.

Some ideas would be:

• Increasing Elite Infantry's price by 100.  They're currently in the ~900 range, putting them in the 1000s would be a greater deterrent.  This would act as a soft cap instead of a hard cap.
• Reducing their squad size from 160 to 120.  This would make them more elite in only marginally more effective than their line-infantry counterparts.  Due to this nerf in fighting/staying power, their price would go down to the 800s range.
• Hard cap their availability to 6.  While this certainly makes certain factions weaker, it makes other factions borderline unplayable.  Some factions such as the Averni function entirely off of their elite infantry.  This is a general faction design issue that needs to be corrected if this fix is to take place.

Archer and Skirmisher units are ineffectual.
Either their damage is too low, their armor pen is too low, or their range is terrible, Archer-type units serve virtually no purpose vs. the high-armor elite infantry metagame.  Even vs. regular troops, unless you take a overwhelming amount of ranged firepower, there's virtually no damage being dealt to the rapidly-advancing enemy.  I say rapidly advancing because this game moves a ton quicker than previous titles from what I've noticed.

Regardless, something needs to be done here:

• Increase missile units damage armor penetration.
• Increase missile range.

Now onto some messed up cavalry mechanics.  For one, all the cavalry move at the same speed practically.  Aside from the skirmisher-type cavalry, everyone else chugs along at the same speed.  This largely a design mistake I think and needs to be fixed immediately.

The fix is simple:

• There's 90 armor, 60 armor and less than 60 armor cavalry.  Very Heavy cavalry should run the slowest and fatigue the quickest.  Medium cavalry (most if not all Shock "Lancer" cav) should run faster and fatigue in the middle.  Light cav should obviously move the quickest and fatigue the least.

Lastly, some units are just broken from a technical standpoint.

• Not sure what's wrong with the Chariots or Elephants, but they don't see to be doing what they need to do ingame at all.  Pretty sure their functionality tech or unit AI is just broke.  Fix it.

Remember, I'm not saying implement all of these changes, especially if they double-nerf a unit or invariably nerf a unit.  For example, the worst balance changes happen whenever someone balances a game with a hammer rather than a scalpel.  You gotta test the waters before you make the plunge.

GDS: Translating fantasy into reality

Huskblades are well-designed.

To follow up on the previous article, I want to give you guys a first hand look on how fluff translates to any given ruleset.  I'll be going over my actual suggestions later, so stay tuned for that.  For now, lets look at how I go about translating fantasy into a playable ruleset.

• The designer has the fantasy:  They make up the fluff and fantasizes on what is actually cool.  It plays out with stunning visuals and sound effects in his head, and this is when he'll pitch out ideas like.. wouldn't this be cool?!  E.g. D-Cannons briefly opens up a rift into the warp.
• Now he has a pretty good idea of the type of item he wants to implement (keep in mind I say item and this can be unit, weapon, actual item, or whatever) and talks with other designers to see if they share his vision.  They gather around in a room and throw ideas at each other.  There is a lot of "wouldn't this be cool if..", and "what you think about this?"
• The designer translates the ruleset based on the game system.  How does the D-Cannon in his mind play out on the table-top?  How does it work and what does it do exactly?  He has the vision of the weapon in his head, but he goes over the ruleset that exists in the game and translates it to the table top.  e.g. He constantly asks himself:  How would the devastating effects of the warp have on infantry models?  What does it do to vehicles?  Flesh targets need to wound right?  Or should it auto-wound?  How does it hit?  Does it have a template?  He uses the ruleset that already exists to generate a profile suitable for the item he's generating:  A weapon will follow the Strength, AP, Type profile that exists in 40K whereas a new Hero would have rough WS, S, T..characteristics.
• The designer looks over the rules he has written and evaluates the consistency of his work.  Is this a completely new ability he has created or are there other ones like it in the existing ruleset?  If it's a Lance weapon, how does it differ in design and functionality to another weapon of its type?  E.g. How does this D-Cannon compare vs. other anti-infantry weapons in the game?  How does it compare as a anti-tank weapon?  Does it share similar properties of a lesser or greater weapon?  E.g. a Flamer vs. Heavy Flamer, both should have flamer templates.
• All during this time, there's several design meetings going around to see if this is still plausible and solid.  Sometimes he would talk to the sculptor or production to see if this new weapon (pretend we're doing he D-Cannon) needs a new mold/model.  Which existing models would this be used on?  Are there any technical limitations that can prevent this idea from coming to fruition.  Keep in mind that these steps are not finite, all these steps go on constantly in the back of the designer's mind.  Sometimes the idea is even abandoned because a better idea comes along.  Personally, I'm always thinking about how the piece translates from the fluff onto the ruleset, how consistent is it, and how well it will play once it's released.
• After the designer is confident about his test piece, he looks at the balance of the item compared to everything else (internal and external).  How does this new item compare with the rest of the book?  How does this weapon balance out with the other weapons in the book he's writing.  Are there any glaring balance concerns that need to be addressed?  This is the time where he internally balances the piece with the rest of the elements of his book (internal balance), and makes SLIGHT changes with respect to external balance (how does it compare vs. other armies).
• The reason why external balance was put on the backburner is because this is the playtesting and QA phase.  Playtesters get their hands on the piece and gives it a whirl.  They right feedback to the developers and they make changes to the internal and external workings of the item at hand.  This can take days, weeks, months, but after several revisions and multiple playtesting sessions with these different revisions, the designer is happy about his work.  It is now ready to ship.

Thanks for reading.

GDS: More Eldar tidbits

Come on man, you can do better.

I originally posted this in the BoLS forums, but I don't think people have a clue about what I'm talking about so I'll transfer it here.  Hopefully the IQ jumps up a bit more.

Here are my predictions on Eldar:
Eldar will be very much in the middle of the line of 6th Ed. books power wise (and only 6th Ed. books and not including 5th), but weaker in terms of overall design mechanics. There's just too many inexcusable misses which seriously weakens the book. Fortunately, there's enough units in the Eldar war arsenal that doesn't throw off internal balance too badly.

I just need you guys to understand one thing:
Eldar is a hard army to design, so I can't rag on Kelly too much. The reason for this is because you're trying to design a high-priced, elite army with specialist roles, all at the same knowing that it's army-wide T3 in a very lethal environment. In order for this to this design to succeed for such a specialist army, every role must be clearly defined in design, function, and balanced through points. A specialist unit that's not good in its role is simply, trash and not worth taking.

For example, and let me just throw out some design ideas (or changes rather) I came up with so you can get a better picture:

What if Banshee Masks also counted as having assault grenades?
...Runes of Warding forced enemy psykers within 24" to re-roll their successful psychic tests.
...Runes of Witnessing allowed you to re-roll your failed ones.
...Crimson Hunters come with Holofields and Exarch upgrade allowed him to ignore the Snap Shot rule.
...Hemlocks were Torrent/Template weapons.
...Wave Serpents gained assault ramps.
...Harlequin's Veil of Tears should not require a psychic test.
...Autarch could take Exarch weapons and powers.
...Dire Avenger's Exarch kept his Bladestorm mechanic from the old book.
...Wraithtknight's Heavy Wraithcannons are 36" S10 AP2 Blast.
...much much more.

This is an example of what I call design inconsistency AND incorrect fluff to table-top translation:
Heavy D-Sycthe loses template, gains Blast, when the fluff and description of the weapon says it ignores cover and is NOT a blast. The lesser version of the weapon, the D-Sycthe, is a template weapon and ignores cover.

This is an example of just poor, lazy design:
Wraithknight's Heavy Wraithcannon only adds +24" on the weapon's range and nothing else.

This is an example of poor design AND incorrect fluff to table-top translation:
Banshees are melee specialists without grenades, and masks don't do anything to change how they attack into cover.  Why?

This is an example of poor design AND incorrect fluff to table-top translation:
Crimson Hunters are an Eldar Ace aspect, the best pilots in the galaxy, and has the same defensive ability as an Ork pilot.  Not to mention it doesn't come with the most basic of all Eldar vehicle countermeasures; Holofields.

What do you guys think this is?  Bad design, design inconsistency, or poor fluff to table translation?
Random spell generation, Ld. 8/9/10 Warlocks/SS/Farseer, one-use crappy psychic items.

I think it's all three.

Poor design, inconsistency, and poor table-top translation are all over this book.  This is one of the reasons why I docked them so hard in my previous review.  My next article will go over some of my own alterations to the book and explain the fantasy and logic behind all of them.  Stay tuned.

GDS: Eldar Review

This is part of the Game Design Series.

Overall Design: 3.5/5

As much as I like Phil Kelly, I think the Eldar codex took a bit of a hit in terms of overall design.  There are some blatant fluff to gameplay mistakes that I didn't think should of happened.  From a purely design perspective, I can't for the life of me understand why the most superior aces in the galaxy go to battle without at least Holofields on their aircraft.  In fact, there's no option for them at all!  The Hemlock suffers a bit more when you look its weapon profile and question why D-Scythes have template weapons but not the Heavy D-Scythe.  You would think that the giant Pulsar-sized Heavy Wraithcannons on the Wraithknight did a little more than offer +24" onto a standard Wraithcannon.  I see missed opportunities, raised eyebrows and sighs of why? everywhere. That's always a concern.

Despite these things, Kelly was still able to capture much of the Eldar fluff on the table-top.  Everyone is now BS4 for the most part and Battle Focus brings back the old Move-Shoot-Move playstyle that many veterans will remember.  Monofilament and Shuriken weaponry has changed to match the fluff and I think the rules are pretty well done considering what they can do.  However, the changes to Eldar psykers leave much to be desired.  Consistency was something that Eldar was sure of in terms of the psychic field.  Unfortunately, random spell generation, Ld.8 Warlocks and a severely nerfed Runes of witnessing/Warding leaves me questioning if Eldar psykers even match the fluff.

What really hurts the overall design is the fact that Eldar, like High Elves, are an specialized army.  Specialization dictates that the points invested in whatever unit needs to do what you need it to do.  Dire Avengers should be good vs. Infantry, Banshees should rule assault, Fire Dragons should annihilate vehicles. This is very different than an all-purpose unit like most MEQ units where you can spread the love in all categories and balance it out with the correct offensive and defensive stats.  If you're spending points into a unit that's not able to execute on its sole purpose in the game, then that's a much serious design issue compared to a general-purpose unit decent at everything.  This right here is the difficulty when designing Eldar; especially when you have keep T3 and points cost in mind at all times.  Overall, I think Kelly did an alright job with this.

Internal Balance: 3.5/5

There are some questionable decisions here as well.  Maybe it's 6th Ed. in general where assault is not as glorious, but Banshees took a shovel to the face.  There were so many ways to address the assault void with Eldar and after so many years, one would think this will be addressed.  Then again, the Wave Serpent still don't have assault ramps so I guess it doesn't matter at this point.  Sadly, Banshees don't have even grenades, have a severely weakened mask and are still paper thin.  Where the design for Banshees have been embarrassing, other units fared a little better.

Kelly buffed a lot of other units that were sitting on the shelf before.  Striking Scorpions and Swooping Hawks have been re-designed slightly and buffed significantly.  Warp Spiders are now rock solid but Dire Avengers took a bit of a hit.  Were they really that good before with Bladestorm?  Not really but I think they added something unique in gameplay.  Now because their weapons have a chance to virtual-rend, Avengers have been brought down a bit in terms of points cost and having a useless Exarch.  I'm a little sad about this because I think the conscience decision to unload everything and reload next round is brilliant design.  In fact, anything that actively promotes player options is favorable army design.

Some units actually saw some minor redesign which is a nice surprise.  Aside from Guardians receiving BS4 along with many other units, the War Walker gained Fleet, Battle Focus and a 5+ invulnerable as stock.  Their price went up for sure, but if I'm looking at artillery support choices as a viable option in Heavy this is only a good sign.  I just wish the Falcon was made as dedicated transport and the Vaul's Support Batteries were molded into the Guardian squads.  Price-wise, we see some increases in units across the board; but with this comes reduced heavy weapon choices and effective special rules.  Another example is the Fire Prism, which no longer relies on another Prism nearby to utilize its weapon options.  Instead, it comes built with 3 different firing types!  Options man, options.

In terms of unique special abilities, they still sing with old Eldar flavor.  The Serpent Shield on the Wave Serpent, for example, can be used as a defensive option that reduces penetrating hits down to a glance on 2+, or it can be used to shoot out S7 hits that ignore cover.  However, in order to use this nice shooting attack, the player loses the defensive bonuses from the shield itself next round.  This is basically the design philosophy behind the old Dire Avenger Bladestorm, which is fine by me.  Sadly, this needed to happen more across the codex as I think it adds something fiercely unique to the Eldar playstyle.  No matter though, Wraith armies look to be pretty fluffy and solid, and from what I read about the Iyanden supplement they're going to get extra rules as well.  These supplements is definitely a step in the right direction.

External Design: 3/5

Although the codex has solid internal design, there are some things that just will not work.  Despite how good Striking Scorpions look on paper, I don't think they're going to be good simply because they'll got shot to death.  Harlequins now need to test for Veil of Tears, Banshees are a joke, and I'm pretty sure Eldar is going to erase CC completely from their builds.  In fact, the only competitive option I see are the bigger fatty units like the Wraithlords and Wraithknight.  Huh?  They have the stats worthy of a solid CC unit, come with high T, good armor and a good amount of wounds, but the fact that Eldar will be designated to a primarily shooting army is a bit of a let down.  I really hope next edition fixes this.

So where does this leave us really?  We have questionably better psykers than Space Marines, zero CC options outside of the Wraithknight, questionable viability in the form of fliers and AA options, and only a couple of troop choices that look competitive.  It always comes down to the competitive choices when we evaluate external balance.  I mean after all, you're comparing your bells and whistles to what the next guy has in his army.  Stacking Conceal on your bikes with your Ld.8 Warlocks is great and taking a bunch of scoring Wraiths is great, but what happens when your opponent is Tau and he rips your cover while dropping S8 AP2 templates on your Wraithguard?

To accurately judge a book's ability to impact the metagame, you have to look at what you have available.  I'm sorry to say, my competitive unit bucket doesn't look all that great compared to some of the other armies I've seen out there.  Eldar is one of those armies that is not auto-pilot and by nature is more difficult to play successfully.  All those specialized units must be utilized correctly or you lose a piece to an otherwise complete puzzle.  It's this reason that makes Eldar one of the tougher armies to design.  Their units are expensive to keep the army count elite, but how do you justify their effectiveness?  In this way, they share a commonality with High Elves.  Shocker.

A slight re-design on Eldar fliers

Eldar Top Gun.

Man, I absolutely love the fluff and idea behind the Crimson Hunter aspect.  Sadly, I don't think Kelly did a good job capturing the aspect to the best of his abilities.  The fluff speaks of the Crimson Hunter aspect at being so fast with their reflexes that they can dodge light.  This makes plenty of sense if you consider the fact that all they do is fly around at breakneck speeds dueling against each other with Bright Lances (probably set to stun).

I can understand the Sky Hunter rule and why re-roll Pens vs. enemy aircraft.  It's to symbolize the pilots uncanny ability to accurately hit his target's weak points to better eliminate them from the sky.  Unfortunately, the game as we know it does not always translate well from the fluff.  With AV10 and 3 HP, it's safe to say that this almighty ace aspect is just as bad on the defense as an Ork fighter.  That's just disgraceful.

So... how do I want to append this rather questionable fluff to design implementation?  How about this houserule for fun:

The Crimson Hunter comes with the Holofields vehicle upgrade.
Replace the text for Perfect Strike (Crimson Hunter Exarch) with: A model with this special rule does not fire Snap Shots after choosing to Evade.

What this does essentially is allowing the Crimson Hunter Exarch to make a 4+ cover save (Jink + Holofields) and fire with full effect next turn.  This allows the Exarch to standout as an ace among aces while Holofields help negate some of the issues of AV10.  The Perfect Strike with Precision Shots just doesn't make sense to me while this does a lot more.  I still think it's hysterical that an air superiority fighter doesn't come with Holofields.  Even us 21st century humans know how to equip flares, chaff and other countermeasures on our aircraft.  Just ridiculous.

Next on the list.. the Hemlock.  The only thing that needs to be changed here is the Heavy D-Scythes should be Torrent/Template weapons.  It makes my heard hurt why regular D-Scythes are template weapons and not these.  I would of personally made them S4 AP2 Torrent/Templates.

Thought process:
Torrent and templates allow the aircraft to match the fluff.  The goal of the Hemlock is to destroy infantry, where it virtually casts the souls of those affected into the warp.  No cover should be allowed from such effects.  This also keeps design consistent with the D-Scythe being a template weapon.  If that weapon doesn't allow cover saves, why should the Heavy D-Scythe allow cover saves?  In addition, this is a mere extension of the effective range of the weapon.  A Wraithknight's Heavy Wraithcannon only extends the range of the Wraithcannon itself.  Thus, two design consistencies are matching.

Furthermore, Torrent/Template weapons allows the Hemlock to apply its effects immediately the units affected by the weapons due to its Mindshock Pod.  This is not comparable to the likes of the Heldrake in function because it's not AV12, does not have It Will Not Die and a demonic save, nor does not have a S6 template that is also effective vs. vehicles.  The function of the Hemlock is to be a terror weapon which is effective against moderate-Toughness infantry where armor and cover is no defense.  This is offset by its fragility in AV10, the fact it needs to be close to fully utilize its abilities, and its hefty price tag.

I'll touch upon the other units in the book in another post.

GDS: The hallmarks to a great book

Remember GDS stands for Game Design Series!

There are three things I look for in a army book when it gets released.

These three things are:
Overall Design
Internal Balance
External Balance

Overall Design is how well the book translates its fluff, lore and background into the gaming world.  I think this is pretty straight forward as you can pretty much read every unit entry, and then read the rules.  Does it reflect well?  Does it make sense?  This should be well-reflected in the "actual" feel of the codex and its rules.  It must feel right to the player playing it, both in consistency terms and in terms of imaginative immersion.

e.g. The Void Raven Bomber is designed to be a more destructive air-ground aircraft compared to the Razorwing.  Both aircraft are designed for ground annihilating ground targets, but the Void Raven has more armor, a Void Mine, stronger Lances, and deadlier missile options.  Because of its heavier payload, its points cost is noticeably higher than the Razorwing.

Internal Balance is a balancing factor with all things considered within your own army book:  How the book comes together, where the units fit in, how do they scale, do they conflict on the force organization, how they're priced compared to other options..etc. Internal is exactly that, it's your book and your book alone.  This plays a heavy part in whether or not a book is considered fun or not.  Does the book have enough viable options for different army builds?  Do those army builds appeal to the new, casual and competitive player?

e.g. Wyches and Warriors fulfill different roles, but are both great Troop choices.  Both excel at their respected roles of close combat and shooting, and both are priced competitively.  As an Dark Eldar player, both are excellent and viable choices when designing their army.

External Balance is a balancing factor when compared to the game as a whole; more importantly, against other "factions" that exist in the same game. How do they balance out compared to those units in respects to unit cost, function, special rules, force organization, ..etc, is strictly comparing one unit from one army to another.  This plays a heavy part in the metagame, general longevity of the army book, and how much fun a player can have before realizing he's either outclassed or is facerolling people.

e.g. Grey Hunters are more cost-effective than Tactical Marines from the Space Marine codex.  For less points, you get Counter-Attack, a close combat weapon, cheaper weapon options, and better upgrades.  No heavy weapon options, but don't get me started on Long Fangs!

From a player/gamer's perspective, there's no greater importance than these three things for me.  The book has to make sense, the fluff has to play out accurately on the table, and the balance must be good.  There is no order of importance because all three are vital to the success of the army book.  Poor design leads to a lot of raised eyebrows and that's always no good.  Shoddy internal balance means less player options, unneeded restrictions and general frustration.  And well, bad external balance means you're either too weak or too powerful to compete fairly in the current metagame with the rest of your peers.  No one likes that.

Let me know what you guys think about this!

Game Design Series - High Elves and ASF

There's no way my HE looks like this.

Hey guys, it's been a long time.

I've been pretty busy over the last couple of weeks and it hasn't been minis related.  First it was work, then it was thanksgiving.. I've been traveling a lot and I just came back from a friend's wedding over the weekend.  I'll also be AWOL in the next couple of weeks due to Christmas break.

This is going to be the first article in a new series of articles I plan on writing.  It might not be the first of its kind, or similar to some of the other ones you've seen around the web, but it will be something special.  I'm calling this particular series, the Game Design Series.  It's basically a series that'll touch upon the finer points of gaming; breaking down the facets of why certain things are the way they are, who thought of them, or why did it originate in the first place.  I'm a huge fan of game design, most notably in the field of balance design, and I make a big deal when something just doesn't work.  I love the idea of originality and creativity, but not at the expense of game imbalance.  However, there are times where something works so wonderfully that I have to talk about it.  This is one of those times.

We'll kick this series off with why I think ASF - Always Strike First, is the best thing to happen to High Elves faction design, ever.

I've been playing High Elves since the end of their 6th Ed. book in 7th Ed.  I played with their current book (the ASF book) in all of 7th, and now in 8th.  Before you ask why High Elves getting army-wide ASF is a good idea, you have to understand who the High Elves really are.  I'm not talking about the fairy-looking aesthetics, I'm talking about their faction design to the core.

High Elves are meant to be elite.  This is represented with slightly inflated WS, BS and I, but most importantly, this is represented by the average cost per model in the entire book.  Games Workshop has specifically said that High Elves are supposed to be the most elite force/army/faction.  They do this by making all these T3 elves more expensive than anyone would like to pay.  This brings us to our next point:  Why in god's name would you make lightly armored, T3 Elves so expensive?  Expensive costs per model means less model per unit, less opportunity to beef up your existing battalions, and thus having less units on the table.  From an aesthetic and ambient point of view (very important in game design), this is perfection 101.  How do you best capture the elite feeling of being outnumbered (numerically) in every game and against every faction?  You make them so expensive that no matter what you do, the end result will always be the same.  With one, little gesture, Adam Troke and the rest of the GW design team made High Elves the army they always wanted to be.

Now that we have an army of "overpriced", lightly-armored, T3 elves, what do we do now?  This is where you analyze the nature of the army and envision the actual "how" are they supposed to fight.  Well, by the lore given to them, they're supposed to be so highly-trained that they can knock a rider from his mount before the lance hits home.  Before we go any further, you have to understand that the current High Elves book was written in 7th Ed.  This means that the actual design for the High Elves have to work hand-in-hand with the core structure of the rules in 7th.  If anyone remembers this, the first thing they would tell you is how High Elves killed guys in the front row before they even get to strike.  Yes, this is absolutely true.  However, what they forget to tell you, is that after they killed those models in the front rank, the amount of attacks coming back at the High Elves were dramatically reduced.  This is how it was in 7th Ed, not 8th.

The High Elves faction, from a game design perspective, was given army-wide ASF for one reason and one reason only:  To deal enough damage to the enemy before they can do sufficient damage back.  The entire philosophy behind the faction, as I mentioned earlier, was to be elite.  They were purposely given a lower model count so that each unit, given the stats and weapons that they were given, was somehow able to make it work.  To make the solution even more appealing, army-wide ASF is dead simple:  You Always Strike First regardless of the weapon you're carrying.  Clean, precise and straight to the point - You can't really ask for a better rule (especially one that's already in the rules).  That's the primary justification why 15pt Sword Masters, with their T3 and 5+ save was able to make their points back.  They still make their points back, but they do it in a way that wasn't intended by GW.  With the onset of 8th Ed., ASF now turns HE units into blenders, but robs them from their original identity of unit preservation through first strike.  We now have Identity Lost, and this is a problem.

So next year, there's rumors of a new High Elves book.  I, for one, am very skeptical on what they're going to do with High Elves.  If you do a radical points decrease, High Elves will no longer be considered elite by the sheer amount of units on the field.  It won't "look" right, and for GW and most game developers, that is very important.  In my opinion, army-wide ASF was the perfect solution to the problem of:  How do you convey "eliteness" in actual gameplay with respects to how much you're spending per High Elf model?  They sure the hell can't keep what they have now.  ASF right now is all about offense; offering nothing defensively (both visual and practical); and doesn't work with the whole High Elf aesthetic.  I would shit a giant monkey if they kept Speed of Asuryan in the game in its current state.  But hey, this isn't the first time GW did something ridiculous.