Rules Complexity and Community Building in Warhammer: The Old World

[@thedanish5523]

Actual people playing the games in person not being engaged in the online/youtube dialogue is honestly refreshing, and good to hear. Something I learned following video game analytics (which are admittedly likely different but a reasonable baseline) is that the vast majority of people who play a game aren't engaged in online discourse or communities surrounding that game. With a product so physical like Warhammer, I wouldn't be surprised if that's true here too. Speaking on the rules themselves, I have no idea why GW reverted to the triangle Lance formation. They apparently unlearned the lesson from ages ago that triangles just don't work in a game of squares!

[@MiniAgnostic]

100% agree, it's also a great sign for the game's health that people outside the online 'Old World' bubble are picking it up and trying it out

[@imienazvvisko]

Going online and tallking about/learning about passion is often beginning of the end. I for example play tabletop (fantasy battle 6 and 7, kill team, blood bowl, aos, now old world) only with wife and kids + neighbour and his son. It may sound as waste for few armies we have, with biggest one - Orc and Goblins - worth 6.500 pts in Old World but i dont need more people to have fun. And i wish having as much fun as i have to everyone :) but sometimes i miss more places to meet other people in person in my country (Poland) and play and learn with others in real life

[@RebelDashOne]

Insightful. Glad KZbin recommended your video. It was nice to see the Old World hype online, though in my area (metropolitan) I see a lot of OW boxes on shelves in various stores at present. There's certainly a disconnect with the online perception for Old World, what with boxes selling out in minutes, generating hype as a result on social media, and then the contrast to present state of boxes "littering" shelves (good point on your shelf space bit). For the record I live in one of the most populous cities in North America. That said, I hope the community grows given time and GW won't abandon it so readily.

[@MiniAgnostic]

Thank you 🙂 I know what you mean about the disconnect, a few people are coming out of the woodwork at a local club where I play MTG sometimes who are dusting off old armies and getting back into fantasy so anecdotally things are going in the right direction. With most of those players it'll take a long time however until they start feeling the need to buy new boxed product I reckon rather than just (re-)learning the game with old armies.

[@robertchmielecki2580]

This pivoting on the spot is a thing in ASOIAF and works there very well. Much easier to measure correctly than a wheel, and for me, a WFB veteran, was a big improvement in the neatness of maneuvering in a regimented wargame. Maybe some players took it from that game?

[@pforson]

It‘s the same in KoW as well. It‘s an abstraction, but works well and is simple to understand.

[@MattTrussell]

Pivot around center probably comes from people playing 40k, where you can see a Leman Russ spin around like it's in a 3D art program for free at any point while moving. It's been that way for years, though I still remember RT era turn templates, heh. It took me MANY games to not just stare at people turning their transports to weird angles just so they could cram it behind buildings and then still have it run around corners like an infantry model.

[@blastvader]

In fairness that IS how tracked vehicles generally turn (by braking one set of tracks so they slew round, or by reversing a track set so as that they pivot on the spot). A formed body of men though, as anyone who has ever done drill before will know, generally wheels around the right or left-hand marker in the formation and can only easily move in the other cardinal directions (a left, right turn or an about face) which can be done on the march but is what is represented by a reform maneuver within the game. It never just pivots on the spot. ToW VERY CLEARLY wears its Warhammer Historicals heritage on its sleeve, more so than any other edition of Fantasy to date, and is probably the most 'historical wargame with dragons' it has ever been.

[@Dryzual]

Smaller sub 1600point games are often more enjoyable in my opinion. Barring anyone loading up a powerLord/Monsters/cheese

[@josephjustice4553]

I think 1k is ideal for starters.

[@blastvader]

As a long time 6th edition player, we have been playing a lot of 500pt games. I was always fond of Warbands in 6th, but I feel that despite there being roughly the same amount of models on the table, ToW still manages to feel like a 'battle' at 500pts (moreso than I felt with Warbands at times). It's been good fun, but I imagine there has been a load of 6th edition bleed I've not caught.

[@Dryzual]

@@blastvader Good to hear, thank you.

[@ja37d-34]

Good points.

[@ja37d-34]

Wheeling does sense to anyone who have done service and learned to march though.. Wheeling is what you do as the formation keeps moving. Pivoting doesn´t work like that.

[@MiniAgnostic]

​@@ja37d-34 Yep, wheeling is both the 'accurate' and logical way that troops in close order would manoeuvre when marching. That's why I found the other players' confusion so strange.

[@blastvader]

@@ja37d-34 you can do a left or right turn or an about face on the march - but the latter is a shit.

[@katfezza4570]

The most important thing is you took one of the coolest dwarf models of all time as your leader.

[@rdmths]

great video, subbed.

[@HomeDrone]

This is such an important video for people writing rulebooks. These things drive me crazy, how bad they rulebooks are during play.

[@MiniAgnostic]

Thanks! Don't even get me started on the state of the indexing in these books...

[@RaúlSimóMezquita]

try ASOIAF, KOW or OPR

[@MiniAgnostic]

The only other fantasy ruleset I've really been interested in to be honest is Warlords of Erehwon - it's another Rick Priestly ruleset but based off Alessio Cavatore's dice activation mechanic used in Bolt Action.

[@divafever9754]

You sound like a young Enoch Powell. However, Mr Powell wouldn't use the term 'greatly well' 00:03:10

[@MiniAgnostic]

Can't say that I've ever heard that comparison before 🤨

[@divafever9754]

Like the Roman before me...

[@MiniAgnostic]

@@divafever9754 You've lost me - why are you quoting Powell at me? Genuinely curious now what you think the connection to be

[@krakenattacken8230]

Did you feel like 500 points was enough or what? To me it seems like they really want you to play with at least 1000 because of the restrictions on stuff like cannons and kings

[@MiniAgnostic]

This was a multiplayer game with 4 a side so it worked out to 2k per team. For sure, sub-1k as an individual, one-on-one game is going to get janky. Some lists just aren’t balanced at all around it, like with Skaven most notably you’re left with very little choice since so many units are locked behind the corresponding clan hero at 1 per 1,000.

[@krakenattacken8230]

@@MiniAgnostic was it mostly just infantry then? I'm considering making a 500 point list for my dwarfs too but it seems like I'll be stuck with no cannons or gyros or anything

[@MiniAgnostic]

@@krakenattacken8230 Yeah, mostly infantry on both sides. I'm not quite sold on how useful warmachines are in Old World yet, but I'll probably try to squeeze a gyro into most lists once I've built one.

[@evanwoodham6296]

ToW ran out of steam because it's so bad. 6th ed for life

[@idiotproofdalek]

You think pivoting is less realistic than wheeling? You know drilled soldiers do that right?

[@MiniAgnostic]

I'm not sure that we're thinking of the same thing. The manoeuvre I'm describing as being unrealistic in the field (and which other players tried to perform) involves an entire formation, arranged in close order, rotating about a fixed point at its centre by any number of degrees. Not each individual turning to his right/left/making an about turn, but the unit itself spinning say 64°, requiring one end of the line to walk forwards while the opposite end walks backwards, all while maintaining the same frontage.