Why Wargamers Need To Adopt "The Heresy Mentality" | Command Re-Swole

[@rileybender3655]

I really hope the same chill energy of playing what you like is carried into Old World for sure. It’s wild how staunchly defending this attitude is on the Heresy side.

[@swolehammer]

It is a funny idea to “staunchly defend” being chill, but yikes is it necessary.

[@SpetsnazStevens]

Im glad you've taken so much to Horus Heresy. Been really excited to get you and Riley into this type of wargaming!

[@swolehammer]

Definitely, man. We’re hype too! 💪🏽

[@DuskEalain]

Hey, if we're talking the chill hobby side of things I'd like to share one of my favorite creations: My Orruks (or Orks as I'll be calling them from here on out) for Age of Sigmar are _Da Spellgrabba Boyz_ (or just the Spellgrabbaz for short). They're a roaming clan of Orks most notably seen giving Hysh, Ayzr, and surprisingly Shyish of all places the most trouble. What makes them unique from other Warclans is their two-boss structure, a "Gork" represented by an Ironjawz boss and a "Mork" represented by a Bonesplitters prophet, and the rest of the hierarchy becomes a bit of a mess from there of various mini-groups and armies. But they're all united by their goal, which is much _much_ different from what you'd expect from Orks, because the Spellgrabbaz aren't just interested in any old fight or siege rather they only come into the fray when powerful magical artifacts, armor, or weapons are present. This is because they believe that magic itself was a gift to Ork-kind by Gorkamorka (who they believed breathed the Winds of Magic into existence), and that the other races using it are thieves who have stolen their gifts and now they gotta steal 'em back. This in turn leads them to looking a fair bit different than other Orks as well, still _ORKS_ obviously but their armor is a little less ramshackle, their weapons a bit more refined, and their outfits tend to be as vibrant and varied as the artifacts they carry on their persons. You could even argue that - as far as Orks go - the Spellgrabbaz are rather civilized, willing to trade for or even just _buy_ magic items from the other races if they're willing to listen and hand them over. They'll trade Ur-gold to the Fyreslayers for an enchanted axe, or bones of a fallen Maw-Krusha to the Ossiarch Bonereapers in exchange for magic armor. They only really get heated up and aggressive once their demands to "give Gorkamorka's gifts back" are ignored, or worse ridiculed and mocked. They do however have one group they will never parley with _not matter what._ And that is Chaos, for they believe the Chaos Gods are but cheap imitations of Gorkamorka and their associated magic is a stinky (as in they literally think Chaos magic smells bad) bastardization of Gorkamorka's gifts. So Chaos must die on sight, and whatever trinkets brought with them are to be destroyed.

[@swolehammer]

I’m not sure how it pertains to this video, but thanks for sharing! 😆 #liveyourtruth

[@DuskEalain]

@@swolehammer Honestly just the whole discussion about chilling out, ignoring meta lists, doing your own thing, and having fun with it reminded me of 'em.

[@va818]

I really feel this - As someone who played 40k back in 2nd and 3rd edition, I have sadly seen that change happen and it's only gotten worse - you basically HAVE to tryhard because someone else's idea of a casual game is just "tournament winning list with one sub-optimal unit". I don't mind winning or losing, I mind wasting an hour of my time watching my guys get rolled off the table and then some neckbeard going "well you know what you did wrong there", because I had the gall to turn up with an army I made to tell a story. Sadly, that attitude has infested the game itself - even if I wanted to come back, I want to have an army built on my characters - and you basically can't run 40k Thousand Sons without Magnus and/or Ahriman because everything is balanced around everyone including them... Unfortunately, with the Heresy there's less room for making armies your own, so it's never really appealed to me so much :/

[@swolehammer]

See I think 40K has allowed better use of characters in 10th edition - but as you well articulated, the negative attitude has infested that game especially. If anything I’ve found Horus Heresy allows a ton of character building, because it emphasizes kitbashing and personalizing your models to a great degree. Thanks for the comment!

[@jamesmacken9501]

I'd encourage you to look into blackshields

[@ironxYT]

This is refreshing. I’ve been getting into 40K for the first time in my life and it’s daunting having to constantly make up my mind between building and playing a list I think is awesome and playing some stupid fucking list that I have to play to actually have a chance at MAYBE putting up a respectable fight.

[@swolehammer]

What I always tell people, play what you like and find the right group to play with. If there are others telling you what units to play in a hobby that’s supposed to be fun and your free time, yeah f*ck that. That’s half the reason we ended up running our own AoS events in Pittsburgh because the other places were toxic as shit.

[@crowd3dspac3s]

I find it funny that this video exists because as a 40K Ork player, my experience has been…. Exactly this. Go to the Ork subreddit and you’ll find some people asking about lists and how to play them or how to play against a particular army but almost always you see one or more comments remind OP “don’t meta chase” and “play want you want”… sometimes in the best Ork dialect they can convey. If you’re looking for an awesome community in 40k I love Ork players.

[@swolehammer]

Haha yeah, that’s what I hear from Riley (Swolehammer’s resident Ork player), but she has noticed recently people are anti-Beast Snagga in the community?

[@crowd3dspac3s]

@@swolehammer anti-snagger might be a little strong but I do think she’s on the right path. To me it’s seems like they are over the focus being the snaggers when they have a bunch of cool models that haven’t been touched in a long time. Like tank busters, nobs, or even Badrukk

[@Nipa96M]

I just play Timmyhammer. I prioritise the biggest and coolest models and after that plan the strategy around them. This did make my 9th experiense rougher with Magnus and Mozrog, but in 10th I seem to have pulled the jackpot. Well not 100% because Ghaz isn't the same beast he used to be, but we still run him because he is rad af.

[@swolehammer]

I do stand by 10th edition being a good game system, as long as you find the right people to play against - you’re guaranteed a good time either way!

[@BettyJOsthoff]

😂 your adding to my post Adeptacon to do list. I have an Age of Darkness box to assemble. Also it's been nice to see the local Sigmar group is sounding Heresy-ish

[@swolehammer]

Get to it, Betty! Not like that list isn’t long enough, haha. 😆 We can only hope the fledgling AoS scene ends up like that, because it was nightmarish in PA, lol.

[@Nekorook]

I don’t understand anything besides the rule of cool when playing. Metas come and go, but awesomeness is forever. I’ve also been getting more into the specialist game studio games cause of that. 30k, Necromunda, and even the Old World cater more towards that let puts some models down, roll dice and have a good time. At my FLGS I’ve been working on fostering a “play what army you want and let’s have a good time” approach to getting people interested in TOW. Including calming a member down who was losing it over vampire counts being a “legacy army.” Reminding them we aren’t a Warhammer store so you can play them, they are a fleshed out army with rules, and there is a world of third party and AoS to get you covered.

[@swolehammer]

That’s the way to go! Glad you’re doing your part, because a lot of places harbor a toxic setting which I also don’t understand. The Legacy factions I think weren’t conveyed in the best way, so the knee jerk reactions were a lot of that. Glad it ended up working out for them!

[@Beercules56]

This makes me want to bust out my Behemoth Bash for Sigmar and play a match. The pinnacle of my "Play What You Love."

[@swolehammer]

As long as it’s not 5 Stonehorns, I’m in! Haha.

[@Beercules56]

@@swolehammer just 3 Ghorgons and a Cygor lol

[@Flamethrower1942]

Old school player here started 40K way back in 2nd edition im old 😂, I started Heresy in V1 on release and it was basically where the disgruntled 40K players went after the old world was killed off and all the warhammer fantasy (very competitive scene , one of the reasons why it died in my opinion) came over to 40K and ruined the vibe , 40K went from chill and fun to ultra competitive over night in my experience, 30k is chill and fun you can break the game of course but most players don’t want to be that guy .

[@swolehammer]

Oh, interesting. Didn’t know about all that *lore*! We’re definitely hype to try Old World, but it is funny when it was announced all the people we knew who played Fantasy back in the day said sucked and with your description I can imagine why. Lol.

[@kraftyevan]

I find GW has been making it harder and harder to be a casual or narrative player in 40k. Units have far less customization, set sizes, constant points updates, and the rules have been laser focused into balance rather than uniqueness/feel. I love 30k because when I make a captain, he's my captain of my section of my legion, not just "Primaris Captain in Gravis Armour (Fist and Sword)"

[@va818]

I actually like that they baked the equipment options into the units points, since they've focused a bit more on the internal balance between weapons which makes the different options feel more fair... but I really don't like that they have been reducing options in the process (RIP tactical squads, now if you want a flamer, you have to take 5 of them...), especially for characters. While it's great that they moved away from HeroHammer where it's all about decking out characters to 1-man army, they've gone too far the other way and now every generic captain is identical and basically useless on many units. If I ever get back into 40k, it'll only be with close friends who will play narratively so we can homebrew stuff.

[@swolehammer]

Yeah GW was pushed into the “competitive” focus by tournament players even though they are a small fraction of the gaming population. Especially if you like Marines, I feel like 30K is by far the ideal place for you.

[@sirkelendor5429]

Honestly i play monthly 40k rtts at a lgs even though i lose all 3 games every month i still have a blast, absolutely worth the 15 bucks and 1hr30 drive to lose but its fun

[@rileybender3655]

That’s just pure love of the game! What faction do you play?

[@sirkelendor5429]

@@rileybender3655 raven guard marines and recently custodes

[@swolehammer]

Fair enough! Whatever makes ya happy. 😃

[@AurelianPainting]

this is literally just the rule of cool

[@swolehammer]

That’s the point, but it’s *shocking* how few follow it.

[@Bunnymajs]

As a guy who plays compendium Kill Teams at tournaments.. Never understood the sweat

[@swolehammer]

Haha same, my favorite is Chaos Daemons. How about you?

[@Bunnymajs]

​@@swolehammer I just did a tournament with Hive fleet, Genestealers and Warriors! Went 1-3, but the dice were not dicing 😅 My Deathwatch with their crazy loadouts are prob my favorite Compendium so far 😌

[@swolehammer]

@@Bunnymajs Ooo nice, I think Genestealers and Warriors are hella underrated.

[@griffingrinnell1582]

Lol should just join Orks community. Best in all of warhammer

[@swolehammer]

That’s what I hear. But Riley is the Ork player in the Swolecrew.

[@rileybender3655]

ORKS IS NEVER BEATEN :B

[@vittoriodicredico5985]

HH and 40k player here. I play solar aux/ Imperial guard + necrons, and I got a few pros and cons for HH. HH : - pros : 1) units are very customizable (at least marines) 2) Vehicle rules and templates give a nice "realistic" feeling to the game 3) unique faction units from the books 4) good range of factions, even non marine ones - cons : 1) too many rules for new players 2) no rules updates, junk remains junk for whole edition 3) some factions are very expensive money wise (forge world), this combined with point 1 makes the game pretty niche (new plastic boxes helped a lot, but still not big number of players) 4) some marine legions just don't get new models, hope you are playing IF eheh 5) non marine factions are directly worse than marines, someone may argue it's what is should be, but it shouldn't be a 70/30 for the marines, maybe a 55/45. HH is more story driven than 40k for many reasons (customize squads, more detachments etc...) but sometimes the rule of cool doesn't work well, sometimes the cool models wiff so hard that it feels bad (I'm looking at you, baneblades with AP4 main cannons (or artillery in general)). Some form of rebalance would REALLY work, not to make bad units good (malcadors are worse than russes but still fun to play) , but to make unusable units usable (axe veletaris, they have initiative 1... the whole initiative system breaks some units let's be honest)

[@swolehammer]

Yeah I mean HH and 40K are two entirely different game systems at this rate. My point being, with this video, being while HH has its bevy of flaws - I think people have accepted it and work around it. Or at least, put effort to not bring the heinous shit.

[@vittoriodicredico5985]

oh yeah absolutely, the community is great, but I would still like GW putting more effort in the game@@swolehammer

[@swolehammer]

@@vittoriodicredico5985 For sure, there was a huge slew of FAQs and Errata’s a month ago but more than an annual update would be nice. Lol

[@little_isalina]

I think competitive warhammer (no matter what system or edition) is a miserable experience, and the best time i have with any of these game is the phase when i don't know what units are "good" and what units aren't. It would help if everything was properly balanced (which 10e 40k already precluded de facto by baking the cost of the most expensive options into the base price of every unit and making any other loadout measurably worse) but that's not really feasible with so many units and factions, so I try to just stay ignorant of the "meta" as long as I can.

[@swolehammer]

That is fair and a state I try to stay in as well! On top of what you said, there’s also no real point to know what’s “meta” or not because 99% of games I’ll play in my life are just random games with random people. However, a lot of gamers pretend they’re at a GT or something when we all trying to chill at our LGS. Lol.

[@Psychosurgeonpls]

i have always had mixed feelings about this topic, i am a competitive player, i love RTTs and tournies, love making cool comp list and running them, however here is my school of thought. 1. rule of cool supersedes all when in casuals, unless you tell me you are trying to practice i dont wanna see a meta sweat list coming my way when im trying to play nothing but boats drukhari and refusing to take my troops out the boat for points so it seems like thats all i have. however with the first being said, moving on to my next point. 2. competition is a GOOD thing and no one likes to lose, as this suggest, i hear people complain when we start bitching that our favorite army, one with sweat and tears in the paint job.. becomes utterly unplayable.. i dont care how much you like a army, when they are so bad you cant get past round 2 unless you play in the most annoying and unfun way possible its utterly infuriating. i have sunk money and time and love into this project and its not really about the win but more about aspect of "i play this army because i want to play this army" and GW has the tendency to punish an army for doing EXACTLY wheat they were made for. example: world eaters, they used to be PUNISHED for their rules like blood surge that FORCED them to move towards the enemy, they have changed it since but basically it made it to where people would small arms fire them into the open and then blast them, this meant you, as the WE player, just couldnt play your faction unless you hid in ruins.. which isnt fun. so all in all, i understand both sides. on one side, while i agree that competition is a good thing and brings some of the best out of the game with people actually paying attention to their armies and using them as they were intended.. rule of cool for pretty much every scenario other than tournies should be the standard and anyone that tries to be a utter sweat is a dork. on the other hand, i completely get why people bitch and moan at times because a money dump of which this game is, can piss you off when they just invalidate your favorite army, its understandable GW hate since the whole reason this has been happening more and more is the didnt want to pay actual game testers and mostly relied on youtubers that had no loyalty to them and started leaking things, so as a result they dont test too much anymore and they make some BAD decisions some times that can invalidate an entire faction for months going on years at times a'la IG from 7th to 9th

[@swolehammer]

I’ll have to add to this later to have a more constructed response (at work rn lol) but I do like RTTs and tournaments too. One thing I meant to elaborate on is that I think “competition” can be an enjoyable experience, in a lot of cases, it becomes toxic and that’s where I draw the line. Unfortunately, a lot of people can’t parse out the different between friendly competition and being a shit human being because their fragile ego depends on it.

[@Adventurerblitz]

Balancing armies for competitive play is fine when its done right. People hate competitive players because theyre the reason why gw removed points values for wargear (competitive players can't read I guess), removed unit customization, and removed units having weapon options other than those in the box (competitive players can't kitbash I guess).

[@swolehammer]

@@Adventurerblitz “When it’s done right” is the key there lol. I stopped playing AoS because the team who balances that game are extremely tone deaf. As I said previously, I don’t dislike competitions, I have done well and terribly at tournaments. The issue is people’s mindset tend to be the absolute *worst* in regard to any semblance of competition and it oozes into the local scene.

[@Psychosurgeonpls]

@@Adventurerblitz ngl lie big dog, if it dont come in the box then it shouldnt be in the book, not because i dont want it but because when im spending $60 on a box of toys it BETTER come with all the pieces(emperors children fans cry in the corner)

[@Adventurerblitz]

@@Psychosurgeonpls Limiting options make the experience worse for everyone tbh. GW stuff is of course overpriced but theres other ways to get models and bits.

[@vostyok6030]

I think a lot of this is influenced by the respective rulesets - 40k is constantly changing, chasing the competitive meta and filling the rules with deadly combos and gotcha moments. Heresy by contrast has both players playing very similar factions, and any potential alpha-strike or "turn one tabling" is kinda mitigated by the fact that as soon as you take a step you'll just trigger a reaction move from your opponent's equally competent top unit. But this is all coming someone who doesn't really play anymore, lol. Great video, btw.

[@swolehammer]

That’s a fair analysis and thanks for watching! Friends who are in the hobby longer than I, have described GW kind of being pushed into the “competitive” mindset for 40K and has leaked into other games like AoS sadly. It’s also a generally understood fact that HH isn’t balanced so people usually bring stuff to be fun and flavorful instead of farming cheap wins.

[@vostyok6030]

@@swolehammer That's a fair point. It does seem to be a generally accepted rule that "if your whole army is Contemptors, Leviathans and Knights Cenobium, you're doing it wrong".

[@XVI_Legion]

Exactly why 30K is the best, powergamer fools with their unpainted plastic needing to constantly win at a tabletop wargame for (validation), (dopamine hit)???? are persona non grata.

[@swolehammer]

Lmao yes, this x1000

[@frostmagemarii]

Yeah, this is a bad take on the subject. The reason the "Heresy Mentality" exists is because there is no difference between the two factions of the HH. It is space marines vs space marines and there is no competitive scene to speak of. Enter 40k or AoS, you have asymmetrical factions, and the mission style of the games makes you take your own strategy and unit composition into account.

[@swolehammer]

If you look at the legion rules for HH you’d understand that’s basically untrue - and the reason why there is no “competitive” scene is because neckbeards didn’t push GW years ago to do it for 30K since it’s not necessary for a game to comfortably exist.

[@rileybender3655]

It’s also just untrue because the game doesn’t pretend to be balanced, so people aren’t duped into thinking it’s a table sport or whatever people refer to competitive war gaming as. It’s an endless cycle where people defend the competitive community in WH, join it themselves, and inevitably quit in a year or two because they realized it isn’t a good time and they’re leaving their happiness up to buckets of dice rolls, which is inherently random as hell. It isn’t great for anyone’s mental health.