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The Electors' Forum / Re: What's the problem with the Armybook?
« on: November 26, 2012, 05:35:20 PM »
I'll give you a couple of fundamental design decisions as to why the book is a failure.
A good army book is one where every unit, war machine, or even special character is a functional unit worth its points. The player will find himself at odds over what to take for his army because every unit appears viable on the field. This is clearly not the case with the Empire book. Infantry suffered point increases based on potential buffs they would see from other unit choices being one of the most absurd design decisions. What puzzles me is the point increases on virtually ineffective missile troops. I rarely took them in 7th edition, and now they will never find a place in my army after Crudface worked over the Empire.
Special rules should make sense and have a functional purpose in the game. Specifically, the Empire Detachment rule is not really that effective. Unless you're playing a new player who has never experienced a countercharge, you're never going to succeed with your detachments. I personally loved the old detachment system just for their throw away speed bumpiness since destroyed units did not panic others. This is all changed now, detachments have a harder time countercharging, Stand and Shoot without penalty is gone (hence making missile troops even more worthless to take as detachments etc.
It is clearly evident that Crudface and team had a hit list of current player hates of the Empire and worked diligently to address them.
Great cannons too powerful - point increase
Mortars smashing up the field - nerf and point increase
War Altar too powerful - point increase
arch lector, warrior priest dice generation - nerf!
It's also clearly evident that Crudface and team cooked up mage wagons and tested the army based on those buffs, then appointed new unit costs according to those factors. Perhaps it was a scheme to force you into model buying, but I would suggest more it was a time constraint on their small design team and GW's refusal to playtest this stuff with the public.
This book has me lamenting GW's archaic rulesystem that is somehow surviving in the digital age. It's very frustrating to be saddled with a book that is poorly written over the course of years and crossing my fingers that GW will have a better designer at the helm the next time the rules are reconsidered.
I'd really like to see the rulesystem go to an online format. But Im sure a bean counter somewhere would piss himself at the idea of not selling all of those pretty books!
More on this later, I'm working on a game right now. pew pew!
-Grutch
A good army book is one where every unit, war machine, or even special character is a functional unit worth its points. The player will find himself at odds over what to take for his army because every unit appears viable on the field. This is clearly not the case with the Empire book. Infantry suffered point increases based on potential buffs they would see from other unit choices being one of the most absurd design decisions. What puzzles me is the point increases on virtually ineffective missile troops. I rarely took them in 7th edition, and now they will never find a place in my army after Crudface worked over the Empire.
Special rules should make sense and have a functional purpose in the game. Specifically, the Empire Detachment rule is not really that effective. Unless you're playing a new player who has never experienced a countercharge, you're never going to succeed with your detachments. I personally loved the old detachment system just for their throw away speed bumpiness since destroyed units did not panic others. This is all changed now, detachments have a harder time countercharging, Stand and Shoot without penalty is gone (hence making missile troops even more worthless to take as detachments etc.
It is clearly evident that Crudface and team had a hit list of current player hates of the Empire and worked diligently to address them.
Great cannons too powerful - point increase
Mortars smashing up the field - nerf and point increase
War Altar too powerful - point increase
arch lector, warrior priest dice generation - nerf!
It's also clearly evident that Crudface and team cooked up mage wagons and tested the army based on those buffs, then appointed new unit costs according to those factors. Perhaps it was a scheme to force you into model buying, but I would suggest more it was a time constraint on their small design team and GW's refusal to playtest this stuff with the public.
This book has me lamenting GW's archaic rulesystem that is somehow surviving in the digital age. It's very frustrating to be saddled with a book that is poorly written over the course of years and crossing my fingers that GW will have a better designer at the helm the next time the rules are reconsidered.
I'd really like to see the rulesystem go to an online format. But Im sure a bean counter somewhere would piss himself at the idea of not selling all of those pretty books!
More on this later, I'm working on a game right now. pew pew!
-Grutch
to you shav. 
