 Hello everybody, if it's Wednesday, it's Warhammer and that must mean it's time for an early episode of Warhammer weekly Joining me as always. It's my co-sum. What's up, buddy? How you doing? Hello friends? Welcome to the daylight. Yeah It's a lot brighter in your office. I you know I recently had some changes You're gonna be surprised Tom by the back of my house when you cut get here next month You guys put up a fence right or did you do the whole deck? I did the whole the whole back the whole shooting match back there So hence why this is now light as opposed to yeah, I see that yeah You have a window. I have an entire wall of windows right here. Yeah, hence why it's so bright I never realized how much I liked living in my cave until they the sunlight came in and I You could put cardboard there I could yeah, that'll look real pro Okay, so We are going to be talking about The bad rules of AOS overall good very very good game But there are some rules that maybe are problematic and we're gonna talk about those and why they're problematic We're not gonna be overly critical No, but we're gonna be straight. We're gonna be straight. That's exactly right as we do as we do here Okay So yes, the early show is because right after this will be a short show by the way I'm gonna warn everybody right up top. This is gonna be like an hour tops everyone So I apologize We got to do a fairly quicker show because I need to get on the road I have to drive like nine hours today so keep it in fact keeping it fast and tight fast and tight Let's start with the news a 40k hammer next. Yep. That's what it is next It's gonna be a squat thing. Awesome. Cool. Yes Sylvan earth preview. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, so it's your army for the fall Could be I don't know very well could be I'm not gonna say no Who knows? I could paint some trees. I did paint up the lady of Vines as I talked about last week and You know, she's super cool. I like her a lot and I Mean I like well, I want to see what the book looks like I want to hopefully if they move to you can just overgrow pieces of terrain is sort of the main way Do you expand your footprint and like maybe you summon out woods or something? Yeah, I tell you what they're gonna really radically change my view of that army I mean, I love myself and at you know that yeah, you know, I went when Sylvan earth got previewed Tom remembers us back in the day when still enough got previewed. I was like, I'm totally in for this army I went day one and bought Everything the entire line. Yeah, yeah, I love like I did with KO. Yeah, it was just it hit I really think it's a beautiful army My problem with it has always been the woods because it's like hey now you've enjoyed the beautiful army now also print your paint You know 50 terrain pieces. I'm just not in for that. So Well, here's what I'll say. I'm gonna stake it now. Okay, if you do Sylvan earth I will do a wanderer heavy living city Okay, well, we'll see what happens. I will we'll see what happens with the books. All right Yeah, you know, there's no new book coming for that. So you're good there. Yeah, I mean, it'll be fine You're golden for at least a year. I'll get six months out of that army. That'll be better than most All right, so More to come on that the rules for use it were there. We're good. I like everything. I'm seeing so far It's all positive signs. We'll see if it continues Why are we doing an early show people asked because I have to go drive like nine hours later today? There'll be two of these this month by the way, so Vince is doing a fun weekend blah blah blah blah It's not a fun weekend. Well, it is gonna be one I suppose But it's also work like yes, it's both at any rate. I'll be at TMX this weekend So if you happen to be up at TMX, I'll see you there But I have some other I'm heading up to to go see Sam and Adam because we have to take care of a bunch of Game stuff and then TMX and stuff like that for the upcoming game. So All right, cool What else we got there was a third news item, right? My son is playing charades Wesley this is the short show you have 10 seconds go That's fine I'll let him I'll let him deal with that The others the other short news item is we got them. No, you're back. I'm back good Welcome back. We got the preview of our first AOS Warhammer plus show. We saw a handle car. So yeah Yeah, it's cool. Good on that dude I'm excited. Yeah Maybe I'll use my Warhammer plus subscription. Hey, maybe so Now hold on Doug that is not what I said. I've played myself and at the ton Okay, I Didn't say I've never engaged with them. I said I've I said I don't like them because of the trees Yeah, I mean you've played them. I played Sylvaneth a bunch. Yeah, it's it's regularly featured I just never summoned additional woods. I always build lists where I was like, this is my one woods I'm not doing it like I don't I don't need woods Go on and so hence I didn't have the best time playing the army. That's that's what happened Anyways So that's that's that That's all the that's all the news quick and simple Let's get started. We're gonna go we're gonna skip everything else because what I'm hobbying on I can't share with you accidentally this week because I got excited about something and So I'm painting something you'll see in the future And what Tom is working on is a whole army. I Mean It's like 30 some night haunt models, you know, this is what happens new book releases in out with the old and with the new You have to rotate stuff and I may or may not have an event in like nine days so Here we go There you go So Tom is busy. What you're working on what 30 models, right? I think is that right something like that Yeah, something like that. Yeah Painting up all new ghosts. So if you didn't watch our ghost review show, go check it out I mean, Tom, you obviously came around big on that army You moved through your five stages of army acceptance pretty quick on that one Well, uh, winning an event the week before with the army like just a little pre nerf. Yeah, or pre pre like perks And already having a mostly done army like already playing with some of the new rules I felt pretty good about it I still think that there are some points that are off, but you know that that happens You just don't play those units like my black coach sits on the shelf. Yeah Artorias, yeah, I mean I have a full rat cast army. I Still have more figs. I haven't painted. I'm actually taking one with me this weekend I might work on some so I mean Vince took it to both holy wars and holy havoc Yeah, I mean I have more than 2,000 points painted. So now I'm just now. It's just painting stuff whenever I feel like it All right, let's get to our main topic fast. Let's talk about some bad rules Okay Moving quick today bad rules Unrelated lumineff picture here to start us off. No no reason Why there would be a lumineff image on the cover of this discussion? Don't read anything into that It's not at all indicative of anything Just complete and total happenstance just wanted a cool piece of art in a in a portrait layout nothing nothing more for that I would just don't it just dawned on me that all of my critiques. I Think almost all of my critiques are found in the lumineff army. There's one that isn't one of your system one of them Yeah, yeah interesting interesting observation Go on All right, so let's let's hit the summary here first. Yeah, okay Yeah, I just take Mars a good game. I'm gonna come down and like that's it That's it. I'm easily going to plant my flag on that. I love this game. I have played a ton of this game Had an awesome game on Memorial Day actually since we had a holiday here in the US Our mutual buddy Dan came over and we got a great game in a Game that I really thought I was gonna lose and He was way out in front of the beginning and managed to pull it out Like it was a fantastic all the way through the whole thing game You know was he playing his award-winning slaves of darkness army? No, he was he was running Nurgle. Oh Yeah, yeah Again, Skaven and I went for like all infantry so all of his like I do portal wounds to things and you're like cool Effective cool. Well, he's just swishing on me with with Blight King dudes on bugs and they were just swishing on me Yeah, a little swish. It was it was a lot But at any rate The Met is tightening more books are competitive the new books coming out in 3.0 are really wonderful like I I Honestly don't think we've gotten a bad book in 3.0 and all the problems were in the first two launch books Which were probably made very early every book that's come out like that is to say oryx and stormcast of the books Sure, sure, but like everything since then has been very solid. These are all positives but There are some concerns of overall rules complexity. I'm glad the books are going to simpler implementations But it's still there. We can't hide from it. The game has probably gotten too high of a barrier to entry I want to know that thing. I know that. Yeah, what I will go Okay, there there are some rules that are just bad and they point to larger challenges within the system or third rails They can't be crossed. Okay, go Yeah, I was gonna say I don't know that I fully disagree with that because I think that I think the doc book All of the problems that were in the doc book persisted from the prior edition Like I don't know that they fixed anything in doc I think they definitely did but it's it's a question of like if you want to determine fixed to just be Does that mean like they soft-incentive some of the bad things and they they up-incentive to other play styles Which is a fix sure. I mean it is but if things were problematic before Incentivizing other play styles don't change if people continued like if it's still there to be selected Does that make sense? It's still bad play experience, but anyways, so that's fine. I still I think the doc books great I mean I've played it a couple times and really enjoyed it so But I get you I've I never ran shooty snakes. So it was never on my on my radar I'm just happy I can actually like play doc the way I want to play doc and feel like I'm giving a good game now I just I've I've played against shooty snakes multiple times and it is a bad experience. I understand I mean I have as well. That's at tournaments and it is what it is PSG says Nurgle fly coherency is horrific three-inch coherency for models with substantial wings, please I I those away those wings are so stupid the funny part is he didn't have any of the wings attached because he just put the Army together so he hadn't put any of the wings on yet. So it was really easy All its coherency was a dream Okay so Let's get into some specifics. So here's how this is gonna go Tom and I have each picked each chosen Choosed we each selected Three Rules specifically and then I kind of took those and we're gonna build them into the larger Context because certainly these aren't the only examples of these things So if we don't hit the specific bad rule you want My hope is that it falls into one of the six categories We've identified because I truly believe these six categories are the home of most bad rules like they're the The overarching issue the root cause analysis if we were to do it you'd get to this place With any one of these specific things. Yeah, okay So our first one is impossible abilities Okay, and The one I've selected here is the example some of these have multiple examples some have one But this one only has one and I've selected the Beast Lord's grizzly trophy ability, okay so This is the most wackadoo command ability The one of the most wackadoo ones you can find there are others There are there are certainly other examples of impossibilities You can use this command ability in the combat phase if any attacks made by a friendly beast Lord with this command ability Resulted in an enemy model being slain that phase Which I have his attack pile of profile up there six attacks on threes and threes neg one one on a five wound dude with like a four up save Look out for this guy. So he has to activate an attack first. Correct Before the unit and he has no like chain activation thing so it's that's right away terrible You activate with him first or you unit can get slaughtered that gets the bonus if you do so Until the end of that phase you can re-roll wound rolls for attacks made by friendly Brayherd units holy with an 18 If any attacks made by that beast Lord resulted in enemy hero or monster being slain, which good luck I don't know what miracle you just pulled off there. You can re-roll both hit and wound rolls, okay So I call this an impossible ability Not because it's actually impossible. Of course. This has happened in games somewhere if if this and if also this then this But even when you do this this and then this happens What is this even gonna matter? Right? And let's remember he couldn't have issued a come this is a combat phase Command ability right so that means on doing his attacks. He didn't like issue himself An all-out attack or something right right? Now it's an it's an aura ability. So he's he has to issue the command to himself Correct. So he couldn't have even had somebody else issue issue to him. Exactly, right because he has to receive this area effect He has to go with the issue and receive it. Yes, exactly So it's crossing over with the other most valuable things we we would want to use right like all out defense or something are all out attack and So This like I said, there's a broad category of abilities like this and when I say they're impossible the problem with them is they're so Gated and rarefied It's not that they actually can't happen. It's just they happen so unbelievably rarely That you're just not even gonna remember to use it and or it's not gonna be your priority in that phase because you needed to do other Things to win and or it's making you make bad play decisions Right or or it's just not impacting the game, you know So there are some abilities that would fit in this category that I think they don't even end up impacting the game And so for example, like the our stone guards Like tectonic like the movie thing, yeah, they're tectonic force. Yeah, yeah, like it not only is it not doing a lot But actually like you know as one regular Luminous Martin Orlando had commented like the more you look at it the worse the ability actually is right, right, right? Yeah So this ends up being you know Somebody said should rules have a amusing park said should rules have a hard stop at one prerequisite condition in one action My argument should would be that's a good guideline to go by and by the way The one prerequisite should be clearly defined and the action like deeper than that the action should be immediately Following that thing right one of the Well, you know one of the other things that can lead to this is if this and this then this thing happens later That's your real worst case scenario for an impossible ability, right? Because then you set up some trigger that may or may not happen later That's effectively another gate one of those gates being you remember to do the thing Right, right, and I know that a load of that is significant, right, and I know that sounds silly Yeah, but like it's but it's not there's a lot of mental load on people playing this game You're trying to remember wait who used command ability who didn't what special abilities Do I have what special rules are on the war scrolls involved in this fight? What order should I activate in? What am I doing next turn? Where do I need to go? What's the scores? How many people do I have on the subjective? Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada, right am I achieving my battle tactic all this stuff The last thing you need to be thinking about is some additional trigger that has no direct way for you to remember it later So whenever the thing that happens is triggering you it should it should be immediate So I just hate abilities like this I think they're a bad rule because one they make you make bad play decisions You know what they incentivize you to make bad play they incentivize you to make bad play decisions absolutely, right and then two it's So rarified like you're asking a model to do a task. It's just not good at it. Just shouldn't be doing Right, I get it. We all want to in our heads go like oh the Beast Lord is so cool He's such a like he's this awesome lord of the beastmen who's you know, blah blah blah and real tough in combat Yeah, he's not I don't care what your narrative says. He's not He's a little doof. He's a little doofus Okay, I'm sorry Like I have a lot of beast lords in my BC cast army because I think the model is awesome all the different models they've made over the years and This is just a bad ability and he like he's not a combat character They're bad in general at combat characters and so tying up an actual command ability to this thing doing that thing It's bad at woof woof. Yes, gut-rippage shields absolutely fall under this a 100% they gut-rippage shields actually fall into a couple of these categories ghost button Well, you'll see another one later that falls into this Yeah So at any rate, that's my first one. So what type of sin is this I've culled upon my Catholic upbringing for all of this and So in you know, you got two different types of sins venial and mortal, right and So, you know a venial sin is is minor you can you can get forgiveness from this that doesn't permanently injure your relationship With with with God, right? So this is just a venial sin in my mind. Okay this one Visually ignore it. You just ignore it. Yeah, exactly. That's what happens Like this command ability is ipsum lauren text on on the on the unit now You just look at it and is this thing worth the points for for what it does without this thing, right? Most of the time you need to use to ignore the ability or ignore the Model, right? Yeah Okay Yeah, so Now what's the penance here for this sin Whoever wrote these rules has to play has to use only beast lords as heroes and see how many tell like that's the only heroes They're allowed to take they must run a beast of chaos army and use only beast lords for at least five games And see how many times they get this to trigger and then they must realize that they should write a real Command ability being in the combat phase is already opportunity cost enough Yeah, okay. Think about what you did. Yes Yes Exactly. Okay. All right So next up This what I'm just calling massive NPE Okay, there is a broad category of bad rules that fall under this Okay, now here's the trick not everybody and every player will hate any of these rules NPE is not a universal thing. We've done a whole show Yeah on negative play experience different players Rate different elements different things differently, and there is always a cohort of players no matter how small or minimal It will enjoy the challenge of playing against rules no matter how punishing crippling or awful Yeah, okay So if you are one of those people Cool beans no problem, but I'm not concerned with you You're gonna be fine. We can they can apparently just write anything and you're good You'll just live through it. You masochists but It should be playing so Nash But there are a cohort of rules That a Majority of the player base more people find to be negative when they're in the game than not Okay, yeah, and this is true in a lot of different games by the way This isn't like something unique to Warhammer. Okay You know there's a reason there's not two mana counter spells in modern magic, right Because at two mana it was just too negative you put it like four mana. It's fine. Everybody moves on Right. Yeah Okay, just because of the pace and how often you can do it and how it happens in the game and how it rears It's ugly head Total eclipse is what I picked here for this one, right? This and this falls under a broader category that I think is touching a third rail and Hades, I appreciate it. You're wrong The I'll say it that easy brother. I know you're here to defend but like this falls into a broader category of messing with command points like this core element of the game Yeah, and Yeah the It just it is a third rail Right, so this is this is disproportionate like the impact of messing with you you're talking about the third rail being command points This is disproportionately impacting because it touches every aspect of the game, right? Okay, so, you know, like for me you you upscaled my Category like my critique was towards command point things right and My my big critique here is that it It messes with the core engine of how the game functions. Yes It doesn't expect affect OBR right now, but you're assuming that you're like OBR Stuff isn't just gonna go away and run on the actual engine that everybody else does sure moving forward The reality is is that this touches battle shock this touches combat buffs This touches defensive buffs this touches movement abilities This touches core mechanics and some armies that allow them to like mobility like it it touches everything For almost no opportunity cost to this army Yep it Yes, especially in an army where this is theoretically possible to just auto cast in an unbindable way Multi yeah, exactly exactly in an unbindable way, whatever whatever the proper word would be non unbindable way I don't know and So like and this goes for all abilities like to be very clear like this gave an ability that stole command points cunning Yes, I agree I still use it all the time because I'm a bad person But right at least it's on it happening on a six But you're right that to me the appropriate implementation of this is when is the tomb banshee? Sure, sure. It's targeted. It's specific I have to move a character into a relatively danger close range And then I have to do something to target a specific unit Yes, right and now what I know I what I have it done is altered the entire way you're gonna play the game Yes, right. Yeah, like there is a way to use this kind of mechanic to Futs around with the way people play with command points, right? another good example of this where it works, okay is like Who's the one that like if they're within a certain range Then on a fire plus the command doesn't receive. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Carlos, right fine Again, Carlos has to move up. You've got to be in his aura. He's got to be, you know, relatively close he's doing it on a certain role, right and In that way you can play around that like there is the key here with this thing versus the other ones We're talking about is the ones we're talking about still allow for interactivity Yeah, I can choose how I'm going to move your unit. I can choose to target your tomb banshee Or something like that, right? Right. I May not have the ability to stop you from doing this Right. No, it's true. And like so it's funny a lot of people marveled at I'm just gonna jump back like I played My my final game at Vault Wars was against was against Luminath, right? And a lot of people were just like Marvelling that I did so well, but one of the things that my army didn't need was command points ever Yeah, like everything that I did like I don't all defense I had my aura of plus one to hit multiple or is a plus one to hit So I didn't actually need to all out offense I didn't like I didn't have my new stuff to spend command points to increase word save And so I just would sit on buckets of command points every game. And so it didn't affect me But everyone else Yeah, yeah, it crippled their game plan, right? Yeah, and You know, oh Taylor said have I played with this rule yet? I've played against this rule as as Tom knows I have a regular Luminath opponent who Regularly brings multiple casters with this spell and will alternate through contemplates and or techless to make sure that Basically, the game is always under this ability So I have played many games under total eclipse like I am very used to what this feels like with many different armies Not just one army Right, right. Yeah, and so, you know, again, it's the size this scope the efficacy of this thing that results in the NPE and By the way, this is just one example. I certainly don't like I picked the Luminath one because it's the most relevant Yeah, but you could also put like Alpha shooting mortal wound type stuff Into this where at the top of that like I can keep people off board then drop half my army on you shoot with mortal wounds And kill everything you have a value. I would put that in the same massive NPE category, right? Okay, right and It's it's exactly the same it's exactly the same feeling because all The key with interactivity what came out of our survey and I totally agree with it is when you remove interactivity Right. Yes, and this does that as well as things like the alpha shoot where I'm completely in safety and ambush I drop on you pop on you kill everything you have that is of high value that kind of alpha shoot is it removes all interactivity I can't stop you from your ambush I can't crowd you out because you have a ridiculous range I can't protect myself with all at defense because you're gonna mortal wound through right out, right? Yeah, that kind of thing is just as big of NPE Yeah, it falls into the same exact category So like this would be your shoot cast type of nonsense where it just drops and pops Same right Right. Okay. Yeah, it's it's Then for command points just to jump back command points inherently At least when in using them on your opponent's turn are all reactive, right? Like they're they're defense, you know, your defense buffing your you can trigger ability Right and inherently what this says is is you don't get to play anymore in this up in these other phases. Yep You just receive what I'm going to do and it it's max of like a death and taxes style magic play Because what you're doing is you're taxing them and you're and you're limiting what they are actually able to do because of the extra cost And and for a lot of people that's just not a play style. That's enjoyable. Sure. Yep, exactly Uh Rerolling ones Jack coming in saying shoot cast is not nonsense. I didn't say all shoot cast I said alpha drop shoot cast and reg show fan. I don't want a cripple storm cast. I have the army. I love them Okay, but that particular play style is pretty toxic And there has to be a better way to fix that book. All right. I mean as as is seraphon Seraphon lizard alpha shooting as is KO alpha shooting Like I'm gonna say that like we're at the height of its power. Yeah, sure. It's a jank. Yep Sin type on this one. This is a mortal sin. Absolutely. This this is a good way to completely fracture your relationship And So The This one is a problem. Oh, I mean you're not wrong reg show fan, but you know is what it is They they they need to like buff the appropriate stuff and and fix the the other things as always. Yeah, yeah Penance play under this effect for 10 games and then rewrite the spell lore. That's the that's the penance here Yeah, okay Before we go to the next one By the way hit like because this will be a controversial show I'm sure plenty people would just like this because when we talk about bad rules there's we're gonna hit enough things that some people like and they They'll be like nah, I'm angry at you now because you mentioned the thing I like so so hit like and To counter out all of that inevitable hate that we that we're going to get Okay, you ready for the next one Tom? Yeah All right, the next one is a big category The next one I call Worthless gambling Okay Yep. Yep. All right Okay, worthless gambling Is When you have an ability that already that has like way too much going on for way too little benefit Okay Okay, we're looking at you You 60 packs of gets on fives and vibes Well, we're not we're not there yet. I'm gonna get to I actually put them in a different category Oh, did you okay? I did okay see I define worthless gambling is like here. I've got the bindings of slanash You ready for this? This is a this is an artifact from Okay at the start of the combat phase you can pick one enemy hero within three inches of the bearer All right already. This is ridiculous okay, and then roll 2d6 if that role is greater than the hero's move Characteristic which by the way many heroes have move characteristics that are just so high. This is actually unduable like it's literally impossible Congratulations, you have a 12-inch move Exactly If you if you achieve all of this nonsense Subtract one from hit rolls for attacks made by that hero until end of the phase well, who do they who? Thank goodness. I jumped through all those hoops I have a picture of a thunderstorm here of a shag off because his thunderstorm healing would fall into this Is if you've got if you happen to tie on the priority roll then you can roll a four up Yeah fun love that Then I get a minor healing Da bad moon would fall under this one Just in general because like the bonuses are often not in the right place often hard rolling it to be at wherever it needs to be a silly And then obviously things like soul slice basically if you've got a gate and then a gate and then roll 2d6 against Bravery or a characteristic stop just stop Stop talking stop writing these things are terrible Okay And so Worthless gambling is what that comes down to Tom. You understand I'm saying where you have to roll a bunch of things Okay to make an effect happen Yeah, and that effect in the end is not actually worth it Right, yeah, he's just not actually giving you anything good Right, right, right and so you're so you're saying like rolling six is well, no, and that's that's not fair to Chuck I was gonna say rolling six is for Original original recipe craith. Yes. I mean the difference there was it was actually a potent thing that was coming on the Side and it was only one gate roll. I die get a six your whole unit fights again, and it's real scary Yeah, right. This would be like this would be like roll a dice for every unit of every model in the unit that model fights again It would be at the end of combat Sure 2d6 if you roll under the unit's bravery then they get plus one bravery during that battle shock phase That's if they thought this turn. Yep. Yep Rolling dice for dice sake that doesn't actually affecting the game. Yes worthless gambling, right? You're just rolling dice for dice sake You're not actually affecting the game. Yes. Yeah, I don't know if you caught it But like the thunderstorm healing so perfectly falls into this where it's like gate You tie on the priority roll effect, which is already like a ridiculous game For a rule. Yeah, and then effect Roll a die for every thunderstorm model on a four up. They get to heal d3 wounds. Well good. Yeah, a thing I probably don't need on the majority of my units Okay Yep, I Think worthless gambling might buy by the way might be where the new The new guy from night haunt that new bookkeeper model guy and his ability or this. Yeah Script or mortis. I think might fall into worthless gambling, right? You know what? You know how that should function is Like the emerald host ability Like the emerald host ability is his ability, but good. Mm-hmm It is It's very funny All right sin type on this. This is a venial sin for the much the same reason the first one Because largely you'll just ignore these things. You won't pick these command traits You won't pick these artifacts You won't care about these abilities if it's bad enough for the unit The only problem where it becomes bad is when it's something like the the the bad moon where it's your whole legion's ability It's probably a mortal sin for goblins But for most people they can just ignore this stuff it's it becomes if some lorem text, right? Yeah I agree with hey. Well by the way you said a good test is if this worked a hundred percent of the time Would it be good? Yeah, right like if you removed all the gates and it was just working would it be good? And if the answer still no, then you know you're in a bad place. Yeah. Yeah Make an army list using only these abilities and play 10 games That's this is all you get to use you have to pick every one of these stupid command traits and artifacts and everything like this And only these models and play 10 games and then you have to come back and write me three good artifacts and spells That's your patents. Mm-hmm Okay The next one's called bad at any price So the this is where I have your goblin complaint. Okay. Yeah, so here. I have the shooters stat line is an example where where they've got Shooting weapons on five ups and five ups at 16 inches then melee weapons on five ups and five ups I also have a picture of the steam tank. I'm assuming non-hero steam tank here I couldn't find a picture one with the top closed because the picture all just has the guy poking out the top and And then the slangor fiends Guys Okay This one self-explanatory when you write a scroll that's so bad That it's just there's no price you can effectively point it at to make it worth playing That's it So there's in which and for me the big sin here is actually the waste of time. Yes Okay, because let's say you have that pack of 60 goblins cool cool story man 60 shots, right? Yeah So you roll 60 dice Okay, and assuming you're not shooting a hero with minus one to hit hit sure, right? You hit 50 times or no, you have 20 times. Yeah. Yes. So now you roll 20 more dice and You wound like six times roughly. Yep with no friend You're gonna do on average like three damage against a four up Correct for rolling all of those dice, right? Like you've just spent how much time and then measuring ranges for 16 inches for all 60 goblins Yeah, make sure they're within range, right? Like you've just wasted seven minutes of our time for maybe three wounds, right? Right Yep Yes, I people are also calling this the Saigur rule I think I could have called it Saigurian War Scrolls as well as I think a woe said at the beginning Yes, and yes I agree the Saigur being another great example of things that could fit in here, right? Yeah, as Zack said technically nine of those goblins have nets so it's 51 dice Okay, you're 60 that is true bunch of dudes do have nets So, you know like I think this one's pretty self-explanatory bad war scrolls I still have this is a sin type of venial Because unless the whole army consists of these You can play around them my real problem actually I would identify something even deeper with this Tom, okay? Like you're absolutely right on the time wasting thing but These create trap choices, especially for newer players low information players Who think steam tanks are cool or hey those new slang or look awesome because like they do right? They're really good looking on models. Yeah, and It just creates these trap choices that new players run into and they don't understand why they're having a bad time because they don't understand the whole Meta construction of why this role is innately bad. Yeah, right? So trap choices are just terrible. I'm okay with an under performer You know what? I mean like you look at something you're like, yeah, that's yeah That's kind of underperforming like maybe it could come down some points, you know Like in the night haunt show we had the big discussion about lady. Oh Yeah, okay, and like maybe Lady Olander is Slightly overpriced sure maybe she's not okay. She's not a bad war scroll like there is a point cost for her That is valid. Yeah, I look at her and I would run her like in some Some built right and you can you can pick your thing like yes, right? Yeah Um It's funny because you know the steam tank commander is fine He's like an under performer. He's probably not worth his points completely, but he's fine He can be valid. He can be a valid part of the game Right. Yeah, and I've had good luck with him when you sort of use him the right way in a list But when he loses the hero keyword, it's just this thing that's not a monster. It's not anything It's just not doing a roll. No, it has no roll. No function. There's just no appropriate No appropriate price you can point it at Right It becomes nothing more than a trap that that fools newer players. Right, right penance Your penance is to play an army of just these scrolls And then do a bottom up development phase for each battle tone from now on Where after you write everything in the design phase you go back through with the development and a fit an actual discreet different human being development pass who looks at this from a bottom up perspective and Rebalances and re-strengthens where things need to be strengthened and for a bottom up So top down is for those that understand it's moving from concept the idea Down into rules, right the bottom up development looks at all the rules And says what does this thing do in the game? right And is it accomplishing the thing that it does If it does not you need to go back to the drawing board and fix that thing So it does the thing it's supposed to be doing in the game not conceptually from from the like High the like high concept idea of of the description right Exactly You got it Okay This one I have as called roles on roles Okay When when players are allowed to make too many roles to mitigate the randomness of the game Now this is something we've been addressing I don't I don't know that this is a problem Says the regrowl will save multi wards save chaos warrior running player Yeah, and hey, well, you're exactly correct both ways are good like There's no problem with start with doing top down design. You just need to bottom up develop then Yeah, you do both. Yeah. Yeah, you should be doing both as part of any healthy design phase Here I have the auric rune father tom Uh in this example being where he not only has a bodyguard rule Right, he has an armor save He has an armor save of course. Yeah, and then he has a bodyguard rule We're on a three up. He can pass it to his retinue Yeah, okay, which bodyguard rules innately. I don't have a problem with now that we've largely cleaned them up Largely Okay. Yep. However, this little Doofus and his buddy Still have the problem where they're Uh They still get to allocate over the other unit who then gets another ward rule Okay, which could potentially be a four up by the way. Yeah, okay So So then we're going to go four up three up four up That is way too much negation potential But it's the same thing is like old school re-rollable ward cities. Yeah. Yeah Absolutely like doc's old five up re-rollable Yep Where they get Their normal armor saving than a five up re-rollable, which is just it's just too much Yeah, like I said, we've largely removed this from the game, right? We can't stack ward saves anymore We've gotten rid of a lot of like re-rolls to hits and wounds, which is all good Because I think we need to understand the power of re-rolls and how they Not only are they incredibly time consuming to go back to your point, right? That is something that takes up a lot of time and slows the game down but When it's also then directly influencing in a strong way Your ability to mitigate negate or control the what should be the randomness of the game and warp the odds In a really unhealthy way. Yeah, right Okay, uh Oh, uh, hey, hey lol. Sure. Uh, what's npe negative play experience broadly categorized Meaning like things that that just by their very existence in the game tend to piss people off Yes, it generates experiences that make people not want to play the game. Yeah, exactly. Yes. That's that's that's a really good summation Um These aren't there aren't a lot of these and that's why this pissed me off so much when this came out Because every other body Yes, it's been so much. Yes, right when it was kind of everywhere. I was willing to accept it You know, like it's just well everything sucks. So this is just a thing that sucks or whatever, right? Right, right But now that we're trending in such a good direction and all the new books have fixed their bodyguard roles Yeah, right where it's like you you make that in bodyguard role in place of any ward save that person has Cool. Good. And then when it transfers over that transfer unit just has to eat it One roll I'm okay with an armor save and then a negation roll. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. That's fine That's that's the thing that's in the game and it's fine. That works perfectly fine That's what you need to have defensive units. I'm good with it. That's healthy When we start adding additional roles on roles, that's where I have a problem okay Sin type here Is venial still okay because Again, it's not the worst thing in the world. You can pull these apart It's bad, but it's not crippling to the entire ecosystem or anything. It's just annoying, right? And and they're at this point. They're sporadic, right? And so they're proud nails. They're not actually systemic problems Yeah, exactly SJ arcade say they snuck this bodyguard rule with ward re-roll under the four plus rally smokescreen. That's true Yeah, uh, and oh, yeah, strength hammer. Certainly there can be some npe humans. That is definitely true Uh Penance they have to fight armies With only these abilities like I want them to fight a fire slayer army that has these abilities for five games And they're only allowed to play gets Okay, so they must pilot gets for five games against something like fire slayers fire slayers or uh Legion of the first prince. No enjoy your games Yes, then standardize the effect and rules language and realize why you shouldn't do this Like the reality is this they should have a database so they should have templates For rules like this that just get copy pasted in which they do. I don't know why they decided to change this That's what's even more mystified to me. Yeah, they do have a a They do have a glossary of terms they start from a singular like book that has all the text in it Yes I can't explain it. Okay Next up maybe it's a playtester's fault I'm shot Just slipping in bad like bad rules complications. Like let's see if this one goes all right The next one is called hyper efficiency Hyper efficiency is when you are allowed to put too many things together onto a singular thing That creates like units that are just extremely difficult to deal with now I don't know what you're talking about. These are Doc is fine. This isn't no, that's an interesting point doc might actually be fine Right again, there was a there's a time in the world Right. Well, I'm I'm flippantly saying this about doc But there was a time the world worth doc like its strength was that it could turn any unit into a super unit Yeah, and this is a tough one Okay, I want to be super clear here because I don't have a problem with synergy synergies like the whole part of this game Right, right, that's and it's important. Like it's it should to be here. It's an important thing It's of high value And I don't have a problem with death stars Okay, yeah, like Conceptually death stars are fine. They should carry enough they carry enough cost Generally to balance them out like you only have one active unit on a game with potentially four to six objectives And that unit can't be everywhere at once Right and all this kind of stuff Yeah, where we and that's why this one's tough because it's It's sort of a there's some kind of line and it's not a very bright line at all Where you cross over to where now that just becomes the auto-include combo Yeah, right So like sentinels, you have a photo of sentinels. So having five up shooting mortals inherently like I don't like it Yep, because it has an efficiency and scalability problem right away right away, but I'm just like Okay, like I can stomach this if I have to But then add six inches onto it Right 30 and 36 inches and then add re-rolling all hits so you can fish for those five up mortals, right? Um and then Yes, and then Ignore a line of sight and so on and so on and so on and oh by the way They're in an aura so they have a five up after save as well. So now they're not as five up saves. They're also five up works And then and we can just keep oh and we can teleport them Uh, wherever we want using spell wars, right and then uh again Do you know what solves this By the way, the other example I have here just I want to get your solution But the other example I have here. I think is just as important and that's the megaboss on mawkrasher Right who has this exact same problem with all his like pile on pile on movement movement stuff Yeah, where he can just be in any like in a given turn He can just be anywhere he wants and his command ability to triple come, you know command ability out It's just not healthy for new players, right? I don't I don't this is not to be super clear It's not just like I picked sentinels because they're sort of a good example And are a good shooting example, but the mawkrasher is just as bad and in the npe survey There was a lot of people who rated those kind of melee alpha strikes as very negative Yeah, right. Yeah and remember folks This isn't about your how many times you five oh at a tournament because I see somebody like artoria She said I don't really see lumineath placing anymore. So I don't know if it's that efficient I'm not worried about how you do at tournaments. That is irrelevant to this discussion to a good or bad rule tournament players will exploit bad rules and know how to fight against bad rules tournament players are always the least of my concern Because skill is the most important thing at a high level of a tournament the the rules underneath They know all the armies. They know how to play against all the armies The data is very clear about that that skill at the highest levels given Yeah If you're in the top 10 at a reasonably sized tournament if you're on tables one through five You know basically every army what they all do what the combos are what you're going to play against And how to counter it and and if you buy yourself into that position in round five and you aren't that person You're not going to win And if you if you are a tournament regular you most likely know eight of the 10 other people that are out there Like that should because again Like you will regularly see the same people at top tables at most events. So I'm not worried about who's winning I'm worried about like what does this Is this rule healthy for the game overall? That's what a bad rule is We didn't lay down a sort of like groundwork for this at the beginning with the idea of time But yeah, it's casual killers these things make the game More bad for a larger group of people than it makes it good for Simplest principle Is it doing more harm than good? Okay, yeah, yeah That's it And Like there's a world where you could have sentinels doing mortals on five ups and they would be fine No, I and I agree and that and that's what I was communicating. Is that like I can tolerate sentinels on Fiving on mortals, you know, like that is that is survivable. I can live in that world Um, I'm more concerned about the ant Yeah, it is that it is the curse of the and right all the things you can stack or do or so on and so The the challenge here is that it is a very soft line like I'll agree this one's tough And this is where things like development we talked about previously really has to come into play Right. Yeah, that's my solution like this only gets solved By people getting their hands dirty in development Right and because sometimes you'll read something and it'll feel like this and it's actually not it's fine. Yeah, right Um, but this I mean, this is why you employ me the way you do fans Is because of because one of the first passes that I do with anything is look at all the all the and Right, so I'll sit down with the equivalent of like whatever game we're testing like The the what I would call the ecosystem of data Okay, and look at all the things that can be stacked on top of each other And then ask in this optimum scenario is this problematic? right Right, okay, and then and then at that point like that's then just adjusting the margins So if it's six abilities doing that it's then making small changes on a handful of those abilities To bring in the ability to apply one of those or something like that. Yes, right exactly or changing the key Or key words as to what I can synergize with or whatever, right? Um, and by the way, there's not somebody it's not Somebody that said the dark side of this keyword bingo, and I agree like lack of efficiency the nonbow problem, right? That's that that's the flip side of the sword and I don't want that either Like that's absolutely what we what we do not want. We want stress testing Right where you're figuring out what are the break points where the system goes offline? Oh gary stress testing not play testing Yes, gary exactly Yeah, um, yeah, it's like things that are going to tip over Into that space Right and just create more bad than good and yes, there's some art to it. It's not like you can mathematically map that Right, that's why I say this is one of the toughest ones Unfortunately, this is a mortal sin when it happens math is your guidelines, right? Okay, that that's math should math should give you the red flags, right? But then actually going in and the tweaking is not a mathematical problem. It's an art. Yeah Okay, so This is a mortal sin to me and it's a sin of not doing enough development, right? um No chase. It's it's negative. It's it is negative play experience It is subjective which is kind of the point, right? Like because the game is subjective what people find enjoyable is subjective But that it doesn't mean that doesn't mean it's not valuable subjective day 95 percent of your data about the world is subjective That you interact with every day. We make like I've taught Subjective data is the most valuable kind of data in the world. It's how we make nearly every decision you make every day And that doesn't make it worthless. It just means that it isn't it isn't generalizable To a hundred percent. That doesn't mean it's not we can't learn about it if we gather enough of it penance for this particular sin Watch new players play against an average player using these tools You must sit there as the designer and watch a new player with whatever army they think they want to play They have to play against an average player using this stuff And watch how that new player feels what yeah, watch their face, right? You can see it in their eyes yeah And like see how good you feel about that rule you wrote in as you watch as you watch your rules kill people's love of this game Then go back and reduce this energy Okay, yeah, okay The first time some new player sets up their stuff and they're like Yay, I have an army and then this tooled up mega boss comes screaming across the table 36 inches in Kills two of their units. They charge it back to fight Do nothing to it it turns and kills that unit Yeah, it's like charging off turn Uh, there you go. Yeah, that's and watch how much they enjoy that Uh, so there you go Uh, it's in our past show stuff, uh chase we there's a if you search through the playlist There's a negative play experience show with all the results from the survey in it Okay, which by the way, I draw this from this is what Microsoft used to do to their software developers Whenever they coded something they would bring in people who didn't really know how to use their software weren't good with computers And put them in a room and have them use the software that the developers just coded and have the developers watch The people try to use their software Anybody that's not a sociopath It's emotionally crushing. Yes, absolutely Okay All right And that's it. That's my last one. There you go. Those those are our sins tom. We did it We got there. We did it in an hour Like I said folks, this is a quick show because I have to get on the road and drive. I'm going to see Adam I'm going to see everybody Uh, so what I'll say is uh, what did we miss? What didn't we talk about? I don't want to misconstrue all this. I really do think the game is in a good spot overall Uh, I really do have a great amount of fun playing this and the reason but that doesn't mean we don't point out the areas for improvement Uh, you know in my normal life I work on like agile software developments and at the end of every sprint We do what we call inspect and adapt and you look and say no matter how good we do Right Yeah, what could we have done better? Yeah That's just the question. We're always asking ourselves because continuous improvement is just a thing That should be happening and so Uh, this is just me hoping to put this out there to to really try to codify and categorize what I see As the proud nails the problems the challenges of the current system that should be resolved And so the irony here is that basically all of this occurs in the lumenet book Uh, well a lot of it does. Yeah, sure a quick recap. We'll take a minute hyper efficiency We talked about it. Its problem is it it's a soft thing to identify but it allows for Way too much going on In a single unit that can't be countered it warps incentives. It warps lists and it creates bad play experiences Yeah rolls on rolls slows the game down and Creates bad structures where the randomness that is normally there as a balance factor to the game gets mitigated and controlled too strongly Hey, what's up squid by the way. Good to see you buddy Hope you're doing well a meal Bad at any price bad war scrolls creates traps Makes it especially bad for new players who are just taking a thing. They think looks cool or wants to play Uh, and frankly even for veteran players, you just want to play a cool unit. They really like it sucks Uh Worthless gambling where you have to go through way too many gates and do way too many things to actually make something happen And and that effect being too menial and non-material to even be worth all the gates you had to pass to do it massive npe Creating just a rule structure a super rule superstructure that by default creates more negative experience amongst the player base Than it does positives doesn't mean everybody hates it. It means too many people hate it. Yeah. Yeah right And finally impossible abilities Abilities that are written and look like abilities like they look like something you can use I'll think that's not in starters, but it's a trap Because in fact you will never do them or never qualify for them or even if you did accidentally You would forget to actually activate them because they're so rarefied Yep. Yep. So there we go If we missed anything Hey Drop it down in the comments. Don't forget to hit like as I said. This is a quick show a controversial show I'm sure that there will be people who are upset at me Uh, if you take issue with anything we said here, by the way, feel free to drop those in the comments Make it constructive. I love feedback So tell us what we missed. Tell us what you think about our list all that kind of stuff And uh, we look forward to I look forward to hearing from you Don't forget hit like subscribe. Hit all those buttons. It's fun If you want to support it, there is a support the channel There is a patreon down below focused on uh the hobby and review and feedback It's got a really cool discord community. You can be a part of as well. Check that out tom. Thank you very much As always really appreciate it All of you out there watching thank you so much Sorry for the short show this week, but like I said, I do have to drive nine hours And uh on top of that my dog spent all last night vomiting. So it wasn't that fun It was a super great night. I have to now go and drive. So it's been a long long long two days for me Uh, but at any rate dog's fine now, by the way, don't worry. Everything's fine She's okay. She just ate something she shouldn't have But she's okay And uh, but thank you very much for watching. We really appreciate it Uh, as always We'll see you next wednesday