Just reading forums and /tg/ and seeing a lot of 'finecast is a moneygrab'. This is true. Harkening back to an earlier post I made on the subject; the reason it is a moneygrab is because the market is saturated with readily available models. At a discount.
So now people are saying that the switch to resin will just promote the piracy effect of casting your own models.
Wakey wakey this is what they want to happen because it's easy to sue people and generate money from fines than it is to peddle metal/plastic/resin to a tight market. Lawyers get it good because it's like finance. They don't actually have to produce any kind of good that gets sold. The pen truly is mightier than the sword.. by perception.
I think that we're about to see GW downsizing its model production immensely. The fact that their products are at an unsustainably high price over their production levels is no secret, what is a secret is that it doesn't matter because all you do is close stores, shift the product to independant retailers and reduce the size and number of your production facilities. In a sense, GW could have and maybe should have opened localised production factories in its major centres. Especially now since they've switched to resin.
NZ has oilfields. It can supply the very minimal amounts of resin/plastics needed to GW plants. The US? Detroit hello? Large population of impovershed ex-factory workers in a society that celebrates the implied slavery of 'working for what you're worth' and 'the invisible hand of the market' even though most historical evidence suggests that conditions will never improve for the larger population unless they murder their social superiors. The US could very easily manufacture, locally, the required levels of product-X and pay fuck all to the employees there as well. The UK? Forgeworld already exists. Expand it. Problem solved. Greater Europe? I imagine Serbia wouldn't mind the work.
Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and if that's true its most likely legal issues rather than ones of purely production/markets/sales.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
5e Necrons and GW game design
So I'm browsing /tg/ and reading up on 40k rumours through the webs.
There's a couple of comments being made across the world that don't make the greatest sense..
Try dodging or parrying a blade that can phase through anything, it'll be hard as shit, especiall when Pariah were NOT slow asshat robots and were semi-human.
But yeah, you guys think it's fine when why not have EVERY closecombat weapon be something thats a power weapon that adds +2 strength.
Because A warscythe. a Klaive and an Honourblade are all practically the same thing right?
In fact, lets hope Gauss weapons are bolters exactly, with no anti-tank or rending rules because hell! it makes sense too right? It shoots at people, and it hurts! So it must be equal to the mighty bolter!
Well that's just fascinating really. A very simple way to look at 5th edition and the inevitable 6th edition is: simplify, streamline, better core rules, fewer core rules.
So in that sense you have races which relied on oodles of special rules have throughout the editions received fewer perks over the big 3 (Chaos, SM and Orks). Some races still have special rules in their 5th edition format (IG for example) but the general format of the game as a whole is moving towards, summarily: convergence.
It is held that evolution converges on certain designs as needs see fit. Horses and Zebra? Buffalo and Cow. Lynx and Tiger. Yes they share genetic ancestors but so do Humans and Apes and yet we developed cities and they are at the mercy of their environment. Certain physiological designs gain prominence and stay on top while poor or overspecialised trends die out. It's nothing to fear really.
The same concepts can be applied to game rules. Rules which are poorly designed or overspecialised will be scorned and un-used while the cheesiest will be abused and find their way in to every list. So we are observing convergence on the game rules here; what specifically is happening?
The base unit attribute set is still the s3/t3/5+. Necrons specifically are converging toward contemporary space-marine stat-lines (albeit now with a 4+ save however they have their technical 5+ secondary save and are cheaper) and their weapons are being diversified at the expense of their special rules. So now Necrons quite truly have Lascannons and Assault Cannons and probably Melta Guns and in the case of Pariahs specifically; they are rumoured to being removed from the game entirely. Perhaps they are.
So they are converging to the 5th/6th edition standard of codex and greater game design. As said elsewhere by people with longer gazes than I. From my perspective we're seeing the game shifting to being a matter of having 3 templates that the armies are based off and deviation from the armies themselves is simply a matter of applying unique abilities to that army as a whole rather than trying to balance 9 different sets of stats AND their weapons/special rules.
Where does that leave the other armies then? I think CSM will stay much as they are. Their unique problems are more that they are overshadowed by contemporary SM's and not so much that they as an army are outright terrible. They need to be updated and have the things which gimped their army removed. I'm not saying to give them back Daemons in the bloodletter/GUO sense but certainly make the overall effect of taking a themed Lord have more impact, eg, Lord of Khorne opens up bloodletters but restricts Tzeentch units. Whether or not the Daemons themselves become worth the purchase is a different question altogether.
Tau? BS3 firewarriors. At the very minimum. Heavy weapons options on more squads. Whether those take the form of railguns, missile launchers or meltabomb-kroot I don't know but that's the theory.
Craftworld Eldar? Now there's a good question. Were it up to me, banshees would be dropped and there'd be slight decreases in price on our tanks and heavy weapons. As far as infantry are concerned? DarkReapers with access to EML on each unit member (really, 35pts a piece, 55 for exarch with EML. Most expensive HS infantry ever?) CWEldar are a tough cookie because they are only just sub-par right now so any sweeping changes to them would probably put them in the easymodo catagory.
The theme as always is convergence.. but when the race in question is the one who sets the standard if you screw it up you screw over all the others that are based on it.
Fundamentally the 3 templates are CWE, SM and Nids. Tell me I'm wrong.
CWE = DE, Tau, IG
SM = CSM
Necrons = Tyranids, Daemons
There's a couple of comments being made across the world that don't make the greatest sense..
Try dodging or parrying a blade that can phase through anything, it'll be hard as shit, especiall when Pariah were NOT slow asshat robots and were semi-human.
But yeah, you guys think it's fine when why not have EVERY closecombat weapon be something thats a power weapon that adds +2 strength.
Because A warscythe. a Klaive and an Honourblade are all practically the same thing right?
In fact, lets hope Gauss weapons are bolters exactly, with no anti-tank or rending rules because hell! it makes sense too right? It shoots at people, and it hurts! So it must be equal to the mighty bolter!
Well that's just fascinating really. A very simple way to look at 5th edition and the inevitable 6th edition is: simplify, streamline, better core rules, fewer core rules.
So in that sense you have races which relied on oodles of special rules have throughout the editions received fewer perks over the big 3 (Chaos, SM and Orks). Some races still have special rules in their 5th edition format (IG for example) but the general format of the game as a whole is moving towards, summarily: convergence.
It is held that evolution converges on certain designs as needs see fit. Horses and Zebra? Buffalo and Cow. Lynx and Tiger. Yes they share genetic ancestors but so do Humans and Apes and yet we developed cities and they are at the mercy of their environment. Certain physiological designs gain prominence and stay on top while poor or overspecialised trends die out. It's nothing to fear really.
The same concepts can be applied to game rules. Rules which are poorly designed or overspecialised will be scorned and un-used while the cheesiest will be abused and find their way in to every list. So we are observing convergence on the game rules here; what specifically is happening?
The base unit attribute set is still the s3/t3/5+. Necrons specifically are converging toward contemporary space-marine stat-lines (albeit now with a 4+ save however they have their technical 5+ secondary save and are cheaper) and their weapons are being diversified at the expense of their special rules. So now Necrons quite truly have Lascannons and Assault Cannons and probably Melta Guns and in the case of Pariahs specifically; they are rumoured to being removed from the game entirely. Perhaps they are.
So they are converging to the 5th/6th edition standard of codex and greater game design. As said elsewhere by people with longer gazes than I. From my perspective we're seeing the game shifting to being a matter of having 3 templates that the armies are based off and deviation from the armies themselves is simply a matter of applying unique abilities to that army as a whole rather than trying to balance 9 different sets of stats AND their weapons/special rules.
Where does that leave the other armies then? I think CSM will stay much as they are. Their unique problems are more that they are overshadowed by contemporary SM's and not so much that they as an army are outright terrible. They need to be updated and have the things which gimped their army removed. I'm not saying to give them back Daemons in the bloodletter/GUO sense but certainly make the overall effect of taking a themed Lord have more impact, eg, Lord of Khorne opens up bloodletters but restricts Tzeentch units. Whether or not the Daemons themselves become worth the purchase is a different question altogether.
Tau? BS3 firewarriors. At the very minimum. Heavy weapons options on more squads. Whether those take the form of railguns, missile launchers or meltabomb-kroot I don't know but that's the theory.
Craftworld Eldar? Now there's a good question. Were it up to me, banshees would be dropped and there'd be slight decreases in price on our tanks and heavy weapons. As far as infantry are concerned? DarkReapers with access to EML on each unit member (really, 35pts a piece, 55 for exarch with EML. Most expensive HS infantry ever?) CWEldar are a tough cookie because they are only just sub-par right now so any sweeping changes to them would probably put them in the easymodo catagory.
The theme as always is convergence.. but when the race in question is the one who sets the standard if you screw it up you screw over all the others that are based on it.
Fundamentally the 3 templates are CWE, SM and Nids. Tell me I'm wrong.
CWE = DE, Tau, IG
SM = CSM
Necrons = Tyranids, Daemons
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