NagoyaHammer.com

Non competitive games

Do you enjoy your 40k? I think you would agree with me that it can get a little out of hand sometimes.

The Rock Paper Scissors elements of the game, the natural human instincts to succeed and of self preservation, the fact that point values of units may not be indicative of in game strength and the fact that some people are just bastards can all contribute to a broken broken list that will ruin your day ...and your 40k.

Then, in order to counter it you may feel that the only recourse is to counter your opponents list by being worse than your opponent. I find that this can be rather stressful and can in many cases lead to frustration, ill will, disgruntled feelings, gossiping/ bad mouthing other people and unnecessary expenditure on models you don't really want.

And so it is this culture of competitiveness that I'd like to address. Over the past few months I have been trying to think of ways to make my 40k more enjoyable for not only myself but everyone else also.

Am I telling you, you can't use the miniatures your worked so hard to pay for and paint up? Not at all!
You can have pick up games s much as you want.

I'm trying to promote an alternate, fairer, and some would argue, a more fun system that goes against the grain of the way things have always been done.

Pre-making lists
Assault on black reach? Ever played it? It was the starter set for warhammer 40k way back when.
I love assault on black reach. Why is that?

Why, because one side did not have an overbearing advantage over the other. It was a game of how far should I move forward, and how many turns till the the orks to charge. Rather than, a game of giving up because they have the cheese and you don't.

Assault on black reach was fun
-because you knew exactly what was in the set.
-The lists were set, and they were pretty fair.
-it had a good narrative to go along with it

As prim mentioned I have been hard at work building 750 point set lists that are designed for non competitive play with each other, for all the armies I own or am in the process of acquiring. Thanks to Badruk, Konrad and Kojibear weve had a chance to play test this, and I must say it is rather refreshing not getting blown off the table by turn 3

These are examples of the kind of game I would like you, the community of Nagoya hammer, to try, and will be posting pictures and details of them in the following posts.

I unreservedly and wholeheartedly support this course of action!

Fun, balanced games for all who want them.
You can take your Taudar and Trip-tides and put them someplace where it would be uncomfortable. Chess Hammer sounds like a winner to me.

Yep, sounds like a winner to me.

I'd be more than happy to play test it. Don't think I can offer much in the way of list ideas as I'm not that rules savvy, but if you put up example Blood Angel, Ork, or Eldar lists I will give them a practice run for you.

This is why one of my gold standards for what I consider good wargame design* is "does it introduce differences between units and armies with as few unit- or army-specific rules as humanly possible?" (If you have a very small list of points-buy options and/or a very small number of stats, so much the better.) Because you can, in my experience, introduce very large differences between stuff on the table with very small numbers of very simple special rules, and this (again in my experience) makes it much easier for the designer to spot and stamp out the weird unintended combinations that will, in a competitive environment, force themselves to the center of the game if left unchecked.

*Well, at least in the context of games where units have some sort of points value assigned to them. And also leaving off games where unbalanced wackiness is part of the point, I s'pose.

All just IMO, naturally - just to explain my vote of "I agree with jus and wish to subscribe to his newsletter, yo".

The Other Dave wrote:This is why one of my gold standards for what I consider good wargame design* is "does it introduce differences between units and armies with as few unit- or army-specific rules as humanly possible?" (If you have a very small list of points-buy options and/or a very small number of stats, so much the better.) Because you can, in my experience, introduce very large differences between stuff on the table with very small numbers of very simple special rules, and this (again in my experience) makes it much easier for the designer to spot and stamp out the weird unintended combinations that will, in a competitive environment, force themselves to the center of the game if left unchecked.

*Well, at least in the context of games where units have some sort of points value assigned to them. And also leaving off games where unbalanced wackiness is part of the point, I s'pose.

All just IMO, naturally - just to explain my vote of "I agree with jus and wish to subscribe to his newsletter, yo".

I remember discussing something similar with Prim and he raised the idea of the universal special rules being used to differentiate between armies rather than a load of new ones being added to the codices.

I think think this is a very good idea. Certainly the idea of playing the Black Reach box set came to my mind before. Of course, generally this can also be achieved by just not thinking too much about any game system.

I also agree with ToD. My favorite games usually abide by this rule: FoW, Epic, Black Powder, Bolt Action, Chess.

I think one way to achieve this might be to let your opponents write a list or a list guideline. For example, "You must have Space Marine Captain and three tactical squads mounted forming an extraction covey. Your support will be a Land Skimmer squad providing air cover and veterans from the 1st company. Of course, you must include a Venerable Dreadnaught. 1000 points." This way you could create fluff and atmosphere while not having to go through each players collection. Also, by having a hand in your opponents army, you can make gaming more or collective thing rather than a competitive thing.

One other thing, trying more strict WYSIWYG. Playing a game should be about just enjoying toys on a board and doing the best with your mission and your luck on a given day, IMHO. You know sometimes life only gives you a lascannon to deal with a mob of Orks. In some respects that ain't so bad. No need to proxy it for a heavy bolter.

Well, that's just my two bits.

For some reason I read the title as "project cheesehammer" which is the exact opposite of your goal!

Sounds like an interesting idea to me, I always prefer narrative-driven, thematic games to a straight out fight.

Any chance of a Adepta Sororitas list? Or if you provide more info about your list design philosophy I'll try my hand at one.

I feel really bad and scummy and wrong even thinking this but...



I really enjoy planning army lists.








Is that such a bad thing? I don't mean power gaming. 3 riptide taudar smells just as foul to me as it does to you, but the idea of playing a game with a list someone else wrote leaves me completely cold. List writing is one of the most fun/important parts of the game, no? Is that just me that thinks that? I've said things to this effect a number of times in the past, but I'll say it again: if you want your opponent to not power game, then why not just ask him not to? Why come up with all sorts of weird and wonderful limitation on the FOC? As Job so succintly put :

Job wrote:Of course, generally this can also be achieved by just not thinking too much about any game system.

I absolutely salute Jus for actually sitting down and planning a solution to a perceived problem rather than just moaning about it, and if pre-planned games are what people want to play then I'll for sure join in, and willingly, rather than be billy-no-mates in the corner, but I can't help but feel that writing lists for other people to play is kinda taking their fun away and keeping it for yourself. (I appreciate that this is in no way Jus's intent, of course.)

While I'm at it, I should probably also mention that I really like all sorts of weird and wonderful army-specific special rules. It keeps things interesting and makes for unique situations.

In closing though, I think I should mention that I am 100% behind the idea of scenario driven games. As job (once again - on a roll today, me ol' joberoo...) said:

For example, "You must have Space Marine Captain and three tactical squads mounted forming an extraction covey. Your support will be a Land Skimmer squad providing air cover and veterans from the 1st company. Of course, you must include a Venerable Dreadnaught. 1000 points." This way you could create fluff and atmosphere while not having to go through each players collection. Also, by having a hand in your opponents army, you can make gaming more or collective thing rather than a competitive thing.

A story-driven set of limitations is quite a different proposition to "here's your list. play it." It allows for the player to be imaginative. If there is a scenario specific set of victory conditions, all the better.

Anyway - that's my two yen. I can see I'm in a minority of one, so I aint going to belabour my point (well, no more than I already have). Just weighing in, cos of being an active community member 'n all that

ps - I meant it when I said I'd happily play what others want to play. A game I'm not 100% behind is still better than no game at all. Beer afterwards is always good, too

Pre-arranged narrative games sounds like nothing but fun. After all, you can keep arranging things until it sounds like a fun game. And I've never seen a narrative that detracted from a game. (They exist I'm sure, I've just never seen it.)

On the Overlords podcast they've talked more than once about doing little 3-game mini campaigns so there is one game each for the beginning, middle, and end of a story. If we could commit to three small games with the same opponent in a reasonable amount of time, it sounds like a great opportunity to make a story together.

Fiddling with lists is one of the fun parts of the game. But the reason for the fiddling doesn't need to be trying to secure an advantage over your opponent. It can be fiddling to forge a narrative, or just fiddling for fiddling's sake.

The way Jus explained it to me was to build a small thematic army, avoiding any of the big powerhouse units, or minis that required the opponent to build a list to take them down. E.g. Tactical Marines in a Rhino are ok, but Terminators in a Land Raider aren't, that kind of thing. You don't have to take the worst units from your codex, but you should work with your opponent to take a list that should hopefully give you a fun, close-run game without one unit cutting through the enemy ranks with impunity.