HUGE Age of Sigmar rules leaks and pics

Here it is, get 'em while they're hot.

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada gameplay analysis

Super excited to play this game!

Check this out guys, here's the latest gameplay on Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.  I must have watched the video a hundred times, but I only did it because I'm really interested in seeing how this company is going to translate this vaulted table-top into a computer game.  Oh, one more minor video here, but you have to squint really hard to see anything.  Just listen in for the most part.

Here's a brief analysis from what I can see from a gameplay perspective:

• It looks like some special orders translates seemingly into RTS.  For example, it looks like All Ahead Full! is just a boost to speed at the expense of firing weapons maybe.  Or maybe it's just a minor decrease to weapons such as +25% speed for -25% rate of fire.  Likewise, Brace for Impact! might be a +25% damage reduction for -25% damage.
• The stats of the ship look pretty straight forward when translated onto an RTS platform.  Shields just look like a raw value that acts like an overheal, so its essentially extra health until shields go down.  Once shields go down, the damage is then applied to the ship's hull, which acts as health points.  When this value reaches 0, the ship explodes.  We're unsure if there's going to be different factors in play here when the ship explodes.  Does it have a chance to Warp Drive Implosion when the ship goes down?   We don't know.
• To expand on this a little further, it looks like there is going to be battle damage when damage is being applied to the ship.  The designers themselves said that there are going to be ways to damage weapon components and that immediately reminds me of Homeworld.  If players are able to disable a ship's engines to make them slower or completely crippled, then that can add huge dimensions to gameplay because of all the things you can do to an enemy ship.  You can clearly see chunks of the ship flying off as it takes heavy damage, but I'm unsure if these pieces continue to do damage to other ships that bump into them.
• Speaking of bumping into stuff, I don't think I see any Blast marker mechanics from the gameplay videoes so far.  Blast might have a side-effect to show that a ship is taking damage in general and that it moves slower once in combat, but that's all just guess work right now.
• From what I've seen from the combat system, it seems like most of the attacks are hitting the enemy ship when they're being fired with the exception of a few things like Torpedoes.  I think this means that they're making the torps fire like skillshots from a MOBA, and having them go on cooldown after being fired, which makes a fair amount of sense.  The big thing here to note is that if most of the attacks are hitting, but not all of them, then that means there's a hit modifier right?  If that's the case, then that makes Eldar Holo-fields really easy to do.  Attacks will simply miss more against ships utilizing Holo-fields, which is both consistent with the fluff and translates easily into the engine.  Whether or not this is actually good for gameplay is another issue.  If something like hit chance is in the game, what about criticals?  What if the RNG gods are cruel and you lose a Void Stalker based on bad RNG?  Surely that's bound to happen to everyone once in a while, but as long as its done tastefully and not consistently frustrating then it's OK.
• Right now, we are unsure how the damage formula for the ships are.  I'm assuming that ship weapons systems are doing set damage values every X amount of seconds (multiplied by hit chance) vs. Y amount of health using Z% of damage reduction due to armor.  This means that the damage system is a very easy to understand DPS vs. damage reduction formula being used with Torpedoes every 60 seconds or until the Reload Order is being used or something.
• Speaking of Orders, I'm not sure if there's going to be all the Orders in BFG, but there will be some well-known ones.  I think I saw All Ahead Full and Brace for Impact, but I don't know if any others exist.  From what I can see from the UI, it looks like every ship, or at least the important capital ships will have special abilities that maybe the captain will do.  For example, you might be able to select certain abilties on your captain as he levels up, and he will be able to apply that to any ship that he rides in.
• Going off of that, it seems that you will be able to upgrade various parts of the ship as you progress in the game.  The designers specifically mentioned that you will be able upgrade nearly everything, from the weapons to the officers, to the engines, you know it.  I'm curious to see if this is only going to be a single-player mechanic, or is it going to be in multiplayer as well where you can purchase more worthwhile upgrades, but it will add a cost to your ship.
• Before we go any further on this, I just wanted to say that no information has been released about how fighters/bombers are going to work.  Right now, we can only assume that there will be turret/defense interactions and fighters/bombers will be treated as mini units that can be launched from their carriers from a special action.  Once they unload, or fight, or what have you, they might need to reload back at their carriers before a Reload action is called so they can be sent out again.  This is all guesswork, but that's what I would do in an RTS game so why not?
• This leads me to my last part of this brief analysis, and that's the cost association with the ships.  Since I only really care about multiplayer, it looks like you'll be able to set a game up with a certain amount of points kind of like Total War, and then buy ships as long as you have enough points.  After that, you start the game, deploy in a line, setup whatever formation you want and go to town.  Makes sense, and looks really straight forward.

Needless to say, I'm really excited about the game.  Just by looking at this brief gameplay video, it looks like the developers over there know what they're doing.  I feel a little better now.

Finally, an update

I'm Samurai all the way.

Sorry for the lack of posts guys, a lot has been going on in my life.  WHFB has fell a little silent in my area, I just got rid of my huge Tyranids army, played a single game of 40K last week, but before then, I haven't been gaming much at all.  I got a new job and things have been pretty busy for me between work and a lot of traveling.

My new big obsession won't come out for another couple of months.  If you guys missed the preview of "For Honor" at E3, I highly suggest you guys check it out.  It's basically a pumped up, smoother version of Chivalry, but with much better graphics and 3 factions to play with:  Knights, Vikings and Samurai.  You can catch the gameplay video here, and the trailer for the game here.  Once that game comes out, you won't be seeing me for a very long time.

What have you guys been up to?  What games have you been playing?  I'm thinking about playing some X-Wing this Tuesday at the minis club, or maybe even some Warmachine.

Response to an article on BoLS

So much good and bad..

You can find the article here:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/04/editorial-gw-doesnt-need-to-listen-to-us.html

For those people saying that GW doesn't need to listen to be successful..

I don't agree with this at all. Making a nice, balanced game does not alienate or eliminate the casual/hobby crowd at all. Making a crappy, poorly designed game that cares nothing for balanced gameplay keeps the gamers away. If they only cared about the game they're designing, they would have both parties.

They can start by hiring a community manager or designer with a speciality in balance. Other, more modern game companies such as PP, FFG, Spartan, Hawk, all have designers who are very much intune with the community, the tournament scene, the metagame, and the general health of the game.

Experimental rules is a thing, alpha and beta rules are a thing. PP run testbeds in mini-campaigns all the time to test out rules all the time. GW just lives under a damn rock and have none of these modern ideologies. The community of gamers want to be involved and test out rules and provide feedback (good and bad). There's just no place to do so.

I don't really care though man, not anymore. I've been with GW games for 14 years and they haven't changed, in fact, in some cases they got worse. With their mission statement specifically calling out that they're a collectibles company and not a gaming company, that's just a big spit in the face for all their loyal gamers out there. The second you attach rules to your models, you become a gaming company whether you like it or not. It's up to you to make it better and keep it healthy, and they haven't been doing a good job with that. All the other companies I listed above are running circles around them in terms of rules development and actually knowing what their community wants, because they actually listen, and have taken action to make the game better. They actually understand that making the rules better do nothing for the casual player, the hobbiest or the painter, and that it only affects the player. GW does not, and for that reason, they will never be as successful as they might be.

Let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments below.

LOL Eldar, is this real?

D everywhere.

Have you read all the Eldar rumors?  Good, because they are no longer rumors.

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2015/04/17/rumor-it-eldar-craftworld-codex-about/

I'm on Warseer right now following the guy with the book.

This game has just jumped the shark, really.  I don't think I want to commit any more funds into this game for a while.  Thanks for the good times though.

Playing Navy Field 2

Blowing things up in me ship.

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of minis posts, but I've been playing a lot of Navy Field 2 lately.  It's a MOBA-like micro-intensive naval warfare game on the PC.  Check it out for yourself, but ignore the Steam reviews with low playstyle as they're often quite biased and trash.

As a dedicated DD player (Lv.88, IJN Shimakaze DD), I have some tips to offer newer and experienced players alike.

• For Officers, I'm currently going full Reload on Torps for Weapons, 3/2 Defense/Engine for Support, Full Sonar and Full Evasion.  My justification for the Defense/Engine is for the Shimakaze specifically, because it has Defense and Engine upgrades innately.  Otherwise, I would probably go full Engine.
• Use the map (M) when determining where an enemy is.  As a DD player, I don't know what "here" means when locating a sub without VOIP.  "D-3" means all the world to me and will get me excited to help you.
• It's important to familiarize yourself with different ship classes and what they mean to your role on the battlefield:
• Against enemy BBs - Look for torp run opportunities and torp wall assist your bigger ships in stand-off duels.  Launching torps in their direction will force them to turn or take damage since they're typically angled for broadside engagements.  If you can force them to turn to minimalize their damage, that means your BBs will be able to deliver greater damage through attrition.
• Against enemy CVs - You can typically hunt these after the bigger ships are destroyed because good CV players know how to utilize space.  By this, I mean they will be behind the rest of their fleet, typically as a support vessel that is still connected to the battlefield.  They will have eyes everywhere and to chase these guys first means losing out on more important engagements that will swing the battle more (killing enemy BBs for example).  Very easy target for DDs otherwise.
• Against enemy SSs - Spam the crap out of Sonar in areas where subs are sighted.  1-5 means you should set charges to either 1-5 depending on the status of the enemy sub.  For example, if the sub just went below and I can no longer see its silhouette, I will set the charge to 3 and see where that gets me.  If I don't hit, I'm going to go for 5 and go from there while hitting Sonar everytime the cooldown is up to reconfirm the depth.  If you can still see the silhouette, then guns and prox torps will get you pretty good results, and DCs at level 1 will be very deadly.  A good prox torp spread will drop most subs in one volley.
• Against enemy CAs - Apply the same philosophy of BBs but know that you are hitting a much smaller target that have better speed, turning, turret speed and reload.  This means that they're just as dangerous if not more dangerous than BBs because you will need to put damage on a more maneuverable ship.  This will make your torp runs more difficult.
• Against enemy CLs - You should play a pure support role in this case and let your BBs do the heavy lifting.  Most CLs bar the torpboats are almost a direct counter to DDs because of their speed and much more powerful guns.  They are able to put a lot of fire down range quickly and effectively, and have the speed and maneuverability to chase and apply damage while dodging torpedoes.  Approach with care.

• Torps can practically travel across the map if you set them to Slow instead of Fast.  The only time you want to use Proximity is if you're fighting against really fast and agile ships with low HP.  Otherwise, stick to Contact because you need the greater damage potential.
• DDs take a lot of micromanagement, way more than other ships from my experience playing so far.  I will stress 5 key points in this next section:
• Speed - You will need speed in order to reach targets of opportunity, to close gaps and to escape.  Save your engine burn for making a torpedo run or for making a dash to escape.  I tend to spam the burn key if I need to reach a target, but I save it if I know the firefight is going to get bloody and I'll need to make a quick exit.
• Maneuverability - In order for you to stay in the game, you need to be able to move.  You have virtually no HP and you have to be unpredictable with your movement and be in constant flux.  Simply waving back and forward will not do it.  Mix-up zig-zags, engine burn straights, tight turns, wide turns, and basically anything you can think of to shake of pursuit.  This includes sending proximity-armed torpedoes in the direction of enemy ships.
• Fast Turrets - I meant for this to be in a section of its own because it's a difficult subject for fast-moving DDs.  Most of the time, I'm either running for my life or going for a torpedo run.  During this time, I'm also finding targets to shoot at constantly so you're always clicking around and doing something.  When I say fast turrets, I mean that as the DD player, you should always be training your turrets in the direction that you're firing from, regardless of your ships orientation.  If my target is facing west, I'm going to click in that direction with BOTH guns and torpedoes as I move.  I'm constantly toggling guns and torpedoes, aiming them directly at the target every 2-3 seconds, or the exact space of my reload times.   This way, you're always on target, regardless of your ship's crazy orientation.  If you ever find yourself not having to adjust, you're probably moving in a straight line, in which case you're probably going to die in the next few seconds from a manual-aiming BB.
• Fast Reload - You should always be dealing damage in the game.  Your faster reload means you'll have the ability to consistently put out damage while being a difficult target to return fire at.  If someone is chasing you, you should be firing off anti-pursuit Torps while constantly shooting at the targets behind.  IJN Destroyers are typically geared for this purpose as they have 2 aft double-turrets.  This means they can put out greater damage if they're being chased from the rear.  Regardless, you should note your gun's orientations and make constant adjustments to target priority and range so you can constantly put out shells down range.  Often times, I see DD players going for several seconds without doing a single point of damage.  This is because of poor micromanagement and the inability to adjust speeds, dodge, while simultaneously train their guns AND torpedo launchers, while making quick and accurate shots.  Yes, that's a lot to do in a span of a few seconds, but you're playing DD and that's expected in high levels of gameplay.
• Torpedoes - And here we have it, the crux of playing a good destroyer.  You NEED to be able to utilize the true potential of your DD in order to take down major targets; otherwise you have no use in higher-tier games.  Sure, sub hunting is one thing, but being able frighten larger ships is arguably much more important than dropping a few Depth Charges.  If you have no weapons to be feared, you're pretty much dead weight in any given fleet.  Continue reading below.

From my experience, here's how I deliver Torpedoes:

• Slow when I need the Torps to travel and Fast when I need better time on target.
• Proximity when fighting fast, agile ships with low HP.  That means I will also use Prox to finish off severely damaged ships.  Otherwise, I use straight Contact for CA+ class ships because Proximity will just tickle them.
• Always Gradual, because you will need to read target orientation.  More on this below.
• Wide when I need a larger spread because it's the safer move.  By this, I mean that the target is lower in health and you just need a few torps to finish him off, or when you have the broadside of a BB and its hull will eat all of your torps anyway.  Thus, it will be safer to make the shot using Wide.  I will only use Narrow when I need precision in a shot to deliver maximum damage.  For example, a BB at full health moving abeam and not turning, or a stationary target.  Narrow is a ton of damage, but very risky because you can miss with all of them.

To sum up the Torp run vs. CA+ class ships:

• Make sure the target is distracted and that its turrets are trained at another target.  Their turret speed COMBINED with your speed is what's giving you this opportunity, nothing else.  All the good players driving these ships will be able to manual aim your ship into the ground if you mess up on the run.  It's literally do or die and you have no second chance unless your target is dead.
• Figure out the best way to approach the ship, and from which direction you're approaching from.  There are several different vectors, but the main ones I'm going to be describing will be when the target is..
• Abeam - When moving in opposite directions, side by side.
• Abreast - when moving in the same direction, side by side.
• Closing - When the enemy ship is coming directly at you.
• Away - When the enemy ship is moving directly away from you.

The best scenario for the Torp run will be either from Abeam and Abreast.  Abeam is ideal because you're going to be closing and when combined with his speed and your overdrive, you will give the enemy ship the shortest time to react.  Against an enemy BB, depending on the size of the enemy hull, you will want as many Torpedoes as possible to Contact his hull.  Often times, a Wide/Fast/Contact will be enough to fully cover a high-tier BB, but Narrow can be used if you're confident in the shot.

Abreast can be trickier because the target ship will turn either into you or away.  This will force them into approaching Closing and Away vectors which will generally decrease their footprint and thus make your shots more difficult.  If they turn away, Narrow will miss if you lead them too far, and if they turn into you, Narrow will miss if you lead them short.  This shot requires you to be more precise with the torpedoes timed on target directly in the middle of the enemy ship, so you will need to account for your lead and the speed of the enemy ship's turn before your release.  If they turn into you and you're too close, they can also get within "arming range" of your torps and they will fail to fire.  This is even worse than not doing enough damage because now, you just did zero damage for a long cooldown.

Closing/Away are most difficult of shots because the footprint is extremely small and damage is minimalized to the greatest when using Wide, and can miss completely when using Narrow.  You are literally threading the needle here, so the best course of action will be to generally use Wide and deliver Torpedoes in Gradual bursts so you can determine how the target turns.  Once the turn is determined, you can follow up with more precise shots.  This in turn will also mean that you will spend more time than you want when making a torp run, and exposing yourself to greater harm.  The hardest types of shots are when you're crossing their T and they're Closing or Away.  You typically just want to find another attack vector, but there will be situations where you're forced into this.  Luckily for you, the DD can move really quick to adjust and you should move either abeam or abreast on the opposite side of the direction he fired in last.

Remember, regardless of target orientation, the one thing you really want to keep in the back of your mind when making a torp run is this:  How to inflict as much damage as possible and get out alive.  If any of the scenarios does not justify the cost of your ship, then simply do not make a torp run.  A simple flowchart will do in most cases:

Is the enemy ship distracted with another ship?
Yes: This might be your chance.  See next.
No: You're probably dead.

What direction are his turrets?
Away from you: This is your chance.
Towards you: Risky, but do-able.

Should you fail in the Torp run, you're probably going to die vs. higher-level players.  The best chance you have here is to cross to the opposite side of his ship to the other side of his turrets and get outta there ASAP.  Your guns are ineffective and you just blew your cooldown so you're doing do damage.  Bob and weave and use short/long turns while running your engine to max burn to hopefully live and fight another day.  Remember to leave behind torp walls if you're being chased by faster ships.

That's all I got for now, and thanks for reading.

DE: Army lists and playstyles

I'd shit myself too if I was that Guardsman on the left.

The Dark Eldar book has been out for a good long time now and I think we can examine what kind playstyles DE players have been adhering to.  While there's going go be a certain degree of overlap and a lot of unit mixing, for the most part we're looking at 3 distinct modes of play.

What are those modes?

Overwhelming Force

Most commonly found in the Realspace Raiders detachment (RSR) with tons of little units running around.  Unmanned Raiders/Venoms, 3x Heatlance Reavers with Caltrops, scattered elements of Warriors in Venoms/Raiders for core choices, and either Ravagers or Scourges for anti-tank support.  This type of play is hyper-aggressive since you'll see tons of jetbikes on the table, and with Skilled Rider, Jinks and assaults, the S6 Rending HoW hits can cause serious issues for enemy armor on the other side of the table.  With so many units to shoot at, which ones do you prioritize?  Surely the fast moving assault units right?  But what about the other units sporting lances and poison that are blasting away at my army?  The real strength of these type of lists come from overwhelming the opponent in every way, shape and form.  You overwhelm them with target priority, perceived threat, and the fact that each unit killed is not a huge loss in the grand scheme of things.

The downside to this kind of play is that you have limited durability and no centralized firepower.  You need every bit that you can squeeze out of your list to maximize its damage potential and if you lose too many pieces (because your stuff is fragile) too quickly, then things start to come apart quickly.  It can quickly snowball out of control.  One of the main limitations are also in the form of Reaver Jetbikes.  S6 Rending HoW is great, a Heat Lance can be great, but what if you're fighting large objects with good armor saves and simply don't care because they have the wounds to shrug it off?  What about FMCs that have been plaguing the meta and other units of extreme durability?  This forces the whole unstoppable force vs. immovable object scenario but in this particular case, the unstoppable force is also quite fragile.

Extreme Durability

The Haemonculus boys know what I'm talking about here.  You will see a lot of meat on the table with high toughness, multiple wounds, FNP and other ridiculous shenanigans that screams: Are you really playing Dark Eldar?  I've always viewed the Haemonculi style of play to be completely opposite to what Dark Eldar is typically aiming to achieve and that's exactly what happens here.  You run the Coven formations here with Grostesqurie, Dark Artisan and other Grot-based deathstars and you play mainly for mission objectives.  While most Dark Eldar armies lose effectiveness over time, meat mountains excel at attrition and playing mission objectives because most armies these days are not prepared for it.  You will not break, you are not easily assaulted, and it's extremely difficult to remove you from a point you're determined to stay on.  When you factor in the fact that you still have powerful shooting solutions in the form of lances and poison, you have a very solid army that can dish out damage and hold objectives at the same time.  This is a rarity in the Dark Eldar army.

So what is the downside really?  It really does seem like the best of both worlds right?  The problem with really meaty units that run Grots/Talos/Chronos is that they're slow.  They can take a lot of damage before they go down, but they take forever to transverse the battlefield and most of the time, cannot bring their full damage potential to bear.  You need maneuverability in order to deliver side shots or take advantage of opportune targets, and most of the Coven's expensive units simply don't have that.  They have to rely on other DE components to fill that void and once those options are expended, they have to play the objective game close to home or they lose.  They do not have the options to get across the battlefield and secure multiple points in the later parts of the game.

Supreme Firepower

Most of the lists that I build fit in this category.  The goal of this style of army is to just put an enormous amount of firepower down range in the form of poison and lances.  When your enemies close in, that's when your firepower increases dramatically because you're able to fully utilize your gunboats, blasters and splinter racks to skyrocket your damage output.  The design of the list is really quite simple:  Take a lot of poison and lance shooting and put everyone in vehicles to keep everything mechanized.  This allows you to move around the battlefield and pour out damage from all directions.  One of the greatest boons of this army is that everything is open-top.  This means that all your shooting platforms can Jink while the units inside can fire to full effect.  You will also be able to greatly conserve the amount of firepower you put out since the damage will be done in surgical doses.  An example of this would be popping a transport with a Raider while the warriors inside unload on the passengers.  Likewise, a blaster from a leftover warrior squad will still be able to pop a Land Raider so you can dedicate your Ravagers elsewhere.  Since the damage throughout the army is distributed quite evenly, the cheapest unit you field still has the potential to destroy the mightiest vehicle.  That's what makes this army truly terrifying:  It's fully mechanized, moves around the battlefield with ease, and puts out a ridiculous amount of firepower at all range bands.

Despite the huge amount of firepower this army puts out, it's still susceptible to a number of weaknesses.  There are absolutely no melee components in this army so its very vulnerable to being assaulted from sources that can't be easily killed via shooting.  If someone gets close to the boats, it's almost a sure thing it's going to get punched out of the air.  Outside of the transports that keep the warriors afloat, the entire army is wearing T3 5+ and highly vulnerable to vehicles exploding.  There is absolutely no durability to this army outside the transports.  For this reason, this list design epitomizes the meaning of glass cannon because while it hits really hard, it has no staying power.  It either wins really big, or slowly gets destroyed.  If you can't kill something by shooting it, you most likely won't have any other answers.