“You guys should actually PLAY a game of Storm of Magic and Blood in the Badlands before you pass judgement on them.” -Some guy
“I am going to actually wait and read the new Chaos codex, by Matt Ward, before I decide to write it off and sell my armies.” –That dude
“Seriously bro, Maid in Manhattan is a pretty good movie. J-Lo actually gives a heartfelt performance.” -Her
My answer will always remain the same to such comments. No thanks, I know better. That is not to say that I know better for you or anyone else, though I am always quick to share my own perspective with others, it’s just that I know what I like and I know what’s not worth my time. I’ve never seen ‘A Beautiful Mind’ … Why? Because I don’t like Russell Crow as an actor and after seeing the trailer, it did not interest me. It’s just not my kind of movie. Sure, I’ll admit that there might be a slim chance that I walk out of the theater saying that I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the movie, but why waste my time when I can just watch the stuff I like again and write erotic slash-fic in the hours afterwards?
Jack Burton is clearly a bottom
So when people say that kinda stuff to me about game… try it, you might like it… I have a similar reaction. Instead of watching a movie trailer and knowing that I am not going to enjoy the ‘Sex in the City’ movie, I am reading the rules and looking at the models and knowing a probably won’t enjoy the game. I don’t play WarMachine because I didn’t like the rules when I read them and the models weren’t cup of tea. I don’t play Malifaux simply because I don’t like the models, I didn’t even get as far as reading the rules.
Lets break it down…
Storm of Magic – I was initially excited for this game when I read the rules. It honestly seemed like it would have been a fun game to play every once in a while with friends. I began sorting through my meager amount of scenery in the hopes of finding enough stuff that could act as the mandatory Fulcrums the game demands only to find that I would need to end up spray painting pop-cans or else shell out $100 or more to my local dealer. After about 2 months of being more interested in painting and playing other games, and not to mention having no one to play with, the game fell by the wayside like so many other hobby dreams. So is it fun? Not to me. It never will be because I won’t be able to play it as much as it requires. It created wall around itself that I am just not athletic or motivated enough, from a hobbyist perspective, to scale.
Batman has my back on this.
Blood on the Badlands – I’m sorry but I know how siege games play. Long, slow, and repetitive. Why? Because its realistic, it makes sense, and because of this a small sub-set of gamers love it. For a good siege game you need one player outnumbered 10-1 behind the walls. Never moving and chewing up the oncoming enemy horde from the safety of their high walls. Lets not forget that this game requires us to buy more scenery, which isn’t always a bad thing. However in this case it kinda is because owning a castle means you MIGHT play with it once and put it away on a shelf for years. I know, I’ve owned 2 in my gaming career and both were given away as ‘gifts’ to a friend who wanted them just for the purposes of display.
Lets also not forget that no one asked for this. As I said in the last podcast, there are more people dying for an 8th edition update to their current armybook to the point where something like this just seems painfully inane and ephemeral. BUT BUT BUT!! It’s not like that with ME, I actually love siege games! In which case I am sure you’ve had conversations like this…
“Hey, wanna play a siege game?!”
“Um… I don’t have any shooting in my list.”
“That’s no problem! You can be the attacker!”
“Um… I play Beastmen and only have one monster.”
“Oh… well then lets just play a normal game of Warhammer instead of each of us dropping hundreds of dollars in order to play a game that doesn’t really work for either of us.”
“Um… I still play Beastmen…”
“Well then I guess you’re fucked.”
At this point in the story Games Workshop would then burst through a brick wall like the Kool-Aid man and shouts…
“OH YEA!! Get ready for our new Winter expansion! War in the Clouds! Epic WarHammer battles fought on the backs of dragons where every army can buy generic dragons and have them battle in the clouds! Featuring new rules for aerial battles, new Dragon magic lores, and cloud-based terrain using the new GW Cloud Kits ($59.99)!! Sorry for the Beastmen, Wood Elves, Bretonia, and Dwarves players out there! Your new armybooks are being pushed back for this release!!!”
At which point the two gamers sigh and stare at eachother with sad eyes.
True story.
The Upcoming Matt Ward Chaos Marines Codex – Fuck that. The chance of this thing making me want to play Chaos Marines again is about the same chance of me suddenly deciding to go on Craig’s List looking for Lucky Pierre. Google it. I’ll wait…
…
…
…
Yea. That’s how I feel about the new Chaos Codex. The truth is that I was pissed off the last time it was changed because they took all the theme fun out of the rules and made every chaos army nothing more than Space Marines with more spikes and horns. It wasn’t that I felt the rules were shit, it was just that I was stuck with two half armies that now felt utterly boring to me. I shudder to think about what’s going to change this time around with Ole Matt behind the wheel. Just watch, he’ll make Death Guard have this ridiculous back story where they all secretly hate being so sick all the time and are trying to find a cure for Nurgle. Khorne Berserkers will be changed into Khornite Zealots who worship Khorne as a religious Savior who blesses them with magical strength. The Thousand Sons will have finally reached pure enlightenment and become beings of pure energy, under their armor of course, through magic and undying patience. Slaneesh will… well… Ok, I will admit that in this case anything would considered an improvement.
The thalidomide baby we should have taken out back and shot years ago…
I guess what I am trying to say is that I am a Jaded old gamer who just doesn’t trust the people who have been almost ritualistic in their ability to disappointing me over the past 5 years. So if you come up to me and give me the same tired reply of “Maybe you should just give it a try or withhold judgement until you’ve seen it…” I will continue to ignore you. I am not saying that NO ONE will enjoy the new Chaos Marines Codex, not at all. Hell, the rules will likely be jaw-dropping-ly over the top considering what we’ve seen up to this point for Matt Ward Marines.
So save your breath for someone who doesn’t already know better.
Remember, after all, who it is you are talking to…
What a twat…
Jaded Gamercast 
Dear Jaded Gamer,
Under the assumption you are sober enough to read this message, I had a question regarding FireStorm Armada. What would be the typical cost entry into that particular hobby, and are there any particular factions that are currently red headed step children of the system that should be avoided?
A starter kit for one of the six main fleets costs about $55-70 depending on where you buy from, which is a decent start. A carrier and one more squad of either cruisers or frigates is a good call. At that point yer sitting at a good starting point and have only spent about $120.
Honestly, how the fleets stack up is a long answer that I am indeed too drunk for. So it will just have to wait!!!
Ok, so basically the Directorate are the ‘gimp’ fleet according to a lot of the stuff I am reading at the moment. According to the average gamer a high CR and AP don’t make up for the points cost. The top fleets seem to be the Sorylians, Aquan, and Dindrenzi… with the Terrans and Relothzia somewhere in the mid range.
This is an odd thing however as I have been playing Directorate and don’t seem to have a problem winning games. So I say pick the one you like the look of the most and go for it.
Yes but no but…
I don’t get all the Matt Ward hate… ok WFB Demons maybe, (though if you put it in context of the macho wankfest of over powered books in the studio it is understandable)… but here is a guy who gave us random charge distances, winds of magic, and in doing so single handedly chased half the tossers out of the hobby (ok they didn’t go completely they still lurk round forums like a stalker ex picking off the weak with the promise of how good Boremachine and Turds are).
So I don’t see why you think the CSM codex will be terrible.
After all the previous codex was Alesio, 7th edition was Alesio and in 6 months (when the tossers have left 40K) people will look back and think 5th edition was terrible – they were all terrible for the precise reason that Alesio made his name as your typical jerk off tournament type, who ended up at games workshop as a translator and then used tournament jerk off tactics to make him seem like a ‘general’ at the company – at a time when no one was really doing much and most of the creative talent was off doing other things (do a google search of the figure ranges people who were supposed to be designing figures for GW were making for themselves – not to mention the rule sets). Is it really surprising that his codexs and army books are limited and dull? No, because tournament jerk off’s automatically default to min maxing – so guess what? CSM is a book that has already done the min maxing for you… quelle surprise.
At least Matt Ward knows that dice matter. And the best way to deal with a jerk off tournament player is piss him off with a failed charge. Or fuck his uber spelly caster with a failed winds of magic roll.
Oh and the point i think you have missed with Bad in the Bloodlands or whatever it is called, is that it personifies the fucking stoopidity of a lot of players. Look at what the book is. It is essentially a record of a campaign game that has been played internally at GW, and the ‘siege rules’ are basically their in house rulings for situations/weapons/whatever that aren’t specifically covered by the BRB.
Anyone could do this. But the fact is that conformity and winning is such a massive issue that people are not prepared to do it, and have to wait until their is an ‘official’ book that they can spend/waste their money on.
And what makes it really stoopid is that GW go out of their way to say experiment with your games, try new things, make the game your own, if you have a rules dispute roll a dice to decide and carry on playing. And people don’t, because they are fucking wankers who confuse winning a game of toy soldiers with the length of their penis.
But get them to spend £20 on something they don’t need and they will, because Daddy says they can.
Right the wine I won at the school tombola has nearly gone…..
Look at the way power armor books have been going. Look at the way Xenos books have been going. See the difference? Honestly, the problem isn’t so much about the rules as it is about the fluff. The Necron fluff was amazing and now it’s just meh. Odds are we will see this same thing in the CSM codex. This is a whole other topic about Matt Ward that would require a whole new post. In truth, I don’t care who does the book… unless they go back to favored numbers and chosen armies, I won’t be lining up for it.