Munkie

That's true. But there's also nothing less tactical than pointing at a rule and saying "this unit shoots better now". "Be more efficient." Why didn't I think of that tactic??

I played a practice game last night. Since I run a pretty MSU style Drukhari list, he took Butcher's Bill (kill 2+ units in a turn to score 1 point). In hindsight, this was a mistake. The main problem with Butcher's Bill is you can only score 1 point per turn no matter how many units you kill. So to max it, you MUST have a 4 turn game. It is the ONLY Seek and Destroy secondary that can only be scored once per turn. The second problem is if you ever don't kill 2 units in a turn--either from your opponent deploying 2nd and hiding well, or because you killed so much early in the game that finding 2 units to kill later in the game is hard--then you need a 5 turn game to max it out. The clock is not your friend with this one. I would recommend avoiding Butcher's Bill unless you have an army that is small and fast enough that you consistently manage 5 turns in 2.5 hour rounds. Anything less than that and you're stacking the odds against yourself.

Here ya go That's a fair point, I definitely could've been more clear. Yes, in competitive play, list building inherently involves making harder decisions. You just don't have the freedom to insert units you love but are sub-optimal. What I don't like, is the reactive list building. Knowing the scenarios and the secondaries that you'll likely choose from and building a list to suit that makes sense to me. What I don't like, is feeling compelled to remove efficient things because including them makes your opponent more likely to win. As an example, Drukhari Ravagers. Ravagers are probably the most efficient gun platform in the army, yet it got to the point where I couldn't justify taking them. They have no real finesse, they just shoot stuff and hope to survive long enough to keep doing it. The problem is you can't get into a gun duel with space marines. They will win that without any effort at all. So all including Ravagers would do is offer my opponent 3 targets suitable to score Big Game Hunter or Marked for Death off of. Well now it's a bit different. Sure, they can kill the ravagers, but if not them, they'll kill my characters, or 2 units in a turn, or anything that costs 100 points or more. They have enough options to to max out their 8 killing based secondary points, but anything beyond that doesn't continue to put distance between their total and mine. It gives me the freedom to include what works, because it puts a lower cap on the amount of winning potential my opponent can bag by continuing to kill my army. I used to build lists thinking, "how can I build a list that's effective AND limits my opponents' ability to score?" Now I ask "how can I build a list that maximizes my ability to score?" That just feels like a healthier approach to the game to me.

The beta has been live for about a week now, they're gathering feedback and results up through this weekend, I believe, and then finalize some things. Not sure when the final draft is slated to release but it should be soon. I've only played one game so far, but I'll have a practice game this week and a tournament on Saturday. So that should give me a better perspective on how good it is, but I like the changes I've seen. One of the things it immediately changed is I feel less constrained on list building in two ways. 1) Since first and second player are established with the first die roll, there's no punishment for having MSU type lists and you don't feel compelled to have one transport to hold a bucket of HQs to minimize your drops in hopes to get that +1 to go first. 2) Since your opponent can only be awarded 8 secondary points for killing your things instead of 12, there's less incentive to counter-build to minimize secondary scoring opportunities. Previously you'd have to cut good pieces out of your list just to make it harder for your opponent to score. Now, you've pretty much just got to accept the fact that your opponent will find a combination of 2 secondaries that will give them a shot at 8 points, so don't worry about building to stop it. My main issue with ITC in general is way too much of the decision making is done at the list-building step and not enough done during the playing-the-game step. Anything that shifts the decisions from list construction into gameplay, I'm all for.

I know Ordo isn't necessarily the place for ITC talk, but I thought I'd give anyone who's dabbled with it (or avoided it thusfar) a heads up that the Beta rules for 2020 have been released. I'm not going to bore you with a point-by-point compare and contrast, but I'll offer up the broadstrokes. I agreed to get involved in the competitive ITC team in Bellingham because there's a core of serious players here that are tired of getting stomped by damn dirty Canadians. I'm not personally invested in ITC (or competitive 40k in general), but if I can help others be successful, I'm in. Plus, I'm tired of feeling perpetually rusty at 40k, and reliable games with good players will sharpen the edge. Enough rambling. All that is to say, I was pretty tired of 2019's rules and the way that the space marine codex interacted with it. The goal was to have each mission be equal parts about killing and grabbing objectives. The problem was, a super-efficient gunline could happily give up board control by killing everything their opponent had in about 3 turns. You max your killing based secondaries (how the game is won and lost, because primaries are often a wash) and eliminate their army at the same time--thus limiting their ability to continue to control the board and score their secondaries as the game goes on. Attempting to control the board was inherently a losing strategy, because no matter how well you did it, you couldn't score more points than your opponent who was just focused on blowing your army to bits. You could at best, try to keep pace, but while you're losing your army faster than your opponent is. In an attempt to fix that, the 2020 packet rebalances things. Here are the top 3 important changes: 1) There is a single roll to determine attacker and defender. -Attacker sets up first and goes first. No Seize the Initiative!!! -Defender rolls for deployment style, can re-roll the result (I love this), deploys second, and goes second. What this means: Limits alpha strike power, prevents Seize from skewing tournament results. 2) Secondaries are split into two categories: Seek and Destroy (killing), and Maneuver (board control). Each player still chooses 3 secondaries, but at least one of each type must be chosen. In addition, many of the Maneuver secondaries can be maxed in 2 turns, so a game lasting only 3 turns doesn't cap their scoring ability. What this means: gone are the days of your opponent saying "I'm gonna kill your vehicles, your characters, and those 4 particular units", do exactly that, and max out their secondaries. They can score a max of 8 points in a game via killing, and must compete for the other 4 by remembering they have a movement phase too. 3) All of the mission specific bonus points are based on grabbing objectives, and are fairly easy to score. What this means: with secondary objectives being easier to score in general, many close games will be decided by the bonus points. To put all of the above in practical terms, here's how the scoring breaks down: Primary objectives: -Kill something: 1 point/kill more units than your opponent: 1 point. -Hold an objective: 1 point/hold more objectives than your opponent: 1 point. Secondary objectives: -Choose 3, each can be scored 4 times for a max of 12. Bonus Point: -Can be score 1 point per turn. With games fixed at 6 turns, the max that can be scored is 42. (4 primary+1 bonus)6 turns+12 secondary=42 Of that, 2 primary per turn, and 8 total can be achieved by killing stuff. 20 total. 20 out 42 max means sitting in your deployment zone and obliterating things is no longer a winning strategy. This is a good thing for competitive 40k.

Even orks have better shadowfields than the Dark Eldar...

Dude getting Rick-rolled right over.

Just got home from Birds of Prey. I liked it quite a bit. Everything a DC movie should be. Dark and goofy. Definitely over the top, but not in as much of a slapstick way as I expected, and it called itself out a couple times, seconds after I had a "hey, wait a minute..." moment. I really liked the style of it. It felt more like a comic book than almost any adaptation I've seen recently. The story jumped around a bit and felt compiled out of smaller stories, as opposed to a clearer 1st, 2and, 3rd act traditional movie script (not that it couldn't still be broken down this way). The use of narration, the coloring and framing of shots, and the physics all felt comic booky. Margot Robbie was great, Ewan McGregor was great. I wasn't a huge fan of their version of Huntress, but that's my girlfriend's favorite character and she was satisfied, so that's good enough for me. Definitely a fun flick, worth checking out, but not necessarily a must-see in theaters.

FIFY. Whirling dervish Yoda was an abominable piece of hacky CG gaggery. It is unfortunate that he was the opposite for that stupid scene. But otherwise, good.

With mission specific ones where heavy support/fast attack/elites are scoring, but give up a bonus point if killed.

Pope Gregory, the 10-and-changeth.

Oh interesting, I hadn't thought about adding to saves...hmm. My fear is it would just discourage the use of basic weaponry, and therefore troops. Everything else going down in power would definitely make saves more valuable, but people would shy away from basic troops.

I'm not sure I fully understand this. To clarify, you'd be advocating a 5th edition AP system, but slightly worse AP values (i.e. bolters, shurikens, would all be AP 6) to reduce their effectiveness against light troops? Or an 8th edition AP system but with basic weapons having AP -1 to increase their effectiveness? I read it as the former, but this implies the latter. I'm a confuzzled munkie...

Anybody not blood bowling?

He's speaking the language of demons! Burn him!

One thousand and 10 years, 1 month and one day before superbowl LIV was the date 01011010. That's binary for Z. Z for zombie! Coincidence?! I think not!

I know. That was pretty much a comprehensive list I posted. Under Siege just immediately came to mind when you first alluded to the rule. It seems odd that there's a rule that precludes probably his best film and certaintly one of the most signature ones. But there is definitely a trend there. Of his 59 appearances on IMDB, I count 25 (26 if we generously grant you Under Siege 2). So a wee bit under half. But Steven Seagal is a remarkable piece of [big bad swear word] and has broken just about every moral, ethical, and legal code there is, so breaking this titling rule more often than not certainly isn't out of the question. The one bit of satisfaction we can glean from such a monstrous human being proving that fame grants you a pretty long rope 58 times, is that he is is the butt of a joke that everyone but he has gotten for 3 decades.

So close. Since it doesn't have a preposition in the title... Under Siege Above the Law Beyond the Law On Deadly Ground Out for Justice Half Past Dead Fire Down Below Out of Reach Into the Sun End of a Gun is also spacially aware, but not technically a preposition.

I actually thought we were in the random thought thread! 😄

Like when people say "drownded" for the past tense of drown. I want to slap them, but have resisted the urge thus far.

Truth. That's one I randomly own but don't know why. Maybe my parents got it for me as a random buy Christmas present...? Anyway, I think I've watched it 3 times as well. I know that I have, and I remember the occasions that I watched it, but I only remember the twist/last scene. And she wears a fur hat at one point. And there's an interrogation room. And I'm pretty sure she leaps out a window too. Beyond that....🤷‍♂️

I still cannot, for the life of me, remember if I've seen Aquaman or not. I'm pretty sure I did and immediately then forgot almost every single detail of it. Some days I'm not so sure I watched it because surely I'd remember something...right? Now I'm scared to watch it (again?). Because I don't want to be stuck in a loop of watching and forgetting a movie I don't like. But maybe I would like it (this time?).

And really, in the fluff, how often do we read about deepstrikes mishapping? Usually it's reinforcements showing up Johnny on the spot.

I don't think play experience should ever be sacrificed for "theme". If mishapping, I'd do something like: 1: misplaced (opponent places) 2-3: phase function failure (they don't scatter but may not move, shoot, psychic or assault this player turn) 4-6: Delayed (try again next turn) Units shouldn't just die because a very small group of dice said so. Being way out of position is severe. Being caught helpless is bad. That's mis-happy enough.

Not sure...I'll try again from my laptop at home. Could just be my phone not liking the order form.