Ish

Third Edition had xenos codices for Craftworld Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, Tau, and Necrons. Tau debuted late in third edition and Necrons went from a very small list in ‘White Dwarf’ very late in second editionto a full army in third. There were rumors throughout the edition that Genestealer Cults, Kroot, and Squats were going to get codices of their own… But obviously that never happened.

Funny you should bring up MCP. Apparently, a game that is even more directly related to MCP – Star Wars: Shatterpoint – is due out shortly.

Honestly, as time goes by, I find myself missing the utter simplicity of WH40k’s Third Edition. IMHO, RT and Second were both a bit too granular, closer to roleplaying games in terms of detail, which was okay if you had four hours to devout to a skirmish between a platoon of Guard and two squads of Marines. But kinda stunk as a fast playing system or for large games. Ever since Fourth Edition, and increasingly with each subsequent one, GW seems to be obsessed with tournaments and competitive play. I don’t mind tourneys as an occasional thing, but I don’t want that to be the driving force behind the design. Third was simple enough to play out a game with a Demi-Company of Marines (or about a Company of Orks/Guard/Space Elfs) in about two hours, had plenty of special abilities to make all the factions feel unique (including all 37 flavors of Mahreen)… Without the extra complexity of Tactics, Stratagems, Secondaries, Doctrines, Super-Doctrines, Detachments, and ohmygodivegonecrosseyed. So, yeah, I kinda want to try Grimdark Future.

[ Hides Adeptus Custodes ]

Yet.

Don’t forget that the Force Organization Chart, which has been around for decades and was based almost entirely on this one faction’s canonical order of battle, has now been effectively scrapped organized play because the design team found it too troublesome to make their new toys fit into the old structure.

Apparently my inbox was full. 🤷‍♂️

You can build a character who can do both, just never both at the same time. For example, you could have one attack effect that had high accuracy and low damage with a second attack that was lower accuracy and high damage. You could have a character who shifts between high Fortitude/low Will and vice versa. Generally speaking, however, this kind of goes against the spirit of the genre. Look at most superhero teams, you’ll see that each team-member is very strong in their “specialty” or “niche,” but usually has at least one obvious “handicap” where they struggle. It’s fun for the reader to watch the hero overcome their handicap: “Hulk is strongest there is, but how can hit smash the intangible Ghost?It’s also fun to watch teams of heroes coordinate efforts to defeat their enemies: Colossus is strong, Wolvie can cut through anything, but neither one can hit a flying enemy. Fastball Special!

Battlefleet Gothic might just be the best game GW ever published, certainly one of the top five. Oregon City is a bit too far for me to reach regularly… But, damn, am I tempted.

As far as I know, that should work…

There are basically five things that PL puts caps on (and a handful of very rare niche things that, honestly, almost never come up). They aren’t too difficult to understand, but the rulebook isn’t the most clearly worded. Skill Modifiers are capped at PL + 10. This means the total “+X” that you add to your roll, regardless of source, cannot exceed PL + 10. So if you have Intellect 10 and Technology 12, you’re going to have a total of +22. Meaning you’d have to be PL 11… So a PL 10 build would need to tweak either one of those down two pips. Attack Bonus and Effect Rank are capped at PL x 2; For nearly ever character this is going to be your Unarmed Attack/Unarmed Damage (since everyone can throw hands) and whatever offensive power Effects or Weapons you might have. So, at PL 10, you could have a balanced +10 To Hit with +10 Damage, a whopping +20 to Hit with +0, a ridiculous +0 to hit and +20 damage, or anything in between. In practice, you generally want to have your primary attack be somewhere between +15 to hit / +5 effect [for an extremely “accuracy shifted” character like Hawkeye] and +5 to hit / +15 effect [for an extremely “power shifted” character]. Any greater trade off is a liability. Secondary attacks can have greater trade offs. One wrinkle here is that Area Effects or Perception Effects are treated slightly differently. As they have no “to hit” value, they’re capped at PL for Damage Rank. So if you have a PL 10 Wizard casting a Fireball (Ranged Area [Burst] Damage) the maximum rank would be 10. Dodge and Toughness, Parry and Toughness, and Will and Fortitude are your defensive tradeoffs. These are also capped at PL x 2. Characters who are Immune to Fortitude Effects (i.e., constructs) treated kind of like Area Attacks. They have no Fortitude value, so their Will is capped at PL. There’s also the rare Deflect and Toughness trade off for characters with that Effect. I find it helpful to make a “worksheet” at the bottom of every build I make. So as I type it up, I just tweak these values as I go and make sure all the maths check out. For example: WORKSHEET Attack: 12 Effect: 8 Total: 20 (Unarmed) Attack: 8 Effect: 12 Total: 20 (Energy Blast) Dodge: 12 Tough.: 8 Total: 20 Parry: 12 Tough.: 8 Total: 20 Fort.: 8 Will: 12 Total: 20

A few basic tips: • Don’t feel like you need to cram every power you‘ve ever seen a character do in the comics onto your character sheet. Guys like Spidey and the various X-Men have been around sixty-plus years. Superman and the Batman are approaching their 100th Anniversary… All of them will have one-off feats of power or rarely seen secondary uses of their powers. You don’t need to spend PP on this. That’s what Power Stunts and Extra Effort are for! • The Variable Power, Magic, Summoning, Duplication, Luck Control, Metamorph, and Creation Effects; and the Minions and Sidekick Advantages are ones that I suggest most new GMs treat with caution and new players simply avoid. Mechanically, these are all balanced pretty well, the problem is that they are all highly variable and mechanically complex which can really slow down gameplay in the hands of an inexperienced player or a player who suffers from “analysis paralysis.” • Power Level is not necessarily linked to Power Point budget. PL measures your “height,” PP measures your “width.” GMs should reward one to three PP after every successful session, but PL increases should be very rare. • Power Level 6 with 75 to 90 PP will generally result in “Action Hero” type characters. More or less mundane characters with very high skills and maybe a single gimmick power or device. Most Arnold Schwarzenegger characters, Stargate SG-1, G.I. Joe, etc. A typical adventure sees these guys team up to save a building from a terrorist bomb plot. • Power Level 8 with 120 PP will general result in “Street Level” or “Team Book Only” characters. Guys who are clearly superhuman, but really only capable of operating solo against mundane threats and will need to team-up to handle supervillains. Daredevil, Luke Cage, Nightwing, Green Arrow, most X-Men, etc. A typical adventure sees these guys team up to save the city from a mad scientist and a giant robot. • Power Level 10 with 150 PP will general result in “Nation Level” heroes. Guys who are competent, experienced, and well above human norms. One of these guys can solo the average supervillain after a challenging fight and if they team-up, can handle nationwide threats or even a minor planetary invasion. Most Avengers, more experienced X-Men, the lower-tier JLA members, and so forth fall into this category. A typical adventure for these guys is stopping an alien invasion. • Power Level 12 with 180 PP is about as high tier as I ever feel is successfully playable in a campaign. These are “Worldclass” level heroes. The guys that other superheroes look up to. The guy who walks onto a battlefield and grizzled old NCO’s tell the rookies “Hold yer fire, kid. You’re in fer a show.” The kind of guy whom the President of the United States has on speed-dial. Superman, Captain America, Thor, the Batman. These guys can solo a small alien invasion and tend to only team up if the entire cosmos is at risk. A typical adventure for these guys is stopping a cosmic level bad guy from undoing the timeline. • It is possible to mix PLs in a party. I’ve had quite a lot of success with groups where players were allowed to choose between PL 8 / 180 PP, PL 10 / 150 PP, and PL 12 / 120 PP builds. This tends to result in a fun mix of broadly skilled, but low-power heroes; balanced all-rounders; and very powerful, but specialized heroes. Sort of the mix you see in the MCU’s Avengers or the CW ArrowVerse cross-over team-ups.

M&M is quite possibly my favorite RPG of all time. I’ve played every edition and used to be extremely active in the online community (prior to Green Ronin shutting down their forums). I’ve probably built thousands of characters for the system over the years. I’m more than happy to help answer rules questions or give character building feedback. (Incidentally, if you have an open seat at the table, I’d love to actually play and not just be Perma GM…)

Of course, sometimes the Machine-Spirit of the printer just gets grumpy. Remember to give it praise and thanks when it finishes a print job without error, for the Machine-Spirit is very praise driven.

“Spaghetti-fication” seems to occur most often when the initial layers don’t stick to the build plate. Which probably happened because the plate was too cold due to ambient temperature…

Cincinnati, the final frontier.

Honestly… I like the only one more.

I always enjoyed WarCry – probably a great deal more than AoS proper. I always wanted a better balance between the WarCry bespoke warbands and the ones taken from other factions. I’ll have to give this a look.

Today we sing the praises of December 23rdAlthough it’s not a holiday per seIt’s just the day that is the day before the dayBefore the day that is the best day in the world

A fantasy city with farmland! It always makes me happy to see it, since it’s so often absent.

Ahh, Christmastime, when each of us learns to embrace our fellow Man and concentrate on what really matters – purging the heretic, the xenos, and the mutant.

Good news is that my 3D printer, miniatures, gaming books, and most of my terrain were all on shelves well above the “high tide line.” Shame about the washing machine, exercise machine, and area rug… Still, the important things are okay!

They’ve released oodles, unfortunately my laptop got stolen last Christmas and I haven’t yet replaced it. Was going to get myself a new one this holiday… But then my basement got flooded 3” with backed up sewage this weekend. So… Yeah.

If they don’t make a crossover sequel titled Ash Wednesday, then we riot.

Definitely! Probably not until the new year though.