I enjoyed the February Fireside chat, thank you.
Iād like to add 2 points on the errata:
Iām inclined to be more forgiving on printing errors and errata.
Iāve written a long technical document (a thesis) and itās not easy. Even more so if you have other things to do.
Iād also hate to have this level of scrutiny for my job.
From a testing and data point of view, this actually seems like a good time to change the experiment and collect slightly different data with command dice.
Weāve had a few months with enough CP to try the fancy orders without buy in (i.e. everyone might aswell).
Now Mantic/the RC can see if people will buy in and how that goes.
It seems soon and more data is good, but the timeline is likely shorter than people intuit. If itās going to the printers this year, then whatās going in the next book (4th edition or not) has to be finalized soon to get to layout, editing (more would be better, even as inclined to be kind as I am) and test copies.
Glad you enjoyed the episode and thanks for providing feedback!
You make an excellent point and I know that many, including myself, are tough on the printing errors. Hopefully, we can all cut them more slack. For me I look forward to continuing to move into the digital age where errors are easily corrected.
This was an interesting episode, thanks to everyone involved.
I agree that the unlock system could do with another look.
Having so many troop types (another thing that could be streamlined) work differently is confusing. In general (and IMO) the more rules/way things work there are for similar things the more confused/mixed up players get.
The ideal is to make it simple for players, by having one rule that works the same for everything, but that is flexible, versatile and granular for designers.
My suggestion would be making an āunlock statā in the unit profile. That can be positive, negative or zero. The values for each army must add up to 0 or more.
Units that designers want to encourage can have high values and units that need to be restricted have very negative values.
For example: infantry hordes get an unlock stat of +3, but cavalry +1. To promote more infantry than cavalry.
Then make most induviduals -1, easy to get, but not unlimited. For fewer dragons on the battlefield make then -4, so that there has to be a number of other units to take one.
Very good and spam prone units like elohi could be -2, so that they have to be a limited proportion of an army, instead of fussing with rules like irregular.
On the idea of reducing armies:
As far as I know, Mantic have in no way indicated an intention to reduce the number of armies. Ronnie has said that he does not want to in interviews
There still seems to be an assumption or feeling that itās coming though. A sense that itās needed.
The number seems unweildly. Most attenpts to give each army unique flavour donāt quite make it all the way. There are always a few lists that get a somewhat generic army standard bearer, upgrade rule, etc. There are always armies that the RC didnāt seem to get to in CoK.
While some armies seem redundant and/or in need of an overhaul.
How different and needed are the two lists for orcs, generic humans and rats? Does the niche that Forces of nature was designed to fill still need filling?
Do we need, then, to make room to get sonething new.
Like Ophidia.
The resistance to the idea is that invalidating peopleās armies is awful. Certainly something that should be avoided.
I think that several armies can be rolled into other lists in a way that still lets the players with those armies use those models.
Especially with keyword synergies.
If Abyssal Dwarfs could take ratkin skave units, and there were keyword āslaveā, āratkinā, āorcā and ādwarfā rules; then players could make a cool list of ratkin slave units in synergies without it needing to be a separate list.
Similarly; Brothermark units could be added to the Basilean list. One could take a Brothermark contingent in a Basilean army, or lean into either the Basilean or the Brothermark keyword auras and rules.
Again for āSylvanā, āelementalā and āherdā in a combined Nautre + herd list.
Thanks for taking the time for sharing your feedback! I LOVE your suggestion on US. Weāll definitely have to share it on the next Fireside.
Thanks!
If it helps/matters Darkblack = Erasmus Burger out of fora.
List builder studio are some of my favorite episodes. It is nice to hear a persons thoughts about list building and there is enough time to really go deep into it.
Thanks for the episode.
Naiads and Salamanders have their own lists now, so donāt need to find a home in the Forces of Nature list, but its nice that people can transition from Nature to thise lists (or vice versa) though.
Rolling Nature and Herd together ājust makes senseā.
An owlbear model could be a beast of nature or a guardian brute for Herd.
I also like the idea of using keyword auras and similar to create flavour and effective āsub-listsā.
Perhaps a āchoose oneā aura upgrade for each element on gladestalker druids?
I agree with the aboveā¦ I think it would make a lot of sense.
Putting various herd warriors in a Forces of Nature list that also had treemen, elementals and whatnot would ALSO distinguish them GW type ābeastmenā. They could become more like the fawns and centaurs of CS Lewsā Narnia, for example.