Advice Helping Someone into Warhammer

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darkmaster
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Advice Helping Someone into Warhammer

Post by darkmaster »

Okay, backstory, there was a wedding in the family recently and as a result everyone was together one of my family member's works at a toy shop in town there so we all went and had a look around. Off hand I mentioned warhammer to my father and he expressed interest, now I've played some 40K but I never got hugely into warhammer due to the prohibitive costs and never really having anyone to play with.

Long story short, I have now made a commitment to invest into the supplies and books to teach my father to play Warhammer Fantasy, and while I don't mind the cost overly much I am interested in getting more than a single game out of the investment. So I'm looking for advice on how to ease a person into the game.

Any help would be appreciated.
Kaelik wrote:
darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

You know Warhammer Fantasy has been discontinued, right?

That aside, it depends how gamer your dad is. If he was a total noob, I'd start with a demonstration between single minis – an archer and a melee unit, to get the basics of movement, shooting, melee, wounding, and armor saves without overwhelming him with numbers.

A step up from that would be just ramming two slightly different units into each other, say some Orcs on foot and Empire spearmen, to show off some asymmetry and introduce won and lost combats, rank bonus, rout checks, and so on.

A step up from that would be a very small, very simple scenario: Two or three units on a side, maybe a non-caster hero each, to introduce characters. Put some basic narrative in it, like holding a ford or raiding a caravan, and include some relevant terrain to introduce how that works.

Next would probably be something similar, but with maybe one more unit and a caster on each side, to intro the casting mechanics. Also, give the non-caster hero a magic weapon or armor; something cool if you can find it, not just a stat mod.

At that point you could probably move into full-blown play. Your armies will probably scale relatively slowly as buying/painting goes on, so that's a natural way to slowly move into larger-point scenarios.

The thing is, since even step three of that involves a moderately substantial investment, you should try to figure out what armies you each want to use before starting, so you don't drop a couple hundred bucks on the tutorial units and then decide you want to play armies which can't include them.
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Post by darkmaster »

Yes, I know, but he likes the dwarf companion novels and I doubt we'll be doing any tournament stuff, so that's actually fine. Thank you for the advice, I appreciate the pointers.
Kaelik wrote:
darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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Post by rasmuswagner »

There are two Warhammers now.

There's Age of Sigmar, which is GW officially declaring that they don't give a fuck about anything anymore but pushing miniatures to Kevins.

And then there's whatever the tournament scene decides to agree on as being "9th edition Warhammer".
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Post by MGuy »

rasmuswagner wrote:There are two Warhammers now.

There's Age of Sigmar, which is GW officially declaring that they don't give a fuck about anything anymore but pushing miniatures to Kevins.

And then there's whatever the tournament scene decides to agree on as being "9th edition Warhammer".
As someone who never got heavily into WHF and only briefly into 40k I do not understand what this means and would like to k ow the long or short version. Vitriol is welcome but not necessary.
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Post by darkmaster »

From what I can gather, age of sigmar is designed such that there are no unit limits, you just use as many figures as you want, instead of having point limits.
Kaelik wrote:
darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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Post by Almaz »

rasmuswagner wrote:There's Age of Sigmar, which is GW officially declaring that they don't give a fuck about anything anymore but pushing miniatures to Kevins.
Kevins?

I'm guessing this is some kind of miniatures gaming equivalent to Timmy/Spike/Vorthos/etc?
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Post by name_here »

Age of Sigmar is, uh, quite something.

Firstly, it has Space Marines. No, seriously, there's a new faction that Space Marine players are mining for parts, and they basically have the same backstory as Space Marines.

Then the initial unit lists had significant mechanical bonuses for doing batshit things like talking to your imaginary horse prior to resolving a charge. No, seriously, that was actually one of them.

It also has no unit limits or points cost, and instead has weird and insane mechanics that horrifically fail to balance people having superior numbers.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

There's a "new" warhammer; probably feeding off more of the 2000 A.D. British Nihilistic Teens Science-Fantasy, Black & White/Colour Ink Comics; which is apparently more higher powered; or at least presenting itself as such.

As for easing into gaming; focus on verbal communication; what sorts of units do they want to lead; really, just focus on points cost of a unit more than having an force composition of the same army book; mix-and-match is more in like with the 40k setting that the Warhammer planet is located within (it's very Heavy Metal in that regard; all the wars of the Warhammer setting are dwarfed by the galaxy at war outside its warpstorm globe).

Run whatever examples as not too rules focused and rely more on verbally communicated player actions where you adjudicate the results as simply as possible. The "mass battles" held at GW's are an example of that; create an informal wargaming battle with whatever you've got handy; and allow them to command a few people; and decide what they do. This gives the sense of what overall play is like, while only being concerned with a few units in play. If you're already familiar with the rules; allowing them to focus on simply their ideas; while you run the rules as under the hood as you can, is a good way to ease anyone into any rules-intensive process.

I've found that telling a player they can do "almost anything you want"... doesn't generally realize very many overly dangerous choices. Humans are pretty good at risk assessment, and learning odds probability.

Of course, even people without system mastery can form very effective synergies. When my 2e groups Leroy Jenkins built a [Tome] Redcap Samurai I was secretly pleased, as he had no idea that scythes have a x4 crit modifier; or that samurai have an auto-crit ability. I was glad that the player was lucky enough to create an excellent synergy for this straightforward player to enjoy; players like this are the point position of a group. The likelihood of that specific player making those choices was actually pretty expected for me; the player like to play old/short man characters in MMOs, with a tendency towards martial characters. However, most people wouldn't have made that specific species/class pick without some degree of system mastery.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Sat Oct 17, 2015 4:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by rasmuswagner »

MGuy wrote:
rasmuswagner wrote:There are two Warhammers now.

There's Age of Sigmar, which is GW officially declaring that they don't give a fuck about anything anymore but pushing miniatures to Kevins.

And then there's whatever the tournament scene decides to agree on as being "9th edition Warhammer".
As someone who never got heavily into WHF and only briefly into 40k I do not understand what this means and would like to k ow the long or short version. Vitriol is welcome but not necessary.
Warhammer Fantasy Battle, like WH40K, has had a long tradition of tournament organizers making a few rules tweaks, usually in force composition rules, because the rules set were written to 1, sell miniatures, 2, "feel like Warhammer", and X, provide a balanced set of rules appropriate for tournaments.

1 means that the new minis that launch with the new army need serious power creep. 2 means the game is ....inexact..., because it wasn't born as a competitive game.

And then came Age of Fucking Sigmar, where you mix everything with everything, there are no points and Moneyhammer rules the day, and you make horsey-sounds to get +1 to charge and 6+ inches of beard gives you whatever.

In the face of that bullshit, people who like to make tournaments out of marching little men around have said "fuck it, we want a divorce". Right now, it looks like Ninth Age is going to be the new Warhammer Fantasy Battle for people who like actual rulesets: http://www.the-ninth-age.com

I'm cautiously optimistic. Blood Bowl became an awesome game once the rules were taken away from GW.
Almaz wrote: Kevins?

I'm guessing this is some kind of miniatures gaming equivalent to Timmy/Spike/Vorthos/etc?
Yeah, Kevin is the WH equivalent of Timmy. I don't remember the source.
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Post by Almaz »

rasmuswagner wrote:Yeah, Kevin is the WH equivalent of Timmy. I don't remember the source.
Ah, thank you. Odd. I just kind of figured Warhammer would use the same categories with an additional one for "I like to paint," so I assumed Kevin was "I like to paint miniatures" as opposed to "MOAR POWARRRR HAHAHAHAHA!"
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Post by Koumei »

Pretty sure the current replacement for point costs is not just "put it all on the table", but a bizarre thing like the following:
"For this mission, each player has 5 units with up to 16 Wounds per unit, and up to 2 heroes". The heroes might have ranks, or they might also be "valued" based on Wounds.

And then you go "Okay, my Bumblefucks have 2 Wounds each and allegedly have the other assorted stat things such that each is worth 2 Skaven Ninjas, so while he's taking a unit of 16 Skaven Ninjas, I'm taking a unit of 8 Bumblefucks".

That said I'd wager gold to gumballs that this is poorly balanced.

As a potentially interesting sidenote, it looks like GW are going for three tiers of gameplay:

Tier 1: AoS. This will actually form the majority of demonstration tables at stores, as the point is to get complete newbies in. Rumours of actual advertising beyond internally, the fact that the rules are free, and also the rules are relatively simple (and stupid). If you haven't played Warhams before, then from the perspective of investment and simplicity, they want that to be a good start. Call it a gateway drug.

Tier 2: Warhammer 40K. Now that you've had your gateway, here's something heavier. Alternatively, it's the staple for people who have already been playing. For people who used to play just Fantasy Battle, they're probably going to try to push for them to get into 40k for the same level of complexity. This is not going to be AoSified (this is now a word), but will be the same mess you know and lovehate. You pay for the rules like normal, there are a lot of rules (though for what it's worth, they've done one good thing in standardising most rules now. Even units that have special "unique" rules are typically "You get X special rule from the core book, but with a bonus/on a specific condition"). And you ally together five separate forces in one list, and include Apocalypse units in normal games. Terrain is no longer "this is a blocking thing", but can include buildings with armour values, "transport" capacities and automated weaponry.

Tier 3: Warhammer 30KHorus Heresy is coming to a store near you. This was previously Forgeworld only, but GW will be stocking a specific boxed set in stores, including plastic sprues. They may or may not convert more to in-store plastics or start stocking FW resin stuff in stores, but either way, they're acknowledging that FW exists. This will be for hardcore gamers, with even more complex rules, games that will probably take longer to resolve, and it'll probably be even more expensive.
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Post by Red_Rob »

We did already have a thread about Age of Sigmar here: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=56120

Apparently a lot of WFB players have been moving to Mantic Games Kings of War. It's a rules system made by an ex-GW rules designer (from back when they cared about rules) and is apparently a faster and easier system to learn, whilst still allowing for tactics and planning to win the day. You might want to take a look.
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Post by shlominus »

kings of war might actually be the best option for you. the rules are streamlined and simple, yet allow for tactical depth. a lot of people at my gaming club are getting into it now that warhammer is dead (sort of). i don't know your father, but if he doesn't have much tabletop-experience, this is definitely better than 9th age, because the rules are much simpler. also consider that mantic's minis, while of lesser quality than gw's, are also A LOT cheaper (look at their army deals, compare them to gw's, and weep). mantic also encourages people to play with minis not produced by them, which is awesome.

you can get the rules (2nd edition was launched a few weeks ago) for free here: http://manticblog.com/wp-content/upload ... -rules.pdf

9th age is the spiritual successor of warhammer, with more racial diversity and special rules than kings of war, and better fluff. a bit harder to get into than kings of war, but if you like dozens of spells and whacky special rules, this might be for you. it's a collection of houserules for a discontinued game really, but these houserules are being developed by some of the topplayers of the tornament scene. you might have trouble finding opponents though, as without official support, the game will struggle to get new players.

avoid age of sigmar, no matter what you do! it might be the worst tabletop game ever.
Last edited by shlominus on Sat Oct 17, 2015 11:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

In the event of a major shift in the hobby the like of which seems to be happening it matters more what your local schismatic heretical sect wargaming community is mostly playing.

So just throw him at the local wargaming community and see what he sticks to. If he is insufficiently sticky to stick to something he probably isn't a wargamer.
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Post by Koumei »

That's generally true, but it sounds more like this might just be two people playing against each other, in which case they could pick any game at all, even a weird Spanish one (of which you can name a few, IIRC), and have the same number of players.

If, on the other hand, darkmaster is going more for community-integration... yeah, it really depends on what the local community is playing. Actually "community" isn't the right word. "Culture" might be better. Like bacteria.
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Post by darkmaster »

In truth, in the near to mid term I expect it will just be the two of us playing. out of curiosity, what are the prospects of 40k? It seems games workshop in general isn't doing great... But if we're getting away from the warhammer fantasy lore, and having now read the age of sigmar rules bugfuck insane seems an apt turn of phrase, I know of plenty of Fan material that makes the 40k universe palatable already.
Kaelik wrote:
darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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Post by Koumei »

Every year, GW does worse than before, financially. Every year they basically try the same things to fix the problem: jack prices up higher, dig something old up to release as a limited edition special, give something a new edition, release a "standalong" game that is its own kind-of-shitty board game but has limited edition minis you can use in an existing game (and people will bulk-buy that, chuck out the board and stuff, and sell the minis on e-bay), oh and maybe release some new massive kits.

A new edition of 40k, the SPESS MEHRIN codex for that edition, new Space Marine minis (including Power Armour in Power Armour, yo dawg), Codex: Assassins and Imperial Knights didn't buck that trend, combined.

So yeah. It's a matter of when it runs out of money and closes (or management take the remaining money, close it all down early, and sail to Barbados), but they're not so far gone that they're ready to give up, and they have the resources to create massive Super-Heavy kits.

---

40k is about as bad as it has ever been. 7E was rushed out very quickly after the debacle of d6E, and also as a failed attempt to drum up extra excitement and sales based on "There's a new edition of 40k!" Mostly it was some errata and rule fixes applied to 6E, and with all of the expansions sort of baked into the core rules. Though you still need to buy those older expansions for the material in them.

Currently, you can play by either grabbing whatever units you have and putting them all on the table (though you still pick a Warlord, still use point values, and still have to pay attention to "Imperial Guard can use Space Marine transports but not Eldar ones, and can't deploy within X" of Orks"), or through using Force Org charts. Except you can use any mixture of those charts, so your army could be 4 different "2 HQ and 2 Troops" if you really want lots of Flyrants.Or your army could be a group of 5 Imperial Knights. And most of the new codices have their own special force org charts, such as the Dark Eldar one that has something like 5 Fast Attack slots. Or you build your army out of formations in chunks, like "Five Librarians" plus "One Captain, 2 Tac Squads, 1 Devastator Squad, 1 unit of Dreadnoughts, 1 Assault Squad" plus "5 units of Vanguard/Sternguard/Terminartors" plus "one Land Speeder plus one unit of three Whirlwinds".

So there are a lot of options available when making lists, going for flexibility to try to encourage people to buy lots of stuff for alternate listsplay to the style that suits them the most! And allowing you to mix your armies to encourage people to buy lots and lots of minis from different armiestailor their forces to diverse playstyles that help FORGE THE NARRATIVE.

Also Harlequins have a codex again (with Troupes, Solitaires, Deathjesters, Shadowseers, and their own transport, jetbike and ultra-light anti-tank skimmer). And Adeptus Mechanicus have two codices (Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus).
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Post by darkmaster »

So it's the slow circle down the drain rather a quick death by euthanasia. Well, I'm not sure which is better. All that in mind, perhaps best look elsewhere after all.

Kings of War and 9th age, I'll have a look into the settings, it'll help if I can get him excited about the lore, he's into that kind of stuff.
Kaelik wrote:
darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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Post by darkmaster »

Alright, we've decided on trying out 9th age since it's similar enough to Warhammer that I'm already familiar with the basic rules. So, following the advice above, I've started on the skeletons of scenarios for him to play.

First is a skirmish, then defending a ford using ranged units, then using caster support to help units successfully ford a river under fire, then use of siege units to turn the tide against a superior force, then using everything together to hold a point against overwhelming opposition.

I'm planning to use figures for dwarves, orcs, chaos dwarves, and demons for these, and I'd like suggestions for colors.
Kaelik wrote:
darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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Post by Almaz »

Purple, red, yellow, and teal, respectively, as primary armor/banner colors.
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