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| Anyone else notice the Red Gobbo left Zarbag's Gitz off the His top 10 GW presents. I'm not mad about it, I'm guessing He assumed everyone has already bought them. |
*This one has been quite literally close to home. A 3,000 hectare blaze about 20km away from our house has only just been brought under control about midnight last night. That sounds like a lot, but when a fire can travel that distance in about 15 min, it’s really not.
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| There's just a couple of fires |
Anyway, I thought I’d wrap things up for the year with a look forward for what I’d like to see for the new year, as usual selflessly appointing myself as Gitz Spokesman.
2020 will be the year of...
1.
... A world free of Temporary Victory.
Dear GW, Ban it. Just do it. I’ve spoken with some length about how toxic this card is. There’s no skill to it at all, at least for those factions who’re able to move multiple fighters with ease. Restricting it won’t do anything either. Just acknowledge the error, ban it, and move on. Basically no-one will be sad.
Dear GW, Ban it. Just do it. I’ve spoken with some length about how toxic this card is. There’s no skill to it at all, at least for those factions who’re able to move multiple fighters with ease. Restricting it won’t do anything either. Just acknowledge the error, ban it, and move on. Basically no-one will be sad.
2.
...More Lost Pages
I feel pretty confident that this is a given, but I’m very keen to see what they do, and hopefully there’s an Acolyte of The Katophranes type card to draw it all together and make LostPages.dec a thing.
I feel pretty confident that this is a given, but I’m very keen to see what they do, and hopefully there’s an Acolyte of The Katophranes type card to draw it all together and make LostPages.dec a thing.
3.
...More creativity with Objective cards.
One area that I’d really like to see Objective cards move into, is potentially giving SPENT glory. For me that seems like a interesting space to explore, as it creates something of a tension, particularly in the early game – Do you go for a potentially easy objective that scores spent glory (thus progressing you towards eventual victory), or chasing objectives that give unspent glory which can be used to upgrade fighters in the short-term.
The other thing about that is how easily it could be represented on the card – just have one or more greyed out glory symbols, a simple and intuitive way to represent a fundamental change how objectives function.
This would also add some significant wrinkles to deck construction. Say for example we got a functional reprint of Change Of Tactics, but it gave out spent glory. How highly would you rate that? By putting it in your deck you now only have 5 objective cards that can facilitate playing of upgrades in Round 1. Do you trust that your fighters to get the job done un-upgraded? Some factions would absolutely love a card like that, others (Godsworn, I’m looking at you) would hate it.
One area that I’d really like to see Objective cards move into, is potentially giving SPENT glory. For me that seems like a interesting space to explore, as it creates something of a tension, particularly in the early game – Do you go for a potentially easy objective that scores spent glory (thus progressing you towards eventual victory), or chasing objectives that give unspent glory which can be used to upgrade fighters in the short-term.
The other thing about that is how easily it could be represented on the card – just have one or more greyed out glory symbols, a simple and intuitive way to represent a fundamental change how objectives function.
This would also add some significant wrinkles to deck construction. Say for example we got a functional reprint of Change Of Tactics, but it gave out spent glory. How highly would you rate that? By putting it in your deck you now only have 5 objective cards that can facilitate playing of upgrades in Round 1. Do you trust that your fighters to get the job done un-upgraded? Some factions would absolutely love a card like that, others (Godsworn, I’m looking at you) would hate it.
4.... Helping the little guys
No I don’t mean Goblins, or Dwarves, or Steph Curry. I mean those factions who are suffering at the moment (so maybe Steph Curry after all). Orks, Chosen Axes and Farstriders in particular feel like they’re just getting left behind; and at a fundamental level that won’t change until GW shows an appetite for updating/errataing fighter cards. Some factions’ fighter cards are just… bad and it’s small wonder that they’re all in Season 1 - The game is different now to what it was then. A change is needed.I’ve got two solutions for the problem:
1. Rotate out Season 1 factions, with an eye to re-releasing them later
2. Update the cards using a mechanism that we
already have in place – Tourney Swag.
I favour option 2. I’ve banged on
about this before, but I won’t stop now just because it’s the holidays (much
like how your unemployed Uncle Barry with his High School Education won’t shut
up about how Migrant surgeons are taking his jobs). GW are already in the
habit of producing alternative art cards. Those cards are already being given
away for free. Why not do one or two back-issued tourney kits with updated
stats? I would consider it a wasted opportunity not to use the tourney
kit for something like this. An
additional happy accident here is that Farstriders never received an alt-art
pack in the first place. Bonus!
5.
Hexual diversity
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| Designing a new hex, how hard can it be? |
I’m low key surprised that Beastgrave didn’t
add a new type of hex (unless you count the D&D inspired Portable spike-pit). GW have previously used the mid-season board pack to
debut lethal hexes, so there’s no reason why they couldn’t do it again. I’d
love to see a hex that gave a benefit to whoever stood on it, to perhaps play
off against objective token play – and really ramp movement and positional play
up to 11. Some ideas:
1.Healing hex. Like a lethal hex,
only backwards. ‘At the end of an activation, heal (1) to any fighter who was moved
through, was pushed into, or placed in this hex’.
2. Treasure hex. Like Tome of Glory,
but hexy! ‘Any fighter in this hex can make the following action: Gain a charge
token to gain one (spent?) glory’
3. Defensive hex.: ‘fighters in this
hex have a defence characteristic of 2 [dodges]’ or something. I think adding
+1 defence would be much too good.
4. 8th Starting hex. Obviously
not a ‘new hex’, but a unique occurrence at least. Admittedly it’s highly
unlikely to happen, but imagine what having a board with a ‘spare’ starting hex
could do? Obviously the large warbands would like it best, but there’d be even
more flexibility for smaller warbands
5. Sniper hex. Now this one I’m just throwing in for column
inches, as I think it would be a tad too good, but something like ‘Fighters
making Range 3 attacks (but not as part of a superaction) from within a Sniper
hex may re-roll one dice. If they do, give them a charge token’
Cards for the Gitz
As I mentioned in my last post, I feel like the Gitz are in
a strong place, so asking for too much at Christmas seems to be in poor taste;
that said, a few little stocking-stuffers never hurt.
1. Illusory Fighter has been away too long. I love IF, even if I came late to that particular party, but I feel that it would give a few warbands a little leg up. For the Gitz, its utility at resetting Scurry chains is subtle but powerful, and it could be quite useful to revitalise Snirk.
1. Illusory Fighter has been away too long. I love IF, even if I came late to that particular party, but I feel that it would give a few warbands a little leg up. For the Gitz, its utility at resetting Scurry chains is subtle but powerful, and it could be quite useful to revitalise Snirk.
2. A move ploy. Even with a drawback. Now this is
being cheeky, as the Gitz could abuse this card like no-one else, but I’ve
become pretty jealous (see what I’m about to do here…?) of Jealous Defence. It could be something like ‘Blinding Speed’ –
Choose a friendly fighter without a charge token. They make a move action
3. Bring back Pure Carnage. To loosely paraphrase
Frisky Dingo, Zarbag’s Gitz may be a one trick pony, but it’s a goodly
sized pony. That said, I have been
motivated of late to be a bit more aggressive, and a card like Pure Carnage
or a universal Survival of The Fittest, would enable a whole new angle
of play for Gitz to explore. And I for one would love to try it out.
4. Trust to Luck. This card has long been
overshadowed by Improvisation, but I would like to see more ‘draw’ cards
in the game, particularly with To The End being a thing.
So that’s a wrap for the year! Thanks for being a great readership,
and I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year. As ever, I’d like any and
all feedback you’ve got, before or after you get onto the Christmas Sherries is
up to you.
Happy Holidays, and I'll see you in 2020, by when I expect to see a lot of changes
Rowan
Happy Holidays, and I'll see you in 2020, by when I expect to see a lot of changes
Rowan
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