Introduction
A new type of article for this blog is entitled "Defending the realm!". This series of articles will focus on responding to unjust attacks made on the game by opponents of the new system. These people, one will notice, tend to be of the old Warhammer community, and are usually opposed to the new system. They are reactionary, change makes them angry and they have a love for fighting and arguing....especially online where they feel they can get away with it. These articles will help to combat the extreme amount of anger, hatred and vile attacks being made on the new system by members of the old community. These people, as one will find out over time, are very loud and like to spam the internet with their baseless attacks and rants.
This is part 1, of the series of articles in response to the craziness being posted on the site hosting this so-called "sandwyrm". More will follow later!
Deception and power
This first article will address an attack on the game made by an individual at a certain blog. Many of the people from the old community, especially the "veterans", have their own blogs and some of them have a "leadership" position in the old community. Sadly, almost all of these people have a very negative influence on the old community, which is part of the reason why the community is so messed up. There are many blogs (and some forums), and most of them are of this type, especially the influential blogs. Blogs such as: bell of lost souls, blood of kittens, warseer, dakkadakka, the back 40k and natfka faiet 212 are there, along with torrent of fire.
This particular person goes by the name of "Sandwyrm" and rants at his followers and minions on the blog known as "the back 40K", at www.theback40k.blogspot.com.
An introduction to this person is needed, thankfully it will be brief. This person is a "veteran" gamer, has been playing Warhammer games for some time and is one of the noisy members of the old community, a so-called "leader". This person belongs to a exclusive club of gamers that seeks to dominate the old community, dictate what people think, how they act and the direction of the game. People like him are very upset at the new methods that GW is using for their game and they want things to go back to how they used to be. Thus, they will (and have been) spew (ing) vile hatred online for months at a time in a vain effort to convince GW to cancel the whole project and bring back the old Warhammer. You see, many of these people have huge egos and they think that their endless whining and yelling (online, mostly) will have a positive effect on GW. They even try to form protest groups and petitions. None of this has any effect, of course.
In the following paragraphs, I will try to explain the deceptiveness and childish anger with which the "article" written by this "Sandwyrm" was created and what it means.
New Models
For years and years, members of the old Warhammer community have been complaining and whining endlessly about practically everything GW does. One of their complaints was that the models are too cartoon-ish and stupid looking...essentially, they want the models to be realistic. Lo and behold, this has come to pass. GW models are some of the finest in the market, if not the very best there is. "Sandwyrm" complains about the models being hard to assemble....this is a side effect of having amazing models. The more complex, realistic and detailed a model is, the harder it is going to be to put together, generally speaking. What else this "sandwyrm" does not consider is that a model of that complexity being single piece (his criticism) is that the model would lose detail level, be harder to produce effectively, give the player far less chance for conversion and of course be easier to break and harder to get off of the sprue. None of this matters to this "sandwyrm", because he just wants to find something to be mad about.
The second main point that this "Sandwyrm" tries to make is that, supposedly, the game now is being marketed towards a lower gaming age even though it does not say so. First, this is balantly untrue. The game is still perfect for adults, as well as older children and teenagers. You can see this silly logic in play: an older, "veteran" gamer with a grudge, sees the game being made more simple and easier to learn, decides that this means it must be for children and not for adults. Again, this goes back to the issue at hand with these types of "gamers". They are extremely reactionary, confrontational and love to complain/argue about virtually everything. He also says that the game's models are too complex to put together for this age group, which is true.....but it has always been that way. GW models, as a general group, are much harder to assemble then most other game's models. This has been a fact for a long time and is something that this person decided very purposefully to ignore. See...deception at work. Also, he decides that he somehow knows how the game works better then the people that designed it. Apparently, this game has way too much going on (in a typical battle) and so is not right for it's (supposed) age group. Fallacy leading to fallacy, that is the sum of his arguement. The game is actually very simple and fast, if you read his whole article, you will see that he says this himself and anyone who plays the game even once is going to see this. Lastly, for this section, he says that the models will break a lot. This generally is not true. GW models are tougher then they look and this is being reinforced as company policy with their new models. The models are bigger, more solid and in general less wispy then many of the old models. This is another point of rage for many of the old "gamers", but for this part of the article, it illustrates that yet another point of complaint from these "gamers" (that the models were too small) is being addressed.
+1 to Games Workshop, -1 to the angry reactionaries.
Terrain
This is where you see this so-called "sandwyrm" really start to become polemical (and that is putting it lightly) and deceptive. He obviously thinks he sounds very intelligent and perceptive, yet the discerning reader will realize he is trying super hard to make the game sound lousy, with a snotty mocking attitude.
He describes the terrain in a way as to try to make it sound stupid and unreasonable. This is of course because of his mission to make the whole game sound horrible, when it is not. The Age of Sigmar is a fair, fun and thematic game. The terrain is not in there to try to screw up your opponent's strategies or confuse his deployment.....which you realize is exactly what this "sandwyrm" was thinking. The terrain has really interesting rules purposefully to add flavour to the game. If you and your opponent do not think it sounds terribly fun, then don't use it. The terrain is there for super themed games, with it's current rules. Just like with the lack of points-for-models (more on that later), the idea is to put the power into the players hands (just like people have been whining about for years and years). Don't like the terrain rules? Then don't use them! Terrain in the fantasy game has been, for a very long time, effectively just been used to make the table look nice. For so long now tournaments and individuals bring the terrain to "spice up" the table, to add to the visual experience, but not for the actual rules. So it is quite disingenous of this guy to imply that people have always used the terrain as is, because that is not at all true. Terrain is used in two ways: literally, to make the game more wild or aestically, to make the game more visually appealing but with no/very little added rules effects. It is all up to the player, which is great because it encourages people to do what makes them happy instead of feeling like they are cemented to a particular way of using terrain.
+2 GW, -2 old reactionaries
Game Rules
Another complaint that many people have had, for years, is that the two game systems GW makes were too complex and complicated. People really wanted this to change! Now what is a complaint being made by this "sandwyrm"?? Of course, he says the game is not complex enough. Enter the spoiled little child that is never satisfied and just wants to fight with everyone around him. This is the sort of behavior that is seen all across the board in the old Warhammer community and has driven many people away to more positive gaming communities, like Flames of War. People often act like spoilt children: they just cannot be happy with what GW does for them and what the game is like. This is nothing new, sad to say.
He says that "there are no formations or block-movement, which is essential for any kind of real tactical play in a fantasy game" and this could not be further from the truth. The Age of Sigmar is very tactical: deciding how to deploy, advance your battle line and of course how to issue charges is quite complicated. Charge with the wrong unit in the wrong section of the battle line and the game will not go well for you! The same basic (and complex) tactics that were part of the old game are larger part of The Age of Sigmar, barring some specific ones. Next he uses a citation from a TV show to back up his logic.....again, trying to sound intelligent but not really working. Block formations are not necessary for a fantasy/historical game to be fun or for it to be tactical. The Age of Sigmar is going to be a very complicated game...but will be easy to learn! It uses the same unofficial motto that Flames of War does: "easy to learn, difficult to master". To be great at this game will take a lot of skill, but to just learn the basic skills will be super easy. This was not always true and this is part of the excellent new direction that GW is taking the game.
The next "critique" he offers is for the shooting phase. The shooting phase is not at all overpowered. It all comes down to you and your buddies/family members/whoever you play with. The armies can be totally unbalanced or unfair if you want them to be, or they can be the opposite. I would personally keep them very balanced, but having very unbalanced armies for themed games or special scenarios could be awesome. If you want, for example, you could have 50 Goblins with a few leaders try to take on a Chaos cavalry force, with leaders. It probably will not go too well for the Gobbos, unless the Chaos force is very tiny. This is all up to you. Shooting does not have to be super good, but if one person takes a lot of powerful shooting units and the other person has no effective counter.....then it probably will seem unfair. A point which this so-called "sandwyrm" does not notice, or care to notice.
+2 GW, -2 old reactionaries
........to be continued!
