Gav's thoughts on the lustria lists

[therisnosaurus]

from the GW rules dev forum, the loremaster speaks out

quote: Gav>>
Hi,

I've recently been fielding thoughts and questions regarding the army lists in Lustria, the use of special characters for variant lists, and some of the thinking behind Lustria itself. Since these are the GW forums, I should probably post this here too!

Remember, by the letter of the rules, anyone can use special characters unless 'banned' by an event organiser. However, most groups will have an agreement about whether they use special characters or not. The whole point of attaching the lists to special characters was to include these variant lists within that same context. There is nothing that prevents a gaming group (or event organiser) from allowing the list to be taken out of context and used without the special character. In the future, we'll make this even clearer by suggesting what a player can do instead.

We can't keep simply adding in variant list after variant list into the game without some kind of limiting measures. At the end of the day, there are over a dozen army books that we expect players to face in pick-up-and play scenarios and if we keep adding lists at the rate we are (even excepting the ten extra ones in SoC!) then soon there'll be twenty, thirty lists, which is a complete minefield for players. And this isn't just about new players, how many of you genuinely know how all the current lists work? How would you know if your opponent was making a genuine mistake if you had to know even the vague details of thirty different lists, attendant magic items, and so on?

So, the idea is that a lot of these variant lists will be context-specific (a campaign, a special character, a scenario, &tc), meaning they'll require some agreement and discussion by the players, if only to make sure your opponent is aware that the type of list you are using exists! It's not really on to turn up at a club, store or tournament and find that the army you are facing appeared in a discontinued supplement, or old WD, and is now available only on some part of the website. Think how many lists there are now, and then think even just two years on with new campaign supplements, WD articles and the like. In hindsight variant lists were a very useful mechanic for getting players to look at armies they haven't considered before. However, the sheer weight of information regarding armies is becoming downright unwieldy.

and

Going forward we'll hopefully end up in a place that is a lot clearer for existing and new players alike, and is essentially going to boil down to:

Rule book + Army book = 'Official', use without prejudice.

Everything else = 'Unofficial', we think it's great, but not for pick-up-and-play games without warning.

To use an example from the past, you wouldn't expect to suddenly spring a siege game on an opponent, would you? Similarly, we'd like to get to a place where players won't surprise their opponent because they've turned up with a list, troop type or character they may not have seen before. This means the players will have to communicate with each other – "Hey, Bob, I found this old WD with this variant Dark Elf list, shall I try it next week?", rather than, "Sorry, Bob, but yes I can have eight repeater bolt throwers, it's not my fault you didn't know that…"

As for tournaments, like I keep saying, it's up to tournament organisers what sort of event they can run. I think we can do better with suggesting alternatives for organisers to think about, but ultimately if we create something for one context, players will have to decide for themselves if they are happy with it being used outside of that context. As another example, certain scandanavian tournaments have been using some of the Bugman's Lament troops (or so I read, anyway). Those units are obviously tied to that campaign, are done as some colour and fun, but the players attending those tournaments are made aware that they'll be used, and forewarned is forearmed (as opposed to four-armed, which is a Keeper of Secrets ).

We (as the games developers) can't be at every event and every gaming table, so it is important that we explain ourselves a bit better in these products and articles, and include appropriate editorial comment that explains the intent of a new list, new special character and so on. This has been a growing factor over the past year or two, but we're getting to grips with it now.



Quote:
" I might just be a sour tournament player who never has fun playing but when I have to choose between spending 100's of dollars on an army that I'm sure I can always use in both private and tournament play or a list I might be allowed to use then I guess I will choose the safe option. "

You're not a sour tournament player, you're a player making an informed decision about the army you want to collect, and you have every right to. If the players you game with, or the events you attend, are unlikely to allow you to use one of these lists, then you would be crazy to collect one. On the other hand, there are lots of players and events that will be happy using these lists (with or without special characters, as they decide) and we have to cater to them as well. Would you rather you collected this army and then your tournament opponents and organisers thought it was cheesy and decided to ban it? Better to be cautious and clear up front, than regret it later. I'd rather players were making positive decisions (let's allow this) than negative ones (let's ban this).

Cheers,

GAV

[Delicious Soy]

So basically Gav's big solution to everything is for each player considering a variant list to conduct a census in his region to make sure an acceptable number of people will allow his list before putting it together? Riiiiight. If GW aren't willing to make variant list official full-stop, why bother making them at all?

ATM, i can say I have at least a passing familiarity with each of the lists (besides the Lustria ones, because I don't plan on purchasing it). I've played games (of 40k) where I've had to explain, to relatively experienced players, that a Seer Council has a 4+ invulnerable save. In WFB the problem is excarebated by the magic items system. Basically I think that most people are going to have the same difficulty with army lists irrespective of how many there are. THis is especially true of those lists being published of ARMY books. Don't bother if you are simply going to make them dependent on special characters and usuable only occasionally.

[Riddy]

As it is currently why cant they just make the varient army lists official, i see no reason why anyone would refuse to play against a plague monk army or a skink army, both are dooable through their respective army books anyway. As with Delicious Soy i have a passing familiarity with most lists in WFB (Other than OK and Lustria, as i haven't played since before OK came out) and if you are playing a game you should ALWAYS have your army book handy so that even if i dont know about something you have the material there to show me that you aren't making it up this means even if it is a 'pick up and play' game against an army i have never seen before, i have a chance to look at some of the rules.

[Sgt John Keel]

Actually, this bit is also pretty important to read before making any hasty desicions.

Thanks to everyone that has posted so far, for keeping it civil and bringing up some interesting points. I'll jump in and address some of those issues.

Official/ Unofficial debate
There used be a time when such terms as official and unofficial didn't exist. Most players happily went their way in small groups, a few attended clubs, but there certainly was no sense of a wider community beyound the stores you visited and your mates. These days we have global events, tournaments, battle bunkers and all sorts of other goodness (which, incidentally, I would have given a limb for when I was a callow youth looking for people to play this new-fangled Rogue Trader game I'd discovered). We have been slow in recognising the full implications this has on a games system and the way it can be promoted and supported with new material. Perhaps it was rose-tinted spectacles, perhaps simply good intent, but we were confident in our ability to release rules and people would be 'nice' about the whole thing, talk this over with their opponents, agree what they used and try things out in a spirit of adventure.

Of course, the reality is that players come together from very different places, looking for different gaming experiences. Some game in stores, some in clubs, others go to tournaments, while more still just play with their mates in the olde stylee. What has been consistent for a while now is the question, 'Is this official?'. This is not something we've taken upon ourselves to instil upon the gaming system because it suits out purposes, far from it. It is a response to the growing number of calls for greater clarification as to what is official and what's not. Why would people want to know? That's up to them, it's not for us to say.

The short version is that players have asked us the official/ unofficial question a lot recently and we have to start addressing the answer.

Amount of rules
Lets not forget something important: we produce a lot of rules. Masses, in fact. When we were compiling the Annuals it was clear that every year we added a large amount of rules to every games system.

We also want to keep producing more rules! They enable us to explore the universes of our games, and the hobby of gaming itself in different ways.

Take a moment to consider just how much of that massive rules set you yourself know about, or are even aware of. Most of us only look at part of this at a time – your own army, the armies you play against perhaps, the tournament rules of the events you attend, maybe even just one of the scenarios. Now step back and think about all of those army books, the other supplements, the WD and web articles, the skirmish rules, sieges, campaigns. At the moment we're asking people to view almost all of that material in the same way, all equally important and equally official. It can be overhelming, even for experienced players. For this reason the divide will allow us to say, "This is the stuff you need to be aware of, and this stuff over here you can think about if you want to."

Time frame
There's two ways we can solve this: the quick, easy way or the long, proper way.

We could apply the divide I mentioned at the start in an instant – wave some magic wand and make a statement that only the rulebook and army books are official, and nothing else. That doesn't leave a lot of players in a very good position, though. They've invested money, time and effort into their armies, and they want to use them, and within many circles as soon as we say 'it's unofficial' then those armies will be instantly tainted, for right or wrong. That's not really doing best by them, no matter the greater good that is served.

So we have to do this the proper way, to extricate ourselves from the decisions of the past and not repeat them, and find ways to move forward that accomodates the needs of the players themselves, all of them. This is going to take time, quite a long time indeed, probably years. There isn't one solution. Some of these things may be accomodated as we revise army books, for instance. Others may require us to bite the bullet and move things over to the 'unofficial' side of the line, but to do so in a way that leaves players with as much opportunity as possible to use the armies that they have collected.

This also means that there isn't going to necessarily be a defining moment of when this happens. We might wake up one monday and realise with a warm sense of achievement that we've actually got there. This isn't going to get fixed next week, next month, or even perhap next year, because miniatures last a long time.

What it absolutely requires is that we don't add to the phenomenon, and that players understand what we are trying to achieve, and why.

Errata
Someone mentioned there being no official errata in this approach. This isn't the case, because any errata will be corrections made to those official sources – the corrections don't exist in some little area of their own, they are simply an extension of the rulebook and armies books. In fact, errata like this is incorporated into a reprint policy that means the books themselves are physically updated with the latest corrections.

Happy Gaming!

GAV

/Adrian

[amagi]

Gav says:

So, the idea is that a lot of these variant lists will be context-specific (a campaign, a special character, a scenario, &tc), meaning they'll require some agreement and discussion by the players, if only to make sure your opponent is aware that the type of list you are using exists!

This is a fundamentally horrible idea.
Stripped of Gavin's lengthy explanations, he is essentially declaring the following:

It is now GW policy to spend large amounts of resources--money, time, shelf space, etc.--designing, producing, and selling Warhammer products that are inherently designed to have limited appeal, limited playability, limited flexibility, limited application, limited variety, limited sales.

This is absurd, and it does not bode well for the future of Warhammer.

When I heard that the army lists in the Lustria book required the inclusion of a special character in some fashion (and that none of the new units had any relevance outside these special character armies), I thought it an unfortunate lapse in judgement on the part of GW--I thought they had failed to take into account the effect such rules would have on the general appeal and usefulness of their armies.

Now that I know it was GW's conscious intent to limit the use of their product, I am aghast and appalled.

There are many reasons why this policy is irrational.
The most glaring reason is probably the fact that because GW must devote considerable resources to the development and production of their products, to intentionally minimize their return on those resources is inane.

But the most upsetting reason to me personally is the fact that the armies created under such a policy will be of very little or no interest to me or any of my gaming group. We might use them once or twice, but they will inevitably go the way of all such "special scenario" or "special character" or "special context" armies--to oblivion (where they will join Albion, the War of the Beard, countless "unofficial" White Dwarf lists, Chronicles lists, etc.). We will certainly invest no money in such armies, beyond perhaps buying an occasional book. Just one reason for this is that we almost never use special characters, even though we do appreciate the value of including them (as optional choices) with army lists. I won't be buying the Lustria book, incidentally, because GW's plan to limit the interest of those armies has succeeded brilliantly in my case.

I reject entirely the idea that the existing army books plus the SoC lists are approaching any sort of upper limit of army list capacity. I reject the idea that more official, general-use lists will create a problem of complexity for Warhammer players.
Gavin's arguments to this effect are mistaken.

I will address his arguments in a future post.

Briefly, the fundamental point is that a new army list creates no problem of complexity at all if its rules are easily available to be shown to opponents and its official/unofficial status is made clear. As long as it adheres to the basic rules of Warhammer, in broad terms, and is not overly complicated itself, there is no problem.

In reality, what Warhammer needs is precisely more variety in army lists, more variety in playing styles, more variety in troop choices.
The last thing Warhammer needs is for GW to start wasting time and money on irrelevant, marginally useful "special" armies that are designed to not appeal to a significant portion of their players.

[Bruen]

Its typical that I read this the day after I buy £100 worth of zombie pirates.

As far as I am concerned this policy makes anything not in an army book into an unplayable curiosity, and certainly not something that I would invest time or money in.

[WLBjork]

This has been the situation ever since WHFB and 40K started.

Why are people complaining about it all of a sudden?

These lists that Gav is referring to are lists that are considered to be unbalanced for normal gaming purposes. If they were official, I think that we'd see even more people complaining - I can remember all the furor over the SoC lists, which were all official.

It seems that the view is "if it isn't official, it's not worthwhile".

I think the opposite - the unofficial stuff is there more to add background and allow you to field the force in certain circumstances. After all, I can see some complaints if I opted to field a War of the Beard Dwarf force against a modern Empire Army.

Bruen - you've bought those ZPs. Stick the Zombies up and distribute Blackpowder weapons. Later on if you wish, you can add some skeletons with Crossbows and form the basis of an Army of Sylvania force - that's exactly what I'm planning on doing. That gives me the basis of two armies for little more than the cost of one.

[Angelripper]

I personally think it's not so bad as everyone thinks. OK you can't use your stylish Zombie Pirate, or Plague Monk or what ever list else in a grand tournament. Well thats sad if you just have this army. But what is so terrible if you take that army of yours and after finishing it expand it to a regular Armybook Troop.
It's no biggy to ask around if your friends have no problem with a list. I bet if it's stylish and not that overpowerd no one would complain. On the other Hand it's just annoying to fight the same Nuln Gunline everytime. so I think to make fights more fun you should always use the wohle variety of every army. I for example got a nice Empirearmy and use them sometimes as plain Armybook Empire, as SOC list, as Artillery Train of Nuln, or Marienburger Mercenary Army. Same with my Dark Elves. You might face an Armybook army one time next time a Slaaneshi Cult and the next time a Citygarrisonlist. In tournaments, even in "All-Goes" by our Gaming Assosiation I take the Armybook armies because it opens more possibilities to hurt your opponent.
Fungames between friends are one thing, official games against someone you don't know are another thing.

just my 2 cents

[Delicious Soy]

For me the main issue isn't the usability of lists in tournaments, its the fact that these armies deny you the ability to personalise your army. I'd love to collect a Zombie Pirate army, but the inability to make my own lord choice and arm him in a way that I find characterful means that I won't. Why should the tournament viability of these lists affect the ability of people to make their army their own?

[Bruen]

This has been the situation ever since WHFB and 40K started.

Why are people complaining about it all of a sudden?

That is simply untrue. Up until now all lists printed in WD, on the GW website or in a Codex have been official unless they said that they required your opponents consent.

Sure you couldn't take them all to tournaments but I don't go to tournamets so that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is pickup games in store.

The problem with this new position is that these lists will now be in the same position as DIY special characters and special scenarios that you make up to play with your friends and Forgeworld beasties - they will effectivly be banished to playing at home only. Its just going to be impossible to get a pickup game with any of these armies because they are "not tournament legal".

Well its certainly like that where I play, basicaly if its not tournament legal then it might as well not exist.

And yes I could switch and play Vampire Counts, except that I don't want to. It was the Vampire Pirate army list that inspired me, not any run of the mill undead army.

These lists that Gav is referring to are lists that are considered to be unbalanced for normal gaming purposes. If they were official, I think that we'd see even more people complaining - I can remember all the furor over the SoC lists, which were all official.

Yep, the Zombie Pirate list is clearly open to abuse.

[Lady Bastet]

It is difficult for me to determine if the Senior Staff of Games Workshop are on drugs or if they are in need of them.

To enforce such foolish restrictions upon the lists only serves to restrict the sales of the armies in question and harm themselves.

Surely a tournament legal, Clan Pestilence army would be encourage sales of the Plague Monk boxed set?

*sigh* what can I say? other than Monkey brains and Monkey minds...

[Inquis. Jaeger]

Personally I feel this is a wrong position for GW to take. The Lustria lists then become (and especially the Plague Monk one) are essentialy unplayable. Why would a person invest time, effort and money into an army which is unofficial and can only be used with your mates? Pick-up games in store and Tournies are a large part of my gaming. If I cannot do this, why would I want to use that army?

Likewise, Gav's position that there are 'too-many' lists is, I feel, belittling. I have not played WHFB (primarily 40k player) since Albion, but I know pretty much what all lists, even in WHFB, do, and whether they exist or not, despite not playing all that regularly. If I can be aware of this, what is to stop others doing the same? So what if there is 30 army lists? 40k has far more than this, or far more possible lists once you factor in Traits, Doctrines, Chaos Legions, Mutuable Nids etc. I do not have a problem keeping up with these, and I am sure the vast majority of WHFB players would not have a problem keeping up with 30+ army lists, particularly when the majority are varients of a select few.

And lastly, I view the 'special-character tie-in' nature of the newest varient lists as a curse. I would like to create, design, cater and model my general as I see fit, both to fit in with my army and style of play, as well what I wish it to look like in model terms. Remember this model is supposed to represent you, the player, on the tabletop. The lack of choice here is criminal. ESPECIALLY when one is forced to take that special character's not inconsiderable points cost as well. Currently, The Skaven Plague Monk army is unplayable below 2000 points, and at a severe disadvantage, I feel, below 3000 points, because it is forced to spend 575 points on Nurglitch. Whilst he is a powerful character, I for one would never take a near-600 point character in any battle below 4000 points. He is simply an unbalancing element.

[taer]

I don't mind the Special character tie-ins so much. What I do mind is telling everyone a list is official (the article to the zombie pirates for example explicitly states that the list is, for all intents and purposes, official), and then a month or so later, when a lot of people have started making a go at them, telling us "Oh wait, we lied, there aren't really official." What's worse, they do it on a rather obscure area of the website, which most gamers never even want to look in. Being a tournament player until Texas got the shaft for GT's, I will only spend money and build a list that I can use in any situation. Sure, I might build one or two eccentric models for a campaign or something, but I'm not going to be spending time building a list that I can use occasionally. This wasn't a particular problem with unofficial things like War of the Beard(y), because if you already owned a High elf or dwarf army it was an easy matter to make a list up, and because they told you it was unofficial from the get-go.

And as for Gav's concern for opponents at tournaments not knowing a list, or whatever, I've played people at the GT who didn't have either an army list or an army book with them, let alone a painted army. Before the SOC lists came out I was playing a daemon army, and at the time nearly none of my opponents had any notion of the special rules of the army, so it isn't like tournament players or casual players take the time to memorize every list as is. Hell, most don't memorize or study lists unless they play that army, or have played that army at some point in time. That's why there is something called trust and common courtesy when you spend a couple minutes before a game to describe any rules that may seem wonky in an army list, and answering any questions your opponent asks of you with your rules to back yourself up with.

[RandomZombie]

I for one am outraged at G.W for doing this. I was about to invest in Zombie pirates also. and im not converting to vampire counts. I sent an angry email to custimer service of G.W. I hope they get it.

[night2501]

wel I see this more of the sportmanship side...knowing that huge amount of sublist is almost imposible, and giving completly free choice makes people not know wath tey are going to face, and that can be frustrating sometymes ...
they not say the list are not oficial, but make clear that they want people to be aware of wath they will face...
on the other hand I find that ok for people that tailor list to play specific oponents, but I do not do that, and many people I know dosn´t do that either, so we don´t really worry about the list the oponent is plaing, as long as he can explain you the rules and let you check them...
and in tourneys he organizer should revise list before accepting entries, and definign witch list can be used especial characters etc...tought I agree list that come with especial characters must be used with it...
in the end...for me is just a clarification, the list are as oficial as in your area make them, and everithing is fine as long as you don´t take it them of context...ho and please be a good sportman and let the oponent know the rules before the game be polite, wath gav say is that for me :P

[Bruen]

...ho and please be a good sportman and let the oponent know the rules before the game be polite, wath gav say is that for me :P

And how do you do that with pickup games?

I play in a local club and a GW store and I never know from week to week who I am going to play, how am I going to get their consent in advance?

[samw]

Well thankfully this won't effect me due to the fact the store-manager at my local GW (where I play all my games) implemented a house rule some time ago. Anything that requires opponents permission can take it as given. Special characters from the website, Back of the Book lists etc are all allowed. We all thought it a great idea. I've played against Skarsnik, seen Korhill in action and played several of the sub-armies. People can write lists like this knowing they'll be able to play them every week, and that gives an incomparable variety, as well as enouraging them to spend money on specific models. At least not all GW employees are insane!

[amagi]

Some of these replies miss the point entirely.
Let's go though a couple:

WLBjork says:

It seems that the view is "if it isn't official, it's not worthwhile".

The official/unofficial issue is a closely related matter, and GW is taking and has taken a similarly asinine approach to this issue--but this is not the point.
The issue at hand is that GW is even making official armies that are supposed to have severely restricted use and appeal!
(That they would also make similarly limited unofficial lists, which are already inherently limited in relevance, is an even worse waste of money and of the time of their employees. Such armies fit even more Bruen's designation as "unplayable curiosities")

Angelripper says:

OK you can't use your stylish Zombie Pirate, or Plague Monk or what ever list else in a grand tournament. Well thats sad if you just have this army. But what is so terrible if you take that army of yours and after finishing it expand it to a regular Armybook Troop.

If a marginally useful, deliberately restricted list can inspire a few people to buy models that they could use in the standard armybook lists as well--how many more people would be inspired by an actually useful, general-use list that is not restricted but versatile and playable?
How many more people would buy undead models if they knew they could use them in the standard list as well as in a hypothetical general-use Zombie Pirate list not crippled by restrictions that make it less effective in the game and far less likely to even be played in the first place?
How many people will NOT be enticed in the slightest to buy more undead models simply because they might be able to occasionally use the actual, restricted, less playable, less flexible, less effective, less interesting Zombie Pirate list?
(It's zero extra enticement for me to know that the models I buy might be of use in some spinoff list that requires me to take the same special character every time, can only be used over 2000 points, only after 2:00 PM on Tuesdays, and only while wearing a green shirt.)
Angelripper is staring at one leaf of one tree and missing completely the forest in front of him.
He says that it's "sad" that someone spent 100 pounds on an army he now realizes has little or no use. It is sad--sad for all of us, and sad for GW, because many of us won't make that mistake now--we won't spend the money at all.

[RandomZombie]

Some of these replies miss the point entirely.
Let's go though a couple:

WLBjork says:The official/unofficial issue is a related matter, and GW is taking and has taken a similarly asinine approach to this issue--but this is not the point.
The issue at hand is that GW is making official armies that are supposed to have severely restricted use and appeal!
(That they would also make similarly limited unofficial lists, which are already inherently limited in relevance, is an even worse waste of money and of the time of their employees. Such armies fit even more Bruen's designation as "unplayable curiosities")

Angelripper says:If a marginally useful, deliberately restricted list can inspire a few people to buy models that they could use in the standard armybook lists as well--how many more people would be inspired by an actually useful, general-use list that is not restricted but versatile and playable?
How many more people would buy undead models if they knew they could use them in the standard list as well as in a hypothetical general-use Zombie Pirate list not crippled by restrictions that make it less effective in the game and far less likely to even be played in the first place?
How many people will NOT be enticed in the slightest to buy more undead models simply because they might be able to occasionally use the actual, restricted, less playable, less flexible, less effective, less interesting Zombie Pirate list?
(It's zero extra enticement for me to know that the models I buy might be of use in some spinoff list that requires me to take the same special character every time, can only be used over 2000 points, only after 2:00 PM on Tuesdays, and only while wearing a green shirt.)
Angelripper is staring at one leaf of one tree and missing completely the forest in front of him.
He says that it's "sad" that someone spent 100 pounds on an army he now realizes has little or no use. It is sad--sad for all of us, and sad for GW, because many of us won't make that mistake now--we won't spend the money at all.

Alright, i agree with some of your post. However, in his post he said that he hopes to get to the official, unofficial set sometime in teh future so if we heaqd Gav and his insane ways off at the pass we can narowly dodge this bullet.

[night2501]

And how do you do that with pickup games?

I play in a local club and a GW store and I never know from week to week who I am going to play, how am I going to get their consent in advance?

before the game refer to the 5 minuts before the actual game take place or while puting the minis on the table...is not that hard...