Match Play: Hopes and Dreams

[odinsgrandson]

So, the General's Compendium will be coming out this summer, and I'm sure that we're all equally excited about all three new styles of play. Right?

Ok, so we're all looking at Matched Play as a big game changer. But we actually don't know what it will look like.

GW broke a lot of rules when they made AoS, so it does stand to reason that they might do it again.

What I'm hoping for:

-Point system with small numbers, so that list building is fast and slots are interchangeable. Units costs like 4 points, or 12 points. Not a unit that costs 346 points and another that costs 341.

-Balanced Summoning (maybe buy summoned units at a discount).

-No force organization chart. I'm not terribly fond of how many grunts you have to bring in order to have the cooler minis, and I think that AoS's static hit and wound rolls will keep big monsters from completely dominating (provided that their point costs are balanced.



Basically, I want to keep the cooler parts of the open format- I think the coolest thing AoS brought to the table is the idea that you could play a band of Marauding Giants or a group of Greater Daemons. I think this could still be balanced just fine, so I hope they keep that.


So what is everyone else hoping the rules look like?

[Auticus]

They've already mentioned somewhere (I can't remember, either one of the SCGT guys or the AOS facebook) that the point format is the old 2000 point format. This annoys me because I agree with you - I dn' tlike that format. I feel that the precision 2000 point format is not good for scenario play because units that are point costed for a certain scenario may not be good or may be even better at another, which leads to people not wanting to play other scenarios because "they aren't fair". Yes - we could just ignore points and play like AOS has been played since last year but that is not going to be an option where I dwell.

However, unlike you - I don't like forces that have no grunts in them at all. When I look at the SCGT lists that people have posted, that is the direct opposite of what I find enjoyable. So this of course also bothers me.

In the end AOS seems like it will probably not be for me - and thats ok. I'm going to be looking at Dragon Rampant and Saga more.

[odinsgrandson]

I want the game to make me WANT to play grunts, but not FORCE me to play grunts.

I feel like the average army ought to have a lot of grunts in it, and they should be the core. But GW's methods are usually to require grunts on the board, but not necessarily make them appealing.

It is a shame that they're going with the 2000 point model. I honestly feel it adds nothing but extra math- I have never found that the points are actually as precise as they need to be to justify .005% increments.

Hopefully they're just using the number 2000 for familiarity, and have increments of 10, or even 5.

[grimmas]

Yep i think the biggest positive of AoS is the ability to take pretty much what you'd like. Any points system needs to allow that to continue but just allow people to choose equivalent forces. A grunt horde should be a viable option but so should a monster mash or Magnificent Seven approach.

[Erik Setzer]

I feel like the average army ought to have a lot of grunts in it, and they should be the core. But GW's methods are usually to require grunts on the board, but not necessarily make them appealing.

I think that's what the point of a lot of the rules involved with those units is. "Grunt" units tend to have rules that add multipliers of force based on the number of models in the unit, i.e. Skeleton Warriors gain +1 attack each if you have 20 models in the unit, or +2 attacks each if you have 30 models or more... so having forty models is good to give you a buffer while keeping three attacks each. But Grave Guard don't have rules like that, because they're an elite unit.

On Saturday, during an AoS "Apoc" style game, the person I was facing off against most expressed feelings that his Dwarfs weren't as good as my Undead, but he'd chosen to bring along elite units for the most part (Longbeards rather than basic Warriors). When it came to a more basic unit like Thunderers, they were more effective. He thought it was because Dwarf shooting is better than combat, but it's really more an issue that having larger units of basic troops can sometimes be more effective than a moderately sized unit of elite troops. (Heck, if not for him throwing six pieces of artillery at my Skeleton Warriors, they would have torn down a couple of Sigmarine cavalry in just a couple rounds of combat... and that was with their stupid hammers preventing me from getting most of the unit moved up into combat.)

[Auticus]

Some are like this yes. Ultimately if I felt grunt infantry could stand to elite infantry due to numbers I'd have no problem with it. Some like skeleton warriors do have that ability with great numbers and I think thats fine. As a chaos player I want to field reavers, but reavers depend on heroes to do anything and heroes are pretty fragile to shooting because they can be picked out anywhere.

I haven't seen reavers do much of anything yet. Thats one type of troop that in the new novels is depicted as very common but on the table I'm the only chaos player I know that even tries to field them and when I do I run them in units of 20-30 and they usually get wiped fairly early on without doing much, discouraging me from wanting to invest more time in them.

[odinsgrandson]

Well, I guess I need to add one more thing to my notes.

Sudden Death needs to be removed, or seriously reworked. I'm actually fine with having different win conditions, but the big trouble with taking huge units in the current rules is that you give your opponent a massively unfair advantage.


It couldn't be that hard to price massive units competitively against the huge monsters they've made. And if they do that, they don't need to require you to take two worthless units for every useful unit in your army.

[Auticus]

The vast majority of scenarios do not use sudden death. The only time sudden death is a thing is when using the default scenario... which IMO is horrible.

[grimmas]

Yeah it's clearly a little bit for a few beginners who are just playing around with the initial scenario to get used to things.

[Mr Mystery]

I simply hope it helps people give the game the try it deserves.

Sadly, it was dog piled by the Hate Mob who claimed it had no tactics etc, which is nonsense.

Dig beneath the surface, and you find a game that's actually pretty hard to truly dominate in (now that may not be to everyone's taste, and fair enough). Once you cast off the old notions and wisdom from Warhammer (Dragons are a sure bet against Goblins etc, that sort of stuff) and get head round 'anything is a threat to everything' you're better placed to enjoy it for what it is.

Not gonna be everyone's cup of tea of course, but I find it a cracking game.

For anyone wanting an idea of what sort of tactical play exist, I've laid out some of the very basic stuff here (http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?60768-Throwing-some-Shapes-in-the-Church-of-War).

All about the shape of your line, and having a more flexible battle plan :) AoS may not have the 'one wrong move, and you're buggered' Warhammer does, but it most definitely does have 'one right move and it's yours'

[Erik Setzer]

Well, when you have nothing to say what a person can or can't take, it's too easy for a person to buy their way to victory, dropping a thousand dollars or so on the elite models and the right stuff to buff everything to make it even nastier. Sure, "don't be a jerk" should be a given, but eh, everyone just assumes their opponent will be a jerk if given the chance, it seems. But you could have a situation where someone wasn't trying to be a jerk, and ended up with something way too nasty, like if someone shows up to fight, say, 50 Empire models with 40 Ogres, and is too young/new to realize that's not going to be a fair or fun match (or even just the types of units on each side). The one "balancing" mechanic was terrible, and that didn't help the game's rep.

With more ways to play, it should help everyone, even outside of Matched Play. Optimism's a nice thing, eh?

[Mr Mystery]

Well that's what I'm meaning.

The game itself is pretty damned good, and far better than some claim. But the addition of points has been a common request since launch. Now it's coming, I really hope people revisit it.

[Erik Setzer]

Only crowd that won't be satiated then will be the regimental combat folks. You could make that work in AoS, but I suppose KoW and 9th Age make it not that much of a necessity. At some point when I'm not being a lazy git (I have reasons to be "lazy," but still...), I might take a stab at it, but of course it'd be unofficial.

[Mr Mystery]

Well, you can and you can't with AoS.

Rank and Flank is of course no longer an option, but due to how combat is now worked out, and melee weapons having a range, you have a lot of new formations to play with.

Main downside there is that it requires quite precise deployment, and even more precise movement if you wish to keep formation. For some, no real issue there, especially if you don't have a set time limit to get your game in. Of course in Store and at organised play, time is something one needs to take into account, and the micro managed movement could slow down larger games considerably.

But once you start exploring those and get the hang of it, your speed will naturally increase!

Only thing I'm left baffled by is how to make cunning use of Retreating - relatively risk free disengagement isn't something I'm at all used to in my 28 years of gaming - but it's totally something I need to learn how to make good use of!

[Mr Mystery]

I suppose I should add that points will only add to tactical and strategic decision making - after all, it's a cap on the troops at your disposal, meaning from the outset you need an idea in your head of what strategy/strategies to focus on, the sorts of tactics needed to realise them.

I'm really intrigued to see if there's any kind of FoC attached to Match Play as well. With an increased focus on character based buffs and debuffs, having a limited access to such things again helps to focus one's forethought.

Let's look at some of the most common ones, Khorne Bloodbound.

Bloodstokers - each hero phase, pick a Khorne unit. Add 3" to its run and charge moves, and re-rolls 1's to hit for it. A tasty boost in itself.

Bloodsecrator - plant your standard, and all friendly Khorne units get an additional attack with each melee weapon, and ignore Battleshock so long as they're within 18" of this model. Very nice, marries well to the Bloodstoker.

With free choice, why not take two of each? Their abilities all stack.... But if there's a restriction, and you can only take say, three Characters? You've got the choice of that very nice synergy above, or the far pokier and handy in a fight Fighty Characters - you can just take them all!

[Erik Setzer]

I think that was mentioned somewhere, but might have been a rumor. Would be pretty handy to have, but I understand people not wanting restrictions... then again, they could just stick with Open Play, or opt not to use any force organization rules.

[Mr Mystery]

Indeed.

To me, that's one of the strengths of AoS with the coming additional rules - since the word 'go', it's been a very open system.

Whilst I'm sure play will quickly standardise in some manner, having started off with a 'whatevs, nerds. Just DBAD about it!' I reckon that spirit will pervade.

Currently toying with a 'welcome to AoS' type thread for the main board. Nothing preachy, just a 'this is what I've found since I've been playing it' - pointing out the differences from Warhammer (like Artillery no longer dominating big Monsters to the point that if you knew you were playing Dwarfs or Empire, Scaly Dave the Black Dragon might stay in his cave). Maybe dredge up some of my wonderful artwork from my tactics thread to help people get a rough feel for how they might want to do things.

[odinsgrandson]

I simply hope it helps people give the game the try it deserves.

Sadly, it was dog piled by the Hate Mob who claimed it had no tactics etc, which is nonsense....



Let's be fair to the hate mob- the only scenario that is part of the core rules is hopelessly broken (via, Sudden Death). And a number of tactics were discussed from the start that were equally broken (like the Infinite Lords of Change host).

And without any balancing mechanisms in the game, the game rules were incomplete to the point that any winning force can be considered broken. The only way to get around that was for your group to play enough times and use house rules (often unspoken house rules cited as the DBAD rule).

I find that arbitrary enforcement of DBAD breaks the DBAD rule. But it isn't like the rulebook is going to help with that, and the recent FAQ has sided with the hate mob on what all of the rules actually intend (summoning and infinite named characters).

I think that people checking it out is going to depend a lot on the price. If the free rules get updated with Matched Play rules, then we'll see a lot of people looking into this. If they don't, then a lot of people are going to check it out, mostly from the hate mob (because people who talk that much about the problems are probably people who care about Warhammer).


Only crowd that won't be satiated then will be the regimental combat folksl.

Nah, the game got such an overhaul, there are going to be others who liked things that aren't part of AoS. A good number of them are offended by the end of the old fluff. I doubt they're coming back.

[Cutter]

A good number of them are offended by the end of the old fluff. I doubt they're coming back.

Not coming back in the sense that we never went away, we just didn't make the leap to AoS :-)

Warhammer's nice though.

[Mr Mystery]

I can't say I can object to those who criticised the game for not having an army structure in place - it was very unusual, and, outside of set scenario Historical play, completely unique to the best of my knowledge.

But to explain the Hate Mob I was referring to (those who will always criticise anything GW does, because that's what they seem to live for) can be reference by reading this article, which was an ignorant and utterly unwarranted attack on not only my favourite author, but an internationally respected author whose passing prior to the article, left him unable to respond (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/aug/31/terry-pratchett-is-not-a-literary-genius). The literary bigot responsible then tried to make amends, by reading just one of Sir Terry's 46 (count 'em) Discworld novels (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/sep/11/jonathan-jones-ive-read-terry-pratchett-now-its-more-entertainment-than-art). Feint praise, but ultimately still snide.

Worse, he didn't read one of the later ones, when for my money Sir Terry really hit his stride (Sam Vimes is probably my favourite character). And having not read more than one, he's completely missed the compelling, ever changing world Sir Terry created - events from one book affect the rest in the series. He's also missed possibly the greatest part of Sir Terry's writing - you can read the books in any order - they're not direct sequels, just continuations of the Discworld background. Yes you get more out of reading them in the correct order, but it's by no means a requirement.

It's the same with the Hate Mob - never played it, don't intend to play it, but they knew before even look at the rules it was terribad.

[grimmas]

Offended really 😏

I'm offended that people think playing with points is silly I've been doing it for years and I'm deeply offended others don't like it. (I'm not really )

Actually never had a problem or heard of anyone having a problem with DBAD. "But they were being a d**k about me being a d**k!!" Sounds a little strawman and quite frankly like all concerned should pack up their models and try something else for a bit.

I don't mind people not liking the game it's the tiresome, deeply offended, my life has been ruined by the release of AoS rubbish. There's 8 official editons of WFB 1 unofficial (and really rather good) Edition if there's this great big crowd of people who are dying to keep playing then they will. Bloodbowl managed for years without GW support WFB can as well. In fact I believe 9th Age is getting miniature support from elsewhere.

[Erik Setzer]

(like Artillery no longer dominating big Monsters to the point that if you knew you were playing Dwarfs or Empire, Scaly Dave the Black Dragon might stay in his cave)

Whereas now, pretty much everything can and will kill you, so if you're facing Tomb Kings still, you can count on a unit of 30 Archers firing 60 shots at Dave and peppering him in a way that wouldn't have been possible before. Dave can be easily killed in so many new and creative ways! See Dave get turned into a shish-ke-bob! See Dave become a pincushion! See Dave buried beneath bodies! See Dave die to a really weird special rule!

It helps if you picture that last bit as an infomercial.

Basically, everything counters everything. Whether that's good or bad is up to the player. I suppose it does mean there's less chance of the occasional rock-paper-scissors type match where you didn't bring the right stuff to deal with what your opponent has (like bringing an Ork army to fight a Space Wolves army).

[Mr Mystery]

I favour it, because 'hard counters' are now a thing of the past. Again, won't be to everyone's taste as you say, and fair enough on that.

I enjoy it because I really need to work with every part of my army. Before, although I was bloody good as getting the position, once my Chariots had punched your centre and Scaly Dave was on your flank, it was pretty much curtains.

AoS is much more of an infantry game - it's just the fixed hit/wound rules, but also Battleshock. Readers may have noticed that I effing love Battleshock. You've got to plan how to wallop your opponent without taking a pasting in return, because all parties in a given punch up take Battleshock. For my Ogres, it's a right arse. Yes we're tough with multiple wounds, multiple attacks and perfectly reasonable attack rolls, but we also have Damage 2! Except...our bravery is fairly laughable. If you can take down a couple of Ogres in combat, I can easily lose more to Battleshock - especially if you've planned ahead and done something to lower my already fairly paltry Bravery. So with my Ogres, I need to pick my fights with great care, taking care not to over extend or over commit. LOVE IT!

I really could waffle on all day about how much I enjoy the new challenges AoS has brought - but this isn't the thread for that :)

[Auticus]

As a player that detests the concept of hard countering paper/rock/scissors play, I also enjoy that everything can kill everything. I don't want a game where one or two unit entries are difficult to kill AND pump out a lot of damage, because those are the things you will see over and over and over. I want to see variation. I want to see a mixture of tactics and army lists. I don't want to see a hall filled with the same three or four tired builds spammed repeatedly, so in that I am a fan of AOS currently.

As I noted before, my fear of points is not that points are bad (i love points) but that the GW points will be bad and encourage paper/rock/scissors and everyone going back to the same three or four builds and BOLS articles about the unbeatable X Tournament list that everyone goes off to copy. I know, this fear is akin to whizzing in the wind and there's nothing that can be done about the culture that produces this, but its my fear none the less.

[Mr Mystery]

Even if the points are a wee bit bodged, the system itself limits just how hard stuff can be.

Consider 7th Ed Dark Elves. Highborn on Black Dragon, Lance, Heavy Armour, Sea Dragon Cloak, Shield of Spite (enemies at -1S in combat one. May have name wrong!), Black Gem.

Aaaaaaaaaand come at me Bro. Even I was using it, because it was just that damned good. Though my Dark Elf was from the previous book - it just got well hard later!

AoS? I'm yet to see such an absolute must-have. I've not seen a great many cookie cutter armies yet.

And that's down to the base rules set. There's far fewer irresistible force/immovable objects. Points could mess with that to some degree, but not to the excesses Warhammer used to have :)

[Erik Setzer]

Nagash is a must-have in Death armies (though it'll probably change with points)... Dude's Command Ability is disgusting. Someone thought it'd be a good idea to get a guy's Nagash out of the case at the GW store and have me use him for the AoS Apoc match (made me doubly nervous because I don't know whose model it was), and it just got bad. The rerolling 1's for hits and saves is bad enough, but not having to take Battleshock tests? Sure, they already have Bravery 10, so it's not like you were going to get wrecked with it, but I'd actually lost two or three Skeletons to Battleshock before that.

Couple it with most unit standards bringing models back from the dead, and the Skeleton formation bringing guys back, and the army just kept recycling itself. Throw out wizards and cast the +1 save on Hexwraiths, now you have 3+ save that ignores Rend and rerolls 1's. I was actually using them as "tanks" (and seeing a unit of 10 take on 5+ Sigmarines - might have been more - and something like 30 Longbeards, and just soak in the damage with minimal losses, that was nasty).

Anyway...

I think in Warhammer the only super nasty thing I saw was the Banner of the World Dragon, an item that was way too underpriced (and I respect the guy who admitted that it was underpriced but he was still going to have it in every army). I think the nastiest thing I saw was actually a unit with characters in it. Can't remember what made the bulk of them, I think Phoenix Guard. Then throw as many characters as possible into the unit, give it Banner of the World Dragon, buff the characters, let them buff the unit. Then you've got a block of death walking around with a lot of resilience. You could try to maneuver around it, sure, but if you were trying to win based on VPs, it was hard to do that when you couldn't touch this huge block of points. Granted, it should also be noted that it was usually used in tournament practice games by a guy who competed in more national-level tournaments.

Still, I think you could buff a unit up like that in AoS, but you have to be careful about character placement, because they can be picked out (but infantry can hide behind infantry, so there's that). I'm pretty sure if you wanted to create an uber-unit, you could find a way. Only reason I haven't yet is because I find it more fun to throw a thematic army on the table with units I enjoy using and try to win with that.

[Auticus]

There are must haves right now if you are powergaming. Erik mentions nagash. Thats one. Stormcast have the formation where they don't deploy anything and just land on the table wherever they want and charge. Thats another. Throw in the new cav and celestial prime and the flying hero sniper. I always see all of those. Those are to me "must haves". Now the points may limit that a little but only if done properly.

[Erik Setzer]

The limiting factor on the Sigmarine cavalry is the box price... $33 a model isn't going to make it easy to field many of them, just like the Varanguard, even if the rules encourage you heavily to take 6-10 cavalry per unit.

[grimmas]

There are must haves right now if you are powergaming. Erik mentions nagash. Thats one. Stormcast have the formation where they don't deploy anything and just land on the table wherever they want and charge. Thats another. Throw in the new cav and celestial prime and the flying hero sniper. I always see all of those. Those are to me "must haves". Now the points may limit that a little but only if done properly.

Have you listened to the Heelanhammer podcast? They do good coverage of both Adepticon in the US and the SGCT in the UK which might give a clue how it will play out and how the Tournament scene is at the moment

[Auticus]

The cost isn't going to stop the powergaming though. The sigmarine cavalry is grotesquely good and the handful of stormcast players I know bought two or three boxes of them because they are *that* good.

I'm waiting on the book to drop and see what happens in regards to the points. Really none of us knows what to expect so lamenting it so heavily is not logical until after we've seen it and how easy of a system it is to game.

It is possible I will be pleasantly surprised. Right now my campaign was put on hold because our community is waiting for the points and with the "official" campaign system coming are wanting to do that as opposed to someone's homebrew non official material, so as someone with a lot of emotional investment in my 20+ year collection I'm hoping it reigns in the show stoppers for me like chain summoning and that the point system is not grotesquely busted like 40ks is today and like whfb of the past was.

[Mr Mystery]

I reckon the points thing will put a cap of some kind on summoning.

As it stands, it's horrific to face if your army can't summon - the fact that even Nagash can be dropped by standard troops (especially at range if you've got a bit of Rend) doesn't help too much, as with just a couple of turns (and droppable as he is, it ain't gonna be quick!) he can completely change the game you're currently playing.

Archaon is another BIG NASTY....but just like Nagash, he's far from unkillable - trick is to just keep hitting him - and he's actually fairly susceptible to Mortal Wounds, as he only saves those on a 5+. Nasty, for sure. But when I can statisically knock 12 of his 20 wounds off with Thundertusks in a single shooting phase, you realise that another adjustment to the long term Warhammer mindset is due.

But that's all part of why I've taken to AoS - it's a very different game to Warhammer, and presents lots of new challenges to get really good at it :) As I mentioned earlier, something I'm still to get my head round in terms of tactical opportunity is the freedom to retreat from combats. Yes it limits the retreating unit for your next turn, but done at the right time, as part of a plan, you could do wonders with it (effectively switching units that are in combat). Just needs more finesse to really capitalise on it than I currently possess. Fair chunk of my current bafflement was an original mis-reading of the rule. I read it as you could only retreat up to 3", when it's actually just a normal move. Clearly this is good for Cavalry, as not only can they all get up to 'feigned flight' shenanigans, but they have the movement value to properly get out of the way. :)

Though I'd give an example of a unit which could give Nagash or Archaon pause for thought...

The humble Empire Handgunners. Unit of 30, that hasn't moved. 3+, 3+, Rend -1. 20 hits, 14 wounds ( I always round up. Habit!), 7 wounds on either. That's quite a difference to the potential damage they can do in Warhammer. And another good reason for me to do a thread highlighting changes etc.

[Erik Setzer]

Of course, the trick then is to hold Nagash out of their range as long as possible, and drop a bunch of units around them, to harass and/or kill them.

Nagash is probably a terrible example, because of that ability to throw out another six units on the table each turn. (The only saving grace for my opponents was that, since I had all my Undead on the table, I couldn't summon more. Still, that was a massive wall of dead guys marching forward.)

For as much as there's differences, there are still some similarities, but I think that's mainly down to them being miniatures games, and all miniatures games will tend to share some characteristics.

[odinsgrandson]

I can't say I can object to those who criticised the game for not having an army structure in place - it was very unusual, and, outside of set scenario Historical play, completely unique to the best of my knowledge.

But to explain the Hate Mob I was referring to (those who will always criticise anything GW does, because that's what they seem to live for) can be reference by reading this article, which was an ignorant and utterly unwarranted attack on not only my favourite author, but an internationally respected author whose passing prior to the article, left him unable to respond (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/aug/31/terry-pratchett-is-not-a-literary-genius). The literary bigot responsible then tried to make amends, by reading just one of Sir Terry's 46 (count 'em) Discworld novels (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/sep/11/jonathan-jones-ive-read-terry-pratchett-now-its-more-entertainment-than-art). Feint praise, but ultimately still snide.

Worse, he didn't read one of the later ones, when for my money Sir Terry really hit his stride (Sam Vimes is probably my favourite character). And having not read more than one, he's completely missed the compelling, ever changing world Sir Terry created - events from one book affect the rest in the series. He's also missed possibly the greatest part of Sir Terry's writing - you can read the books in any order - they're not direct sequels, just continuations of the Discworld background. Yes you get more out of reading them in the correct order, but it's by no means a requirement.

It's the same with the Hate Mob - never played it, don't intend to play it, but they knew before even look at the rules it was terribad.


Interesting arguments.

The article on Pratchett comes from the ivory tower the moderns gave us (writers of the past, from Beowulf to Shakespear to Charles Dickens were writing for the largest audience they could muster, while the Moderns decided that it was a bad thing if your work doesn't discourage readers who aren't literature professors). He's hating on Pratchett out of habit of dismissing anything with qualities that are not in line with what literary professors have learned to value in books (that people don't read). Said he: "The prose is average." As if that's what people read Pratchett for.

And there are people who are predisposed against Games Workshop for the sake of it. I do think that some of the voices against AoS go in that direction. I think that some of them are reasonable folks who have a point- without a balancing system, the game rules really are kind of unfinished.

But the whole thing does play into the GW hater's world view.

GW hater says "GW makes games that aren't balanced, and don't listen to our community. Also, rage!"
GW says "Real players need no balance. We're removing balance from our games."
GW hater says "See how they do the opposite from what we ask for?"

And the worst part was that GW actually made some statements about how the guys who criticize them aren't their audience.


As for the DBAD paradox, I've certainly seen it happen. Both in person and in forum threads, I've seen questions of "How would you guys deal with X (broken?) tactic." And the response from a lot of people has been, "I make passive aggressive remarks congratulating my opponent on his "win" as I pack up my army without playing."

That's a d*ck way of enforcing DBAD.