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[...] Final ThoughtsCheck out TWiW Filed under: Podcasts digg_url = [...]
[...] Final ThoughtsCheck out TWiW Filed under: Podcasts digg_url = [...]
[...] This Week in Wargaming E5 40k 5th Edition « This Week In Wargaming This Week in Wargaming E5 40k 5th Edition http://thisweekinwargaming.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/twiw-reboot-logo.jpg News Items [...]
[...] This Week in Wargaming E5 40k 5th Edition « This Week In Wargaming This Week in Wargaming E5 40k 5th Edition http://thisweekinwargaming.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/twiw-reboot-logo.jpg News Items [...]
[...] This Week in Wargaming E5 40k 5th Edition « This Week In Wargaming This Week in Wargaming E5 40k 5th Edition http://thisweekinwargaming.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/twiw-reboot-logo.jpg News Items [...]
Nice episode. I like how you delved into some of the effects of 5th on the game and gaming community, rather than focusing only on rule changes.
My only criticism is that I feel I have to disregard everything Andrew says due to it being drenched with his cynicism and being highly exaggerated. I’m sure there are some good points in there, it’s just hard to see them when they are dripping with bloated pessimisim.
Keep them coming guys.
Troy, thanks for another great show. I do agree with Dewey above on the criticism with a pretty pessimistic look on many of the 5th edition changes. There’s always going to be small problems with a game, but I seemed to hear a lot of “this army is bad and/or broken due to this rule, and this army…” which more shows problems in the idea that armies are going to be different and have different tactics. The deepstrike on to an objective is a viable option, because if I allow my opponent to have an unclaimed objective, and he lands on it in the last turn, he deserves it. If I already have a squad on it, all I need to do is spread them out and nobody can get close enough to contest. Anybody deepstriking onto the squad, barring monoliths, are pretty much dead or useless when they come into play. I don’t want to sound like I’m pointing fingers, but as a general piece of advice for everybody is this: it’s a game, and meant to be fun. I like winning just like anybody else, but whether I’m playing miniatures games, softball, or soccer, I do so to have fun and enjoy my time away from work. If I’m not enjoying what I’m doing, I’ll do something else.
I also have to agree Dewey in post 4. Andrew’s fatalistic, the-sky-is-falling attitude about each army is over the top. It reminds me of some of the posters at BoLS. I also find it difficult to take his critisisms seriously when he says things like “This army is broken”, and “If that unit gets close, you’re dead.” I don’t think it matters what GW would have done with 5th edition and FAQ’s, Andrew would hate it.
On a more positive note: it’s always nice to hear from John “Brimstone”. I enjoying hearing points of view of overseas.
Keep up the good work!
[...] tanker under Podcasts, Sci-Fi, Warhammer 40K The This Week in Wargaming podcast has a good show that covers Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition. It features Jon “Brimstone” from Warseer.com, amoung others. The show is a good overview of [...]
[...] tanker under Podcasts, Sci-Fi, Warhammer 40K The This Week in Wargaming podcast has a good show that covers Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition. It features Jon “Brimstone” from Warseer.com, amoung others. The show is a good overview of [...]
This could have been an excellent episode, there was some good insight and a very unique perspective on 5th ed that I haven’t heard yet from other podcasts. Unfortunately I was unable to listen to the whole thing because frankly Andrew’s commentary made the podcast impossible to finish. I got about halfway through and I got tired of listening to the onslaught of pessimism. It seems to me at least that this edition wasn’t meant to be power-gamer friendly, it was meant for real gamers, it’s unfortunate that people have to dump all over a game because of that..
Another great Podcast!
I feel Andrew made some valid points but he is way to cynical when it comes to US players. Here in the States it’s the WAAC players that are killin’ the 40K hobby.
Apocalypse and 5th edition has brought back a bunch of us that had left 40K the only hurdle for us to cross is the WAACers. They really have a hard time playing games with those of us that build fun lists and could care less about winning over having a great time.
The US gaming culture of WAAC needs an enema and I think Apocalypse and 5th edition are a great start.
Jim
I have to echo Dewey’s comments.
Andrew rants drag discussion down on Dakka just as much as it did with this podcast.
If there were any valid points, I couldn’t be bothered to try and find them after attempting to sort through his negativity.
I am critical of GW myself, but…the rants were tiresome.
The episode as a whole suffered because of Andrews rather verbose and negative attitude. Until he can word his criticisms logically and with merit, I wont bother to listen to an episode where he is included in the cast.
Well I want to let everyone know I have listened to you. I do think that Andrew can add to the show, and have talked with him about how to temper his negativity. I think he really does love the hobby and wants it to be better, but he needs to try to be a bit more even handed.
He is scheduled to be on the next episode, a warhammer fantasy focused show about the Dark Elves Release, and I will make the assessment at that point. I also think I made some mistakes in how to utilize him and will try to do better myself.
I hope you will all give me the chance to try to capitalize on his strengths, while minimizing his weaknesses.
In the end, though this is YOUR show, so you will decide.
Thanks for all the support everyone!
I enjoyed the show.
I agree with many others that Andrew’s opinions did seem a bit OTT and it did give me the impression that he thinks if anything in the game system hurts his chance of shooting his enemy up without any come back it is broken.
Which is probably not the case at all, he’s probably a good guy to play against but in this episode he gave me the impression he was the worst kind of tourney player you could meet that doesn’t enjoy anything unless he is winning by a massive margin.
I’m based in the UK so have been really interested to hear across several podcasts recently the differences in attitude to playing that permeates US gaming vs UK gaming. In my group we like to have fun and play with crazy-ass lists that ‘feel’ good – we still like to win (and play hard to) but we’re not concerned with number-crunching and looking to ‘break’ a game for the ultimate ‘I win’ list, fun and a good story is always paramount.
In fact I prefer tight, closely fought games on a knife-edge, win or lose than straight – I win/you lose whitewashes.
Interesting discussion all round – don’t kick Andrew off – I think I saw a flicker of his obviously vast gaming knowledge in amongst his tirade. He could teach a lot of stuff to players – if we can just get past his powergamer-list centric thinking.
That’s a shame.
Stelek’s numerous suspensions from Dakka has shown he lacks the self control to be socially gracious.
Its kind of hard to care about any possibly valid points that he makes when he rudely pontificates at every available opportunity.
Good luck with that.
Really need to ditch Stelek. It’s not so much the negativity as the narcissistic self-delusion that does it for me. “I’m so good at what I do” (something like that, I can’t remember exactly) and similar phrases annoyed me a little. I didn’t listen to the whole show this time.
I’ve been listening for some time now. I usually enjoy each of the episodes. However, listening to Andrew bitch about every single subject that came up, was just too much.
I guess I should be impressed that he is a beta tester for the new Dawn of War game, and that he was also play testing the 40K 5th edition for the past year.
However, it’s just too much to listen to him bloviating about his impressive skill and knowledge about everything gaming.
Get rid of this tool, now. His contributions to the round table were nill.
It was almost impossible to listen to his multiple tirades. Unfortunately for our hobby, guys like this are far too common. They are what is wrong with gaming in general, and specifically what is wrong with your podcast.
If continues to come back, I think I’ll have to stop listening to the show.
Good afternoon!
Thanks for all the hard work on the podcast – I’m enjoying it. I haven’t gotten to the 5th edition in depth review part of this episode so I can’t comment on that. Though I have one comment – IMHO, the new format for the news is not working (for me). I really enjoyed the true roundtable aspect of the first three episodes. This episode was not too bad since there was not that many news items, but the 4th episode it really sounded like the rest of the panel had totally forgot what they wanted to say by the time you got through all the copious news and reviews for that week.
Please consider switching back to the old format of news item, discussion, next news item, discussion, etc. that you had for the first 3 episodes!
Thanks a lot, and keep up the good work!
Okay, I see what the other commentators have been saying. I’m already tired of Andrew’s blanket statements and general negativity, and I have another 56 minutes of podcast left to listen to.
Sorry!
Great show as usual – I really like the format and all the different views about the hobby.
KEEP STELEK ON. Maybe I’m just used to it being a Dakkite, but I think Andrew’s comments actually made the show more enjoyable. I found his insight negative but interesting. At least its not all the fanboy love you get on some other podcasts 24/7 – I enjoy the difference of opinion. If nothing else, his comments make you think, (even if you decide some of them are crap).
I was quite impressed and interested in this episode since it actually did have a diverse set of opinons. While I many not agree with much of what Stelek says I also admit I am not a regular on the tournament scene in any sense of the word. That and at least in America you still have conflicts unlike Canada. I would say that 5th edition is what I would call the tournament edition of 40k since it does seem that all the changes while (In my opinon) make the game better they are also designed with making tournaments easier to run.
In regards to his contribution to the show the fact he does seem to be a hard core tourney player means that his point of view about the Game that is fairly unique. I can not say that he needs to be removed from the show but rather he channels his energy into forming constructive purposes for those of us who perhaps are not as tournament savvy as he seems to be.
In the words of the D6 generation “a podcast of hate”. I have previously enjoyed the show but really struggled to finish this episode for the same reasons listed above.
Andrew was painful to listen to and considering that your audience generally listens to the show for enjoyment as well as its information, I can’t see this as a positive. I don’t know of many people that will voluntarily listen to someone whinge repeatedly and verbosely.
I also liked the old news format better for pretty much the same reasons as Mark has outlined.
Well for those who mentioned the news format rest assured we are going back to the old news format with round table commentary following each news item. I had tried to cut down on the show length but since no one is complaining about show length but people do want the old news format back that’s more than fine with me.
As for Andrew, I would point out that in spite of all the negative comments on him, this is already my most downloaded episode and by far the most commented on. I am not at all ignoring anyone’s feelings but I would ask you to consider that Andrew might be more entertaining when contrasted against an equally strong personality such as Jeff Carroll on the next episode.
I also think you will see a very different side of him when he is commenting on a game he likes and respects such as will be the case then we do our Flames of War episode in September.
Thanks again to everyone for caring enough to share your feedback with me, I do hear you!
I think vetsgtNamaan raises a good point.
Knowing the background of where a commentator is coming from helps in understanding their comments. At the time I listened to the episode I was not fully aware of Stelek’s tournament-heavy focus. During the episode I kept wondering (1) did he even like the game; (2) did he have anything positive to say about the game; and (3) was he even capable of playing a fun, friendly game in view of what seemed like extreme WAAC comments. Now that I know where he is coming from, I can put those comments in perspective even though I don’t agree with many of them and think he would be better served by realizing that the way an opinion is delivered is equally important as the opinion itself. If you present it in a very negative way, you will turn most people off immediately even though the opinion itself might have some merit to it.
Anyway, another good episode overall despite the negativity and it is always good to hear from Brimstone.
Firstly, a point of order: We at the D6G are, as Russ says, NOT a podcast of hate. And I think Troy is striving for that as well.
To be honest, I was stranded in Times Square for 3 hours and listened to this episode in not a great state of mind, so take my impressions with a grain or two of industrial cleaning salts.
I thought the organization and focus of this episode were great. It took things in a different direction and looked at things the rest of us had neglected. Also, generally speaking the diversity of opinions Troy puts together, and the organization of those opinions, is always impressive and usually very entertaining.
Further, I understand that a conversation can ALWAYS be improved by listening to dissenting opinions.
But it was painfully clear early into the podcast that Andrew was not only a dissenting opinion, he was a painfully negative opinion coming from a thorough power-gamer, win at all cost point of view. The army lists he was giving as examples were grotesque, and could only be common in a gaming environment that I, for one, would not enjoy playing in at all.
Further, when he started to make grand, sweeping comments about “U.S. gamers” being like him, I was deeply offended. I’ve been to more than my fair share of GW tournaments, and I’m VERY happy to say that players like he appears to be, at least in New England, in the Baltimore area, and in Canada, have been few and far between in my experience. The thought of us all being judged by your international listeners by this one example bothers me tremendously.
He is not a common example of U.S. gamers in general or even Tournement Gamers in particular. He appears to be a good example of the power-gamer-win-at-at-all-costs-no-story Matrix Gamer, however.
So I guess, to close this far longer than intended rant, if you can rein Andrew in, then I think he can definitely add something to your round tables. However, if he does to the Dark Elves what he did with the 40K 5th Edition in general, and the FAQs and the U.S. gaming community in particular, I’m afraid I’m going to have to give episodes with him in them a pass. His opinions and where they are coming from, as currently voiced, are just too far from my own observations or understanding for them to bring anything positive to a discussion.
And so, from the D6G, where there is no hate, I’d have to say that I’m very disappointed in Andrew’s current contribution.
Oh, and I’d definitely give TWiW a 2+ with a re-roll!
Great to hear from you Craig, glad to know you like the show and I have to say 2+ with a re-roll made me blush!
You actually bring up a point that I am going to add as a secondary discussion point for the show. I have so much feedback from this episode that I cant read it all but I want to respond and you sum up very cogently that it’s not just a USA vs Europe situation. And that there are a large number of people like yourself in the US as well.
My personal feeling is kind of like a Rodney King moment. You know – cant we all just get along. I have a little bit of both in me as I am highly competitive and will build as killer a list as anyone, but I also make it a point not to drive home every possible advantage and make my opponent miserable if I can see a clear miss match early in the game. We should all be just as concerned with our opponent enjoying his game as with winning at all costs.
I can also understand the frustration of the gamer who simply plays by the rules the way they are written and cant understand why it is their fault that the rules are easily abused. I wish we could find a middle ground where the fluff/hobby/fun gamers and the killer tourney competitive gamers could each simply respect that each other have valid points. Just because someone else has a different way that they enjoy the hobby does not make them any less of a “real gamer”.
I find that this attitude is often just as prevalent among each side of the fence.
I am not defending Andrew’s vitriol, he is an angry man sometimes but he does make some valid points and astute observations. I hope he can learn that people who play to the spirit of the rules have just as much right to enjoy the hobby their way as the RAW competitive gamers. But I hope that the less competitive gamers can do the same.
Now. I’m going to go play some Carpenters and dance and sing in my fantasy land for a while.
Perhaps, another potential topic for a future episode?
Does a middle ground exist between the fluff/hobby/fun gamers and the killer tournament gamers?
and
Can a particular game/rule system accomodate both types of gamers without being overly weighted in favor of one group over the other? For example, can a company streamline individual army rules to obtain balance for tournaments without removing the flavor and character that attracts the fun gamers to that particular army?
I believe the answer to the first question is: Yes, since I have played people who fall in both categories. However, I would be interested in what the “panel of experts” has to say on both issues.
I think Andrew ought to stay on.
He can be a bit of a chore to listen to and he makes some pretty strong, blanket statements about the community that are over the top.
What about giving him 5-10 minutes to rant? Andy’s Power Minute. He can go off on some uber lists and how to break the game with some of his tips.
He’s a neat little window into the heart of powergamers. I don’t think I have the patience for 15mins of his interjections.
BTW, I think the number of DL’s of this show probably has more to do with the release of 5th than with Andrew. He does add a “Bill O’Riley” element to the show that could capture a following. Might turn some people off, however.
Just a little bit about the “most downloaded episode yet”: I have a feeling that this was more to do with it being devoted to 5th edition 40K (which is highly popular) than due to the high quality of the participants.
Really, I don’t mind having hard-core tournament players on the show and I thought Andrew had some good points to begin with, but when he started ranting about Apocalypse, I realised that with that kind of exaggeration (you can’t remove a whole army with one template, for example) you can’t trust anything *else* he has said either.
I think it is very good that there are podcasts bring together a wide variety of people, but they need also need a certain amount of objectivity. If a participant on the Dark Elf episode wants to spend the show talking about elves in pink tutus then that would be variety, but it would not be interesting to the vast majority of the listeners.
Overall I liked the episode. It provided some insight into 5th edition that some of the other 5th edition podcasts didn’t think of.
I think you should keep Andrew on. Although he can be annoying to listen to at times, he does give interesting opinions on how certain things will affect the tournament scene.
I also like the idea of giving Andrew 5-10 minutes of rant time each episode.
Please, please, never have Andrew on the show again. I don’t have any problem with someone stating what they do or don’t like with any game, but he makes the new 40k sound like something not worth wiping your rear with. This might be fine except that almost every single observation he makes has been the opposite of my experience with the new rules. Even his view of Apocalypse seems odd to me as my local GW can’t keep Apocalypse Reload in stock for more than a day, and they never fail to have great attendance for Apocalypse events.
Bottom line, the new rules aren’t perfect, as no rules for any game are, but I think all the enjoyment he gets from the hobby may be from complaining about it rather than from actually playing the games. Meanwhile, the rest of us will enjoy most of he changes and find ways to work around the ones we don’t. We’ll continue to have both friendly and competitive games, and find the many differences between different army lists, rather than feeling that they have become all the same.
This was my first episode of TWiW, and I have to say that this Andrew guy really brought the show down. Okay, I get it, he doesn’t like DOW2, he doesn’t like 5th Ed, and he is so awesome that people don’t even want to play him. Or maybe it’s because he is a bitchy, whiney ass. This army sucks, that army sucks, blah blah blah. While Andrew might represent an alternate view from a different style of play, it is a style of play that I try to avoid playing with as much as possible, and if I don’t want to play a guy like him I certainly have no interest in listening to him complaining for an hour and a half. Either way, I will give this show another episode or two, but if this is par for the course I think I will be moving on.
What does WAAC stand for?
Amusingly, a Googling pointed me to Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. But that cannot be right.
CAN IT?!?!
WAAC, I had to figure out too, Munchezuma. “Win at all costs”
Interestingly enough, over at the d6g thread for episode 13 we actually had yakface descend and beg us to retract some statements Raef made along the same lines as Andrew RE the cover save rule. The rule actually doesn’t give one player the ability to lower the other player’s cover save by 1 unless BOTH agree to do so. If playing a person that tries to game this, you just go by the rule, which is you check los from all models and do the math. the -1 is only if you both agree it’s too close to call.
I’ve won a few tournaments in my day (long ago though that day was), and very few people in my life would say I’m NOT competative (just start by talking to my wife). I think you can DEFINITELY find middle ground between WAAC Packers and Fluff-Nazis. I’ve done several campaigns that struck a happy middle ground (even if few of them reached a conclusion). Where there can NOT be any middle ground is where one party is not interested in FINDING middle ground. For instance, the only enjoyment they get is by beating their opponents so badly no one wants to play them. If that’s the ONLY thing that will bring you pleasure, then I have no interest in trying to find middle ground with you.
Haven’t had the time to check episode 6 yet, but I hear you do a mean Craig, Troy.
Can’t wait to check it out >:)