Hey All! In today’s blog, I would like to talk about game rules. I think it’s fairly obvious to state that no game is perfect. You’ll always find some flaws in any game that you’ve played long enough. And that’s fine - as long as the end product is enjoyable, this is acceptable. However, I see the value in pointing those flaws out, as sometimes it may lead to improving the game. And if you’ve invested enough hours to have a strong opinion about some of its aspects, then most likely you’d want that game to be better. So… I wanted to talk about some rules/things that irk me with Warhammer Underworlds.
First of all, I would like to state that the worst offender in the WHU rules department is the frequency of FAR and FAQ releases. It’s been way too long for FAQ to drop and the amount of things that beg for clarification is slowly piling up. I’m aware that the team behind WHU is not 100% dedicated to this game, but I think 1.5 years of waiting is not an acceptable time frame. And some of the problems this game has could be fixed via FAQ. So… if any of the devs happened to read this blog - please, PLEASE - bless us with one.
Another important note is that this article - while pointing out the weak areas of the game - is by no means meant to bash at the game. It’s a result of my passion for it and I hope it might get read by someone from the development team who might see some of the things I’ll be writing about addressed.
But moving on to the rules I dislike - the first one is the line of sight for incomplete hex.
I find this rule confusing and I’ve witnessed this to be a source of issues during the tournaments many times. What’s the deal with this? If an imaginary line to determine the LoS is touching a blocked hex, the line of sight is blocked. This however is not the case for an incomplete hex. I think my main issue with this rule is the fact, that the clarification for this has been published in an FAQ, but the Direchasm rulebook is missing it. People tend to simplify things for themselves and in the case of determining the LoS incomplete hexes are often treated as blocked ones. Which they virtually are with that one, key difference.
Do I see a better solution for that rule? Not really - maybe except clarifying this in the rulebook. It is a kind of thing that should make its way there. So… there we have the first one. It’s not groundbreaking or super annoying, but I feel the game would be better if this has been handled a bit better in terms of presenting this rule.
Moving on to another thing is the thing I’m calling the “after an activation sequence of events”.
The moment that takes place after activation but before the power step can be surprisingly rich in events. It may be more action-packed than the activation itself (which is a bit bizarre if you ask me). As of now, the sequence is as follows: End of activation -> Inspirations -> Reaction window -> Surge scoring window. I’m seeing two problems with that sequence.
Problem number one is the fact that the inspiration window happens before the reaction window, not after. Usually, that is not a big deal, but if you’re Khagra this means that if you’ve just killed some poor sod, who’s been holding an objective… you’ll not inspire, because desecrate reaction happens when the inspiration train has already left the station. So you have to wait for an extra activation to inspire from your actions and pray to dark gods that the token stays desecrated. Khagra’s life is not an easy one… An easy solution would be to move things around slightly - allow reactions first and then check for inspiration and surges. That way things are far more intuitive - you get to react and then check how that reaction did help you - be it by scoring a surge or triggering inspiration.
The second thing in that sequence of events is the fact that it is not accommodating the Primacy and we don’t know when we’re supposed to receive that token… which leads me to another point…
Primacy rules. Don’t get me wrong - I love Primacy. I think it’s a great mechanic and I’m hoping it is here to stay for long. It’s however having some issues - the most important one is the fact that it is not clear when gaining of the token happens. In theory, it does happen “after an activation”. But as we’ve already established - that is quite an event-packed timing. And we don’t have official clarification on when this takes place. It is important if you would like to score some surges - like the secondary condition of Everything to Prove. Depending on when the Primacy is gained you might, or might not score the surge right after making the kill.
Another thing I dislike about Primacy is the fact that it can be awarded only after activation in which an attack has been made. I think it’s a bit of a bummer that it will not work if you manage to attack as a part of a reaction or from some ploy. Killing an opponent as a part of the reaction to his attack is a great example of showing your primacy. But in the current shape of rules, you will not be awarded a token. And I dislike that fact. Primacy should be awarded for any kill that meets the requirements. Limiting it to in-action attacks feels artificial.
The next thing I would like to highlight is inconsistencies in rules.
Admittedly those are very difficult to catch without having hundreds or thousands of players playing the game. Nonetheless, those issues are being caught and highlighted by the community, but are persisting in the game. Two examples are:
Steadfast Defender ruling that contradicts the “after an activation” sequence. There’s a scenario described in the FAQ that - if we would follow the sequence - would clearly mean the surge cannot be scored. FAQ however is stating that the surge can be scored after all. I don’t see any clear purpose for keeping it that way, but that’s how it stands right now. For the sake of simplicity and elegance of the rules, it would be good to revert this ruling and refer the reader to the sequence.
The second inconsistency is the “out of action” state and upgrades. On one hand, the FAQ states that upgrades still apply to a fighter - even if he’s out of action. On the other hand objectives like Loaded With Plunder cannot be scored even though they don’t require the fighter to be alive. And following the aforementioned ruling - the upgrades applied to certain fighters still count even when those are out of action (i.e. wounds modifiers) - which does matter for scoring certain objectives. But some other objectives cannot be scored even though they as well interact with those upgrades and fighters. An easy fix would be to acknowledge all the upgrades on all the fighters as being in the game and interactable with objectives, but rephrase wording on the objectives to require the fighter to be alive.
There’s one last thing that is… a bit strange, that has caught my eye recently. Folks from ETC have created their own community FAQ. It has been great work from their side even though I don’t fully agree with all of the rulings. One of the problems they’ve decided to tackle is the matter of miniatures that are being removed from the game/not deployed and their relation to the “out of action” state. In theory, any model that is not on a battlefield is considered to be out of action. This means that even if you would not deploy the Spinefin or Blue Horror during your game they would still count towards cards like Pure Carnage. Folks working on FAQ wanted to avoid this by adding a clause that fighters like that do not count towards those objectives until they’ve been deployed at least once. This is a fair approach to the topic, but I feel it’s a bit clunky. Some more elegant solutions would be good to be implemented. Maybe a thing from Magic the Gathering, where we have 2 different areas: Graveyard and Exile would work better? Not yet deployed fighters would be in the “out of game” area, while killed ones in the “out of action” area? Again - it might not be a huge issue, but it’s something worth thinking about.
And that would be it! Are there rules or other rule-related issues that bother you? If yes - what those would be? And do you have any ideas on how those could be addressed? Let me know in the comments!
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