Hello! Today I wanted to talk about rules again. This time though I wanted to discuss a slightly different topic - are we getting too many rules? Are those rules too complex?
Recently Warhammer Community website has featured an article outlining some new rules, that are going to be present in Harrowdeep. Following this article, a discussion has started in several places where people were not too thrilled about the number of rules making their way into the game. This made me think about the topic - especially because some of the speakers have voiced quite extreme opinions (including threats to quit the game because of those rules). I think I’ve spent enough time to be ready to present you with my take on this subject.
To set the stage properly let’s summarise what we know:
There’s a new keyword - Grievous. It adds +1 damage on critical hits.
Another new keyword - Stagger. This one is a new effect that adds stagger tokens and removes Guard token + grants rerolls vs staggered fighter.
A new state of the fighter is introduced: Vulnerable. Basically, if a fighter has 1 hit point left, it is considered to be vulnerable.
Grand alliances now play a role in deck building with grand alliance limited cards.
Illusion upgrades introduced into the game - these cost no glory but are discarded after the fighter has taken damage.
Gloom - there are new feature tokens that represent new mechanics in Harrowdeep. Those allow counting double supports as successes on defense rolls when held. Moreover, all the feature tokens start now as gloom tokens, rather than as regular objectives, and can be flipped during the power step.
So… we’ve got 6 new things + a couple of unannounced things that people have noticed, but we can only speculate about: dotted lines on the boards and various icons on the fighter cards that were not expanded on just yet. So… all in all, this makes at least 8 new rules that are being introduced to the game at the start of season 5. Is this the complete list of changes? We don’t know. It does appear like the game has received some serious attention from the rules team. Is that list long? For sure it has sparked unhappy voices in the community. I’ll try to answer if rightfully so.
The first thing that I’ve pondered about is: are we really getting a huge number of new rules? The answer is: no, not really. At least part of them seems to be wrapping already existing things into a keyword. Grievous is one of those instances. At least some icons on the fighters seem to be the same case - the new Stormcast bird has two of those icons. One seems to indicate it is a beast of some kind and most likely will wrap rules about not being able to receive weapon action upgrades and not being able to hold an objective. The wings icon will most likely mean that he can pass through occupied hexes and lethal hexes cannot hurt him. That’s actually a nice thing - text of those rules doesn’t have to be printed on every card going forward. Just by looking at the card, you can quickly determine which rules apply to that fighter.
Vulnerable - while a new thing - also feels like an attempt to not have to repeat walls of text anymore. The presence of status like this can give us a clue that this will be an important tipping point for the fighter, but per se - it is not exactly a new rule, but more a trigger point for new cards.
Okay, so we’ve got a few things out of our way now, but still, this is around 5-6 new rules being brought to the game. So - the question is: is it good?
When considering this question it is hard not to bring Magic the Gathering as an example. MtG has a very long history full of successes. What’s important is that MtG operates similarly to WHU when it comes to product cycles. In MtG we’ve been having blocks that would consist of 2 or 3 sets (that number did change throughout history). Those blocks were providing narrative boundaries and sets were exploring the story through cards and actual storytelling. In MtG rotation happened on a block level. In WHU we’re having seasons that seem to be released in pairs when it comes to narrative bounds. So far we’ve seen 2 seasons for Shadespire, 2 seasons for Ghur and it’s Beastgrave. Most likely Harrowdeep will have the same thing happening with S6 (I do firmly believe there will be S6). So WHU season is MtG’s set, 2 seasons is a block. However in WHU rotation happens on a season level, rather than the block. But that’s strictly because of the differences between how games are built. What’s important is that there’s a very strong similarity in the greater structure of the sets/seasons between the two games. Why is that important? Because MtG has been introducing (or re-introducing) the rules for every set. This means that apart from new cards, every set has had a theme to play around with. Most often those are 2 special mechanics per set (like Echo, Fading, Kicker), which was bringing us to 4-6 rules exclusive to the block. And that is not something that was sparking a controversy - instead, it was always the point of interest to see what themes/rules we will be playing around this time.
In my eyes, the case of MtG is very similar to what is happening now in WHU. We’re getting a new season that is starting a new block. With this, we’re getting a slight theme shakeup. From savage tunnels of Beastgrave full of hazards, traps, hunters, and quarries, we’re venturing into something new, something different. This does require the floor to be set with some special rules. Because this is not a card game, but a miniature game, there are more elements and areas to consider, so the number of new rules can be a bit higher.
So to make the picture more complete - let’s take a look at what has happened when the Beastgrave was introduced. What we’ve experienced then was:
introduction of surge limit while building an objective deck
Hunter keyword introduced
Quarry keyword introduced
Dual objective cards introduced
Hybrid objective cards introduced
Lethal hex placement during the setup introduced
Concept of feature tokens
Feature token flipping
Guard rework
Some of those things had a big impact on the game right off the bat, others were marketed as major mechanics. There was no outrage about at least 8 new things in the game. And those were 8 new items to be aware of. Similar number to what has been announced for Harrowdeep. Were those things as significant as the new stuff? The truth is - we don’t know yet. Were they good for the game? Mostly yes - although some tweaks were necessary in some cases.
Are those kinds of situations forcing players to learn some new things? Yes, they do. Do they change how the game plays out? To a degree - yes. The core concepts remain the same, but some new things are added and a few others are being modified. Is it good? It keeps the game fresh for sure. But to know exactly if they will be good we usually have to wait to see how those changes will affect the game.
Going back to Harrowdeep - the motion to make extensive use of keywords is a brilliant move. Something I fully support and that I hope will continue. We’re at the beginning of this journey, so there’s a bit of noise - there’s a perception that there are multitudes of new rules being added to the game. But in fact, this will make the game easier and better. If a rule is written only once it is streamlined. It is harder to create exceptions for that rule because devs are not referencing a particular card anymore, but a rule in general. Change rule’s behavior and all cards using it adopt that change. While this requires a more careful approach to designing rules or making changes to them, it is beautiful how well this works later. The same concepts can be found in computer programming with the DRY principle (one of the core principles of a good code) and in object-oriented programming where code can inherit certain attributes by adopting an interface or extending a certain class. This in fact works so well that it is an industry-standard. A standard that will work equally well for a game like WHU. So while requiring a small investment of effort, we’re getting quite a significant improvement to the game in this department. The standardization and streamlining I’ve been asking for are coming.
But what about the rest of the rules? Like I’ve mentioned before - I don’t think the number of new rules is that high - especially considering that they’re very likely going to replace older things like Primacy at some point. It’s similar to what we get in a different, very well-established game, like MtG. It’s similar to the number of rules/changes that were introduced with the Beastgrave. In fact - I’m pretty happy about those new things. Not only the game will receive a shake-up, but it is also a very strong signal that Games Workshop is not going for a lazy approach, but instead, they do invest resources to develop the game. So yes - there’ll be the case that all the players will need to adjust and maybe learn some new things. But it’s worth it.
So, with the topic of keywords and new rules covered I wanted to move into the last topic I’ve seen which has caught my attention: cards getting filled up with complex rules/instructions. The complaint here was two-fold. First off people did complain that a lot of newer fighters are granted multiple rules that clog their fighter cards. The second complaint is that certain cards or fighters get very long-winded and complex rules. Good examples are the Spinefin fighter card and the Labirynth Boots upgrade.
I’m going to address the second thing first - I do agree with this sentiment. While I like creative card and rule texts I would prefer to have them simple and easy to understand. Getting hit with a wall of text is not meeting those criteria. It would be good to avoid creating those long texts like in the case of Boots. I do appreciate the attempts to find new and fun mechanics those cards could have, but an explanation of the effect would be best if it was simple. The longer the text is the more problematic card becomes.
The complaint about fighter cards gaining too many abilities is… a bit puzzling to me. Those rules are things that make it easier to distinguish the fighter or a warband from others. By adding those you can go from having an uninteresting 2damage, 2 hammers, 3 wound fighter to having a specialist fighter doing some cool things. It adds options, opens up new avenues to play that fighter, and adds an extra depth to that fighter. This is something I consider to be very cool. It does introduce a bit more RP flavor to the game, where every model is becoming a character with his own set of abilities and specializations. And this is really cool. Skirmish games allow for this kind of detail that captures why a given fighter is special. Let’s leave “stat block” fighters to large-scale battle systems.
To wrap everything up - I do think that Harrowdeep brings the largest rule shakeup yet. But not by far (at least according to our current knowledge) and… it is a good thing. The game is still being developed and expanded (which is a super important message to receive). The new season will be fresh instead of playing another 2 years of the same thing. There’s also hoping that GW has taken the experiences from previous seasons and improved areas that were lacking or were problematic.
What I’m seeing though is a lot of negativity. Some places are full of vitriol, people that used to champion the game before are now stirring others to complain about it. This makes me sad. Change is good. It’s not super cool to go very negative about it before you’ll even get a chance to embrace it. Maybe wait and see if it rubs you the right way before going full acid mode.
In my blog, you can often see me being critical about certain aspects of the game. I’m doing it because I feel those things deserve to be pointed out and discussed. Not because I want to show how bad the game is, but because I want to help it become better. I’m always hoping that a playtester or a developer is spending few minutes of his/her life reading my content and maybe they will find some of those things useful. That’s why I’m doing my best to think up solutions to the problems. If that will result in the fixing of at least one broken rule, it will be worth all my effort. What I’m trying my best to avoid is going all negative on the game. If you have some things you really hate about the game - by all means say it. But please, try being constructive. If you prefer playing other games and you only complain and ridicule while talking about WHU… then maybe go and build a new list for that other game instead. You’ll be happier and the WHU community will enjoy one less vitriolic post. No one needs those. Peace.
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