When does it become spam?

This happens a lot more in 40K than it does in Fantasy, but when does army composition become spam?  If you have 3 10-man Grey Hunter units in a Rhino, is that considered spam?  What about 3x Baal Preds in your army?  What about taking 3x 10-man units of Assault Space Marines geared out in the same way?

What exactly qualifies as spam?

At what number does it qualify as spammy?

Do they have to be the same loadout?

Is 40K a repetitive game with redundant units?  Without redundancy, it appears that lists are less effective because there's a higher chance they won't impact the game if they're destroyed.  The argument for most people when they ask the old-aged question of:  How many Land Raiders should you take?  Most people reply with 2.  Why 2?  Because if one goes down, you have another.  At the same time, these players are also the same players that bitch about 3-4 Razorbacks with TLLC sitting across the field from them.

Personally, I don't think spam is necessarily a bad thing in a game like 40K.  In fact, I don't think the game is designed to promote different units on the battlefield.  Is this a problem with internal book balance (useless units vs. non), or is this just player mentality?  Something to think about.

Bringing back vehicle death

Goatboy recently wrote a article on BoLS that touched upon a very sensitive issue.  By sensitive, I mean mech players are going to cry buckets of tears all over the place.  Seriously though?  I don't give a shit.  I'm sick of seeing Razorspam and Chimerawalls to a point every list on every site looks the same.  Let's be honest, 5th Edition was good, but not nearly good enough.

This is fine if you think about it.  5th Ed. was GW's first attempt at getting True Line of Sight right.  They did good for the most part; it sped up the game and made things visually impressive.  However, they failed on two major accounts:  The general cover system and the Vehicle Damage Chart.  Everything right now, is too forgivable.  A 4+ cover on everything means half of your shots are negated and the glancing modifier means you can never destroy a vehicle with a glance under normal circumstances.  This is ass.

Here is what I want in 6th Ed., more so than any other change GW can think of:

• Increase vehicle lethality by bringing back ways to kill vehicles with glancing shots.  A simple -1 modifier for glancing instead of -2 will do the trick.  This will result in a lot of vehicle death everywhere once you throw enough heavy weapons into the fray.
• Decrease the general cover bonus for all units by 1.  This means everything will get 5+ cover for the most part, which is perfectly fine for me.  Skimmers, Jetbikes and anything capable of turbo-boosting should get a 4+ cover at best.

Who is willing to test some of these rules out and see how it will effect the current armies out there?  I have a bunch of 40K armies that would like to experiment.

Got some polls up!

Hey guys (and girls?),

On the right hand side of the blog, you'll see two polls you guys can vote in.  I have multiple votes toggled so you guys can vote for more than one.  However, for the most accurate results, I ask that you only vote for your top 2.  One of the polls have to deal with site content and the other focuses on the games I'm involved in.  I specifically didn't put what armies you would like to see because I need a general feel of what gaming archetype everyone's into.  Army stuff can come later.  After voting, feel free to post some comments and elaborate on why if you want to.  I take feedback/criticism quite well.

Lastly, I would like to ask my blogmates what you would like to see as future content on this site.  Shoot me some ideas and let's open up a discussion.

Thanks everyone!

Price hikes again

GW really wants to kill themselves as a company.  I don't know what the deal is, but 40 bux for a box of 5 power-armored dudes (BA box) just doesn't do it for me.  That, and the near 70 dollar Land raiders.

More info can be found here:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/05/gw-news-may-2011-price-increases.html

and here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?pli=1&key=tIytonRUpm6fRkxpIjqcDzQ#gid=0

I was going to start a VC army... but now I'm having second thoughts.

I've been a supporter of GW for 11 years now, ever since I was little but now shit's getting ridiculous.  Let's sum it up.

• LotR was a huge flop in the dick and it should be dropped completely.  They should reallocate all their resources and focus on WHFB and 40K support; their main cash cows.
• Another thing that they need to do is do previews for army books and units so players have something to look forward to.  It gives players drive, hope and fuels passion for their hobbies.  Privateer Press knows what's up, Spartan Games knows what's up, and so does Mantic Games.  GW really needs to get up and smell the coffee.
• Furthermore, GW should release sneak peak of rules and have the community respond to how things will work out.  Test rules, pre-release rules, rules that player can test, give feedback and post their reasoning in a dedicated GW forum.  This in turn, should have the designer themselves, or community managers post and give feedback to the players to show they ACTUALLY GIVE A FUCK.
• You combine this prehistoric way to do business on top of the fact they just increased prices to ridiculous levels AND restricted retailers to only sell to their region and you have a recipe for disaster.  Mantic, PP and Spartan are probably laughing their ass off right now.

In other words, GET WITH THE TIMES GW.

Get ready for Battle Chronicler

From now on, my Fantasy Battle Reports will be using Battle Chronicler.

It will look something like this once the action starts:

And the Archmage casts blah blah blah..
Excited?

I am.

What a new HE book would look like

First, the design vision of what 7th Ed. High Elves are supposed to be:

• Defense over offense; but quick enough to switch if needed
• Use of ASF as a damage buffer; kill the enemy before they kill you
• Strong in magic; both offensive and defensive; in lore and in items

I've been reading some wishlisting stuff from Ulthuan.net and I've never face-palmed more in my life.  With this in mind, from a game developer's point of view, this is how I think GW will design a new High Elves book for 8th Ed:

• If ASF is to remain, expect to see very minor price changes. Maybe 1-2 points across the board.
• If ASF is taken out, expect to see very drastic changes to the design process of the Elves themselves. I highly doubt that price will change too much because unless they change the fluff of the High Elves, they're to remain a small and compact army. With that in mind, expect to see HE striking in I order regardless of what weapon they wield. This is not ASF, but it will remain as Speed of Asuryan.
• With the current shift of limited magic items, expect to see a good amount of special characters. From a design standpoint, they are the ones that carry the "truly" unique magic items that our race use. For example, Star Lance and Armor of Caledor will disappear and Imrik will be added back to the army book. If you look at the new TK book, you can see Flail of Skulls (removed from the current book) on one of their new Heralds.
• The aspect of bringing Honors back is very unlikely. If you look at the trend of how GW books develop, they are trying to eliminate any aspect of army design that might be too complicated. This makes the book easier to jump into. Clear examples are the 4th Ed. CSM codex where they removed all the Legion specifics and wargear, the 5th Ed. Tyranid codex where they removed practically all the customization options, the 6th-7th Ed. High Elves book where they dropped our Honors, the 6th-7th VC book where they dropped the Bloodlines, the list goes on and on. Honors will not come back, stop wishing for it.
• Every unit will have a special rule. If not every unit, then 95% of the units in the book. That's how 8th Ed. O&G did it, that's how TK did it. Expect Shadow Warriors to have strong passive abilities, Ellyrion Reavers to do something special, and Lothren Sea Guard to be the finest Marines in the world, and Sword Masters to do cool things as well. That's just how all the units are designed these days. The really generic boring units that don't add anything special like Archers (at least our archers) won't get anything special except for a points decrease and comes with light armor. Everything else that has a real name in the lore or (and pay attention to this) have COOL and fancy models for, will get all kinds of special rules. This is to promote not only model sales, but encourage players to take a good amount of them. You think its coincidence that TK have the ability to take a Special version of their new T8 monster AND a Rare version? They can field like 8 of those things on the field if they wanted to. That's 400 dollars worth, you think GW's stupid? They are a business, a business that charges 20 dollars for a Zoanthrope.
• You might see a lot less customization on our lords and heroes, but we'll get a price drop across the board with more effective units. I studied the TK book these last couple of days and that's how the book is made. O&G is the same way. 8th Ed is all about big units, the ability to take a Spearmen Horde or fielding Dragons everywhere (and this will happen). More chaos, more models dead, more models sold.
• Dragons and Griffons will get a overhaul for the better. There's a reason why there's a 50 dollar model out there that's not really selling because of 8th Ed. TLoS and warmachines. GW might be blind, but they're not stupid. Expect to see much improved Dragons for their costs out there.
• Also, I want to touch upon the fact that you'll NEVER see a lord that's limited to 3k+ games. A 700 point Teclis? Not in my vocabulary. Settra is 475 with his Chariot, which is playable in a 2k game. GW knows the standard is 2k-2.5k for a normal sized game. 3k is where shit goes all over the place. They designed the rules, they designed the models. In order to sell more models they need to sell it at the level that everyone plays.

Of course, I can be completely wrong and they'll give the book design over to someone like Ward or Cruddace and they'll turn the book inside out.