Jump to content

ihmcallister

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    27

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by ihmcallister

  2. Posted

     Last week my group and I were playing our Descent campaign. A couple of game weeks previously the Siren had been bought by the Overlord and was sieging a location. We decided to move in and attack her.

    We hadn't done a lieutenant battle before so we set it up and got going. We were on the Giants Teeth map and the overlord placed his skeletons and sharks and then the siren. We got going only to realise that we were screwed. The problem was that the overlord could just hide the siren over the right hand side of the map, out of range of our cannons. He could then just generate threat and bombard us until we die or flee. We gave up on the night as we couldn't figure out a way to win that scenario and frankly we are probably going to give up on the campaign. The siren can move so fast that we think that any map we would end up to confront her would be almost impossible to win.

    I've looked around on the forums and FAQs and I can't see anything dealing with this issue. Are we getting something wrong? 

     

    Iain

  3. Posted

     Yeah I'll just be assuming that Rank 1 starts at 12k. However they really, really need to errata this as the rank issue causes problems later on as well. Having read through more of the book now several of the squad and solo abilities last a number of rounds equal to your rank. If you are technically rank 0, then this powers last for 0 rounds. It is obviously a mistake but one that needs to be corrected. 

    Iain

  4. Posted

     Hello everyone,

    I just picked up the Deathwatch book for my group and have set about making a character so I can take them all through it. I have just reached the page about spending experience and read up on Rank etc. It strikes me there is a bit of a rules flaw here and I was wondering if there had been a clarification from FFG as yet, can't see one in the current errata.

    The book states that Rank 1 starts at 13k xp. You start out as having spent 12k and then are given another 1k to spend. At this point in character creation you are told you can take rank 1 Chapter, General and Specialities Advances. All good and well. However, if I spend less than the 1k extra I have been given, then I am technically not Rank 1 after character creation, see the table on p.28. Since rank increases happen after I spend xp the only way for a character to get to rank 1, and thus start having access to all the advancement tables, is to take Characteristic Advances from his Speciality. 

    So what I am asking is, is this correct or are characters assumed to be rank 1 once they hit 12k not 13k experience.

    Cheers in advance for any clarification

    Iain

  8. Posted

     So I am running a game later today, and after playing around with the game last wednesday I have a much better idea of how things work. However something confuses me about stance meters. You can change your stance to be anything at the start of your turn, is that correct? If so then why does your stance slip towards neutral during a rally step? This seems an utterly pointless bit of book keeping. Anyone got an explanation? Also can you choose your stance outside of encounter mode? I assume you can do so before any action.

    Cheers

    Iain

  10. Posted

    Whilst I understand most of your criticisms here HorusZA, I don't think your opponents one is correct. Now I am still to run the game, but groups of enemies can be henchmen and thus you don't need to track individual hit point pools, or ability triggers. It is my impression that most encounters will be made up of henchmen groups, led by one or two individuals who you will need to track. Is that wrong?

    Cheers

    Iain

  11. Posted

     I totally agree that cards work how you are interpreting them Bohemond, as reactions to an attack. What I am saying is that this is not stated explicitly anywhere in the rules, and is only implied on the cards themselves. 

    The step 2 you refer to has the following text:

    Once the player has announced which action his character is performing, he announces the action’s target. In many cases, this is who is being attacked or affected by the card. When there are multiple available targets, clearly announcing the target of the action is very important. The characteristics, abilities, or equipment of the target may influence the action’s challenge level.

    This does not mention playing reactions, or how those come into play. If for instance, somewhere down the line, reactions exist which can counter a parry, in which order would they take place? My argument isn't that the interpretation of these cards is wrong on your part, I agree with you totally in how they should work. All I am saying is that there is a severe lack of explicit explanation.

    Action cards in themselves are stated to be used on the active players turn. Without the knowledge of how these things usually work in games, that you and I have, how would someone interpreting these rules come to view their use? I have already seen other interpretations on these forums where people assumed that active defences are activated on one turn, and stay in play in some way. As the rules stand, this interpretation is correct, as you have stated yourself, but is obviously wrong when you come to the cards. The rules in this case, are vague, implicit or just wrong depending on interpretation.

    Cheers

    Iain

     

     

  13. Posted

     The rules layout and explanation is by far the biggest weakness of the new system. In no particular order:

    Lack of examples: there are very few examples throughout the book, things like character creation have no examples.

    Core mechanic: creating the dice pool is very badly explained. Things like expertise dice are not repeated from their brief mention during character creation, there is a good dice/bad dice box out but it has no visual element. For instance it says 'training or specialisation in a skill' without reinforcing that the former means a white dice and the later means a yellow dice.

    Lack of repetition: It is actually ok to repeat rules, especially when they are important. Like the fact that sigmar icon can trigger critical effects. 

    Wrong order: Things are just not in the right place a lot of the time. For instance encumberance, which is mentioned as part of character creation, is not calculated until the gear section at the back.

    There are other things, but I am working on a first impressions review and would like to not repeat myself too much.

    I do really like the game, really looking forward to playing it, but I fear the terrible rules explanation may confuse and infuriate people.

    Cheers

    Iain

  14. Posted

     I disagree with that analysis Bohemond. The rules state that during an encounter the active player chooses an action card then resolves it. There is nothing about the players being attacked and playing action cards in response to something happening to them in the core rules and nothing is referenced in the living index under reaction, active defence or anything similar, unless it has updated from when I first downloaded it. The rules for playing a card in response are also not on the card itself, though the implication is that its effect activates, note that is not the same as choosing it as an action, when the owner is hit.

    These rules about reactions are also implied in the FAQ, but are not specific. The FAQ states that;

    The Reaction trait itself confers no special meaning (see Game Term: Trait for more information on traits). However, some cards bearing the Reaction trait feature effects that can be used immediately in response to a triggering event of some sort. These special responses do not count as a character’s action. They are performed while a different character is being managed by the Active Player.

    Any number of immediate use actions/responses can be activated when an appropriate triggering act occurs. For example, a PC could attempt to apply Dodge, Parry, and Block all against the same incoming melee attack.

    The action cards block, parry and dodge do not have the reaction trait nor do they indicate that they are immediate use actions in response to something happening, apart from in the implicit wording in the effect. 

    I would like to state that I like a load of things about the new system, and am really looking forward to playing it, but I think that its explanation and layout of the rulebooks is lacking in several key areas. I will cover this more in my review, which I will post here or provide a link to. 

    Cheers

    Iain

     

  15. Posted

     Ok, I finally got my hands on the box set christmas day and have been devouring it over the last couple of days. Basically I really like the system but FFG needs serious help when it comes to laying out rules and editing. Anyway, more on that when I get round to writing up a review.

    The one rule I really can't find in the rules or the errata is anything on active defences. They sound like they are immediate reactions to being attacked, but this is only implied in the errata and mentioned nowhere in the rules. Can someone clarify for me? 

    Cheers

    Iain

  25. Posted

     Yeah I noticed that other thread about a second after I posted this one! Whoops. Thanks for the thoughts though. I suppose the fundamental point here is that as you can control card draw the size of your deck will directly relate to how much card draw you want and how reliant your deck is on seeing certain cards early in play.

    More thoughts on this when I have actually played a game or two, hopefully today.

    Cheers

    Iain

×
×
  • Create New...