What do you like/dislike in your tabletop wargames?

[macul]

This is for those of you who play Warhammer, DBA, and any other tabletop wargame. Simple question: What do you like or dislike about the various systems you play the most?

I played a game of Warhammer Fantasy Saturday and though I like the system for the most part, I forgot how annoying some of the rules are. Some of them are put in place strictly for balance, it seems or to add character to an army (even though Games Workshop seems intent on stripping that away). Anyway, some rules that I find annoying:

1. No indirect fire for missile weapons. I guess I can almost understand this. Afterall, LOS is a big thing in games. However, if you know a huge mass of men is behind a hill then what commander wouldn't lob arrows over the hill even if they couldn't see their targets?

2. You can't fire in to your own men. Unless you are skaven. Saturday I had two big units of goblins fleeing from battle. Naturally they fled to right in front of my cannon and bolt throwers where they promptly rallied. Unfortunately they were being chased down by some big old tree looking guys. I was ready to just blast away through my own goblins until I was informed that was against the rules. Unless you are skaven. Because orcs really care about what happens to goblins. bleh.

Yeah, I know house rules fix this stuff, at least among friends.

[G. Wayne]

Played Necrons, Iron Warriors, Ultramarines, Legion of the Damned, Khorne, and Nurgle during my time in 40K.

Played Vampire Counts briefly in Warhammer Fantasy

Likes-

I love the setting in 40K. Warhammer Fantasy is relatively cool too.

A lot of the miniatures look really cool

Dislikes-

Too expensive.

Too time consuming. Putting mini's together, giving them a respectable paint job, /setting up to play/ and actually playing the bloody game, is all a hobby itself. You mean you wanna play /other/ games too? Pfft.

In the case of Warhammer fantasy, maybe it's just me, but it seemed like it took longer to set up all your minis than it did to play the game.

A lot of the miniatures look like crap.

The rules. Always seemed like there was some obscure rule I never knew of until the miraculous occassion when it just happened to be the right thing to work against me.

The endless revisions to the rules.

Did I mention it's f'ing expensive?

I could never remember the damned To Hit numbers charts in 40K.

d6's don't like me.

Seemed like the bloody games were being overhauled every year with new rulebooks back when I was playing.

Games resorting to dice rolls. Lemme elaborate. A friend who still plays the game was obsessed with shooty armies. Imperial Guard and the ...marine variant whose name escapes me (Hawks? Green something?) in 40K and Dwarves in Fantasy. Games against him resorted to him setting his stuff up at the beginning of the game, and him never moving his models as he shot at everything else on the board. It wasn't just him that it happened with, but when people play armies where the express purpose is to NEVER MOVE THE MINIATURES, that's LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!1

Oh yeah, did I mention the price thing?

[G. Wayne]

Not sure what they're counted as, but I'll toss Heroclix (don't play much anymore) and the Star Wars CMG (play that still) out there too. FYI, I only ever play Heroclix and the SW:CMG for fun. Never played in a tourney or league, never wanted to, never will. Those people scare me.

Heroclix Likes. -

It's comic book characters. 'Nuff said.

Some of the miniatures look awesome.

Relatively simple rules to pick up.

Pre-assembled and pre-painted minis! WOOT!

Dislikes-

A lot of the mini's look like crap. And that's insulting crap.

Getting "Toxic Avenger" variations of figures; missing or mis-glued limbs, bad paintjobs, etc.

The mind-boggling rarity system they use. I know it's not supposed to be the case, but am I alone with the feeling that getting a pack with nothing but rookies feels like you got a pack of nothing but commons?

Rarity again. (I know this was supposedly fixed recently.) Getting a pick that has 4 copies of 2 of the same rookies.

Rarity again. I've personally known at least 10 or 15 people to play this game. And between the lot of us, we've spent thousands of dollars buying packs and bricks. I quit keeping track of figures I've never even SEEN in person after the second set.

Large figures should never have been made. They got shafted from over-producing the Sentinel and Sinestro. Then they made too few of Galactus. I quit caring by the time Dark Pheonix was released.

The game is too geared towards collecters. Too many figures are convention exclusives or tourney exclusives or mailaways (that you need to spend $100 to get first) video game package exclusives, etc, etc.

Impervious was the beginning of broken powers.

Ultimate Thor was the first of many blatantly overpowered and broken figures.

Seriously, do Wolverine and Spider-Man need to be in every @#&%&^(*$(#& set?

the Star Wars Miniatures game

Likes-

It's Star Wars.

Relatively simple rules.

Pre-assembled and pre-painted minis!

Dislikes-

The miniatures are still kinda average to sub-par in quality.

I'm having the damndest time getting an Asajj Ventress.

Waiting for my favorite characters to get figures.

[macul]

The endless revisions to the rules.

Did I mention it's f'ing expensive?


That brings up another point and it is my pet peeve with GW. In older editions of WHFB there were forest goblins who could use spiders as mounts. With 6th edition (maybe 5th..not real sure), GW decided that was no longer in "theme" with goblins and so they got rid of them. Not a big deal to the non-tournament player, but the tourney player was now forced to retool their army if they utilized the spider mounts.

WHFB 7th edition is due out soon and so all of their army books are being revised. Orcs and goblins is due out soon. It seems that the spider mount is being brought back. And naturally along with all new miniatures. I guess they are back in "theme." How convenient for GW.

[hoffmandu]

the Star Wars Miniatures game

Likes-

It's Star Wars.

Relatively simple rules.

Pre-assembled and pre-painted minis!

Dislikes-

The miniatures are still kinda average to sub-par in quality.

I'm having the damndest time getting an Asajj Ventress.

Waiting for my favorite characters to get figures.


On a difefrent note, how is this game. I retired from clix a long time ago but still often look in the direction of this box set. Cool? Lame? Too easy? Rules are solid?

[Robotech Master]

HeroScape:

Likes:

--Easy to play; Main Rule Booklet is only a few pages long; not too many rules to remember.
--Line of Sight is necessary, but the direction/facing of a figure doesn't matter, and you can move through and fire around your own figures as long as they're not completely shadowing your intended target (unlikely).
--Terrain tiles that can be used to create custom battlegrounds; includes grass, rock, sand, water, ice, lava, magma, snow, and road tiles. Castles are coming soon as well. You can create some really nifty maps to play on.
--Figures in general look pretty good; they are already painted and ready to go.
--Though in costs money to buy all the expansions and stuff, at least all the expansion are sold in clear plastic packaging, meaning you can see all the figures you're going to buy with each purchase. It's not random and collectible.
--There are many cool scenarios to play in addition to normal battle. Rules and scenarios are customizable enough to allow you to come up with all kinds of different ways to play (Base seize, capture the flag, hold the bridge, retrieve the artificacts, rescue the prisoners, etc).

Dislikes:

--Hasbro is really slow to come out with new stuff. Usually their new expansions get delayed a month or two from the original ship date.
--They don't ship out enough of their expansion, meaning it can be difficult to acquire lots of expansions. You usually have to rely on Online ordering to get the newest stuff since it won't arrive in stores for several months after its release date.

[Sorcerer Supreme]

I play Heroclix and Warhammer 40k

40k Pros
-Can add unique touch to paint jod
-Get a general feel of customisation

40k cons
-Extremel Expensive
-Some times, you just want to open a box and play, no painting.
-Rules are sometimes difficult to understand


Heroclix Pros
-Comic Book Characters
-Reasonably simple rules
-Affordable
-Dont have to spend time painting

Heroclix cons
-None really, apart from the fact that some paint jobs suck.
-Oh and as mantionned earlier, you can be very disappointed at the characters you get in a box

[macul]

Do you all prefer rule books that are very in-depth or those that leave some room for house rules? I look at the size of the WHFB and think that it should cover just about every possibility, but not a game goes by that we don't uncover something else.

[Gargus]

I dislike the people who play them.

I think they are cool and wanted to play but all the people I see play it argue like little 4 year olds and rattle off like 1000 things as if they were debating world peace infront of the world council.

"Nu uh, I threw down my assualt fire armor shield card and your taragon marching guns arent fire based so you only did 3 points of damage because of my bonus to ballistics I have on this guy and I am using a replenshing card to repair the arm you damaged so really I negated that damage I am fine blah blah blah" hehe.

Nothing wrong with getting into something but man when thats all they talk about and are like ultra nerdy anal about it I cant get into it.

Id like to try warhammer but I dont know much about those games really.

[G. Wayne]

On a difefrent note, how is this game. I retired from clix a long time ago but still often look in the direction of this box set. Cool? Lame? Too easy? Rules are solid?

Well, lemme try my best to sound impartial here.

Don't know how familiar with the game you are, but character stats are listed on cards you need to keep handy, no constantly changing powers and stats.

The basic rules are a breeze, but fairly in depth with all the options you have. Play is reasonably paced. Only come across a few scenarios so far where the rules aren't clear.

The only rules that really annoy me are alternate terrain rules. Maybe it's just me, but they seem to be a little goofy. One of the drawbacks of mat based games as opposed to open scenery though, I guess.

At least as far as my friend and I go, battles tend to revolve around a main character (Darth Maul, for example), some supporting characters (generic dark jedi) and army schmucks (lots and lots of battle droids).

If you consider yourself a fan of Star Wars, I say go for it. You may want to look up set lists first to see who's avaiable in each set though.

[macul]

I dislike the people who play them.

I think they are cool and wanted to play but all the people I see play it argue like little 4 year olds and rattle off like 1000 things as if they were debating world peace infront of the world council.

"Nu uh, I threw down my assualt fire armor shield card and your taragon marching guns arent fire based so you only did 3 points of damage because of my bonus to ballistics I have on this guy and I am using a replenshing card to repair the arm you damaged so really I negated that damage I am fine blah blah blah" hehe.

Nothing wrong with getting into something but man when thats all they talk about and are like ultra nerdy anal about it I cant get into it.

Id like to try warhammer but I dont know much about those games really.

I think that's why I don't play at stores. The only games I play are with my friends. It's easier to use proxy miniatures, change rules, and just know who the heck you are dealing with. I've seen the arguments you mentioned too many times and I've seen too many 13 year olds talk as if they know how to lead a squad of troops in to battle.

[Sorcerer Supreme]

I think that's why I don't play at stores.

Some stores are great to play in. I used to play in one every week, Me and a few mates would meet there and sit in all day playin clix n chillin out. It was only a small store, it was awesome. But all good things come to and end. The shop is now closed:(