Battleplans aren't frameworks for creating a (somewhat) balanced game.
They're just different objects & maps.
Simply put battleplans provide:
- An objective
- A map lay-out
- Occasionally some special conditions/rules, e.g. you're fighting at night so units can't see far, all ranged attacks are limited to 12".
- Occasionally they provide the two armies involved; however this is nearly always a specific list (e.g. the attacker is tzeentch, and he brings units X, Y & Z.)
That's a framework for a game. Even a format if you extend it to multiple rounds of play. And I suggest you look at the battleplans that are presented in multiple times and campaign books. Even refer to the older AoS 1.0 campaign books for these. You're getting far too specific in your mindset to allow for the "Soul of the game" to be a concern in my opinion. I'm still waiting on that definition by the by.
They usually do not provide:
- A way to pick the armies involved in a generic manner such that you can easily translate this to whatever collection you may have available yourselfs Both for this specific battleplan, and more in general.
I don't believe that to be the case. While I don't have my books on hand, most of the battleplans do provide a paragraph at the start stating how armies should be picked, no? What kind of forces might be present. And if not in the rules, than in the lore/flavor text. That should be ample for abstracting what you might need. Anymore and you're straying into matched play.
What is missing is a generic framework to pick armies that avoid (or minimize) the worst excesses of min-maxing, both for specific battleplans and more in general. And yeah, avoiding say god-models isn't too difficult a house-rule to implement. But it gets rather iffy once something like say buffed up plaguerats becomes problematicly powerfull in your casual game. Banning your opponent from not using his basic battleline in his clan pestilence army is a bit of a difficult thing to ask.
I'm at a loss for what you want. You're being pretty uncooperative to what is provided, which is vastly more malleable than what your asking for. Frameworks let you fill in the blanks and build of them. What you want is a step by step recipe for the perfect flavor of game you want.
Right now it seems like GW is complacent and mostly relies on passivly getting feedback. This feedback will mostly come from tournaments/events & from people motivated enough to send in emails. Both of those groups will predominantly be competitive players as they're one of the more motivated groups within the community.
They actively engage with the community by and large, and ask for feedback pretty often. Sure, they're not having us playtest stuff in the way Privateer does, but thats not how they do things. What, specifically and with examples, would you have them do? And why, if I might ask, do you not express this consistently to them? This is assuming you consider yourself a casual player who doesn't actively look to give feedback, as you said most do not.
This does not anwser my question as to what the different types of players are as all I can see here is the same beginner-type you described earlier.
You didn't ask me what they are. Read your own words. You asked what I expected of them. We can play pedantry and word games while you look for a gotcha, but it's pretty boring to do so.
I appoligize if my initial question was not clear, but that was what I was intending to ask.
No, it was quite clear. I responded in kind. Your intention though was not expressed.
But I am assuming that even the worst of players is smart enough to realize that Teclis is not a combat unit, and not charge him headfirst into combat frst chance he gets.
Assuming that the only variable to err in is shoving him to combat. There are others, hence the character being complicated to play.
Disagree, there's no reason why 99% of the spells should be unique. Most of them are generic basic spells like arcane bolt.
I might agree with it if every spell was something grand and special, like say comet call. But seeing as most aren't this doesn't really work.
For someone concerned with flavor and the soul of the game, you ignore what spells are flavored as. Or how they might appear. Just because two spells have the same mechanical effect doesn't necessarily mean they appear and act the exact same way in the narrative. That's pretty narrow thinking.
For two slann, sure. For two starpriests or two necromancers, or two vampires, or two Collegiate wizards etc. there's no fluffy-reason why an army would be limited to one.
Each character is there own, and pulling from the narrative portion of the game, each would likely have more magic at their disposal, and likely make different choices. And even then assumptions abound about how spellcraft actually works, as if on a binary basis. Collegiate wizards for example come in many flavors. Sure, they follow a theme in the lore, but for mechanical restraints/on the tabletop they're played as one sort of wizard per lore. No two wizards or magic users is so alike that they'd always attempt to cast the same spell. That's my assumption though.
It is a fluffy game that's supposed to represent things that make sense in the AoS universe. Making decisions based purely on game-y balance-motivated grounds undercuts that and removes a significant part of what makes games like AoS fun.
It's really a shame that a fluffy game shouldn't be allowed to also be mechanically pleasing and balanced by this. There are plenty of fluffy mechanics within the game that allow for crazy and fun things, and I believe that the balance to that is also having some reliable restrictions on those so they're just that, crazy and fun, but not rampant or oppressive. This isn't even coming from a competitive standpoint, but as someone who enjoys casual environments to play a relaxed game.
@Erta Wanderer To be frank, I don't count Gordrak or Archeon, hence excluding Archeon. They may have similar power mechanically/be centerpieces, but they're not gods.
