Yep, yep, yep. Sorry folks, I got ahead of myself on the supporting attacks thing. My goof.
While the numbers are, therefor, not quite as dramatic, my central issue remains the same. I guess I didn't make my conundrum clear enough.
I'll try again.
Right now we have a set of rules. Those rules tell us that we cannot Burn into combat, that PF is front rank only, and so on. Them beez da rules.
Since time is a limited resource, and since I really hate playing with unpainted models (I do it while building an army, but I really do hate it), I want to ensure that my purchasing and painting decisions give me the maximum return. I'm going to have fun no matter what, by the way, because it's still Warhammer, but within that arena, I want to make the decisions that make the best use of my dollars and painting time. For the love of Pete, I'm 42 years old and don't have many good painting years left before the shakes overtake me!
So, here I sit, with rules being what they are and time being what it is. If I assume that we'll get no FAQs, then I am left arguing with people (not in a mean way, but a way that does diminish the fun to an extent) over what I can and cannot do from one game to my next. I cannot possibly emphasize strongly enough how much I abhor the rules of the game (or life, or marriage, or gardening, or...) changing from moment to moment. If a thing or set of things acts one way one day, that thing or set of things should act the same way the next day! How can one possibly build a plan, develop continuity, or proceed with a course of action if the foundation upon which the decisions are made actually changes for no good reason!?!??!
Anyway, yeah. So.
Presently I have the stuff I said I have. I don't play with a horde of Saurus Warrios or Kroxigor or with a Troglodon because, in the current rules, there is not enough return on the investment of cash, time, or tactics to make those choices meaningful.
However...
IF the rules were FAQ'd to be different, all those things would increase in value to me. We can argue the extent to which they would increase, but there would certainly be an increase, and that increase would be enough for me to make the investment.
If the rules were FAQ'd to be 'yep, you understood correctly alright - no change', all those things would be confirmed as not worth including in my lists and I could get on with what I have presently and make the most out of it.
Unfortunately, we are left in limbo. We had a firm commitment from GW to provide timely FAQs. They were great at it for while. Truly great. Now we are 13 months gone since the last batch of FAQs, and several army books are left with typically shoddy writing and no support in sight. And yet...there remains the possibility of FAQs. There remains the chance that my army could require a big redo in order to make the most out of the rules, and that's highly offputting.
I would rather they just say "Hey, you know what? Screw you. Figure it out yourselves. You're not getting FAQs."
I'm not saying I would
like this, only that I would prefer it to limbo. Send me to Hell or let me into Heaven. Either way. Purgatory is torture.
The problem with that, though, is the problem we have now. No matter how well worded the rule for PF is, or how much we may debate Burning Alignment and Kroak's spell, we still will have games where the rules as I know them to be are different than they were in the last game I played. I am still going to run into, for example, fellow Lizardmen players who try to blast BA into combat, get a judge to make a call, and shoot me up. My army would have been built differently had I known that this ruling would be made, just as it would if PF got rewritten.
The amount of difference anyone feels it makes is irrelevant when it comes to the question at hand - Does a lack of FAQ impact my enthusiasm for the game. It does, and I've explained why.
I want consistency. I want to know that the hundreds of dollars I've spent on goddamn
RULES actually bought me effing
RULES and not just whimsical ideas on how to try to work out things from one afternoon's activity to the next.
Grr.
EDIT: No, wait. I don't think I did get ahead of myself on PF+Supporting Attacks. The argument is no about getting PF from rear ranks. I actually think that they DO. The problem is that Support is limited to 1 Attack (or 3 for MI), so even if you roll a 6 in ranks 2+, you don't actually get to roll another attack.
The change that would have to come would be either to modify supporting attacks or change the PF rule to somehow reword how those attacks are made.
It goes hand-in-hand. Right now, if a Saurus in rank 2, with 2 attacks, makes an attack, he only rolls 1 die, and it comes up a six, it is the Supporting Attacks rule (not the PF rule) that prevents him from making another attack. Any solution that would allow him to make the second attack would have to come from a change in the Supporting Attacks rule.
So yeah, now that I think about it, PF is not the problem. Supporting Attacks is. You get to make another Attack from PF on a 6, but Supporting Attacks denies its use when in ranks 2+.
EDIT 2: But never mind all that. This is not, strictly speaking, a PF debate. The point is that there are some rules, whatever they are, that need help and will impact what I buy and paint depending on what that help gives us.
Putzfrau said:
Sometimes it seems like you go out of your way to make your own experience less enjoyable.
=> Nah. I just go out of my way to try to understand and apply the rules, even when they go against me, so that my experience at the table can be less argumentative and therefor
more enjoyable.
