CB added a "Page 5" statement

Where does 'it's not your list, it's you' aka 'netlisting doesn't work in Infinity' contradict games being fun? ;-)

 

a game can be competitive AND fun.....

as crazy as that sounds

 

Just to repeat, 'it's not your list, it's you' is nothing to do with competitiveness anyway, it's that list-building has far less impact in Infinity than in a lot of other games, and that the decisions you take during the game are more important.

 

Indeed, a balanced game where decision making is more important than list building is better for all players, as less minmaxy players won't be crippled by faction choice as easily.

It's one of the reasons I'm enjoying X-Wing again, 2nd edition is built so flying well is much more important.

 

Part of this was also setting themselves apart from GW/40K at the time. To some degree it was a rallying cry against the abuses and problems with the 40K system. So I think you've omitted some of the information in that first manifesto.

When Privateer Press got started they wanted to do a few things, first of which was establish that the rule system itself was going to be fair (or as fair as possible). Before this there was a certain undercurrent of whining and other social measures to keep people from doing something too cheesy. Unfortunately with that system there is always somebody who's going to take it too far. So the best way to determine what's fair is the rules system. And the system was written in a very technical manner to make things as clear and simple as possible. When the first book released it was the first time I had seen a rules book with an index that referenced important terms. Sure there had probably indexes before, but certainly not in any GW books.

Second, there was also a feeling that GW had designed, and continued to design 40K and other systems to deliberately sell models. Tweaking the rules to move more of whatever they wanted to sell that week. Privateer Press attempted to move away from such customer abusive approaches.

Third, GW at that time was moving away from metal minis to cheaper plastic (and later Finecast), a trend that some people (myself included) did not care for. Sure there had always been some plastic, but the trend was definitely one way. So Warmachine was all about metal minis, and using that as a selling point.

Fourth, GW and 40K 2nd edition was very much about lining up soldiers and then spending tons of time reading rules and throwing dice, with very little in the way of much going on. Warmachine attempted to be the exact opposite by putting an emphasis on moving, and positioning, followed by a large smash up in the center of the table. It was also designed to be a clear, easy to understand rule system with the complexity on the cards. I think we take it for granted now, but the card system in Warmachine was pretty revolutionary in it's time, since it allowed you to read a few rules, and have all the special stuff right in front of you, making it an easy system to learn.

So I don't think that Warmachine and Infinity are far off. I think that the guys at CB would definitely agree with most of what Privateer Press was advancing. Further the whole WAAC vibe is something Privateer Press has tried to tone down in recent years. Mostly because that was not what page 5 was about to begin with.

 

That feeling when all those WAACs rationalize themselves with 'Page 5 Rule', demolishing a newcomer AND whole gaming scene, with a mere encouragement of be a nice person to play with.

 

I will note that in the Warmachine Mk2 rulebook, Privateer Press actually had to put in Page 5 Rule 5:

Really damn sad comment when you actually have to write "don't be a jackass" into your own rulebook.

 

Presented without comment:

"Infinity is first and foremost a game and events should be fun for everyone involved."

 

It absolutely does have everything to do with competitiveness, however you choose to rationalize it. It's a passive-aggressive way of telling people to "get good".

It also hasn't ever been true but it never stops people like you from spreading that nonsense.

 

If by "cheaper plastic" you mean "cheaper boxed sets with more items compared to their metal counterparts"...sure. ;) When Warmachine was coming out, the focus was on the warjacks not the infantry accompanying them. It was very much a 'combined arms' game(the impression I get now is that it is closer to WHFB than the original Warmachine) with infantry working in tandem with the warjacks. When Warmachine was coming out? We were just seeing the Tau introduced, we saw plastic Cadians, we saw the Monolith, we saw all kinds of plastic goodies that only a simpleton would call "cheaper plastic" in comparison to the metal counterparts.

Finecast(which is just resin and they flatout call it as such now) wasn't until quite some time after Warmachine came out.

With that all noted, GW also had huuuuuuuuuuuuuge amounts of metal still coming out at the time.

 

I think you mean 3rd Edition, 2nd Edition 40k lasted from 1993 to 1998. Warmachine's first edition released in 2003 (and I remember it well because I grabbed the Khador starter when I went to the first PAX that year, I think that was shortly before general release).

2nd Edition was a fairly different beast from 3rd and I doubt Warmachine was a reaction to the former over 6 years after it had been replaced. Back in the 2nd Edition days, 40k was still a platoon-level skirmish game like Rogue Trader had been (though fans kept trying to play mega-games with it, prompting GW to shift toward the awkward "battle" scale games they ended up becoming known for). 2nd Edition still holds up pretty well today, a bit clunky in places (and you'll want to keep an eye on the number of ongoing effects each force can produce, since those are real time wasters) but it will always create a memorable game that you can keep telling stories about. Not played a game since where the resulting emergent narratives were quite as entertaining.

*stops waving cane*

*ahem*

Yeah, "it's not your list, it's you" never sat right with me. Infinity, almost more than any other game I've played, has a ton of "unspoken" list-building laws.

You need look no further than a newbie player making a 4-man list of elite dudes (and yes, I've seen this happen, quite a bit actually) who gets shit on by players running the assumed 10 orders (an assumption that goes entirely unspoken in the main rules). And this is before ITS existed, at which point things get even more fraught (oh, you only have two specialists in that list... yeah, you're gonna want at least 4-5 if not half a dozen). And of course the game (despite largely fine macro balance) has pretty bad internal list balance with a lot of useless profile bloat spread through every list. Unit selection is basically a minefield at this point as profile bloat has ensured that every army list has a bunch of units that simply aren't even spoken of these days, having long since been obviated by better profiles. As vet players we've long since learned to look past those crap units that they basically blend in to the background... but new players don't know that and will happily take all sorts of crap units without a second thought, handicapping them and their list before dice even hit the table.

Infinity has a massive skill gap in the list-building portion and a vet player can trounce a newbie with good list selection alone as the new player chooses trap options and poorly optimized units. This is why Infinity calls for a longer learning period than just about any other wargame on the market.

I have definitely won games almost entirely because my opponent's list was bad and mine was good, playing the game was almost a formality at that point. But of course, the knock-on of that is a player that makes a good list is often also good at playing the game (and one that lacks the game mastery to make a good list is likely bad at the game). And Infinity is no more proof against net-listing than highly competitive games like Magic are. A bad player won't necessarily be good at piloting the netlist (to use MtG parlance), but a player familiar with the basics won't exactly be thrown for a loop when he sees a successful list using, say, smoke and an MSV2 as its primary means of aggression. Infinity still has plenty of intra-unit synergies that make "net-listing" a thing in the first place.

"It's not your list, it's you" came from a simpler time before a widespread competitive scene and ITS-style missions showed us some very real cracks in the system once players with a competitive mindset got their hands on it (though even before, to say that non-interactive camo-spam lists weren't the unspoken sleeper meta in most areas would be highly naive in and of itself).

 

Significantly more polite response to all those people showing up with 'Rate my list' threads when their list is straight off Beasts of War than, "you cannot netlist your way to victory here," however.

I always gave a full rundown of what was good, or not good, about the list they gave. I admit, a lot of the time I said, "There's nothing inherently wrong with that list, give it a spin and tell us how it worked out." But that was honest advice about a list's solidity.

I'm a former submariner, I can do raging asshole very easily. I try really hard not to.

 

I mean cheaper plastic, meaning less money. Plastic has always been the cheaper medium, only very recently has it seemed like GW has managed to overcome it's imperfect handling of detail.

Yes, I think I mentioned that, but even still the writing was definitely on the wall.

No I meant 2nd edition. Keep in mind there's always a bit of edition lag, which goes to the rep of the game. Further in 3rd edition there was also quite a bit of line up and shoot the other guy dead. Blood Angels Black Company Rhino Rush armies pretty much ate those armies for breakfast, but it was definitely a thing.

While I liked 2nd edition, it was very much a revelation to not need the rules book. Army builder has largely made the problem a thing of the past, but you really did need a lot of reference material to play, between the weapon range bands, special rules, or just looking up basic stat lines. Warmachine's introduction of everything but the basic rules on a single card was a huge improvement over the clunky tables of 40K.

 

I feel I shoukd make an effort to get into X-Wing, especially at the moment when I have a unique opportunity to enjoy games with a friend who's one of the best players in the country. However, the peculiar challenge of the project might speak to some of this topic.

I'm a long-standing member of the largest and longest-running game club in the city, which is run by this friend who always makes the effort to bring a superb X-Wing table. He provides over-sized, beautifully-themed play mats, most of the models, and an abundance of quality accessories - a player couldn't ask for a better environment to play.

We're both very competitive, and so we like rules to be clear; we both hate positional fudging, dice mis-rolled dice, any sort of rules-lawyering bullshit, and both enjoy more than a little affectionate trash-talking and bragging. So if I were to take up X-Wing, I could expect a competitive match with a top player, and to learn a lot to advance my skills.

Except that my friend is also a hopeless teacher, and in any game he's playing he'll blame the beginner for the mistake and its impact on the game, avoiding his responsibility for teaching and managing the game, and generally making for an abusive learning experience.

Thus, I'm commenting on sportsmanship, competitiveness and 'fun' in tabletop games as well as Colbrook's remark about X-Wing. Because whilst he and I would both agree that fun and competitiveness can be part of the same experience, and whilst we'd both advocate Warmachine's Page 5 competitive manifesto in principle, he's such a terrible advert for his own favourite game that I'm actively avoiding it because of him!

 

People had a negative opinion of the playerbase because they were used to scrubby GW-style comp scores.

 

I think the 'It's not your list, it's you." Came from a time when the elephant in the room (GW) very much could have a game won in the list building phase. (As I understand it, things have gotten better over in GW land, but list building is still extreeeemely important.) Yes, it is possible to make a list in Infinity that will lose you the game, but it is not possible to make a list that will guarantee a win. It is a statement that testifies to the level of balance in Infinity, a reminder to players that come from an unbalanced game, that you have to learn how to play the game, not merely crunch the numbers to find the underpointed units. That I think is the meaning about 'It's not your list, it's you.' And while it is not a perfect sentiment, I think the phrase still has value, unless you are overly pedantic.

 

Yeah, those damn medium bases bumping all the time...!

 

Well they had a lot of experience from before, considering every wave tended to have "best" lists lol. Still flying well was only ever not important a handful of times.

It is however worth pointing out that I doubt very many people even win a regionals without spending weeks stressing over their builds even now.