Wasnt expecting my comments to be read out but hey, guess I'll expand on them a bit :) What puts me off the idea of competitive Heresy is I look at the current state of 40K. Showing my age a bit here, I discovered 40K in my late teens shortly before 2nd Ed came out and I absolutely loved it, right up until 2017 (I didnt have any hobby-gaps in that time). Then 8th Ed came out and it totally killed my love of the game. For me, it was designed for the US tournament market with narrative gamers as an afterthought. Fast forward to today and WHC is continually posting up about how armies are performing and tweaking them, all because as Lee mentioned, they're the new release and the meta chasers have jumped on them as flavour of the month who exploit them to the nth degree to win and the cycle continues. I just dont want to see HH go down that route
Its same for me, came back to game after 20 years becaues i loved admech. by the time army was done, at end of 8th. I lost the will to play the game...9th passed, 10th came and lost all interest. Loving HH! but competetive meta tournaments kill games. its bad.
I could talk about this for hours. Glad to hear others thinking about it. As someone who lost 90% of games for 5 years but now have won 70% of my last ten, I do understand thinking about the game more and tactics. Losing was a motivator to improve myself. The trade off is my games are a bit less engaging for me now and I don’t have to think as much about what I need to do so I’m going to run more varied lists.
Personally, it’s hard for me to think of heresy as not competitive. This was the direst of events in the history of the imperium. It quickly became a no holds barred between the two sides. However competitive and WAAC is not the same. And you can have a ton of fun and laughs in a competitive game.
I really do not understand the need to be competitive in a hobby. There are several other disciplines where you can show off your skills if you so desire.
I agree with some of the comments here that even a narrative game is competitive to a certain degree but the majority of Heresy events seem to stay away from defining themselves as such to discourage more competitive players from attending. If you remove the rewards for winning and don’t give prizes based on placement then hyper competitive players will get bored and move on. This is likely a good thing for the Heresy scene to be honest, especially when you look at how stale competitive 40K is currently.
Great video and really interesting to hear that the ideal size for a Heresy tournament is under 20 people. I do think that Heresy in general is a lot less competitive than 40k, but I think that's a good thing as it's aimed at a different crowd.
Prefacing this with a couple of things - I’ve played a bunch of events in the last year (HH, Attrition, Bristol Vanguard) and they’ve all been ace with lovely atmospheres and top people; and I come at this both newish to the heresy scene and with a long history doing narrative RPGs (both table top and live) Ultimately the atmosphere and people are the important thing - playing to make sure the other player is having a good time is the key, because I bounced off a couple of more tournament style games because I came away from weekends where I had paid money feeling shite - even when I’ve gone 0-4 at a heresy event I’ve come away buzzing. So if you have a tournament there is a risk of that culture going (because people want to win) but I’ve played people who are focused on winning and giving both of us a great time - so it is possible. Making any tabletop wargame fully narrative is a ton of work because at their heart they are not built to deliver a story, unlike TT or Live RPGs, and you’ve got to build a narrative that can accept any of the permutations of armies. A bit of fluff around why you’re fighting and some theme-y missions is gold for me. So, in short - the heresy culture I’ve seen is gold and need a to be protected. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do tournaments.
On the point of having players play with different points levels, the most recent event I went to had a system of reserves. You made a 2000 points list and then 500 points of reserves that had to be either Fast Attack or Elites and you had to have at least 2 units. The loyalists and traitors both had a central commander who decided before each game whether they would have their reserves for that game or not, and each player could only use their reserves in 2 out of the 5 games. The other stipulation was that the 500 points had to start in reserves. This meant that some games were 2000 vs 2500 points. I think this system worked well, particularly after the first game once everyone had seen the opposing armies and could start thinking about what armies they might need the reserves against. Due to the games and missions, the Traitors ending up not using several of their reserves but still ended up winning the event. It helped that it was an extra 500 rather than losing 500, because your army isn't losing something from your list. The reserve system did favour legions and armies that took strong and fast reserves, stuff like Javelins and jump pack units. The only issue I did see was that if you were going up against an already tough list and then your opponent got 500 more points and you didn't, you were starting at even more of a disadvantage. It is also important to note that we did not know how our 500 points reserves would work in the event beforehand, so people weren't able to tailor their reserves to the system or missions. There were also only 12 people at the event, which made it much easier to manage for the commanders and made it so you could think ahead to who you were probably going to play at some point in the weekend.
That's how I try to approach the game. Moderation happens in the list building phase. Once the game starts I play the hand I've dealt to the best of my ability.
I think the idea that running competitive tournaments for people to... get it out of their system as it were, only works if you have a lot of heresy players around your area or close travelling distance. I think the UK is unique in this regard where you have a very small country, good public transport, and a sizeable heresy community. If you look at North America, the heresy communities are split by vast distances. Communities I think in each city generally may be smaller than UK ones, and you may only get 1 big event a year in your local hotbed scene. At that point, I rather just focus on the narrative, which I do believe 100% is the spirit of this game and the way it's meant to be played (as has been repeated so many times by the creators since Bligh). I do get that some people want real competitive 30k... but just look at LVO here where they ran both, and competitive had.. 8 people show up? Narrative had 80 or so. I think if anything it may just split the community more by having 2 types of play. And heresy is expensive, much more so than 40k, so having both competitive and narrative lists may not be possible. So the idea you can get it out of your system in a comp, and also play narrative the next month.. well that works if you have a lot of models to swap around to soften your list.. but not everyone is gunna do that. But I also fully agree narrative is also a frame of mind, and one persons idea of narrative will not be the next ones.. etc. It's not perfect, it will never be so, but it's as close as I believe we can possibly get.
The smaller, and faster games feel better for a tournament environment. Stuff like Kill Team, Warcry, Underworlds, Bloodbowl, etc. They can draw in more players with lower barrier to entry, easier to travel with fewer models, faster and more matches at an event, and being more accessible to spectators. Heresy generally has a nice middle ground where people still want to bring good stuff but not skew it. But you still get players who want to bring, idk, 6 tactical squads all in rhinos with a land raider and some rando terminators who can't reasonably do anything for an opponent but offer target practice. That's just as poor of an experience as a skew list(I suppose it is a skew list itself, just a bad one).
I totally agree with the comments about winning extra buffs if you're winning. Makes no sense at all and flipping it to boost the losing side also creates dilemmas for those who are winning. Edit: what I liked with the Warhammer World event was the fact that the 'coins' could be spent on beer too.... But you need a bar for that.
Great conversation about HH events. Love the comment about you can take the most busted list and write pages of fluff and call it fluffy 😂 I think it is a combination of things. 1. Expect legions are all different and you’ll have mismatches 2. The wording of the player pack. Let people know what they are getting into. 3. Awards. Have awards that span a number of facets of the hobby. Yes best loyalist and traitor, overall faction win loyal or traitor, TO awards, players choice awards, best painted etc etc. Yes in the end it is a bane too and the luck of the dice will still prevail. Just my thoughts.
William here, glad my answers didn't come off as rambling nonsense. Found this chat to be very insightful and measured so you've definitely got yourself another regular listener here! Hope to play you again in 2024 🦾
I don't like the idea that there's something wrong with playing hard - it's a game at the end of the day - ironically as you touched on doesnt an event where everyone knows it's going to be dick kicking lists before going in create the most even playing field? Narrative events with weird missions etc have to be very good to be balanced and that doesn't have anything to do with the lists. I don't have any scene near me so if I travel to an event I personally want to play straight up heresy. There was one in Ireland recently that used a system of comp to try make the lists more even which seemed to go down well. Also isn't playing win at all costs the most narrative thing for the legions 😛
That’s all well and good, but since the game doesn’t seem to have any balance updates it’s just going to be few lists from few legions that can compete at all for the next 10 years. Good for you if you picked Imperial Fists or Ultramarines, too bad if you picked Salamanders or Sons of Horus.
@@DirtyMardi Fair point but this is the same in any game system tournaments I suppose, someone is always going to be top and bottom of the power ranking never gonna be completely even - though some updates would be great 😔
Do you think people play 'harder' at events than they would for a normal club/home game? If you've paid £200 to go to event in food, tickets, hotel, travel etc, so you really want to take a list that is more likely to get slaughtered 5 games, giving you a negative experience? I've been to events where i've taken super fluffy, definently weaker lists and died badly, and even best will in the world the drive home can leave you super sour
Interesting point, I think it's easier to try different things at a club as you can have a conversation with your opponent way before you play and discuss what you both want from the game. This is generally not feasible at an event as you won't usually know who you're playing. Agree though, getting smashed for 5 games isn't fun 🤷♂
If I am going to a major event, then I am going hard and expect others to do the same. Half of the people complaining about a list being too hard in my experiance tend to build generic, 3rd ed inspired lists that do nothing well and are a mish mash of two to three starter boxes and a couple of units. Meanwhile there are folks who pick a RoW, pick a theme, and build an army to fit that so it works and then get called WAAC. About the only exception to this is FOTA because that RoW and contemptors are just not balanced well at all. @@heresyhammer
I feel the pain of having a naritive to tell that other people would call WAAC. I want to run a grand battery style Ultramarine artillery company made up of smaller, rapidly redeployable units, which is in line with Ultramarines combat doctrine. So the core of the list would be 10 Fulmentarus with a herald, 2 Scorpius, and a Master of Signals in a heavy weapons squad. Then you'd have the escort units lead by a chaplain with Suzerains meant to screen the artillery from counter attack. That's already a lot of dick kicking to some people, even if I leave out dreadnoughts and other stuff I could bring. I don't know, would you guys think that list is over the line at one of your events? What would you add or take away from that to make it more "thematic"?
I think have a look at some of the other artillery choices. Scorpiuses may be the best, but you could try Medusas, Basilisks, Minotaurs, rapier batteries, Arquitors. I'm also a little unsure about how the Suzerains as a screening force, you could go tacticals or even the praetorian breachers if you wanted a shieldwall unit. Think about is it that you want those particular units or is it you are looking to fill a particular niche, there are generally several units that can perform any role. At the end of the day, if your local players are happy to play it, go for it, but I would probably not enjoy a game against that as I'd be tabled most likely.
@trajanthegreat2928 Big siege guns like the Mesusa, Basilisk, and Minotaur are specifically what I want to avoid. I'm more focused on rockets. If I could, I'd use Arquitors too, but they're simply too expensive for me to justify getting. Scorpius are the vehicles I want to use because the Ultramarines prefer using the small Rhino hulls for their vehicals like the Scorpius and Preditor, and so do I. The Suzerains are meant to aggressively push ahead in a Land Raider with most of my other infantry and be disruptive, not just stand around. I'm not just passively turtling the whole game. It's supposed to be a moble artillery force that can swing around and counter attack, not dug in position. If rapiers and Arquitors get a plastic release in the future I plan to do a 22nd Nemesis chapter themed list, but getting them now isn't in the cards for me. And besides, if I have to compromise so much on the units I want to use, I don't really have the motivation to play the game anymore.
I'm based in Cambridge (Lee), Rob is Reading area and Jon is deepest darkest pointy head lands of the South West!!! Always looking for boyfriends to play with!
I dont like the idea of tournaments in HH. Its supposed to be a narrative driven game and without a lot of cooperative self restrictions, the same people who have ruined 40k tournaments will bring that mindset to 30k even if it is a so-called narrative tournament.
A game is what the people playing it want to make of it. People who want to take the gameplay aspect of it more seriously aren't doing it "wrong". The things they get out of the hobby aren't more or less valid than anyone else's hobby experience. It's not an "us vs them" situation.
Wasnt expecting my comments to be read out but hey, guess I'll expand on them a bit :)
What puts me off the idea of competitive Heresy is I look at the current state of 40K. Showing my age a bit here, I discovered 40K in my late teens shortly before 2nd Ed came out and I absolutely loved it, right up until 2017 (I didnt have any hobby-gaps in that time). Then 8th Ed came out and it totally killed my love of the game.
For me, it was designed for the US tournament market with narrative gamers as an afterthought. Fast forward to today and WHC is continually posting up about how armies are performing and tweaking them, all because as Lee mentioned, they're the new release and the meta chasers have jumped on them as flavour of the month who exploit them to the nth degree to win and the cycle continues. I just dont want to see HH go down that route
Thanks for your comments mate, all really good points.
Its same for me, came back to game after 20 years becaues i loved admech. by the time army was done, at end of 8th. I lost the will to play the game...9th passed, 10th came and lost all interest. Loving HH! but competetive meta tournaments kill games. its bad.
I could talk about this for hours. Glad to hear others thinking about it. As someone who lost 90% of games for 5 years but now have won 70% of my last ten, I do understand thinking about the game more and tactics. Losing was a motivator to improve myself.
The trade off is my games are a bit less engaging for me now and I don’t have to think as much about what I need to do so I’m going to run more varied lists.
Personally, it’s hard for me to think of heresy as not competitive. This was the direst of events in the history of the imperium. It quickly became a no holds barred between the two sides. However competitive and WAAC is not the same. And you can have a ton of fun and laughs in a competitive game.
I really do not understand the need to be competitive in a hobby. There are several other disciplines where you can show off your skills if you so desire.
Great episode guys! Lots to think about.
I agree with some of the comments here that even a narrative game is competitive to a certain degree but the majority of Heresy events seem to stay away from defining themselves as such to discourage more competitive players from attending. If you remove the rewards for winning and don’t give prizes based on placement then hyper competitive players will get bored and move on. This is likely a good thing for the Heresy scene to be honest, especially when you look at how stale competitive 40K is currently.
Great video and really interesting to hear that the ideal size for a Heresy tournament is under 20 people.
I do think that Heresy in general is a lot less competitive than 40k, but I think that's a good thing as it's aimed at a different crowd.
Prefacing this with a couple of things - I’ve played a bunch of events in the last year (HH, Attrition, Bristol Vanguard) and they’ve all been ace with lovely atmospheres and top people; and I come at this both newish to the heresy scene and with a long history doing narrative RPGs (both table top and live)
Ultimately the atmosphere and people are the important thing - playing to make sure the other player is having a good time is the key, because I bounced off a couple of more tournament style games because I came away from weekends where I had paid money feeling shite - even when I’ve gone 0-4 at a heresy event I’ve come away buzzing. So if you have a tournament there is a risk of that culture going (because people want to win) but I’ve played people who are focused on winning and giving both of us a great time - so it is possible.
Making any tabletop wargame fully narrative is a ton of work because at their heart they are not built to deliver a story, unlike TT or Live RPGs, and you’ve got to build a narrative that can accept any of the permutations of armies. A bit of fluff around why you’re fighting and some theme-y missions is gold for me.
So, in short - the heresy culture I’ve seen is gold and need a to be protected. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do tournaments.
On the point of having players play with different points levels, the most recent event I went to had a system of reserves. You made a 2000 points list and then 500 points of reserves that had to be either Fast Attack or Elites and you had to have at least 2 units. The loyalists and traitors both had a central commander who decided before each game whether they would have their reserves for that game or not, and each player could only use their reserves in 2 out of the 5 games. The other stipulation was that the 500 points had to start in reserves. This meant that some games were 2000 vs 2500 points.
I think this system worked well, particularly after the first game once everyone had seen the opposing armies and could start thinking about what armies they might need the reserves against. Due to the games and missions, the Traitors ending up not using several of their reserves but still ended up winning the event. It helped that it was an extra 500 rather than losing 500, because your army isn't losing something from your list. The reserve system did favour legions and armies that took strong and fast reserves, stuff like Javelins and jump pack units. The only issue I did see was that if you were going up against an already tough list and then your opponent got 500 more points and you didn't, you were starting at even more of a disadvantage. It is also important to note that we did not know how our 500 points reserves would work in the event beforehand, so people weren't able to tailor their reserves to the system or missions. There were also only 12 people at the event, which made it much easier to manage for the commanders and made it so you could think ahead to who you were probably going to play at some point in the weekend.
"Build casually, play competitively" has been the unofficial byline of my group for ages and its stood us in good stead.
That's how I try to approach the game. Moderation happens in the list building phase. Once the game starts I play the hand I've dealt to the best of my ability.
Love this 🤙
That is amazing. Love it!
I think the idea that running competitive tournaments for people to... get it out of their system as it were, only works if you have a lot of heresy players around your area or close travelling distance. I think the UK is unique in this regard where you have a very small country, good public transport, and a sizeable heresy community.
If you look at North America, the heresy communities are split by vast distances. Communities I think in each city generally may be smaller than UK ones, and you may only get 1 big event a year in your local hotbed scene. At that point, I rather just focus on the narrative, which I do believe 100% is the spirit of this game and the way it's meant to be played (as has been repeated so many times by the creators since Bligh). I do get that some people want real competitive 30k... but just look at LVO here where they ran both, and competitive had.. 8 people show up? Narrative had 80 or so.
I think if anything it may just split the community more by having 2 types of play. And heresy is expensive, much more so than 40k, so having both competitive and narrative lists may not be possible. So the idea you can get it out of your system in a comp, and also play narrative the next month.. well that works if you have a lot of models to swap around to soften your list.. but not everyone is gunna do that.
But I also fully agree narrative is also a frame of mind, and one persons idea of narrative will not be the next ones.. etc. It's not perfect, it will never be so, but it's as close as I believe we can possibly get.
The smaller, and faster games feel better for a tournament environment. Stuff like Kill Team, Warcry, Underworlds, Bloodbowl, etc. They can draw in more players with lower barrier to entry, easier to travel with fewer models, faster and more matches at an event, and being more accessible to spectators.
Heresy generally has a nice middle ground where people still want to bring good stuff but not skew it. But you still get players who want to bring, idk, 6 tactical squads all in rhinos with a land raider and some rando terminators who can't reasonably do anything for an opponent but offer target practice. That's just as poor of an experience as a skew list(I suppose it is a skew list itself, just a bad one).
I totally agree with the comments about winning extra buffs if you're winning. Makes no sense at all and flipping it to boost the losing side also creates dilemmas for those who are winning.
Edit: what I liked with the Warhammer World event was the fact that the 'coins' could be spent on beer too.... But you need a bar for that.
Great conversation about HH events.
Love the comment about you can take the most busted list and write pages of fluff and call it fluffy 😂
I think it is a combination of things.
1. Expect legions are all different and you’ll have mismatches
2. The wording of the player pack. Let people know what they are getting into.
3. Awards. Have awards that span a number of facets of the hobby. Yes best loyalist and traitor, overall faction win loyal or traitor, TO awards, players choice awards, best painted etc etc.
Yes in the end it is a bane too and the luck of the dice will still prevail.
Just my thoughts.
about to go to my first narrative tourney in Spokane so this was insightful!
William here, glad my answers didn't come off as rambling nonsense. Found this chat to be very insightful and measured so you've definitely got yourself another regular listener here! Hope to play you again in 2024 🦾
I know that White Scars player! 🤔
I don't like the idea that there's something wrong with playing hard - it's a game at the end of the day - ironically as you touched on doesnt an event where everyone knows it's going to be dick kicking lists before going in create the most even playing field?
Narrative events with weird missions etc have to be very good to be balanced and that doesn't have anything to do with the lists.
I don't have any scene near me so if I travel to an event I personally want to play straight up heresy.
There was one in Ireland recently that used a system of comp to try make the lists more even which seemed to go down well.
Also isn't playing win at all costs the most narrative thing for the legions 😛
That’s all well and good, but since the game doesn’t seem to have any balance updates it’s just going to be few lists from few legions that can compete at all for the next 10 years. Good for you if you picked Imperial Fists or Ultramarines, too bad if you picked Salamanders or Sons of Horus.
@@DirtyMardi Fair point but this is the same in any game system tournaments I suppose, someone is always going to be top and bottom of the power ranking never gonna be completely even - though some updates would be great 😔
Do you think people play 'harder' at events than they would for a normal club/home game? If you've paid £200 to go to event in food, tickets, hotel, travel etc, so you really want to take a list that is more likely to get slaughtered 5 games, giving you a negative experience? I've been to events where i've taken super fluffy, definently weaker lists and died badly, and even best will in the world the drive home can leave you super sour
Interesting point, I think it's easier to try different things at a club as you can have a conversation with your opponent way before you play and discuss what you both want from the game. This is generally not feasible at an event as you won't usually know who you're playing. Agree though, getting smashed for 5 games isn't fun 🤷♂
If I am going to a major event, then I am going hard and expect others to do the same. Half of the people complaining about a list being too hard in my experiance tend to build generic, 3rd ed inspired lists that do nothing well and are a mish mash of two to three starter boxes and a couple of units.
Meanwhile there are folks who pick a RoW, pick a theme, and build an army to fit that so it works and then get called WAAC.
About the only exception to this is FOTA because that RoW and contemptors are just not balanced well at all.
@@heresyhammer
I feel the pain of having a naritive to tell that other people would call WAAC. I want to run a grand battery style Ultramarine artillery company made up of smaller, rapidly redeployable units, which is in line with Ultramarines combat doctrine. So the core of the list would be 10 Fulmentarus with a herald, 2 Scorpius, and a Master of Signals in a heavy weapons squad. Then you'd have the escort units lead by a chaplain with Suzerains meant to screen the artillery from counter attack.
That's already a lot of dick kicking to some people, even if I leave out dreadnoughts and other stuff I could bring. I don't know, would you guys think that list is over the line at one of your events? What would you add or take away from that to make it more "thematic"?
I think have a look at some of the other artillery choices. Scorpiuses may be the best, but you could try Medusas, Basilisks, Minotaurs, rapier batteries, Arquitors. I'm also a little unsure about how the Suzerains as a screening force, you could go tacticals or even the praetorian breachers if you wanted a shieldwall unit. Think about is it that you want those particular units or is it you are looking to fill a particular niche, there are generally several units that can perform any role.
At the end of the day, if your local players are happy to play it, go for it, but I would probably not enjoy a game against that as I'd be tabled most likely.
@trajanthegreat2928
Big siege guns like the Mesusa, Basilisk, and Minotaur are specifically what I want to avoid. I'm more focused on rockets. If I could, I'd use Arquitors too, but they're simply too expensive for me to justify getting. Scorpius are the vehicles I want to use because the Ultramarines prefer using the small Rhino hulls for their vehicals like the Scorpius and Preditor, and so do I.
The Suzerains are meant to aggressively push ahead in a Land Raider with most of my other infantry and be disruptive, not just stand around. I'm not just passively turtling the whole game. It's supposed to be a moble artillery force that can swing around and counter attack, not dug in position.
If rapiers and Arquitors get a plastic release in the future I plan to do a 22nd Nemesis chapter themed list, but getting them now isn't in the cards for me. And besides, if I have to compromise so much on the units I want to use, I don't really have the motivation to play the game anymore.
I know quite a few peeps in germany that are hostile towards the idea of HH tournaments. The very same players always play the cheesiest lists.
Are you both cambs based? We've got a little group going in the beds area if ye ever up for a game.
I'm based in Cambridge (Lee), Rob is Reading area and Jon is deepest darkest pointy head lands of the South West!!! Always looking for boyfriends to play with!
@@heresyhammer do you ever go to the greetings from the warp events over in Irthlingborough in Northants?
@latro666 all the time bro. I organised the last 3 Greetings Weekenders! Haven't got any dates booked in for next year though!
@@medheadful nice, only realised they were a thing! Only live 25m away in bedford!
TOP TIER AND ALL I GOT WAS A BLANKET THANK YOU. HERESY
I dont like the idea of tournaments in HH. Its supposed to be a narrative driven game and without a lot of cooperative self restrictions, the same people who have ruined 40k tournaments will bring that mindset to 30k even if it is a so-called narrative tournament.
A game is what the people playing it want to make of it. People who want to take the gameplay aspect of it more seriously aren't doing it "wrong". The things they get out of the hobby aren't more or less valid than anyone else's hobby experience. It's not an "us vs them" situation.