Chapter Tactics is a 40k podcast which focuses on promoting better tactical play and situational awareness across all variations of the game. Today I grab a competitive Age of Sigmar player and we share some experience from playing Magic: The Gathering competitively and apply it to the tabletop.
QOTD: Are you a Timmy, Johnny, or a Spike? What do you think tournaments can learn from Magic to improve rules procedures?
Show Notes:
- Want to check out Josh over at Masterpiece Miniatures? Check out their channel. They may play Age of Sigmar but their battle reports are top notch and filled to the brim with an innovative overlay and tactics tips.
- Click here for all of the episodes of Chapter Tactics!
Need help with a list idea? Got a rules question? Want to talk tactics? Then email me at…
frontlinegamingpeteypab@gmail.com
Please do not send an army list in a format such as Army Builder, send them in an easy to read, typed format. Thanks!
Pablo talking MTG and 40k?
Guess I know what I’m downloading for my long drive tonight.
Used to be top 100 in the US, in the days of DCI ratings, and I’m excited to hopefully rise the ladder in 40k, eventually. Keep doing your thing, my dude!
Thanks man! Do you still do some cardboard crack slinging?
I retained EDH decks, sold my legacy and modern decks so I could appease the 40k gods.
I do my best to try and convert my buddies over, but they’re holding strong. Much like I’m sure you’ve found, a little one makes having multiple expensive hobbies difficult to justify! Haha
I haven’t played M:tG in a few years (still have my 2 edh decks, ashling the pilgrim + 99 mountains and relentless rats.dec) but I’m pretty sure I’m a Timmy/Spike. But I’m a weird kind of Timmy. Instead of big huge critters/units/plays, I prefer a bunch of mid size things and stick mainly to the units/cards/factions/colors that I like.
I know a lot of people might say this, but i know that i’m a Hybrid between these 3 archetypes.
I’ve had just as much fun playing a demo game as i have doing a hardcore tournament game. I love finding and trying to make stuff that is objectively bad and win with it in all games, but i love other times to just throw down a big unit and have fun with it, while still looking online to see what’s good to win with or how to optimize stuff to win more.
The beauty is identifying when it’s important lean more one way or another. I love when my opponent has as much of a good time as i am, even if one of us is getting obliterated. There is always a micro drama to be found on the board and laugh about.
Now, about the rest of the topic, rules from Magic basically; I don’t blame people for being put off by it, but to some degree it should start to be implemented. I know the extreme example got brought up a couple of times of “the guy who is 30 minutes late”, well, no shit he should be punished. I doubt even that guy doesn’t think so if he has a modicum of decency. It’s just the type of environment you are playing in that would require such….strict enforcement.
But this game has so much going on that things are going to fall through the cracks, they do for literally every level of player. We don’t have a computer monitor on each phase that say, you can achieve in a video game that would catch ticky tack shit like reserve rolls or combat doctrines being forgotten(personally i use a notepad to try and remind myself). That’s part of the human element of the game. And despite our best efforts, even with both players trying to help the other(not just let them forget their grim to gain advantage), things happen and get forgotten.
Josh also mentioned keywords, which makes sense being a card player. I’m not super familiar with Magic, but i am with Hearthstone which is digital Magic lite, and they deal with the same system of keywords and have a search function inside of the game where you can look up “Stealth, Battlecry. etc”. This is useful, but Josh is basically asking for USR’s from 40k, or this unit has “Deep Strike, Fleet, etc” Which, while exceeding useful, it does add pages and pages to the rules, one could say equaling rules bloat, which is a huge complaint about 40k atm. I’m not saying Josh is wrong about AOS warscrolls needing a common rule keyword language, there should be that, But it must be carefully done to implement, because you are then right back where you started. It’s the simple rules with dense warscrolls or dense rules simple warscroll debate all over again.
Anyway, fascinating listen, i think you are both on the right track for the discussion. I’ll admit being put off at first by the idea, but the two of you did win me over in the end.
gg
Hey PeteyPab, great episode, some very useful points and discussion. I’ve never played magic, so interesting to hear the differences with 40k.
Not really a criticism as such, but I do find the episodes a bit long to get through in one sitting. I think something closer to the hour mark would be a better length for each episode. If anyone disagrees and prefers the longer episodes, let me (and PeteyPab) know below!
Also, I’d be for posting the episodes on Youtube. It makes it easier to come back to episodes and find the right time code for where you stopped listening, something very hard to do on the pop up.
Thanks for the feedback Michael! The length of episodes is a toss up honestly. So I just decided to do my best to break them up with segments (before and after the commercial) and keep them under 2 hours.
Hi Pablo,
nice Podcast! I especially liked the last part with your sugestion of introducing players to 40k according to their gamer type. The game is so huge and hard to grasp in the beginning that one needs every little help he can get to intrigue a beginner ^^
Cheers,
TheCoon
Yeah, it is important to understand what people enjoy out of the game