Welcome once again to Mayday, Miss Marcy! where I take YOUR questions, shape them into an oblong spheroid object, and spike them through the endzone of answers. Last week, we tackled questions from all over the globe (or at least two parts of it), including the hot new craze to hit a wargaming website, Umamusume: Pretty Derby. There’s no horsing around this week, just pure questions. So without further ado, let’s get to it!
By the way, the response to the email inbox was huge, and I am still collating them and collecting them! Please feel free to email me MORE questions, but know that I will do my best to answer them timely* (in order received and once a week). As a reminder, if you’d like to submit questions, we now have an e-mail you can use! Please send your questions to:
Marcy@goonhammer.com
With the subject “Miss Marcy: ”
You are also able to leave comments on the article, as well as use the Discord bot command if you happen to be a member, meaning you now have THREE ways to give me your questions to answer! And with that, let us get back to the questions and answers that you all love so much!
If You Have to Ask Who Is Hosting…
Hi Miss Marcy! I’ve recently started a tabletop gaming club in my area, Kansas City specifically, and we have a bunch of stores here. I’m in the north east of the KC metro area and there’s really nothing here, I have to drive at least 20 minutes in any direction to go play or buy games. So I set up a club here, hosted by a local church, and while we’re still small, I’m confident I can get things going and build something awesome here. My main problem is I also want to use what resources I personally have, to help others at least try and play games they might have written off as too expensive. Warhammer being a big one. I have a 3d printer and a paper printer for this, and I don’t want finances to get in the way of having fun. So I want to provide options for whoever wants them, myself and my family included. My problem though is that I want to make sure that people still support local game shops as well. We have a great group of shops here and they’re run by some amazing people that I don’t want to screw over in the process, and would actually want to approach for sponsorship in the future.
Pretty much I want to help people who can’t afford a ton of expensive figures, cards or books, to be able to enjoy themselves, while also wanting to make sure the shops that keep these games going also get the support they need.
– Clubbing in KC.
Dear Clubbing,
I think your question is unfortunately two problems, and one of them is named capitalism, which isn’t something I can address in the confines of this column (at least not helpfully). It sounds like what you’ve set up so far is quite admirable and your desire to spread the love and enjoyment of wargaming to others, even those who cannot afford the luxury hobby that is wargaming, is admirable indeed. The issue is actually that I think you are conflating what you can provide with some sort of “downside” to local businesses in your area, without seeing that you are, sort of, also one of those yourself now. Your club requires your investment of time, effort, and your own expenses, and while it would be great to find a way to make LGS “win” out of your club’s success, it isn’t really your job to “save” shops from the economy. You shouldn’t feel guilty for printing things and making things accessible to people, and it is ludicrous to suggest you buy things from LGS and then give them to other people, because that is not economically feasible or logically reasonable. Go forth and print things that people need to play, and help get people into playing the hobby without guilt.
The best suggestion I can give you to assuage your fearful invasion of LGS economic ground is to talk to said LGS and see if they would like to provide any sort of incentives, prize support, or surplus to your club. There is a possibility that getting them to help sponsor your club with loaner pieces or damaged items could help out, and also garner those businesses goodwill, but I think we all are aware that the margins on wargaming products is very thin, and so I would prepare for this line to possibly not result in anything productive (but it might). Instead, as I said, run your club and give people a place to play, learn, and experience wargaming without fear of it obliterating their budgets, but make sure you don’t over-extend yourself either: you are ALSO a finite resource.
It’s Just a Shift to the Left, and then a Jump to the Right
Hi Marcy,
I just love those big Astra Militarum tanks, but the board layouts for competitive play just don’t allow for them.
I usually just play a Shadowsword but I REALLY want to play two of them AND a Doomhammer to thunder up the table loaded with guardsmen!!
They are all in the Codex after all.
I can drive the Doomhammer straight through terrain using a stratagem too that’s not a problem.
However:
Do you think it unsporting to shift the terrain that extra inch or so to fit the second Shadowsword in to position???
Thanks a lot.
– Charlie.
Dear Charlie,
I love your commitment to gigantic tanks, because really this hobby should be about celebrating whatever type of freak you are and letting your army on the board represent that. However, I think this question goes from ‘can I play with big tanks’ to ‘can I move terrain around’, and I have to admit I think you know the answer: it is a little unsportsmanlike to move terrain because you need to ‘fit’ your tank.
If you were playing casually with your friend or in a game that is not exactly meant to be “competitive” or “sweaty”, I think you could ask your opponent if it would be fine for the thematics of it. However, logistically, I think it moves a little too far into unsportsmanlike to shift terrain, something nothing else in the game can do. Even in a narrative light, this doesn’t really make a lot of sense to do, even if you argue that stratagems let them go “through” terrain; instead, you’re suggesting moving the actual terrain itself.
My caution here is that while some people might be fine with it, it really does constitute as a “soft” form of cheating, even if it is “for fun”, and so I would suggest against it. At the very least, I wouldn’t do it or allow it, so if you wanted my opinion, there you go.
Antisocial Anxiety Anxiety Club
Dear Miss Marcy,
I’ve been sitting outside the community and gaming aspects of wargaming for years, I get anxious being in new groups. In an effort to try and acclimate myself to interacting with people I don’t know, but share a common interest with, I’ve forced myself to join several Discord servers. But there are so many people! They talk so fast, and it’s just so much. Or, worse, it’s a small(ish) group and they all seem to know each other already. How does somebody who is afraid of new people make connections, play games, or even just participate in conversations?
Adeptus Anxietus
Dear Anxietus,
I will say that there is a lot of “just get out there” advice when it comes to communicating, but your question is actually striking at the heart of a different problem of socializing: Discord as a socialization device. Discord has, for all intents and purposes, replaced forums, chatrooms, and most other types of communication with a sort of veneer of being “where people hang out,” but has some glaring issues that become apparent the more time you spend in large or medium sized discords: cliques, server culture, and time and tide.
Cliques are often one of the first problems that cause many discords to suffer. While they may seem very active, it pays to see who is actually talking in the discord, and how many people are not; if you see a lot of messages but only see five to ten names, you’re dealing with a server that has a clique, not an active userbase. This may not even really be “hostile,” it just occurs because those people are either the most turbo online / present, and it can be nearly impossible to put yourself into that rotation and not get rebuffed for any number of reasons. This is even worse if the moderators are the people speaking the most often, because it tends to cause issues of favoritism (or seeming bias) towards who is or is not “in the circle.”
Server culture also plays a very large part in trying to participate. While it would be nice to assume a server is just a place a few people are hanging out, keep in mind that many large servers have thousands of people in them, some of them housing 10 or 20k people; if you feel like you just can’t make headway in the server, it could just be that the server is not actually a place to socialize, but a place people use to ask questions and get quick answers, or obtain resources and news at lightning speed.
Time and tide really is the other part: are you awake and around and online when the server is most active, or are you around when most people aren’t posting or aren’t online? Because then you just need to find a server that fits your time schedule more than you need to figure out how to be social, because no matter how much you try and chat, your messages will get swallowed by the scroll of time; you’re better off trying to just message individual people.
As some general tips, I often look at servers and see what their primary function is; Discord likes to make us think that socialization is that, but it isn’t. When the server’s job is to get me information, I don’t bother trying to socialize in it. If the server is a few people hanging out, I will make the effort to be social, because actual conversations and social relationships are possible. It is also worth remembering that Discords are NOT therapy couches, which is another part of server culture problems that can be very overwhelming; joining a server and seeing people crashing out and oversharing 24/7 is not good for your health, and not worth trying to figure out “how” to jump in.
As a simpler answer that isn’t based on observing Discord behavior, pick a server for a game you really like, and make an active effort to post in there a few times a day at the time when you are most available. You can’t really throw yourself into the pool constantly, but if you find that you are around and relaxing at 8pm at night, start chatting and see what happens. Sometimes servers take a bit to warm up to new people because rotation of members can be so fast, but if you seem to consistently pop up at the same time every day or every so often, people will start remembering you, and you’ll be able to make some connections that way. And, if you find that a server isn’t vibing with you, follow the golden rule: Leave.
Robots, Robots, Robots
Dear Miss Marcy, I love the Kastelan Robots, and I see they have been made cheaper (in points) and better (by using the army rule). Do you have advice on how to use them, or similar charismatic and stompy but sub-Canis Rex units, to effectively kill the enemy’s mans and score points in Warhammer 40,000?
– John Daft Punk, of Daft Punk.
Dear John Daft Punk,
I opted to rope Pendulin in to help me out with this one, since he knows all about Admech. Take it away, Pendulin!
Pendulin: There are a couple ways you can use Kastelans, but a lot revolves around their durablility and their melee. On their durability, two robots and a Datasmith is only 215 points, and for that you get two vehicles with 9 toughness, 7 wounds a pop, 2+ save, 5++ invuln, and they bounce back a mortal wound when they roll a 6 when saving against ranged. If you use the Holoscreed detachment, they can walk around with Stealth the whole game.
They aren’t impossible to kill by any means, but forcing your opponent to sink their anti-tank into your ~100 point models is a bit of a win-win. Either they focus the robots and your powerful ranged vehicles (Ironstriders, Disintigrators) are safe, or they ignore the robots. Which leads to their other play: melee. With the datasmith, you almost always want to go Conqueror, which grants +2 melee attacks. The robots should always be equipped with at least one Kastelan Fist, though I frequently run two of them for those sweeet Twin-Linked punches.
That’s 6 attacks each, hitting on 4+ (or 3+ if you take the Conqueror doctrina, now that they have the army rule), S12, AP-2, flat 3 damage. That’s enough punching to do serious damage if left unchecked. So you can play Kastelans a bit like a Distraction Carnifex – the threat of their damage can be their biggest strength. And even though they only have a 6″ move, they can zip when necessary. In Haloscreed you can give them either +2 move or advance+charge (or both for 1CP and suffer d3 mortals). They have to make their way around ruins, sure, but if two or four of them make contact with just about anything in the game, they’re going to do work in melee.
And if you want to see the rootinest, tootinest robits this side of the Cacatrix Maledictum, check out the interview I did with Elizadanger last year. Elizadanger’s strategy was also kind of interesting: she was running a solid 12 robots – and absurd amount of robit. But it gave her opponents a mean stat check. Either they brought a lot of antitank, or she just walked right over them; so that’s another way of running them. Just run a LOT of them.
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